Slashdot Mirror
How Edward Snowden's Actions Have Impacted Defense Contractors
An anonymous reader writes "A new study sheds light on the attitudes of a very exclusive group of IT and security managers — those employed by U.S. defense contractors — at a time when national cybersecurity is under scrutiny. Most indicated that the Edward Snowden incident has changed their companies' cybersecurity practices: their employees now receive more cybersecurity awareness training, some have re-evaluated employee data access privileges, others have implemented stricter hiring practices. While defense contractors seem to have better security practices in place and are more transparent than many companies in the private sector, they are finding the current cyber threat onslaught just as difficult to deal with."
I will not give in to the powers-that-be-Dice and put up with a terrible design with no functional gains.
Boycott the Beta!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: Slashdot is dying.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Slashdot community when IDC confirmed that Slashdot page views has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all websites. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Slashdot has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by the stupid fucking beta website and the wholesale discard of user feedback.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Slashdot's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Slashdot faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Slashdot because Slashdot is dying. Things are looking very bad for Slashdot. As many of us are already aware, Slashdot continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Slashdot Beta is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core users. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Slashdot users Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Slashdot is dying.
All major surveys show that Slashdot has steadily declined in market share. Slashdot is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Slashdot is to survive at all it will be among S&M enthusiasts. Slashdot continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Slashdot is dead.
That crippling bombshell sent Slashdot fans into a tailspin of mourning and denial. However, bad news poured in like a river of water.
Fuck the beta.
..All sense of time has deceived me as the day has started out with thick clouds overhead. It is difficult to tell if morning or early afternoon. I've struck my head on something earlier as I collapsed, shortly after waking, and have no idea how long I've been out. An odd fog has rolled in from the north; cold and dank, reeking of stale piss. I wonder if there are others out there.. Afraid and confused.. Shackled to the same fate as I. This godforsaken Beta UI.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Fuck Beta
The best part about Slashdot for me was really the people who visit it. This site has had one of the most intelligent communities around. This is how the site is successful IMO. Really good people massing together behind it. Finding and promoting articles is one thing but the commentary is where it really takes off. Almost every time I view a story what I find more interesting is the story that develops below it. I really don't know of another site where I can attempt to follow a debate about nuclear fusion, and find a debate about Apple only a page apart. This is about to be taken away as the best and brightest around here are going to leave as they are fed up with these beta changes, and Slashdot as a quality site will die. The new site takes away from the comments and the user driven atmosphere and plasters it with pictures and wasted space. This protest may seem futile at first to the bigwigs at the top here, but like I said the best part about this site is the comments. Therefore, if the only comments left are ones complaining about beta, its going to be a very accurate view of the future of Slashdot from here onward if the beta continues.
My advice to the peons working on Slashdot: find another job. The veracity with which this "upgrade" is being pushed displays a stubbornness that can only be attributed to MBAs with no idea of what Slashdot is about. The fact that the commenting system is such an afterthought in the Beta is as much evidence as I need that the people pushing this redesign never use this site.
I know you don't get to decide whether or not the Beta moves forward or which design gets used, but believe this: You WILL be blamed when it fails. You work for a corporation now and the higher ups with undoubtedly throw you under the bus when they have to explain to their bosses or shareholders why the website redesign failed. This failure is going to be associated with you and your teammates and it will set back any hopes you have of being promoted within the company. Take the advice of me and my fellow Slashdotters: Get out now.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
And they'll be back to the lowest common denominator level of security.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
It's funny, but since yesterday and the javascript popup, I find myself unable to type any comment that isn't directly about the beta.
Javascript dancing baloney and giant pretty pictures belong on USA Today, not Slashdot.
The meat of Slashdot, the substance that draws viewers here instead of the alternatives, is the comments. Lose those comments and you will lose the eyeballs. Lose the eyeballs and you will lose the ad revenue.
Alternatively, you can accept that you made a mistake, keep Slashdot classic, and keep the steady flow of cash. Make the right business decision, here, Dice. Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
No legitimate discussion until Slashdot classic is restored. Sacrifice a few days of discussion now to save all the days in the future. The Spirit of Mohdri Dragon Lives! (feel free to get drunk and naked while posting)
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It's also hard to turn beta off, as that link was removed. Ah well, ^X-delete-cookies
davecb@spamcop.net
Slashdot 8.1
Glad that people are starting to come around to this conclusions, and away from the hero that the self-centered libertarian narcissist precious snowflake that infests Slashdot thinks of him as.
