Should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine the validity of the information?"
Since throughout the United States, most school boards are run by local citizens without an ounce of clue for the most part, we shouldn't be shocked when a school board at the local, district, county, or even state level shows it's ignorance and small mindedness.
A song says (I forget which one) "My education didn't hurt me none" is a statement to the resiliance of young people to detect and disregard bull sh*t, rather than the careful planning of adults.
The road to hell is ordered by the righteous, planned by the well meaning, and paved with good intentions.
FPGAs have the advantage of being able to be modified post-production. Defects found on a Phoenix-enabled chip could be resolved by downloading a patch and applying it to the hardware.
We already have Microsoft paying hardware device OEMs to use PICs and not release the driver code to any but closed source OS'es, so this just makes it easer to take the MS dollar and shut out OSS. A few may resist, but the surest way to kill OSS is to make it impossible to have drivers that work. In a perfect world, this wouldn't matter. We live, however, in a world far from perfection.
It worries me, if for no other reason than it's likely to be abused. How long until we see a motherboard that requires the use of closed source drivers to enable the keyboard port, or be able to use block or memory devices?
But the new DST is probably here to stay -- letting the bill expire would mean re-patching a lot of systems again next year.
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I somehow doubt congress is paying the lest attention to the blood, sweat, and tears of IT teams across the country. Doubless they'll resend it, and we'll have another patch party next year. YEAH!!!! MORE OVER TIME!!!
Hey, wait a minute... I'm on salary... Oh, dirty words, dirty words!!
Well, A/C, I think you over state the case to make a point. And again, I have to go back to my original words and original statements and reiterate "reasonable"... the problem is to define "reasonable".
"Reasonable" is a wonderful term. It means something to everyone, but not the same thing to more than one person at a time.
If you don't have more than 3 transist agreements nor more than 10 peering agreements, then I have to suggest that you simply haven't been exposed to the small bit of real abuse and real hacking out there. My backup connection is an OC3. Yet speed isn't an indicator of the levels of traffic. It could simply be that $dayjob only need to get one web page per day and three emails. Possible, but not likely.
I don't think I've said or intimated that we need to "lock everything down". What I've said, and my experience shows, is that accountabillity end to end is desirable in some cases, possibally in many. I don't know. I think it's time and past to consider it, discuss what each finds reasonable (oh, that slippery word again!), and what circumstances. But then again, no one elected me God or President for Life. I'd like to think I'd have the intelligence to decline the nomination, were any so foolish to put my name in the hat for it. (I don't think any are, but you never know.)
The way I interpert your post, you are against ANY monitoring, ANY enforcement. That is as flawed as TOTAL monitoring and TOTAL enforcement. I also suspect that such an arguement isn't worthy of your own intelligence.(eigher way)
As for your appeal to liberty, I share that concern. After all, we now see that the FBI has (ab)used their power of National Security Letters (I never doubted this would happen, human nature being what it is), we already know about the tens of thousands of illegal wiretaps, monitoring of SWIFT transactions, and the thousand other cuts of illegal power exercised in the name of "Homeland Security". (Does anyone else detect a faint aroma of "Fatherland" when they hear that?)
I live in Texas. I saw what George Walker Bush was when he ran for Govonor of Texas against Ann Richards (disclosure: she was a distant relitive of mine). Nothing he's done since being elected Govonor has surprised me in any way. In fact, my only surprise is that he's not been more blatant in his grasping for power. My only shock is that he's not issued an executive order voiding the Bill of Rights, instead of just sticking to "signing statements" that do much the same thing.
Politics aside, and if you can restrain your FUD factory, I will again state what is obvious to me: There has to be a way for network operators to flag traffic to other network operators for logging. There has to be a unified and accepted defination of what is unacceptable at minimum (EG: DDoS is unacceptable, but getting a DNS record isn't.) There has to be National Juristictional authority to enforce agreements. There has to be an International agreement to enforce a minimum level of acceptable behavior, or a way for National authority to restrict or prohibit traffic from other national authorities and jurisdictions that fail to enfore the minimum.
At the same time, there has to be a way to protect the system from abuse of a political party, extengicies of the moment, or even fits of pique.
How?
I think and hope that I've made it painfully clear that I'm no genius. I've not one iota of a clue as to how to go about this. However, I do have the faith and belief that others can come together and work out a solution that will fit most cases and accomidate exceptions either way. It may be that there will be parts of that agreement that rub me the wrong way.(See my sig.) It may be that others want more autority and control than I'm willing to allow. It may be that there was stiuations where both parties agree that there is abuse, but the rules don't allow for disclosure. I'm willing to live with that. But what I do know is that total authority is as much a lie and phantom as total anonimit
You only suggested what needs to be stopped, which no one disagrees with,
Part of defineing a solution is defineing the problems to be solved. An some DO disagree
with what I think should be stopped. I think it's important to state that right up front.
One of the things I think should be stopped is unsolicated bulk email, of what ever content.
Another is to force ISPs to act on abuse reports. I've one IP I reported to AT&T over a year
ago for sending viruses, put in my IPTABLES, and forgot about until a few weeks ago. I dropped
the IPTABLES entry, and within a few minutes had another sample of the same virus. I larted
(with a note and the ticket number from the original LART) and put it back in IPTABLES. Today,
the packet counts are still increasing by about 10,000 every day.
but not how, which is the issue at hand.
Agreed. Caught me plaming that card...
And this legislation only feels like fuel to the witches fire.
Which I think I covered in my post. "Not the law in it's present form..."
The real problem is that every "Single Ultimate Plan to end Internet Abuse" (SUPIA) (say it Soup-a)
has real flaws in law, technical, or politial areas. Not to mention users won't put up with it.
We (those with technical abilities) can fully secure the Net - or a substantial subset of it. We could do it this year.
I firmly believe this month were we as techs and admins to do what we know we should do.
