My wife has been accepted to Vet School in Ireland. Not only does that not allow me to live in Ireland with her, I'm also unable to work without 'sponsorship'. While I've had plenty of interest, as soon as I mention my inability to work without sponsorship, they drop me like a bad habit.
The time difference, distance, viable exchange rate along with other reasons all mean I don't want to continue working at my current job.
My citizenship status makes it very difficult to find a job in Dublin. There are very few legit jobs in the US that would want me in the given situation. I'm a decent developer, but I'm nothing special. I've worked as a consultant; but if you were going to bring in an expert contractor - I don't have the experience/skills. If you are going to bring in a 'pretty good dev', you'd get a local guy.
In my situation, options are limited. I don't have much exposure to malware/scammers/etc - so I don't know how much luck I'd have earning a money with my own scams. It's also relatively unlikely that I'd be able to launch some great web startup that would fund my lifestyle. People have done it, but it's rare and they tend to be smarter, more skilled, and more dedicated than I am.
I have some savings, but once I can no longer show the ability to financially support myself; Ireland will kick me out. I still have months before it comes to that; but it very likely will happen in the next 6-9 months (I haven't moved there yet). As that deadline comes closer I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't *consider* slightly less than legal methods of earning money. I mean, even if I setup a website, printed some fliers and fixed local college kid's computers for $15 an hour, I'd be breaking the law.
I couldn't disagree more; having been both a consultant and an employee.
Maybe my experiences have been unique; but I've been an employee at a large insurance company (Allstate) and a smaller custom software shop (that I currently work out, so name removed). In both cases, there was little motivation to do much more than the bare minimum. I mean, sure, I showed up and did some stuff; but I found very quickly that expectations where low. I didn't have to work very hard to meet them. If the company had a good year and you were doing good - 3-5% raise. If the company had a bad year then 'salary freeze'.
Many people find they get significant raises by switching companies, and this is why. Once you are employed the company figures, 'Well, he worked for X last year, now we give him more than X - why would he quit?'.
I show up late, leave early and surf the web. I've also been pidgin-holed into maintaining and updating a very defined section of the application. Everyone knows, if you have a problem with Y, you talk to me. That's all I do. I do Y. Five years at the same company and after four months of doing good they gave me project Y. I'm still doing project Y. I'll be doing project Y for as long as I work at the company.
When I was a consultant, it was a world of difference. A consulting firm sells consultants. They want to have REALLY GOOD consultants because selling a good product is a great way to stay in business. My current job, we sell a piece of software. They company wants that software to be really good. It's a subtle difference, but it makes a huge difference. The consulting firm I worked for would intentionally rotate us in and out of projects. If you were a Java guy, they wanted you on a.Net project. If you did desktop apps before, they wanted you to do a website. They wanted you to be highly skilled and diverse because that meant they could throw you on any project that came along. They also knew that, after about a year, as a developer on the same project, the learning curve drops to about zero. You don't learn new stuff doing the same old crap. If you were leading a team, it was different, but as far as being a developer, they wanted you to be really good at it.
And, unlike selling software, where your contributions were pretty abstract and subjective; when I was a consultant my time had a very clear value attached to it. The client was being billed for it. If I worked overtime, two things happened. First, I got paid (and my company did too). Second, the client had to pay more. There was an actual expectation of measurable work being done.
Being a consultant was great. I did, at least 2-3 times more work than I do now. I also learned a lot more from people who were really talented and knowledgeable. It was also really hard. I didn't get to spend an hour every day surfing the web and ducking out at 4pm to get an early start on my WoW raids.
Eh, I think we've got a biased view of how things really went down. The truth is, politics today are very much like politics in the past. It's really just a power/money circle jerk amongst the wealthy.
We all learned about England taxing us and the Boston Tea party. What they didn't tell you in history class is that nobody was upset about 'taxation without representation'. As it turns out, there were some very wealthy people making a fortune 'smuggling' tea. They'd get tea elsewhere and thanks to the high taxes on legit tea, they could sell they bootleg tea for less, and keep a considerable profit.
When the 'Tea Act' came about, it wasn't adding tax. It wasn't even a new tax. It was a SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION to an ALREADY ESTABLISHED TAX.
Stop and think about that for a second. That would be like, tomorrow the US Government announcing they were no longer going to tax gasoline...and then people GETTING UPSET. That doesn't sound right, does it? Nope.
Who *would* be upset by a significant reduction in the cost of tea? Well, people who were getting rich selling smuggled tea. So they got together, and started drumming up the masses (now, like then, the majority of people didn't know or care much for politics) and they got a bunch of 'sheep' angry about their significant tax break.
Growing up, I played on the same soccer team for years. One of the kids I became friends with was home schooled. His parents were both friendly, sociable, well educated (and from the looks of their house, doing quite well financially).