Did you know Snowden doesn't like Beta? How do you feel about him now, huh?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
He may be a traitor, but atleast he hasn't created beta.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This is a person. She wakes up every morning, goes to work, and drinks her share of coffee. She had only so many hours a day to devote to community problems. She's got a boss and corporate leadership who set goals she must fulfill. And she probably has a personal life she'd like to lead too. Maybe even children who are definitely more important to her than the bitchfest going on at /.
WTF is wrong with you people? It's just a fucking web site.
Me: Beta can't be that bad, right? *clicks link to see beta version of article* Me: Wow. That's terrible. It's like Digg and Reddit had a baby. Whoever thinks it's a good design should go back to working on the latest internet startup that ends in "er" without the "e".
As one of the first users of this site (yes, I know my UID number, it's not my original one), I fully support this.
Moreover, IF the people running this site are so obstinate, stupid, and ignorant that they persist anyway: then the boycott needs to be permanent. We ALL need to leave. We need to teach a lesson, and if the only way that lesson can be communicated is over the bleak, abandoned corpse of slashdot, then that's how it has to be.
I could warn you of course, but you would not listen. I could kill you, but someone would take your place. So I do the only thing I can. I go."
It's Obamadot.
I've been lurking on Slashdot since its inception but haven't felt the need to create an account until now. I will be joining the boycott on February 10-17th. Beta is absolutely terrible, I gave them that feedback when they introduced it and apparently so had everyone else but they chose not to listen. This site is something special, please don't let them destroy it.
NO BETA - Save our community. Boycott Slashdot Feb. 10-17th
The veracity with which this "upgrade" is being pushed displays a stubbornness that can only be attributed to MBAs with no idea of what Slashdot is about.
Right, because nerds have never been known to compulsively obsess over doing things their way regardless of what the user wants. I suggest that your stereotyping doesn't help; focus on the problem, not your hypothetical reasons.
Also, I'm not sure that "veracity" means what you think it means. But then, I'm a nerd with an MBA, so what do I know?
Slashdot Beta..poster child of the new VP in charge of Slashdot at Dice. Budget has been eaten up, Beta is finally ready. VP has to either launch the Beta or quit. I pity the VP! Extremely ugly options, both.
Says "nope"
I think you mean "How their own actions have impacted defense contractors". If they didn't have dirty secrets, there would have been no motive for Snowden's policing, and nothing for him to publish.
The problem here is one of a corporation taking a community website and then systematically ignoring that community's input. We've seen it with the moves into business intelligence and the hell-or-highwater drive to beta. While a community website such as Slashdot is valuable to both its users and its owners, the relationship between the company and the community is asymmetrical.
There is relatively few effective mechanisms available to the community to have its will heard, short of simply leaving and never coming back (which defeats the point). Thus, concerned users are identifying the fulcrums around which this problem is revolving and applying leverage there to attempt to restore some balance between the goals of Dice and its user base.
While I agree that we should not be hassling private citizens outside their role as an employee, we are certainly at liberty to express our views and have them listened to. We're trying to save Slashdot's profitibilty, and by extension their employment, by ensuring that the website remains one that is attractive to its user base.
While the designer of the website is on the clock and responsible for the design and deployment of Beta, we are obliged to try to make them see that this is a terrible decision.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
The beta is bad. It's so bad. The comments are reduced in screen width about 50%. Subject lines are deemphasized, scores are minimized, etc.
The discussions are the reason to come to Slashdot, and the beta trivializes them entirely. It looks like the comment section on a generic news site.
The comments now look like an afterthought, whereas they used to be the primary focus of the site.
Comments and commentors don't generate revenues.
There's a reason why Digg revamped.
The Slashdot that you knew and loved is going to disappear. Slashdot doesn't make money. And things will change to make this company worthwhile, otherwise, you'll see the domain name sold off or turned into an online retailer for computer equipment or something.
Why is Slashdot not making money? Ad based revenue or lack thereof - and all of us with AdBlock. Making money off of ads only works for those selling ads - Facebook and Google for example. And Slashdot doesn't have the user information that Facebook has so pimping user info isn't an option.
That's just my MBA guess - and it's a guess because I have nothing to do with Slashdot, Dice, VA systems and any other company that has every owned or managed Slashdot; just experience with websites that try to pay the bills with advertisements and partner agreements. Although, there are exceptions: Fark.com.
tl;dr Bend over and take it because things are gonna change because the way things are don't cut it.
Further, this is not exactly complicated shit. It's a discussion web site for Christ's sake.
And what exactly is the trend being followed here? The trend of Bad? What is next?
Hah. You're right about the word veracity. I should have used arrogance or audacity.
