Normally, this can be handled simply. What you do is send them a letter stating that if they feel they can not give you the reference you deserve, that they should then only confirm that you were indeed employed by them. That any unfavorable reference would be taken as libel, and you would be forced to take action.
Then you have a friend ask for a reference to make sure they are compliant. If they aren't, sue the heck out of them.
Not a perfect solution, but an option. your first stop should be an employment lawyer or union steward (if you are unionized). The company is clearly in violation of employment law if they are trying to force you to work for them like this, especially in an at will employment state.
A lot depends, of course, on any contracts you signed with them. Please check your contracts and employment policies.
I agree. I also think this is exactly the wrong time for MS to be trying this. The current administration is much more likely to come down on MS for anti-competitive behaviors.
MS is scared of Linux, and this fear is growing in the current economy. They will be coming after Linux soon, or not at all. This is a fight that the OS community needs to win.
You have a point, but one I doubt the company understands. It is relatively easy to get the systems back as long as you have physical access, but I doubt that the company understands this outside from a few IT people (if that).
The bigger concern for me would be the back doors, making sure they were all found and shut down. THAT I would sue over!
I have the 1000, and I use Eeebuntu (as opposed to Ubuntu eee, now called Easy Peasy). WHen used with eee-control everything works, including customisable hotbuttons, one of which I have set to toggle the touchpad. Also I can adjust the ybrid engine. Very nice distro.
WHile I would not mind seeing government support of Open Source (not necessarily stimulus money) I think that the situation this country is in is the bigger boon to Open Source. People will be looking to save money. Already the trend is away from big,expensive notebooks and towards smaller, affordable netbooks, and towards Linux a bit, and away from Windows. People just don't see the need to be paying big money for what they could be getting free. It will take time for businesses to catch on to this, but they will.
Lots of people here blaming Obama for lots of stuff, and more than a few blaming the Repubs for getting us into this mess, and some even arguing about what type of government we have.
Look, this problem has been brewing for quite some time. The government slowly adopted a posture that made the military industries king. Bad move. Then, as people of power gained more and more control over the government, we saw the very rich gain undue influence in our government, and this is shown in our tax system. The rich pay very little of their fair share in taxes compared with most of the last century, and history shows that this trend kills democracies. We haven't had a truly representative government in some time.
I would have like to see a better stim package myself. While I understand that some of these failed companies do need bailing out (like the banks) in order to keep us from falling into a depression, I see too little stim in this package. We needed the new deal, and instead we got a lot more of the same. Business tax cuts. are you kidding? We didn't throw the idiots out of power to embrace more credit to the rich and powerful! Trickle down does not work! We needed infrastructure investment! Roads, and IT infrastructures to assure our future development! Instead we are falling further behind. Very sad.
So you are saying that because they did not prevent this, that they are therefore useless? That argument does not stand up and does not follow logically!
I could response by saying something like: What would happen if they WEREN'T there in the 40s. What would have happened in the countless incidents that have occurred where terrorists were stopped, criminals arrested before they could do damage, if they WEREN'T there.
No, they are not perfect, but please, instead of just whining, can you come up with a better solution? I guess we should just abandon our armed forces and fire all the police, since they obviously do nothing, right?
Should YOU stop doing whatever it is that you do, just because you haven't done it perfectly EVERY time.
Please, let's be realistic.
I have been arguing this for years. Not that we get rid of the current net. It has its place. I have argued that we need to create a second, secure internet for business transactions. We remove commercialism from the internet for the most part (as far as secure communications go). The second net would be for transactions etc. It would have authorized log ons etc. for every user, and encrypted secure transmissions.
Now this would lead to increased consumer confidence in the internet as a business medium. It would be a giant boost to the economy, and would transform our economy. Retail shops would largely disappear in short order, because it will be cheaper to do all transactions online and ship the order. No need to hire all the help, like cashiers, no need to write off shoplifting losses. Things would be cheaper because there would be fewer middlemen, and who have lower costs. Lots of people would lose jobs, but jobs would open up in other areas.