But we won't, largely because we respect outlawry too much.
Or we wish to continue our employment.
Because there are too many jackass laws.
As many "jackass laws" as their are, there are many more "jackassed" "management" teams overruled by brainless salesforces.
When governments stop persecuting people for free thought, for music, for sex (other than with children), for drugs, for spiritual practices and political involvements
One could wish that all governments everywhere start representing their governed, rather than a raw and brutal power grab most represent... even (especially?) in the US. Power grabs using the ideals of a people are no less repugnant when the iligitimate grab for power is attractive to a select few or only a ideal that is foisted or co-opted on a people.
- then we can lock down the Net, knowing that our work isn't going to further greater evil than it prevents, won't be presenting governments with what they need to further destroy the true prosperity of individuals and societies.
A-MEN! Haliuia! From your lips to God's Ear. However, this is a great danger, and should be guarded against in all ways.
And I say that as someone who firmly believes that governments are necessary and can (and sometimes do) do great good.
You are a person of great perception and greater discernment. These are precisely the things I worry about.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I can see that you didn't bother to read where "reasonable" entered into my comments, nor my sig. If you fear for your anonimity in surfing the web, I share that concern.
I could use a thousand examples from Phishing to "So, if you want child porn, you shouldn't be logged?" type arguements. However, I'll simply limit myself to pointing out that I've asked for "reasonable" limits and "reasonable" laws. What is reasonable? Well, I for one would start with
child porn is unreasonable and should not be protected.
finantial crimes are unreasonable and should not be protected. I see no need for 419 spammers getting off scott free.
Impure drugs are unreasonable and should not be protected. (EG: almost all drug spams and all penis pill spams.) (see several drug administraion findings that the most popular erectile drug spams have pills that contain rodent fecal matter and no erectile dysfunction compounds.)
"lottery" ""Winnings"" that are anything but.
Other frauds.
I've stared with things that I think all reasonable people can agree are (or should) be prohibited. Where we go after that should be a consensus of all reasonable peoples.
I don't ask that all see things the way I do, I only ask that the law abiding majority see that the internet is presenting crooks with a way to get away with their crimes, insist that there be world wide laws to bring them to the bar for judgement, and that said judgement is fair and equitable.
I'm not so radical as to suggest that any email that isn't consentual be a crime, I'm saying that it is past time for reasonable limits and reasonable laws that can be enforeced cross juristiction. If you legitimately can't see that is the case, then I applaud you for your ability to escape the rigors of spam presented to the vast majority of those not so lucky. I only wish that I didn't get 100,000 spams a day for "viakraga", 1,000,000 spams a day from dead generals, presidents, "over invoiced" Nigerian oil companies, or 25,000,000 emails for disfunctions I don't currently experience.
Some good points about possible abuses have been raised, and not a few real problems too. These should be addressed; however, the problem on the internet today are so over-arching that something must be done. Not the law in it's present form, but SOMETHING.
I admin for a moderately sized internet farm, and I can tell you this: If you take the amount of spam you see in your inbox, and multiply each spam by hundreds of thousands, you'll only just begin to get a glimmer of the amount of malicious or covert packets running around your own network, let alone from other networks.
Sadly, the day where internet facing services can go unmonitored and un-logged is past by seven years or more. Criminals are stealing millions of US dollars every day, day in and day out, and some times stealing tens or hundreds of millions. Data theft is rampant, espionage (corporate and government) is rife, trust is broken... It's a mad house out there.
One of the things we've done is to insert known "markers" in our own databases. These markers let us find how and who accessed a database, from where, what time, and what user/password were used to extract that data. In other situations, we've taken care to be able to trace the data flow. Some cases have arisen that made my hair stand on end, it was so bad.
No, the "wild west" days of the internet are at an end, and they must come to a close. Reasonable laws, reasonable requirements should and must be put on networks so that criminals can be brought to the bar for judgment of their crimes. To do any less is to fail civilization. And that's from someone who signs his posts with the below. It's a fine quandry I find myself in...
This led to an odd exchange with Representative Mary Bono who compared Berner-Lee's suggestion to 'having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit.'"
This is a very good analogy. If you live in Texas, you'll note very few moving violation stops are ticketed on intercity highways (in major cities like Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio. Not so much in smaller towns like Corpus Christi, Amarillo, El Passo, and such).
This is because of the danger to the officer and the small numbers of officers available. What I see on these highways are perhaps 4% driving 85 (or more) in a 55, perhaps 70% doing 60 or 65 in a 55, 4% doing less than the minimum speed limit, and 22% doing 55 +- 3mph.(horseback guess) It doesn't seem to matter too much if the highway is strictly patrolled or not, these numbers seem to hold fairly steady.
This ties in to honesty in other areas of life in my experience. The "honor system" snack tray at work for instance. I see one guy taking snacks and never paying for them[0]. The majority put in the price of the chips. A small minority will put in a buck when the snack is only 75 or 85 cents. Two will put in a buck for anything, even if it's listed at 50 cents.
In like wise, I see copyright infringement in the same ratios. Most people cheat a little bit every now and again, but basically are honest. A small minority are ALWAYS honest, never paying a cent less nor a cent more than required, and a small number that always cheat, and a small number that always overpay.
I can understand those that cheat every now and again. Have you ever seen a movie you thought was so bad that the ticket was a rip off? If you could preview the movie, you'd have known ahead of time it was worthless. Same for songs. Who downloads songs that hates it? (If it isn't for someone else.)
What copyright holders are afraid of is that being able to download and share content means they are held accountable for their product. If it's really bad, only a few will pay for it. If it's just bad, only a small minority will pay for it. If it's good, the majority will pay for it, but perhaps not as much as the copyright holders would like to extort ^W price it at. They fail to understand that this already happens. They are called "reviews" and "word of mouth".
