I like that no one seems to really understand, sometimes the "best" way to do things isn't the best way to do it. Flexible systems=complex systems. Sometimes it's Art, not science.
I'm still waiting for the period that "we won't need programmers anymore because the systems will program themselves." That was 15 years ago, and it still hasn't happened yet. Computers interact with people, at what ever remove they be. People don't generally model well.
I can see it now. The shuttle computers updated to Windows XP. Mission control running with their hard disks shared from drive root. MS IIS runing ASP applications to monitor the telemetry. Wow. What vision! What a true Dream!
Znnn..... Znnnn.... Znnug! OK. I'm awake now..
Now, I'm not saying this couldn't be done, and in fact many facets of NASA do run on Windows. However, I'm not gonna buy a ticket for the moon tour if I'm riding on a shuttle using Windows as the OS for flight control. Not even Unix. Nope. I want something crafted just for the task. After all, once you hit the ground at 35,000 Mph, pressing reset doesn't do you any good.
Well, I guess I won't bother submitting my proposal for an RFC to allow end users to tag team together and dunk spammers, kick in auto spam filtering, web page shutdowns, and dial up disconnects based on wide spread, trusted reports of spamming.
Gee, and it was such a good idea, I thought. Now that The DMA and all is kicking in to rise the tone of spam^H^H^H^H direct e-mail marketing, we can all be happy programmed comsumers of what ever swill^H^H^H^H^H exciting products they want to ram^H^H^H offer!
Well, just in case, I'll go ahead and finish up my paper and see if I can get it submitted for review.
I think that ColGraf has his points here, but I want to take a crack at demolishing what (s)he says. I don't think it's wrong, but I do thing it can be counteracted.
Our city need money for roads, and schools. Our children need more parks and playgrounds, and children's programs to keep our youth off the streets. As we go into this new century, our city faces questions of crime, of poverty - Mr. Jaquith talks about Linucks and Debean or whatever it's called - I, for one, cannot make heads or tails of it.
Mr. Jaquith's possible response:
My honored opponent cannot make heads or tails of the concept of open source. Allow me to simplify matters some what. When Bill Gate's home town asked what software they should use, Bill Gates, co-founder of the largest software company in the world, recommended open source.
My honored opponent wants more money for things we need, such as roads, schools, and youth programs. I completely agree. Freeing ourselves of the enourmous costs of closed, propritary, expensive software will let us, in the long term, put that money to those uses.
And that's his perogative, of course - the right to campaign freely is what makes this country what it is, the unshakeable roots of our culture. But not to put too fine a point on it, do the people of Charlottville really care about my worthy opponent's issues?
My honored opponent and I want the same things. We each, however, wish to accomplish that in differing ways. No matter who wins this election, you, the voter, are the real winner. The people should care that we spend too much money to write letters, too much money to print checks, and too much money to keep track of it all. These are areas of improvment I see we can make. These are simple things, really, and while we will have to train people in the new ways, we have to train them in the current software anyway. At least with open source, we are not forced to upgrade to new systems every two years, re-train on the new systems, and upgrade expensive hardware in the bargan. My friends, this is precicely what we have to do now with our current systems. My proposal has the advantage that we are able to control our costs more effectively than if we allow Microsoft to dictate to us when, how, and how much our upgrades will cost. We won't have to drop our youth programs because we have to buy a software upgrade this year. We don't have to reduce services because someone half a contenant away decides it's time for us to buy the newest version. Those choices will be firmly in our hands, to steer our own course, to determine our, and our children's, destiny.
As long as our taxes and payrolls for city workers are processed in a timely manner, as long as other computerized fuctions are carried out properly - why should we change them? Even Mr. Jaquith cannot tell us how they will save any meaningful amount of time - in fact, I tell you it will cost us time, as our town employees are forced to learn the new system. So why does Mr. Jaquith want this?
I can tell you that. He believes that it is wrong, my friends, to pay for software. He believes a product that costs thousands of man-hours to produce must be given away for free, and that those who would not do this are evil. Go to a web site called slashdot.org, or freshmeat.net, or read any "linux advocacy" magazine, and the "open source" position becomes clear.
My worthy opponent is correct. It will cost time and money to switch to a new system. This is why I want to investigate the use of open source software. Since some open source software has been given to the betterment of mankind, should we turn up our noses and close our eyes because someone decided to give us this gift? Should refuse this gift just because it doesn't line a corporation's pockets with even more money?
