If you upload something to Facebook, assume anyone can see it. Whether it's a genuine hack, somebody figuring out your password, or leaving a computer logged in while you go grab coffee, somebody will at some point have access to everything, so don't upload it in the first place. It's that simple.
That means don't complain profusely about your boss every day, don't send explicit messages to you lover, and certainly don't use Facebook to archive those pictures of that wild bachelor party.
From my perspective, they played very little part. The signs of digital's dominance have been around for a decade, at least..
Real, trained, professional photographers adopted digital photography as early as 2000. It meant they could take hundreds of pictures of an event, with practically no overhead cost. An assistant could pick out the few not-terrible shots, and they would be sent to the traditional lab (or a minilab) for printing.
The first megapixel cameras were still slower than film cameras, so a good photographer going to an event (such as a wedding) would have a digital camera on hand for routine use (like taking pictures of the bridal party, preparations, and decorations), but still keep a film camera loaded and ready for moments of action (like exchanging rings), hoping for that perfect shot when something spectacular happens (like when the groom goes diving for the falling ring).
Photography (when done well) is a fast-paced and high-risk business. If a wedding photographer misses some special moment because they were reloading a camera, they can and do get sued. When digital became even remotely practical (several thousand dollars for a 2-megapixel DSLR), professionals jumped at the opportunity.
That improvement didn't come without its own problems, though. Many labs couldn't handle the differences in workflows, and that drove up their prices. Now, lab prices aren't very high compared to photographers' rates (about $10 for an 8x10 with finishing coat and manual retouching (which will be the comparison henceforth), compared to the $20-$50 that the photographer will likely charge), but the lack of integration also meant that orders often were lost, delayed, or damaged, and storing several gigabytes of pictures (at $10/GB) for each event was impractical for a small studio. As workflows, cameras, and hard disks improved, film became less important as a fallback, and digital was very clearly the future.
The next major change came in minilabs. I've mentioned them in passing already, but they deserve more discussion. As also mentioned, a full professional lab could produce an 8x10 for $10. That involves having several people preparing the film (or disk), moving it between chemical processors (or workstations), darkrooms, and printers, sitting at desks painting the white spots where dust prevented the paper from being exposed, spraying the print with any of several finishes, and eventually packaging the whole thing for shipping. A professional lab could easily fill a 30,000 square foot building. A minilab does the same job in a 60 cubic foot space. It's what you'll see in the back of a Wal-mart or pharmacy photo department now, but back in 2000 their quality was still catching up to the full capabilities of a professional lab. It cost about $0.65 for that same 8x10.
The "photogs" I see now are working in a different sort of industry. Sure, they can press a shutter button and arrange a decent shot, but I often question their ability to anticipate the "Kodak moments" than make photo albums entertaining. Many will take pictures, and provide the digital copies, but don't understand how artistic retouching and finishes can improve an effect. Sure, there's a lot of 'em, but I don't see them as being major players in the professional supply industry. There's enough "real" photographers out there that trends are still obvious.
For comparison, consider the differences between the bona fide audio engineering industry (where digital mixers and cheap-but-unique equipment reigns supreme, and professionals can artistically combine processors to achieve a particular desired sound) and the audiophile-supply industry (where noisy analog processors, vinyl, and high-purity copper digital cables are believed to sound "better" by being highly distorted).
Source: I used to work for a lab that was one of the first to integrate a complete digital ordering system (including a minilab, ironically) into their workflow. Said lab was eventually driven out of business in 2007 as minilab quality and prices drastically cut down the number of customers.
The descriptive URLs are also more useful for situations where you might be seeing the URL on its own, such as in a message from a friend. A message saying "go check out story 2225202 on Slashdot" is unlikely to get someone's attention, but an address mentioning a specific issue might. In a link to an article on an unknown blog, descriptive words can inspire enough confidence to view the article, rather than lead to the expectation that the mess of numbers to be an obfuscation hiding our dear friend Goatse.
The trend may indeed have its roots in SEO, but I, for one, like it.
If it isn't GPL-licensed and built by a collective herd of protesting armchair engineers, it must be a tool by corporate government cronies to invade our privacy and steal the vital details of how often we wash behind our ears.
I tried to understand the utter insanity written there, but I can't move past one line in particular:
I would like to know how you are privy to the inflation rate! The inflation rate I'm talking about is the original definition of the term...
