Now you don't even need to be there, the police can just find DNA evidence of your presence, and all of a sudden you are implicated after a 'leak' to the media. Correct. Correlation does not equal causation. That is, because your DNA was their does not mean you committed a crime.
DNA evidence (by itself) cannot be used to absolutely prove a person to be guilty. DNA evidence can however (with more likelihood) prove a person to be innocent (no matching DNA means no evidence).
If the police are using it to arrest criminals I have no issue with it. In that case it would be better to just DNA sample everybody. If one wants to be pro-active and keep the DNA of innocent people, it would only make sense to collect DNA and finger prints of the entire population (during a census for example). To be even more pro-active, it would be best to make GPS tracking devices mandatory for all people so that we can be sure they weren't at the scene of a "crime". For those people who don't venture out of their homes it would be best to have a mandatory user-id that is kept in a government database for when they use the Internet, so that the police can (more) easily tell that they aren't committing a crime on the Internet.
That would be the most fair, because it would not limit this data collection to those falsely accused of a crime (like child abuse or terroristic threats, or those victims of griefers who write threatening things on the back of deposit slips, etc).
As a British citizen I can't decide which scares me more, DNA databasing or CCTV cameras. You're showing your age. As constant surveillance becomes ubiquitous, people will simply take it for granted. Children now are (to some degree) getting their DNA put in a database by their own parents (for their own good that is), are being watched and tracked through cell phones and GPS tracking devices, have their lockers randomly searched at school, go through metal detectors (at some schools), and closed circuit camera's are starting to show up everywhere. It's all just a part of growing up. And for the grownups drug testing at work is also becoming the new normal (in the US at least). And there is even airborne surveillance now of civilians.
And let's not forget about the Internet and the NSA and the phone companies. It's no secret they are tracking our online activities. There's no need for cookies; deep packet inspection and profiling online behavior and environment variables are all just part of the game.
I can imagine when ankle bracelets with tracking devices will be put on people who are merely arrested. With new laws being created every year, there is more likelihood of a person doing something criminal. It makes sense to be pro-active when it comes to crime; even thought-crime. Blogs and (I'm sure Slashdot user's [through their postings]) are being profiled by the government. Like the saying goes; if you don't have anything to hide, then there is nothing to worry about.
Don't get arrested or do anything remotely questionable... In the US at least, you don't have to. There are lots of police departments who make money off of arresting innocent people, like for example stopping motorists and then analyzing their money (a large percentage of physical dollars in the US has traces of Drugs on them, like cocaine).
This is fairly common knowledge to me (from just watching the news, etc, but I dug up a reference: http://www.fff.org/freedom/1093c.asp. Since drug/narcotics laws are federal, I would presume a lot of innocent people will not only have their property confiscated, but their finger prints and DNA put permanently on file. And there is racial profiling (however official that may be); like being black and driving a legally owned but expensive car, or just being of Middle Eastern descent can also make you a target for police (I wonder how many people whose first name is Mohamed are on a no-fly list).
Yes, you're correct in pointing out that it's the growth which is getting smaller, not the size, but you're incorrect in your assertion that the summary is misleading. Perhaps not misleading; or maybe I'm just tired. I at first got the impression that this phrase was downplaying the "rate of growth" aspect.
The opposite of FUD, whatever you may call it, from the headline article on Slashdot:
Internet traffic growth is falling year-over-year Note quite, but as stated in the referenced article, the rate of growth is falling. Yes there are concerns with increased growth, especially since much of the usage and growth in usage is not the typical text based Internet of the 1990's, but of the multimedia and P2P type growth of the 20th Century. It makes sense that network capacity should keep up with this growth. This seems to be the concern with most people I believe. From the article; "But from 2002-2007, the growth rate has dropped, and it now hovers at 50 to 60 percent a year." This isn't shabby growth by any means, think of compounding effects of this over the long term, and P2P growth is at only 100% a year; again, if you think of it as money compounding one could get rich very quickly.
The idea being that people (in a close-knit university environment at least) should be open and should not have anything to hide; and so I apply this example to the business world.