My opponent wants to put words in my mouth. He wants you to read things not said by me, not endorced by me, and not written at my behest as what I beleive. Well, he can ask you to do that, and some may even think that way. I cannot, and will not, tell anyone what they should beleive. This is, as my opponent points out, a free country. Since this is true, allow me the freedom of telling you what I think, and not what my opponent whats you to think about me. As for free software, if that is what the author wants to do with it, then I'll take them up on their offer. If that isn't what they want to do with their software, and we need it, of course we should pay for it. But do we need to pay for it over, and over and over again? Do you have to buy a new hammer for each nail? I say it's high time we quit buying a new hammer every time we need to drive a nail. If that's new fangled thinking, then I'm guilty as charged.
OK, rant mode off now.
Harry Homeowner doesn't really care what system sends out his property tax bill, he just wants that bill to be lower. If you can invoke the self interest of the voter, do that. Ideologs don't fair well at that polls, but others that promise to bannish a boogieman do. I forget what movie it was that the guy playing president said "All he's interested in is telling you why you should be afraid of it, and who is to blame for it." There is more truth to that than anything else.
But really, public service is to serve the public need. If you are running just to get open source into the city IT infrastructure, you are running for the wrong reason and should get out now.
A last note; don't try to do this all at once. Pick a department that isn't cricital to the operations of other departments, and do them as a proof of concept. Or pick one facet of city business and do that. DON'T try to change the world overnight, because it just won't happen.
I married on December 31st. Now add in IT work, when this is a great day for taking down things to work on them. Now think of how many times this work goes without a hitch.
That's why I may have a halo at work, but sleep in the dog house. Oh, yeah, my wife is a programmer. You would figure she'd understand, right? Nah! Go figure.
Part of the problem is that some confuse a tool with something that can only be used for "evil". A set of lockpicks in the hands of an honest locksmith are just tools of the trade. In the hands of a crook, they can be tools of crime.
The problem is distinction. Systems administrators are not (and should not be) required to be licensed. This makes having tools which could be used for testing or black hat hacking always open to targeting by unsophisticated law enforcement. We've seen this time and again on Slashdot.
Our current internet is impossible to completely secure and still offer usable services. A big problem with security are ISP's that require you uninstall any firewall software before they will support you. Firewall software on broadband should be required, not by law, but by the ISP being responsible. No firewall, no connection.Same for virus engines and current virus signature data files.
The other big security hole on the internet is the constant bugs found in software such as Outlook and Outlook Express by Microsoft. Other vendors are guilty too, but by far the most problems are with MS products, and they just keep turning up. Part is sloppy code, part is just the way simplistic programs have to be written for the (now) average user. Harry Homeowner doesn't understand a lot about computers, nor does he want to. He wants to get on AOL or MSN, cruse the internet, and get his e-mail. As long as the most common user is of this type, security of all types will be very difficult to implement.
Another part of the problem is that many non-technical people keep looking for the magic bullet to fix all the security problems, and want to pass laws to make it so. They forget that a law in the United States has no effect in China, and vice-versa.
We will always have rogues with us. That will never change. There are some simple things we can do to improve security, one being that outbound filtering be emplaced. This doesn't require a law, but a bit of effort on the part of a router owner.
As simple as it is to use, the internet is far from simple. Most people that use telephones don't understand how they work, and the same is true for computer users. Any law requiring one thing for forbidding another will have very little long term effect on computer security for the mid-level black hat. At most, you will make life a bit harder for script kiddies, but not for long and not very much. Conversely, you will be making our (honest administrators) life difficult.
On the one hand, the Slashdot style (perhaps not slash code, but you get the idea) gives you the ability to let your reader community decide what is crap and what isn't. On the other hand, a community can develop that tends to moderate down ideas they don't agree with, even though the idea itself may state a point. (Valid to the reader or not, it is still a point.)
I've noticed that I tend to moderate up most things, and only mod down Goat Sex type posts. I don't even do the "First Post!" type comments down. The Goat Sex guy may have had a point at one time, but it's been made, let's move on now. Nothing to see here.
On the other hand, someone is always going to get ticked off no matter what you do, sometimes even if you do exactly what they espouse they want. This is called Damned if you do, Damned if you don't, and Damn them all anyway.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that if you give yourself and out to edit or remove comments, that same out conversely gives you a liability to do that on demand from someone else. I was reading the other day that a judge ruled that as a general rule, postings to forum sites are generally accepted to be opinion, not statements of fact (IANAL). As such, these are not for the most part actionable in any case, though you can START an action anyway.