Finding the current inflation rate is a complicated procedure. Apparently we can sidestep all of that by picking an obsolete definition for inflation, which doesn't account for the effects of using debt as currency.
This should prove entertaining indeed, but in the interest of maintaining my sanity, we'll review only a few more key details:
A partial audit of the FED has indicated that very recently they have over $15,000,000,000,000.00 of cash dispensing that they were keeping secret. This is a astronomical amount.
Yes it is, and yet it's inconsequential at the same time. The oft-quoted $16-trillion figure comes from page 131 of the GAO audit report, which is explained on page 130:
For example, an overnight PDCF loan of $10 billion that was renewed daily at the same level for 30 business days would result in an aggregate amount borrowed of $300 billion although the institution, in effect, borrowed only $10 billion over 30 days. In contrast, a TAF loan of $10 billion extended over a 1-month
period would appear as $10 billion.
Looking at the actual balances of money loaned out, the peaks of all loan programs totals only about $2.5 trillion, with only about $1 trillion outstanding as of June of 2011 ($900 billion of which is in long-term investments). Notably, all of that "secret" $16 trillion was paid back except for $13 billion (which the report doesn't appear to mention how long its term is). Again, no actual wealth was created. Equal amounts of money and debt were added to the economy, and annihilated shortly thereafter, which is one of the primary raisons d'être of the Federal Reserve Bank.
Nothing grinds to a halt.
Under long-term periods of high inflation (and I mean inflation by the modern, useful definition), yes it can. Saved money loses its purchasing power, so people are less inclined to save. As prices continue to rise, salary increases usually lag well behind the curve, meaning that more of the population are unable to afford the increased cost of living.
...And after that we're back to the ramblings about freezing assets, a secret group of people who can magically steal wealth from others, and utter ignorance the economic importance of the automotive companies. Such a lovely day on Slashdot.
That's actually one of the examples I like to use, usually when talking with physicists.
A major part of the current financial crisis was caused by large-scale annihilation. Banks foreclosed loans that weren't being paid back, taking a huge amount of debt and money out of the economy. The public at large saw the loss of money (but not the loss of debt), and panicked about disappearing wealth, so the public stopped spending (thereby moving) money.
The economy now needs to get moving again, and that means having more debt and money. Banks don't want to make anywhere near as many loans, though, so the equivalent money can't be introduced. That's one of the main reasons why the Federal Reserve Bank interest rate is now lower than the inflation rate: to encourage banks to make loans, and introduce money into the economy. With a low interest rate from the Fed, it's more likely that a loan would be profitable for a bank.
Now add up all of the debt liabilities of the customers, and see that it also equals that same higher amount. Again, there's no actual money created that's not countered by debt.
persuasive arguments, endorsed by displays of public support
I do not discount the existence of successful uprisings in history without written essays, nor do I think that such cultural changes would have happened without the mass support of the public. I do, however, question whether rampant disruption aimed vaguely in the direction of some perceived evil target will be effective as a means of change.
As you pointed out, the Hellenistic era was led by Alexander the Great, supported by his armies.
During the early French Revolution, a man by the name of Abbé Sieyès proposed the idea of transforming the French people's government representation from a minor gesture of courtesy into a major power. Eventually, he went on to fill a role much as Thomas Jefferson did in the United States' founding, writing documents to frame the new government.
The Russian Revolution was the closest example yet discussed to a leaderless revolution, but there were many voices actively promoting the major events. Of particular note is Alexander Guchkov, who promoted the idea of overthrowing the Tsar. Another major voice pushing for revolution was the Tsar himself, who was so blinded by arrogance that he made no effort to appease the population, but rather appeared to try to enrage them.
The point is that major cultural changes are usually aimed at a specific goal, whether it be conquering a continent, gaining representation, or removing arrogance from power. Regardless of what that goal is, it must be defined, and the best way to do that is with a clear voice stating what the chaos is for, and how the plan will progress.
If the inflation rate is 3% per month and I'm able to secure a 30 year loan from the federal reserve at 0% interest, is the federal reserve not in effect GIVING me free wealth?
