They may improve the standards of their suppliers, but they treat their domestic employees like shit. It's almost like they are trying to bring the two together somewhere in the middle.
They definitely want them, the question is can they afford them? The Chinese economy is structured such that there is a much larger disparity between the rich and poor than in the west, and there are few opportunities for advancement. The culture is such that laborers are the lowest class of citizens and as such are treated extremely poorly no matter where they go.
This is a culture that has been thousands of years in the making, and only in recent history has been hijacked by the communist government. The culture hasn't changed at all with the change in government. Oddly enough, communism simply perpetuates the divide instead of closing the gap, which is its stated purpose. Funny that.
And Microsoft is the only company among the dozens that contract with this company that is sending over a team to either rectify the situation or find a new company to do business with.
What's your point? That someone else found it first? So what? MS isn't sitting on their hands and ignoring it, they are doing something to fix the problem.
Why not bash the companies that don't give a shit instead?
Cheapest beer price I found in China for a pint was $0.11. Average price $1.30. Cheapest pint of beer (retail) I could find in the US was about $.50 per. Average in the US is about $4 for a pint. That works out to about $1 an hour. If you go cheapest beer, you're looking at about $1.50. Beer isn't necessarily a good metric though.
Median income in China is about $1,000, and these kids are being paid about $2700, which is pretty damned excellent by Chinese standards. They just have to take a hell of a lot of abuse to make that much money, and of course, that's not a lot of money by our standards - it's equivalent to making about $15,000 or so in the US. Compared to the rest of China that would be like pulling in $135k (close to 3x the median) in the US. That of course, is because their standard of living is so low. They would not be able to afford the average US standard of living on those wages.
You're falling into a common sociological mistake when comparing two societies. You cannot judge the conditions of one society by the standards of another. It is completely improper to compare $50,000 a year in the US to $900 a year in China and say that the US is 56 times better off, because you are wrong. In most places in the US, an individual cannot survive on his own making $10,000 a year. However, in China, an individual can survive on $900 a year. Thus a direct comparison is completely invalid, because the conditions are different. Also, we artificially inflate our median income with minimum wage. It doesn't matter one whit how many dollars you make, what matters is how much you can buy with a dollar. A US dollar goes a hell of a lot farther in China than it does in America.
As such, you've completely sabotaged your argument, because these students are earning about $2700 per year. That's three times the median. In other words, the management is shit, the conditions are shit, they have next to no rights as workers, but relative to their fellow countrymen they are paid very well to compensate for the shitty conditions.
In other words, YOU may not like it, and THEY may not like it, but they do stick it out as long as they can because the pay is so damn good compared to anything else they can get. It's like sticking it out with that shitty ass company because they pay you well and if you quit you wouldn't be able to find anything better. Our government looks out for us, unlike China's, so things are rarely as bad as the shops in China, but the essentials of the problem are the same no matter where you go.
What programmers? These kids are putting together hardware. It's a shitty work study program, with shitty managers and shitty policies, and a lot of these kids don't know any better, but they are actually paid a decent wage compared to the rest of china.
I'm not sure how you can call them slaves, considering the following facts:
1.)They are not forced to work there, they can leave at any time. 2.)They are not forced to work overtime, they can go home instead of working late and not lose their jobs 3.)They earn a better than average wage for their region 4.)They work overtime because they choose to, and need the money (because the local economy is poor).
Slaves, however:
1.)Do not have a choice to work 2.)Do not have a choice in how long they work 3.)Do not earn a wage (though food and shelter is generally provided) 4.)Are allowed no concept of "overtime" - they work until the master says stop 5.)Don't get to consent to anything.
So exactly what part about these people's situation makes them slaves? They are poor because the economy in their region is shit. That does not make them slaves. 50 cents an hour is low by our standards, but one of the most common sociological mistakes people make is by judging the conditions of one society by the standards of another. In China, the gentleman in the article is in an ok position. Not a great position, but not a terrible one either relative to those around him. He has a future, and he can provide for himself. Would he be better off in America? Abso-frickin-lutely, but that does not mean he is bad off. It just means he is not as well off as he could be.
It definitely does not make him a slave. There are real cases of slavery in China - it's called human trafficking, and it's horrendous. This story is in no way like it. The place this guy works for can't be considered a "sweatshop", it's just harsh. There are jobs in America that are worse, but they aren't sweatshops.
Most idealists have a very poor concept of reality. That's the basically the definition of idealist. "This is the way it should happen, so this is the way it WILL happen!" That's an idealist. So they try to do things the way they think they should work, and things usually fall apart because their idealism was not tempered with reality. A realist is the exact opposite, and runs into the opposite problem. A realist says "This is the way it is, whether I like it or not." the problem realists who have no ideals run into is that because things are they are they are, they don't think things can ever change.