It's a nice idea, but in reality people will try to take advantage of other people and you need privacy in order to protect any of your other rights.
I think in general (with this opinion and others, we have very similar views.) As I've already told Moridineas;
I think you get my point, but it's not so much an issue as "Information wants to be free", as it is an issue with openness and trust, especially with people that you work most intimately with. Granted I am talking about an ideal which may not always be practical. In this regard, ideals may not always be practical, but they are always something (for me at least) to strive towards.
The question is: what is "a LOT", and how significant is this to either the security of the company or the productivity of the worker? That being said, a CEO gets stock tips once an hour; does this person spend a minute looking at them or does he spend most of his day on eTrade? And for that matter is their CEO a salaried employee or does he get paid hourly? How much time does this CEO spend at home or on weekends doing work for the company?
...the secretary who gets weather alerts and school closing delays sent to her email so she can go get little johnny from school Again, how many hours a day does she spend reading whether reports, and how significant is this? In this regard I think a lot of companies would probably encourage this type of behaviour because it shows a concern for one's children. Some companies do understand that people have lives outside of work, and they try to accommodate. The problem is that many people (still) seem to think that you should disregard your families and treat your job as an all-encompassing religion.
I think you get my point, but it's not so much an issue as "Information wants to be free", as it is an issue with openness and trust, especially with people that you work most intimately with. Granted I am talking about an ideal which may not always be practical.
What if an employee could produce more output, but isn't? Presumably, if I'm hiring someone, I'm not hiring them for their "B" game. Agreed. The point being, like the expression "Know your customer", so it is IMHO, you should "Know your employee". If a Manager is so isolated from their employees that they feel the need to use HR to spy on them, then IMHO the managers aren't doing their job. In regards to an employee's supposed "B" game, then fire them if you don't like it. But from my experience, if a Manager is always on the lookout for an employee's "B" game, then chances are "A" game employees will notice this attitude and will either leave or just become too depressed to be productive. Attitude is everything, and if Management doesn't lead by example, but instead leads by intimidation, then this will be noticed (especially by "A"-game players). The most demotivating thing I have ever felt is an Employer who doesn't trust you; whether it be a personal distrust, or just through the bureaucracy of rules.
The last job I quit my manager took me out to lunch (a rarity indeed!), and I explained to him that people are not inherently lazy (as he seemed to believe). People want to succeed; they just need the Leadership. Their is no Leadership in spying on your employees; their is just cynicism in this behaviour.
In regards to the RSM comment:
Against password protecting accounts? What does he plan to use, skeleton keys? He found it very cynical that people would lockout others from their accounts, and so he showed that he could crack them. The idea being that people (in a close-knit university environment at least) should be open and should not have anything to hide; and so I apply this example to the business world.
3rd party computer companies won't care about UAC nagging as long as users blame MS. And users will blame MS since they changed something and not for the better, at least from their point of view. Since the application programmer didn't change anything, MS is the bad guy here.
At least from the perspective of the user.
Didn't it ever occur to MS? Ask anyone who ever worked in 1st level support for longer than a month, and he would have told you that! Well, it's a bit of a late reply (for slashdot), but I thought you may be interested.
Funny thing is, is that I did work as a 1st level tech support for longer than a month, and I happened to have worked on the Vista campaign from its initial launch. I'm not there anymore (M$ closed down a lot of their call centres for lack of demand). I can't remember UAC being an issue, or at least not an overbearing issue. In fact I had the impression that most folks who initially bought Vista were already quite familiar with it (like business people and techie types). There were a lot of compatibility issues (the Mac itunes issue came to mind, as I remember trouble-shooting that and other media issues before they became well-known in the media). From my impression much of the issues were drivers and software that just weren't compatible with Vista, and yes M$ does go out of its way to educate and help software developers make their software compatible. I'm no M$-fanboy, but I do think my experiences dealing with M$ first hand gives me a unique perspective. That being said, from the customer service side of things (when dealing with both "Partners" and retail customers), I have had the impression that M$ does listen and they do try to accommodate more than other companies (I've done first level support for quite a few large companies, and in my opinion M$ is one of the best in regards to how much they attempt to accommodate the customer).
