As a Systems Administrator, I guess I [i]do[/i] live in an evil alternate universe.
In my universe, the biggest source of headaches and jackassery is invariably the developers I support. In [i]their[/i] universe, developers are holy god-kings that can do no wrong. But in my universe, they're directly responsible for the miserable pile of unstable, un-maintainable, insecure applications whose uptime I'm supposed to sustain.
There's not a single industry best practice in the realm of systems administration that my developers don't insist on violating every day, because it makes their job easier to ignore it.
As a result, I have a very low opinion of software developers, application engineers, and all their ilk. Upper management comes in a distant second.
The developers I support have somehow convinced upper management to let them build their app around a third-party application that, get this:
Can only be installed by third-party technicians
Costs us several thousand dollars for the installation service
Must be scheduled at least a month in advance for installation
Yes, this does, in fact, mean that if one of our application servers dies and has to be re-baselined for any reason, our entire application[1] is down for over a month and will cost us several thousand dollars in re-installation fees alone.
[1]The entire application is a system of interlinked application servers, each of which has a different role in the system and each of which represents a single point of failure.
I know what you're thinking: You're thinking we should have ditched the development platform before we ever even implemented it.
But you're wrong. We should have ditched the developer platform the moment they came up with this hare-brained scheme.
Except that this isn't just idle speculation; this is an actual legal accusation of wrongdoing. People's livelihoods and repuations are on the line here. If they are being rightly accused, then this is as it should be. But if they are being wrongly accused, then their accuser has harmed them unnecessarily. Which is why, while I don't mind idle speculation for the amusement of myselves and my friends, I prefer to maintain an attitude of skepticism towards formal legal accusations of wrongdoing.
If you're going to claim that a given carrier having a hard line directly to an FBI facility is "ordinary", you're going to have to come up with a lot more evidence of a lot more instances of such a thing. "Domestic spying" may be "ordinary", but this specific claim is, to my knowledge, not ordinary at all. As far as I know, it's been made (seriously) twice, and so far has yet to be proven in either instance.
And how, exactly, would that be evidence for the specific claims being made by Mr. Pasdar?
Since we don't know what wireless carrier Mr. Pasdar is referring to, we don't know that my experience with my carrier is actually evidence for his claim. I could have a different carrier.
And since your test doesn't actually eliminate all possible technologies but the one Mr. Pasdar describes, the results would be utterly inconclusive even if I happened to be using the same carrier to which Mr. Pasdar refers.
Finally, it's not our job to get Mr. Pasdar's evidence for him. It's his claim; he bears the burden of proof. Of course you can choose to believe his claims without requiring that he support them with evidence (perhaps, as you've done here, with the assistance of a comical fantasy in which simply imagining that you've conducted an irrelevant and inconclusive experiment is sufficient proof to support your beliefs). Personally, I prefer to wait and see what the accuser will actually bring forth to justify his accusations.
In Christianity, the only way to directly commune with god is through the act of eating.
You're omitting prayer, which is repeatedly and explicitly identified as a way to commune directly with God; and various other acts of devotion to Christ-likeness implicitly identified as ways to commune directly with God; and the the fundamental act of accepting the Gospel on faith, explicitly identified as enabling a constant direct communion with God.
I'm not saying you're not allowed to decide who can and cannot use your network. I'm just saying it annoys me when you talk about managing your network permissions as if it were analagous to managing the locks on your front door.
And for the record, I have no problem classifying network services as a utility. That's the most sensible thing I've heard on the subject all week.
Especially because if it were truly onerous, the people would make sure their legislators got around to amending the Constitution sooner, rather than later.
It sure beats lifetime judges making up new interpretations for the existing constitution. What's a more reliable mechanism for enacting the will of the people? The majorities of two thirds of the elected representatives of the state legislatures plus the majorities of both houses of the federal legislature? Or twelve political appointees?
A wrench is a powerful tool, but not for driving screws.
And I think you're making too much of the need for context--especially context provided by an analogy to some other thing.
When you drive to work in the morning, do you consider your car and the roadway in terms of computer networks, or in terms of cars and roadways? Do grope around for some context other than eating dinner, to give meaning and purpose to the act of eating dinner? Or do you find your understanding of dinner to be complete within its own context?
Actually, I like to think abstractly, and take great pleasure in analogies, metaphors, similes, and other forms of fanciful and poetic expression.