The kid was as normal as anyone else on the team. He had plenty of friends and did pretty good with the girls too. Honestly, looking back, he seemed to be a few years ahead of the curve; and was one of the most genuinely nice kids I knew. I don't know where the stereotype of home-schooled kids being freaks came from; but in my limited experience, not true.
I generally agree with what you are saying; but it's important to remember the context.
In a college-level English class, sure, it's absurd to cover how to hold a pencil. But that *is* taught in our school system....just at a much younger age. If I were going to teach my 13 or 14 year old kid Computer Science (and he hadn't already been exposed to computers), I would not start with a B+ tree. I would start with typing. I'd also encourage him to do 'cool' stuff with the computer. He might not understand the underlying CS Theory that allows that cool flash game to be awesome but again, isn't that approach really common in junior high level physics and chem classes? Show kids cool stuff, have them build cool stuff....then teach theory. It might be years before a kid can fully explain and calculate everything involved in his 5th grade pumpkin launcher he built, but building it was fun, and taught him stuff, and maybe, kept him interested in what can be an overwhelmingly boring topic.
I thought one of the core values of 'Computer Science' is that it is language agnostic, by definition.
I'm not sure if you are talking about Visual Basic (6.0) that was released in 1998, or if you are talking about VB.NET; but I'm pretty sure you can handle many fundamental CS concepts in both.
As someone with a BS in Computer Science and an in-progress Masters; I think it's safe to say anyone who is offended by this question is a d-bag.
Unless you are certain it's being used as a backhanded insult, all this means is someone doesn't fully understand what 'Computer Science' is. That's really not a reason to be offended. I don't really understand Physics, or Chemical Engineering, I'd hate to be afraid of asking a harmless question because I'm likely to offend some overly sensitive guy waiting to jump over a n0ob who only wants to learn.
Besides, what qualifies as 'Computer Science' is pretty subjective anyway. I took a 300-level 'Computer Science' class that was called 'Unix'. It covered basics of the operating system....things as simple as creating directories were covered. And it was very much apart of the Computer Science curriculum at a moderately respected 4-year University.
If they wanted to distribute with p2p, they'd seed it and upload it to torrent sites. If they want people to visit their site and download it, they'd create a site and host it there.
Even when it's *free* people are still unwilling to give the creator of their entertainment any control over it.
Nobody buys a PlayStation for productivity (except possibly researchers). Nobody uses the PSN for productivity.
Of course, there are more productive things you can do in place of a recreational activity. But that's the point. Now, if you said people without the PSN found other recreational activities that are MORE FUN, I'd agree, that could be a problem.
Nearly everyone had the opportunity to read books, play solo games and watch hulu/TV before the PSN existed. So the fact that those things still exist aren't a threat to the PSN.
I'm sick and tired of people acting like college is an entry level task. College students are *adults* and they have spent (at least) the last 12 years preparing for their academic endeavors. It's not something to be taken lightly. Oh, and it's *really expensive*.
College *shouldn't* be for the C- kid who didn't really do much in high school, who played a lot of World of Warcraft and decided to be a Computer Programmer. Because that kid is going to fail out of the entry level programming classes. Colleges will gladly accept his 15k for one year of Ds and Fs before he fails out. Now, some professor is advocating changing their program so that this kid can manage to pass?
We already have a system that cover pre-college level material; it's called.....High School!
A few of my friends were on MySpace, but it never had anywhere near the following that Facebook has. Facebook gained enough momentum that even people who struggle to check their e-mail setup (or had someone else setup) a Facebook account for them.
MySpace has some drinking buddies and kids I knew from high school/college. Leaving it behind wasn't a big deal.
Facebook has *everyone* I know. My parents, my siblings, my cousins, my coworkers, my classmates, anything you can think of - it's on Facebook. It will be very hard for someone else to come along and compete with that. I *hate* Facebook, but any new social network might have a better interface or better privacy settings or whatever, but it won't have everyone I know.
The HD is a mixed blessing. Sure - you get faster load times and you don't have to worry about disc wear. That's good.
But it also allows system upgrades/patches/install time/bugs and bug fixes. These were all problems PCs used to have that consoles didn't. And they suck. I hate buying a new game, coming home, being told my PS3 needs to update itself, then installing the game and being told the game needs to update itself. In the old days, when you sent your RTM build to the M, that was it. If you had a bug in the game, it would be there *forever*. If you had one bug that broke the gameplay, you had a ruined game. Testing was really important. So companies did it. Console gaming used to be a lot more user-friendly/bug free than PC gaming; because a PC game could be released *with bugs* and they'd just release a patch later.
From what I remember, Fallout 3 (while I loved the game) crashed all the friggin time until you had six months of patches applied to it. Before your console had a hard-drive and internet connection - that was a deal breaker. Now, well, just play your $50 game, crash, curse, wait a while, download, update, play some more, etc....