Vista does have its problems, but as the person who posted the original comment to which so many people are replying, I must say that this person (David Cross) is speaking through his ass, and does not represent the opinions of anybody in Microsoft.
I don't really think most people use their business addresses for personal email very often incidentally--everyone seems to use yahoo/gmail/whatever. (I know I do) I agree. I also don't think most employees use their company's email to contact terrorist organizations, to brag to their friends about stealing company property or embezzling funds, or any such non-sense. There are however data-retention laws with regards to company email, so these emails can and should be available if such things do occur (given a court order and a search warrant). It is ironic however that these emails are often not available by the most powerful offices in government (like the White House) because the people in charge always end up accidentally deleting their backups, etc.
I personally never use company email or phones for personal business. Many companies claim that using their free company phones for personal use is OK, but they have a disclaimer on these phones that their conversations will be monitored. Why somebody would want to know that I'm calling my girlfriend to pick me up I do not know, nor do I really care; I just use the public pay phones instead because my privacy is more important then giving some HR person the satisfaction of listening in on my phone calls.
I suppose company's may be concerned that employee's may be "abusing" their privileges (waisting too much time on personal matters), but that is really a sorry excuse. If HR or any supervisor does not notice a lack of productivity coming from an employee, then these supervisors and bean-counters are not doing their job. Monitoring email to gage productivity is a round-about and inefficient way of doing one's supervising. It is also morally dubious. Yes company's may have the right to be morally dubious, but that doesn't mean they should. I question the efficiency and morality of these practices.
I do however like the more open approach of your company (where it seems that just about anybody can read anybody else's email), it sounds rather Stallman-like (as in RSM) in the sense that he was against password protecting accounts, etc.
"The reason we put UAC into the (Vista) platform was to annoy users--I'm serious". Aside from believing that this person (David Cross) is a psychopath, I can't help but to believe this is just a rhetorical statement. Poor communication skills != psychopathic tendencies. The fact that UAC can be easily turned off suggests that, if his mission was to annoy users then he failed badly (for this very reason).
The media aren't exploiting it. You undermine the marketing potential (for the media and its articles that it can "sell" to the public).
First off; granted that I was ranting a bit. Sometimes I get that way. My apologies. My moodiness combined with my sometimes obsessive/compulsive nature is perhaps to blame.
In short, I don't believe you at all when you say that it is easy to package a single executable for use in the Windows environment. I did not say it is easy to package a single executable. My claim is that you don't need to package anything; whether it be a single executable or a rather large program with many files to it (dll, databases, etc). Packaging a program can make program installation and setup easier for the end user however. In terms of the Microsoft MSI packaging system it can also make a program easier to maintain. Packaging is certainly the primary means of setting up software on Windows systems, and IMHO Microsoft products seem to have the most convoluted packaging, which I presume you have gotten much of your experience from.
The appeal-for-authority logical fallacy doesn't help either, because it shows a bias AND isn't even that authoritative. An appeal to authority was not intended. From wikipedia; "On the other hand, there is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true". My intent was to demonstrate that I have created programs without installer packages, and some relatively large programs (in a formal educational environment). I suppose this matter (appeal-to-authority that is) can be debated, but the intent was not there. Perhaps I should have worded that better. In fact throughout my entire IT schooling (of which programming was a large part) we were never even taught about installers (not that I can remember).
If you're trying to convince people... I'm not trying to convince anybody. And no I did not get A+'s for run-on sentences. In fact I never used run-on sentences in any of my essays, nor in my oral presentations. I am wondering why you would imply this... uhm, no matter... I think I know; you are LEET.
If i had a dime for every time i was modded up when I was WRONG I'd probably have $50. Seriously; maybe you should get a life. Mods are cool for me to see; it's nice to see people think you are Insightful. If you fake it, then who cares?... you don't get pay raises or bonuses; you only get a shallow ego boost. If your hobby is promoting your own shallowness, then maybe you should get a new hobby. Nobody really cares in the end. Do something more productive with your spare time.
umm, are you here for/from damage control? In some ways I wish I were. Most often when I did call centre tech support supervisors with foreign accents would complain about my English skills (I'm NOT kidding). It's ironic because on IQ tests (I score in the 98th percentile in language skills) and on essays and exams marked by people who have doctorate degrees in English literature, etc... I have always gotten A+'s.