But I also enjoy concrete thinking and discourse. My frustration in this context is mainly because I think that much of the mainstream conversation about computer technology has been overly polluted by analogies, when society would be better served by a greater focus on concrete and literal discussions of computers, what they are, how they work, and what the implications are. These devices are changing our world, and thinking of them as analagous to houses (for example) may seem like an easy way to understand these changes, I believe that such analogies will actually lead to misunderstanding and delay or even prevent our society from adapting to them in a healthy and mindful way.
Besides, your entire argument about routers giving permission to access bandwidth is premised on the analogy that your bandwidth is like your house and the router is like a sign on the front door reading, "Come On In."
No, my entire argument is premised on the literal, objective fact that my bandwidth is like my bandwidth and that the router is like a router.
You're the one who wants it to be like a house with a door and a sign and whatnot. You seem to want this analogy so badly that you've decided my literal description of the thing itself in its own terms is, in fact, your analogy. That's just sick.
I confess I'm not fully informed of all the Articles and Amendments to the Constitution, but I suspect that strictly speaking, I don't believe the Constitution even covers phone taps. If I had my way, we'd all be strict constructionists, and any time new technology gave rise to new paradigms, we'd think long and hard about the social and legal impact of those changes, and then we'd amend the Constitution to reflect those changes and our collective attitude towards them. I'm not really a fan of this "living Constitution" bullshit and the Supreme Court just inventing new applications that aren't in the original document instead of saying "it's not in the document; you're on your own unless you want to amend it".
Heh. It's exactly the thing about "stealing files off of hard drives" that make me yearn for a body of law that treats computers for what they are, rather than trying to jam them into a legal paradigm that doesn't take their unique legal and practical characteristics into account.
For one thing, your company has told you explicitly that you're not welcome. In the context of existing property law (and common sense), it's obvious that failing to revoke your badge in a timely manner is an oversight, not implicit permission to access company property.
In my example, however, there is no conflicting information that might suggest I'm doing anything wrong. I've filed a request for access, and I've received a request for access. If you had previously told me you didn't want me on your network, or if your network's ID was "outsiders_prohibited", or something, your analogy might be a little closer to correctly describing the thing itself.
But it would still be a bad analogy, if for no other reason than because it adds a layer of abstraction that isn't necessary. The thing is understandable on its own terms. You can describe it on its own terms. You can measure the harm on its own terms. You can determine whether or not it's theft on its own terms. You don't need to come up with an analogy that only gets you partway there when you can get all the way there simply by describing the thing itself.
bla bla bla... bad analogy, bad analogy, bad analogy, bla bla bla
You're obviously capable of discussing the thing in terms of itself. Why muddy the waters with all this talk about homes and whatnot.
Maybe trespassing on negligently-configured routers should be legally the same as trespassing on negligently-secured property. But it doesn't follow from that possibility that computer networks are the same as houses, or should be discussed in legal terms as if they were houses.
I think we'd all be better served if we set aside the analogies and discussed computer networks on their own terms. I think we'd end up with better wiretapping legislation, better digital rights management legislation, better computer legislation all around.
I could jsut as easily say that an unlocked door means that no trespass occured in a home. The door opened without resistance, so obviously this means that the owner provided consent to entry by proxy.
What's that, Lassie? A bad analogy? I better call the fire department!
Computers aren't homes. Different paradigm altogether.
Although I hadn't considered your point about stare decisis. I shall do so now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
If I get fired but the company forgets to deactivate my entry card, does that mean that I still have "written permission" to go back to the employee-only parts of their building whenever I want?
Explanations by analogy are one thing. Arguments by analogy are something else entirely.
Explanations try to give someone a better understanding of something. And even then analogies can only go so far. They break down at some point, and if the wrong analogy is chosen, or if the audience requires a deeper understanding than an analogy can provide, it can do more harm than good. Ultimately, a good understanding of a thing can only be accomplished by studying the thing itself in terms of itself.
Arguments by analogy try to prove a point. Legal arguments are serious things, that depend heavily on an accurate presentation and understanding of facts. Analogies are not facts; quite the opposite. They're rhetorical devices designed to give the impression of understanding, without actually explaining what's really going on. Judges like them because it means they don't have to learn anything new; they can go on pretending that the body of case law they're already familiar with can be applied willy-nilly to any new scenario or paradigm or technology. Juries love them, because they get to feel informed and knowledgeable about a subject, without the hassle of actually overcoming their ignorance. And lawyers like them, because it means the freedom to choose whichever bizarre and grotesque distortion of reality best supports their case and undermines their opponent's case.
Slashdot Mirror
As a Systems Administrator, I guess I [i]do[/i] live in an evil alternate universe.
In my universe, the biggest source of headaches and jackassery is invariably the developers I support. In [i]their[/i] universe, developers are holy god-kings that can do no wrong. But in my universe, they're directly responsible for the miserable pile of unstable, un-maintainable, insecure applications whose uptime I'm supposed to sustain.
There's not a single industry best practice in the realm of systems administration that my developers don't insist on violating every day, because it makes their job easier to ignore it.
As a result, I have a very low opinion of software developers, application engineers, and all their ilk. Upper management comes in a distant second.
Yes, this does, in fact, mean that if one of our application servers dies and has to be re-baselined for any reason, our entire application[1] is down for over a month and will cost us several thousand dollars in re-installation fees alone.
[1]The entire application is a system of interlinked application servers, each of which has a different role in the system and each of which represents a single point of failure.
I know what you're thinking: You're thinking we should have ditched the development platform before we ever even implemented it.
But you're wrong. We should have ditched the developer platform the moment they came up with this hare-brained scheme.
Except that this isn't just idle speculation; this is an actual legal accusation of wrongdoing. People's livelihoods and repuations are on the line here. If they are being rightly accused, then this is as it should be. But if they are being wrongly accused, then their accuser has harmed them unnecessarily. Which is why, while I don't mind idle speculation for the amusement of myselves and my friends, I prefer to maintain an attitude of skepticism towards formal legal accusations of wrongdoing.
If you're going to claim that a given carrier having a hard line directly to an FBI facility is "ordinary", you're going to have to come up with a lot more evidence of a lot more instances of such a thing. "Domestic spying" may be "ordinary", but this specific claim is, to my knowledge, not ordinary at all. As far as I know, it's been made (seriously) twice, and so far has yet to be proven in either instance.
And how, exactly, would that be evidence for the specific claims being made by Mr. Pasdar?
Since we don't know what wireless carrier Mr. Pasdar is referring to, we don't know that my experience with my carrier is actually evidence for his claim. I could have a different carrier.
And since your test doesn't actually eliminate all possible technologies but the one Mr. Pasdar describes, the results would be utterly inconclusive even if I happened to be using the same carrier to which Mr. Pasdar refers.
Finally, it's not our job to get Mr. Pasdar's evidence for him. It's his claim; he bears the burden of proof. Of course you can choose to believe his claims without requiring that he support them with evidence (perhaps, as you've done here, with the assistance of a comical fantasy in which simply imagining that you've conducted an irrelevant and inconclusive experiment is sufficient proof to support your beliefs). Personally, I prefer to wait and see what the accuser will actually bring forth to justify his accusations.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
It's not a press release. It's a word-for-word transcription of technology blog Gizmodo's over-the-top satirical take on the actual technology.
The article you link to doesn't include any sources. Not even any anonymous quotes from insiders. What the hell?
You lost me.
I'm not saying you're not allowed to decide who can and cannot use your network. I'm just saying it annoys me when you talk about managing your network permissions as if it were analagous to managing the locks on your front door.
And for the record, I have no problem classifying network services as a utility. That's the most sensible thing I've heard on the subject all week.
Yep. Pretty much.
Especially because if it were truly onerous, the people would make sure their legislators got around to amending the Constitution sooner, rather than later.
It sure beats lifetime judges making up new interpretations for the existing constitution. What's a more reliable mechanism for enacting the will of the people? The majorities of two thirds of the elected representatives of the state legislatures plus the majorities of both houses of the federal legislature? Or twelve political appointees?
A wrench is a powerful tool, but not for driving screws.
And I think you're making too much of the need for context--especially context provided by an analogy to some other thing.
When you drive to work in the morning, do you consider your car and the roadway in terms of computer networks, or in terms of cars and roadways? Do grope around for some context other than eating dinner, to give meaning and purpose to the act of eating dinner? Or do you find your understanding of dinner to be complete within its own context?
Thank you for your insightful comments.
Actually, I like to think abstractly, and take great pleasure in analogies, metaphors, similes, and other forms of fanciful and poetic expression.