What copyright holders fail to appreciate is that frequently the home copyright infringer will not be able to reproduce the quality and cachet of the real McCoy, and that good entertainment in and of itself is valued and valuable. Just for instance, on all my systems, there are perhaps two audio tracks that I have not purchased the original of, and those are likely hanging around because I didn't get around to deleting them yet. For every song I enjoy, I make it a point to buy the CD. For every movie not out of copyright that I like, I buy the tape or DVD if available. (And many are not available, but I'd buy them in a flash if they were.)
Why? Because the real item has a cachet the unlicensed copy lacks. Original packaging. Top quality. Freedom from fear that I might be found out and sued. Security in knowning that even if I am sued, I own the licensed work, and likely won't be found guilty (US fair use/media shifting exceptions). I'll leave aside the enlightened self interest that would demand pay for a work valued. For the most part, I don't think RIAA an MPAA understand honesty as the rest of the world does.
The real pity of copyright owners is that every single DRM scheme to date fails to target the real threat. They focus on the home infringer, the technologically unsophisticated. None target the sophisticated, knolegable, and well financed infringer. The guy that can crank out millions of copies that are not licensed. These are the products most people will unwittingly buy, and these are the very same things that are the largest threat to copyright holders incomes.
They are targeting those that are within 3 MPH of the speed limit, and ignoring
It is advice, but not legal advice. I state further that (s)he should seek compentent legal advice before proceeding with any course of action. I deal with legal people on a weekly basis. Some are in my employ, some represent the Government, other represent grasping corporations that would love another USD $MANYBUCKS or more from me.
The basic trick is to know that the lawyers you pay will fight for you, the lawyers that work for the government work to get more money from you, and the lawyers that work for bloated corporations have no compunctions in extracting money from you or the government by any logical or illogical means available, telling the truth or lying as needed to do so.
More than once I was able to present total contridictions in the facts by corporations dealing with me and my circumstances. But not ONCE has any law firm been found in contempt of court for telling complete (and knowing) lies. At best, I get my fees paid. But mostly lying corporations escape with nothing more than a mild rebuke.
Excuse me, but eight other cities had exactly the same happen to them, and they didn't go off their nut over it. Boston's elected/appointed leaders went over the edge, over reacted, and they want to blame others.
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Somewhere, some how, the signs should have been classed with "annoying, but harmless". This didn't happen in Boston, despite eight other cities being able to discern "terrorist bombs" from "annoying ads".
Not only do I object to Turner Networks paying Boston USD750,000 for thier costs, but USD 2,000,000 seems to me to be rewarding insane behavior. Turner should have said "Grow up. If that simple action is beyond your ability, we'll see you in court."
I fail to see where rewarding hysteria on any scale is a "good thing". Jim Samples should not have resigned, and Turner should not have opened a cash box to hysterical old ninnies. I've seen the sign in person, and there simply isn't any way a compentent person would have confused this device with any kind of bomb.
"I work at a large hosting company in Texas, and recently decided to go work for a smaller competitor. I had a great relationship with my employer and wanted to leave on good terms, and I hadn't signed any non-compete or employment agreements . I felt my old company had just gotten too large and I didn't like working there anymore, so I gave them two weeks notice in writing.
Good for you. You did the honest and right thing. Did you tell them why you were leaving?
They were really upset when I insisted on leaving and one week into my last two weeks the V.P. of Sales told me the company was suing me for leaving, and they were also suing my new employer for hiring me. I was shocked, and they then escorted me out of the building. Has anybody ever heard of this happening?
Oh, yeah. This is most likely to happen when an employee is considered key to the business.
Do they have any legal basis for suing me?"
Most states do not require a legal basis for filing suit, only for WINNING a suit. I can sue you for having (or not having) blue eyes, if I can prove you represented you did not (or did), and I incurred a loss from that. However, if it's too far outside the pale, a court can (but rarely) impose sanctions against the plaintif and their lawyer.
This is not legal advice. I am not an Attorney. If you want a legal opinion from a trained professonal, pony up a few bucks and go purchase one. What follows are my personal opinions based on the little I know of the facts. You should ignore this advice if it seems not to fit your situation.
First, prepare a letter, but do not send it. Write your old employer exactly why you are leaving. Tell them how you felt in your job, from start to finish. Be honest. Tell them what you liked, tell them that you are leaving because you are more comfortable in a smaller environment. Tell them if you are willing to make time available to them during a transision period, and for how long (DO put a limit on it. Six months to a year.), if you are willing to do that.
Next, do not send that letter... scrape up a few bucks and see an attorney. Texas is an "At will employment" state. Your employer can fire you for no reason at all. I expect you have the same kind of freedom absent an employment contract. It's also a "yellow dog contract" state. Employment agreements and non-compete agreements are by and large non-enforcable. For instance, a contact cannot prohibit you from being a systems administrator, but can prohibit you from transfering customer lists and company confidential information. You are completely free to use your skill set, but not free to give your new employer info about the old.
Texas has an interesting statute. If someone says in earnest that they will bring legal action against you, and fails to do so with in 30 days, you have a tort against that person. If you have expended resourses in response to that threat, you can recover your costs, fees, and court costs.
Were I in your place, I'd write the letter, print it out, take it to an employment attorney, and ask his advice on how to proceed. Expect to pay between $250 to $500 for initial consultation, and expect to be asked to provide up to $10,000 retainer to take the case. Read the contract carefully. If you do not see a clause to return the unused retainer, ask that it be included, and if they are not willing to do so, see another attorney. Also make it clear that you want your costs and fees to be part of a counter claim.
I suspect I know who your former employer is. You are doing the right thing in leaving.
Now, do the right thing, and google for an employment attorney in your city or call your local bar association for a list of attornies specilicing in employment law.
If you get a summons before you have an attorney, write a letter - but do not sent it - asking for 30-45 day continuance to seek and obtain council. Take it to the courthouse, ask a clerk to look it over, get feedback, then go look for representation.