Why don't we do it? One reason only: cost. We are talking about developing new protocols, hardware and software, infrastructure. The cost would be dramatic. Therefore it probably will not happen. Just like secure credit cards. Excellent idea, but it increases costs too much for anyone to impliment.
Complete Security? No, impossible. However there can be created a net with security that makes a reasonable expectation of security. It would reduce instances of identity theft and other security breaches dramatically if done correctly. And why? Because the original internet was not designed at all with security in mind. Security was an afterthought, which makes security very hard to do. When you design a system with security in mind from step one, you can create a very secure system, relatively speaking.
And p51d007? You don't want to trust the government for your safety? Tell me, who does a better job of protecting you in the real world? What would happen if we removed the army and police forces in this country? Yeah, they do a HORRIBLE job. It is easy to complain, isn't it?
I have been thinking over this issue for such a long time, and I must say, I do not have an answer. On the one hand you have a lot of unethical people who have no problem downloading and using illegal copies of games or music. Before the internet this was a problem, but not a huge one. Someone bought an album, and his friends borrowed it and made a tape. Very small scale stuff. Now one person buys the album, and hosts it on a torrent, and thousands of people can copy it illegally.
Then you have the unethical practices of the copyright owners on the other side of the coin. Because there was little that could effectively be done to stop the wave of illegal copying, industry decided to add Digital Rights Management to their music CDs and software etc. At first this was easily broken, so they went for more complex versions. This stuff infects machines, causes huge problems, and at some points can even make you vulnerable to other malicious software. Horrible solution. The DRM on Spore has lead it to be the most popular illegal download on the net as far as games go. This illegal downloading has caused its creators to lose more money then they ever would have to illegal copiers if they had no DRM at all!
But what is the solution? Until the community owns up to the fact that they are doing something unethical by distributing someone elses work without permission, companies will work on DRM. Until the companies admit that their attempts at DRM is part of the problem, and not the solution, people will continue to download illegally.
You will always get those unethical hacks who download illegally. These people are mostly just clueless kids. I get two or three of them a year in college. Most of the time once they see the ethics involved, they make efforts to change, and buy their music/games/movies (then they may download a DRM free version to keep their computers clean). They have been around forever. However, if the industry spent the amount of money they have in development and prosecution, and instead invested in ethics education, they would have a lot less of the problem. However instead of looking at people as inherently good, they look at them as inherently bad, and the battle lines (ones that were never necessary) were drawn.
Linux for quick tasks and Windows for more complex ones? Isn't that a bit backwards? Should it not be Windows for proprietary tasks, and Linux for everything else, such as complex tasks?
Which version will they allow the upgrade to? 7 Ultimate? Or the crippled Windows 7 starter version, which allows you to run only three applications at a time?
Well, which would YOU think is more secure? On the one hand, you have a system whose source code is secret and closed. It is maintained by a handful of people who must work on all of the security flaws. They have even stated that there are flaws they simply will NEVER fix. Meanwhile that OS is run on many systems and is the target of most of the known attacks. Most people run it as administrator just to get anything done, making it MORE vulnerable.
Or the system with an Open Source system. The code is freely available to look at by anyone, so anyone with the knowledge can check it for security flaws, or suggest fixes. No flaw is overlooked or ignored, because the support base is so much larger. There are almost zero viruses written to attack it, because they simply don't work, and those that do exist depend on the user to execute them. No one runs as administrator except the actual administrator, and then only when he needs to make changes!
Besides, in testing, time after time, the Open Source solutions have proven to be more secure and harder to hack.
Hello! Good article! I am an educator. I teach at the Community College level. Mostly Network Security but also Linux and all kinds of Computer related courses. I have been a strong supporter of Open Source. Luckily the school I teach at right now is fairly open minded, even though they do not offer a Linux class (yet).