If you received (for example) $10,000 from the Federal Reserve Bank with no interest, you would still owe $10,000 in 30 years, which with 3% per month inflation, will be worth about what $0.23 is worth today. The original $10,000, if you were to invest it such that it would bring returns equal only to inflation, would eventually be $400 billion, which would be worth what $10,000 is today.
The biggest effect of such inflation is that people whose investments didn't meet or exceed inflation now have worthless savings. That means retirement savings, business investments, and many other facets of daily economic life all grind to a halt, because the person (or company) saving can't get money fast enough to compensate for the loss of purchasing power their money has.
Fortunately, the Fed doesn't work that way. It usually charges an interest rate (called the discount rate) that is, on average, equal to the rate of inflation (which is about 3% per year) on each loan it gives out. That interest rate effectively controls the money (and debt) supply in the United States economy. Money(increased with a low interest rate) allows people to handle short-term business. Debt (increased with a high interest rate) minimizes inflation as people save to meet future needs. The goal of the Federal Open Market Committee (which sets this interest rate) is to ensure that both needs are met.
The Fed does not give wealth to anybody. It provides a buffer in the amount of money available to the public, to keep money available even during a recession.
Charity income is normally tied closely to how much income "regular people" have. With regular people losing money, charities will lose money too. I don't see them coming out ahead at all.
The only outcomes from this will be that the banks get some money from the fees associated with the initial transfers and the chargebacks, a bunch of immature Anonymous fans get to think they're doing something good, and the executives and spokespeople who actually know what's going on will complain more about Anonymous, fueling conspiracy theories everywhere.
Anonymous is making the situation worse, as usual.
No, you really can't. However, certain institutions (the Federal Reserve Bank and other equivalents) can effectively create cash by creating an equal amount of debt, which works much like cash but with a negative value. Then that institution can issue both the cash and the debt to a bank, effectively giving a value of zero. If a bank wants to lend out the new cash it just received, it's still stuck with the equivalent amount of debt to pay back at some point. The bank could make arrangements with other banks to pay back the debt for them, and raise fees to cover the debt, but the debt still exists. There is no non-existent cash, and there is no free money, either.
This is Anonymous we're talking about. The same group of pissed-off adolescent-minded individuals who think it's perfectly reasonable to kill the livelihood of thousands of online retailers because MasterCard and PayPal didn't want to risk dealing with WikiLeaks.
The kind of people who participate in Anonymous's activities don't often care about silly things like "consequences". They care about making news, so they can feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. They want the good feeling of doing something to improve the world, without any of the hassle involved in actually contributing to improving society.
Sometime over the past few decades, people have forgotten that major cultural changes were preceded by essays, speeches, and persuasive arguments, endorsed by displays of public support. Now, "protesting" has turned into an orgy of destruction and disruption, in the hopes of extorting change.
Okay. We'll assign the cryptography and data recovery backgrounds to making a time machine, and when they're done we'll send back the water control agents to yesterday to work on curing cancer. The biologists will be sent to look for kidnapped kids.
Unless something goes catastrophically wrong, such as a fire in the control building, in which case the pumps (which must still operate) will need to be controlled remotely. Even during routine operation, the control system is likely connected to a monitoring network of some kind, to make sure things run smoothly.
That means either wiring up a physically-isolated network (and constantly checking it for unauthorized alterations), which is ridiculously expensive, or connecting to the public network physically, and relying on software to keep it secure. Given that this system is probably a few decades old, and probably installed by the lowest bidder, you can make some reasonably-depressing assumptions about how secure that software is.
The FBI (or rather, a group of people from it) is investigating a small problem, because it looks like the kind of small problem that can become a big problem later. Perhaps it's now a local water pump in Illinois, but next time it will be a coolant pump at a power plant. Logs from this incident may provide more information about an attack that the "real deal", if this is a practice intrusion.
Given that the investigators knowledgeable about water control systems aren't likely to be the investigators knowledgeable about risk-management accounting, human trafficking, civil rights politics, or the latest tactics for successfully negotiating with irrational group-thinking mobs, I think it's perfectly reasonable that they spend their time doing what they know. The federal officials aren't universally-adaptable masters of all things investigative. Each person has a particular set of skills, so it makes sense that they be split up doing many different things.
