1). DOS? Yes, fairly easily. With the programs available now, it is fairly easy to construct an antenna with the sort of gain needed to jam the receiver inputs. The need here is not to take control but deny you control. This can be as simple as just degrading the s/n ratio to the point where you are lost in the noise floor or can't stand out from the crowd. By sending up a signal with noise on it, what you hear is noise. Hard to tell if you're being jammed or just having noisy conditions. In this case you've been jammed, causing DOS and may not even know it. Then there is the case where they just send up a signal with the intent of jamming the input and letting you know that you're being jammed.
What you lack in raw output power can be compensated for with antenna gain. Odds are you're using short wavelengths which allows you to build "death ray" (very high gain) antennas that really aren't very big. Or use several linked together which makes them even smaller. With a combination of high gain and narrow bandwidth, not only can they deny you access to your bird, but they'll be hard to trace because of the narrow beamwidth. Nowadays, with the increased interest in amateur radio satellite operations, the eqipment needed is cheap and easy to obtain and can be masked as a "ham" setup. There are now solid state options that allow a small transmitter to be constructed capable of 100 or more watts that can do the job. I've seen satellites "captured" with 100 watts and a 23db portable antenna.
2). Crack the operating codes? If you're not encrypting the signals, someone is monitoring them and working the issues already. Why? Because it's there. How did people crack the telephone company switch codes? How did mainframes get cracked? Combination of innate human curiosity and revenge by disgruntled, former employees. Don't fool yourself by thinking some combination won't happen to you.
3). Whatever protocols you go with will be subject to cracking. Just like any other asset on the 'Net, you can't just secure it, you have to keep up with changes.
You'll need to use several different techniques to secure the satellite. Polarization, multiple access frequencies,spread spectrum or frequency hopping, encryption that uses both hardware and software, modulation techniques, time based access and others. The use of a proprietary system limits the number of people that will know it, but doesn't eliminate that information getting out. Look at what happened with the "Falcon and the Snowman" where the spy was selling highly classified and sensitive manuals on satellite operation to the Soviets. A straightforward scientific satellite won't even have the cloak of patriotism to wrap itself in to ward off this type of human engineering.
What is the operation of this bird worth to you? What would it be worth to someone to gain control of it? Now, how expensive and how hard do you want to make it to do that? Imagine your house is worth $250,000. You should probably use more than just a low-end lock set on it. You probably don't need Ft. Knox security. You need something in between and that will be determined by how much you are willing to spend balanced against how likely you are to have to use that expense. Think of it like backing up your server. How much will it cost you if it goes down, and how much will it cost you if it goes down and won't come back up?
I can only hope you know more than you're letting on. Otherwise, that's a telling comment on how little your company thinks of the security of it's assets.
What I really appreciated from the article is that they do have a sense of perspective. It is a coffee machine, as they put it "the most expensive broken coffee machine in the world" when they bought it. Yet, a significant event in the history of the web. Hundreds of people warmed themselves with the coffee while millions of people looked at it online. The first web cam. They simply couldn't allow such an icon of the Web to be thrown away. Thanks to them, it's a piece of 'Net history that continues to lives on. I can only hope that it ends up in the Smithsonian some day, but it's our own fault if it doesn't. Thanks to the staff at Spiegel for doing this. It hasn't saved the world, but it has helped to preserve part of it. Vielen Dank von Ihrem Kameraden bei Slashdot. Froeliche Weihnachten und eines Gutes Neues Jahr.
The Internet won't break down the barriers, people will. What the Internet will do is facilitate the transfer of information and ideas with far less restrictions (though that appears to be changing-YRO). What the Internet can do is allowed like minded individuals to gather in electronic forums where they can work on understanding each other.
Get out from behind your keyboard, or at least point your browser somewhere besides here or a kernel mirror;). Go find some material to help you learn a foreign language, then go to a chat room or board to practice it with someone from that country. They'll be glad to work with you. Ashamed of your fluency with that language? So are they about their fluency with English. Work together to communicate. Russian is hard to learn. English is hard to learn. So is Perl, so is multiprotocol networking in an enterprise environment, so is hacking a network. Yet lot's of us that lurk here do these things. Learn a language besides C, speak with the people that use that language and learn a culture. Dare to use the 'Net for more than pr0n, cracking and flaming.
The Russian language has a rich culture of literature. They are also not afraid to import literature from other lands. Mark Twain has been translated into Russian (amongst others) and is very popular there. I read, write and speak German, Russian (badly now) and have a working knowledge of English (American) and HTML;). And a smattering of standard Arabic. That only leaves over a hundred other languages to go;). Plus Perl.
In a nutshell, the 'Net won't break down those barriers, we will. It will just help us like minded people to find each other to do it.
While no OS is ever perfect, this is seriously not funny. I did some security work in the military and know that if someone wants to get you bad enough, eventually they will. With Linux, I'm carefull what neighborhoods I go into, but confident that I've got some measure of security while walking about. I have XP as one of my OSs (as well as OS/2, Win95, NT 4.0 and Linux) on my work station. Now, with XP, I feel like a virgin that passed out at a frat party. I'm awake now, but with no idea what happened while I wasn't.;) Oh well, I was looking at wiping that partition anyway.
