I propose that all robocalls use an unused audio frequency to indicate whether the call had been placed with malicious intent, thus making call blocking an easy problem -- simply block any calls with the evil tone set.
Word for word, I thought your submission was something I wrote. I've been there, done that, so it is possible. The mess I inherited took me 6 MONTHS to fully comprehend and formulate all plans of attack. Meanwhile, I was trying to fix and maintain what I could.
To tackle the whole problem, where did I start? Everywhere, frankly. There was no one starting point. Everything was affecting everything else. I did my best to get written down exactly what was running on each server, including running daemons, system crontab, and all user crontabs. Basically, build a list of what exactly you can determine. Then, try to get into the mindset of your predecessor and try to understand why (as best you can) to see if that sheds some light on what else may be lurking out there.
I didn't get bogged down in formal documentation because I knew I would have to rebuild everything. I took copious notes and drew pictures of what I thought were the processes of the system, but this documentation was just for my own benefit. Once I could identify unneeded processes, I shut them down or side-stepped them and hoped I didn't break anything; if I did, that was just more information at my disposal. Other processes I simplified and consolidated where I could. Eventually, the system got more and more comprehensible.
Once I "got" everything that was going on, I built a fresh new setup that focused on simplicity and efficiency. This is when I focused on documentation. I kept the legacy system dormant but available, just in case.
Now, we have a darn good system in place. I used virtualization to segregate different services and to enhance security. Maintenance is now preventative. Management is happy because they can now grow the business without everything imploding. The focus of my work today is building new products and services. I hope my successor doesn't complain.
There is an assumption of privacy at universities; however, the university I worked for was subject to the public's open records requests. When requested, our IT department had to hand over the email of any employee (maybe student?). I believe this is a federal law (in the US).
Expanding on that concern, I wonder if online services allow IT departments to perform what is necessary for open records requests, or would that be a violation of TOS?
When I first saw the title of this new channel, I thought to myself, "Not everybody votes." Will the channel or at least the title make it to non-democratic countries?
I'd much rather the Boston police take it seriously, and be wrong, than take it casually and be wrong.
I agree, but that's not the point here. They took it seriously (great) and were wrong, but they did not take being wrong casually. They were embarrassed, and then childishly blamed others for their own actions. Cartoon Network made us over-react! They should pay!
If you give me the finger on the roadway, and I pull out a gun and shoot you, you're not at fault.
Don't get me wrong. Cartoon Network should pay some hefty fines for littering or something. I just think this was a series of misunderstandings, and the situation should be blamed as such.
mutt doesn't support animated GIFs either (nor any other image or HTML email for that matter). That's one of the major reasons why I use mutt. I don't want to open up an email and inadvertently contact the sender that a real person actually viewed it.
Once I got TiVo, I began watching at least 10 times more TV. Before, I only watched an hour or two a week. With TiVo, I don't have to adjust my schedule around TV time slots.
As a result, I see 10 times more commercials. Sure, I fast-forward through them, but it only takes a couple frames to recognize the brand and/or what is being advertised. An advertiser still make its impression with two frames instead of 700+.
On top of that, by skipping commercials, I'm a happier TV viewer. I would hope an advertiser would want me to be in a good mood while getting those product impressions.
Telling your credit card company not to accept charges might not be a perfect solution. AOL will continue the account for a few months and your bill with them will continue to increase. After a few months, they will get their collection department on you. If it gets to that point, they might file something on your credit report.
All this happened to me; the only difference was that I had lost my credit card and just didn't bother updating AOL with the new number. After a few months, I got a letter saying they would send the issue to their collections department. Just to keep my credit report clean, I called them up and asked them to cancel the account.
The first problem was that the computerized menu asked me to spell my AOL username. I spent 5 minutes trying to spell it or give it other information it could use instead. It couldn't understand what I was spelling, and it wasn't accepting my phone number. I eventually got a support rep.
I too experienced an extreme pressure to keep the account. I was much nicer than TFA's caller, and I was able to convince the rep to zero out my bill since I hadn't used the account in a while.
Unfortunately, all this may come back to haunt me. The support rep said he needed to forward me to another number so I could get more information to complete the cancellation (I think that's what he said). At that point, I got disconnected. I suspect he hung up on me before the cancellation could complete.