So let me get this straight... If a workstation is compromised, it's cleaned, but there's no need to bother reimaging. If a server is compromised, and data is lost/damaged, it doesn't matter because it was already the admin's job to fix it, so it doesn't cost anything? And the lost productivity due to countless meetings to review doesn't cost anything? And the projects that get delayed don't cost anything, regardless of being under contracts? And the resulting investigation, likely involving travel to foreign countries, doesn't cost anything?
I take it you've never actually worked on a high-security system. Here's what I remember of the procedure at the last high-security place I worked:
In the event that a machine (including a gateway) is compromised, any machine it can access is considered threatened, and must be thoroughly checked. No, NAT does not help, because once someone has control over the bridge, they can send data to any machine they want, even those without an external IP address. If any router, switch, or machine shows any slightly-suspicious activity (even as benign as an unscheduled database login), that machine gets an even more thorough examination to find out whether the activity was actually related to the hack, and what resources the hacker may have gained access to. If there's any indication that the hacker had shell access or retrieved data, the machine is considered compromised. If the machine stored any sensitive data, that data is reviewed to see if it could allow access to other systems (such as challenge questions & answers for resetting passwords). This investigation, which often involves the use of outside consultants (because there may have been inside help) continues throughout the whole network until the full extent of the breach is known. Being a government agency, the breach will likely involve a several-hundred-page report covering every detail. Somebody has to write that.
The cost is already in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and only then can the repairs start. It's often not as simple as just restoring a backup, either. Sure, the operating system can usually be done quickly (including fixes for the responsible security holes), but if there's any indication of data being touched (which, in this case, there was), that has to be addressed, too. Backups are usually old. In an ideal world we'd be making hourly backups stored offsite in an everything-proof vault, but that's never really the case. If an admin's lucky, he has a backup that's less than a week old - or it was when the breach occurred. Somehow (best described as "magically"), the admin has to figure out what changes were intentional (like experiment results, or customer orders, or whatever) and what was the result of the breach, then piece together the data to get something reasonably complete and up-to-date. Finally, after days, weeks, or months of reconstruction (most vital systems first, of course), the system is declared clean. Until then, projects get postponed, and other employees are being paid to play solitaire until their real work can continue.
Then there's the "let's not do this again" phase, where employees change passwords, get lectured on security practices, sit through seminars on how to properly encrypt data, and so forth, all of which costs even more money. There's probably still an ongoing investigation as to whether anyone inside the organization helped the hacker, likely being run by consultants.
Then there's the damages caused by any delays, which may involve contractual obligations. That's more money.
It's not as simple as just re-imaging and assuming that everything's fine. Sure, that works on workstations, but it's unlikely that a workstation was all that was damaged. Once a server gets touched, the costs rise dramatically.
Reinstalling and reconfiguring every system the hacker may have touched is impractical, and would take far more time than NASA can spare. Calling in auditors to make sure there were no rootkits, backdoors, or other bad stuff on any other systems is expensive. Deleting the results (and backups) of the latest experiments means months or years of work has to be redone.
$500,000 actually strikes me as a pretty reasonable estimate.
Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.
You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.
You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.
At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.
By actively building recognition of the mark, to avoid it becoming generic. Don't just advertise for Quiggle. Advertise for Quiggle-brand widgets, from the makers of Foobar.
Your trademark being used by someone else doesn't really matter, until you object to it. Once you have a dispute, your opponent will try to show that your trademark isn't really unique to you, and you've done little to try to keep it unique. They'll gather a lot of little things, like similar domain names you didn't register, old advertisements where you didn't emphasize the mark as a brand, and stock photos that show your mark without your authorization. It all builds up to show that your mark is now just a synonym with the type of product, rather than the brand.
Slashdot Mirror
If you upload something to Facebook, assume anyone can see it. Whether it's a genuine hack, somebody figuring out your password, or leaving a computer logged in while you go grab coffee, somebody will at some point have access to everything, so don't upload it in the first place. It's that simple.
That means don't complain profusely about your boss every day, don't send explicit messages to you lover, and certainly don't use Facebook to archive those pictures of that wild bachelor party.
From my perspective, they played very little part. The signs of digital's dominance have been around for a decade, at least..
Real, trained, professional photographers adopted digital photography as early as 2000. It meant they could take hundreds of pictures of an event, with practically no overhead cost. An assistant could pick out the few not-terrible shots, and they would be sent to the traditional lab (or a minilab) for printing.