So nope, I really doubt if I would succeed in a company like Microsoft. Quite frankly most interviews I get with Human Resource Professionals and Recruiters I observe bad grammar, like for example; HR types asking about my verbal abilities when they really mean my oral abilities. I see the same shit with technical questions asked by Managers. People have bad assumptions and knowledge, and if you don't speak on their same level (however condescending that may appear) they will assume you are stupid.
As somebody posted in a previous article "Gartner Analysts Warn That Windows Is Collapsing"; UAC would be more worthwhile if it was more Linux-like (had password authentication as oppossed to Allow-Deny options). It's a step in the right direction IMHO. I don't think M$ designed this for ill effects:) In the long run I think it is good to "force" or persuade developers to get on the bandwagon. Security is always difficult; windows has traditionally had poor security. Let there be a "learning curve". In the long run I think it's worth a bit of inconvenience.
Microsoft has always been traditionally lax on security to make things easier for users, now that M$ is making security a priority people are bitching. No shit, and not surprising. Give M$ Kudos for going in the right direction.
No they didn't design UAC to annoy users. This was a crass statement made by a Microsoft employee. No company would design something to annoy users. This was a poor use of self-deprecating rhetoric that will be exploited to the extreme. It's a dumb statement for a Microsoftie to make, and really dumb for the media to exploit.
Only, if there's no real benefit to actually changing Windows versions, why not just wipe and reinstall with the version of Windows that you already have?
Because Vista is so cool? (...ducks..)
Maybe if you had a real understanding of operating systems you could give a better answer. Graduate degree students with jobs do NOT impress slashdotters. You have to prove yourself to be intelligent.
The intent was that 2 year old hardware ought to be able to run XP just fine, not that a 2 year old install of XP ought to run just fine. Nope. The idea is that stewbacca speaks in generalizations (you follow his posts?)... He's trying to make himself look good.
YOU, I was actually going to comment on (but deleted the comment because just complementing somebody I thought was inappropriate). I was, however, going to compliment you on your excellent tech support (that you talked about in your previous post). YOU I believe speak from honesty and sincerity; stewbacaa I believe talks through arrogance and wishfullness (meaning' "I wanna sound intelligent").
For what it matters I have an IT education and a Social Sciences education (if formal education really matters). If it matters then take it as is. My opinion is that stewbacca is an asshat who just wants to prove himself on slashdot (and is failing). At any rate, I'm being unusually personal here (and probably should take more time to think before I post... but if I do that I probably wouldn't post).
I was just looking over my posts (and replys etc), and randomly decided to check out your slashdot home page just now.
You claim:
Part-time musician (drums), full time Instrucional Designer for software company. Enjoy arguing with ultra-conservative family members and co-workers, exercise, cars, sports, music and video games.
M.A. Education/Curriculum & Instruction/Computer Education, B.A. German. Military Veteran.
Instructional System Designer since 1999, specializing in Interactive Multimedia Instruction and Software Simulation. Mac user since 1988, Windows user since Win95, Unix Sysadmin since 1998. My first impression on reading this is to assume you are a liar. My second response is just simply to be offended that you have a job in IT (something which I never really had except for lame ass call centre work. Your ignorance and arrogance combined with your positions (if you are honest) offend me to the extreme.
Slashdot Mirror
DNA evidence (by itself) cannot be used to absolutely prove a person to be guilty. DNA evidence can however (with more likelihood) prove a person to be innocent (no matching DNA means no evidence).
That would be the most fair, because it would not limit this data collection to those falsely accused of a crime (like child abuse or terroristic threats, or those victims of griefers who write threatening things on the back of deposit slips, etc).
And let's not forget about the Internet and the NSA and the phone companies. It's no secret they are tracking our online activities. There's no need for cookies; deep packet inspection and profiling online behavior and environment variables are all just part of the game.