And it's not just issues with the individual games. It's the system itself. I *hate* buying a new a game, coming home, and being told I need to 'update my system'. What? I never, ever had to update my NES, SNES, SEGA, or GameCube. But now updating my PS3 is a regular occurrence. And look at all the problems that's caused - updates can actually take away functionality you already had (OtherOS). And, let's face it, at some point - you won't be able to update it anymore. Servers aren't free, and Sony has a long history of shutting down servers (without warning) when they weren't profitable. So, if you find an old PS3 in a box at some garage sale - you'd have a nightmare of a time figuring out what version firmware it has and what version is required by each game....I want to play Portal 3 - but that doesn't run unless the PS3 has Firmware 3.6 installed. And where on Earth can I find a 20 year old firmware update now that Sony has gone out of business/doesn't care?
Maybe it's just me - but I'm really sick of every game having an in-game story-line based tutorial.
You have to, essentially, 'click next' through 20 minutes of story line crap before you can begin to actually play the game. I miss spending two minutes looking at the controls in the manual while I install and patch the game (which can take a significant amount of time in itself) and figuring it out. Now, you can't skip the tutorial - and if you can - it also requires skipping through some very important/key aspects of the plot.
I was recently house-sitting and they had an Xbox 360 with a stack of games. I put one in (I think it was Dead Space two) at the same time my wife left to go shopping. When she returned she asked me how the game was and I said, 'I still don't know'
Laws are entirely theoretical until they are enforced. Until that point there is no difference between a law and a polite suggestion. The posted speed limit only has meaning if and only if there is a system that enforces that law. IE - in many parts of the US, there are many roads where 'everyone speeds'. Because 'everyone knows' cops won't pull you over until you are going some arbitrary speed faster.
The problem with cyber crimes (including credit card theft and identity theft) is that there is (largely) no enforcement. We don't enforce those laws. Mostly because we can't.
If we can make another aspect of these crimes both illegal and enforceable, then we could cut down on the crimes. But as it is now - there is no risk to the criminals. This is a true example that just happened to me on Monday....I had a friend whose e-mail was hacked and the hacker sent out e-mails to everyone on his contact list (from his e-mail address) saying he needed money. The IP address originated from Nigeria.
Call up the police and get them to act on that. Go to the FBI website and report that IP address. Call the local Nigerian officials and tell them what has happened.
All of them will laugh at you and say, 'Never send money to someone without verifying their identity'. We blame the victim. We say, '*YOU* need to be smarter and avoid dangerous activities'. Nobody *does* anything. I had a similar experience when my credit card number was used fraudulently....the investigation only went far enough to determine if *I* used the card. They didn't even try to track down the crook who used it.
Could you imagine if we did this with other crimes? The public outcry that would come from it?
"Well, most rapes happen at parties with alcohol and young males - it's too bad you got raped, but hey, next time....avoid parties with college guys and alcohol" "Well, most hate crime happens to someone who is ethnically or racially different from the local population.....it's too bad you got your house burned down - but you should live with your own kind...."
But with cyber crime - that's exactly what we do.
"Well, memorize a different, complex, long, secure password for every site you log into. And change them. Frequently!"
I'm not against prevention, but it's a shame that we stop at that point. The only international cyber criminals that get caught are the ones who go far beyond scamming regular people. IE - steal my credit card, nothing happens to you. Defraud my wife, nothing happens to you. Hack into a large company and get a LOT of money or a LOT of information - you might get caught.
Nintendo doesn't get a free pass here either. They've done some historically bad stuff as well as super recent. I think there is even a boycott going on for their latest EULA/TOS that basically gives them the right to brick your device because they want to.
I think a lot of people are arguing against a false dilemma here. Some people would suggest *not* giving up privacy but would welcome a more unified front from law enforcement.
As it stands now, most cyber 'crime' is only a crime in the technical sense of the world. Call the police when your computer gets hacked and see how seriously the pursue it. Unless you are a large company, dealing with millions of dollars or customer information absolutely nothing will come of it. And that's 10X true when the criminal is outside of the US.
The FBI provides tips on how to avoid being a victim of online fraud. But I sure couldn't find a place to *report it*. Just yesterday (seriously) a friend of mine had his old Hotmail account compromised and a hacker (whose IP address originated in Nigeria) send out e-mails to everyone on the list requesting money be wired. If a guy were going door-to-door in the US, and pulling a similar scam you *could* call the cops and they'd probably show up and investigate. But, the guy in Nigeria....it's pretty risk free as long as he continues to target individuals.
It's not just 'computer crime', but anything less tangible than a stereo or a car. I had my debit card number used fraudulently at a mail-order catalog. I was able to get the company to tell me it was being shipped to my town (but they refused to give any more information). I went to my bank, who refunded the charge and said they would launch an 'investigation'. I went to the police who told me to fill out a piece of paper.