The first megapixel cameras were still slower than film cameras, so a good photographer going to an event (such as a wedding) would have a digital camera on hand for routine use (like taking pictures of the bridal party, preparations, and decorations), but still keep a film camera loaded and ready for moments of action (like exchanging rings), hoping for that perfect shot when something spectacular happens (like when the groom goes diving for the falling ring).
Photography (when done well) is a fast-paced and high-risk business. If a wedding photographer misses some special moment because they were reloading a camera, they can and do get sued. When digital became even remotely practical (several thousand dollars for a 2-megapixel DSLR), professionals jumped at the opportunity.
That improvement didn't come without its own problems, though. Many labs couldn't handle the differences in workflows, and that drove up their prices. Now, lab prices aren't very high compared to photographers' rates (about $10 for an 8x10 with finishing coat and manual retouching (which will be the comparison henceforth), compared to the $20-$50 that the photographer will likely charge), but the lack of integration also meant that orders often were lost, delayed, or damaged, and storing several gigabytes of pictures (at $10/GB) for each event was impractical for a small studio. As workflows, cameras, and hard disks improved, film became less important as a fallback, and digital was very clearly the future.
The next major change came in minilabs. I've mentioned them in passing already, but they deserve more discussion. As also mentioned, a full professional lab could produce an 8x10 for $10. That involves having several people preparing the film (or disk), moving it between chemical processors (or workstations), darkrooms, and printers, sitting at desks painting the white spots where dust prevented the paper from being exposed, spraying the print with any of several finishes, and eventually packaging the whole thing for shipping. A professional lab could easily fill a 30,000 square foot building. A minilab does the same job in a 60 cubic foot space. It's what you'll see in the back of a Wal-mart or pharmacy photo department now, but back in 2000 their quality was still catching up to the full capabilities of a professional lab. It cost about $0.65 for that same 8x10.
The "photogs" I see now are working in a different sort of industry. Sure, they can press a shutter button and arrange a decent shot, but I often question their ability to anticipate the "Kodak moments" than make photo albums entertaining. Many will take pictures, and provide the digital copies, but don't understand how artistic retouching and finishes can improve an effect. Sure, there's a lot of 'em, but I don't see them as being major players in the professional supply industry. There's enough "real" photographers out there that trends are still obvious.
For comparison, consider the differences between the bona fide audio engineering industry (where digital mixers and cheap-but-unique equipment reigns supreme, and professionals can artistically combine processors to achieve a particular desired sound) and the audiophile-supply industry (where noisy analog processors, vinyl, and high-purity copper digital cables are believed to sound "better" by being highly distorted).
Source: I used to work for a lab that was one of the first to integrate a complete digital ordering system (including a minilab, ironically) into their workflow. Said lab was eventually driven out of business in 2007 as minilab quality and prices drastically cut down the number of customers.
The descriptive URLs are also more useful for situations where you might be seeing the URL on its own, such as in a message from a friend. A message saying "go check out story 2225202 on Slashdot" is unlikely to get someone's attention, but an address mentioning a specific issue might. In a link to an article on an unknown blog, descriptive words can inspire enough confidence to view the article, rather than lead to the expectation that the mess of numbers to be an obfuscation hiding our dear friend Goatse.
The trend may indeed have its roots in SEO, but I, for one, like it.
If it isn't GPL-licensed and built by a collective herd of protesting armchair engineers, it must be a tool by corporate government cronies to invade our privacy and steal the vital details of how often we wash behind our ears.
That was sarcasm.
Wow.
I tried to understand the utter insanity written there, but I can't move past one line in particular:
I would like to know how you are privy to the inflation rate! The inflation rate I'm talking about is the original definition of the term...
Finding the current inflation rate is a complicated procedure. Apparently we can sidestep all of that by picking an obsolete definition for inflation, which doesn't account for the effects of using debt as currency.
This should prove entertaining indeed, but in the interest of maintaining my sanity, we'll review only a few more key details:
A partial audit of the FED has indicated that very recently they have over $15,000,000,000,000.00 of cash dispensing that they were keeping secret. This is a astronomical amount.