Truly innovative, successful people are usually idealists who have had a strong dose of reality, and have tempered their idealism with what is real. The hard nosed but successful people are realists who have strong ideals, and are driving to change reality to fit their ideals.
Both types are much more balanced than your average idealist, and either one would do great things on a board of directors, given the right circumstances.
You have no fucking clue what "share holder" means do you? Think about it for half a second and you might be able to figure it out.
Do you own stock in a 401k plan? If so, you are the top-tier elite bastard.
That's right "Share Holders" means people who own shares in a company. The vast majority of share holders are in the middle class, quite a stretch from "top-tier". They are the ultimate bosses for every public corporation. They decide who gets to be on the board of directors, and the board of directors chooses the CEO. I get voter cards in the mail all the time for the shares that I own. All such corporations hold yearly share holder meetings, and the board and CEO lay out their plans to their share holders, and the share holders tell them exactly what they think of it.
The "top-tier elite bastards" you speak of are the average, everyday citizen who has a stake in that corporation. The corporation's entire game plan is directed to bring them as much money as possible.
In other words, you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
Communism in its true form will prevent the sociopathic power elite from dominating others, and so they fight it, and/or infiltrate it and take over from the inside.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously though, you know there are a lot of people who have believed this, and sought to form their own independent - if small - utopian societies. Generally they form groups of 50 or less and go off into the wilderness where they can live their ideals in peace.
They never work. They tend to stick around a while, but that is only because new people come in as people who have been there a while leave. You usually find the original founders of these societies living in a downtown apartment some thirty years after they founded the society, working for megacorp X for a living.
Want to know why? Because at some point, two people will disagree on what is best for the community. That's fine and dandy, and by itself won't cause much of a problem, but there are points in every community's history where a decision one way or another must be made. If two people disagree on what is best, they both will attempt to sway the others that their way is right. If there hadn't been opposing groups before, they form almost immediately. The society is now divided and the communistic structure is well on its way to crumbling.
The reason the USSR was a heavy-handed communist government run by power hungry elitists is because that is the only way communism can ever be applied to an entire nation. As soon as you allow one person to say "No, I don't want to" the whole system begins to crumble.
Communist governments are always run by dictators because that is the only way they will ever work. Your idea of "pure" communism can never form until the entire nation is of like mind. I don't think any nation - no matter how large or small - has ever been of like mind on anything. The idea of Communism is that everyone should be equal. However, the only way to make it work is to force those who disagree to follow along. Therefore there must be a ruling class, and their primary purpose is to oppress the non-conformists. The very formation of a true Communist government will always fail for this reason, there is no way around it. Freedom cannot be allowed, or people would chose not to be Communist.
The reason we choose Capitalism over Feudalism or Communism is because Capitalism provides the most potential for freedom. In a capitalist society, there is definitely a top and a bottom, but the beauty of it is anybody can rise to the top. You have but to look at one of the richest men in the world: Bill Gates. He was nothing but a nerdy college kid messing with computers in his garage when he struck it rich, and now he is at the apex. Star athletes, movie stars and music stars often come from poor families but get wealthy off of their own talents and abilities. Yeah someone who starts out with a lot of money has it easier, but even if you don't you can move up. Communism, however, works out a lot like Feudalism - if you are born poor there is no opportunity to rise to a higher station. There is no higher station, because theoretically everyone is equal. Sure, that government official may actually get three square meals a day, and served by his private chef in his large house, but he doesn't actually own anything, he's just as poor as everybody else *wink wink*.
Oh and the USSR was just as much a republic as the Greek and Roman republics from which we derive our system. All that is necessary for a republic is that you have individuals designated to represent different groups of people, and that every person is represented by at least one representative.
Being a republic has nothing to do with whether the people get to vote on their representatives, and though the republic uses democratic processes, it does not preclude a monarchy or dictator. Look at the American republic - if the President were not chosen by the people, but instead chosen by birth, and if the senators and congressmen were chosen by their station (aka nobility), we would have the Roman republic. As long as people are designated to represent the average citizen in the government, you have a republic. The USSR had this.
We've already tried live USB drives, but we ran into many issues with non-supported hardware on students' home computers.
Best advice I ever got, particularly with regards Linux but it's true for almost everything computer related, was from my Linux+ prof. He said the best way to learn a system was to break it and then figure out how to fix it. Frankly, the students who have hardware issues are already half way there.
Make it part of a class project to fix it, and if they don't have anything that is broken, then really break something good and then fix it. Point them in the right direction to find what they need, and let them at it. They'll learn how to learn more about the system, basically - it's a huge learning opportunity.
You're still going to want a VM with a distro on it, but I wouldn't toss the USB Live distros either.
(which btw, people further up the food chain, including the highest ranking person there, told him to ignore in this case)
The highest ranking person there doesn't mean shit if the highest ranking person there isn't authorized by the city to make such a decision.