Months later, my bank sent me a letter saying that they'd completed their investigation and had found that the charge *was fraudulent*. That's it. They were investigating *me*. They decided that *I* didn't do it; so they refunded my money. *NOBODY* cared or went after the people who used the card.
You'd really have to be retarded to get caught doing any of these things. No wonder it's growing.
That's crap. Truthfully, I don't know enough about OSX or Linux, so, I'll qualify this by saying 'That's Crap In Windows'.
Sure it's *easy* to blame the user....but the truth is that computers are insecure. Maybe that's just an extension of the insecurity in our society, but the fact remains, IT guys and Programmers as a whole have not produced a secure environment for users. Even if the users were willing to learn more about the system they are using.
Visiting a website is enough to compromise a fully patched machine. And it's not just computers, cell phones and portable devices are included. Yes, let's blame the user who was sooooo stupid that they used the web browser on their fancy phone that was sold to them with the explicit intent of being used as a web browser. How dumb they are!
We say things like, 'Well Grandma, just use a different username and password for each site. And make sure each password is secure, letters, digits, punctuation....' What. The. Hell. Seriously?
But that's what we say. Like it's nothing. I have TWENTY SIX different passwords saved in my LastPass vault (that I've had for about 30 days). But it's the *user* that's stupid for not being able to memorize 26 different, complex, passwords? And yes, I know, there are tools to help but where does the typical user find such tools? I've been completely unable to find a guide that would take me from formatting / cleaning the MBR to a fully functional, secure, Windows install that gave step-by-step instructions for things like how to manage passwords, how to handle your backups, how to effortlessly encrypt your files and sync them to the cloud, how to secure your network, how to restrict your default user as much as possible, how to use the admin user to install new stuff, how to not save important files in a gmail, hotmail account because, when hacked, those files are available to the hacker....etc, etc.....At best you get a Windows nagware message saying to 'Install antivirus software' (which is largely ineffective anyway and seriously degrades system performance)
But EVEN if that guide did exist (and if it does, I'd really love a URL) you're still completely dependent on other people being secure. You might say, 'Oh, don't visit "bad" sites and you don't have to worry about the fact that even a fully patched, modern browser is vulnerable to malware' - but you are still depending on every site you do visit (reputable sites) to be secure. And, let's face it, they aren't. Big name companies get hacked. And if someone hacks a website and puts malicious code on the page, now your machine can get infected. It's easy to say, 'Oh, but that *hardly ever* happens' - which is fine, but it can happen.
Now, I'm not an unreasonable guy. I understand that you can never stop a user from *intentionally* running the 'HappyBunnies.avi.exe' file if they want to run it (without crippling his ability to use his computer). I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about everything else. When I visit a website, the website is free to tell my browser how to display stuff. When it manages to get my machine to execute arbitrary code, the system has failed. And it's *not* the user's fault.
Even if you accept that rooting is unlikely to cause damage, it prevents you from recouping your losses from other types of damage as well. If you, like most cell phone users, purchased your phone in conjunction with a two year contract from $CELL_COMPANY then rooting is a risk.
You also, effectively, forfeit any customer support you would have received. 'Okay sure, type in *228' "Hang on, my leet custom ROM is different, so I'm going to type in %228" 'Umm, I'm sorry sir, we don't support leet custom ROM'.
I'm not against rooting phones. But it's more than just a mild annoyance.
Back when.MP3s were cutting edge and 'ripping' a CD took actual effort. 10-12 years ago (maybe longer). People used to say how evil the recording companies and 'labels' were. And how MP3s were going to change that. The internet was going to change that.
Anyone can make music now and share it with the entire world. This has been trivially easy for at 8 years. Virtually no cost at all. You can just record, upload and share.
But what came of it? Nothing. Not a thing.
As it turns out, there is something to be said for the recording industry. In spite of what hipsters and edgy teens say, they still spend the bulk of their money on mainstream crap produced by the very same people they claim to hate. All the while, saying how 'crappy' it is.
I'm not saying it's right; but I think the truth is that *they don't care*.
If you estimate the Ubuntu install base 20 million and they are aiming for 200 million in four years; that means for every one existing user you have, you need to add 9 more. It's far more important to appeal to the 9 who are new users than worry about alienating the existing 1.
If you go with LastPass - you get great integration/ease of use and you can access your passwords from any place with internet access. For that ease of use, you run the risk of LastPass's servers being hacked and hoping that the encryption they use is strong enough and that your password isn't vulnerable to a dictionary-type attack.
If you take your approach - you get limited integration/ease of use and you can only access your passwords from any place where you can access gpg.
In either case, if your local machine is compromised all of your passwords are stolen.
The company admits they had 'unexplained' traffic with more data coming from the database than going to the database. They were unable to track down the source of the traffic and have started some password changing strategy for the users.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife has been accepted to Vet School in Ireland. Not only does that not allow me to live in Ireland with her, I'm also unable to work without 'sponsorship'. While I've had plenty of interest, as soon as I mention my inability to work without sponsorship, they drop me like a bad habit.