Yes it is, and yet it's inconsequential at the same time. The oft-quoted $16-trillion figure comes from page 131 of the GAO audit report, which is explained on page 130:
For example, an overnight PDCF loan of $10 billion that was renewed daily at the same level for 30 business days would result in an aggregate amount borrowed of $300 billion although the institution, in effect, borrowed only $10 billion over 30 days. In contrast, a TAF loan of $10 billion extended over a 1-month period would appear as $10 billion.
Looking at the actual balances of money loaned out, the peaks of all loan programs totals only about $2.5 trillion, with only about $1 trillion outstanding as of June of 2011 ($900 billion of which is in long-term investments). Notably, all of that "secret" $16 trillion was paid back except for $13 billion (which the report doesn't appear to mention how long its term is). Again, no actual wealth was created. Equal amounts of money and debt were added to the economy, and annihilated shortly thereafter, which is one of the primary raisons d'être of the Federal Reserve Bank.
Nothing grinds to a halt.
Under long-term periods of high inflation (and I mean inflation by the modern, useful definition), yes it can. Saved money loses its purchasing power, so people are less inclined to save. As prices continue to rise, salary increases usually lag well behind the curve, meaning that more of the population are unable to afford the increased cost of living.
...And after that we're back to the ramblings about freezing assets, a secret group of people who can magically steal wealth from others, and utter ignorance the economic importance of the automotive companies. Such a lovely day on Slashdot.
That's actually one of the examples I like to use, usually when talking with physicists.
A major part of the current financial crisis was caused by large-scale annihilation. Banks foreclosed loans that weren't being paid back, taking a huge amount of debt and money out of the economy. The public at large saw the loss of money (but not the loss of debt), and panicked about disappearing wealth, so the public stopped spending (thereby moving) money.
The economy now needs to get moving again, and that means having more debt and money. Banks don't want to make anywhere near as many loans, though, so the equivalent money can't be introduced. That's one of the main reasons why the Federal Reserve Bank interest rate is now lower than the inflation rate: to encourage banks to make loans, and introduce money into the economy. With a low interest rate from the Fed, it's more likely that a loan would be profitable for a bank.
Now add up all of the debt liabilities of the customers, and see that it also equals that same higher amount. Again, there's no actual money created that's not countered by debt.
I'll be clearer:
persuasive arguments, endorsed by displays of public support
I do not discount the existence of successful uprisings in history without written essays, nor do I think that such cultural changes would have happened without the mass support of the public. I do, however, question whether rampant disruption aimed vaguely in the direction of some perceived evil target will be effective as a means of change.
As you pointed out, the Hellenistic era was led by Alexander the Great, supported by his armies.
During the early French Revolution, a man by the name of Abbé Sieyès proposed the idea of transforming the French people's government representation from a minor gesture of courtesy into a major power. Eventually, he went on to fill a role much as Thomas Jefferson did in the United States' founding, writing documents to frame the new government.
The Russian Revolution was the closest example yet discussed to a leaderless revolution, but there were many voices actively promoting the major events. Of particular note is Alexander Guchkov, who promoted the idea of overthrowing the Tsar. Another major voice pushing for revolution was the Tsar himself, who was so blinded by arrogance that he made no effort to appease the population, but rather appeared to try to enrage them.
The point is that major cultural changes are usually aimed at a specific goal, whether it be conquering a continent, gaining representation, or removing arrogance from power. Regardless of what that goal is, it must be defined, and the best way to do that is with a clear voice stating what the chaos is for, and how the plan will progress.
If the inflation rate is 3% per month and I'm able to secure a 30 year loan from the federal reserve at 0% interest, is the federal reserve not in effect GIVING me free wealth?
If you received (for example) $10,000 from the Federal Reserve Bank with no interest, you would still owe $10,000 in 30 years, which with 3% per month inflation, will be worth about what $0.23 is worth today. The original $10,000, if you were to invest it such that it would bring returns equal only to inflation, would eventually be $400 billion, which would be worth what $10,000 is today.
The biggest effect of such inflation is that people whose investments didn't meet or exceed inflation now have worthless savings. That means retirement savings, business investments, and many other facets of daily economic life all grind to a halt, because the person (or company) saving can't get money fast enough to compensate for the loss of purchasing power their money has.
Fortunately, the Fed doesn't work that way. It usually charges an interest rate (called the discount rate) that is, on average, equal to the rate of inflation (which is about 3% per year) on each loan it gives out. That interest rate effectively controls the money (and debt) supply in the United States economy. Money(increased with a low interest rate) allows people to handle short-term business. Debt (increased with a high interest rate) minimizes inflation as people save to meet future needs. The goal of the Federal Open Market Committee (which sets this interest rate) is to ensure that both needs are met.
The Fed does not give wealth to anybody. It provides a buffer in the amount of money available to the public, to keep money available even during a recession.
Charity income is normally tied closely to how much income "regular people" have. With regular people losing money, charities will lose money too. I don't see them coming out ahead at all.
The only outcomes from this will be that the banks get some money from the fees associated with the initial transfers and the chargebacks, a bunch of immature Anonymous fans get to think they're doing something good, and the executives and spokespeople who actually know what's going on will complain more about Anonymous, fueling conspiracy theories everywhere.
Anonymous is making the situation worse, as usual.
No, you really can't. However, certain institutions (the Federal Reserve Bank and other equivalents) can effectively create cash by creating an equal amount of debt, which works much like cash but with a negative value. Then that institution can issue both the cash and the debt to a bank, effectively giving a value of zero. If a bank wants to lend out the new cash it just received, it's still stuck with the equivalent amount of debt to pay back at some point. The bank could make arrangements with other banks to pay back the debt for them, and raise fees to cover the debt, but the debt still exists. There is no non-existent cash, and there is no free money, either.
This is Anonymous we're talking about. The same group of pissed-off adolescent-minded individuals who think it's perfectly reasonable to kill the livelihood of thousands of online retailers because MasterCard and PayPal didn't want to risk dealing with WikiLeaks.
The kind of people who participate in Anonymous's activities don't often care about silly things like "consequences". They care about making news, so they can feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. They want the good feeling of doing something to improve the world, without any of the hassle involved in actually contributing to improving society.
Sometime over the past few decades, people have forgotten that major cultural changes were preceded by essays, speeches, and persuasive arguments, endorsed by displays of public support. Now, "protesting" has turned into an orgy of destruction and disruption, in the hopes of extorting change.
Okay. We'll assign the cryptography and data recovery backgrounds to making a time machine, and when they're done we'll send back the water control agents to yesterday to work on curing cancer. The biologists will be sent to look for kidnapped kids.
Unless something goes catastrophically wrong, such as a fire in the control building, in which case the pumps (which must still operate) will need to be controlled remotely. Even during routine operation, the control system is likely connected to a monitoring network of some kind, to make sure things run smoothly.
That means either wiring up a physically-isolated network (and constantly checking it for unauthorized alterations), which is ridiculously expensive, or connecting to the public network physically, and relying on software to keep it secure. Given that this system is probably a few decades old, and probably installed by the lowest bidder, you can make some reasonably-depressing assumptions about how secure that software is.
The FBI (or rather, a group of people from it) is investigating a small problem, because it looks like the kind of small problem that can become a big problem later. Perhaps it's now a local water pump in Illinois, but next time it will be a coolant pump at a power plant. Logs from this incident may provide more information about an attack that the "real deal", if this is a practice intrusion.
Given that the investigators knowledgeable about water control systems aren't likely to be the investigators knowledgeable about risk-management accounting, human trafficking, civil rights politics, or the latest tactics for successfully negotiating with irrational group-thinking mobs, I think it's perfectly reasonable that they spend their time doing what they know. The federal officials aren't universally-adaptable masters of all things investigative. Each person has a particular set of skills, so it makes sense that they be split up doing many different things.
Given the existence of this article, I'd say the batteries.
I don't mean to belittle electric cars... just the implied claim that they aren't reality until this magic battery improvement.
(I will respond to further replies in the branch immediately preceding this one)
Given the existence of this article, I'd say the batteries.
I don't mean to belittle electric cars... just the implied claim that they aren't reality until this magic battery improvement.
So let me get this straight... If a workstation is compromised, it's cleaned, but there's no need to bother reimaging. If a server is compromised, and data is lost/damaged, it doesn't matter because it was already the admin's job to fix it, so it doesn't cost anything? And the lost productivity due to countless meetings to review doesn't cost anything? And the projects that get delayed don't cost anything, regardless of being under contracts? And the resulting investigation, likely involving travel to foreign countries, doesn't cost anything?
That is what I call nonsense.
But hey... I guess you know your stuff. After all, banks are very secure.
Gesundheit.
Electric cars are already a reality. They're just expensive and inefficient.
I take it you've never actually worked on a high-security system. Here's what I remember of the procedure at the last high-security place I worked:
In the event that a machine (including a gateway) is compromised, any machine it can access is considered threatened, and must be thoroughly checked. No, NAT does not help, because once someone has control over the bridge, they can send data to any machine they want, even those without an external IP address. If any router, switch, or machine shows any slightly-suspicious activity (even as benign as an unscheduled database login), that machine gets an even more thorough examination to find out whether the activity was actually related to the hack, and what resources the hacker may have gained access to. If there's any indication that the hacker had shell access or retrieved data, the machine is considered compromised. If the machine stored any sensitive data, that data is reviewed to see if it could allow access to other systems (such as challenge questions & answers for resetting passwords). This investigation, which often involves the use of outside consultants (because there may have been inside help) continues throughout the whole network until the full extent of the breach is known. Being a government agency, the breach will likely involve a several-hundred-page report covering every detail. Somebody has to write that.
The cost is already in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and only then can the repairs start. It's often not as simple as just restoring a backup, either. Sure, the operating system can usually be done quickly (including fixes for the responsible security holes), but if there's any indication of data being touched (which, in this case, there was), that has to be addressed, too. Backups are usually old. In an ideal world we'd be making hourly backups stored offsite in an everything-proof vault, but that's never really the case. If an admin's lucky, he has a backup that's less than a week old - or it was when the breach occurred. Somehow (best described as "magically"), the admin has to figure out what changes were intentional (like experiment results, or customer orders, or whatever) and what was the result of the breach, then piece together the data to get something reasonably complete and up-to-date. Finally, after days, weeks, or months of reconstruction (most vital systems first, of course), the system is declared clean. Until then, projects get postponed, and other employees are being paid to play solitaire until their real work can continue.
Then there's the "let's not do this again" phase, where employees change passwords, get lectured on security practices, sit through seminars on how to properly encrypt data, and so forth, all of which costs even more money. There's probably still an ongoing investigation as to whether anyone inside the organization helped the hacker, likely being run by consultants.
Then there's the damages caused by any delays, which may involve contractual obligations. That's more money.
It's not as simple as just re-imaging and assuming that everything's fine. Sure, that works on workstations, but it's unlikely that a workstation was all that was damaged. Once a server gets touched, the costs rise dramatically.
Reinstalling and reconfiguring every system the hacker may have touched is impractical, and would take far more time than NASA can spare. Calling in auditors to make sure there were no rootkits, backdoors, or other bad stuff on any other systems is expensive. Deleting the results (and backups) of the latest experiments means months or years of work has to be redone.
$500,000 actually strikes me as a pretty reasonable estimate.
Ah, Switzerland... The population of New York City, spread across the area of Maryland, where social stratification is hidden by a stigma against looking too rich or looking too poor.
You're missing the other observed evidence of a direct democracy: ancient Athens, where playwrights swayed politics more easily than politicians did.
You're also assuming a requirement of absolute morality, where whatever you want is morally right. In your example, it depends entirely upon what expert visited your home and what your actions are in response to their suggestions are. If an interior decorator came and suggested you change the color scheme of your kitchen, you are certainly free to do so or not, as you like. If the expert is a serial killer suggesting good ways to torture victims, I don't believe you should be allowed to follow his suggestions.
At the level of the United States government, every decision affects millions of people. The simple choice to reject an expert's opinion in favor of a celebrity's (for instance) has consequences far more serious than the color of your dishes. Yes, the expert opinions are wrong on occasion, but I believe that happens less often than the naive and easily-swayed opinions of the ruling mob.
By actively building recognition of the mark, to avoid it becoming generic. Don't just advertise for Quiggle. Advertise for Quiggle-brand widgets, from the makers of Foobar.
Your trademark being used by someone else doesn't really matter, until you object to it. Once you have a dispute, your opponent will try to show that your trademark isn't really unique to you, and you've done little to try to keep it unique. They'll gather a lot of little things, like similar domain names you didn't register, old advertisements where you didn't emphasize the mark as a brand, and stock photos that show your mark without your authorization. It all builds up to show that your mark is now just a synonym with the type of product, rather than the brand.
Only if there's enough money in it.