There are always "stupider questions", believe me.
I agree with the answer however - but would add: keep any "semantics" out of your naming convention, if only as a security precaution - workstation and server names pop up everywhere (look at your average e-mail header), as with SSIDs on wireless routers - they are any easy starting vector for social engineering attacks.
"...We are saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee, and we are awaiting results of the investigations into his death. We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect."
Intimidating staff is a right reserved exclusively by and for Steve Jobs
For all lawyers for Mr Jobs and Apple Computers reading this post, the entire contents are enclosed in invisible "irony" tags
run a stripped down XP installation and run only VirtualPC on that. Then create and run everything you want from a virtual machine and encrypt that VM.
This means you can switch the VM image to another machine or copy it, back it up, etc. - as long as you have the key - but the contents if stolen will be total garbage for the thief who will, as other posters say, probably dump the disk anyway.
I wonder how much this is a cynical marketing and public policy exercise.
A few months ago, the European Commission announced an ambitous programme to the IT industry for European energy conservation targets to be met by 2012 and lo and behold, look who's here preening its feathers?
...just that when any user complains about their batteries overheating or exploding, they are quickly and quietly replaced (the batteries, not the users).
Apple remains the master of news management for different vital organ transplants, but this time it seems that there are simply too many stories out there for even Apple to shut them all down in their customary, efficient, and 1984-style manner.
Why shouldn't they be taken to task, when the only reason it's a closed system to begin with is vendor lock-in purposes?
I don't buy that argument.
You should make a distinction between vendor lock-in by design - where I would share your sentiment - and de facto proprietary solutions coming from suppliers that simply did not factor into their designs the desire or need to conform with open standards.
Apple's core technologies, for example, have always been locked down by design, whereas your average Joe's Acme tool may be as it is simply because Acme took to market a tool with a specific, limited, function set without thinking that there may be an army of people out there eager to add other functionalities.
And, yes, I do believe that there are massive amounts of technology out there that fit that latter category. Not everyone, alas, has interoperability through open standards, as a core design principle.
All very fair points.
My main issue is that proprietary solution providers shouldn't be taken to task by people who want to muck around. Innovation is to be encouraged, of course, but it shouldn't be about cracking open every perfectly functioning closed system. To be fair, the top poster did state that *he* wanted a GPS to be hackable and was not insisting that all GPS's should be.
That'll teach me for blowing off on a lazy Sunday afternoon...
Well, nothing in the world is perfect, no - and I'm happy to work my life around that essential fact rather than bitching or whining to anyone!;-)
Furthermore, it never will be perfectso - just get over it!
I just find it odd and arrogant that IT geeks are the only "class" of person who believe they have some god-given mission to fiddle around. If I don't like my toster, I don't screw around inside until it makes waffles - I go and buy a waffle iron.
Some people just have too much time on their hands, it seems!
In reality the only people who are truly in a position to "do something about it" as you claim, are a self selected class of specialists which - when they have their way - only make the experience more unpredictable and, yes I would say less safe, for ordinary users. And no, an "ordinary user" isn't someone who talks in bash, shell scripts and sysadmin commands.
I appreciate your main point - which is indeed a driving force behind the open source movement - but I do not buy the argument that just because there is a vocal "hobbyist community", everthing should be opened up to satisfy their whims. I'm sure they could find a way to make the D.C. metro signalling system safer and more efficient, but it doesn't mean that the authorities abandon their responsibility and throw open the gates to anyone. Or maybe it should?
Why not also your dishwasher? or the whole fucking car for that matter? Is there something special about something that contains technology and electronics that means hat it must be hackable and at the mercy and preserve of idiots like you? I suppose you'll decline all responsibility and run for cover when your amateur hacking causes a car crash? and would be the first to start bleating when someone else hacked your set, no?
Get a life and apply your talents (if you really have any) to something useful, for pity's sake
I am a Brit, who had the opportunity to work in Vienna for two years with the Government's eIdenity program.
The city is one of the most eco-friendly and pleasant places to live in that I have ever encountered, and I have travelled widely;
You can manage daily life comfortably in English only, although I spoke modest german.
Most importantly, however, for your criteria, it has the most imaginative and progressive identity policy on the planet: where else can you get highly secure, Government-brokered and yet anonymous online digital identity. the "Bürgerkarte" framework is truly revolutionary and leaves the user the choice about where and how to assert their identity online, whilst always protecting anonymity. It is also the only other country apart from Great Britain where thre is no compulsory identity card and where the Government, and Parliament, have consistently refused to introduce biometrics in national passports.
It was impossible to divide by decimals and base10 before the zero was "discovered", thus the division by fractions. Thankfully, we've come a long way since....
While SUN and others were blowing their own trumpets about achieving ISO sttaus for ODF, they continued their own fork development and took it through to an OASIS standard, and then befuddled everyone by claiming their own offering - OpenOffice is "standard compliant", thatis: the OASIS standard.
Microsoft were accused of not supporting the ODF standard - whereas in fact they are the only company to support it - no-one else has produced a purely ISO-standard compliant ODF product, mainly because OASIS ODF 1.1 is better.
People should be really careful about throwing their hats in the air and yelling "hurrah" every time some product claims standards compliance. Ask first:
- which standards organization?
- who else supports it?
- what products implement it?
ISO did itself no favours by the shoddy way in which it fast-tracked and approved both ODF and PDF(A), whereas, to their credit, Microsoft played the game scrupulously and even now refuse to release an OOXML-compliant version of Office until ISO have completed the standardization process.
That's exactly the principle behind some companies' implementations of the ISO 13250 Topic Maps standard: easily accessible and searchable "maps" of your information and relevant relationshps between them, but without access to the information itself. By analogy, I can get a good idea and picture of where people live and organizations are housed but that does not mean that I can access their properties.
This misses an important point.
T-Mobile, a major European mobile phone operator, are - like everyone - passionate about looking after your security and so your connection, password is all https secured. However the password you use to login as a customer is available in clear text to all their employees. When you go to one of their shops with an inquiry they ask you for your password which, on a busy shopping day, means sharing it alound with 20+ other punters.
Luckily (and deliberately) my password for their service was "Mind your own fucking business" - sothere was a moment of semantic disambiguation required after I had replied to the shop assistant's polite, but loud, request.
Online web services should be obliged to declare *how* they manage your personal data - a secure pipe isn't enough if all the personal data is floating around in a near-public barrel at the other end.
Surely the whole point of the capitalist market economy is that something is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it. "Caveat emptor" - up to the client to decide whether they are so anal that they want to know the DNA composition or not - me, I'll settle for Salmon eggs because I'm not interested in the supposed higher quality of Beluga caviar with its price tag. But I will pay more for some oysters if they claim to be better than others - I can't always tell the difference or be sure but "wisdom of crowds" suggest that if too many clients feel scammed or overpriced, the price is going to eb forced down anyway...and dining is too precious to be wasted on such details...
Why this obsession with one standard? One standard to do what? Well presented bullet lists, footnotes and fancy tables? ODF can't cope well. Clearly structured content that is easy to shift in and out of different formats? ODF's strength. The two overlap in many areas, but whereas ODF is strongly content oriented, OOXML is strongly presentation oriented. I want to have both. It's not like having to choose between 110v and 230v, it's more like having both 230v AC and 16v DC: both useful in specific contexts.
Ironically, judges (at least in England) don't actually judge, they preside and ensure that things proceed according to the rule book. They only judge in terms of sentencing but once a decision has been made. The jury decides, hence the issue about what level of expertise is needed.
Slashdot Mirror
There are always "stupider questions", believe me.
I agree with the answer however - but would add: keep any "semantics" out of your naming convention, if only as a security precaution - workstation and server names pop up everywhere (look at your average e-mail header), as with SSIDs on wireless routers - they are any easy starting vector for social engineering attacks.
"...We are saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee, and we are awaiting results of the investigations into his death. We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect." Intimidating staff is a right reserved exclusively by and for Steve Jobs For all lawyers for Mr Jobs and Apple Computers reading this post, the entire contents are enclosed in invisible "irony" tags
run a stripped down XP installation and run only VirtualPC on that. Then create and run everything you want from a virtual machine and encrypt that VM. This means you can switch the VM image to another machine or copy it, back it up, etc. - as long as you have the key - but the contents if stolen will be total garbage for the thief who will, as other posters say, probably dump the disk anyway.
I wonder how much this is a cynical marketing and public policy exercise. A few months ago, the European Commission announced an ambitous programme to the IT industry for European energy conservation targets to be met by 2012 and lo and behold, look who's here preening its feathers?
Apple remains the master of news management for different vital organ transplants, but this time it seems that there are simply too many stories out there for even Apple to shut them all down in their customary, efficient, and 1984-style manner.
Why shouldn't they be taken to task, when the only reason it's a closed system to begin with is vendor lock-in purposes?
I don't buy that argument.
You should make a distinction between vendor lock-in by design - where I would share your sentiment - and de facto proprietary solutions coming from suppliers that simply did not factor into their designs the desire or need to conform with open standards.
Apple's core technologies, for example, have always been locked down by design, whereas your average Joe's Acme tool may be as it is simply because Acme took to market a tool with a specific, limited, function set without thinking that there may be an army of people out there eager to add other functionalities.
And, yes, I do believe that there are massive amounts of technology out there that fit that latter category. Not everyone, alas, has interoperability through open standards, as a core design principle.
All very fair points. My main issue is that proprietary solution providers shouldn't be taken to task by people who want to muck around. Innovation is to be encouraged, of course, but it shouldn't be about cracking open every perfectly functioning closed system. To be fair, the top poster did state that *he* wanted a GPS to be hackable and was not insisting that all GPS's should be. That'll teach me for blowing off on a lazy Sunday afternoon...
Well, nothing in the world is perfect, no - and I'm happy to work my life around that essential fact rather than bitching or whining to anyone! ;-)
Furthermore, it never will be perfectso - just get over it!
I just find it odd and arrogant that IT geeks are the only "class" of person who believe they have some god-given mission to fiddle around. If I don't like my toster, I don't screw around inside until it makes waffles - I go and buy a waffle iron.
Some people just have too much time on their hands, it seems!
In reality the only people who are truly in a position to "do something about it" as you claim, are a self selected class of specialists which - when they have their way - only make the experience more unpredictable and, yes I would say less safe, for ordinary users. And no, an "ordinary user" isn't someone who talks in bash, shell scripts and sysadmin commands.
I appreciate your main point - which is indeed a driving force behind the open source movement - but I do not buy the argument that just because there is a vocal "hobbyist community", everthing should be opened up to satisfy their whims. I'm sure they could find a way to make the D.C. metro signalling system safer and more efficient, but it doesn't mean that the authorities abandon their responsibility and throw open the gates to anyone. Or maybe it should?
Why not also your dishwasher? or the whole fucking car for that matter? Is there something special about something that contains technology and electronics that means hat it must be hackable and at the mercy and preserve of idiots like you? I suppose you'll decline all responsibility and run for cover when your amateur hacking causes a car crash? and would be the first to start bleating when someone else hacked your set, no? Get a life and apply your talents (if you really have any) to something useful, for pity's sake
I am a Brit, who had the opportunity to work in Vienna for two years with the Government's eIdenity program. The city is one of the most eco-friendly and pleasant places to live in that I have ever encountered, and I have travelled widely; You can manage daily life comfortably in English only, although I spoke modest german. Most importantly, however, for your criteria, it has the most imaginative and progressive identity policy on the planet: where else can you get highly secure, Government-brokered and yet anonymous online digital identity. the "Bürgerkarte" framework is truly revolutionary and leaves the user the choice about where and how to assert their identity online, whilst always protecting anonymity. It is also the only other country apart from Great Britain where thre is no compulsory identity card and where the Government, and Parliament, have consistently refused to introduce biometrics in national passports.
It was impossible to divide by decimals and base10 before the zero was "discovered", thus the division by fractions. Thankfully, we've come a long way since....
While SUN and others were blowing their own trumpets about achieving ISO sttaus for ODF, they continued their own fork development and took it through to an OASIS standard, and then befuddled everyone by claiming their own offering - OpenOffice is "standard compliant", thatis: the OASIS standard. Microsoft were accused of not supporting the ODF standard - whereas in fact they are the only company to support it - no-one else has produced a purely ISO-standard compliant ODF product, mainly because OASIS ODF 1.1 is better. People should be really careful about throwing their hats in the air and yelling "hurrah" every time some product claims standards compliance. Ask first: - which standards organization? - who else supports it? - what products implement it? ISO did itself no favours by the shoddy way in which it fast-tracked and approved both ODF and PDF(A), whereas, to their credit, Microsoft played the game scrupulously and even now refuse to release an OOXML-compliant version of Office until ISO have completed the standardization process.
That's exactly the principle behind some companies' implementations of the ISO 13250 Topic Maps standard: easily accessible and searchable "maps" of your information and relevant relationshps between them, but without access to the information itself. By analogy, I can get a good idea and picture of where people live and organizations are housed but that does not mean that I can access their properties.
This misses an important point. T-Mobile, a major European mobile phone operator, are - like everyone - passionate about looking after your security and so your connection, password is all https secured. However the password you use to login as a customer is available in clear text to all their employees. When you go to one of their shops with an inquiry they ask you for your password which, on a busy shopping day, means sharing it alound with 20+ other punters. Luckily (and deliberately) my password for their service was "Mind your own fucking business" - sothere was a moment of semantic disambiguation required after I had replied to the shop assistant's polite, but loud, request. Online web services should be obliged to declare *how* they manage your personal data - a secure pipe isn't enough if all the personal data is floating around in a near-public barrel at the other end.
Surely the whole point of the capitalist market economy is that something is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it. "Caveat emptor" - up to the client to decide whether they are so anal that they want to know the DNA composition or not - me, I'll settle for Salmon eggs because I'm not interested in the supposed higher quality of Beluga caviar with its price tag. But I will pay more for some oysters if they claim to be better than others - I can't always tell the difference or be sure but "wisdom of crowds" suggest that if too many clients feel scammed or overpriced, the price is going to eb forced down anyway...and dining is too precious to be wasted on such details...
OK, so say we extend the "Internet of Everything" to outer space objects - but who is going to RFID-tag them all?
Why this obsession with one standard? One standard to do what? Well presented bullet lists, footnotes and fancy tables? ODF can't cope well. Clearly structured content that is easy to shift in and out of different formats? ODF's strength.
The two overlap in many areas, but whereas ODF is strongly content oriented, OOXML is strongly presentation oriented. I want to have both. It's not like having to choose between 110v and 230v, it's more like having both 230v AC and 16v DC: both useful in specific contexts.
Ironically, judges (at least in England) don't actually judge, they preside and ensure that things proceed according to the rule book. They only judge in terms of sentencing but once a decision has been made. The jury decides, hence the issue about what level of expertise is needed.