The time difference, distance, viable exchange rate along with other reasons all mean I don't want to continue working at my current job.
My citizenship status makes it very difficult to find a job in Dublin. There are very few legit jobs in the US that would want me in the given situation. I'm a decent developer, but I'm nothing special. I've worked as a consultant; but if you were going to bring in an expert contractor - I don't have the experience/skills. If you are going to bring in a 'pretty good dev', you'd get a local guy.
In my situation, options are limited. I don't have much exposure to malware/scammers/etc - so I don't know how much luck I'd have earning a money with my own scams. It's also relatively unlikely that I'd be able to launch some great web startup that would fund my lifestyle. People have done it, but it's rare and they tend to be smarter, more skilled, and more dedicated than I am.
I have some savings, but once I can no longer show the ability to financially support myself; Ireland will kick me out. I still have months before it comes to that; but it very likely will happen in the next 6-9 months (I haven't moved there yet). As that deadline comes closer I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't *consider* slightly less than legal methods of earning money. I mean, even if I setup a website, printed some fliers and fixed local college kid's computers for $15 an hour, I'd be breaking the law.
I couldn't disagree more; having been both a consultant and an employee.
Maybe my experiences have been unique; but I've been an employee at a large insurance company (Allstate) and a smaller custom software shop (that I currently work out, so name removed). In both cases, there was little motivation to do much more than the bare minimum. I mean, sure, I showed up and did some stuff; but I found very quickly that expectations where low. I didn't have to work very hard to meet them. If the company had a good year and you were doing good - 3-5% raise. If the company had a bad year then 'salary freeze'.
Many people find they get significant raises by switching companies, and this is why. Once you are employed the company figures, 'Well, he worked for X last year, now we give him more than X - why would he quit?'.
I show up late, leave early and surf the web. I've also been pidgin-holed into maintaining and updating a very defined section of the application. Everyone knows, if you have a problem with Y, you talk to me. That's all I do. I do Y. Five years at the same company and after four months of doing good they gave me project Y. I'm still doing project Y. I'll be doing project Y for as long as I work at the company.
When I was a consultant, it was a world of difference. A consulting firm sells consultants. They want to have REALLY GOOD consultants because selling a good product is a great way to stay in business. My current job, we sell a piece of software. They company wants that software to be really good. It's a subtle difference, but it makes a huge difference. The consulting firm I worked for would intentionally rotate us in and out of projects. If you were a Java guy, they wanted you on a .Net project. If you did desktop apps before, they wanted you to do a website. They wanted you to be highly skilled and diverse because that meant they could throw you on any project that came along. They also knew that, after about a year, as a developer on the same project, the learning curve drops to about zero. You don't learn new stuff doing the same old crap. If you were leading a team, it was different, but as far as being a developer, they wanted you to be really good at it.
And, unlike selling software, where your contributions were pretty abstract and subjective; when I was a consultant my time had a very clear value attached to it. The client was being billed for it. If I worked overtime, two things happened. First, I got paid (and my company did too). Second, the client had to pay more. There was an actual expectation of measurable work being done.
Being a consultant was great. I did, at least 2-3 times more work than I do now. I also learned a lot more from people who were really talented and knowledgeable. It was also really hard. I didn't get to spend an hour every day surfing the web and ducking out at 4pm to get an early start on my WoW raids.
Eh, I think we've got a biased view of how things really went down. The truth is, politics today are very much like politics in the past. It's really just a power/money circle jerk amongst the wealthy.
We all learned about England taxing us and the Boston Tea party. What they didn't tell you in history class is that nobody was upset about 'taxation without representation'. As it turns out, there were some very wealthy people making a fortune 'smuggling' tea. They'd get tea elsewhere and thanks to the high taxes on legit tea, they could sell they bootleg tea for less, and keep a considerable profit.
When the 'Tea Act' came about, it wasn't adding tax. It wasn't even a new tax. It was a SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION to an ALREADY ESTABLISHED TAX.
Stop and think about that for a second. That would be like, tomorrow the US Government announcing they were no longer going to tax gasoline...and then people GETTING UPSET. That doesn't sound right, does it? Nope.
Who *would* be upset by a significant reduction in the cost of tea? Well, people who were getting rich selling smuggled tea. So they got together, and started drumming up the masses (now, like then, the majority of people didn't know or care much for politics) and they got a bunch of 'sheep' angry about their significant tax break.
Really, things have changed much.
Exactly. Everyone loves to cheat on their taxes.
Growing up, I played on the same soccer team for years. One of the kids I became friends with was home schooled. His parents were both friendly, sociable, well educated (and from the looks of their house, doing quite well financially).
The kid was as normal as anyone else on the team. He had plenty of friends and did pretty good with the girls too. Honestly, looking back, he seemed to be a few years ahead of the curve; and was one of the most genuinely nice kids I knew. I don't know where the stereotype of home-schooled kids being freaks came from; but in my limited experience, not true.