I can imagine when ankle bracelets with tracking devices will be put on people who are merely arrested. With new laws being created every year, there is more likelihood of a person doing something criminal. It makes sense to be pro-active when it comes to crime; even thought-crime. Blogs and (I'm sure Slashdot user's [through their postings]) are being profiled by the government. Like the saying goes; if you don't have anything to hide, then there is nothing to worry about.
It's a strange new world.
This is fairly common knowledge to me (from just watching the news, etc, but I dug up a reference: http://www.fff.org/freedom/1093c.asp. Since drug/narcotics laws are federal, I would presume a lot of innocent people will not only have their property confiscated, but their finger prints and DNA put permanently on file. And there is racial profiling (however official that may be); like being black and driving a legally owned but expensive car, or just being of Middle Eastern descent can also make you a target for police (I wonder how many people whose first name is Mohamed are on a no-fly list).
I think in general (with this opinion and others, we have very similar views.) As I've already told Moridineas; I think you get my point, but it's not so much an issue as "Information wants to be free", as it is an issue with openness and trust, especially with people that you work most intimately with. Granted I am talking about an ideal which may not always be practical. In this regard, ideals may not always be practical, but they are always something (for me at least) to strive towards.
Best regards,
UTW
...the secretary who gets weather alerts and school closing delays sent to her email so she can go get little johnny from school Again, how many hours a day does she spend reading whether reports, and how significant is this? In this regard I think a lot of companies would probably encourage this type of behaviour because it shows a concern for one's children. Some companies do understand that people have lives outside of work, and they try to accommodate. The problem is that many people (still) seem to think that you should disregard your families and treat your job as an all-encompassing religion.I think you get my point, but it's not so much an issue as "Information wants to be free", as it is an issue with openness and trust, especially with people that you work most intimately with. Granted I am talking about an ideal which may not always be practical.
Best regards,
UTW
The last job I quit my manager took me out to lunch (a rarity indeed!), and I explained to him that people are not inherently lazy (as he seemed to believe). People want to succeed; they just need the Leadership. Their is no Leadership in spying on your employees; their is just cynicism in this behaviour.
In regards to the RSM comment: Against password protecting accounts? What does he plan to use, skeleton keys? He found it very cynical that people would lockout others from their accounts, and so he showed that he could crack them. The idea being that people (in a close-knit university environment at least) should be open and should not have anything to hide; and so I apply this example to the business world.
At least from the perspective of the user.
Didn't it ever occur to MS? Ask anyone who ever worked in 1st level support for longer than a month, and he would have told you that! Well, it's a bit of a late reply (for slashdot), but I thought you may be interested.
Funny thing is, is that I did work as a 1st level tech support for longer than a month, and I happened to have worked on the Vista campaign from its initial launch. I'm not there anymore (M$ closed down a lot of their call centres for lack of demand). I can't remember UAC being an issue, or at least not an overbearing issue. In fact I had the impression that most folks who initially bought Vista were already quite familiar with it (like business people and techie types). There were a lot of compatibility issues (the Mac itunes issue came to mind, as I remember trouble-shooting that and other media issues before they became well-known in the media). From my impression much of the issues were drivers and software that just weren't compatible with Vista, and yes M$ does go out of its way to educate and help software developers make their software compatible. I'm no M$-fanboy, but I do think my experiences dealing with M$ first hand gives me a unique perspective. That being said, from the customer service side of things (when dealing with both "Partners" and retail customers), I have had the impression that M$ does listen and they do try to accommodate more than other companies (I've done first level support for quite a few large companies, and in my opinion M$ is one of the best in regards to how much they attempt to accommodate the customer).
Vista does have its problems, but as the person who posted the original comment to which so many people are replying, I must say that this person (David Cross) is speaking through his ass, and does not represent the opinions of anybody in Microsoft.
Best regards,
UTW
I personally never use company email or phones for personal business. Many companies claim that using their free company phones for personal use is OK, but they have a disclaimer on these phones that their conversations will be monitored. Why somebody would want to know that I'm calling my girlfriend to pick me up I do not know, nor do I really care; I just use the public pay phones instead because my privacy is more important then giving some HR person the satisfaction of listening in on my phone calls.