What happens if you give the passwords to someone who, according to the IT Security policy which you had to sign a binding legal agreement to uphold, is not authorized to have the password and it leaks out, putting the entire infrastructure at risk?
What then? That's pretty much exactly what happened here. The people who were telling him to ignore the policy did not have the authority to tell them to ignore policy - it was binding on them too!
I'll tell you what happens if he gives the passwords to people he shouldn't. In the case of a private entity, not only can you be fired (and rightly so), but if your actions led to the leaking of information that must be kept secret by federal privacy guidelines then you can be held criminally and civilly liable as well. In the case of a government entity, it's almost a certainty that you can be held criminally liable. This system absolutely had sensitive data on it, and it was part of his job to make sure it did not get out.
So what the hell are you supposed to do? Give up the passwords in spite of security policy and go to jail when stuff breaks or private data leaks, or refuse to give up the passwords and go to jail anyway? What the fuck man? I'll admit, it sounds like Childs was being a dick about the whole situation, and had he been more diplomatic he could have diffused the whole thing early on, but what if it's your bosses being dicks, and nothing you do to try to do things the right way works. I've seen office politics, and some people know how to stir up a shit storm in a hurry to get rid of someone they don't like.
In any case, nobody should lose two years of their life for no better reason than they were being a bit of a dick at work.
There are REALLY simple ways to handle these solutions.
You're right, and they were laid down in policy format, and his bosses didn't follow them.
When are admins going to realize they are nothing more than computer janitors?
That's funny, they get paid a hell of a lot more than janitors do.
Their argument is that since he wouldn't give up the passwords after he was fired (to people who still weren't authorized to receive them) he was a hacker by definition of California's anti-hacker law. Therefore he was a threat they needed to protect against, and by not giving up the passwords he was disrupting service.
It's a strange argument, and frankly I don't think it is going to fly. The jury is more than likely going to think "Yeah, but nothing was actually damaged". I don't think it's going to work for the prosecution, proving damages when there weren't any damages is one hell of a tough sell.
These people are hardly average. Juries consist of 12 people who are not smart enough to get out of Jury Duty.
You assume that everyone is a self-absorbed shithead who doesn't give a fuck about his country or the justice system, and not just you. It's also worth noting that the easiest way to not be selected for the jury was to be a dumbass.
I've served on a Jury, and except for the filling out forms and waiting around part, I was interested, honored, and proud to be entrusted with that kind of responsibility. Self-important assholes who think they are a lot smarter than they actually are better off not being selected anyway.
The only part of the experience that sucked was I went through the whole thing and ended up being the alternate, and didn't actually get to deliberate.
In front of a Jury of admins this guy might stand a chance. But it is entirely plausible that anyone with any knowledge of computers was selected out of this Jury (to avoid any preconceptions). Given that this trial is related to Child's professional conduct, the logical course would be to select a Jury of fellow techies (his true peers). Unfortunately, our legal system just does work that way.
Frankly, you obviously have no concept of what a jury actually does, or who a "peer" is. A "peer" isn't related, in any way, to your job. You are not defined by your job. Frankly, if the prosecution cannot argue their points to a layman juror in a way they can understand, it will be easy to introduce doubt. Reasonable doubt is pretty strict - it means you believe that the defendant's explanation is at all reasonable, in light of the facts presented, then the prosecution did not prove their point. This applies to every single point of law in the case, and there always at least two, often three, and sometimes four or more points to prove. The prosecution must convince a jury that it is not reasonable to think anything but the prosecution's interpretation of what happened is what actually happened. Obviously there is rarely any way to be absolutely certain of anything, but reasonable doubt is only one step below that. Only a sociopath would not recognize the gravity of the situation and not take the job seriously.
Most of this case centers around things for which technical skill has absolutely no bearing. For example, whether or not Childs had malicious intent, and whether or not any damage was actually done. In fact, in a lot of cases overly technical people would get wrapped up in stupid details that mean next to nothing and would be a horrible judge of either of those.
Childs is in a very good position on both, because the network ran fine up until he gave up the passwords and his bosses started mucking with the system. The prosecution is going to have a hard time proving he booby trapped it, which is essentially what they will have to do.
I read the policy, I saw no mention of any database, only that the CISO was authorized to hold such passwords. From what I understand, the only time the CISO was involved was in a room full of unauthorized personnel that he would not have been able to share the password.
Under the very same anti-hacker law that Childs is being tried for breaking, had he given the passwords to the wrong people after his termination he could be held criminally responsible.
In other words, you don't give the keys over to the janitor when you are terminated, you give the keys over to the authorized representative. If he is in a situation where he doesn't know exactly who is authorized, then the right thing to do is to hang on to them until he knows that the person he is giving access to really is supposed to have access. You can get yourself in an assload of trouble for not doing this. To get in an assload of trouble even if you do it puts IT administrators between a rock and a hard place.