The issue you raise of backing up raises the questions of what do you want to accomplish? Do you just want to restore if the drive crashes? If so, RAID will give you the peace you seek. Do you want back up because of electrical problems? Floods, fire, vandalism, tornado, Acts of God or other things that go crash on the disk? Back up to a medium that will allow you to take the storage medium off site to a more secure location.
If the machine is in the basement, taking the disks or tapes upstairs doesn't help if there's a fire. Keep them with a family member or friend located far enough away that they won't be lost if there's a flood in the area or forest fire or tornado. You need some space diversity (separation) to preclude the same incident from destroying both the orignals and the backups. The limiting factor is how rapidly you need to access the backups. The further away you put them the longer or more expensive to access them in a timely manner.
The length of the operation to back up is relevant. This is determined by the amount to back up, the capacity of the medium (in case you have to use more than one) and the speed at which the media is written to (usually includes time to verify the data). During this process you don't want to be accessing the data or using the machine. This sort of operation is usually conducted at night or early morning to insure unobstructed access to the files and exclusive use of the machine during the backup process. During this time you would normally lock out users to be able to lock the data files while you copy them. Meaning the machine should be left alone while you back up the data.
What do you back up? Unless you spend an endless amount of time customizing the installation, stick to backing up the data. Programs can be reinstalled off the media they came on. You already have copies of them. Your user files and configuration files can be specifically included as part of the back up process if they are that involved. I set up my partitions so that my data is in separate partitions to simplify my backups. I also set up my programs to support that same architecture. This simplifies the process. It does you no good if you go to bed at 11, get up at 7, and the back up doesn't finish up until 9. Especially if you had other processes you needed to run at night, like maybe some rendering.
What will be your schedule? Daily full backups? Initial full back up with daily incrementals, weekly and monthly full backups? How often will you swap out the media and rotate them off site? One way is to do a full initial back up and move it off site. Then every day you do an incremental back up of only those files that have been added or changed and at the end of the week, you do another full. Then you take that tape off site. Keep the initial one as a base line reference. With 3 tapes, you have the initial one and then one full week worth of back up and the incrementals up to the point of failure. If you lose the machine and current tape, you only lose back to the last weeks backup. With more tapes you get more depth. This can be good if you discover that you have been infected with something and the date goes back several weeks. Like the various Code Red variants did.
What software solution is there that appeals to you? Does the software package you want to use support the medium you want to use? If not, consider just writing a script to write to the medium you want. 'Course then you need to figure out how to mark the files you want to backup. That's why they make software packages that handle those sort of issues.
It can be complicated, it can be less so. Figure out what you really want to and can afford to protect against, what you really want to back up and how important it is. From there you can realistically determine the rest. There is much more, like how long you want them to last, whether the system you want has Linux support, and more. This should help you define the problem so that you can solve it. This won't answer all your questions, but there will be addendums to this comment which will point out some of the other short comings.;) Good luck. BTW, I use tape. Daily incremental and weekly full, monthly full and store at work.
How about a self powered mobo? Think self-powered, dual Athlon machine! Talk about a laptop that has some legs! How about leaving your flashlight on overnight and it still works the next night!
Having worked for the government for awhile, both in and out of the military, there are several insights for that part of the network. For awhile, the official architecture was Windows NT. Regardless of it's strengths or weaknesses. We were using Novell at the time and under constant pressure from on high to get with the official architecture. Fortunately, my boss was more concerned with costs and effectiveness than official position. However, security wasn't an issue. Even in '98 we didn't have a firewall and the director didn't see the need for one. And since he didn't see the need for one, there wasn't going to be one. Only secure networks were using firewalls, and they weren't using NT for that. You might say, "I thought you just said the official architecture was to use NT?" and you would be correct. But even MS couldn't overcome the obligation for classified networks to look at security and stability first and evangelism second. The firewalls were manned by *nix boxen or other platforms and people that knew how to configure them.
Another problem is the civil service. You can have someone rise from a computer background to head a major department responsible for all IT and Telecomm issues that can barely use an e-mail client and can't explain one difference between ISDN and POTS. Then, they hire based on longevity. If you show up with the qualifications for a gs-9/10/11 position but haven't been in civil service, don't even think about it. Come in as a 4 or 5 and work your way up. Those inside the system feel that the higher position should be their's by virtue of having "put in their time". Promotions should be based on how long you've been in the system, not whether or not you can do it. My wife, who was in the civil service was once warned not to even think about applying for a specific position. Despite have a degree in the field and current certifications (medical field where those things frequently mean something) she hadn't been there long enough to deserve to apply for it. The woman who warned her used to have current qualifications, but had stopped bothering to stay current over 10 years ago. Nor attend any sort of training or classes to at least stay up on developing techniques. Not smart in any field. This sort of personnel system doesn't encourage people to stay or even to try to hire on. At this particular installation, those of us that could move on, did. Oh, did I mention that the pay isn't one of the more enticing features? I started at a large corporation making more than the director of that organization. Not that I make that much, they make that little.