The real problem here is the legal system that allowes for suit for just about any reason. You may not win, but for (in Texas) $144.00 you can submit a complaint to a court, send a Sheriff to drop off papers to appear in court, and scare the living bejesus out of almost everyone involved. Take a walk through case law on a site like findlaw, and you will see the most amazing suits for what seems to you and me to be the silliest reasons. One guy's family sued a plane manufacturer for not putting in the operating manual for the plane that gas was required to fly, and his family won the case.(I think it was Cessna, it might have been Piper. The guy was killed when the plane crashed after running out of gas. May have been overturned later, but look at the cost of fighting it!) I don't know that making the filing of a suit harder is the answer. A more technologically cluefull bench would be a start, and perhaps sanctions against those lawyers and their clients that bring silly stuff to court may help. I don't have an answer for this problem, and I don't pretend that I do.
I guess this all boils down to this: no matter how you do it, be consistant. No execptions to posted rules at all ever, unless ordered by a court. No matter what you do, someone sometime will bring an action against you no matter what it is you do.
Remember, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Some restrictions apply.
what science-fiction novels have had a particularly noticeable effect on the development of technology?
Waldo, Inc., Robert Heinlein. It's been mentioned several times that this book mentioned waterbeds and "waldos", remote handling devices, in this book.
Star Trek, with the automatic sliding door with out pressure mats to make contact. (I still think those worked best, you never got hit in the ass with one of those doors.)
Those are only the three I can think of off hand.
Hope that helps.
Actually, all my servers are locked down as far as services offered (the MX doesn't do web pages, so httpd is off), my configs are all up to date and don't permit unauthorized relays.
I think the chief problem here is all the OS'es that came with relay enabled by default. This isn't Unix specific by the way, plenty of other OS'es, and some databases (Lotus Notes for one) used to come with SMTP on, even if not used, and permitting relay for any that care to send an e-mail.
Is this the fault of the admin involved? Well, yes, it is, but sometimes it hard to remember you're supposed to drain the swamp when you are hip deep in large, scally, sharptoothed preditors. I've been guilty of that once or twice myself, when I was very young and innocent. I was fortunate that I saw it before it was used.
I like the fact that sendmail for RedHat comes enabled only for the loopback address. If you don't know how to configure sendmail, you just arn't going to use it. That's an instant off for spammers.
I've a domain that I've been trying to get changes for almost three months now. Tangled owners, netblocks, uncooperative NSI/third party, and Oh yes, BBNPlanet is in there somewhere. Ha!
Spammers use servers in other contries to make prosecution hard/impossible. The spam we get isn't from some spammer in another country, it's a US spammer using a server offshore. As a rule, I find offshore e-mail (that isn't spam) is more welcome form of e-mail than, say, from my congressman.
Out of 13K mail boxes, I get 10K-15K e-mails per day not including those that don't pass our Internet MX (In otherwords, internal e-mail). About 3 in 20 are spam of one sort or another. So that makes about 2250 spams per day.
Lets say it takes about 2 seconds per-person per e-mail to decide it's spam and hit delete.
OK, that's 4,500 seconds, or about 1.25 hours.
Lets say the average pay per person with an e-mail box is $221.00 per day.
So, total, it costs my employer 276.25 per day just to delete spam.
Now, let's say that 1 in 100 of those e-mails deleted really wasn't spam, but real e-mail. If the user notices they deleted a legit e-mail, and goes to get it out of the trash, lets say that it takes them about 30 seconds to retreive it. That makes 22 per day, at 30 seconds each, at 221 per day, that is another 41.50 per day.
Grand total now is 317.25 per day completely pissed away because someone wants to sell some lady a penis enlarger, or some gay guy hot teen bitches.
OK, now about content filtering. I've looked at quite a few, and all choke on the amount of e-mail we have. Others, running on unstable OS'es, are a complete joke. The only thing that does seem to work for a week at a time is to block based on IP. If I could find an IP distribution map by country, I'd be a happy camper. Sure, I could zot 202/8, 203/8, 210/8, 211/8, 64/8 and a few others, but more and more these netblocks are getting re-assigned to US companies that I don't want to block.
One thing that's helped quite a bit is blocking all of DialSprit's assignments, and a few others. The RBL helps, but it's too easy to get off and too hard to get on.