Once an authorized representative requested the passwords, he gave them to him. The mayor was almost certainly higher than necessary to get this done, but he may have been the only person Childs knew for a fact was authorized and could and whom he could also verify the identity.
These were passwords to Cisco routers and switches. He didn't lock anybody out, nobody else was ever authorized access in the first place! The first article to come out about this case said Childs changed everyone else's password and only granted himself access. That's patently absurd - the Cisco equipment they were using only takes two passwords - one to get into the router/switch, and one to make configuration changes. That's it. There are no other passwords to change, and he kept them the same accross the entire network. Because there are no other passwords to change, it is absolutely critical that only those who need to know the password know the password. According to company policy, nobody else needed to know the passwords, since he was the only one who worked on the equipment, and therefore nobody else was authorized to know the passwords. The city policy expressly forbids giving the passwords to your boss if your boss is not already authorized to know them.
The way it sounds to me like it happened was something like this: Childs's bosses wanted the passwords because they did not trust him having sole possesion of the passwords. He refused to give them the passwords because they were not authorized to know the passwords. At this point, instead of calling up someone who was authorized to receive the passwords (the CISO, according to city policy) and having Childs give them the passwords, they held a big meeting - including a teleconference - and demanded he give up the passwords or they would fire him. They may have done this because Childs was being a dick about the whole situation, but the fact is even if there was an authorized individual he could give the passwords to at this meeting, he couldn't share because there were unauthorized people present. At this point, they fired him, and when he refused to give the passwords up (because the people asking were still not authorized) they had him arrested under California's anti-hacking laws. They drummed up all sorts of nonsense charges, but the only thing that had any chance of sticking was the password issue, and even then it took a year and a half to build the case. In any case, as soon as he was able to give the passwords to an authorized individual - and only an authorized individual - he readily gave them up.
It's worth noting that things were running smoothly until the guy's bosses were finally able to access the system, at which point things started to break because they didn't know what the hell they were doing.
Kinda makes you think the policy was there for a reason, huh?
The organization's policies are no longer any of your business once you leave their employ.
That's simply not true. Had he given the passwords out to the wrong person, he could have found himself on trial for the exact same bullshit anti-hacker law they charged him with.
The only difference is it would be completely legitimate, and he'd lose in a heartbeat, instead of this drummed up witch hunt to save the DA and City's reputation.
And city policy was to not give out passwords to anyone who did need them to perform their daily job duties. It even explicitly states as a bullet point to not tell your boss your password.
Just because they were his supervisor does not mean they were authorized to know the password, and it does not mean he was permitted to share it with them.
He was just being a dick. He used the policy as an excuse but 'the mayor tried to get the passwords in a non-secure setting' is just fucking bullshit.
Following policy is not an excuse, it's the right thing to do. If the mayor tried to get the passwords with 15 unauthorized personnel within earshot, it's a non-secure setting and he should not have given it up.
The city policy expressly states that you should not give your passwords out to your boss. The only people who were to receive the passwords were those who required the passwords to fulfill their daily job duties. Childs was the only person on staff who fit that description, and as such, it was against policy to give out the passwords to anybody else (except the mayor in a secure setting).
He may well have been a dick, and he probably could have diffused the whole situation, but that doesn't mean he isn't right, and it doesn't mean his bosses should be allowed to throw him in jail for following policies that could very well have landed him in jail for not following.
They aren't nuclear launch codes and it was the highest man on the totem pole.
There very well could have been legal ramifications for handing out those passwords to unauthorized personnel. That includes his bosses.
I've got a news flash for you - in 12 days, management that doesn't know shit about networks can really fuck things up bad if they are allowed to mess with it. They were the last people he should have been giving access to, and anybody who actually works with this equipment knows that.
Imagine what would have happened if he had immediately turned over the passwords, management started mucking about, and they accidentally shut down half the network? You know what would happen then? This guy would have been fired for violating City policy, and possibly held legally responsible for the costs incurred. God forbid anybody should die in the process, then he's really fucked.
The fact is, from what I can tell anyway, Childs did the responsible thing but his bosses went on a fricking power trip and had him thrown in jail without ever following the proper procedure for any of this. The assholes here are the management, even if the guy is a dick.
Admins should just run the country rather than doing their jobs as their told.
Just want to point out that this guy is on trial precisely because he was doing his job as he was told.
Slashdot Mirror
They may improve the standards of their suppliers, but they treat their domestic employees like shit. It's almost like they are trying to bring the two together somewhere in the middle.
They definitely want them, the question is can they afford them? The Chinese economy is structured such that there is a much larger disparity between the rich and poor than in the west, and there are few opportunities for advancement. The culture is such that laborers are the lowest class of citizens and as such are treated extremely poorly no matter where they go.
