I had the opposite experience -- my mortgage and escrow agents kept trying to get me to sign forms without reading them! (IT's a standard form, everyone signs it!). I had to slow them down so I could read parts.
VERY interesting contract points in mortgages. Did you know that many lenders reserve the right to perform spot inspections on your home to make sure you're keeping the property value up?
Of course, you could always wear a 'clip-on' tie or bow-tie (how come I only see doctors wear them?)
Most doctors that wear ties at all wear boe-ties because a long tie can a) Get in the way all the time, and b) Brush against patients' body fluids easily and carry infection to the next patient down the line.
Same reason you won't find EMTs and Paramedics wearing ties at all -- infection risk and generally getting in the way of stuff.
She's reportedly been paid big money by the news organization to act on her strategy for preventing TIVO users from pirating their news feeds..... by making people stop watching!
Didn't cisco recently release details about some features in their new routers that would enable seamless, undetecable "wiretapping" of IP traffic by law encorcement / router admins?
Now they're intent on making VoIP ubiquitous. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything.
Well, I personally have little hesitancy in letting my views be known, for the most part. Still, there are always issues which require vote, which a majority of people *may* support but which are so much of a "hot topic" at the time that actually publishing the vote list would for all purposes squash the debate.
I furnish as an example the issue of gay rights / gay marriage. Voting "Yes" to both of those while living in the small country community in which I was raised would certainly earn you the ire of the majority, but that's the majority in a small community, while your vote is intended to count for the state / nation as a whole, where it may be perfectly well supported.
Publishing the individual *having* voted is an essential part of the auditing process for our system, but it would likely be pretty damaging to publish the actual vote of the individual.
I'm not sure I can agree with you that publishing a persons' vote would be a good thing. The anonymous ballot was introduced because of the idea that if a popular political party in power knows, for certain, who voted against them, they can begin retribution against persons who did. Especially rivals.
Doing away with the anonymous ballot would allow people to feel pressured to cast a 'popular' vote on unpopular issues rather than their true feeling, as well. I'm all for the legalization of marijuana, but I wouldn't want people at work knowing I vote for it every chance I get because they would assume I smoke it (I don't, it's a moral/philosophical issue I have with legalization).
In summary, if no electronic system can make both the *actual vote* anonymous, but the *act of having voted* strictly audited, then paper ballots are still the way to go.
That's why I only watch indy movies. I like to steer clear of herd mentality. I don't put much stock in mainstream stuff anyway, since lately it's all bull.
--- I have many friends and family members just as stupid as you are. ---
--- and people like you will always be more likely to stick by it as long as you get spread a little of it over to people like me. ---
--- Now you fuckers are building up a potential disaster. ---
--- If you want to continue to hold your position that society owes you protection from your own choice of a bullshit way to handle money and reputation, ---
Your assumptions about me are incorrect -- I'm not a credit fiend or a willing patron of the system. Nor do I believe that tax money should be spent sheltering a broken system. You have assumed that, for some reason. I simply acknowlege that the system is there, and is not going away soon. Rather than rail against the system for being broken, I'd like it fixed.
In case you missed the point I was making earlier, I'm *not* calling for bailing anyone out. I'm calling for reform in the system. I'm calling for accountability on the part of the credit bureaus and, since that accountability doesn't come lightly, I'm calling for the institutions we already fund to be authorized to push forward that accountability on behalf of the victims of crime.
However, you continue making false assumptions and persist in childish name-calling. You're losing me as an audience, here. I didn't even get past "you fuckers are..." before I stopped paying attention to your response. Not the best way to make a point, dude.
---- To make your Soprano's analogy more correct, Person B's knees get broken only later when THEY GO TO TONY for a loan. ----
I take it you've never taken out a loan from a less than reputable loan shark. I assure you, fail to pay the mob money they think you owe them, and the thugs will come find you, not wait for you to request a second loan.
As it is for credit. If your reputation is tarnished, even though you do not USE credit agencies, those people who assume the records to be correct (Landlord, potential bosses, police) will punish you on the merit of the bad data.
It is your problem, everyones problem, whether you choose to participate or not. The more digital the world becomes, the more it becomes a problem.
>>"Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area . .." If you would even contemplate that, you have other problems. It's proof that America really is a vast land of opportunity, that fools like you don't starve to death, and manage to actually semi-prosper.>Buy/lease/rent a car. I bought my car for $2,200 cash. A car that is "sufficient", i.e., safe and reliable, can be had for 2 to 4 month's pay>But in the end, if a credit rating agency lies about YOU and costs you a job, don't bitch. You kept them in business with your plastic habit.