I don't care about device keys. I do care about volume keys, because by using volume keys instead of devices keys, I totally bypass the revocation system. There is no "volume key revocation". There is content revocation, but I really doubt they will ever use it. If you use device keys, they can revoke them.
Which is why I will never "upgrade" to HD. When my lowdef stuff stops working, I'll simply opt out of the rat race and not buy anything. Books are still good.
I will not pour thousands of dollars into a HD system only to have some jerk in a corner office somewhere decide that my investment constitutes a risk to his profits, and be able to take it away from me without consequence, without my consent, and without buying me new geegaws. F'em. They don't generate ANY content I'd be willing to pay that much to watch.
But that's just me. Feel free to pour $BUCKs into their profiteering maws if you wish. It's your money... well, your's and mostly THEIRs, since they can decide to take it away from you.
Apple supports Digital Rights Restrictions. For that alone, I refuse to buy or use Apple products.
Call me stupid or what have you, but Technology cannot ever decide what I do is "Fair Use" or not. Fair Use is about intent, not actions. Until computers can read minds, intent is beyond their ken.
The driver is trying to get someone critically ill to a hospital? Sure, the driver may be less than one could wish for navigatinging the roads, but what if the driver is just over the limit with someone that is dying?
Like in programming, variables aren't and constants change. Life is a bit more complex than a simple binary tree. Hard and fast rules work well testing, but real life is a cascade of shades of grey.
As a husband and father of two very special ladies that were killed by a drunk driver, I see where this would be a good thing. But I can also see where the solution is worse than the problem.
The real kicker here is that someone impaired isn't to be trusted with an override to the lock. However, the lock can't be totally trusted either. I can't support this, but I can't denounce it.
Moral delemas are, I suspect, what makes us ultimtmately human and not machines. Let us not deligate our humaness to machines; instead, let us instill human compassion and self dicipline to all. And be aware that we won't always be right.
And willing to pay the price of being wrong.
Which to buy, plamsa, DLP, LCD?
on
Plasma or LCD?
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· Score: 1
My only comment is that due to Sony's "Sins"[0], no Sony product, service, device, "standard", movie, or music is ever an option in this household. I don't care if it's free; if it's Sony, it's not in my house. (This is a major pain when selecting motherboards as most use a Sony chip here and there.)
Unfortunately, at work, I have to have good technical reasons to refuse to allow a Sony product. I do find them sometimes, other times not.
[0] Things I Hate about Sony: (These are my opinions. You should research the facts and form your own.)
1. Bleem law suits 2. DRM 3. DRM installing root kits. 4. Support for RIAA. 5. Support for MPAA. 6. Various law suits that, in my opinion, are without foundation or merit before being filed. 7. Fake movie reviewer David Manning. 8. Disrespecting religion. 9. Graffiti pushing PlayStation. 10. Racist ads. 11. Astroturfing blogs. 12. Declining technical advantage (EG: What Sony has, others have, but better, cheaper, and less apt to fail.)
No, sir, the trouble isn't a "business case", the problem is the same as it was for 4mm audio tape. Digital restrictions, lack of desired content, inabillity to record in HD, and a high barrier of entry to make content others want to see for HD.
If you keep locking up HD, you'll continue to see a lack of adoption. It really is that simple.
"Why would you ever code an app from scratch again? Why would you need to?"'
Because management input into process design is so illogical that taking a poor, innocent well working and debugged package of code and exposing it to such idiocy is utterly futile?
According to Schindler (who does not 'drink the Kool-Aid'), Gartner urges managers to consider better process control and governance, managing 'application portfolios' much as they do stock portfolios. Part of this discipline is 'killing development projects early and often.'"
Who buys Gartner reports? Coders, or managers of coders that don't trust, don't like, and can't manage coders and are looking for a way to be "empowered"?
My oh my, how fast a mystery is solved.
That being said, I've not written any code for customer, vendor, employee, or other "people/places" type application master record management for more than five years. I got tired of doing that, and wrote it into a single, logical, flexable and optimal SQL (MySQL, MSSql, Oracle) back end and a PG for the front end. Insert lables, move fields around, activate and deactivate fields as needed, chop out the fat, and it's done.
One of these days I plan to start a source forge project with the code, but I'm too busy fending off Gartner style management to have time.
I've got a manager that so fsck'ing clueless right now... nevermind. I'm going to my happy place for a bit. Note to self: Never agree to work for a place that puts in "managers" for coders and sys admins that never coded and were never sys admins....
The real answer is to use open source software that can be verified to be hack-proof.
I like open source software, but just being open source doesn't mean it's any more secure. The problem here is using a common lock with easily available keys to obtain physical access to the computing device... think console. If you have console access, you can pretty much do what ever you want. Security doesn't depend on any one thing, it depends on layers.
A better lock on the Diebold machines would just lead to a false sense of security. The keys would be more difficult to get, but I have no doubt that people looking to rig elections would still be able to get them.
There are many varities of locks, from combination to tubular pin tumbler to independently coded quad-raceway locks (think a standard lock with a key shaped like a X, and 10 pins for each of three keyways. It's about 4" long.)
At least with these generic locks it is a known issue, and in theory we know not to rely on them to protect the contents of the machine. So the machines will be guarded better. In theory.
In practice... man are we screwed.
We are screwed not because of poor design, but because we haven't made enough ruckus to stop what is essentially planed voting fraud.
Printers are cheap, easy to find, off the shelf, and you can use one designed for cash registers. So why are most computerized voting machines lacking them? Because an independent slip of paper with the votes cast would give a verifiable and auditable trail, exactly what "they" don't want. See this. Sure, it's got a bias, it uses loaded words, but the basis of it is just too true for me to completely disregard it.
Beta format was unquestionablly better than VHS. However, Beta all but died in the consumer market because of Sony's insane desire to completely control all aspects of their technology and licensing fees.
Digital Audio Tape was better than cassette, but didn't "take". Why? DRM.