This is a culture that has been thousands of years in the making, and only in recent history has been hijacked by the communist government. The culture hasn't changed at all with the change in government. Oddly enough, communism simply perpetuates the divide instead of closing the gap, which is its stated purpose. Funny that.
And Microsoft is the only company among the dozens that contract with this company that is sending over a team to either rectify the situation or find a new company to do business with.
What's your point? That someone else found it first? So what? MS isn't sitting on their hands and ignoring it, they are doing something to fix the problem.
Why not bash the companies that don't give a shit instead?
You'd be a king in China, though.
Cheapest beer price I found in China for a pint was $0.11. Average price $1.30. Cheapest pint of beer (retail) I could find in the US was about $.50 per. Average in the US is about $4 for a pint. That works out to about $1 an hour. If you go cheapest beer, you're looking at about $1.50. Beer isn't necessarily a good metric though.
Median income in China is about $1,000, and these kids are being paid about $2700, which is pretty damned excellent by Chinese standards. They just have to take a hell of a lot of abuse to make that much money, and of course, that's not a lot of money by our standards - it's equivalent to making about $15,000 or so in the US. Compared to the rest of China that would be like pulling in $135k (close to 3x the median) in the US. That of course, is because their standard of living is so low. They would not be able to afford the average US standard of living on those wages.
You're falling into a common sociological mistake when comparing two societies. You cannot judge the conditions of one society by the standards of another. It is completely improper to compare $50,000 a year in the US to $900 a year in China and say that the US is 56 times better off, because you are wrong. In most places in the US, an individual cannot survive on his own making $10,000 a year. However, in China, an individual can survive on $900 a year. Thus a direct comparison is completely invalid, because the conditions are different. Also, we artificially inflate our median income with minimum wage. It doesn't matter one whit how many dollars you make, what matters is how much you can buy with a dollar. A US dollar goes a hell of a lot farther in China than it does in America.
As such, you've completely sabotaged your argument, because these students are earning about $2700 per year. That's three times the median. In other words, the management is shit, the conditions are shit, they have next to no rights as workers, but relative to their fellow countrymen they are paid very well to compensate for the shitty conditions.
In other words, YOU may not like it, and THEY may not like it, but they do stick it out as long as they can because the pay is so damn good compared to anything else they can get. It's like sticking it out with that shitty ass company because they pay you well and if you quit you wouldn't be able to find anything better. Our government looks out for us, unlike China's, so things are rarely as bad as the shops in China, but the essentials of the problem are the same no matter where you go.
What programmers? These kids are putting together hardware. It's a shitty work study program, with shitty managers and shitty policies, and a lot of these kids don't know any better, but they are actually paid a decent wage compared to the rest of china.
And if she quits, she can find something else to do, or you will support her as necessary.
You mean like this Chinese guy who is supporting his parents who don't work?
Wow, great job man.
I'm pretty sure he was being serious, and I'm pretty sure you're being a dumbass. :)
I'm not sure how you can call them slaves, considering the following facts:
1.)They are not forced to work there, they can leave at any time.
2.)They are not forced to work overtime, they can go home instead of working late and not lose their jobs
3.)They earn a better than average wage for their region
4.)They work overtime because they choose to, and need the money (because the local economy is poor).
Slaves, however:
1.)Do not have a choice to work
2.)Do not have a choice in how long they work
3.)Do not earn a wage (though food and shelter is generally provided)
4.)Are allowed no concept of "overtime" - they work until the master says stop
5.)Don't get to consent to anything.
So exactly what part about these people's situation makes them slaves? They are poor because the economy in their region is shit. That does not make them slaves. 50 cents an hour is low by our standards, but one of the most common sociological mistakes people make is by judging the conditions of one society by the standards of another. In China, the gentleman in the article is in an ok position. Not a great position, but not a terrible one either relative to those around him. He has a future, and he can provide for himself. Would he be better off in America? Abso-frickin-lutely, but that does not mean he is bad off. It just means he is not as well off as he could be.
It definitely does not make him a slave. There are real cases of slavery in China - it's called human trafficking, and it's horrendous. This story is in no way like it. The place this guy works for can't be considered a "sweatshop", it's just harsh. There are jobs in America that are worse, but they aren't sweatshops.
Most idealists have a very poor concept of reality. That's the basically the definition of idealist. "This is the way it should happen, so this is the way it WILL happen!" That's an idealist. So they try to do things the way they think they should work, and things usually fall apart because their idealism was not tempered with reality. A realist is the exact opposite, and runs into the opposite problem. A realist says "This is the way it is, whether I like it or not." the problem realists who have no ideals run into is that because things are they are they are, they don't think things can ever change.