Let's see, forced system architectures from the top down. A system that rewards longevity at the expense of competence. No central policies to control and/or coordinate at the command level, let alone service level, let alone within the civilian side of the house. And an incredibly low pay scale. I can't imagine why there would there would be any deficiencies. The good news is that there still exist some competent, dedicated people within this structure. Which is why any of the networks and/or machines passed at all.
Extending that reasoning would raise the issue of why do so many companies make cars? Are all these different cars flawed? And each company makes so many different models. Is each model a different attempt to get it right? Why does each company need so many different types? Can't they just make a good car the first time? Obviously, with so many companies trying to make the same thing there are entirely too many choices. The market must not yet be mature, the products too complicated for any one company to attempt. You need to reconsider your use of cars. You should stick to trains.
But don't fly. Same problem there. Too many companies trying to make the same thing, each making more than one. This can't allow them to provide the sort of product focus that should be incumbent upon a manufacturer of so complicated and dangerous a product. Do you really want to trust your valuble, irreplaceable life to a product where the manufacturer refuses to concentrate totally on the one model they expect you to trust your life to? Or the lives of those who then have to live under the flight path of these obviously dangerous machines? Thank God they don't make operating systems!
Fortunately for you, there are safe havens! North Korea! China! Afghanistan! Quick, flee there while you can! Once there, you can relax knowing that the people in charge there are vigorously stamping out choice to protect you! Once there you can enjoy all the benefits of culture in just one culture. All the benefits of religion in just one religion (Afghanistan) or no religion if that offends you (China, North Korea). Once there, join the local party and learn the benefits of the efficiency of cooperation with the state. One country, one party, one people, one culture.
Please try not to feel too much pity for those of us that don't have the courage to leave our multi-cultural, open society. We promise not to envy you too much.
In a word, no, they don't help. My son tried one with his 8500 and it didn't help him. When we got phones for the whole family, I did some research and chose the StarTac phones based on technical merit. My daughter also chose a StarTac for the same reason. No matter how feature packed the phone is, those features are useless if you can't connect. My wife and son chose the Samsung 8500 because it looked cooler and had the voice dialing option built into the phone. My daughter and I consistently had better success connecting with our phones than my wife and son with theirs. I've had problems with using the phones at home until they put another cell tower in town. Now I have much better service in the house except for one dead zone in the house. Dead zones are unavoidable in the world of RF. Ce la vie.
The town has ordnances that preclude towers within so many feet of housing. People don't want to see a cell tower from their home, but want to walk anywhere they please and have crystal, clear service. In my town, Sprint worked with the city to put a new cell site on top of a light pole at the nearby baseball complex. If your town is anything like mine, there is a nearby sports complex (soccer/baseball) that doubles as a SUV display area where all parents and their sportly progeny come equipped with a cell phone as standard equipment;) See about having them mount a cell site on one of the light poles there. If you're in a more urban area, like Chicago or New York, complain to the provider. They do gather the reports and use them when adjusting coverage. Get everyone you know on that service to send in complaints on drop outs and poor coverage. But - it will take time.
Why would one use your cell at home? Sometimes the people who have your cell number discover that for some reason they can't reach you at your wireline and try the cell. Even when you're sitting within arms reach of your wireline. The modem may have hung on the line rendering it off hook, one of the phones may be off hook where you can't hear it, the line may indeed be out, ad nauseum. I hope this helps answer your question.
Do what you must just don't Yahoo on us. It's been a good ride so far and I agree that you do a far better service by surviving another four years than by going the way of MyBoot.com;) Make the adjustments that you need to to live in the real world but don't stop showing it a new way to skin the cat. Oh, and don't go respectable on us.:) Rock on Dudes!
Re:I think they should give the teachers laptops..
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Technology and Society
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The problem, in many cases is that teachers that want to use this technology already have a computer, frequently a Powerbook or PC desktop. Giving these teachers a PC laptop either gives them the platform that will be the district standard (in the case of a Powerbook) or gives them a portable PC to shuttle stuff between home and work (high class sneakernet). Either way, you are preaching to the converted. Most of the rest don't want a computer and so don't have one. Giving them one doesn't solve the problem as they don't use them. Some will. Some just needed this little push to see what it's all about and they run with it. Most will ignore it to the best of their ability. We voted a bond to pay for this in Colorado Springs. The teachers were given the laptops at the end of the school year to work with over the summer. Next year, my children commented on how few used them or knew how. Most apparently refused to use them and remained functionally illiterate when it came to using computers. A friend of mine's wife is still a teacher there and has commented on the lack of interest at the teacher level on using technology in the classroom.
One of the most significant issues here is the quality of the educators and the curriculum. Those issues need to be addressed before technology can help. Technology can only assist a quality program, not substitute for the lack of quality in the program. GINGO.
We see a lot of passionate discussion here about Linux and conquering the world. We have a lot of ideas about what should be done to help Linux and protect it. With your background, what is the real, central issue to Linux in political Washington?
Being the conscientious sort I went to the Symantec site to see what they had for information on Nimda. I did this Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning we were asked to update our virus definitions and shortly thereafter my AV detected Nimda on my Windoze box. When I looked at the files that were infected, they were in my browser cache from my visit to the sarc webpage the afternoon before. I picked up the readme.exe file and the other.eml and html files that this virus spreads.
In a case like this it was like going to Dr. Kevorkian for treatment;) I suspect that they've since cleaned it up, but it shows how easy it can be for even people that know better to get caught offguard sometimes. I spent yesterday watching my Apache logs fill up as the waves of machines pounded against my Linux box. Kinda like "Night of the Living Dead". As if that wasn't enough, the "Virtual Post Card for You" hoax made the rounds this morning (good timing though).
While my daughter is away at the university, I have Symantec products protecting her Win2k machine in my absence. The school is requiring students to use some MS products for school so it's a necessary evil for now. None of the Comp Sci majors there (freshmen) knows how to use Linux yet. I've been handing out Mandrake and RedHat as well as playing tech support for them while they improve themselves.:)
Salon is running an article right now, Fingered by the Movie Cops, http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirat e/index.html, that addresses the same issue here in the land of the Fee. No proof provided as of the writing of the article, yet they were guilty in absentia. We ought to start a grass roots movement to get us some sort of protection that holds us to be proven guilty of a crime, not just assumed so. Oh, right, never mind.:( This is not what I spent 20 years in the military defending.
Sign me up for Hailstorm right now! Do you need my credit card number now or later? When do you want my ssn, drivers license, home address and other personal information? Boy, I sure am glad I've got a big responsible company to handle my sensitive data instead of a bunch of foreign nobodies. If MicroSoft can't protect my information, who can we trust?;)
A lot of us come out of DoD with our initial training and skillset in the IT field. The DoD is the umbrella organization for all the services (much as the MoD is for our cousins):) So, not only will the DoD boxes per se be affected, but the deployed platforms within each service will be too. That means that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines will have thousands of officers and enlisted men and women exposed to doing "mission critical" work on something not made in Redmond. As DoD sets the IT policy for the various branches, they will follow suit as Star Office establishes that it is up to the tasks. Despite a solid Novell/ccMail capmus network with less down time and lower hardware and software investments, we were being told by DoD to migrate to NT and Exchange. Every year thousands of people will enter American society with experience in something other than Office. MS can be expected to either protest the awarding of the contract on legal grounds or question the validity of entrusting our national security to Open Source software. Expect to hear more in the next year on this subject.
Having known someone relatively well before he checked out, I can say that you don't really know why people do it. You think you do, and people go on and on about why he/she did it. Others come in from afar and get passionate about why it happened and muddy the waters and raise tensions. In the end, after the dust has settled,passion has cooled, and we have had some time to adjust to the loss, we find out we really still don't know why they did it. The sad part is that teenagers frequently don't know what they want to wear tomorrow, let alone whether or not they want to stay and make a go of it. Long before they know what the options for life are they opt out with incomplete data.
How can you write gold code in this level if you still don't know many of the system calls yet?
Small ISPs will continue to survive if for no other reason than some people will not settle for the "one size fits none" mentality of bigger organizations. Even if they disappear for awhile, they'll show up again to provide service to the technically savvy (niche market now). IBM provided great service as a national level ISP. Shell accounts, support for other than M$ OSs, good support and international access. Then they sold that part of their business to AT&T, with the new appearance of busy signals and lower connect speeds. I've noticed that many people only look at the price. They either want the cheapest and don't care about service (don't understand the subject matter) or they want only the most expensive (don't understand the subject matter). Some friends of mine have switched ISPs for a mere $1 less per month!
2 things haven't changed since the days of the chariots; 1) you gets what you pay for; 2) caveat emptor!
As one who only occasionally dabbles in conspiracies as a passing hobby, I object to the improved ranking only as a knee-jerk reaction. I was one of the last to know about Yahoo listing results for money, and that was what really caused me to leave for Google. The results were worth the move. Although I had noticed more Yahoo pages showing up, I'm still finding what I want faster than before. I'm still mostly finding stuff on the first link or first page. As long as I keep finding what I'm looking for quickly, I'll keep using Google. When I start finding advertising pushed before content (like Yahoo previously) I'll move. The early Google served a need that others had forgotten. If they forget, someone will reinvent the wheel. And I'll ride that one.
UF is funny. It allows people to vent offline, instead of online. If he thinks it's not funny, he's been out of tech support too long to remember. The fact that so many enjoy it is the proof that someone finds it funny. Yes, I do find it funny that you can't replace a pipe, or cut the brake lines off because you couldn't get them loose, or won't pay to have me install your new hdd, but call in and expect me to walk you through it over the phone. But, it does appear that his main point is, I'm funny and enlightened, and you're not unless I say so. So read my comic, and hit my page.
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1). DOS? Yes, fairly easily. With the programs available now, it is fairly easy to construct an antenna with the sort of gain needed to jam the receiver inputs. The need here is not to take control but deny you control. This can be as simple as just degrading the s/n ratio to the point where you are lost in the noise floor or can't stand out from the crowd. By sending up a signal with noise on it, what you hear is noise. Hard to tell if you're being jammed or just having noisy conditions. In this case you've been jammed, causing DOS and may not even know it. Then there is the case where they just send up a signal with the intent of jamming the input and letting you know that you're being jammed.
What you lack in raw output power can be compensated for with antenna gain. Odds are you're using short wavelengths which allows you to build "death ray" (very high gain) antennas that really aren't very big. Or use several linked together which makes them even smaller. With a combination of high gain and narrow bandwidth, not only can they deny you access to your bird, but they'll be hard to trace because of the narrow beamwidth. Nowadays, with the increased interest in amateur radio satellite operations, the eqipment needed is cheap and easy to obtain and can be masked as a "ham" setup. There are now solid state options that allow a small transmitter to be constructed capable of 100 or more watts that can do the job. I've seen satellites "captured" with 100 watts and a 23db portable antenna.
2). Crack the operating codes? If you're not encrypting the signals, someone is monitoring them and working the issues already. Why? Because it's there. How did people crack the telephone company switch codes? How did mainframes get cracked? Combination of innate human curiosity and revenge by disgruntled, former employees. Don't fool yourself by thinking some combination won't happen to you.
3). Whatever protocols you go with will be subject to cracking. Just like any other asset on the 'Net, you can't just secure it, you have to keep up with changes.
You'll need to use several different techniques to secure the satellite. Polarization, multiple access frequencies,spread spectrum or frequency hopping, encryption that uses both hardware and software, modulation techniques, time based access and others. The use of a proprietary system limits the number of people that will know it, but doesn't eliminate that information getting out. Look at what happened with the "Falcon and the Snowman" where the spy was selling highly classified and sensitive manuals on satellite operation to the Soviets. A straightforward scientific satellite won't even have the cloak of patriotism to wrap itself in to ward off this type of human engineering.
What is the operation of this bird worth to you? What would it be worth to someone to gain control of it? Now, how expensive and how hard do you want to make it to do that? Imagine your house is worth $250,000. You should probably use more than just a low-end lock set on it. You probably don't need Ft. Knox security. You need something in between and that will be determined by how much you are willing to spend balanced against how likely you are to have to use that expense. Think of it like backing up your server. How much will it cost you if it goes down, and how much will it cost you if it goes down and won't come back up?
I can only hope you know more than you're letting on. Otherwise, that's a telling comment on how little your company thinks of the security of it's assets.
What I really appreciated from the article is that they do have a sense of perspective. It is a coffee machine, as they put it "the most expensive broken coffee machine in the world" when they bought it. Yet, a significant event in the history of the web. Hundreds of people warmed themselves with the coffee while millions of people looked at it online. The first web cam. They simply couldn't allow such an icon of the Web to be thrown away. Thanks to them, it's a piece of 'Net history that continues to lives on. I can only hope that it ends up in the Smithsonian some day, but it's our own fault if it doesn't. Thanks to the staff at Spiegel for doing this. It hasn't saved the world, but it has helped to preserve part of it. Vielen Dank von Ihrem Kameraden bei Slashdot. Froeliche Weihnachten und eines Gutes Neues Jahr.
The Internet won't break down the barriers, people will. What the Internet will do is facilitate the transfer of information and ideas with far less restrictions (though that appears to be changing-YRO). What the Internet can do is allowed like minded individuals to gather in electronic forums where they can work on understanding each other. ;). Go find some material to help you learn a foreign language, then go to a chat room or board to practice it with someone from that country. They'll be glad to work with you. Ashamed of your fluency with that language? So are they about their fluency with English. Work together to communicate. Russian is hard to learn. English is hard to learn. So is Perl, so is multiprotocol networking in an enterprise environment, so is hacking a network. Yet lot's of us that lurk here do these things. Learn a language besides C, speak with the people that use that language and learn a culture. Dare to use the 'Net for more than pr0n, cracking and flaming.
;). And a smattering of standard Arabic. That only leaves over a hundred other languages to go ;). Plus Perl.
Get out from behind your keyboard, or at least point your browser somewhere besides here or a kernel mirror
The Russian language has a rich culture of literature. They are also not afraid to import literature from other lands. Mark Twain has been translated into Russian (amongst others) and is very popular there. I read, write and speak German, Russian (badly now) and have a working knowledge of English (American) and HTML
In a nutshell, the 'Net won't break down those barriers, we will. It will just help us like minded people to find each other to do it.
While no OS is ever perfect, this is seriously not funny. I did some security work in the military and know that if someone wants to get you bad enough, eventually they will. With Linux, I'm carefull what neighborhoods I go into, but confident that I've got some measure of security while walking about. I have XP as one of my OSs (as well as OS/2, Win95, NT 4.0 and Linux) on my work station. Now, with XP, I feel like a virgin that passed out at a frat party. I'm awake now, but with no idea what happened while I wasn't. ;) Oh well, I was looking at wiping that partition anyway.