Again, Sony is going for a "standard" where they control everything. Others, especially those that compete with Sony, are understandablly a bit put off by this.
I do not purchase Sony music, I do not purchase Sony movies, nor do I go to see Sony movies, nor do I purchase Sony electrionics given a choice. (Some chips are made and sold by Sony, and I can't always take something apart to make sure there aren't Sony chips in them. The sales critter seems to object to that.)
I'm sure that my small amount of purchasing power doesn't upset Sony to lose. I just tell my employer, all my consulting gigs, friends, relatives, and people browsing in the shop that I won't buy anything Sony. I seem to recall an old sales maxim... one bad response to a company costs ten sales, but ten good responses generate only one sale.
What's on January 21, 2008? If you're referring to the day Bush is scheduled to leave office*, that would be January 20, 2009.
It'll take the new guy/gal a day to find enough ink to start doing something about all the things that need cleaning up. Actually, I just thought the new President just didn't do anything the first day in office. I can't recall it, anyway, and I remember seeing JFK take the oath of office.
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Since throughout the United States, most school boards are run by local citizens without an ounce of clue for the most part, we shouldn't be shocked when a school board at the local, district, county, or even state level shows it's ignorance and small mindedness.
A song says (I forget which one) "My education didn't hurt me none" is a statement to the resiliance of young people to detect and disregard bull sh*t, rather than the careful planning of adults.
The road to hell is ordered by the righteous, planned by the well meaning, and paved with good intentions.
We already have Microsoft paying hardware device OEMs to use PICs and not release the driver code to any but closed source OS'es, so this just makes it easer to take the MS dollar and shut out OSS. A few may resist, but the surest way to kill OSS is to make it impossible to have drivers that work. In a perfect world, this wouldn't matter. We live, however, in a world far from perfection.
It worries me, if for no other reason than it's likely to be abused. How long until we see a motherboard that requires the use of closed source drivers to enable the keyboard port, or be able to use block or memory devices?
.
I somehow doubt congress is paying the lest attention to the blood, sweat, and tears of IT teams across the country. Doubless they'll resend it, and we'll have another patch party next year. YEAH!!!! MORE OVER TIME!!!
Hey, wait a minute... I'm on salary... Oh, dirty words, dirty words!!
"Reasonable" is a wonderful term. It means something to everyone, but not the same thing to more than one person at a time.
If you don't have more than 3 transist agreements nor more than 10 peering agreements, then I have to suggest that you simply haven't been exposed to the small bit of real abuse and real hacking out there. My backup connection is an OC3. Yet speed isn't an indicator of the levels of traffic. It could simply be that $dayjob only need to get one web page per day and three emails. Possible, but not likely.
I don't think I've said or intimated that we need to "lock everything down". What I've said, and my experience shows, is that accountabillity end to end is desirable in some cases, possibally in many. I don't know. I think it's time and past to consider it, discuss what each finds reasonable (oh, that slippery word again!), and what circumstances. But then again, no one elected me God or President for Life. I'd like to think I'd have the intelligence to decline the nomination, were any so foolish to put my name in the hat for it. (I don't think any are, but you never know.)
The way I interpert your post, you are against ANY monitoring, ANY enforcement. That is as flawed as TOTAL monitoring and TOTAL enforcement. I also suspect that such an arguement isn't worthy of your own intelligence.(eigher way)
As for your appeal to liberty, I share that concern. After all, we now see that the FBI has (ab)used their power of National Security Letters (I never doubted this would happen, human nature being what it is), we already know about the tens of thousands of illegal wiretaps, monitoring of SWIFT transactions, and the thousand other cuts of illegal power exercised in the name of "Homeland Security". (Does anyone else detect a faint aroma of "Fatherland" when they hear that?)
I live in Texas. I saw what George Walker Bush was when he ran for Govonor of Texas against Ann Richards (disclosure: she was a distant relitive of mine). Nothing he's done since being elected Govonor has surprised me in any way. In fact, my only surprise is that he's not been more blatant in his grasping for power. My only shock is that he's not issued an executive order voiding the Bill of Rights, instead of just sticking to "signing statements" that do much the same thing.
Politics aside, and if you can restrain your FUD factory, I will again state what is obvious to me: There has to be a way for network operators to flag traffic to other network operators for logging. There has to be a unified and accepted defination of what is unacceptable at minimum (EG: DDoS is unacceptable, but getting a DNS record isn't.) There has to be National Juristictional authority to enforce agreements. There has to be an International agreement to enforce a minimum level of acceptable behavior, or a way for National authority to restrict or prohibit traffic from other national authorities and jurisdictions that fail to enfore the minimum.
At the same time, there has to be a way to protect the system from abuse of a political party, extengicies of the moment, or even fits of pique.
How?
I think and hope that I've made it painfully clear that I'm no genius. I've not one iota of a clue as to how to go about this. However, I do have the faith and belief that others can come together and work out a solution that will fit most cases and accomidate exceptions either way. It may be that there will be parts of that agreement that rub me the wrong way.(See my sig.) It may be that others want more autority and control than I'm willing to allow. It may be that there was stiuations where both parties agree that there is abuse, but the rules don't allow for disclosure. I'm willing to live with that. But what I do know is that total authority is as much a lie and phantom as total anonimit
Part of defineing a solution is defineing the problems to be solved. An some DO disagree
with what I think should be stopped. I think it's important to state that right up front.
One of the things I think should be stopped is unsolicated bulk email, of what ever content.
Another is to force ISPs to act on abuse reports. I've one IP I reported to AT&T over a year ago for sending viruses, put in my IPTABLES, and forgot about until a few weeks ago. I dropped the IPTABLES entry, and within a few minutes had another sample of the same virus. I larted (with a note and the ticket number from the original LART) and put it back in IPTABLES. Today, the packet counts are still increasing by about 10,000 every day.
but not how, which is the issue at hand.
