This doesn't affect me at all. My job is production based so as long as I do what I need to do, I'm good. While there are bad weeks where I have to put in 60+ hours, a fair number are great and I only need to put in 20-30 so it balances out well. They're also good about time off and vacation so for me there aren't many worries.
I got to this position because I earned my Computer Engineering degree and work as a skilled laborer. There are many people that have jobs that are far less skilled making them more and more expendable. Some people like this are in a position where one of the only things they can get going for them is the knowledge they can be walked all over.
And you can unionize unskilled labor all you want... When it gets to pricey, it'll just be moved away like so many other jobs to governments who give even less of a f**k. Even skilled labor can run into problems if there's decent competition.
Perhaps add this episode of This American Life to your playlist to see how depressing that situation currently is. It talks about Shenzhen and not just worker rights abuses there, but human rights abuses faced by employees.
Awesome Idea - until the person beside you is using the cell network to navigate and is quietly listening to directions until the cellphone stops working.
Then distracted by the lack of directions starts messing with the phone to fix the problem getting far more distracted from the road than they already were.
Or someone who is texting every couple of minutes... instead of hanging on to the phone for a few seconds at a time they'll now probably study the phone until the text goes through... which will be far longer.
Or worst yet, someone who needs the phone for a true emergency.
Man, that sounds like it will make drivers less distracted *rolls eyes*
And don't get me wrong - I don't advocate actively using your phone while driving at all, but your "solution" will at best do nothing, and at worst just create a bigger problem.
Agreed - even 48 hours is a bit long in today's digital world and the government would only be a middle-man to who the information needs to get to as you were saying.
If the legislators knew anything about computers, maybe they'd do something smart like require auditing software which detects mass-retrieval of data. That way, in most instances, the leak can be detected immediately instead of potentially not at all like some companies.
Heck - I think it would be better to require them to notify the government and their consumers within 48 hours of the breech regardless of whether or not they have detected it and subject them to a fine based on the severity of the retrieval and how detectable it should have been if it took them more than 48 hours to detect and report.
It won't stop data breeches, but it will make sure decent audit systems are in place.
All they have to do is show up at the handful of ISP's in the country with rifles and tell them to cut you off. No connection to your house, no internet for you.
Not entirely true. While countries can make "the tubes" a hell of a lot slower, it's almost impossible to cut anyone off completely from the grid. Look at North Korea as an example. There's almost no internet access in the entire country itself, but we're starting to get more pictures and information from inside the country than ever before because people are more and more easily able to send information outside of the country by other wired, wireless, or even physical means (such as hurling DVDs or memory cards outside of the borders.)
They may be able to delay an inevitable revolution of sorts, but doing that is becoming much harder as we've seen from previous kill-switch scenarios.
Maybe headaches from sites like google will cause more computer newbies to hit the "upgrade" button. A button that is widely ignored but highly important.
I guess the "step up their game" comment was more in response to Apple's denial that MacDefender even existed for almost a month instead of dealing with the problem. The nature of Apple (closed market) does make it harder for malware to exist in the system, but outright denial of the problem for so long and then an admission of a known security flaw is just inexcusable.
If Apple can't adapt to the problems increased market share will bring, they'll have some major problems getting to the top of the OS market.
While it is still a virus - I get what you're saying and the later version of MacDefender is only a social engineering exploit (Trojan) and not something that takes advantage of a legitimate exploit.
While that may be true, the original MacDefender did take advantage of a nasty root vulnerability that Mac OS had.
Even with that being said, Trojans are still a class of virus which will also become more popular as the market share increases. Trojans are just a phishing attack with code to allow access to the infected computer in some way. It's a class of malware that the computer savvy like most of Slashdot can avoid, but not a lot of people who expect their computer to "just work."
Is MacDefender a portend of Malware waves upon OS X? Unlikely, and it really has nothing to do with market share. I know this is a tired argument, but the "You're day is coming OS X, just wait until you're worthwhile to hack!" idea just hasn't played out no matter how many times security researchers shout it from their blogs/websites (often times alongside links to purchase Macintosh AV software).
Of course it hasn't played out. Mac OS still only has a little over 7% of the market pinned down. Windows collectively (between XP, Vista and Windows 7) controls over 80% of the market. That means that besides smaller proof-of-concept exploits programed for fun, there is still very limited utility for mac malware in the wild.
All I'm saying is that getting from 2% to 8% market share will be much easier than getting from 8% to 32% and now that they're getting to almost an 8% market share, the first signs of malware are popping up.