I generally agree with what you are saying; but it's important to remember the context.
In a college-level English class, sure, it's absurd to cover how to hold a pencil. But that *is* taught in our school system....just at a much younger age. If I were going to teach my 13 or 14 year old kid Computer Science (and he hadn't already been exposed to computers), I would not start with a B+ tree. I would start with typing. I'd also encourage him to do 'cool' stuff with the computer. He might not understand the underlying CS Theory that allows that cool flash game to be awesome but again, isn't that approach really common in junior high level physics and chem classes? Show kids cool stuff, have them build cool stuff....then teach theory. It might be years before a kid can fully explain and calculate everything involved in his 5th grade pumpkin launcher he built, but building it was fun, and taught him stuff, and maybe, kept him interested in what can be an overwhelmingly boring topic.
I thought one of the core values of 'Computer Science' is that it is language agnostic, by definition.
I'm not sure if you are talking about Visual Basic (6.0) that was released in 1998, or if you are talking about VB.NET; but I'm pretty sure you can handle many fundamental CS concepts in both.
As someone with a BS in Computer Science and an in-progress Masters; I think it's safe to say anyone who is offended by this question is a d-bag.
Unless you are certain it's being used as a backhanded insult, all this means is someone doesn't fully understand what 'Computer Science' is. That's really not a reason to be offended. I don't really understand Physics, or Chemical Engineering, I'd hate to be afraid of asking a harmless question because I'm likely to offend some overly sensitive guy waiting to jump over a n0ob who only wants to learn.
Besides, what qualifies as 'Computer Science' is pretty subjective anyway. I took a 300-level 'Computer Science' class that was called 'Unix'. It covered basics of the operating system....things as simple as creating directories were covered. And it was very much apart of the Computer Science curriculum at a moderately respected 4-year University.
If they wanted to distribute with p2p, they'd seed it and upload it to torrent sites.
If they want people to visit their site and download it, they'd create a site and host it there.
Even when it's *free* people are still unwilling to give the creator of their entertainment any control over it.
Nobody buys a PlayStation for productivity (except possibly researchers).
Nobody uses the PSN for productivity.
Of course, there are more productive things you can do in place of a recreational activity. But that's the point. Now, if you said people without the PSN found other recreational activities that are MORE FUN, I'd agree, that could be a problem.
Nearly everyone had the opportunity to read books, play solo games and watch hulu/TV before the PSN existed. So the fact that those things still exist aren't a threat to the PSN.
Thank you.
I'm sick and tired of people acting like college is an entry level task. College students are *adults* and they have spent (at least) the last 12 years preparing for their academic endeavors. It's not something to be taken lightly. Oh, and it's *really expensive*.
College *shouldn't* be for the C- kid who didn't really do much in high school, who played a lot of World of Warcraft and decided to be a Computer Programmer. Because that kid is going to fail out of the entry level programming classes. Colleges will gladly accept his 15k for one year of Ds and Fs before he fails out. Now, some professor is advocating changing their program so that this kid can manage to pass?
We already have a system that cover pre-college level material; it's called.....High School!
Not really.
A few of my friends were on MySpace, but it never had anywhere near the following that Facebook has. Facebook gained enough momentum that even people who struggle to check their e-mail setup (or had someone else setup) a Facebook account for them.
MySpace has some drinking buddies and kids I knew from high school/college. Leaving it behind wasn't a big deal.
Facebook has *everyone* I know. My parents, my siblings, my cousins, my coworkers, my classmates, anything you can think of - it's on Facebook. It will be very hard for someone else to come along and compete with that. I *hate* Facebook, but any new social network might have a better interface or better privacy settings or whatever, but it won't have everyone I know.
The HD is a mixed blessing. Sure - you get faster load times and you don't have to worry about disc wear. That's good.
But it also allows system upgrades/patches/install time/bugs and bug fixes. These were all problems PCs used to have that consoles didn't. And they suck. I hate buying a new game, coming home, being told my PS3 needs to update itself, then installing the game and being told the game needs to update itself. In the old days, when you sent your RTM build to the M, that was it. If you had a bug in the game, it would be there *forever*. If you had one bug that broke the gameplay, you had a ruined game. Testing was really important. So companies did it. Console gaming used to be a lot more user-friendly/bug free than PC gaming; because a PC game could be released *with bugs* and they'd just release a patch later.
From what I remember, Fallout 3 (while I loved the game) crashed all the friggin time until you had six months of patches applied to it. Before your console had a hard-drive and internet connection - that was a deal breaker. Now, well, just play your $50 game, crash, curse, wait a while, download, update, play some more, etc....