Agreed. Caught me plaming that card...
And this legislation only feels like fuel to the witches fire.
Which I think I covered in my post. "Not the law in it's present form..."
The real problem is that every "Single Ultimate Plan to end Internet Abuse" (SUPIA) (say it Soup-a) has real flaws in law, technical, or politial areas. Not to mention users won't put up with it.
I firmly believe this month were we as techs and admins to do what we know we should do.
But we won't, largely because we respect outlawry too much.
Or we wish to continue our employment.
Because there are too many jackass laws.
As many "jackass laws" as their are, there are many more "jackassed" "management" teams overruled by brainless salesforces.
When governments stop persecuting people for free thought, for music, for sex (other than with children), for drugs, for spiritual practices and political involvements
One could wish that all governments everywhere start representing their governed, rather than a raw and brutal power grab most represent... even (especially?) in the US. Power grabs using the ideals of a people are no less repugnant when the iligitimate grab for power is attractive to a select few or only a ideal that is foisted or co-opted on a people.
- then we can lock down the Net, knowing that our work isn't going to further greater evil than it prevents, won't be presenting governments with what they need to further destroy the true prosperity of individuals and societies.
A-MEN! Haliuia! From your lips to God's Ear. However, this is a great danger, and should be guarded against in all ways.
And I say that as someone who firmly believes that governments are necessary and can (and sometimes do) do great good.
You are a person of great perception and greater discernment. These are precisely the things I worry about.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
But only if we allow it... only if we allow it.
I could use a thousand examples from Phishing to "So, if you want child porn, you shouldn't be logged?" type arguements. However, I'll simply limit myself to pointing out that I've asked for "reasonable" limits and "reasonable" laws. What is reasonable? Well, I for one would start with
child porn is unreasonable and should not be protected.
finantial crimes are unreasonable and should not be protected. I see no need for 419 spammers getting off scott free.
Impure drugs are unreasonable and should not be protected. (EG: almost all drug spams and all penis pill spams.) (see several drug administraion findings that the most popular erectile drug spams have pills that contain rodent fecal matter and no erectile dysfunction compounds.)
"lottery" ""Winnings"" that are anything but.
Other frauds.
I've stared with things that I think all reasonable people can agree are (or should) be prohibited. Where we go after that should be a consensus of all reasonable peoples.
I don't ask that all see things the way I do, I only ask that the law abiding majority see that the internet is presenting crooks with a way to get away with their crimes, insist that there be world wide laws to bring them to the bar for judgement, and that said judgement is fair and equitable.
I'm not so radical as to suggest that any email that isn't consentual be a crime, I'm saying that it is past time for reasonable limits and reasonable laws that can be enforeced cross juristiction. If you legitimately can't see that is the case, then I applaud you for your ability to escape the rigors of spam presented to the vast majority of those not so lucky. I only wish that I didn't get 100,000 spams a day for "viakraga", 1,000,000 spams a day from dead generals, presidents, "over invoiced" Nigerian oil companies, or 25,000,000 emails for disfunctions I don't currently experience.
I can only assume you don't work an abuse desk.
I admin for a moderately sized internet farm, and I can tell you this: If you take the amount of spam you see in your inbox, and multiply each spam by hundreds of thousands, you'll only just begin to get a glimmer of the amount of malicious or covert packets running around your own network, let alone from other networks.
Sadly, the day where internet facing services can go unmonitored and un-logged is past by seven years or more. Criminals are stealing millions of US dollars every day, day in and day out, and some times stealing tens or hundreds of millions. Data theft is rampant, espionage (corporate and government) is rife, trust is broken... It's a mad house out there.
One of the things we've done is to insert known "markers" in our own databases. These markers let us find how and who accessed a database, from where, what time, and what user/password were used to extract that data. In other situations, we've taken care to be able to trace the data flow. Some cases have arisen that made my hair stand on end, it was so bad.
No, the "wild west" days of the internet are at an end, and they must come to a close. Reasonable laws, reasonable requirements should and must be put on networks so that criminals can be brought to the bar for judgment of their crimes. To do any less is to fail civilization. And that's from someone who signs his posts with the below. It's a fine quandry I find myself in...
This is a very good analogy. If you live in Texas, you'll note very few moving violation stops are ticketed on intercity highways (in major cities like Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio. Not so much in smaller towns like Corpus Christi, Amarillo, El Passo, and such).
This is because of the danger to the officer and the small numbers of officers available. What I see on these highways are perhaps 4% driving 85 (or more) in a 55, perhaps 70% doing 60 or 65 in a 55, 4% doing less than the minimum speed limit, and 22% doing 55 +- 3mph.(horseback guess) It doesn't seem to matter too much if the highway is strictly patrolled or not, these numbers seem to hold fairly steady.
This ties in to honesty in other areas of life in my experience. The "honor system" snack tray at work for instance. I see one guy taking snacks and never paying for them[0]. The majority put in the price of the chips. A small minority will put in a buck when the snack is only 75 or 85 cents. Two will put in a buck for anything, even if it's listed at 50 cents.
In like wise, I see copyright infringement in the same ratios. Most people cheat a little bit every now and again, but basically are honest. A small minority are ALWAYS honest, never paying a cent less nor a cent more than required, and a small number that always cheat, and a small number that always overpay.
I can understand those that cheat every now and again. Have you ever seen a movie you thought was so bad that the ticket was a rip off? If you could preview the movie, you'd have known ahead of time it was worthless. Same for songs. Who downloads songs that hates it? (If it isn't for someone else.)
What copyright holders are afraid of is that being able to download and share content means they are held accountable for their product. If it's really bad, only a few will pay for it. If it's just bad, only a small minority will pay for it. If it's good, the majority will pay for it, but perhaps not as much as the copyright holders would like to extort ^W price it at. They fail to understand that this already happens . They are called "reviews" and "word of mouth".
