"It's kind of hands off, but if you can definitely "underperform" on the sales end."
There may be pressure on them, Im pretty sure apple is just as into selling crap as MS is but the Apple store employees don't make customers feel pressured..
Yea, The apple store is a *very* non pressure environment which for many non technical users is very helpful. The whole point of the genius is to answer simple questions..
1) The Genius 2) An army of employees running around to help people 3) A non intimidating open and easy to navigate store
Everything they do hight lights those two things, because they can do your credit card purchase remotely they can spend more time helping people decide. They reserve so much of the store for their training sessions and demo units that the Apple store does not feel like a big box store. I don't have to work my was past cameras, dvd's, home appliances, and video games to get to the computers.
The apple gurus are *not* sales folks and I have had them send me other places rather than buy an over priced adapter (ironically they sent me to best buy) meanwhile the 'The (Microsoft) Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs'. Yea thats what MS need more sales pressure at best buy...
"What's to stop you from leaving the building and taking a vacation in Fiji?"
Well the fact I'm not a smug ass who assumes that because I know tech better than my managers I'm above actually submitting to them. They are after all my managers!
Ill not do anything illegal or unethical but I wont treat someone as a second class boob just because they might be ignorant ( ignorance which has still not been demonstrated in this case. If Im asked to treat someone as a moron and be a single point of failure Ill not stay long those shops are not the place to be. Were I the only driver I would sure as hell have the password in a safe somewhere, or in the hands of a manager or higher who would hire my replacement if, God forbid, I was hit by a bus.
Smug arrogant asses who would trade job security for professional behavior is what give IT folks a bad name.
"How would you know - there were no written procedures."
Aww come on, this one is a no brainer for any network admin worth a spit! you don't punch a hole in a private network without letting someone know! Ive fought to keep shell boxes out there to back up a concentrator but I would *never* just drop one without telling my manager. Youre a freakin admin not a deity.
"Yes they did - they refused for years to hire a second person who could share the job with him and refused to document recovery procedures."
That is *not* the same thing as him under only the threat of prison giving up the keys to the car. Not wanting to hire a second admin is not the same as wanting only one person on earth to know the passwords. A responsible admin would at least have a safe with the passwords in it so that if they were hit by a bus a decent locksmith could get to the passwords...
"refused to document recovery procedures"
Since when would a recovery doc include passwords?
"it's not that hard to locate a wired in device, especially something like this."
Well unless he say put it in a wall or something, as I mentioned above I'm no guru but I don't put many things past people who are. Keep in mind he locked everyone out of the network gear so he could very well hide it and keep you from going to the one place it might show up.
"Allowing him to fix things from home, most likely."
Ahh accessing the network in an unapproved fashion from a remote location... wrong for so many reasons..
"What's his hidden criminal record?"
He committed a felony (aggravated robbery and burglary ) in 86 that he neglected to mention on his job application.
"Also, the whole locking things down was known and approved for more than a year - he didn't exactly sneak around."
But he did deny his superiors access to the equipment, flat out! I don't think when they asked him to lock down the network they wanted a single point of failure so that if he were hit by a street car they would have to build everything over again.
Well they 'sort' of found it I do not believe they have physically located it yet.
"Consider that the management is thoroughly inept"
I have never worked at a shop where folks considered management to be anything but inept so I *always* take that claim with a large grain of salt.
"what are the odds that this is something he brought from home to allow him to do his job?"
I'm sure he was breaking many documented security rules in doing so, I cant bring a device in from home and plop it on my network, most places will not allow that and for good reason.
"Besides, it's a TS - replace it with one from newegg if you care so much."
The issue is what was the TS doing? the guy has a hidden criminal record, brought in a device of his own and put it on the network and locked down the existing infrastructure so that he and he alone held the keys... Thats some serious crap to pull..
"The router was discovered on Aug. 28. When investigators attempted to log in to the device, they were greeted with what appears to be a router login prompt and a warning message saying "This system is the personal property of Terry S. Childs," according to a screenshot of the prompt filed by the prosecution."
"One article says that they were set to lose configuration files on "reset". That's pretty typical..."
Umm no, its really not typical, while its true I have seen that in places in general you would like to be able to bounce a device and restart it.