Truly innovative, successful people are usually idealists who have had a strong dose of reality, and have tempered their idealism with what is real. The hard nosed but successful people are realists who have strong ideals, and are driving to change reality to fit their ideals.
Both types are much more balanced than your average idealist, and either one would do great things on a board of directors, given the right circumstances.
You have no fucking clue what "share holder" means do you? Think about it for half a second and you might be able to figure it out.
Do you own stock in a 401k plan? If so, you are the top-tier elite bastard.
That's right "Share Holders" means people who own shares in a company. The vast majority of share holders are in the middle class, quite a stretch from "top-tier". They are the ultimate bosses for every public corporation. They decide who gets to be on the board of directors, and the board of directors chooses the CEO. I get voter cards in the mail all the time for the shares that I own. All such corporations hold yearly share holder meetings, and the board and CEO lay out their plans to their share holders, and the share holders tell them exactly what they think of it.
The "top-tier elite bastards" you speak of are the average, everyday citizen who has a stake in that corporation. The corporation's entire game plan is directed to bring them as much money as possible.
In other words, you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
Communism in its true form will prevent the sociopathic power elite from dominating others, and so they fight it, and/or infiltrate it and take over from the inside.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously though, you know there are a lot of people who have believed this, and sought to form their own independent - if small - utopian societies. Generally they form groups of 50 or less and go off into the wilderness where they can live their ideals in peace.
They never work. They tend to stick around a while, but that is only because new people come in as people who have been there a while leave. You usually find the original founders of these societies living in a downtown apartment some thirty years after they founded the society, working for megacorp X for a living.
Want to know why? Because at some point, two people will disagree on what is best for the community. That's fine and dandy, and by itself won't cause much of a problem, but there are points in every community's history where a decision one way or another must be made. If two people disagree on what is best, they both will attempt to sway the others that their way is right. If there hadn't been opposing groups before, they form almost immediately. The society is now divided and the communistic structure is well on its way to crumbling.
The reason the USSR was a heavy-handed communist government run by power hungry elitists is because that is the only way communism can ever be applied to an entire nation. As soon as you allow one person to say "No, I don't want to" the whole system begins to crumble.
Communist governments are always run by dictators because that is the only way they will ever work. Your idea of "pure" communism can never form until the entire nation is of like mind. I don't think any nation - no matter how large or small - has ever been of like mind on anything. The idea of Communism is that everyone should be equal. However, the only way to make it work is to force those who disagree to follow along. Therefore there must be a ruling class, and their primary purpose is to oppress the non-conformists. The very formation of a true Communist government will always fail for this reason, there is no way around it. Freedom cannot be allowed, or people would chose not to be Communist.
The reason we choose Capitalism over Feudalism or Communism is because Capitalism provides the most potential for freedom. In a capitalist society, there is definitely a top and a bottom, but the beauty of it is anybody can rise to the top. You have but to look at one of the richest men in the world: Bill Gates. He was nothing but a nerdy college kid messing with computers in his garage when he struck it rich, and now he is at the apex. Star athletes, movie stars and music stars often come from poor families but get wealthy off of their own talents and abilities. Yeah someone who starts out with a lot of money has it easier, but even if you don't you can move up. Communism, however, works out a lot like Feudalism - if you are born poor there is no opportunity to rise to a higher station. There is no higher station, because theoretically everyone is equal. Sure, that government official may actually get three square meals a day, and served by his private chef in his large house, but he doesn't actually own anything, he's just as poor as everybody else *wink wink*.
Oh and the USSR was just as much a republic as the Greek and Roman republics from which we derive our system. All that is necessary for a republic is that you have individuals designated to represent different groups of people, and that every person is represented by at least one representative.
Being a republic has nothing to do with whether the people get to vote on their representatives, and though the republic uses democratic processes, it does not preclude a monarchy or dictator. Look at the American republic - if the President were not chosen by the people, but instead chosen by birth, and if the senators and congressmen were chosen by their station (aka nobility), we would have the Roman republic. As long as people are designated to represent the average citizen in the government, you have a republic. The USSR had this.
We've already tried live USB drives, but we ran into many issues with non-supported hardware on students' home computers.
Best advice I ever got, particularly with regards Linux but it's true for almost everything computer related, was from my Linux+ prof. He said the best way to learn a system was to break it and then figure out how to fix it. Frankly, the students who have hardware issues are already half way there.
Make it part of a class project to fix it, and if they don't have anything that is broken, then really break something good and then fix it. Point them in the right direction to find what they need, and let them at it. They'll learn how to learn more about the system, basically - it's a huge learning opportunity.
You're still going to want a VM with a distro on it, but I wouldn't toss the USB Live distros either.
In all seriousness, however, what version of Linux would that *not* apply to?
All of them, hence:
For this kind of stuff, you'd really want a virtualized solution.