What copyright holders fail to appreciate is that frequently the home copyright infringer will not be able to reproduce the quality and cachet of the real McCoy, and that good entertainment in and of itself is valued and valuable. Just for instance, on all my systems, there are perhaps two audio tracks that I have not purchased the original of, and those are likely hanging around because I didn't get around to deleting them yet. For every song I enjoy, I make it a point to buy the CD. For every movie not out of copyright that I like, I buy the tape or DVD if available. (And many are not available, but I'd buy them in a flash if they were.)
Why? Because the real item has a cachet the unlicensed copy lacks. Original packaging. Top quality. Freedom from fear that I might be found out and sued. Security in knowning that even if I am sued, I own the licensed work, and likely won't be found guilty (US fair use/media shifting exceptions). I'll leave aside the enlightened self interest that would demand pay for a work valued. For the most part, I don't think RIAA an MPAA understand honesty as the rest of the world does.
The real pity of copyright owners is that every single DRM scheme to date fails to target the real threat. They focus on the home infringer, the technologically unsophisticated. None target the sophisticated, knolegable, and well financed infringer. The guy that can crank out millions of copies that are not licensed. These are the products most people will unwittingly buy, and these are the very same things that are the largest threat to copyright holders incomes.
They are targeting those that are within 3 MPH of the speed limit, and ignoring
The basic trick is to know that the lawyers you pay will fight for you, the lawyers that work for the government work to get more money from you, and the lawyers that work for bloated corporations have no compunctions in extracting money from you or the government by any logical or illogical means available, telling the truth or lying as needed to do so.
More than once I was able to present total contridictions in the facts by corporations dealing with me and my circumstances. But not ONCE has any law firm been found in contempt of court for telling complete (and knowing) lies. At best, I get my fees paid. But mostly lying corporations escape with nothing more than a mild rebuke.
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Somewhere, some how, the signs should have been classed with "annoying, but harmless". This didn't happen in Boston, despite eight other cities being able to discern "terrorist bombs" from "annoying ads".
Not only do I object to Turner Networks paying Boston USD750,000 for thier costs, but USD 2,000,000 seems to me to be rewarding insane behavior. Turner should have said "Grow up. If that simple action is beyond your ability, we'll see you in court."
I fail to see where rewarding hysteria on any scale is a "good thing". Jim Samples should not have resigned, and Turner should not have opened a cash box to hysterical old ninnies. I've seen the sign in person, and there simply isn't any way a compentent person would have confused this device with any kind of bomb.
Good for you. You did the honest and right thing. Did you tell them why you were leaving?
They were really upset when I insisted on leaving and one week into my last two weeks the V.P. of Sales told me the company was suing me for leaving, and they were also suing my new employer for hiring me. I was shocked, and they then escorted me out of the building. Has anybody ever heard of this happening?
Oh, yeah. This is most likely to happen when an employee is considered key to the business.
Do they have any legal basis for suing me?"
Most states do not require a legal basis for filing suit, only for WINNING a suit. I can sue you for having (or not having) blue eyes, if I can prove you represented you did not (or did), and I incurred a loss from that. However, if it's too far outside the pale, a court can (but rarely) impose sanctions against the plaintif and their lawyer.
This is not legal advice. I am not an Attorney. If you want a legal opinion from a trained professonal, pony up a few bucks and go purchase one. What follows are my personal opinions based on the little I know of the facts. You should ignore this advice if it seems not to fit your situation.
First, prepare a letter, but do not send it. Write your old employer exactly why you are leaving. Tell them how you felt in your job, from start to finish. Be honest. Tell them what you liked, tell them that you are leaving because you are more comfortable in a smaller environment. Tell them if you are willing to make time available to them during a transision period, and for how long (DO put a limit on it. Six months to a year.), if you are willing to do that.
Next, do not send that letter... scrape up a few bucks and see an attorney. Texas is an "At will employment" state. Your employer can fire you for no reason at all. I expect you have the same kind of freedom absent an employment contract. It's also a "yellow dog contract" state. Employment agreements and non-compete agreements are by and large non-enforcable. For instance, a contact cannot prohibit you from being a systems administrator, but can prohibit you from transfering customer lists and company confidential information. You are completely free to use your skill set, but not free to give your new employer info about the old.
Texas has an interesting statute. If someone says in earnest that they will bring legal action against you, and fails to do so with in 30 days, you have a tort against that person. If you have expended resourses in response to that threat, you can recover your costs, fees, and court costs.
Were I in your place, I'd write the letter, print it out, take it to an employment attorney, and ask his advice on how to proceed. Expect to pay between $250 to $500 for initial consultation, and expect to be asked to provide up to $10,000 retainer to take the case. Read the contract carefully. If you do not see a clause to return the unused retainer, ask that it be included, and if they are not willing to do so, see another attorney. Also make it clear that you want your costs and fees to be part of a counter claim.
I suspect I know who your former employer is. You are doing the right thing in leaving.
Now, do the right thing, and google for an employment attorney in your city or call your local bar association for a list of attornies specilicing in employment law.
If you get a summons before you have an attorney, write a letter - but do not sent it - asking for 30-45 day continuance to seek and obtain council. Take it to the courthouse, ask a clerk to look it over, get feedback, then go look for representation.
Which is why I will never "upgrade" to HD. When my lowdef stuff stops working, I'll simply opt out of the rat race and not buy anything. Books are still good.
I will not pour thousands of dollars into a HD system only to have some jerk in a corner office somewhere decide that my investment constitutes a risk to his profits, and be able to take it away from me without consequence, without my consent, and without buying me new geegaws. F'em. They don't generate ANY content I'd be willing to pay that much to watch.
But that's just me. Feel free to pour $BUCKs into their profiteering maws if you wish. It's your money... well, your's and mostly THEIRs, since they can decide to take it away from you.