"if you have some device you don't have the password to, you can do a full factory reset and get it back to the default password, but that also wipes the configuration files."
Maybe you're right, I was reading this as a power restart because as cisco is involved in this there are many way to subvert the admin password (resetting resigters) to reset the password that *don't* involve loss of configuration information. That makes me suspect if they could do this (all of 10 minutes per device) they would.
"Anyway, if this guy is what they're making him out to be, they need to completely wipe and reconfigure the network anyway; it's the only way to be sure he didn't leave a few presents for them."
Agreed but you might want to take a glance at what he has done first.
Are we caring about that? its on the moon yes there is always the off the wall chance of it harming anyone but is the radiation from the spent material *really* that much worse than the UV radiation bombarding the surface of the moon?
1) He placed a rouge device (his personal property) on the SF network 2) He set all the network devices on the network to lose all info on a reboot 3) He will hand over the passwords (after jail) to all the devices except the rogue
You can make equipment hard to find ( mac masquerading comes to mind )... I'm only adequate in terms of networking but I am pretty sure someone who is really good can play a mean game of hide and seek. Who knows *what* he was doing with that device? and were I the network admin I would have to *on principle alone* rebuild everything after this guy left..
"From what I've read, his "hijacking" was limited to refusing to give the passwords to his boss whom he considered an idiot."
Which is hijacking... Most problems entities will have in regards to security come from within. If my boss were the crown prince of idiots and asked me for a password he should not have I would send him an email CC'd to his boss politely explaining that the password is tightly kept for a reason and if he wanted to break standard security practice and get the password anyway he should just email me back with the request.
As my father always said "The boss ain't always right but he is always the boss" This is a CYA moment..
Re:More than scientific learning
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 2
If there were any survivors their life would be hell, people would expect them to destroy systems everywhere..
"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water." Samantha Carter
Any system, I mean any systems is open to fraud. The term 'Ballot box stuffing' pretty clearly indicates even a paper system is not 100% safe but at least, for the most part, wide scale fraud is pretty damn hard when you would have to run around from precinct to precinct stuffing boxes with the names of the recently dead (or what have you).
Electronic stand alone systems with removable media (CD's flash drives,...,... what have you) and ones that print a small receipt into a lock box (for multiple audit streams) is as safe and efficent as anything else...
This problem begins the minute you get involved in the world because, well, the world is complicated..
Look at Serbia in the 90's... Internal civil war that we became involved in and for some reason there were not massive protest at the US bombing a small nation trying to sort out its own problems
Look at Iraq in 2003... Nation long hostile to the US, targets US planes enforcing the no fly zone (to prevent ethnic cleansing in the south, and far north) yet people protest today... The only difference between Iraq and Serbia is one got better press..
--
On the whole nuclear reactor thing I would bet India is a somewhat safer bet than Iran or North Korea. Unless, of course, you can show me a high ranking member of the Indian Government drumming up support by threating to wipe Pakistan off the map (like you see in Iran)? or selling weapons to a nation that wants to wipe others off the map (Like North Korea selling missiles to Iran)...
India is not perfect but they are the worlds largest multi party democracy, a *relatively* responsible world player and a nation not quick to take sides. Should we be helping them develope nuclear tech? no but when you get involved in the world stage this kind of thing is going to happen and you can point at *any* nation player to find hypocrisy.
--
Not to be Xenophobic But I really wish the US would turn inward for a decade to fix our own problems before trying to fix those in other nations.
"Brother - the Fair Labor Standards Act says you are to be paid while on call - albeit not "full pay" unless called in."
Ummm, no salary exempt employees do not fall under that section of the fair labor standards act:
---
Exempt or Nonexempt. (http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html)
Employees whose jobs are governed by the FLSA are either "exempt" or "nonexempt." Nonexempt employees are entitled to overtime pay. Exempt employees are not. Most employees covered by the FLSA are nonexempt. Some are not.
Some jobs are classified as exempt by definition. For example, "outside sales" employees are exempt ("inside sales" employeesare nonexempt). For most employees, however, whether they are exempt or nonexempt depends on (a) how much they are paid, (b) how they are paid, and (c) what kind of work they do.