But I also enjoy concrete thinking and discourse. My frustration in this context is mainly because I think that much of the mainstream conversation about computer technology has been overly polluted by analogies, when society would be better served by a greater focus on concrete and literal discussions of computers, what they are, how they work, and what the implications are. These devices are changing our world, and thinking of them as analagous to houses (for example) may seem like an easy way to understand these changes, I believe that such analogies will actually lead to misunderstanding and delay or even prevent our society from adapting to them in a healthy and mindful way.
No, my entire argument is premised on the literal, objective fact that my bandwidth is like my bandwidth and that the router is like a router.
You're the one who wants it to be like a house with a door and a sign and whatnot. You seem to want this analogy so badly that you've decided my literal description of the thing itself in its own terms is, in fact, your analogy. That's just sick.
I confess I'm not fully informed of all the Articles and Amendments to the Constitution, but I suspect that strictly speaking, I don't believe the Constitution even covers phone taps. If I had my way, we'd all be strict constructionists, and any time new technology gave rise to new paradigms, we'd think long and hard about the social and legal impact of those changes, and then we'd amend the Constitution to reflect those changes and our collective attitude towards them. I'm not really a fan of this "living Constitution" bullshit and the Supreme Court just inventing new applications that aren't in the original document instead of saying "it's not in the document; you're on your own unless you want to amend it".
Still not close enough.
Arguing by analogy is like trying to score a touchdown by driving a pickup truck into the end zone.
Heh. It's exactly the thing about "stealing files off of hard drives" that make me yearn for a body of law that treats computers for what they are, rather than trying to jam them into a legal paradigm that doesn't take their unique legal and practical characteristics into account.
For one thing, your company has told you explicitly that you're not welcome. In the context of existing property law (and common sense), it's obvious that failing to revoke your badge in a timely manner is an oversight, not implicit permission to access company property.
In my example, however, there is no conflicting information that might suggest I'm doing anything wrong. I've filed a request for access, and I've received a request for access. If you had previously told me you didn't want me on your network, or if your network's ID was "outsiders_prohibited", or something, your analogy might be a little closer to correctly describing the thing itself.
But it would still be a bad analogy, if for no other reason than because it adds a layer of abstraction that isn't necessary. The thing is understandable on its own terms. You can describe it on its own terms. You can measure the harm on its own terms. You can determine whether or not it's theft on its own terms. You don't need to come up with an analogy that only gets you partway there when you can get all the way there simply by describing the thing itself.
Metaphors are like phors, only, you know, meta.
You're obviously capable of discussing the thing in terms of itself. Why muddy the waters with all this talk about homes and whatnot.
Maybe trespassing on negligently-configured routers should be legally the same as trespassing on negligently-secured property. But it doesn't follow from that possibility that computer networks are the same as houses, or should be discussed in legal terms as if they were houses.
I think we'd all be better served if we set aside the analogies and discussed computer networks on their own terms. I think we'd end up with better wiretapping legislation, better digital rights management legislation, better computer legislation all around.
What's that, Lassie? A bad analogy? I better call the fire department!
Computers aren't homes. Different paradigm altogether.
Although I hadn't considered your point about stare decisis. I shall do so now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Hey, look at that! A bad analogy!
Analogies are like Conspiracy Theories. The closer you look at them, the less sense they make.
Explanations by analogy are one thing. Arguments by analogy are something else entirely.
Explanations try to give someone a better understanding of something. And even then analogies can only go so far. They break down at some point, and if the wrong analogy is chosen, or if the audience requires a deeper understanding than an analogy can provide, it can do more harm than good. Ultimately, a good understanding of a thing can only be accomplished by studying the thing itself in terms of itself.
Arguments by analogy try to prove a point. Legal arguments are serious things, that depend heavily on an accurate presentation and understanding of facts. Analogies are not facts; quite the opposite. They're rhetorical devices designed to give the impression of understanding, without actually explaining what's really going on. Judges like them because it means they don't have to learn anything new; they can go on pretending that the body of case law they're already familiar with can be applied willy-nilly to any new scenario or paradigm or technology. Juries love them, because they get to feel informed and knowledgeable about a subject, without the hassle of actually overcoming their ignorance. And lawyers like them, because it means the freedom to choose whichever bizarre and grotesque distortion of reality best supports their case and undermines their opponent's case.