(which btw, people further up the food chain, including the highest ranking person there, told him to ignore in this case)
The highest ranking person there doesn't mean shit if the highest ranking person there isn't authorized by the city to make such a decision.
What happens if you give the passwords to someone who, according to the IT Security policy which you had to sign a binding legal agreement to uphold, is not authorized to have the password and it leaks out, putting the entire infrastructure at risk?
What then? That's pretty much exactly what happened here. The people who were telling him to ignore the policy did not have the authority to tell them to ignore policy - it was binding on them too!
I'll tell you what happens if he gives the passwords to people he shouldn't. In the case of a private entity, not only can you be fired (and rightly so), but if your actions led to the leaking of information that must be kept secret by federal privacy guidelines then you can be held criminally and civilly liable as well. In the case of a government entity, it's almost a certainty that you can be held criminally liable. This system absolutely had sensitive data on it, and it was part of his job to make sure it did not get out.
So what the hell are you supposed to do? Give up the passwords in spite of security policy and go to jail when stuff breaks or private data leaks, or refuse to give up the passwords and go to jail anyway? What the fuck man? I'll admit, it sounds like Childs was being a dick about the whole situation, and had he been more diplomatic he could have diffused the whole thing early on, but what if it's your bosses being dicks, and nothing you do to try to do things the right way works. I've seen office politics, and some people know how to stir up a shit storm in a hurry to get rid of someone they don't like.
In any case, nobody should lose two years of their life for no better reason than they were being a bit of a dick at work.
There are REALLY simple ways to handle these solutions.
You're right, and they were laid down in policy format, and his bosses didn't follow them.
When are admins going to realize they are nothing more than computer janitors?
That's funny, they get paid a hell of a lot more than janitors do.
Their argument is that since he wouldn't give up the passwords after he was fired (to people who still weren't authorized to receive them) he was a hacker by definition of California's anti-hacker law. Therefore he was a threat they needed to protect against, and by not giving up the passwords he was disrupting service.
It's a strange argument, and frankly I don't think it is going to fly. The jury is more than likely going to think "Yeah, but nothing was actually damaged". I don't think it's going to work for the prosecution, proving damages when there weren't any damages is one hell of a tough sell.
These people are hardly average. Juries consist of 12 people who are not smart enough to get out of Jury Duty.
You assume that everyone is a self-absorbed shithead who doesn't give a fuck about his country or the justice system, and not just you. It's also worth noting that the easiest way to not be selected for the jury was to be a dumbass.
I've served on a Jury, and except for the filling out forms and waiting around part, I was interested, honored, and proud to be entrusted with that kind of responsibility. Self-important assholes who think they are a lot smarter than they actually are better off not being selected anyway.
The only part of the experience that sucked was I went through the whole thing and ended up being the alternate, and didn't actually get to deliberate.
In front of a Jury of admins this guy might stand a chance. But it is entirely plausible that anyone with any knowledge of computers was selected out of this Jury (to avoid any preconceptions). Given that this trial is related to Child's professional conduct, the logical course would be to select a Jury of fellow techies (his true peers). Unfortunately, our legal system just does work that way.
Frankly, you obviously have no concept of what a jury actually does, or who a "peer" is. A "peer" isn't related, in any way, to your job. You are not defined by your job. Frankly, if the prosecution cannot argue their points to a layman juror in a way they can understand, it will be easy to introduce doubt. Reasonable doubt is pretty strict - it means you believe that the defendant's explanation is at all reasonable, in light of the facts presented, then the prosecution did not prove their point. This applies to every single point of law in the case, and there always at least two, often three, and sometimes four or more points to prove. The prosecution must convince a jury that it is not reasonable to think anything but the prosecution's interpretation of what happened is what actually happened. Obviously there is rarely any way to be absolutely certain of anything, but reasonable doubt is only one step below that. Only a sociopath would not recognize the gravity of the situation and not take the job seriously.
Most of this case centers around things for which technical skill has absolutely no bearing. For example, whether or not Childs had malicious intent, and whether or not any damage was actually done. In fact, in a lot of cases overly technical people would get wrapped up in stupid details that mean next to nothing and would be a horrible judge of either of those.
Childs is in a very good position on both, because the network ran fine up until he gave up the passwords and his bosses started mucking with the system. The prosecution is going to have a hard time proving he booby trapped it, which is essentially what they will have to do.
I read the policy, I saw no mention of any database, only that the CISO was authorized to hold such passwords. From what I understand, the only time the CISO was involved was in a room full of unauthorized personnel that he would not have been able to share the password.
Under the very same anti-hacker law that Childs is being tried for breaking, had he given the passwords to the wrong people after his termination he could be held criminally responsible.