With few exceptions, to be exempt an employee must (a) be paid at least $23,600 per year ($455 per week), and (b) be paid on a salary basis, and also (c) perform exempt job duties. These requirements are outlined in the FLSA Regulations (promulgated by the U.S. Department of Labor). Most employees must meet all three "tests" to be exempt.
---
I am salary exempt, believe me Ive looked into it and I fall under the definition, but given I am paid about 4 times the 'minimum' amount, get more than adequate vacation, and my job duties all point to that..
At times; Some weeks are 60 hours some are 30, depends whats going on. I would say I average 40-45 a week. Though I did once work 3 straight days during a DR with a few catnaps here and there (I was comped with about a week and a half off afterwards)
"Are you paid?"
Not by the hour. I usually get some form of comp time and, here is the part most people wont acknowledge, a company would not pay me as much were I an hourly worker, if you make say 52,000 a year on a salary basis that would theoretically be 25$ an hour with a 40 hour week. But were you to get the cut over to hourly you can be sure that you would be pulling closer to 20$ an hour. Companies pay a premium for salary workers and not just in IT.
"How do you calculate the value of call hours when you aren't called?"
I don't, salary. Back in my contractor days my billing my rate was something like 50-65 an hour so I really did not care what hour it was.
The pushing a new DRM protected format on people every five years is going to *cut down* on 'piracy' I would like a little of whatever they are drinking.
The success of the CD was in its longevity, from a music media in the mid eighties to the defacto way for home users to back up data today it has lived along side the DVD for more than a decade, you know DVD the technology more than a dozen years old which still out paces Blue Ray. If anything this will drive people away from DVD/Blue Ray and onto the web for legit services (netflix) and less reputable ones.. I want to know if I am going to drop 300+ for a blue ray player it will still be relevant in a decade. Hell I'm still using my dorm room tv from 1995!
To be frank if I were on the team which designed a media format with a lifetime of less than a decade I would *not* put that on my resume.
Maybe I'm the odd one here but this has simply just not been my experience at the four IT outfits I have worked for.
The *most* abusive one had me on call every other week but if I were to get the dreaded 2am call and worked say 4 hours I would go into work right after and leave at noon, if I ended up working through the day for other reasons my boss would tell me *not* to come in tomorrow morning.
The company I work for now makes me carry the BB around 24*7 but I don't answer it unless I am on call (once every 6 weeks) except those times when I know a big change is going on. I do allot of work at night but compensate by working a 9-4 day. When there was an illness in my family (not me) and I had to miss time to provide care I was told I could look into short term disability so my job would be safe.
All and all I know there are horror stories out there but I really dont think a Union would do anything other than make it harder to move around between companies, take more of my money, and get involved in politics..
What if, per chance, you're not being abused? I have far fewer complaints about my workplace than my father (UAW) had about his.
If we were talking an 'ideal' labor union I would not for a second oppose it but Unions today are nothing but political PAC's that coerce money from their members.
Are you that naive? Let put it to you this way if you were a college professor and wanted a grant for the study of the breeding habits of say, pigeons... I guarantee you if you append the application with 'and the effect of global warming on them' you're far more likely to get a grant.
And BTW, there is mad money to be made promoting laws which force people to replace the air conditioners instead of repair them in homes and rental complexes to 'improve efficiency' when the size of the units in the complex do not not warrant such a change. The AC in my condo cost me a good 300$ more in 2006 than it would have in 2004.. all for a 900 sq foot condo with new windows..
That study had such crap methodology it should be dismissed offhand..
1) Not a year over study, they compared two three back to back to back 4 week periods (not year over)
2) The study covered the five counties around Atlanta which as a whole saw little change in traffic patterns not just the county in which traffic was actually effected.
3) It measured the decrease of 1.8 cases per day via medicade accounting not hospital records
--
None of this is not to say that we don't pollute and that car pollution is noxious but to compare what goes on in Beijing to Atlanta is like comparing locking your kid is his basement with giving them a midnight curfew.
When the Olympics were in Atlanta did they have to shut down every factory for dozens of miles just go go from 100, to 10 times acceptable particulate levels?
Slashdot Mirror
"It's kind of hands off, but if you can definitely "underperform" on the sales end."
There may be pressure on them, Im pretty sure apple is just as into selling crap as MS is but the Apple store employees don't make customers feel pressured..
Yea, The apple store is a *very* non pressure environment which for many non technical users is very helpful. The whole point of the genius is to answer simple questions..
The apple stores centers around 3 things
1) The Genius
2) An army of employees running around to help people
3) A non intimidating open and easy to navigate store
Everything they do hight lights those two things, because they can do your credit card purchase remotely they can spend more time helping people decide. They reserve so much of the store for their training sessions and demo units that the Apple store does not feel like a big box store. I don't have to work my was past cameras, dvd's, home appliances, and video games to get to the computers.
The apple gurus are *not* sales folks and I have had them send me other places rather than buy an over priced adapter (ironically they sent me to best buy) meanwhile the 'The (Microsoft) Guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs'. Yea thats what MS need more sales pressure at best buy...
Naa tie it to a dogs collar and set him loose in a neighborhood...
"What's to stop you from leaving the building and taking a vacation in Fiji?"
Well the fact I'm not a smug ass who assumes that because I know tech better than my managers I'm above actually submitting to them. They are after all my managers!
Ill not do anything illegal or unethical but I wont treat someone as a second class boob just because they might be ignorant ( ignorance which has still not been demonstrated in this case. If Im asked to treat someone as a moron and be a single point of failure Ill not stay long those shops are not the place to be. Were I the only driver I would sure as hell have the password in a safe somewhere, or in the hands of a manager or higher who would hire my replacement if, God forbid, I was hit by a bus.
Smug arrogant asses who would trade job security for professional behavior is what give IT folks a bad name.
"How would you know - there were no written procedures."
Aww come on, this one is a no brainer for any network admin worth a spit! you don't punch a hole in a private network without letting someone know! Ive fought to keep shell boxes out there to back up a concentrator but I would *never* just drop one without telling my manager. Youre a freakin admin not a deity.
"Yes they did - they refused for years to hire a second person who could share the job with him and refused to document recovery procedures."
That is *not* the same thing as him under only the threat of prison giving up the keys to the car. Not wanting to hire a second admin is not the same as wanting only one person on earth to know the passwords. A responsible admin would at least have a safe with the passwords in it so that if they were hit by a bus a decent locksmith could get to the passwords...
"refused to document recovery procedures"
Since when would a recovery doc include passwords?
"Sorry, wrong. If you spoof another mac on a device, the switch still see's the spoofed mac "
You mean the switches that he locked everyone out of? That will lose all their settings if rebooted? those switches?
"it's not that hard to locate a wired in device, especially something like this."
Well unless he say put it in a wall or something, as I mentioned above I'm no guru but I don't put many things past people who are. Keep in mind he locked everyone out of the network gear so he could very well hide it and keep you from going to the one place it might show up.
"Allowing him to fix things from home, most likely."
Ahh accessing the network in an unapproved fashion from a remote location... wrong for so many reasons..
"What's his hidden criminal record?"
He committed a felony (aggravated robbery and burglary ) in 86 that he neglected to mention on his job application.
"Also, the whole locking things down was known and approved for more than a year - he didn't exactly sneak around."
But he did deny his superiors access to the equipment, flat out! I don't think when they asked him to lock down the network they wanted a single point of failure so that if he were hit by a street car they would have to build everything over again.
Well they 'sort' of found it I do not believe they have physically located it yet.
"Consider that the management is thoroughly inept"
I have never worked at a shop where folks considered management to be anything but inept so I *always* take that claim with a large grain of salt.
"what are the odds that this is something he brought from home to allow him to do his job?"
I'm sure he was breaking many documented security rules in doing so, I cant bring a device in from home and plop it on my network, most places will not allow that and for good reason.
"Besides, it's a TS - replace it with one from newegg if you care so much."
The issue is what was the TS doing? the guy has a hidden criminal record, brought in a device of his own and put it on the network and locked down the existing infrastructure so that he and he alone held the keys... Thats some serious crap to pull..
Because I read the Fing article..
"The router was discovered on Aug. 28. When investigators attempted to log in to the device, they were greeted with what appears to be a router login prompt and a warning message saying "This system is the personal property of Terry S. Childs," according to a screenshot of the prompt filed by the prosecution."
"One article says that they were set to lose configuration files on "reset". That's pretty typical..."
