Spammers all do it to make money - usually as an affiliate to a larger, possibly completely legitimate company. Money leaves a paper trail. Follow the money.
It is possible to track down if not the individual who send the spam, at least who is receiving benefit for it being sent. It could be very hard. The company actually selling the product might stonewall you. It could be sufficiently hard as to be indistinguishable from impossible for a private individual to do so. And I don't get 1 spam a day, I get 500. I might have enough time to track down 1 sender, but not 500.
But it is possible.
As has been pointed out, we are winning. Filters and blacklists are stopping a LOT of spam from being seen. The cost to spam is increasing. The return is decreasing. At some point only very dedicated, experienced, skilled people will be able to effectively spam. And we can track them down one by one.
Not everywhere, no. But on the same side of the coin, me taking my 48 hour first aid course into some 3rd world civl-war torn country, I could be consitered a Doctor, if not a god.
In Canada PEngs get very mad when non licensed types call themselves 'Engineers'. For example, CNE stands for "Certified Novell Engineer" everywhere except for Canada, where CNE stands for "CNE". Im not sure the details, but apparently the definition of a PEng is defined by Parlement, and only Parlemently anoited groups can give out the title 'Engineer'.
While this is slightly elitist, yes, it is to everyones advantage that when someone calles themselves a PEng it means something. Because it does.
More to the point, because anyone can (and does) call themselves a "Programmer" or "Software Engineer" those titles are meaningless.
288 strands of fiber! 144 pairs! thats realy like 87782.4 km of fiber if you rip it apart and stick the parts together. That will go around the earth twice, with pleanty of slack for service loops at both ends! Where's my check book?
I remember hearing on 60 Minutes that the demo planes could be converted back to full front-line specs in 24 hours. The longest chunk of that time was waiting for the paint to dry.
Mind you it must be a decade since I watched that, and I dont recall if it was the BE or not. But if one of the services demo squadrons could do it....
It is SuSE, which means it is Novell. Remember their fish commercials?
Basic point of one keynote speech at a Novell conference I attented: heterogeneous networks everywhere. We're (Novell Corp) a Microsoft shop. We use their OS on desktops everywhere. Microsoft runs our stuff - they are a Novell shop. Sun runs PCs with Windows, and surely has at least one Novell server.
I understand your point. I agree with your point. But you shouldnt go into a migration saying 'partial migration'. The target is 100%. Force everyone to justify why they can't change.
By 'making a project out of it' you can schedule, ie trainers. Do a branch at a time, not a desktop at a time.
By "normal" do you mean "natural"? Something like a network; railroads, telcos, highways, bridges? I guess that is a unsolved philosophical question. In my opinion, natural monopolies should be allowed - and heavily regulated. They are more efficient and don't/shouldn't have competition. Thus your question is irrelevent:)
For companies such as Microsoft, thats a different story. Microsoft setting their prices lower then IBM/SuSE has the short term advantage of low prices, yes. But over the long term it means that IBM/SuSE will go out of business eventually. Or at least exit the market that Microsoft is dominating. At that point, Microsoft can set prices at any level they want.. Very high levels. If/when someone pops up and tries to under bid them, they can - for that bid only - set an impossibly low price. MS could then pick off these attempts a comptetition one at a time, trivially.
Talking about telcos, one of the standard rules that they have had to follow (in whatever jurisdiction, when they had rules at least...) is : "the price is the price is the price". Even if they get to decide the price, they cant change it on a whim, customer by customer, region by region. Because if they could then they could do what Microsoft tried to do in this case.
Thats all and good, but this project has a specific time frame to it. (recent) versions of MS software will require renewal of their licenses. I have no idea if this is 10% or 50% of the installed PCs, but the (in general correct) "move when convienent" plan just wouldnt work.
First, this wasen't a negotiation. Munich did not say "Hey, whats you best price.. Thats too high.." They were quoted a price from MS, and one from IBM/SuSE. They made a public anouncement and then MS offered a lower price.
This is how tenders happen. Bidders get one chance at offering a price. That MS lowered their price after they heard someone elses means that a) they have insane amounts of profit and/or b) their new price will cut lots of corners. Now, software isn't something like construction where a shaved down bit might produce a building that falls down... The incremental cost to MS is zero, once the R&D is done. But the same general logic applies. That MS came back with a lower price, Im sure, solidified the plan to go with Linux. They were clearly trying to screw Munich with their first price.