In other words, you don't give the keys over to the janitor when you are terminated, you give the keys over to the authorized representative. If he is in a situation where he doesn't know exactly who is authorized, then the right thing to do is to hang on to them until he knows that the person he is giving access to really is supposed to have access. You can get yourself in an assload of trouble for not doing this. To get in an assload of trouble even if you do it puts IT administrators between a rock and a hard place.
Once an authorized representative requested the passwords, he gave them to him. The mayor was almost certainly higher than necessary to get this done, but he may have been the only person Childs knew for a fact was authorized and could and whom he could also verify the identity.
These were passwords to Cisco routers and switches. He didn't lock anybody out, nobody else was ever authorized access in the first place! The first article to come out about this case said Childs changed everyone else's password and only granted himself access. That's patently absurd - the Cisco equipment they were using only takes two passwords - one to get into the router/switch, and one to make configuration changes. That's it. There are no other passwords to change, and he kept them the same accross the entire network. Because there are no other passwords to change, it is absolutely critical that only those who need to know the password know the password. According to company policy, nobody else needed to know the passwords, since he was the only one who worked on the equipment, and therefore nobody else was authorized to know the passwords. The city policy expressly forbids giving the passwords to your boss if your boss is not already authorized to know them.
The way it sounds to me like it happened was something like this: Childs's bosses wanted the passwords because they did not trust him having sole possesion of the passwords. He refused to give them the passwords because they were not authorized to know the passwords. At this point, instead of calling up someone who was authorized to receive the passwords (the CISO, according to city policy) and having Childs give them the passwords, they held a big meeting - including a teleconference - and demanded he give up the passwords or they would fire him. They may have done this because Childs was being a dick about the whole situation, but the fact is even if there was an authorized individual he could give the passwords to at this meeting, he couldn't share because there were unauthorized people present. At this point, they fired him, and when he refused to give the passwords up (because the people asking were still not authorized) they had him arrested under California's anti-hacking laws. They drummed up all sorts of nonsense charges, but the only thing that had any chance of sticking was the password issue, and even then it took a year and a half to build the case. In any case, as soon as he was able to give the passwords to an authorized individual - and only an authorized individual - he readily gave them up.
It's worth noting that things were running smoothly until the guy's bosses were finally able to access the system, at which point things started to break because they didn't know what the hell they were doing.
Kinda makes you think the policy was there for a reason, huh?
The organization's policies are no longer any of your business once you leave their employ.
That's simply not true. Had he given the passwords out to the wrong person, he could have found himself on trial for the exact same bullshit anti-hacker law they charged him with.
The only difference is it would be completely legitimate, and he'd lose in a heartbeat, instead of this drummed up witch hunt to save the DA and City's reputation.
Except that the half dozen other people who were on that teleconference were definitely not authorized to know the password.
They didn't ask him again until after they'd had him arrested.
http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf
Now you can, and you're absolutely right.
And city policy was to not give out passwords to anyone who did need them to perform their daily job duties. It even explicitly states as a bullet point to not tell your boss your password.
Just because they were his supervisor does not mean they were authorized to know the password, and it does not mean he was permitted to share it with them.
He was just being a dick. He used the policy as an excuse but 'the mayor tried to get the passwords in a non-secure setting' is just fucking bullshit.
Following policy is not an excuse, it's the right thing to do. If the mayor tried to get the passwords with 15 unauthorized personnel within earshot, it's a non-secure setting and he should not have given it up.
The city policy expressly states that you should not give your passwords out to your boss. The only people who were to receive the passwords were those who required the passwords to fulfill their daily job duties. Childs was the only person on staff who fit that description, and as such, it was against policy to give out the passwords to anybody else (except the mayor in a secure setting).
He may well have been a dick, and he probably could have diffused the whole situation, but that doesn't mean he isn't right, and it doesn't mean his bosses should be allowed to throw him in jail for following policies that could very well have landed him in jail for not following.
They aren't nuclear launch codes and it was the highest man on the totem pole.
There very well could have been legal ramifications for handing out those passwords to unauthorized personnel. That includes his bosses.
I've got a news flash for you - in 12 days, management that doesn't know shit about networks can really fuck things up bad if they are allowed to mess with it. They were the last people he should have been giving access to, and anybody who actually works with this equipment knows that.
Imagine what would have happened if he had immediately turned over the passwords, management started mucking about, and they accidentally shut down half the network? You know what would happen then? This guy would have been fired for violating City policy, and possibly held legally responsible for the costs incurred. God forbid anybody should die in the process, then he's really fucked.
The fact is, from what I can tell anyway, Childs did the responsible thing but his bosses went on a fricking power trip and had him thrown in jail without ever following the proper procedure for any of this. The assholes here are the management, even if the guy is a dick.
Admins should just run the country rather than doing their jobs as their told.
Just want to point out that this guy is on trial precisely because he was doing his job as he was told.
It was a written policy. You can find the base document here: http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf