My company has a program that hands out pedometers and if you meet certain fitness goals you get a discount on your health insurance. And if enough people do it, the company gets a big discount from the insurer.
And it's a good thing to do. Most people at the company have lost weight and are much healthier.
No, he's not talking about his sex life. Just because you are hetero doesn't mean you are even having sex. It just means that if you were to have sexual relations it's more likely that your partner will be of the opposite sex.
I always tell people that my job is to make it so that eventually I am the only one who comes to work, and I just sit there in case I have to push the big red button to keep it all from going kablooey.
Yep. I never claimed to be proud, but our entire factory was about to be closed and outsourced to Taiwan because they were cheaper. The changes my team and I implemented got rid of 1/3 of our people and brought our costs down well below what the factory in Taiwan could offer. Now we actually do some outsourced work for overseas companies, which has led to increased employment in other areas of the company.
It was a choice of eliminating 1/3 of the jobs, or have all the jobs eliminated due to outsourcing. That's pretty easy choice.
It's not just computer power, it's programmer time.
I could eliminate about half the jobs at my company (I've already eliminated about 1/3) with automation, but I don't have the time, and we only have a few decent programmers. I spend most of my time fixing problems caused by the lack of automation, aka general human error.
Will my job get automated? Not for a while. I'll be retired in a few years anyway..
3) They often show you ads for things you've just bought. If I get a new laptop why do I want to see more laptop ads?
I wonder about this all the time. I still get ads for something I looked up once and then bought YEARS ago. And it's a pretty niche product, not something that is advertised to everyone.
If ads get too annoying I just start clicking on them. Then they have to pay. Sometimes I click a lot.
Exactly. My company, based in the US, had [contractor name redacted] take over our IT. [contractor name redacted] is based in India. They slowly got rid of all the American IT employees over about 2 years and replaced them with Indian nationals. They would rotate them in an out based on whatever kind work visa they had. None of them ever really learned our system and eventually they had to hire back some of the Americans they got rid of.
Fortunately management has started to wake up and we're ditching [contractor name redacted] at the end of their contract.
I started writing a replacement for our company's 20+ year-old file-based data system 7 years ago. I didn't tell anyone about it until a few years later when I had a prototype ready and started producing better and faster reports for management than the old system. But they still wouldn't okay me to go ahead and start designing a full replacement for our old system. Then the old system coughed up some blood for a couple weeks and nearly caused us a to lose a couple million in sales.
After everyone stopped running aroud with their hair on fire they asked me what it would take to get my new system up and running as a replacement. I did it and now I am the one who controls all company data. At least a half-dozen people now work supporting the system and writing new code for it, but no one else has 7 years experience thinking about and designing this system, so a lot of the details escape them. HA! Try to get rid of me now.
Yeah, I'm not a big believer in dowsing, but...I have seen it in action. In fact, back in 1993 I was shown how to do it by an old guy who was a friend of my grandfathers. And I did it. Of course, all I was able to do was find water pipes under people's yards, I don't know if it works any deeper. But dang I can find water pipes like a motherfucker now.
No, the SSN is on the tax return or form, still highly insecure. The data associated with the SSN in the IRS DB is linked to the hashed SSN. So unless someone actually has the tax form (trivial for a few forms, difficult for massive amounts of forms) they cannot associate you with your SSN or your tax data. A corrupt IRS employee (and there are many) can easily enter one SSN into their application and get all your tax & income data. But they can't download EVERYONE's data easily.
We're talking about remedies to large data breaches here, not single experiences. Yes, your data is at risk while your tax form is in the mail or in the hands of an IRS employee, but as soon as it goes into the DB the associative data should be hashed. You don't eliminate breaches this way, you make them easier to deal with.
BUT you can change the salt, or the hashing algorithm, in case of a breach. You don't have to replace all the CCs, just send out a new salt to the machines. Now the data lost in the breach is useless.
It's not foolproof, but it is easy to fix a breach. If your CC database gets hacked, you re-hash with a different salt and then send the new salt to the pre-processors, so the hash they send you is now completely different. That way you have effectively changed everyones CC # a lot quicker and easier than sending everyone a new card. If fact, regular re-hashing should be a standard in the CC industry. You keep the same card and card number but the number in the DB will change regularly.
I've actually used a system like this for processing financial data (not CC data) to keep the data associating account numbers with passwords as difficult as possible to breach. Both the account number and password are hashed. We would change the salts at the broker end every 3 to 5 weeks and keep a record of the past two salts in case some broker equipment didn't get the last update. So if our DB got hacked we didn't have to make everyone change their password or account number.
As far as I know they are still using that system.
Surprisingly enough, I used to work at the IRS and still have many friends who do.
We could hash all SSN/EIN data at the IRS and just deal with hashes, but the entrenched management there still does everything the old way. Why can't the EDI transaction just hash the SSN and have the IRS compare the hashes at the IRS end? Because the highly political management is too stupid to understand this.
There are many reasons I have left cushy gov't jobs, the lack of technological understanding by the higher ups is just one of them. The Peter Principle is in full force if you work in government.
Slashdot Mirror
This is actually done already.
My company has a program that hands out pedometers and if you meet certain fitness goals you get a discount on your health insurance. And if enough people do it, the company gets a big discount from the insurer.
And it's a good thing to do. Most people at the company have lost weight and are much healthier.
No, he's not talking about his sex life. Just because you are hetero doesn't mean you are even having sex. It just means that if you were to have sexual relations it's more likely that your partner will be of the opposite sex.
Listen to this person.
I got mine two years ago and they removed some stage 1 polyps. Had I waited a few years I might be in the same boat as this AC.
Now I have to get colonoscopies every 3 years. But I am not complaining.