The issue you raise of backing up raises the questions of what do you want to accomplish? Do you just want to restore if the drive crashes? If so, RAID will give you the peace you seek. Do you want back up because of electrical problems? Floods, fire, vandalism, tornado, Acts of God or other things that go crash on the disk? Back up to a medium that will allow you to take the storage medium off site to a more secure location. ;) Good luck. BTW, I use tape. Daily incremental and weekly full, monthly full and store at work.
If the machine is in the basement, taking the disks or tapes upstairs doesn't help if there's a fire. Keep them with a family member or friend located far enough away that they won't be lost if there's a flood in the area or forest fire or tornado. You need some space diversity (separation) to preclude the same incident from destroying both the orignals and the backups. The limiting factor is how rapidly you need to access the backups. The further away you put them the longer or more expensive to access them in a timely manner.
The length of the operation to back up is relevant. This is determined by the amount to back up, the capacity of the medium (in case you have to use more than one) and the speed at which the media is written to (usually includes time to verify the data). During this process you don't want to be accessing the data or using the machine. This sort of operation is usually conducted at night or early morning to insure unobstructed access to the files and exclusive use of the machine during the backup process. During this time you would normally lock out users to be able to lock the data files while you copy them. Meaning the machine should be left alone while you back up the data.
What do you back up? Unless you spend an endless amount of time customizing the installation, stick to backing up the data. Programs can be reinstalled off the media they came on. You already have copies of them. Your user files and configuration files can be specifically included as part of the back up process if they are that involved. I set up my partitions so that my data is in separate partitions to simplify my backups. I also set up my programs to support that same architecture. This simplifies the process. It does you no good if you go to bed at 11, get up at 7, and the back up doesn't finish up until 9. Especially if you had other processes you needed to run at night, like maybe some rendering.
What will be your schedule? Daily full backups? Initial full back up with daily incrementals, weekly and monthly full backups? How often will you swap out the media and rotate them off site? One way is to do a full initial back up and move it off site. Then every day you do an incremental back up of only those files that have been added or changed and at the end of the week, you do another full. Then you take that tape off site. Keep the initial one as a base line reference. With 3 tapes, you have the initial one and then one full week worth of back up and the incrementals up to the point of failure. If you lose the machine and current tape, you only lose back to the last weeks backup. With more tapes you get more depth. This can be good if you discover that you have been infected with something and the date goes back several weeks. Like the various Code Red variants did.
What software solution is there that appeals to you? Does the software package you want to use support the medium you want to use? If not, consider just writing a script to write to the medium you want. 'Course then you need to figure out how to mark the files you want to backup. That's why they make software packages that handle those sort of issues.
It can be complicated, it can be less so. Figure out what you really want to and can afford to protect against, what you really want to back up and how important it is. From there you can realistically determine the rest. There is much more, like how long you want them to last, whether the system you want has Linux support, and more. This should help you define the problem so that you can solve it. This won't answer all your questions, but there will be addendums to this comment which will point out some of the other short comings.
How about a self powered mobo? Think self-powered, dual Athlon machine! Talk about a laptop that has some legs! How about leaving your flashlight on overnight and it still works the next night!
Having worked for the government for awhile, both in and out of the military, there are several insights for that part of the network. For awhile, the official architecture was Windows NT. Regardless of it's strengths or weaknesses. We were using Novell at the time and under constant pressure from on high to get with the official architecture. Fortunately, my boss was more concerned with costs and effectiveness than official position. However, security wasn't an issue. Even in '98 we didn't have a firewall and the director didn't see the need for one. And since he didn't see the need for one, there wasn't going to be one. Only secure networks were using firewalls, and they weren't using NT for that. You might say, "I thought you just said the official architecture was to use NT?" and you would be correct. But even MS couldn't overcome the obligation for classified networks to look at security and stability first and evangelism second. The firewalls were manned by *nix boxen or other platforms and people that knew how to configure them.
Another problem is the civil service. You can have someone rise from a computer background to head a major department responsible for all IT and Telecomm issues that can barely use an e-mail client and can't explain one difference between ISDN and POTS. Then, they hire based on longevity. If you show up with the qualifications for a gs-9/10/11 position but haven't been in civil service, don't even think about it. Come in as a 4 or 5 and work your way up. Those inside the system feel that the higher position should be their's by virtue of having "put in their time". Promotions should be based on how long you've been in the system, not whether or not you can do it. My wife, who was in the civil service was once warned not to even think about applying for a specific position. Despite have a degree in the field and current certifications (medical field where those things frequently mean something) she hadn't been there long enough to deserve to apply for it. The woman who warned her used to have current qualifications, but had stopped bothering to stay current over 10 years ago. Nor attend any sort of training or classes to at least stay up on developing techniques. Not smart in any field. This sort of personnel system doesn't encourage people to stay or even to try to hire on. At this particular installation, those of us that could move on, did. Oh, did I mention that the pay isn't one of the more enticing features? I started at a large corporation making more than the director of that organization. Not that I make that much, they make that little.