In the past I have faced deans that have told me that Linux has no place in a college because businesses run on Windows. I tried to tell them that Google and Yahoo are run on Linux. I told them that most of their home routers run a form of Linux, and that their Tivo runs Linux. I was told that I am wrong. I have been set aside by other professors who thought I was pirating software when i distributed Open Source software to my students. Once or twice a year I get a student who comes to me with a problem. They are running Linux, and have a problem with their ISP, and their ISP tells them that Linux will not work with their ISP. I even have seen one student be threatened by the support person, who said that he would cancel the account because the student was obviously a "hacker" because Linux is a "Hacker's Operating system."
Yet I have also seen the other side of the coin. I recently was fortunate enough to have the lead on a computer scholarship project. A local business donated 100 computers to us. I led a team of students who made sure the drives were securely wiped, Installed Ubuntu on them, set up OpenOffice so that it wouldn't conflict too much with the school's Windows centric focus (save things in.doc by default etc.), and trained students who didn't have computers in their use.
Every time I hear a horror story about a badly informed teacher, especially in IT I cringe. Here I am with two IT degrees, including a masters in Information Assurance, I am a good teacher (if I do say so myself!), and I can not get anything more than adjunct work. Yet these yahoos are out there teaching! Sure, I could make a lot more going into the private sector, but I WANT to teach! Sigh.
Typical. And here I have two IT degrees, including a Masters in Information Assurance, and I WANT to teach, yet I can not get a full time teaching Gig. Yet these fools have their jobs and are just embarrassing themselves. Like I told an IT admin the other day: "You say you have been doing this for 20 years. Tell me, if you have been doing it wrong for 20 years, does that still make you an expert?"
I am a professor. Unless you signed a contract that gives him the rights to those notes, he can NOT demand them from you. They are yours, protected under copyright. Even his copyright of lecture is mitigated by the educational right of use, and you have the right to take notes, and those notes belong to YOU.
He CAN demand things like all exams be returned after they are reviewed by you. They are his, he created them, and he can demand them back to keep future students from gaining access. He can not, however, demand your notes. This is illegal, unless of course, you give them to him.
I would report this to the proper chain of command. His boss, then the boss's boss, until you get satisfaction, even if you have to go to the school board or the police eventually.
WHat he COULD and SHOULD have done is have you sign a contract that you will not share your notes to future students of your class. This professor is paranoid (even more than me) and isn't very smart.
I teach Computer Security. The stuff I teach can be used to secure networks, or break into them. Each of my students signs a contract that they will not use the information learned in my class for illegal purposes, or face repercussions such as failing, expulsion, or even be reported to the authorities. However they are also free to take notes or even record my lectures. If I give them information only to take it away from them later, how are they going to be decent security people in the business world?
I read on the eee user forum that Windows Seven requires 16 G of hard drive to install? That is crazy! First off most of the new Netbooks (which MS said 7 would work on) don't HAVE that much hard drive space. Second, why on EARTH would an OS need that much room? That is incredibly bloated for a simple Operating system! Apparently MS isn't learning from the past. It would e much better if they made their OS able to install on older or less powerful machine.
Then again, they still haven't learned to play nice with other OSes anyways. You would think by now that MS operating systems would be able to at least identify ext2 and ext 3 drives.
I was wondering when they were going to start this. There was a lot of discussion about this a coupl years ago. One of the best ways to upgrade security on the net is to upgrade the routers. You can actually do a lot there, including an easier method to track and stop attacks at their source, as well as identify the originating machines.
I hope there is more to the upgrade then stated there. It would be expensive, and some would probably say that there may be some constitutional issues. Hopefully they are including hardware/software to trace the point of origin for these attacks and shut down their proliferation by at least dropping them off the system.
People are JUSTrecognizing this? I have Comcast, and I havea dual boot machine, so the hardware is exactly the same for both. Ubuntu kills Windows XP at download speed test sites. Frequently Ubuntu will pin the meter.
However this does not translate into superior download speeds all the time. All too frequently it seems to be very slow. Occasionally though, iy gets interesting. Early in the morning sometimes Comcast takes off the restrictions on the line (probably because there are so ferw people using), and I can hit incredible (for the US) download speeds.