Umm no, its really not typical, while its true I have seen that in places in general you would like to be able to bounce a device and restart it.
"if you have some device you don't have the password to, you can do a full factory reset and get it back to the default password, but that also wipes the configuration files."
Maybe you're right, I was reading this as a power restart because as cisco is involved in this there are many way to subvert the admin password (resetting resigters) to reset the password that *don't* involve loss of configuration information. That makes me suspect if they could do this (all of 10 minutes per device) they would.
"Anyway, if this guy is what they're making him out to be, they need to completely wipe and reconfigure the network anyway; it's the only way to be sure he didn't leave a few presents for them."
Agreed but you might want to take a glance at what he has done first.
Are we caring about that? its on the moon yes there is always the off the wall chance of it harming anyone but is the radiation from the spent material *really* that much worse than the UV radiation bombarding the surface of the moon?
The admin might not be stupid he might be an ass
1) He placed a rouge device (his personal property) on the SF network
2) He set all the network devices on the network to lose all info on a reboot
3) He will hand over the passwords (after jail) to all the devices except the rogue
You can make equipment hard to find ( mac masquerading comes to mind )... I'm only adequate in terms of networking but I am pretty sure someone who is really good can play a mean game of hide and seek. Who knows *what* he was doing with that device? and were I the network admin I would have to *on principle alone* rebuild everything after this guy left..
"From what I've read, his "hijacking" was limited to refusing to give the passwords to his boss whom he considered an idiot."
Which is hijacking... Most problems entities will have in regards to security come from within. If my boss were the crown prince of idiots and asked me for a password he should not have I would send him an email CC'd to his boss politely explaining that the password is tightly kept for a reason and if he wanted to break standard security practice and get the password anyway he should just email me back with the request.
As my father always said "The boss ain't always right but he is always the boss" This is a CYA moment..
If there were any survivors their life would be hell, people would expect them to destroy systems everywhere..
"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water." Samantha Carter
Any system, I mean any systems is open to fraud. The term 'Ballot box stuffing' pretty clearly indicates even a paper system is not 100% safe but at least, for the most part, wide scale fraud is pretty damn hard when you would have to run around from precinct to precinct stuffing boxes with the names of the recently dead (or what have you).
Electronic stand alone systems with removable media (CD's flash drives, ..., ... what have you) and ones that print a small receipt into a lock box (for multiple audit streams) is as safe and efficent as anything else...
This problem begins the minute you get involved in the world because, well, the world is complicated..
Look at Serbia in the 90's... Internal civil war that we became involved in and for some reason there were not massive protest at the US bombing a small nation trying to sort out its own problems
Look at Iraq in 2003... Nation long hostile to the US, targets US planes enforcing the no fly zone (to prevent ethnic cleansing in the south, and far north) yet people protest today... The only difference between Iraq and Serbia is one got better press..
--
On the whole nuclear reactor thing I would bet India is a somewhat safer bet than Iran or North Korea. Unless, of course, you can show me a high ranking member of the Indian Government drumming up support by threating to wipe Pakistan off the map (like you see in Iran)? or selling weapons to a nation that wants to wipe others off the map (Like North Korea selling missiles to Iran)...
India is not perfect but they are the worlds largest multi party democracy, a *relatively* responsible world player and a nation not quick to take sides. Should we be helping them develope nuclear tech? no but when you get involved in the world stage this kind of thing is going to happen and you can point at *any* nation player to find hypocrisy.
--
Not to be Xenophobic But I really wish the US would turn inward for a decade to fix our own problems before trying to fix those in other nations.
"Brother - the Fair Labor Standards Act says you are to be paid while on call - albeit not "full pay" unless called in."
Ummm, no salary exempt employees do not fall under that section of the fair labor standards act:
---
Exempt or Nonexempt. (http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html)
Employees whose jobs are governed by the FLSA are either "exempt" or "nonexempt." Nonexempt employees are entitled to overtime pay. Exempt employees are not. Most employees covered by the FLSA are nonexempt. Some are not.
Some jobs are classified as exempt by definition. For example, "outside sales" employees are exempt ("inside sales" employeesare nonexempt). For most employees, however, whether they are exempt or nonexempt depends on (a) how much they are paid, (b) how they are paid, and (c) what kind of work they do.