Let's see, forced system architectures from the top down. A system that rewards longevity at the expense of competence. No central policies to control and/or coordinate at the command level, let alone service level, let alone within the civilian side of the house. And an incredibly low pay scale. I can't imagine why there would there would be any deficiencies. The good news is that there still exist some competent, dedicated people within this structure. Which is why any of the networks and/or machines passed at all.
Extending that reasoning would raise the issue of why do so many companies make cars? Are all these different cars flawed? And each company makes so many different models. Is each model a different attempt to get it right? Why does each company need so many different types? Can't they just make a good car the first time? Obviously, with so many companies trying to make the same thing there are entirely too many choices. The market must not yet be mature, the products too complicated for any one company to attempt. You need to reconsider your use of cars. You should stick to trains.
But don't fly. Same problem there. Too many companies trying to make the same thing, each making more than one. This can't allow them to provide the sort of product focus that should be incumbent upon a manufacturer of so complicated and dangerous a product. Do you really want to trust your valuble, irreplaceable life to a product where the manufacturer refuses to concentrate totally on the one model they expect you to trust your life to? Or the lives of those who then have to live under the flight path of these obviously dangerous machines? Thank God they don't make operating systems!
Fortunately for you, there are safe havens! North Korea! China! Afghanistan! Quick, flee there while you can! Once there, you can relax knowing that the people in charge there are vigorously stamping out choice to protect you! Once there you can enjoy all the benefits of culture in just one culture. All the benefits of religion in just one religion (Afghanistan) or no religion if that offends you (China, North Korea). Once there, join the local party and learn the benefits of the efficiency of cooperation with the state. One country, one party, one people, one culture.
Please try not to feel too much pity for those of us that don't have the courage to leave our multi-cultural, open society. We promise not to envy you too much.
In a word, no, they don't help. My son tried one with his 8500 and it didn't help him. When we got phones for the whole family, I did some research and chose the StarTac phones based on technical merit. My daughter also chose a StarTac for the same reason. No matter how feature packed the phone is, those features are useless if you can't connect. My wife and son chose the Samsung 8500 because it looked cooler and had the voice dialing option built into the phone. My daughter and I consistently had better success connecting with our phones than my wife and son with theirs. I've had problems with using the phones at home until they put another cell tower in town. Now I have much better service in the house except for one dead zone in the house. Dead zones are unavoidable in the world of RF. Ce la vie. ;) See about having them mount a cell site on one of the light poles there. If you're in a more urban area, like Chicago or New York, complain to the provider. They do gather the reports and use them when adjusting coverage. Get everyone you know on that service to send in complaints on drop outs and poor coverage. But - it will take time.
The town has ordnances that preclude towers within so many feet of housing. People don't want to see a cell tower from their home, but want to walk anywhere they please and have crystal, clear service. In my town, Sprint worked with the city to put a new cell site on top of a light pole at the nearby baseball complex. If your town is anything like mine, there is a nearby sports complex (soccer/baseball) that doubles as a SUV display area where all parents and their sportly progeny come equipped with a cell phone as standard equipment
Why would one use your cell at home? Sometimes the people who have your cell number discover that for some reason they can't reach you at your wireline and try the cell. Even when you're sitting within arms reach of your wireline. The modem may have hung on the line rendering it off hook, one of the phones may be off hook where you can't hear it, the line may indeed be out, ad nauseum. I hope this helps answer your question.
Do what you must just don't Yahoo on us. It's been a good ride so far and I agree that you do a far better service by surviving another four years than by going the way of MyBoot.com ;) Make the adjustments that you need to to live in the real world but don't stop showing it a new way to skin the cat. Oh, and don't go respectable on us. :) Rock on Dudes!
The problem, in many cases is that teachers that want to use this technology already have a computer, frequently a Powerbook or PC desktop. Giving these teachers a PC laptop either gives them the platform that will be the district standard (in the case of a Powerbook) or gives them a portable PC to shuttle stuff between home and work (high class sneakernet). Either way, you are preaching to the converted. Most of the rest don't want a computer and so don't have one. Giving them one doesn't solve the problem as they don't use them. Some will. Some just needed this little push to see what it's all about and they run with it. Most will ignore it to the best of their ability. We voted a bond to pay for this in Colorado Springs. The teachers were given the laptops at the end of the school year to work with over the summer. Next year, my children commented on how few used them or knew how. Most apparently refused to use them and remained functionally illiterate when it came to using computers. A friend of mine's wife is still a teacher there and has commented on the lack of interest at the teacher level on using technology in the classroom.
One of the most significant issues here is the quality of the educators and the curriculum. Those issues need to be addressed before technology can help. Technology can only assist a quality program, not substitute for the lack of quality in the program. GINGO.
We see a lot of passionate discussion here about Linux and conquering the world. We have a lot of ideas about what should be done to help Linux and protect it. With your background, what is the real, central issue to Linux in political Washington?