I suppose company's may be concerned that employee's may be "abusing" their privileges (waisting too much time on personal matters), but that is really a sorry excuse. If HR or any supervisor does not notice a lack of productivity coming from an employee, then these supervisors and bean-counters are not doing their job. Monitoring email to gage productivity is a round-about and inefficient way of doing one's supervising. It is also morally dubious. Yes company's may have the right to be morally dubious, but that doesn't mean they should. I question the efficiency and morality of these practices.
I do however like the more open approach of your company (where it seems that just about anybody can read anybody else's email), it sounds rather Stallman-like (as in RSM) in the sense that he was against password protecting accounts, etc.
Best regards,
UTW
One last comment. Are you a Human Resources Professional? ... Your comments are trollish like I would expect from such types. You are sad and pathetic.
And, AC, tell me which part of my sentence(s) you consider "incoherent". If you can't understand simple English then I will try to help you.
You, Sir, are a Prick.
Damn. You've got me
So nope, I really doubt if I would succeed in a company like Microsoft. Quite frankly most interviews I get with Human Resource Professionals and Recruiters I observe bad grammar, like for example; HR types asking about my verbal abilities when they really mean my oral abilities. I see the same shit with technical questions asked by Managers. People have bad assumptions and knowledge, and if you don't speak on their same level (however condescending that may appear) they will assume you are stupid.
As somebody posted in a previous article "Gartner Analysts Warn That Windows Is Collapsing"; UAC would be more worthwhile if it was more Linux-like (had password authentication as oppossed to Allow-Deny options). It's a step in the right direction IMHO. I don't think M$ designed this for ill effects :) In the long run I think it is good to "force" or persuade developers to get on the bandwagon. Security is always difficult; windows has traditionally had poor security. Let there be a "learning curve". In the long run I think it's worth a bit of inconvenience.
Microsoft has always been traditionally lax on security to make things easier for users, now that M$ is making security a priority people are bitching. No shit, and not surprising. Give M$ Kudos for going in the right direction.
No they didn't design UAC to annoy users. This was a crass statement made by a Microsoft employee. No company would design something to annoy users. This was a poor use of self-deprecating rhetoric that will be exploited to the extreme. It's a dumb statement for a Microsoftie to make, and really dumb for the media to exploit.
"Stupid is as stupid does", somebody once said.
Maybe if you had a real understanding of operating systems you could give a better answer. Graduate degree students with jobs do NOT impress slashdotters. You have to prove yourself to be intelligent.
The intent was that 2 year old hardware ought to be able to run XP just fine, not that a 2 year old install of XP ought to run just fine. Nope. The idea is that stewbacca speaks in generalizations (you follow his posts?)... He's trying to make himself look good.
YOU, I was actually going to comment on (but deleted the comment because just complementing somebody I thought was inappropriate). I was, however, going to compliment you on your excellent tech support (that you talked about in your previous post). YOU I believe speak from honesty and sincerity; stewbacaa I believe talks through arrogance and wishfullness (meaning' "I wanna sound intelligent").
For what it matters I have an IT education and a Social Sciences education (if formal education really matters). If it matters then take it as is. My opinion is that stewbacca is an asshat who just wants to prove himself on slashdot (and is failing). At any rate, I'm being unusually personal here (and probably should take more time to think before I post... but if I do that I probably wouldn't post).
Best regards,
UTW
You claim: Part-time musician (drums), full time Instrucional Designer for software company. Enjoy arguing with ultra-conservative family members and co-workers, exercise, cars, sports, music and video games.
M.A. Education/Curriculum & Instruction/Computer Education, B.A. German. Military Veteran.
Instructional System Designer since 1999, specializing in Interactive Multimedia Instruction and Software Simulation. Mac user since 1988, Windows user since Win95, Unix Sysadmin since 1998. My first impression on reading this is to assume you are a liar. My second response is just simply to be offended that you have a job in IT (something which I never really had except for lame ass call centre work. Your ignorance and arrogance combined with your positions (if you are honest) offend me to the extreme.