And it's not just issues with the individual games. It's the system itself. I *hate* buying a new a game, coming home, and being told I need to 'update my system'. What? I never, ever had to update my NES, SNES, SEGA, or GameCube. But now updating my PS3 is a regular occurrence. And look at all the problems that's caused - updates can actually take away functionality you already had (OtherOS). And, let's face it, at some point - you won't be able to update it anymore. Servers aren't free, and Sony has a long history of shutting down servers (without warning) when they weren't profitable. So, if you find an old PS3 in a box at some garage sale - you'd have a nightmare of a time figuring out what version firmware it has and what version is required by each game....I want to play Portal 3 - but that doesn't run unless the PS3 has Firmware 3.6 installed. And where on Earth can I find a 20 year old firmware update now that Sony has gone out of business/doesn't care?
Maybe it's just me - but I'm really sick of every game having an in-game story-line based tutorial.
You have to, essentially, 'click next' through 20 minutes of story line crap before you can begin to actually play the game. I miss spending two minutes looking at the controls in the manual while I install and patch the game (which can take a significant amount of time in itself) and figuring it out. Now, you can't skip the tutorial - and if you can - it also requires skipping through some very important/key aspects of the plot.
I was recently house-sitting and they had an Xbox 360 with a stack of games. I put one in (I think it was Dead Space two) at the same time my wife left to go shopping. When she returned she asked me how the game was and I said, 'I still don't know'
Laws are entirely theoretical until they are enforced. Until that point there is no difference between a law and a polite suggestion. The posted speed limit only has meaning if and only if there is a system that enforces that law. IE - in many parts of the US, there are many roads where 'everyone speeds'. Because 'everyone knows' cops won't pull you over until you are going some arbitrary speed faster.
The problem with cyber crimes (including credit card theft and identity theft) is that there is (largely) no enforcement. We don't enforce those laws. Mostly because we can't.
If we can make another aspect of these crimes both illegal and enforceable, then we could cut down on the crimes. But as it is now - there is no risk to the criminals. This is a true example that just happened to me on Monday....I had a friend whose e-mail was hacked and the hacker sent out e-mails to everyone on his contact list (from his e-mail address) saying he needed money. The IP address originated from Nigeria.
Call up the police and get them to act on that.
Go to the FBI website and report that IP address.
Call the local Nigerian officials and tell them what has happened.
All of them will laugh at you and say, 'Never send money to someone without verifying their identity'. We blame the victim. We say, '*YOU* need to be smarter and avoid dangerous activities'. Nobody *does* anything. I had a similar experience when my credit card number was used fraudulently....the investigation only went far enough to determine if *I* used the card. They didn't even try to track down the crook who used it.
Could you imagine if we did this with other crimes? The public outcry that would come from it?
"Well, most rapes happen at parties with alcohol and young males - it's too bad you got raped, but hey, next time....avoid parties with college guys and alcohol"
"Well, most hate crime happens to someone who is ethnically or racially different from the local population.....it's too bad you got your house burned down - but you should live with your own kind...."
But with cyber crime - that's exactly what we do.
"Well, memorize a different, complex, long, secure password for every site you log into. And change them. Frequently!"
I'm not against prevention, but it's a shame that we stop at that point. The only international cyber criminals that get caught are the ones who go far beyond scamming regular people. IE - steal my credit card, nothing happens to you. Defraud my wife, nothing happens to you. Hack into a large company and get a LOT of money or a LOT of information - you might get caught.
BRB - memorizing 30+ unique, secure, strong passwords.
Because that's a totally reasonable thing to do!
Nintendo doesn't get a free pass here either. They've done some historically bad stuff as well as super recent. I think there is even a boycott going on for their latest EULA/TOS that basically gives them the right to brick your device because they want to.
I think a lot of people are arguing against a false dilemma here. Some people would suggest *not* giving up privacy but would welcome a more unified front from law enforcement.
As it stands now, most cyber 'crime' is only a crime in the technical sense of the world. Call the police when your computer gets hacked and see how seriously the pursue it. Unless you are a large company, dealing with millions of dollars or customer information absolutely nothing will come of it. And that's 10X true when the criminal is outside of the US.
The FBI provides tips on how to avoid being a victim of online fraud. But I sure couldn't find a place to *report it*. Just yesterday (seriously) a friend of mine had his old Hotmail account compromised and a hacker (whose IP address originated in Nigeria) send out e-mails to everyone on the list requesting money be wired. If a guy were going door-to-door in the US, and pulling a similar scam you *could* call the cops and they'd probably show up and investigate. But, the guy in Nigeria....it's pretty risk free as long as he continues to target individuals.
It's not just 'computer crime', but anything less tangible than a stereo or a car. I had my debit card number used fraudulently at a mail-order catalog. I was able to get the company to tell me it was being shipped to my town (but they refused to give any more information). I went to my bank, who refunded the charge and said they would launch an 'investigation'. I went to the police who told me to fill out a piece of paper.