I'd also like to say that while the 2nd MacDefender is indeed much more of a social engineering hack than anything, the first version did exploit a major bug which allowed root access without any additional permissions. Mac vulnerabilities are out there - and that one was a huge one so it was exploited, but look at the numbers - right now to get similar processing power or informational exploit pools, you'd have to have a hack that's literally 10 times as rampant on Mac than on PC.
Malware is a numbers game. Windows used to be the main player by a much larger margin and criminals knew that code over a poor or rare windows exploit generally infected far more computers than even some of the worst mac exploits.
As Mac OS gains more and more users (and similarly any other platform like IOS, Android, and *gasp* Linux) they become more and more vulnerable because rarer and rarer exploits still result in powerful botnets.
Apple has never been "virus proof," they just never had the numbers to make a lot of exploits worth the coding time.
You missed an option
-interkin3tic is a Slashdot troll who has no idea that a patent application is not a patent.
The article specifically points out this is a patent application and with that status comes no legal protection of any sort. The case either has yet to be reviewed or is in the process of being reviewed by anyone at the USPTO. It is only the applicant at this point who shows broad ignorance of iphoto or other similar tagging applications. This application will most likely be shot down or highly modified and limited if it does ever issue as a patent.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you misunderstood what I was saying.
This doesn't affect me at all. My job is production based so as long as I do what I need to do, I'm good. While there are bad weeks where I have to put in 60+ hours, a fair number are great and I only need to put in 20-30 so it balances out well. They're also good about time off and vacation so for me there aren't many worries.
I got to this position because I earned my Computer Engineering degree and work as a skilled laborer. There are many people that have jobs that are far less skilled making them more and more expendable. Some people like this are in a position where one of the only things they can get going for them is the knowledge they can be walked all over.
And you can unionize unskilled labor all you want... When it gets to pricey, it'll just be moved away like so many other jobs to governments who give even less of a f**k. Even skilled labor can run into problems if there's decent competition.
Perhaps add this episode of This American Life to your playlist to see how depressing that situation currently is. It talks about Shenzhen and not just worker rights abuses there, but human rights abuses faced by employees.
While my job is largely production based, the unemployment rate is currently 8.5%
I think most people would rather not be seen as being in the bottom 50% of workers where they are for fear of layoffs or any sort of cutback.
I think most people would rather take a small increase in work-stress to forgo a lot of financial related stress down the road.
Awesome Idea - until the person beside you is using the cell network to navigate and is quietly listening to directions until the cellphone stops working.
Then distracted by the lack of directions starts messing with the phone to fix the problem getting far more distracted from the road than they already were.
Or someone who is texting every couple of minutes... instead of hanging on to the phone for a few seconds at a time they'll now probably study the phone until the text goes through... which will be far longer.
Or worst yet, someone who needs the phone for a true emergency.
Man, that sounds like it will make drivers less distracted *rolls eyes* And don't get me wrong - I don't advocate actively using your phone while driving at all, but your "solution" will at best do nothing, and at worst just create a bigger problem.
Easy Proof
Which is harder to read:
This first sentence which is typed correctly and is correctly formatted...
oR thIS SeConD seNTeNcE wHiCh yOU PrObaBLy doNT reCOgNiZe thE ShaPe oF?
Thanks to annoying people on facebook, I'm sure we all already knew this.
Agreed - seems about as obvious as some of the patents microsoft pushes. *BOOM*
Besides, hundreds of rollercoasters just like this have been designed before...
It was called Roller Coaster Tycoon.
In other words:
"And now, for something completely different"
Since the article is down, I figured I'd share my own custom 404 page:
http://capitolimprov.com/uea
Nothings changed, nobody appreciated an actual geek to begin with.
Unless it means they get free computer repair.
Agreed - even 48 hours is a bit long in today's digital world and the government would only be a middle-man to who the information needs to get to as you were saying.
If the legislators knew anything about computers, maybe they'd do something smart like require auditing software which detects mass-retrieval of data. That way, in most instances, the leak can be detected immediately instead of potentially not at all like some companies.
Heck - I think it would be better to require them to notify the government and their consumers within 48 hours of the breech regardless of whether or not they have detected it and subject them to a fine based on the severity of the retrieval and how detectable it should have been if it took them more than 48 hours to detect and report.
It won't stop data breeches, but it will make sure decent audit systems are in place.
To anybody with even a remote understanding of Slashdot, posts in the forums tend to become highly repetitive.
ohhh, poor baby. So they don't have "The Idiots Guide to Mathematics" for you?