You're also possibly right that the workers think they have created gold too. However, any project manager worth his salt would look at the reaction to the redesign and change the course of the work. The lowly nerd at the bottom of the totem pole might be stubborn enough to want to keep his way, but he has no power. The managers are the ones with the power to decide whether or not the beta moves forward. It is ultimately their fault but it's unlikely that they will shoulder the blame.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
This is a person. She wakes up every morning, goes to work, and drinks her share of coffee. She had only so many hours a day to devote to community problems. She's got a boss and corporate leadership who set goals she must fulfill. And she probably has a personal life she'd like to lead too. Maybe even children who are definitely more important to her than the bitchfest going on at /.
You don't say ?
A real person with a real life ?
So, that's a good entry level to try to make things move...
We're not bitching anybody, we just need to be a bit demonstrative to real people.
... for stackoverflow coders
And the same happened at Reddit. Look at the fiasco of /r/politics when it was discovered that the mods there were censoring entire publications from submission. They still do. The firestorm that erupted led to wailing and gnashing of teeth and a mass community exodus. But no mod or corporate changes. It's obnoxious, but no amount of community complaining changed corporate policies. Censorship remains, enforced by mods and set as policy by the ownership.
At least this isn't a censorship fight. Here, the owners just want to implement a design change. Which may or may not be of benefit in the long term.
With great powers comes great responsibilities.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Good grief that thing looked hideous. Sidebar information should never take up that much screen real estate. Then again, maybe they think the discussion is the sidebar.....
Does anyone know who designed Beta? Was it done in house or did they use some 3rd party? I really want to know, so I would never ever have to deal with these people.
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
Plus Fucking Plus!
Also down-vote any story that is not related to Slashdot Beta.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
beta is crappy.
It will be better to purchase from an owner who is a good farmer and a good builder.
This most recent redesign is just unusable. I will leave 100% if this is the new Slashdot.
In an earlier Snowden story, it was revealed that:
"British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) reportedly used spoofed LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to compromise the computers of network engineers working for global roaming exchange providers based in Europe."
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?...
Is it possible that all of us, right now, are logged into a spoofed page that has replaced the real Slashdot for reasons known only to GCHQ and the NSA? 'Beta' is probably the final stage in whatever sinister plot they have planned for us. Incredible, I know, but is it any less likely than the alternative, that a job search site none of us had ever heard of would buy Geeknet for $20 million, and then proceed to trash its properties by a series of bizarre decisions like setting up SlashBI (beware the tumbleweed!) and inflicting Beta on its loyal readers? Just how far does this conspiracy go?
Jawbreaker style
Lets not get stupid with this
Beta Sucks.
Fuck Beta... I've been on this site for over 16 years I thought you guys were on something until I went and viewed it. It is an unholy abomination. I even took the time to dig up my Slashdot account instead of lurking because of how horrendous the new site is to use.
P.S. Do I get bonus points for hating Beta with a 4 digit UID or does that just make me old? Of course you can't see that if you are using beta. ;)
The question is, where would we go? I suppose I'll at least be a bit more productive at work, if less informed.
I don't usually respond to off-topic stuff like this, but seriously what the fuck is up with the beta design? This crap is terrible...absolutely terrible. Do not want. I've been wondering why I still stick around /. but I think the new site might be the final nail in the coffin for me.
RIP /. you used to suck, now you just fail.
I think it's more analogous to new Digg than /r/politics. The awful Digg website design drove off users never to return. There are several other sub-Reddit that took the place of /r/politcs. Hell, we could even make a slashdot-esque sub-reddit.
That's it really... where would we go? Slashdot isn't the site it's the community. There has been OSS work on federated search, and federated social networking, but a federated discussion site with a decent moderation system would be nice right about now. Is it even a solvable problem?
We need the Snowdens of the world, precisely because you can't do "whatever you want" in a "free country". The NSA etc. thinks that because they're "the good guys" they can do whatever they want to catch "the bad guys." They can't: we have the constitution, and if they can't do their jobs while following it, we need to replace them with people who can.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Logging in for the first time in at least 3 years for the sole purpose of contributing to the "fuck beta" momentum building up here.
/. going. If they're so determined to drive the majority of us away from this site, may as well have a new place to call home.
I've seen one particulary inspiring comment (can't remember whose quote it is off-hand, sorry) - as a last resort, if the beta movement isn't rescinded then let's do what we always do when an OSS project goes to hell.
Fork it.
Get the fuck away from DICE and get our own
Gentoo Linux - Wouldn't have it any other way. And fuck beta.
My favourite thing about the beta so far is that the headline of this story was cut off by the stupid front page redesign. It's like they're saying: "you don't really need to read the story, just look at this stock image about it and you'll know everything you need to know!"
The stupid people are already well catered for. Turn on any TV and you'll find something for the people who don't care about the facts, but want to know that everything's going to be ok, and want something interesting to talk about at parties. /. used to cater to the person who wanted a little more depth. A story would kick off discussion, and there would be hundreds of subject experts pop up and put it all into perspective. People would tell stories of when they were involved in similar things in the past, stories about complex science would get discussions by people who actually understood what they were talking about, and would give us links to the actual scientific paper, free from all the journalistic hype. Ignoring how bad the design of the beta site is: if it drives away even a small portion of the people who read this site, the discussion will degenerate, and frankly, I can get the stories elsewhere.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
If this keeps up, at least Slashdot will die in a fashion faithful to the old days.
Keep your eyes open. Boycott Slashdot for a week. If that doesn't work, there are other alternatives materializing. Dice screwed up big time.
-- Common Joe
Valentines Day Slashcott: Boycott Slashdot because "Fuck Beta!": February 10 - 17
And Support Okian Warrior's alternate slashdot idea! A note from Okian can be found here: http://www.altslashdot.org/wiki/index.php?title=AltSlashdot. And be patient. It looks like the site and his email has been slashdotted.
IF the people running this site are so obstinate, stupid, and ignorant that they persist anyway: then the boycott needs to be permanent. We ALL need to leave.
Fully agreed. And it just might happen.
-- Common Joe
Valentines Day Slashcott: Boycott Slashdot because "Fuck Beta!": February 10 - 17
And Support Okian Warrior's alternate slashdot idea! A note from Okian can be found here: http://www.altslashdot.org/wiki/index.php?title=AltSlashdot. And be patient. It looks like the site and his email has been slashdotted.
Fuck waiting until next week. I'm starting today.
All of the comments are just talking about Beta, which is completely understandable but completely uninteresting. [Note to the mods: this is how it should be. Trying to bury the Beta discussion won't fix things.] I'll check back in after the boycott and see if there's anything left standing.
If there isn't, I want to thank all of you for many years of good conversation and interesting discussions. This was a great thing to be a part of for a time.
I'm going to have to add a firewall rule to keep habit and muscle memory from bringing me back here until then. Productivity, here I come!
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Just another complaint that Slashdot beta minimises THE most valuable and useful part of the site, namely the comments. I'll be joining the boycott. Fuck beta.
http://www.slashcode.com/www.slashcode.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/slashcode/
food for thought: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SlashDot
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
Dude, don't worry - by the looks of it, Alice Hill appears to be woman. This isn't 4chan or reddit, the worst she can expect from us slashdotters would be an army of us asking to carry her books every day.
Fuck beta. Fuck it to infinity and beyond.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
U.S. defense contractors .. aka .. privatised war ...
No Beta. Just keep the classic version. Who needs this web2.0y thing anyway?!
Bingo. They could implement a Drupal site with the relevant module in a day or less.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Pardon the caps.
I got a response from her over linkedin that she no longer works there:
"[AC], I'm not sure what is going on today, but I have not been with Slashdot Media for some time.( Guess I need to update my LinkedIn profile.) I gather the beta is causing some negative responses. I can tell you that the site feedback is taken very seriously and no one wants to drive away a loyal community. Please use the submission forms or whatever process is in place because the data is being compiled and that will drive a lot of the changes made.
My apologies for any negativity - I have been a /. user since the 90s myself.
--Alice "
Don't email her - it does no good and affects an innocent person.
Further, this is not exactly complicated shit. It's a discussion web site for Christ's sake.
And as Christ's official spokesperson here on planet Earth, I've been told to let you know your Lord of Overlords thanks you for doing it for His sake.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Technically yes. But it is also the geek discussion forum on the web.
As a friend of mine said a few years ago: "Every tech-head on the planet goes to Slashdot". He was right. Slashdot is more than an ordinary website. It is practically an internet public house, a geek watering-hole, international web discussion forum, and the best sources of technology "lore" around. We have all learned more, about life and tech, from lone comments here than from any course, job, or textbook.
I don't think Dice understands any of this. I don't think they really get just how wide and deep the feelings behind sites like Slashdot go. Geeks regard this site in the same way as Brits regard the BBC, or possibly their Queen. Sure we might we tired of it, rail on things, and complain about the editors; but if you try to take it away or destroy it completely... , you are toying with the unspoken forces on which the internet is built. I'm being very serious.
Honestly. I honestly think that Slashdot needs to be taken into the care of some kind of non-profit organization, or other public trust. The existence of this site, and the value of its comment system, to the world at large is such that it is unwise to leave it in the hands of a private company, particularly one so seemingly keen to destroy it.
I think the solution to this is for Slashdotters to set up a non-profit and use a kickstarter fund to buy the site back from Dice. I image there are quite a few people around here who would be more than able to manage just about every aspect of the operation. (Where is Taco during all this anyway?)
May the Maths Be with you!
And where is the training on ethics, and legal responsibilities, and how to get hold of an inspector general, and how one is allowed to blow the whistle when your PHB dreams up some utterly unConstitutional scheme?
Not gonna happen.
And, off-topic, with all the screaming and yelling about the "new" version (which I didn't even bother looking at - I'm still on "classic", and don't know why it needs to change), maybe it'll piss off enough of the brain-dead dorks and trolls who have nothing to say about an actual story.
mark "will we *ever* get past the endless September?"
you might remember the phrase
news for nerds, stuff that matters...
see, it is all about serving a bunch of nerds who are demanding it their way
and effing mba should know that you pander to your customer, in this case they have decided that the advertisers are their customer
the nerds who create the content that brings people to the page have every right to have it their way
and yes, I have an mba as well
Ewww what was that? I've never needed eyebleach before for a site's layout.
love is just extroverted narcissism
...snip...And be patient. It looks like the site and his email has been slashdotted.
WHAT?!?!?! You mean someone from Dice redesigned his site and email too and called it Beta?!?!
My God, man! They're like the Borg! Will they stop at nothing?!?! Oh the humanity!
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
...for those who know how to use IRC.
wtfbeta
Replying using Beta, just for the thrill of it all.
See, you wouldn't have to explain your UID if everyone was using Beta, 'cause your UID doesn't show up in Beta.
I would have quoted your first paragraph, but Beta doesn't seem to have a "Quote parent" link.
Hmm, no "Parent" link, either. Crap. And the whitespace. And the low-contrast grey text, who thought that was a good idea? And holy crap, the Preview looks really, really awful!
Starting to feel disoriented and queasy now. Gotta go.
Why are so many people against the new design?
People have repeatedly enumerated the things they don't like. Don't be lazy; read the commentns. tl;dr: It's ugly. It wastes a lot of space. It is missing a lot of features that long-time users fine useful. It is change for the sake of change
It stands to reason that this system has been around a long time and would not be built to handle newer technologies, so at some point you'd have to rebuild it from scratch to optimize newer web applications, right?
Wrong. I don't think you even know what you're talking about with the "at some point you'd have to rebuild it from scratch to optimize newer web applications" comment.
Ultimately I see the same comments, the same moderation system, and the same news stories, with some new features. I'm not a big fan of the default design, but the FAQ says you can still use the same "Classic" design with the new system.
The Classic site will disappear in a couple of months. Suggest you re-read the "Movin on up" banner at the top of the Classic site.
The rest of your post is more "what do you think is wrong", which you can answer for yourself by browsing the comments. Rest assured it isn't "Change is annoying".
I would rather they would use the horizontal real estate to display better post indentation
I don't really see too much of a difference between new and old functionally. It's just looks more trendy.
Cybersecurity is a joke as long as NSA and other government agencies are poking access, surveillance and disruption holes in everything that they can. There will be much hype about cybersecurity to "protect" us as a guise to control, subvert and shutdown at will as much actual "computer power to the people" as possible. Be aware and do not play into this.
Maybe Michael Cristopeit and his merry band of sock puppets will make their triumphant return. With the Slashdot population devastated by the loss of all the constructive posters all that will be left is a wasteland of GNAA posts, MyCleanPC spam and those bizarre posts about eating poop.
Now that I think on it, some of the classic slashdot trolls are part of the sites charm and one of the reasons I kept coming back all these years. You just don't see Natalie Portman, naked and petrified, covered in hot grits anywhere else.
Speaking of trolls, I just realized I hadn't seen hide nor hair of everyone's good buddy APK. Another part of slashdot's weird charm, relegated to the ash heap of history. Slashdot, you will be missed!!
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
Please address people's concerns about the new web site look or put it off for a long time. I am trying to read very important stories on this web site and it's drowned in protesting (annoying but I understand why). So would the peeps running slashdot please ADRESS THE CONCERNS of people so we can have comments RELATED TO THE STORY. Thanks.
There used to be a time when shlashdots source was available... Or am I mixing something up?