I always tell people that my job is to make it so that eventually I am the only one who comes to work, and I just sit there in case I have to push the big red button to keep it all from going kablooey.
It was a choice of eliminating 1/3 of the jobs, or have all the jobs outsourced to Taiwan. I saved 2/3 of the jobs. That's pretty easy choice.
Now what were you saying about me?
Yep. I never claimed to be proud, but our entire factory was about to be closed and outsourced to Taiwan because they were cheaper. The changes my team and I implemented got rid of 1/3 of our people and brought our costs down well below what the factory in Taiwan could offer. Now we actually do some outsourced work for overseas companies, which has led to increased employment in other areas of the company.
It was a choice of eliminating 1/3 of the jobs, or have all the jobs eliminated due to outsourcing. That's pretty easy choice.
It's not just computer power, it's programmer time.
I could eliminate about half the jobs at my company (I've already eliminated about 1/3) with automation, but I don't have the time, and we only have a few decent programmers. I spend most of my time fixing problems caused by the lack of automation, aka general human error.
Will my job get automated? Not for a while. I'll be retired in a few years anyway..
Yeah. What goombah99 said.
3) They often show you ads for things you've just bought. If I get a new laptop why do I want to see more laptop ads?
I wonder about this all the time. I still get ads for something I looked up once and then bought YEARS ago. And it's a pretty niche product, not something that is advertised to everyone.
If ads get too annoying I just start clicking on them. Then they have to pay. Sometimes I click a lot.
Exactly. My company, based in the US, had [contractor name redacted] take over our IT. [contractor name redacted] is based in India. They slowly got rid of all the American IT employees over about 2 years and replaced them with Indian nationals. They would rotate them in an out based on whatever kind work visa they had. None of them ever really learned our system and eventually they had to hire back some of the Americans they got rid of.
Fortunately management has started to wake up and we're ditching [contractor name redacted] at the end of their contract.
So you're saying that there's a dancing gene?
Back in my day we calculated war efforts in megapanzers.
Whatever the cost, it just got over a billion people excited about space again.
Wow, this old idiocy? Even during the first moon landing when I was only 5 I heard Walter Cronkite explain about the stiff wires holding the flag out.
Dude, you are dumber than a 5 year old.
My Nexus 5 doesn't have to be recharged every 12 hours as I've heard these "smart" watches do, so +1 for the Nexus 5.
Yep, I try to do a few basic programs in nearly every language I hear about, just to see what works well in which situation.
Exactly.
I started writing a replacement for our company's 20+ year-old file-based data system 7 years ago. I didn't tell anyone about it until a few years later when I had a prototype ready and started producing better and faster reports for management than the old system. But they still wouldn't okay me to go ahead and start designing a full replacement for our old system. Then the old system coughed up some blood for a couple weeks and nearly caused us a to lose a couple million in sales.
After everyone stopped running aroud with their hair on fire they asked me what it would take to get my new system up and running as a replacement. I did it and now I am the one who controls all company data. At least a half-dozen people now work supporting the system and writing new code for it, but no one else has 7 years experience thinking about and designing this system, so a lot of the details escape them. HA! Try to get rid of me now.
Proactive programming will get you far.
Let me know your results for toll road cameras. For...uh...science, yeah.
Yeah, I'm not a big believer in dowsing, but...I have seen it in action. In fact, back in 1993 I was shown how to do it by an old guy who was a friend of my grandfathers. And I did it. Of course, all I was able to do was find water pipes under people's yards, I don't know if it works any deeper. But dang I can find water pipes like a motherfucker now.
Ah, knowledge can only be passed to YOUR children. The hell with other people's children, right?
Monty Python did it.
"FIVE Four Three Two ONE!"
No, the SSN is on the tax return or form, still highly insecure. The data associated with the SSN in the IRS DB is linked to the hashed SSN.
So unless someone actually has the tax form (trivial for a few forms, difficult for massive amounts of forms) they cannot associate you with your SSN or your tax data. A corrupt IRS employee (and there are many) can easily enter one SSN into their application and get all your tax & income data. But they can't download EVERYONE's data easily.
We're talking about remedies to large data breaches here, not single experiences. Yes, your data is at risk while your tax form is in the mail or in the hands of an IRS employee, but as soon as it goes into the DB the associative data should be hashed. You don't eliminate breaches this way, you make them easier to deal with.
BUT you can change the salt, or the hashing algorithm, in case of a breach. You don't have to replace all the CCs, just send out a new salt to the machines. Now the data lost in the breach is useless.
It's not foolproof, but it is easy to fix a breach. If your CC database gets hacked, you re-hash with a different salt and then send the new salt to the pre-processors, so the hash they send you is now completely different. That way you have effectively changed everyones CC # a lot quicker and easier than sending everyone a new card. If fact, regular re-hashing should be a standard in the CC industry. You keep the same card and card number but the number in the DB will change regularly.
I've actually used a system like this for processing financial data (not CC data) to keep the data associating account numbers with passwords as difficult as possible to breach. Both the account number and password are hashed. We would change the salts at the broker end every 3 to 5 weeks and keep a record of the past two salts in case some broker equipment didn't get the last update. So if our DB got hacked we didn't have to make everyone change their password or account number.
As far as I know they are still using that system.
Surprisingly enough, I used to work at the IRS and still have many friends who do.
We could hash all SSN/EIN data at the IRS and just deal with hashes, but the entrenched management there still does everything the old way. Why can't the EDI transaction just hash the SSN and have the IRS compare the hashes at the IRS end? Because the highly political management is too stupid to understand this.
There are many reasons I have left cushy gov't jobs, the lack of technological understanding by the higher ups is just one of them. The Peter Principle is in full force if you work in government.