Looks like the idiot's guide to not being a douche wasn't available either. :-\
Even the new Social Security facilities are gonna blow.
All they have to do is show up at the handful of ISP's in the country with rifles and tell them to cut you off. No connection to your house, no internet for you.
Not entirely true. While countries can make "the tubes" a hell of a lot slower, it's almost impossible to cut anyone off completely from the grid. Look at North Korea as an example. There's almost no internet access in the entire country itself, but we're starting to get more pictures and information from inside the country than ever before because people are more and more easily able to send information outside of the country by other wired, wireless, or even physical means (such as hurling DVDs or memory cards outside of the borders.)
They may be able to delay an inevitable revolution of sorts, but doing that is becoming much harder as we've seen from previous kill-switch scenarios.
The subtracts, unfortunately, will not be supported.
Don't even ask about division.
Actually, while I'm no Microsoft fanboy, IE 9 got a lot of things right. Especially when dealing with speed and security.
I still don't think it's quite as good as the recent versions of Chrome and Firefox, but I think some credit is due to Microsoft on that front.
Maybe headaches from sites like google will cause more computer newbies to hit the "upgrade" button. A button that is widely ignored but highly important.
I guess the "step up their game" comment was more in response to Apple's denial that MacDefender even existed for almost a month instead of dealing with the problem. The nature of Apple (closed market) does make it harder for malware to exist in the system, but outright denial of the problem for so long and then an admission of a known security flaw is just inexcusable.
If Apple can't adapt to the problems increased market share will bring, they'll have some major problems getting to the top of the OS market.
While it is still a virus - I get what you're saying and the later version of MacDefender is only a social engineering exploit (Trojan) and not something that takes advantage of a legitimate exploit.
While that may be true, the original MacDefender did take advantage of a nasty root vulnerability that Mac OS had.
Even with that being said, Trojans are still a class of virus which will also become more popular as the market share increases. Trojans are just a phishing attack with code to allow access to the infected computer in some way. It's a class of malware that the computer savvy like most of Slashdot can avoid, but not a lot of people who expect their computer to "just work."
Is MacDefender a portend of Malware waves upon OS X? Unlikely, and it really has nothing to do with market share. I know this is a tired argument, but the "You're day is coming OS X, just wait until you're worthwhile to hack!" idea just hasn't played out no matter how many times security researchers shout it from their blogs/websites (often times alongside links to purchase Macintosh AV software).
Of course it hasn't played out. Mac OS still only has a little over 7% of the market pinned down. Windows collectively (between XP, Vista and Windows 7) controls over 80% of the market. That means that besides smaller proof-of-concept exploits programed for fun, there is still very limited utility for mac malware in the wild.
All I'm saying is that getting from 2% to 8% market share will be much easier than getting from 8% to 32% and now that they're getting to almost an 8% market share, the first signs of malware are popping up.
I'd also like to say that while the 2nd MacDefender is indeed much more of a social engineering hack than anything, the first version did exploit a major bug which allowed root access without any additional permissions. Mac vulnerabilities are out there - and that one was a huge one so it was exploited, but look at the numbers - right now to get similar processing power or informational exploit pools, you'd have to have a hack that's literally 10 times as rampant on Mac than on PC.
It is and always will be a numbers game.
Malware is a numbers game. Windows used to be the main player by a much larger margin and criminals knew that code over a poor or rare windows exploit generally infected far more computers than even some of the worst mac exploits.
As Mac OS gains more and more users (and similarly any other platform like IOS, Android, and *gasp* Linux) they become more and more vulnerable because rarer and rarer exploits still result in powerful botnets.
Apple has never been "virus proof," they just never had the numbers to make a lot of exploits worth the coding time.
You missed an option
-interkin3tic is a Slashdot troll who has no idea that a patent application is not a patent.
The article specifically points out this is a patent application and with that status comes no legal protection of any sort. The case either has yet to be reviewed or is in the process of being reviewed by anyone at the USPTO. It is only the applicant at this point who shows broad ignorance of iphoto or other similar tagging applications. This application will most likely be shot down or highly modified and limited if it does ever issue as a patent.
Of course you have - and guess what, this is not a patent, but merely an application.
There are still many rounds of prosecution to go and the claim language will doubtfully look anything like it currently does.
Patent Applications != Patents.
Hello pseudscience!
Show me a controlled study and maybe... but there are so many problems with your statement it's frightening.
Some people just meltdown under the pressure...
I mean buckle... Buckle!