Not wure what it is about Ubuntu that shows such incredible speed during these tests, but I wish it were true!
Still, this is not easily done...at all. It requires expensive equipment. If you aren't getting rid of classified sensitive material, overwriting 7 or more times will provide adequate protection.
For classified material, you go to extremes, just like a simple one way shred of a document is not enough. Cross cutting isn't enough, as it may be possible to one day get information from those sheets. Instead, shred and burn.
People are stuck in "mouse" mode. It is all they have ever used, and they are convinced it is the best way. I mean, why else would everyone use it if it wasn't the best way? So they resist change. So many people use the trackball for a very short period of time, if at all, then they give up. They don't give it any time to unlearn the built up mouse reflexes.
That said, anyone who I have given a trackman to use and had them commit to it for a week has not gone back to a mouse!
I have to agree. I have been using the trackman for years and years, and I love it. Oh, I have tried other pointing devices, but I always come back, and soon. Nothing beats a trackman! It is ergonomic. Your hand just falls into place. No carpal tunnel syndrome! It doesn't move, meaning it has a smaler footprint! You don't fall off the edge of the mousepad! This also means it is great for using your laptop, as you don't need a large flat space to use it!
Best device ever in my opinion. The mouse is a badly designed piece of crap. The trackman is far superior. The only reason I would go to a mouse is for "some" games. Heck, even then I would be hard pressed. I am so used top the trackman now that I can usually get the best of others in a game when I am using the trackman. At least I don't have to pick my device up and re-center it!
Reminds me of a similar event. Someone had "leaked" information out of a company. Turned out that someone had "cut" the sensitive information out of the.doc format before releasing the document to the internet, rather than rewriting it. Now because of the autosave function, that info was still there. Someone simply opened the document up in a text editor, and bam! Sensitive info!
Could it be possible something similar happened here? Do your workers have autosave on? And do they re-use forms? Could they have cut out the company's sensitive info, only to have it reappear in a text editor?
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Normally, this can be handled simply. What you do is send them a letter stating that if they feel they can not give you the reference you deserve, that they should then only confirm that you were indeed employed by them. That any unfavorable reference would be taken as libel, and you would be forced to take action. Then you have a friend ask for a reference to make sure they are compliant. If they aren't, sue the heck out of them. Not a perfect solution, but an option. your first stop should be an employment lawyer or union steward (if you are unionized). The company is clearly in violation of employment law if they are trying to force you to work for them like this, especially in an at will employment state. A lot depends, of course, on any contracts you signed with them. Please check your contracts and employment policies.
I agree. I also think this is exactly the wrong time for MS to be trying this. The current administration is much more likely to come down on MS for anti-competitive behaviors. MS is scared of Linux, and this fear is growing in the current economy. They will be coming after Linux soon, or not at all. This is a fight that the OS community needs to win.
I love Futurama! Will be great to see new episodes! Was a mistake to ever stop!
Very happy! We need to see more governments and businesses see the benefits of Open Source!
You have a point, but one I doubt the company understands. It is relatively easy to get the systems back as long as you have physical access, but I doubt that the company understands this outside from a few IT people (if that). The bigger concern for me would be the back doors, making sure they were all found and shut down. THAT I would sue over!
I have the 1000, and I use Eeebuntu (as opposed to Ubuntu eee, now called Easy Peasy). WHen used with eee-control everything works, including customisable hotbuttons, one of which I have set to toggle the touchpad. Also I can adjust the ybrid engine. Very nice distro.