You imply that having an identity stolen and false credit opened up under your name goes hand in hand with patronizing these businesses. It's entirely possible for a criminal to steal your identity and obtain credit from, for example, Mastercard -- without you ever patronizing them.
That's what identity theft is. You didn't patronize Mastercard at all -- the criminal did under your name. However, anyone who looks at your credit record is presented with "official" evidence that you're a deadbeat who patronizes Mastercard. That makes it your problem whether you use them or not.
I would take your Soprano analogy and make it fit more with what we're talking about. Person A goes to the Sopranos and obtains a loan with person B's name. 10 months later after non-payment, Person B's knees get broken. Is this B's fault for lying with the dogs?
You're using logical inconsistancy here. Though the credit card companies are the customers of the credit bureaus, you *ARE* getting ripped off if someone fradulently assumes your identity to rack up false credit charges.
If your credit record is tarnished, it can be more difficult to:
* Buy a house
* Rent an apartment
* Buy/lease/rent a car
* Obtain airline tickets
* Get a job! (Yes, employers now check credit records)
All of the above is more aggravated by the fact that the credit card companies, far from being inconvenienced much by the theft, acutally BENEFIT in the form of offering you only extremely high interest loans for some very important things. Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area on bad credit. Got $800,000 cash, right now, in your bank account? Sorry.
Clever troll, but people whose reputations in a digital world get tarnished are victims, and DO deserve recourse.
What's really worrying is that despite how easy it is to get the details (Fake job postings? Easy!) on someones' life and then use them to steal an identity, there's no real recourse for the victims.
Once your SSN gets out and has been used for fraud, you're still stuck with it! The SSN bureau will not replace it for any reason. With four separate credit bureaus with their own secret databases, it's pretty much impossible to clear your own record.
What probably needs to happen is a small branch of the FBI that is devoted to investigating identity theft and, most importantly, who has the power to go to all four bureaus and push through some name-clearing on behalf of the victims. It'd be a much better use of taxpayer money than having the FBI infiltrate antiwar movements and discredit them.
>>contractors, part-timers and consultants will do most of the work.
If the logic here is that full time IT jobs will be replaced by contractors, then I have to point out that I am a contractor who does IT stuff, hired by a n IT contracting company which provides me a full time job with benefits.
Only difference is I work for my company and not the company whose network I'm running.
Snipped from the subpoena: "WITNESS, my hand, at Boston in the County of Suffolk this 31st day of December in the year of our Lord two thousand and two. " (emphasis mine)
Isn't there supposed to be at least the pretense of separation of church and state?
You'd think, but I and my coworkers get tons of the really nasty stuff at.gov addys continuously. I guess they think "Hey! I'm forging anyway, might as well hit the govs."
Or they're throwing their spam at incremental IPs that happen to have port 25 open.
I attended a SANS function that Marty lectured at once, for using Snort as an intrusion detection system. It's damn solid software. Very impressive, very configurable.
Congrats on getting paid to do what you love, Marty. The rest of us should be so lucky.:>
My company is a service based company. We're a group of professional sysadmins who contract to large customers to take over network and SysAdmin duties. We are also responsible for security of our systems.
The problem with password policy enforcement is that users want weak passwords. Ordinarily this is no problem, since security often trumps user needs.
However, since we're a service based organization, our salaries and bonuses are based on user satisfaction of our performance. Guess what our number one gripe is? You bet. Password enforcement. Our enforcement of the "Strong passwords only" policy has helped us be secure, but it's also eating into our employee bonuses because the users mark us off for it.
It seems like we're caught between a rock and a hard place here, but since our customers are all senior civil servants, what're we to do? The more we enforce strong passwords, the closer they'll get to looking for someone who won't be so picky.
Reminds me of an amusing story. When I worked, for a very brief time, at a telco (Sorry, can't name 'em because they're bankrupt now), they had a rather hefty debt to pay off.
Their business model depended on several fat internet pipes running underseas. Given their current options of selling assets, cutting salaries, layoffs or other such corporate things, what do you think they did to pay off the debt?
That's right. They sold the fat pipes and leased them back from the buyer.
Slashdot Mirror
I had the opposite experience -- my mortgage and escrow agents kept trying to get me to sign forms without reading them! (IT's a standard form, everyone signs it!). I had to slow them down so I could read parts.
VERY interesting contract points in mortgages. Did you know that many lenders reserve the right to perform spot inspections on your home to make sure you're keeping the property value up?
Of course, you could always wear a 'clip-on' tie or bow-tie (how come I only see doctors wear them?)