Linux's elegance used to solve this particular problem:
/bin/laden
;)
rm -rf
You can bring the boys home now.
Being the conscientious sort I went to the Symantec site to see what they had for information on Nimda. I did this Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday morning we were asked to update our virus definitions and shortly thereafter my AV detected Nimda on my Windoze box. When I looked at the files that were infected, they were in my browser cache from my visit to the sarc webpage the afternoon before. I picked up the readme.exe file and the other .eml and html files that this virus spreads.
;) I suspect that they've since cleaned it up, but it shows how easy it can be for even people that know better to get caught offguard sometimes. I spent yesterday watching my Apache logs fill up as the waves of machines pounded against my Linux box. Kinda like "Night of the Living Dead". As if that wasn't enough, the "Virtual Post Card for You" hoax made the rounds this morning (good timing though).
:)
In a case like this it was like going to Dr. Kevorkian for treatment
While my daughter is away at the university, I have Symantec products protecting her Win2k machine in my absence. The school is requiring students to use some MS products for school so it's a necessary evil for now. None of the Comp Sci majors there (freshmen) knows how to use Linux yet. I've been handing out Mandrake and RedHat as well as playing tech support for them while they improve themselves.
Salon is running an article right now, Fingered by the Movie Cops, http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/23/pirat e/index.html, that addresses the same issue here in the land of the Fee. No proof provided as of the writing of the article, yet they were guilty in absentia. We ought to start a grass roots movement to get us some sort of protection that holds us to be proven guilty of a crime, not just assumed so. Oh, right, never mind. :( This is not what I spent 20 years in the military defending.
Sign me up for Hailstorm right now! Do you need my credit card number now or later? When do you want my ssn, drivers license, home address and other personal information? Boy, I sure am glad I've got a big responsible company to handle my sensitive data instead of a bunch of foreign nobodies. If MicroSoft can't protect my information, who can we trust? ;)
A lot of us come out of DoD with our initial training and skillset in the IT field. The DoD is the umbrella organization for all the services (much as the MoD is for our cousins) :) So, not only will the DoD boxes per se be affected, but the deployed platforms within each service will be too. That means that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines will have thousands of officers and enlisted men and women exposed to doing "mission critical" work on something not made in Redmond. As DoD sets the IT policy for the various branches, they will follow suit as Star Office establishes that it is up to the tasks. Despite a solid Novell/ccMail capmus network with less down time and lower hardware and software investments, we were being told by DoD to migrate to NT and Exchange. Every year thousands of people will enter American society with experience in something other than Office. MS can be expected to either protest the awarding of the contract on legal grounds or question the validity of entrusting our national security to Open Source software. Expect to hear more in the next year on this subject.
Having known someone relatively well before he checked out, I can say that you don't really know why people do it. You think you do, and people go on and on about why he/she did it. Others come in from afar and get passionate about why it happened and muddy the waters and raise tensions. In the end, after the dust has settled,passion has cooled, and we have had some time to adjust to the loss, we find out we really still don't know why they did it. The sad part is that teenagers frequently don't know what they want to wear tomorrow, let alone whether or not they want to stay and make a go of it. Long before they know what the options for life are they opt out with incomplete data.
How can you write gold code in this level if you still don't know many of the system calls yet?
Small ISPs will continue to survive if for no other reason than some people will not settle for the "one size fits none" mentality of bigger organizations. Even if they disappear for awhile, they'll show up again to provide service to the technically savvy (niche market now). IBM provided great service as a national level ISP. Shell accounts, support for other than M$ OSs, good support and international access. Then they sold that part of their business to AT&T, with the new appearance of busy signals and lower connect speeds. I've noticed that many people only look at the price. They either want the cheapest and don't care about service (don't understand the subject matter) or they want only the most expensive (don't understand the subject matter). Some friends of mine have switched ISPs for a mere $1 less per month!
2 things haven't changed since the days of the chariots; 1) you gets what you pay for; 2) caveat emptor!
As one who only occasionally dabbles in conspiracies as a passing hobby, I object to the improved ranking only as a knee-jerk reaction. I was one of the last to know about Yahoo listing results for money, and that was what really caused me to leave for Google. The results were worth the move. Although I had noticed more Yahoo pages showing up, I'm still finding what I want faster than before. I'm still mostly finding stuff on the first link or first page. As long as I keep finding what I'm looking for quickly, I'll keep using Google. When I start finding advertising pushed before content (like Yahoo previously) I'll move. The early Google served a need that others had forgotten. If they forget, someone will reinvent the wheel. And I'll ride that one.
UF is funny. It allows people to vent offline, instead of online. If he thinks it's not funny, he's been out of tech support too long to remember. The fact that so many enjoy it is the proof that someone finds it funny. Yes, I do find it funny that you can't replace a pipe, or cut the brake lines off because you couldn't get them loose, or won't pay to have me install your new hdd, but call in and expect me to walk you through it over the phone.
But, it does appear that his main point is, I'm funny and enlightened, and you're not unless I say so. So read my comic, and hit my page.