First, some background about my experiences. I have run Windows as a limited user for nearly 6 years. The only time I had to reinstall was when I took the XP plunge. I was on the same installation of Windows 2000 through two motherboard upgrades. During this time, I have only encountered a few problems.
Second, here are some common misconceptions I run into with people who are anti-LUA (limited user account):
1. Anti-LUAers believe running as a limited user is intended to limit the user.
The purpose of LUA is to limit the programmers of the various programs we run. I don't personally know the authors of Unreal Tournament 2004, and I'm convinced they are human, so they make mistakes. I'm not going to grant them complete control over my computer.
2. Anti-LUAers believe programs that don't work with LUA need admin rights.
No, the Administrator group is just a group. It is extremely rare that those programs check to see if the user is in the Administrator group. Programs that have difficulty with LUA simply need what they are looking for (usually filesystem rights, rarely registry rights). Unreal Tournament 2004 wants to download maps and put them in the Program Files install directory. That's poor programming, but I've compromised by granting my account change rights to the UT directory. There, now UT will run. I can get more granular with the permissions if I wanted to.
3. Most people believe the user's account is the user.
Accounts describe roles, not users. I have two accounts that reflect my roles. I use my computer, so I have a user account; I administrate my computer, so I have an administrator account. Anyone who has two roles should have two accounts. Don't use admin accounts as an all-in-one solution.
4. Most people believe their anti-malware will protect them.
How many layers of anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-whatever will you try to install before you realize that none of these will protect you from new threats? They only protect you from old threats. Exploits gain the privileges of the vulnerable program. The only way to combat new threates is to deprive exploits the privileges they need to take over your computer.
In my experience, very few programs actually need elevated privileges. Those that do usually just need elevated filesystem permissions. Don't give out guns to those needing a flyswatter.
What I have seen more problems with are programs that don't work when installed under one account and used in another. They try to use HKCU keys in the registry and don't recreate them when they don't exist (under another account). That has nothing to do with LUA. Those programs have problems with profiles, not privileges.
With all this being said, can a regular user get by with LUA on their own? No. They will need an experienced administrator to get over some hurdles. My main beef is that "experienced" administrators don't want to educate themselves on LUA. They try it once, and at the first sign of trouble, they give up. They fear what they don't understand.
I applaud their work towards an open-source model. The model this is derived from--aka "human"--has been closed source since its creation almost 6000 years ago. The copyright expired long ago, but its Creator is unwilling to open its source. Many people cannot find the Creator, and some even doubt He is still around to release the source.
The human model has proven difficult to reverse engineer. We need its source to help fix bugs. For example, it's susceptible to viruses in its current state.
So, I welcome the open-source model. It is a giant step in the right direction. I hope one day we can replace all closed-source models with their open-source equivalents.
When all else fails, reboot. If it still fails, blame the user.
Indeed, "when all else fails". I see too many technical people reboot before understanding the problem. Though it may work and though it may be faster, they haven't learned anything about what was happening. Furthermore, if there was a malicious cause for the problem, rebooting has a better chance of erasing the evidence.
If doctors kill patients as a means of troubleshooting...
Oddly enough for me, I have seen more commercials now that I have TiVo. Before TiVo, I watched about 2-3 hours (Buffy, Angel, misc) of TV a week because 1) I had to know about a show and its time slot and 2) I had to be willing to adjust my schedule to see it.
With TiVo, I can pick shows and pick when I want to watch them. The result is that I watch more TV, perhaps about 10 hours a week. (It's somewhat lower because both Buffy and Angel are off the air now.)
So, while watching about 5 times more TV, I see 5 times more commercials. Though I fast-forward through them, I still see several frames of each commercial, and that's all the brain needs to see what product they are advertising.
Some of you marked the parent comment "insightful" because it doubtlessly seemed like commonsense, reasonable analysis. However, you have been fooled. The parent comment is competely at odds with the article.
Technically, the parent was responding to his parent, not the article. In any case, I think agreeing with (or repeating) an article makes insightfulness more difficult. Some of the most insightful statements come from disagreement and tangental thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
Those profile pictures may not be photoshopped.
I propose that all robocalls use an unused audio frequency to indicate whether the call had been placed with malicious intent, thus making call blocking an easy problem -- simply block any calls with the evil tone set.
DOES NOT COMPUTE
Wait! & vs. &?!
Word for word, I thought your submission was something I wrote. I've been there, done that, so it is possible. The mess I inherited took me 6 MONTHS to fully comprehend and formulate all plans of attack. Meanwhile, I was trying to fix and maintain what I could.
To tackle the whole problem, where did I start? Everywhere, frankly. There was no one starting point. Everything was affecting everything else. I did my best to get written down exactly what was running on each server, including running daemons, system crontab, and all user crontabs. Basically, build a list of what exactly you can determine. Then, try to get into the mindset of your predecessor and try to understand why (as best you can) to see if that sheds some light on what else may be lurking out there.
I didn't get bogged down in formal documentation because I knew I would have to rebuild everything. I took copious notes and drew pictures of what I thought were the processes of the system, but this documentation was just for my own benefit. Once I could identify unneeded processes, I shut them down or side-stepped them and hoped I didn't break anything; if I did, that was just more information at my disposal. Other processes I simplified and consolidated where I could. Eventually, the system got more and more comprehensible.
Once I "got" everything that was going on, I built a fresh new setup that focused on simplicity and efficiency. This is when I focused on documentation. I kept the legacy system dormant but available, just in case.
Now, we have a darn good system in place. I used virtualization to segregate different services and to enhance security. Maintenance is now preventative. Management is happy because they can now grow the business without everything imploding. The focus of my work today is building new products and services. I hope my successor doesn't complain.
If our moon weren't tidally locked, would early cultures have entertained sooner the idea the Earth is round?
What if the aliens are just waiting for us to go all digital before they deal with us?
There is an assumption of privacy at universities; however, the university I worked for was subject to the public's open records requests. When requested, our IT department had to hand over the email of any employee (maybe student?). I believe this is a federal law (in the US).
Expanding on that concern, I wonder if online services allow IT departments to perform what is necessary for open records requests, or would that be a violation of TOS?
You could burn them for warmth. That's practical and useful, especially for the winter months.
Easy, graduate. The college girls will call you a dork anyway.
When I first saw the title of this new channel, I thought to myself, "Not everybody votes." Will the channel or at least the title make it to non-democratic countries?
I'd much rather the Boston police take it seriously, and be wrong, than take it casually and be wrong.
I agree, but that's not the point here. They took it seriously (great) and were wrong, but they did not take being wrong casually. They were embarrassed, and then childishly blamed others for their own actions. Cartoon Network made us over-react! They should pay!
If you give me the finger on the roadway, and I pull out a gun and shoot you, you're not at fault.
Don't get me wrong. Cartoon Network should pay some hefty fines for littering or something. I just think this was a series of misunderstandings, and the situation should be blamed as such.
I think a better question is: does the FTC have jurisdiction? The article as I see it says "Federal Trade Commission".
mutt doesn't support animated GIFs either (nor any other image or HTML email for that matter). That's one of the major reasons why I use mutt. I don't want to open up an email and inadvertently contact the sender that a real person actually viewed it.
Once I got TiVo, I began watching at least 10 times more TV. Before, I only watched an hour or two a week. With TiVo, I don't have to adjust my schedule around TV time slots.
As a result, I see 10 times more commercials. Sure, I fast-forward through them, but it only takes a couple frames to recognize the brand and/or what is being advertised. An advertiser still make its impression with two frames instead of 700+.
On top of that, by skipping commercials, I'm a happier TV viewer. I would hope an advertiser would want me to be in a good mood while getting those product impressions.
Or is it the lack of close friends is to blame for the Internet?
how can using a unique fingerprint for identification be riskier to theft...
I'm more concerned with the risk of spreading diseases. How often do you think a convenience store employee will wash the finger scanner?
Telling your credit card company not to accept charges might not be a perfect solution. AOL will continue the account for a few months and your bill with them will continue to increase. After a few months, they will get their collection department on you. If it gets to that point, they might file something on your credit report.
All this happened to me; the only difference was that I had lost my credit card and just didn't bother updating AOL with the new number. After a few months, I got a letter saying they would send the issue to their collections department. Just to keep my credit report clean, I called them up and asked them to cancel the account.
The first problem was that the computerized menu asked me to spell my AOL username. I spent 5 minutes trying to spell it or give it other information it could use instead. It couldn't understand what I was spelling, and it wasn't accepting my phone number. I eventually got a support rep.
I too experienced an extreme pressure to keep the account. I was much nicer than TFA's caller, and I was able to convince the rep to zero out my bill since I hadn't used the account in a while.
Unfortunately, all this may come back to haunt me. The support rep said he needed to forward me to another number so I could get more information to complete the cancellation (I think that's what he said). At that point, I got disconnected. I suspect he hung up on me before the cancellation could complete.
First, some background about my experiences. I have run Windows as a limited user for nearly 6 years. The only time I had to reinstall was when I took the XP plunge. I was on the same installation of Windows 2000 through two motherboard upgrades. During this time, I have only encountered a few problems.
Second, here are some common misconceptions I run into with people who are anti-LUA (limited user account):
1. Anti-LUAers believe running as a limited user is intended to limit the user.
The purpose of LUA is to limit the programmers of the various programs we run. I don't personally know the authors of Unreal Tournament 2004, and I'm convinced they are human, so they make mistakes. I'm not going to grant them complete control over my computer.
2. Anti-LUAers believe programs that don't work with LUA need admin rights.
No, the Administrator group is just a group. It is extremely rare that those programs check to see if the user is in the Administrator group. Programs that have difficulty with LUA simply need what they are looking for (usually filesystem rights, rarely registry rights). Unreal Tournament 2004 wants to download maps and put them in the Program Files install directory. That's poor programming, but I've compromised by granting my account change rights to the UT directory. There, now UT will run. I can get more granular with the permissions if I wanted to.
3. Most people believe the user's account is the user.
Accounts describe roles, not users. I have two accounts that reflect my roles. I use my computer, so I have a user account; I administrate my computer, so I have an administrator account. Anyone who has two roles should have two accounts. Don't use admin accounts as an all-in-one solution.
4. Most people believe their anti-malware will protect them.
How many layers of anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-whatever will you try to install before you realize that none of these will protect you from new threats? They only protect you from old threats. Exploits gain the privileges of the vulnerable program. The only way to combat new threates is to deprive exploits the privileges they need to take over your computer.
In my experience, very few programs actually need elevated privileges. Those that do usually just need elevated filesystem permissions. Don't give out guns to those needing a flyswatter.
What I have seen more problems with are programs that don't work when installed under one account and used in another. They try to use HKCU keys in the registry and don't recreate them when they don't exist (under another account). That has nothing to do with LUA. Those programs have problems with profiles, not privileges.
With all this being said, can a regular user get by with LUA on their own? No. They will need an experienced administrator to get over some hurdles. My main beef is that "experienced" administrators don't want to educate themselves on LUA. They try it once, and at the first sign of trouble, they give up. They fear what they don't understand.
I applaud their work towards an open-source model. The model this is derived from--aka "human"--has been closed source since its creation almost 6000 years ago. The copyright expired long ago, but its Creator is unwilling to open its source. Many people cannot find the Creator, and some even doubt He is still around to release the source.
The human model has proven difficult to reverse engineer. We need its source to help fix bugs. For example, it's susceptible to viruses in its current state.
So, I welcome the open-source model. It is a giant step in the right direction. I hope one day we can replace all closed-source models with their open-source equivalents.
When all else fails, reboot. If it still fails, blame the user.
Indeed, "when all else fails". I see too many technical people reboot before understanding the problem. Though it may work and though it may be faster, they haven't learned anything about what was happening. Furthermore, if there was a malicious cause for the problem, rebooting has a better chance of erasing the evidence.
If doctors kill patients as a means of troubleshooting...
There are still many applications on Windows that do not follow the security policy and attempt to write user data outside of their profile.
I hope people aren't rewarding this type of programming by giving the programmers money.
Oddly enough for me, I have seen more commercials now that I have TiVo. Before TiVo, I watched about 2-3 hours (Buffy, Angel, misc) of TV a week because 1) I had to know about a show and its time slot and 2) I had to be willing to adjust my schedule to see it.
With TiVo, I can pick shows and pick when I want to watch them. The result is that I watch more TV, perhaps about 10 hours a week. (It's somewhat lower because both Buffy and Angel are off the air now.)
So, while watching about 5 times more TV, I see 5 times more commercials. Though I fast-forward through them, I still see several frames of each commercial, and that's all the brain needs to see what product they are advertising.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Technically, the parent was responding to his parent, not the article. In any case, I think agreeing with (or repeating) an article makes insightfulness more difficult. Some of the most insightful statements come from disagreement and tangental thinking.