Half of all employees don't have email? I'm thinking if they've made it this far along without it, they probably don't need it...
Does the checkout girl at the grocery store need email? How about the house painter? Or the guy that tears tickets in half at the movie theater?
Is that the target market? I'm sure Microsoft is quaking in their boots about the prospect that they missed out on getting McDonalds to shell out for Exchange licenses for all their employees...:)
You have no reason to believe me, I'm not spouting fact here, just gut reaction. I'm not a stock analyst, IT commentator, or anything else that my give weight to my reaction, I'm just someone that saw the story and said to myself "Really????"
Somehow, I'm having issue believing that number. 100,000? Maybe 100,000 companies have users that are using gmail accounts, but I just don't buy that 100,000 real businesses have switched over already, unless Jim-bob in his basement counts as a business...
I'm always amused by slashdot's fascination by quantum encryption. Unless I'm mistaken, it's only of any use if you have line of site with the machine at the other end of your communication channel, via satellite or fiber optic cable. And unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that applies to any of us... Yes, it's interesting, but in reality, the only beneficiary is secure government or inhouse corporate communications.
It doesn't stand to benefit ecommerce unless every link in the communication is trusted, and it certainly doesn't benefit our privacy, unless you can afford to lay down a fiber cable from your home or office directly to the person you want to communicate with.
You're not going to see a quantum encryption algorythm to run on your desktop computer and send secure emails to your buddies. It's just now how it works.
Yes, I'm fine... the workstations and servers are thoroughly accounted for here, between RAID 5's, tape backups, backups to hard drives taken off site, and a contract with Iron Mountain for offsite backup.
Remote users login to a dedicated Terminal Server, which is part of the office backup strategy.
But with all that, I'd hate to have my bosses wife purchase him a fancy laptop to use at home with a solid-state drive, and have him bring it to the office some months later complaining that he can't access the data. It's not on me to enforce rules on him, it's on me to make sure the system works despite him... So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he never gets a thing like that!
But honestly, if something was going crap out on me, and it had critical data on it that needed to be reassembled, I'd MUCH prefer to pull a few hard drives out of the server and send them to a place that's been that has access to the 40+ years of compiled experience recovering data from magnetic platters than (gulp!) pull out the flash drive and say "god, i hope someone knows how to odo something with this!"
I like to think that I'm mostly honest... That being said, how or why would I pay for the same song over and over? I buy it once, i can listen to it in iTunes, I can put it on my iPod, and I can include it on as many mix CD's as I'd like. And I've never seen a request pop up on my screen asking me if i'd like to pay again?
I dont' think they "don't care" about security as so much that they haven't been informed of it. Their sites are probably outsourced, or even hosted inhouse on a default Linux or Windows installation. It "works" so no ones thought to turn off unneeded services and daemons, let alone configure their firewall to block unwanted traffic from reaching the servers.
BTW, slashdot, what is the recommended distro for hosting websites? Is there one, or does every company that wants to host their own site have to go through the task of locking down their systems individually?
Well they could contact the 3 selected website operators, explain the situation and that it's for their own good, and offer to do all work onsite under their eyes or at least offer to share their results with the company in question and see those security holes closed before any acknowledgement of a result from the contest is announced.
I know, companies don't like being hacked even if it's for the un-noble cause of "demonstrating the hole in their security" so that it can be fixed; but if the company in question is approached before hand, and offered assurance that they will not be caused to be a laughing stock, i'm sure a CTO could explain that "while we followed the best practices in the security industry, we felt it prudent to reassure ourselves and our customers that these practices would protect them. What we found was they aren't, and we're happy to say that we have taken several steps to protect them, steps above and beyond what our competition is doing" or something like that....
If Acunetix is legit, then maybe they should take up the challenge without requesting funds if they succeed. That'd be the right thing to do, after consulting with lawyers to find out what the ramifications would be.
However, $1000 isn't going to draw anyone else into the fray, I don't think... No rogue hacker will offer up a solution to open doors, or even acknowledge them for $1000, its not economically feasible for them to do so when the gains they can realize from NOT accepting the challenge outweigh the $1,000 they can make by doing so....
No, the consistution is just the rules that the Federal government must adhere to. States that ratified it are still able to make their own laws that best suit their purposes. That's why, even though the constitution says we have a "right to bear arms", different states take different approaches with their gun control laws, from very lax to very strict.
And regardless, they're not impinging on your "right" to use myspace, they're just saying you can't do it at a public library. Since i think that public libraries are for quiet reading and research, I don't see the issue. There's the arguement about the people that don't have computers might "need" to use the library to access their myspace profiles, but I don't think anyone would deem that be a vital right.
And as a related aside, remember the "free speech zones" in the 2004 election? Congress didn't take away the right of the protesters to protest, but the states have said "well, you can't say that if you're here... go over there and say it". Want to argue freedom of speech? Argue that one, not a block on myspace.
A foundation is a very specific entity, with very specific rules and purposes to be adhered to. Yes, they could have chosen to be a simple consortium and named themselves something different like "Linux Labs" or what not, but by being a foundation, they're basically pledging that they will never stray from what they're setting out to do, that they will donate 5% of their assets towards their "cause" on a yearly basis, that individuals and corporations can make tax-deductible gifts to them. It's a lot of extra work to be a foundation rather than a 501c3 organization, but foundations are much more rigid an transparent in how they must operate, which in essence serves as a guarantor that donations made to it will be used for the purpose that they were given.
I can't imagine a company putting something as vital as email entirely outside it's walls... Even with hosted email, you can download it to local clients, or Outlook can cache it... But to rely on a service that ONLY offers a webmail interface? That seems iffy to me, at best.
cross marketing... i dont' think steve's killing.Mac, but he saw $$$'s from yahoo, that made it worth it to figure them prominently into the presentation. Just as (did i read it here?) Apple chose cingular or verizon because cingular was willing to cut them a piece of the revenue from iPhone subscribers.
Well, if you're not being charged with a crime, then you're not testifying against yourself... And if you send an encrypted email to an associated describing a crime, and have used PGP to encrypt your message and wiped it from your computer, you dont have the means to decode it. But the recipient does, so if they request that the recipient provide the key to decode the message, they have to comply or else they're in contempt of court at the very least...
I think laws make clear that it's not illegal to use encryption, but it is illegal to not provide the decryption keys if your legally compelled to. THats my understanding of it anyways.
you know what? That strategy seems to work fine for Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Electronic Arts, shall I continue?
I'd argue there is no violation of anti-trust laws... Musicians aren't forced to sign with the major record labels, so they have choice, and we aren't forced to buy music from them... yes, you have to if the band you want to but music of CHOSE to sign with them, but that's it...
Respect artists choices... just like open-source programmers expect their choices to be respected; imagine the collective reaction if a new closed-source linux distribution showed up? The copyright that protects you programmers is the same copyright that protects the owners of the music you're buying... if the artist you want sold the rights to the label, that was their choice and the label is now enforcing their right.
It's a family plan; there are 4 lines attached to my account, if that helps explain the surge in minutes.
I will blame them all; if it hadn't have been presented as an option, i'd have thought nothing of it, but since they put out the override as an example only to have billing come back and say "it's not in CUSTOMER'S best interest", that's where I got peeved... Like, how could they determine what's in my best interest better than me?
As a retailer, I found their policies to err on the side of customer benefit.
Ermm... I had 4 lines on a family plan...We were all happily using our 1800 minutes or whatever, and i was paying 170 or 180 a month. One month, there was a crisis in the family, and the total of calls was quite a bit in excess of our minutes, to the point that my bill was $680... I called customer service and explained the situation, and they said they'ed forward that along with a backdated request to up my minute allotment since i never went over and always paid on time... They said that this was a situation they've had before and that was usually the way that it was remedied... a few days later, i got a call from them that said that billing had determined that it "wasn't in the customers best interest" to do so...
Now, if they had said "sorry, but there's nothing we can do about it" that'd have been one thing... But they said "there is something we do about that" and then turned around and decided NOT to... That has made me one unhappy verizon customer... Of course, I'm sticking with them because my contracts up in June, and guess what comes out then on another network?
So no... I can't see how verizon is a customer service oriented carrier... everything with them is like pulling teeth...
I'm not a lawyer and I don't feel like reading the license agreement anyways, but i'm guessing that by accepting the windows license you A) indemnify them from any security holes, bugs or error in their software (of that, I'm 99.9% certain) and B) that you give them the right to audit you to be sure you're in compliance with the license you purchased.
Anyone feel like re-reading the agreements and clarifying?
I seem to recall a huge botnetwork being controlled out of russia that is responsible for most of the image spam we receive... where each client puts together different strings of words so that no two spams are alike...
I also see every day (though only 1 or 2 in my actual inbox, thank you) alterations of the same image spam, with different noise added to each to thwart fingerprinting.
I've read that instead of using simply GIFs, they use layered gifs, which also stymies attempts to nab them based on OCRing the text from the image.
And i also remember a virus that downloads a pirated version of anti-virus software that scans and removes from the target machine every other virus/trojan but itself, all to preserve bandwidth for itself.
No, spammers aren't lazy. And if they see that this tactic is making a dent in their results, they'll surely rewrite their software... or maybe call the shop in India that's writing it for them.
If i had mod points, I'd say you were insightful... Instead, I can only chime in, agree and say "well, now that those instructions are posted, surely it'll just be a day or a week until spammers work around that. So, nice idea, not much of a future, I don't think...
I want global warming. I'm in Florida and I hate it hear... I want nothing more than to have Florida weather in my hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. Humans causing global warming? I say bring it on!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Half of all employees don't have email? I'm thinking if they've made it this far along without it, they probably don't need it...
:)
Does the checkout girl at the grocery store need email?
How about the house painter?
Or the guy that tears tickets in half at the movie theater?
Is that the target market? I'm sure Microsoft is quaking in their boots about the prospect that they missed out on getting McDonalds to shell out for Exchange licenses for all their employees...
You have no reason to believe me, I'm not spouting fact here, just gut reaction. I'm not a stock analyst, IT commentator, or anything else that my give weight to my reaction, I'm just someone that saw the story and said to myself "Really????"
Somehow, I'm having issue believing that number. 100,000? Maybe 100,000 companies have users that are using gmail accounts, but I just don't buy that 100,000 real businesses have switched over already, unless Jim-bob in his basement counts as a business...
I'm always amused by slashdot's fascination by quantum encryption. Unless I'm mistaken, it's only of any use if you have line of site with the machine at the other end of your communication channel, via satellite or fiber optic cable. And unless I'm mistaken, I don't think that applies to any of us... Yes, it's interesting, but in reality, the only beneficiary is secure government or inhouse corporate communications.
It doesn't stand to benefit ecommerce unless every link in the communication is trusted, and it certainly doesn't benefit our privacy, unless you can afford to lay down a fiber cable from your home or office directly to the person you want to communicate with.
You're not going to see a quantum encryption algorythm to run on your desktop computer and send secure emails to your buddies. It's just now how it works.
Correct me if i'm wrong, please!
Yes, I'm fine... the workstations and servers are thoroughly accounted for here, between RAID 5's, tape backups, backups to hard drives taken off site, and a contract with Iron Mountain for offsite backup.
Remote users login to a dedicated Terminal Server, which is part of the office backup strategy.
But with all that, I'd hate to have my bosses wife purchase him a fancy laptop to use at home with a solid-state drive, and have him bring it to the office some months later complaining that he can't access the data. It's not on me to enforce rules on him, it's on me to make sure the system works despite him... So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he never gets a thing like that!
But honestly, if something was going crap out on me, and it had critical data on it that needed to be reassembled, I'd MUCH prefer to pull a few hard drives out of the server and send them to a place that's been that has access to the 40+ years of compiled experience recovering data from magnetic platters than (gulp!) pull out the flash drive and say "god, i hope someone knows how to odo something with this!"
I like to think that I'm mostly honest... That being said, how or why would I pay for the same song over and over? I buy it once, i can listen to it in iTunes, I can put it on my iPod, and I can include it on as many mix CD's as I'd like. And I've never seen a request pop up on my screen asking me if i'd like to pay again?
I dont' think they "don't care" about security as so much that they haven't been informed of it. Their sites are probably outsourced, or even hosted inhouse on a default Linux or Windows installation. It "works" so no ones thought to turn off unneeded services and daemons, let alone configure their firewall to block unwanted traffic from reaching the servers.
BTW, slashdot, what is the recommended distro for hosting websites? Is there one, or does every company that wants to host their own site have to go through the task of locking down their systems individually?
Well they could contact the 3 selected website operators, explain the situation and that it's for their own good, and offer to do all work onsite under their eyes or at least offer to share their results with the company in question and see those security holes closed before any acknowledgement of a result from the contest is announced.
I know, companies don't like being hacked even if it's for the un-noble cause of "demonstrating the hole in their security" so that it can be fixed; but if the company in question is approached before hand, and offered assurance that they will not be caused to be a laughing stock, i'm sure a CTO could explain that "while we followed the best practices in the security industry, we felt it prudent to reassure ourselves and our customers that these practices would protect them. What we found was they aren't, and we're happy to say that we have taken several steps to protect them, steps above and beyond what our competition is doing" or something like that....
If Acunetix is legit, then maybe they should take up the challenge without requesting funds if they succeed. That'd be the right thing to do, after consulting with lawyers to find out what the ramifications would be.
However, $1000 isn't going to draw anyone else into the fray, I don't think... No rogue hacker will offer up a solution to open doors, or even acknowledge them for $1000, its not economically feasible for them to do so when the gains they can realize from NOT accepting the challenge outweigh the $1,000 they can make by doing so....
No, the consistution is just the rules that the Federal government must adhere to. States that ratified it are still able to make their own laws that best suit their purposes. That's why, even though the constitution says we have a "right to bear arms", different states take different approaches with their gun control laws, from very lax to very strict.
And regardless, they're not impinging on your "right" to use myspace, they're just saying you can't do it at a public library. Since i think that public libraries are for quiet reading and research, I don't see the issue. There's the arguement about the people that don't have computers might "need" to use the library to access their myspace profiles, but I don't think anyone would deem that be a vital right.
And as a related aside, remember the "free speech zones" in the 2004 election? Congress didn't take away the right of the protesters to protest, but the states have said "well, you can't say that if you're here... go over there and say it". Want to argue freedom of speech? Argue that one, not a block on myspace.
A foundation is a very specific entity, with very specific rules and purposes to be adhered to. Yes, they could have chosen to be a simple consortium and named themselves something different like "Linux Labs" or what not, but by being a foundation, they're basically pledging that they will never stray from what they're setting out to do, that they will donate 5% of their assets towards their "cause" on a yearly basis, that individuals and corporations can make tax-deductible gifts to them. It's a lot of extra work to be a foundation rather than a 501c3 organization, but foundations are much more rigid an transparent in how they must operate, which in essence serves as a guarantor that donations made to it will be used for the purpose that they were given.
Are you saying that State of Fear wasn't intelligent?
If i get a toyota, can i drive to hawaii in that?
I can't imagine a company putting something as vital as email entirely outside it's walls... Even with hosted email, you can download it to local clients, or Outlook can cache it... But to rely on a service that ONLY offers a webmail interface? That seems iffy to me, at best.
cross marketing... i dont' think steve's killing .Mac, but he saw $$$'s from yahoo, that made it worth it to figure them prominently into the presentation. Just as (did i read it here?) Apple chose cingular or verizon because cingular was willing to cut them a piece of the revenue from iPhone subscribers.
Well, if you're not being charged with a crime, then you're not testifying against yourself... And if you send an encrypted email to an associated describing a crime, and have used PGP to encrypt your message and wiped it from your computer, you dont have the means to decode it. But the recipient does, so if they request that the recipient provide the key to decode the message, they have to comply or else they're in contempt of court at the very least...
I think laws make clear that it's not illegal to use encryption, but it is illegal to not provide the decryption keys if your legally compelled to. THats my understanding of it anyways.
you know what? That strategy seems to work fine for Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Electronic Arts, shall I continue?
I'd argue there is no violation of anti-trust laws... Musicians aren't forced to sign with the major record labels, so they have choice, and we aren't forced to buy music from them... yes, you have to if the band you want to but music of CHOSE to sign with them, but that's it...
Respect artists choices... just like open-source programmers expect their choices to be respected; imagine the collective reaction if a new closed-source linux distribution showed up? The copyright that protects you programmers is the same copyright that protects the owners of the music you're buying... if the artist you want sold the rights to the label, that was their choice and the label is now enforcing their right.
It's a family plan; there are 4 lines attached to my account, if that helps explain the surge in minutes.
I will blame them all; if it hadn't have been presented as an option, i'd have thought nothing of it, but since they put out the override as an example only to have billing come back and say "it's not in CUSTOMER'S best interest", that's where I got peeved... Like, how could they determine what's in my best interest better than me?
As a retailer, I found their policies to err on the side of customer benefit.
Ermm... I had 4 lines on a family plan...We were all happily using our 1800 minutes or whatever, and i was paying 170 or 180 a month. One month, there was a crisis in the family, and the total of calls was quite a bit in excess of our minutes, to the point that my bill was $680... I called customer service and explained the situation, and they said they'ed forward that along with a backdated request to up my minute allotment since i never went over and always paid on time... They said that this was a situation they've had before and that was usually the way that it was remedied... a few days later, i got a call from them that said that billing had determined that it "wasn't in the customers best interest" to do so...
Now, if they had said "sorry, but there's nothing we can do about it" that'd have been one thing... But they said "there is something we do about that" and then turned around and decided NOT to... That has made me one unhappy verizon customer... Of course, I'm sticking with them because my contracts up in June, and guess what comes out then on another network?
So no... I can't see how verizon is a customer service oriented carrier... everything with them is like pulling teeth...
I'm not a lawyer and I don't feel like reading the license agreement anyways, but i'm guessing that by accepting the windows license you A) indemnify them from any security holes, bugs or error in their software (of that, I'm 99.9% certain) and B) that you give them the right to audit you to be sure you're in compliance with the license you purchased.
Anyone feel like re-reading the agreements and clarifying?
Spammers are lazy?
I seem to recall a huge botnetwork being controlled out of russia that is responsible for most of the image spam we receive... where each client puts together different strings of words so that no two spams are alike...
I also see every day (though only 1 or 2 in my actual inbox, thank you) alterations of the same image spam, with different noise added to each to thwart fingerprinting.
I've read that instead of using simply GIFs, they use layered gifs, which also stymies attempts to nab them based on OCRing the text from the image.
And i also remember a virus that downloads a pirated version of anti-virus software that scans and removes from the target machine every other virus/trojan but itself, all to preserve bandwidth for itself.
No, spammers aren't lazy. And if they see that this tactic is making a dent in their results, they'll surely rewrite their software... or maybe call the shop in India that's writing it for them.
If i had mod points, I'd say you were insightful... Instead, I can only chime in, agree and say "well, now that those instructions are posted, surely it'll just be a day or a week until spammers work around that. So, nice idea, not much of a future, I don't think...
I want global warming. I'm in Florida and I hate it hear... I want nothing more than to have Florida weather in my hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. Humans causing global warming? I say bring it on! :)