With few exceptions, to be exempt an employee must (a) be paid at least $23,600 per year ($455 per week), and (b) be paid on a salary basis, and also (c) perform exempt job duties. These requirements are outlined in the FLSA Regulations (promulgated by the U.S. Department of Labor). Most employees must meet all three "tests" to be exempt.
---
I am salary exempt, believe me Ive looked into it and I fall under the definition, but given I am paid about 4 times the 'minimum' amount, get more than adequate vacation, and my job duties all point to that..
"So, you work long hours."
At times; Some weeks are 60 hours some are 30, depends whats going on. I would say I average 40-45 a week. Though I did once work 3 straight days during a DR with a few catnaps here and there (I was comped with about a week and a half off afterwards)
"Are you paid?"
Not by the hour. I usually get some form of comp time and, here is the part most people wont acknowledge, a company would not pay me as much were I an hourly worker, if you make say 52,000 a year on a salary basis that would theoretically be 25$ an hour with a 40 hour week. But were you to get the cut over to hourly you can be sure that you would be pulling closer to 20$ an hour. Companies pay a premium for salary workers and not just in IT.
"How do you calculate the value of call hours when you aren't called?"
I don't, salary. Back in my contractor days my billing my rate was something like 50-65 an hour so I really did not care what hour it was.
The pushing a new DRM protected format on people every five years is going to *cut down* on 'piracy' I would like a little of whatever they are drinking.
The success of the CD was in its longevity, from a music media in the mid eighties to the defacto way for home users to back up data today it has lived along side the DVD for more than a decade, you know DVD the technology more than a dozen years old which still out paces Blue Ray. If anything this will drive people away from DVD/Blue Ray and onto the web for legit services (netflix) and less reputable ones.. I want to know if I am going to drop 300+ for a blue ray player it will still be relevant in a decade. Hell I'm still using my dorm room tv from 1995!
To be frank if I were on the team which designed a media format with a lifetime of less than a decade I would *not* put that on my resume.
Maybe I'm the odd one here but this has simply just not been my experience at the four IT outfits I have worked for.
The *most* abusive one had me on call every other week but if I were to get the dreaded 2am call and worked say 4 hours I would go into work right after and leave at noon, if I ended up working through the day for other reasons my boss would tell me *not* to come in tomorrow morning.
The company I work for now makes me carry the BB around 24*7 but I don't answer it unless I am on call (once every 6 weeks) except those times when I know a big change is going on. I do allot of work at night but compensate by working a 9-4 day. When there was an illness in my family (not me) and I had to miss time to provide care I was told I could look into short term disability so my job would be safe.
All and all I know there are horror stories out there but I really dont think a Union would do anything other than make it harder to move around between companies, take more of my money, and get involved in politics..
What if, per chance, you're not being abused? I have far fewer complaints about my workplace than my father (UAW) had about his.
If we were talking an 'ideal' labor union I would not for a second oppose it but Unions today are nothing but political PAC's that coerce money from their members.
Are you that naive? Let put it to you this way if you were a college professor and wanted a grant for the study of the breeding habits of say, pigeons... I guarantee you if you append the application with 'and the effect of global warming on them' you're far more likely to get a grant.
And BTW, there is mad money to be made promoting laws which force people to replace the air conditioners instead of repair them in homes and rental complexes to 'improve efficiency' when the size of the units in the complex do not not warrant such a change. The AC in my condo cost me a good 300$ more in 2006 than it would have in 2004.. all for a 900 sq foot condo with new windows..
That study had such crap methodology it should be dismissed offhand..
1) Not a year over study, they compared two three back to back to back 4 week periods (not year over)
2) The study covered the five counties around Atlanta which as a whole saw little change in traffic patterns not just the county in which traffic was actually effected.
3) It measured the decrease of 1.8 cases per day via medicade accounting not hospital records
--
None of this is not to say that we don't pollute and that car pollution is noxious but to compare what goes on in Beijing to Atlanta is like comparing locking your kid is his basement with giving them a midnight curfew.
When the Olympics were in Atlanta did they have to shut down every factory for dozens of miles just go go from 100, to 10 times acceptable particulate levels?