Months later, my bank sent me a letter saying that they'd completed their investigation and had found that the charge *was fraudulent*. That's it. They were investigating *me*. They decided that *I* didn't do it; so they refunded my money. *NOBODY* cared or went after the people who used the card.
You'd really have to be retarded to get caught doing any of these things. No wonder it's growing.
That's crap. Truthfully, I don't know enough about OSX or Linux, so, I'll qualify this by saying 'That's Crap In Windows'.
Sure it's *easy* to blame the user....but the truth is that computers are insecure. Maybe that's just an extension of the insecurity in our society, but the fact remains, IT guys and Programmers as a whole have not produced a secure environment for users. Even if the users were willing to learn more about the system they are using.
Visiting a website is enough to compromise a fully patched machine. And it's not just computers, cell phones and portable devices are included. Yes, let's blame the user who was sooooo stupid that they used the web browser on their fancy phone that was sold to them with the explicit intent of being used as a web browser. How dumb they are!
We say things like, 'Well Grandma, just use a different username and password for each site. And make sure each password is secure, letters, digits, punctuation....' What. The. Hell. Seriously?
But that's what we say. Like it's nothing. I have TWENTY SIX different passwords saved in my LastPass vault (that I've had for about 30 days). But it's the *user* that's stupid for not being able to memorize 26 different, complex, passwords? And yes, I know, there are tools to help but where does the typical user find such tools? I've been completely unable to find a guide that would take me from formatting / cleaning the MBR to a fully functional, secure, Windows install that gave step-by-step instructions for things like how to manage passwords, how to handle your backups, how to effortlessly encrypt your files and sync them to the cloud, how to secure your network, how to restrict your default user as much as possible, how to use the admin user to install new stuff, how to not save important files in a gmail, hotmail account because, when hacked, those files are available to the hacker....etc, etc.....At best you get a Windows nagware message saying to 'Install antivirus software' (which is largely ineffective anyway and seriously degrades system performance)
But EVEN if that guide did exist (and if it does, I'd really love a URL) you're still completely dependent on other people being secure. You might say, 'Oh, don't visit "bad" sites and you don't have to worry about the fact that even a fully patched, modern browser is vulnerable to malware' - but you are still depending on every site you do visit (reputable sites) to be secure. And, let's face it, they aren't. Big name companies get hacked. And if someone hacks a website and puts malicious code on the page, now your machine can get infected. It's easy to say, 'Oh, but that *hardly ever* happens' - which is fine, but it can happen.
Now, I'm not an unreasonable guy. I understand that you can never stop a user from *intentionally* running the 'HappyBunnies.avi.exe' file if they want to run it (without crippling his ability to use his computer). I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about everything else. When I visit a website, the website is free to tell my browser how to display stuff. When it manages to get my machine to execute arbitrary code, the system has failed. And it's *not* the user's fault.
Rooting the phone (often) voids the warranty.
Even if you accept that rooting is unlikely to cause damage, it prevents you from recouping your losses from other types of damage as well. If you, like most cell phone users, purchased your phone in conjunction with a two year contract from $CELL_COMPANY then rooting is a risk.
You also, effectively, forfeit any customer support you would have received.
'Okay sure, type in *228'
"Hang on, my leet custom ROM is different, so I'm going to type in %228"
'Umm, I'm sorry sir, we don't support leet custom ROM'.
I'm not against rooting phones. But it's more than just a mild annoyance.
Back when .MP3s were cutting edge and 'ripping' a CD took actual effort. 10-12 years ago (maybe longer). People used to say how evil the recording companies and 'labels' were. And how MP3s were going to change that. The internet was going to change that.
Anyone can make music now and share it with the entire world. This has been trivially easy for at 8 years. Virtually no cost at all. You can just record, upload and share.
But what came of it? Nothing. Not a thing.
As it turns out, there is something to be said for the recording industry. In spite of what hipsters and edgy teens say, they still spend the bulk of their money on mainstream crap produced by the very same people they claim to hate. All the while, saying how 'crappy' it is.
I'm not saying it's right; but I think the truth is that *they don't care*.
If you estimate the Ubuntu install base 20 million and they are aiming for 200 million in four years; that means for every one existing user you have, you need to add 9 more. It's far more important to appeal to the 9 who are new users than worry about alienating the existing 1.
Pick your poison....
If you go with LastPass - you get great integration/ease of use and you can access your passwords from any place with internet access. For that ease of use, you run the risk of LastPass's servers being hacked and hoping that the encryption they use is strong enough and that your password isn't vulnerable to a dictionary-type attack.
If you take your approach - you get limited integration/ease of use and you can only access your passwords from any place where you can access gpg.
In either case, if your local machine is compromised all of your passwords are stolen.
The company admits they had 'unexplained' traffic with more data coming from the database than going to the database. They were unable to track down the source of the traffic and have started some password changing strategy for the users.
If you think KeePass isn't vulnerable to attacks you just aren't being creative enough.