Most doctors that wear ties at all wear boe-ties because a long tie can a) Get in the way all the time, and b) Brush against patients' body fluids easily and carry infection to the next patient down the line.
Same reason you won't find EMTs and Paramedics wearing ties at all -- infection risk and generally getting in the way of stuff.
She's reportedly been paid big money by the news organization to act on her strategy for preventing TIVO users from pirating their news feeds..... by making people stop watching!
The 42 inch plasma screen on the wall cannot be turned off or the volume adjusted, and it constantly plays patriotic music to sooth you....
It's These Guys.
When a windows java exploit can reformat your disk by visiting a malformed web page, you don't really have to wonder why they're so popular.
Didn't cisco recently release details about some features in their new routers that would enable seamless, undetecable "wiretapping" of IP traffic by law encorcement / router admins?
Now they're intent on making VoIP ubiquitous. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything.
Well, I personally have little hesitancy in letting my views be known, for the most part. Still, there are always issues which require vote, which a majority of people *may* support but which are so much of a "hot topic" at the time that actually publishing the vote list would for all purposes squash the debate.
I furnish as an example the issue of gay rights / gay marriage. Voting "Yes" to both of those while living in the small country community in which I was raised would certainly earn you the ire of the majority, but that's the majority in a small community, while your vote is intended to count for the state / nation as a whole, where it may be perfectly well supported.
Publishing the individual *having* voted is an essential part of the auditing process for our system, but it would likely be pretty damaging to publish the actual vote of the individual.
I'm not sure I can agree with you that publishing a persons' vote would be a good thing. The anonymous ballot was introduced because of the idea that if a popular political party in power knows, for certain, who voted against them, they can begin retribution against persons who did. Especially rivals.
Doing away with the anonymous ballot would allow people to feel pressured to cast a 'popular' vote on unpopular issues rather than their true feeling, as well. I'm all for the legalization of marijuana, but I wouldn't want people at work knowing I vote for it every chance I get because they would assume I smoke it (I don't, it's a moral/philosophical issue I have with legalization).
In summary, if no electronic system can make both the *actual vote* anonymous, but the *act of having voted* strictly audited, then paper ballots are still the way to go.
When they find out that these dirty "retailers" (AKA IP Pirates) have been -profiting- off their intellectual property!
Yeesh. I thought people would get the puns and not take my troll seriously.
Oh, wait. This is slashdot.
That's why I only watch indy movies. I like to steer clear of herd mentality. I don't put much stock in mainstream stuff anyway, since lately it's all bull.
---
I have many friends and family members just as stupid as you are.
---
---
and people like you will always be more likely to stick by it as long as you get spread a little of it over to people like me.
---
---
Now you fuckers are building up a potential disaster.
---
---
If you want to continue to hold your position that society owes you protection from your own choice of a bullshit way to handle money and reputation,
---
Your assumptions about me are incorrect -- I'm not a credit fiend or a willing patron of the system. Nor do I believe that tax money should be spent sheltering a broken system. You have assumed that, for some reason. I simply acknowlege that the system is there, and is not going away soon. Rather than rail against the system for being broken, I'd like it fixed.
In case you missed the point I was making earlier, I'm *not* calling for bailing anyone out. I'm calling for reform in the system. I'm calling for accountability on the part of the credit bureaus and, since that accountability doesn't come lightly, I'm calling for the institutions we already fund to be authorized to push forward that accountability on behalf of the victims of crime.
However, you continue making false assumptions and persist in childish name-calling. You're losing me as an audience, here. I didn't even get past "you fuckers are..." before I stopped paying attention to your response. Not the best way to make a point, dude.
----
To make your Soprano's analogy more correct, Person B's knees get broken only later when THEY GO TO TONY for a loan.
----
I take it you've never taken out a loan from a less than reputable loan shark. I assure you, fail to pay the mob money they think you owe them, and the thugs will come find you, not wait for you to request a second loan.
As it is for credit. If your reputation is tarnished, even though you do not USE credit agencies, those people who assume the records to be correct (Landlord, potential bosses, police) will punish you on the merit of the bad data.
It is your problem, everyones problem, whether you choose to participate or not. The more digital the world becomes, the more it becomes a problem.
>>"Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area . . ." If you would even contemplate that, you have other problems. It's proof that America really is a vast land of opportunity, that fools like you don't starve to death, and manage to actually semi-prosper.>Buy/lease/rent a car. I bought my car for $2,200 cash. A car that is "sufficient", i.e., safe and reliable, can be had for 2 to 4 month's pay>But in the end, if a credit rating agency lies about YOU and costs you a job, don't bitch. You kept them in business with your plastic habit.