Apple supports Digital Rights Restrictions. For that alone, I refuse to buy or use Apple products. Call me stupid or what have you, but Technology cannot ever decide what I do is "Fair Use" or not. Fair Use is about intent, not actions. Until computers can read minds, intent is beyond their ken.
Please go back, re-read ALL of my post.
Sometimes you CAN'T call an ambulance. Sometimes, there isn't one within a 150 miles.
The driver is trying to get someone critically ill to a hospital? Sure, the driver may be less than one could wish for navigatinging the roads, but what if the driver is just over the limit with someone that is dying?
Like in programming, variables aren't and constants change. Life is a bit more complex than a simple binary tree. Hard and fast rules work well testing, but real life is a cascade of shades of grey.
As a husband and father of two very special ladies that were killed by a drunk driver, I see where this would be a good thing. But I can also see where the solution is worse than the problem.
The real kicker here is that someone impaired isn't to be trusted with an override to the lock. However, the lock can't be totally trusted either. I can't support this, but I can't denounce it.
Moral delemas are, I suspect, what makes us ultimtmately human and not machines. Let us not deligate our humaness to machines; instead, let us instill human compassion and self dicipline to all. And be aware that we won't always be right.
And willing to pay the price of being wrong.
My only comment is that due to Sony's "Sins"[0], no Sony product, service, device, "standard", movie, or music is ever an option in this household. I don't care if it's free; if it's Sony, it's not in my house. (This is a major pain when selecting motherboards as most use a Sony chip here and there.)
Unfortunately, at work, I have to have good technical reasons to refuse to allow a Sony product. I do find them sometimes, other times not.
[0] Things I Hate about Sony: (These are my opinions. You should research the facts and form your own.)
1. Bleem law suits
2. DRM
3. DRM installing root kits.
4. Support for RIAA.
5. Support for MPAA.
6. Various law suits that, in my opinion, are without foundation or merit before being filed.
7. Fake movie reviewer David Manning.
8. Disrespecting religion.
9. Graffiti pushing PlayStation.
10. Racist ads.
11. Astroturfing blogs.
12. Declining technical advantage (EG: What Sony has, others have, but better, cheaper, and less apt to fail.)
Amen.
No, sir, the trouble isn't a "business case", the problem is the same as it was for 4mm audio tape. Digital restrictions, lack of desired content, inabillity to record in HD, and a high barrier of entry to make content others want to see for HD.
If you keep locking up HD, you'll continue to see a lack of adoption. It really is that simple.
See this
Because management input into process design is so illogical that taking a poor, innocent well working and debugged package of code and exposing it to such idiocy is utterly futile?
According to Schindler (who does not 'drink the Kool-Aid'), Gartner urges managers to consider better process control and governance, managing 'application portfolios' much as they do stock portfolios. Part of this discipline is 'killing development projects early and often.'"
Who buys Gartner reports? Coders, or managers of coders that don't trust, don't like, and can't manage coders and are looking for a way to be "empowered"?
My oh my, how fast a mystery is solved.
That being said, I've not written any code for customer, vendor, employee, or other "people/places" type application master record management for more than five years. I got tired of doing that, and wrote it into a single, logical, flexable and optimal SQL (MySQL, MSSql, Oracle) back end and a PG for the front end. Insert lables, move fields around, activate and deactivate fields as needed, chop out the fat, and it's done.
One of these days I plan to start a source forge project with the code, but I'm too busy fending off Gartner style management to have time.
I've got a manager that so fsck'ing clueless right now... nevermind. I'm going to my happy place for a bit. Note to self: Never agree to work for a place that puts in "managers" for coders and sys admins that never coded and were never sys admins....
Until we get someone more interested in appearances than substance. That's why GWB&Co worry me so.
I like open source software, but just being open source doesn't mean it's any more secure. The problem here is using a common lock with easily available keys to obtain physical access to the computing device... think console. If you have console access, you can pretty much do what ever you want. Security doesn't depend on any one thing, it depends on layers.
A better lock on the Diebold machines would just lead to a false sense of security. The keys would be more difficult to get, but I have no doubt that people looking to rig elections would still be able to get them.
There are many varities of locks, from combination to tubular pin tumbler to independently coded quad-raceway locks (think a standard lock with a key shaped like a X, and 10 pins for each of three keyways. It's about 4" long.)
At least with these generic locks it is a known issue, and in theory we know not to rely on them to protect the contents of the machine. So the machines will be guarded better. In theory.
In practice... man are we screwed.
We are screwed not because of poor design, but because we haven't made enough ruckus to stop what is essentially planed voting fraud.
printer link
printer link
printer link
Printers are cheap, easy to find, off the shelf, and you can use one designed for cash registers. So why are most computerized voting machines lacking them? Because an independent slip of paper with the votes cast would give a verifiable and auditable trail, exactly what "they" don't want. See this. Sure, it's got a bias, it uses loaded words, but the basis of it is just too true for me to completely disregard it.
Digital Audio Tape was better than cassette, but didn't "take". Why? DRM.
Again, Sony is going for a "standard" where they control everything. Others, especially those that compete with Sony, are understandablly a bit put off by this.
I do not purchase Sony music, I do not purchase Sony movies, nor do I go to see Sony movies, nor do I purchase Sony electrionics given a choice. (Some chips are made and sold by Sony, and I can't always take something apart to make sure there aren't Sony chips in them. The sales critter seems to object to that.)
I'm sure that my small amount of purchasing power doesn't upset Sony to lose. I just tell my employer, all my consulting gigs, friends, relatives, and people browsing in the shop that I won't buy anything Sony. I seem to recall an old sales maxim... one bad response to a company costs ten sales, but ten good responses generate only one sale.
It'll take the new guy/gal a day to find enough ink to start doing something about all the things that need cleaning up.
Actually, I just thought the new President just didn't do anything the first day in office. I can't recall it, anyway, and I remember seeing JFK take the oath of office.