WHile I would not mind seeing government support of Open Source (not necessarily stimulus money) I think that the situation this country is in is the bigger boon to Open Source. People will be looking to save money. Already the trend is away from big,expensive notebooks and towards smaller, affordable netbooks, and towards Linux a bit, and away from Windows. People just don't see the need to be paying big money for what they could be getting free. It will take time for businesses to catch on to this, but they will. Lots of people here blaming Obama for lots of stuff, and more than a few blaming the Repubs for getting us into this mess, and some even arguing about what type of government we have. Look, this problem has been brewing for quite some time. The government slowly adopted a posture that made the military industries king. Bad move. Then, as people of power gained more and more control over the government, we saw the very rich gain undue influence in our government, and this is shown in our tax system. The rich pay very little of their fair share in taxes compared with most of the last century, and history shows that this trend kills democracies. We haven't had a truly representative government in some time. I would have like to see a better stim package myself. While I understand that some of these failed companies do need bailing out (like the banks) in order to keep us from falling into a depression, I see too little stim in this package. We needed the new deal, and instead we got a lot more of the same. Business tax cuts. are you kidding? We didn't throw the idiots out of power to embrace more credit to the rich and powerful! Trickle down does not work! We needed infrastructure investment! Roads, and IT infrastructures to assure our future development! Instead we are falling further behind. Very sad.
So you are saying that because they did not prevent this, that they are therefore useless? That argument does not stand up and does not follow logically! I could response by saying something like: What would happen if they WEREN'T there in the 40s. What would have happened in the countless incidents that have occurred where terrorists were stopped, criminals arrested before they could do damage, if they WEREN'T there. No, they are not perfect, but please, instead of just whining, can you come up with a better solution? I guess we should just abandon our armed forces and fire all the police, since they obviously do nothing, right? Should YOU stop doing whatever it is that you do, just because you haven't done it perfectly EVERY time. Please, let's be realistic.
I have been arguing this for years. Not that we get rid of the current net. It has its place. I have argued that we need to create a second, secure internet for business transactions. We remove commercialism from the internet for the most part (as far as secure communications go). The second net would be for transactions etc. It would have authorized log ons etc. for every user, and encrypted secure transmissions. Now this would lead to increased consumer confidence in the internet as a business medium. It would be a giant boost to the economy, and would transform our economy. Retail shops would largely disappear in short order, because it will be cheaper to do all transactions online and ship the order. No need to hire all the help, like cashiers, no need to write off shoplifting losses. Things would be cheaper because there would be fewer middlemen, and who have lower costs. Lots of people would lose jobs, but jobs would open up in other areas. Why don't we do it? One reason only: cost. We are talking about developing new protocols, hardware and software, infrastructure. The cost would be dramatic. Therefore it probably will not happen. Just like secure credit cards. Excellent idea, but it increases costs too much for anyone to impliment.
Complete Security? No, impossible. However there can be created a net with security that makes a reasonable expectation of security. It would reduce instances of identity theft and other security breaches dramatically if done correctly. And why? Because the original internet was not designed at all with security in mind. Security was an afterthought, which makes security very hard to do. When you design a system with security in mind from step one, you can create a very secure system, relatively speaking. And p51d007? You don't want to trust the government for your safety? Tell me, who does a better job of protecting you in the real world? What would happen if we removed the army and police forces in this country? Yeah, they do a HORRIBLE job. It is easy to complain, isn't it?
I have been thinking over this issue for such a long time, and I must say, I do not have an answer. On the one hand you have a lot of unethical people who have no problem downloading and using illegal copies of games or music. Before the internet this was a problem, but not a huge one. Someone bought an album, and his friends borrowed it and made a tape. Very small scale stuff. Now one person buys the album, and hosts it on a torrent, and thousands of people can copy it illegally. Then you have the unethical practices of the copyright owners on the other side of the coin. Because there was little that could effectively be done to stop the wave of illegal copying, industry decided to add Digital Rights Management to their music CDs and software etc. At first this was easily broken, so they went for more complex versions. This stuff infects machines, causes huge problems, and at some points can even make you vulnerable to other malicious software. Horrible solution. The DRM on Spore has lead it to be the most popular illegal download on the net as far as games go. This illegal downloading has caused its creators to lose more money then they ever would have to illegal copiers if they had no DRM at all! But what is the solution? Until the community owns up to the fact that they are doing something unethical by distributing someone elses work without permission, companies will work on DRM. Until the companies admit that their attempts at DRM is part of the problem, and not the solution, people will continue to download illegally. You will always get those unethical hacks who download illegally. These people are mostly just clueless kids. I get two or three of them a year in college. Most of the time once they see the ethics involved, they make efforts to change, and buy their music/games/movies (then they may download a DRM free version to keep their computers clean). They have been around forever. However, if the industry spent the amount of money they have in development and prosecution, and instead invested in ethics education, they would have a lot less of the problem. However instead of looking at people as inherently good, they look at them as inherently bad, and the battle lines (ones that were never necessary) were drawn.