You imply that having an identity stolen and false credit opened up under your name goes hand in hand with patronizing these businesses. It's entirely possible for a criminal to steal your identity and obtain credit from, for example, Mastercard -- without you ever patronizing them.
That's what identity theft is. You didn't patronize Mastercard at all -- the criminal did under your name. However, anyone who looks at your credit record is presented with "official" evidence that you're a deadbeat who patronizes Mastercard. That makes it your problem whether you use them or not.
I would take your Soprano analogy and make it fit more with what we're talking about. Person A goes to the Sopranos and obtains a loan with person B's name. 10 months later after non-payment, Person B's knees get broken. Is this B's fault for lying with the dogs?
No.
You're using logical inconsistancy here. Though the credit card companies are the customers of the credit bureaus, you *ARE* getting ripped off if someone fradulently assumes your identity to rack up false credit charges.
If your credit record is tarnished, it can be more difficult to:
* Buy a house
* Rent an apartment
* Buy/lease/rent a car
* Obtain airline tickets
* Get a job! (Yes, employers now check credit records)
All of the above is more aggravated by the fact that the credit card companies, far from being inconvenienced much by the theft, acutally BENEFIT in the form of offering you only extremely high interest loans for some very important things. Try to buy a house in the SF Bay Area on bad credit. Got $800,000 cash, right now, in your bank account? Sorry.
Clever troll, but people whose reputations in a digital world get tarnished are victims, and DO deserve recourse.
What's really worrying is that despite how easy it is to get the details (Fake job postings? Easy!) on someones' life and then use them to steal an identity, there's no real recourse for the victims.
Once your SSN gets out and has been used for fraud, you're still stuck with it! The SSN bureau will not replace it for any reason. With four separate credit bureaus with their own secret databases, it's pretty much impossible to clear your own record.
What probably needs to happen is a small branch of the FBI that is devoted to investigating identity theft and, most importantly, who has the power to go to all four bureaus and push through some name-clearing on behalf of the victims. It'd be a much better use of taxpayer money than having the FBI infiltrate antiwar movements and discredit them.
>>contractors, part-timers and consultants will do most of the work.
If the logic here is that full time IT jobs will be replaced by contractors, then I have to point out that I am a contractor who does IT stuff, hired by a n IT contracting company which provides me a full time job with benefits.
Only difference is I work for my company and not the company whose network I'm running.
Snipped from the subpoena: "WITNESS, my hand, at Boston in the County of Suffolk this 31st day of December in the year of our Lord two thousand and two. " (emphasis mine)
Isn't there supposed to be at least the pretense of separation of church and state?
You'd think, but I and my coworkers get tons of the really nasty stuff at .gov addys continuously. I guess they think "Hey! I'm forging anyway, might as well hit the govs."
Or they're throwing their spam at incremental IPs that happen to have port 25 open.
I'm pretty sure the majority of people who are "in possession" of computer virii would rather not be, if only windows would stop executing them.
In all seriousness, though, how can you ban the possession of something that can be pretty much invisibly placed in your property?
As far as I can tell, a compromised Linux machine is far more useful than a compromised Win* box, to the attacker.
CONGRATULATIONS MARTY!!
:>
I attended a SANS function that Marty lectured at once, for using Snort as an intrusion detection system. It's damn solid software. Very impressive, very configurable.
Congrats on getting paid to do what you love, Marty. The rest of us should be so lucky.
My company is a service based company. We're a group of professional sysadmins who contract to large customers to take over network and SysAdmin duties. We are also responsible for security of our systems.
The problem with password policy enforcement is that users want weak passwords. Ordinarily this is no problem, since security often trumps user needs.
However, since we're a service based organization, our salaries and bonuses are based on user satisfaction of our performance. Guess what our number one gripe is? You bet. Password enforcement. Our enforcement of the "Strong passwords only" policy has helped us be secure, but it's also eating into our employee bonuses because the users mark us off for it.
It seems like we're caught between a rock and a hard place here, but since our customers are all senior civil servants, what're we to do? The more we enforce strong passwords, the closer they'll get to looking for someone who won't be so picky.
The perfect dictionary file for the new "crack" program: images.google.com
Reminds me of an amusing story. When I worked, for a very brief time, at a telco (Sorry, can't name 'em because they're bankrupt now), they had a rather hefty debt to pay off.
Their business model depended on several fat internet pipes running underseas. Given their current options of selling assets, cutting salaries, layoffs or other such corporate things, what do you think they did to pay off the debt?
That's right. They sold the fat pipes and leased them back from the buyer.
No wonder my phone bill is so high.