Ignoring that the loosing bidder was MS for a second, they deserved to loose, their second bid not withstanding.
But, the bidder was not just a random company trying to screw Munich, it was Microsoft. Microsoft is a monopoly. Being a monopoly isnt illegal. Some specific acts arnt illegal in general. However, a monopoly that performs those specific acts is breaking the law. One of those is dumping. While we dont know MS's cost for this project (and that is largely meaningless in this zero-incremental cost industry), we do know that their second try was lower then the competition. Additionaly, the (winning) linux bid had some non-zero cost items. Retraning. Redevelopement of custom software, amongst others Im sure.
Monopolies are not allowed to set prices intentional lower then is possible for the competition.
If the bolt fails because it was faulty - not because it was the wrong bolt - then it isnt the bridge Eng's fault. If your string library fails its the fault of the string libraries developer.
If all the bolts in a given bridge come from the same batch, one using week steal say, they may all fail. One failing might put enough strain to cause another to fail, and on and on. If all the bolts are the same, and perfectly functional in their intended use, but are used incorrectly, then the bridge can come down.
So you are wrong: a bridge also has one bolt that has to hold everything.
The individaul PEngs, and the engineering company as a whole, were fined significantly after the investigation. And they licenses were suspended for some time.
What ramifications are their on programmers and developement shops when their software screws up? None.
Anyone can call themselves a programmer, or even a software engineer. Someone who graduates from a BCS program is required[1] to do zero practical work in the field before they get their degree - which is the height of their qualifications.
Engineers may graduate, but they require at least a few years of work before they can be licensed. Lawyers have to pass tests beyond those based in the fantasy world of academia. Medical doctors require years of on the job training under close supervision before they are turned loose. All of these professions are self-governed and discipline their members if - nay, when - one of them screws up. Potentially they can loose their license.
The IT world has no such professional designation. The IT world has no such self-governing body. Given companies/individuals in the IT world can consistently produce almost criminally negligent code, and provided they bid low, will survive.
MDs, PEngs (and even lawyers) can always refuse to do something if it is clearly dangerous, unsafe, or illegal. Their clients cant really go anywhere else to get that task done as all professionals will be bound by the same rules.
Even trades: plumbers, carpenters, electricians, pipe fitters..... have some non-academic certification process. Most, beyond a (say) two year school program have to have years of apprentice work before they can be qualified. They are required by law to build things to some safety standard, building code, electrical code, fire code....
Anyone can call themselves a programmer.
The closest thing that the IT world has is various certs from for-profit companies. But they are generally for variations on systems administration, rather then programming. While, so far as I know, they cant be revoked for cause, they do all expire after some finite time.
What the IT world needs is the equivalent of a PEng professional 'grade' designation for, ie 4 year BCS level of schooled people. And also a trades grade designation for 2 year community collage types. Implicitly from there you get higher quality product, because the people designing the product (PEng grade types), and the people implementing it (trade grade type) have higher obligations then just to the customer. They would have professional responsibilities, violation of which could cause them to loose their respective licenses. This would solve most of the bugs caused by cutting corners to save on cost, releasing before its done, etc. By no means all, but a lot.
[1] yes, some schools have Co-Op programs. But I know of none that are requirements.
Its more like $RECORD_LABEL chooses a image, genre, 'catch', and name. And then chooses from available bodies to fill the slots of band members.
Spice Girls is a good example of this... almost. The girls all responded to the same ad looking for singers, and they met in the lobby/waiting room of $EVIL_RECORD_LABEL. Then they collectivly took the idea and went somewhere else.
Other compleatly 'invented' bands (some self-invented from already famous musicians): Asia, The Byrds, The Monkeys, BTO... and basicly any boy band there ever was.
Calling a cellphone doesnt cost the caller any money (unless they happen to be on a cell too). The callers cost is Zero. Mr. Owner has the option of not answering. This is similar to how 1-800/888/ (toll free anywhere) works. The cell phone owner (and the toll free owner) has a special service. It is convienent for both them and who ever calls, however someone has to pay for that convience, in both cases its the callee, not the caller.
Painfully, you dont have that option to not answer with text messages, email, etc.
Pre-billing: Well, you always have the option of getting the very smallest plan (which could very well be 'always pay'). The pricing structure is one that with that 'always' plan you would have to pay the most per-minute rate. Plans with huge amounts of minutes will pay the least per-minute rate. Thus is life. Simmilar style packages exist for long distance.
Every new phone Ive seen in the last two years has had a SIM card.
Cell phone companies heavily subsidize new phone purchases. Most, if not all, of these 'lock-in' packages as you call them are based on that. One local company (Canada, not the US) has at anyone time say 5 phones. Each has 3 prices. For the cheapest phone, the smallest price is $0. Depending on what 'lock-in' term you choose you get a differnet rate for the phone. Or you can buy the phone outright and go month to month. This is through a reseller/franchisee so I have no idea if it is common.
Air time is air time. Up to the cell phone owner to pay. Someone calling you long distance - they would pay the LD charge, but you still pay for the air time.
There are, of course, unlimited plans. And damm near every plan is free nights and weekends.
At the root of the problem is the mindset of the developers. In the Windows/MS world there is the underlying assumption that nothing bad will happen, attacks wont happen, so you dont need to harden your code to deal with it. This is not an explicit decision made, its a non-decision based on ignorance.
The Unix/OSS/internet communities once had the same mind set, the same ignorance. The assumption in 1980 on the internet was that everyone would play nice. This might have been true in 1980. The worms, viruses, DoS attacks happened. Much software was fixed, or scrapped. New software was developed with the assumption that it would be under attack.
Im not excusing MS - in fact far from it. These lessons have been learned. Solutions to the problem have been used. Methodoligies for producing secure code are well documented.
Every time a discussion about Sun comes up I always mention price.
I understand the theory behind why one would want Sun hardware and software. Ultimatly it comes down to insane compatability over the scale of machine, and over time. All Sun hardware is of better quality of build-you-own PC stuff, but there isnt any reason to beleive it is of better quality of Dell or IBM or Compaq 'servers'.
But the hardware is at least 2-3x as expensive as name-brand PC things. Id rather build my scaleability into a cluster of PCs then a single big Sun. Yes, there are some applications where a single big server is necessary, but not 99% of the time. Multiple servers implies availability - even if the components may be more falable then Sun stuff.
Sun supporters always come back with: "Ya, but thats list price!, nobody pays list price!" WTF? If no one pays that price, they why do you list it? Fuck that, Ill take Dells iddiot-proof web shopping cart thing any day of the week and twice on Sunday over talking to a Sun sales droid.
Maby not for Jurassic Park. Saying so was stupid. But TV production quality != movie quality. TV broadcast quality isnt realy saying much - even HDTV sucks:)
All the CG for Seaquest DSV was done with the Video Toaster. That was definitly TV broadcast quality.
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It is possible to track down if not the individual who send the spam, at least who is receiving benefit for it being sent. It could be very hard. The company actually selling the product might stonewall you. It could be sufficiently hard as to be indistinguishable from impossible for a private individual to do so. And I don't get 1 spam a day, I get 500. I might have enough time to track down 1 sender, but not 500.
But it is possible.
As has been pointed out, we are winning. Filters and blacklists are stopping a LOT of spam from being seen. The cost to spam is increasing. The return is decreasing. At some point only very dedicated, experienced, skilled people will be able to effectively spam. And we can track them down one by one.
I would be able to live with getting say 2 unsolicited emails a day on subjects I actually care about.
But, if you selection process was: "has an email address", then you should burn in hell :P
In Canada PEngs get very mad when non licensed types call themselves 'Engineers'. For example, CNE stands for "Certified Novell Engineer" everywhere except for Canada, where CNE stands for "CNE". Im not sure the details, but apparently the definition of a PEng is defined by Parlement, and only Parlemently anoited groups can give out the title 'Engineer'.
While this is slightly elitist, yes, it is to everyones advantage that when someone calles themselves a PEng it means something. Because it does.
More to the point, because anyone can (and does) call themselves a "Programmer" or "Software Engineer" those titles are meaningless.
288 strands of fiber! 144 pairs! thats realy like 87782.4 km of fiber if you rip it apart and stick the parts together. That will go around the earth twice, with pleanty of slack for service loops at both ends! Where's my check book?
Well, he did by the Roulette wheel first. You do know that the house has a built in edge, right?
- 1 @ Lockheed C-130 with T-56A-11 engines, $4,800,000.00 USD
- Sheet metal to build Big Tank, $5000
- Industrial grade castors. 50 @ $200/ea = $10,000
- Welder 10hr @ $50/hr, $500
- 60,000 Pounds fuel (6.5lbs/gallon) = 9230 gallons. @ $1/gallon: $9230
- 36,000 lbs gasoline (8.66 lbs/gallon) = 4157 gallons. $1.75/gallon = $7275
- 1 match. (less then a penny)
Total $4,832,005.01Result: One mega wepon that is quite possibly in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Mind you it must be a decade since I watched that, and I dont recall if it was the BE or not. But if one of the services demo squadrons could do it....
Signal corps actually. So their speeds shold be measured in BAUD :)
Basic point of one keynote speech at a Novell conference I attented: heterogeneous networks everywhere. We're (Novell Corp) a Microsoft shop. We use their OS on desktops everywhere. Microsoft runs our stuff - they are a Novell shop. Sun runs PCs with Windows, and surely has at least one Novell server.
I understand your point. I agree with your point. But you shouldnt go into a migration saying 'partial migration'. The target is 100%. Force everyone to justify why they can't change.
By 'making a project out of it' you can schedule, ie trainers. Do a branch at a time, not a desktop at a time.
For companies such as Microsoft, thats a different story. Microsoft setting their prices lower then IBM/SuSE has the short term advantage of low prices, yes. But over the long term it means that IBM/SuSE will go out of business eventually. Or at least exit the market that Microsoft is dominating. At that point, Microsoft can set prices at any level they want.. Very high levels. If/when someone pops up and tries to under bid them, they can - for that bid only - set an impossibly low price. MS could then pick off these attempts a comptetition one at a time, trivially.
Talking about telcos, one of the standard rules that they have had to follow (in whatever jurisdiction, when they had rules at least...) is : "the price is the price is the price". Even if they get to decide the price, they cant change it on a whim, customer by customer, region by region. Because if they could then they could do what Microsoft tried to do in this case.
Thats all and good, but this project has a specific time frame to it. (recent) versions of MS software will require renewal of their licenses. I have no idea if this is 10% or 50% of the installed PCs, but the (in general correct) "move when convienent" plan just wouldnt work.
This is how tenders happen. Bidders get one chance at offering a price. That MS lowered their price after they heard someone elses means that a) they have insane amounts of profit and/or b) their new price will cut lots of corners. Now, software isn't something like construction where a shaved down bit might produce a building that falls down... The incremental cost to MS is zero, once the R&D is done. But the same general logic applies. That MS came back with a lower price, Im sure, solidified the plan to go with Linux. They were clearly trying to screw Munich with their first price.
Ignoring that the loosing bidder was MS for a second, they deserved to loose, their second bid not withstanding.
But, the bidder was not just a random company trying to screw Munich, it was Microsoft. Microsoft is a monopoly. Being a monopoly isnt illegal. Some specific acts arnt illegal in general. However, a monopoly that performs those specific acts is breaking the law. One of those is dumping. While we dont know MS's cost for this project (and that is largely meaningless in this zero-incremental cost industry), we do know that their second try was lower then the competition. Additionaly, the (winning) linux bid had some non-zero cost items. Retraning. Redevelopement of custom software, amongst others Im sure.
Monopolies are not allowed to set prices intentional lower then is possible for the competition.
has been doing this for decades. Oh, wait a second...
If all the bolts in a given bridge come from the same batch, one using week steal say, they may all fail. One failing might put enough strain to cause another to fail, and on and on. If all the bolts are the same, and perfectly functional in their intended use, but are used incorrectly, then the bridge can come down.
So you are wrong: a bridge also has one bolt that has to hold everything.
What ramifications are their on programmers and developement shops when their software screws up? None.
Anyone can call themselves a programmer, or even a software engineer. Someone who graduates from a BCS program is required[1] to do zero practical work in the field before they get their degree - which is the height of their qualifications.
Engineers may graduate, but they require at least a few years of work before they can be licensed. Lawyers have to pass tests beyond those based in the fantasy world of academia. Medical doctors require years of on the job training under close supervision before they are turned loose. All of these professions are self-governed and discipline their members if - nay, when - one of them screws up. Potentially they can loose their license.
The IT world has no such professional designation. The IT world has no such self-governing body. Given companies/individuals in the IT world can consistently produce almost criminally negligent code, and provided they bid low, will survive.
MDs, PEngs (and even lawyers) can always refuse to do something if it is clearly dangerous, unsafe, or illegal. Their clients cant really go anywhere else to get that task done as all professionals will be bound by the same rules.
Even trades: plumbers, carpenters, electricians, pipe fitters..... have some non-academic certification process. Most, beyond a (say) two year school program have to have years of apprentice work before they can be qualified. They are required by law to build things to some safety standard, building code, electrical code, fire code....
Anyone can call themselves a programmer.
The closest thing that the IT world has is various certs from for-profit companies. But they are generally for variations on systems administration, rather then programming. While, so far as I know, they cant be revoked for cause, they do all expire after some finite time.
What the IT world needs is the equivalent of a PEng professional 'grade' designation for, ie 4 year BCS level of schooled people. And also a trades grade designation for 2 year community collage types. Implicitly from there you get higher quality product, because the people designing the product (PEng grade types), and the people implementing it (trade grade type) have higher obligations then just to the customer. They would have professional responsibilities, violation of which could cause them to loose their respective licenses. This would solve most of the bugs caused by cutting corners to save on cost, releasing before its done, etc. By no means all, but a lot.
[1] yes, some schools have Co-Op programs. But I know of none that are requirements.Spice Girls is a good example of this... almost. The girls all responded to the same ad looking for singers, and they met in the lobby/waiting room of $EVIL_RECORD_LABEL. Then they collectivly took the idea and went somewhere else.
Other compleatly 'invented' bands (some self-invented from already famous musicians): Asia, The Byrds, The Monkeys, BTO... and basicly any boy band there ever was.
Painfully, you dont have that option to not answer with text messages, email, etc.
Pre-billing: Well, you always have the option of getting the very smallest plan (which could very well be 'always pay'). The pricing structure is one that with that 'always' plan you would have to pay the most per-minute rate. Plans with huge amounts of minutes will pay the least per-minute rate. Thus is life. Simmilar style packages exist for long distance.
Every new phone Ive seen in the last two years has had a SIM card.
Cell phone companies heavily subsidize new phone purchases. Most, if not all, of these 'lock-in' packages as you call them are based on that. One local company (Canada, not the US) has at anyone time say 5 phones. Each has 3 prices. For the cheapest phone, the smallest price is $0. Depending on what 'lock-in' term you choose you get a differnet rate for the phone. Or you can buy the phone outright and go month to month. This is through a reseller/franchisee so I have no idea if it is common.
There are, of course, unlimited plans. And damm near every plan is free nights and weekends.
The Unix/OSS/internet communities once had the same mind set, the same ignorance. The assumption in 1980 on the internet was that everyone would play nice. This might have been true in 1980. The worms, viruses, DoS attacks happened. Much software was fixed, or scrapped. New software was developed with the assumption that it would be under attack.
Im not excusing MS - in fact far from it. These lessons have been learned. Solutions to the problem have been used. Methodoligies for producing secure code are well documented.
I only need to find one counter example to disprove the theory.
... When they bought Cray Research. Or was it Cray Labs? Hard to keep all those Crays straight..
I understand the theory behind why one would want Sun hardware and software. Ultimatly it comes down to insane compatability over the scale of machine, and over time. All Sun hardware is of better quality of build-you-own PC stuff, but there isnt any reason to beleive it is of better quality of Dell or IBM or Compaq 'servers'.
But the hardware is at least 2-3x as expensive as name-brand PC things. Id rather build my scaleability into a cluster of PCs then a single big Sun. Yes, there are some applications where a single big server is necessary, but not 99% of the time. Multiple servers implies availability - even if the components may be more falable then Sun stuff.
Sun supporters always come back with: "Ya, but thats list price!, nobody pays list price!" WTF? If no one pays that price, they why do you list it? Fuck that, Ill take Dells iddiot-proof web shopping cart thing any day of the week and twice on Sunday over talking to a Sun sales droid.
All the CG for Seaquest DSV was done with the Video Toaster. That was definitly TV broadcast quality.