Linux for quick tasks and Windows for more complex ones? Isn't that a bit backwards? Should it not be Windows for proprietary tasks, and Linux for everything else, such as complex tasks?
Which version will they allow the upgrade to? 7 Ultimate? Or the crippled Windows 7 starter version, which allows you to run only three applications at a time?
Well, which would YOU think is more secure? On the one hand, you have a system whose source code is secret and closed. It is maintained by a handful of people who must work on all of the security flaws. They have even stated that there are flaws they simply will NEVER fix. Meanwhile that OS is run on many systems and is the target of most of the known attacks. Most people run it as administrator just to get anything done, making it MORE vulnerable. Or the system with an Open Source system. The code is freely available to look at by anyone, so anyone with the knowledge can check it for security flaws, or suggest fixes. No flaw is overlooked or ignored, because the support base is so much larger. There are almost zero viruses written to attack it, because they simply don't work, and those that do exist depend on the user to execute them. No one runs as administrator except the actual administrator, and then only when he needs to make changes! Besides, in testing, time after time, the Open Source solutions have proven to be more secure and harder to hack.
Now all the beautiful people can finally see eachother!
Hello! Good article! I am an educator. I teach at the Community College level. Mostly Network Security but also Linux and all kinds of Computer related courses. I have been a strong supporter of Open Source. Luckily the school I teach at right now is fairly open minded, even though they do not offer a Linux class (yet). In the past I have faced deans that have told me that Linux has no place in a college because businesses run on Windows. I tried to tell them that Google and Yahoo are run on Linux. I told them that most of their home routers run a form of Linux, and that their Tivo runs Linux. I was told that I am wrong. I have been set aside by other professors who thought I was pirating software when i distributed Open Source software to my students. Once or twice a year I get a student who comes to me with a problem. They are running Linux, and have a problem with their ISP, and their ISP tells them that Linux will not work with their ISP. I even have seen one student be threatened by the support person, who said that he would cancel the account because the student was obviously a "hacker" because Linux is a "Hacker's Operating system." Yet I have also seen the other side of the coin. I recently was fortunate enough to have the lead on a computer scholarship project. A local business donated 100 computers to us. I led a team of students who made sure the drives were securely wiped, Installed Ubuntu on them, set up OpenOffice so that it wouldn't conflict too much with the school's Windows centric focus (save things in .doc by default etc.), and trained students who didn't have computers in their use.
Every time I hear a horror story about a badly informed teacher, especially in IT I cringe. Here I am with two IT degrees, including a masters in Information Assurance, I am a good teacher (if I do say so myself!), and I can not get anything more than adjunct work. Yet these yahoos are out there teaching! Sure, I could make a lot more going into the private sector, but I WANT to teach! Sigh.
Typical. And here I have two IT degrees, including a Masters in Information Assurance, and I WANT to teach, yet I can not get a full time teaching Gig. Yet these fools have their jobs and are just embarrassing themselves. Like I told an IT admin the other day: "You say you have been doing this for 20 years. Tell me, if you have been doing it wrong for 20 years, does that still make you an expert?"
I am a professor. Unless you signed a contract that gives him the rights to those notes, he can NOT demand them from you. They are yours, protected under copyright. Even his copyright of lecture is mitigated by the educational right of use, and you have the right to take notes, and those notes belong to YOU. He CAN demand things like all exams be returned after they are reviewed by you. They are his, he created them, and he can demand them back to keep future students from gaining access. He can not, however, demand your notes. This is illegal, unless of course, you give them to him. I would report this to the proper chain of command. His boss, then the boss's boss, until you get satisfaction, even if you have to go to the school board or the police eventually. WHat he COULD and SHOULD have done is have you sign a contract that you will not share your notes to future students of your class. This professor is paranoid (even more than me) and isn't very smart. I teach Computer Security. The stuff I teach can be used to secure networks, or break into them. Each of my students signs a contract that they will not use the information learned in my class for illegal purposes, or face repercussions such as failing, expulsion, or even be reported to the authorities. However they are also free to take notes or even record my lectures. If I give them information only to take it away from them later, how are they going to be decent security people in the business world?
I read on the eee user forum that Windows Seven requires 16 G of hard drive to install? That is crazy! First off most of the new Netbooks (which MS said 7 would work on) don't HAVE that much hard drive space. Second, why on EARTH would an OS need that much room? That is incredibly bloated for a simple Operating system! Apparently MS isn't learning from the past. It would e much better if they made their OS able to install on older or less powerful machine. Then again, they still haven't learned to play nice with other OSes anyways. You would think by now that MS operating systems would be able to at least identify ext2 and ext 3 drives.
I was wondering when they were going to start this. There was a lot of discussion about this a coupl years ago. One of the best ways to upgrade security on the net is to upgrade the routers. You can actually do a lot there, including an easier method to track and stop attacks at their source, as well as identify the originating machines. I hope there is more to the upgrade then stated there. It would be expensive, and some would probably say that there may be some constitutional issues. Hopefully they are including hardware/software to trace the point of origin for these attacks and shut down their proliferation by at least dropping them off the system.
People are JUSTrecognizing this? I have Comcast, and I havea dual boot machine, so the hardware is exactly the same for both. Ubuntu kills Windows XP at download speed test sites. Frequently Ubuntu will pin the meter. However this does not translate into superior download speeds all the time. All too frequently it seems to be very slow. Occasionally though, iy gets interesting. Early in the morning sometimes Comcast takes off the restrictions on the line (probably because there are so ferw people using), and I can hit incredible (for the US) download speeds. Not wure what it is about Ubuntu that shows such incredible speed during these tests, but I wish it were true!
Still, this is not easily done...at all. It requires expensive equipment. If you aren't getting rid of classified sensitive material, overwriting 7 or more times will provide adequate protection. For classified material, you go to extremes, just like a simple one way shred of a document is not enough. Cross cutting isn't enough, as it may be possible to one day get information from those sheets. Instead, shred and burn.
People are stuck in "mouse" mode. It is all they have ever used, and they are convinced it is the best way. I mean, why else would everyone use it if it wasn't the best way? So they resist change. So many people use the trackball for a very short period of time, if at all, then they give up. They don't give it any time to unlearn the built up mouse reflexes. That said, anyone who I have given a trackman to use and had them commit to it for a week has not gone back to a mouse!
I have to agree. I have been using the trackman for years and years, and I love it. Oh, I have tried other pointing devices, but I always come back, and soon. Nothing beats a trackman! It is ergonomic. Your hand just falls into place. No carpal tunnel syndrome! It doesn't move, meaning it has a smaler footprint! You don't fall off the edge of the mousepad! This also means it is great for using your laptop, as you don't need a large flat space to use it! Best device ever in my opinion. The mouse is a badly designed piece of crap. The trackman is far superior. The only reason I would go to a mouse is for "some" games. Heck, even then I would be hard pressed. I am so used top the trackman now that I can usually get the best of others in a game when I am using the trackman. At least I don't have to pick my device up and re-center it!
Reminds me of a similar event. Someone had "leaked" information out of a company. Turned out that someone had "cut" the sensitive information out of the .doc format before releasing the document to the internet, rather than rewriting it. Now because of the autosave function, that info was still there. Someone simply opened the document up in a text editor, and bam! Sensitive info!
Could it be possible something similar happened here? Do your workers have autosave on? And do they re-use forms? Could they have cut out the company's sensitive info, only to have it reappear in a text editor?