I know a marketing droid for them, and he's crying in his beer over the stock price. Pay's not so good to hear him tell of it, so stock is what makes the payscale.
It's important to remember that customer service is part of what a company is. If it sucks, chances are that they have pissed off someone you may want an interview with at some point.
If you don't have a job now, then take it. You can sleep in alleys, but ya gotta eat. If you are one of the fortunate that are working, you may want to give this a pass.
I have WorldCom for LD, and I get nasty calls to collect before the bill even arrives in the mail. They keep wanting me to go direct debit, but if they can't get their billing cycles right, what makes them think I'll trust them with my bank account? I'd change, but since I make about 2 LD calls a year, it's not worth it to me.
I say it's time we all went and bought one (using our credit card, of course!) and took it home, spend hours hooking it up only to find, horror of horrors! It won't play the MP3's we made of our grage band! I want my money back, I'm suing for false and misleading ads! Whaaa! Whaa! You don't credit my credit card, I'm calling the issuer and telling them the product wasn't as advertised! Whaaaa!
And, by the way, please purchase this crap at Circuit City, the spammers that won't stop spamming until you get the e-mail address of some admins.
The free exchange of ideas in America comes under threat of the SSSCA.
Intellectual Property owners have fallen into the fallacy that they may control every aspect of their work.
The doctrine of "first sale" stands in their way, and they feel this deprives them of profit. In fact, it does
to an extent, but that extent is the deal they have made with the people of America.
Let us take an example from real life. Many text books are now only offered on CD-ROM. The publishers,
not wanting to pass up any profit, have constructed these CD-ROMS so that a license key is required to
access the book. Well and fine, except that these keys only last for a year. If you wish to access these
books after that time, you are required to purchase the book again. These CD-ROM books are priced at
about the same as the no longer available paper books.
If I wanted to use a clip of the World Trade Center attack in a report on terrorism, I cannot simply zip
over to CNN.COM and down load it. The site doesn't allow me to save a copy of this to my system and
reuse it how I wish. Even though this would be fair use, I cannot do so because of the technology used.
Fair use is in large part intent. Technology cannot read minds. It follows that there is no way to control
intellectual property with technology while preserving fair use. Fair use it part of the bargain intellectual
property owners have made with the public in exchange for copyright laws.
Society is in large part it's history. With history locked up, we have no past. A country ignorant of it's
past has no future.
While Osama bin-Laden would like to destroy America, it is my considered opinion that the SSSCA
would do far more destroy what makes America what it is than he ever could.
Destroy a man, you have taken him from his society. Destroy thought, you have killed his society.
Far from locking up Intellectual Property more than it already is, we should be ensuring that fair use rights
are preserved.
According to this page [microsoft.com], you can't use the Frontpage logo on a site that disparage Microsoft. Which seems pretty reasonable to me.
IANAL - Except that I seem to recall that you can use trademarks in product identification in critizism. So they can prohibit away, won't do any good. HOWEVER: Before I do this, I'd check it out with my own legal team. Nothing like trained attack begeals from MS to ruin your lunch hour. - IANAL
My bet is that the minons of Jack Valenti wrote them a cease and desist letter. This is a spasm of "duck and cover", hoping this move will apease the MPAA and forestall a suit they can't afford and don't want. I have no facts or real reason to offer. Just my suspicious mind.
Off topic, but has anyone seen how much money the RIAA, MPAA, TV and cable folks are forking out to our elected officals? A cool US$ 38 Million.
I think that I would communicate your concerns a bit less forcefully. Jobs are tight, and it might be a while before you land another. In particular, I always ask former employers if the applicant would be rehired at the old job. If they refuse to answer (or say "no"), it is a red flag to me that the applicant might be a trouble maker or undesireable. Line up another job before you walk out - that is a smart thing to do and will keep food on the table.
I see two things here: One, perhaps the boss is trying to get as much work as possible so that billing can be at a high level. Second, (s)he may have the same QOS concerns you do, but has reasons not to address them at this time.
What ever you choose to do, a calm, reasoned approch is always a better way than a hot-headed, "My way or the highway" attitude. You can leave if it bothers you that much, but don't leave in a huff. It won't do you any good and will cost you later.
While not trying to burst your bubble, nor am I disagreeing with your points, I do want to point out that Hollings got only US$2,000.00 from Disney. See: this at OpenSecrets.org for a break down of Hollings contributors.
A more interesting page is who did MPAA and RIAA give tons of money to. For that info, click here MPAA or here for RIAA.
Personally, I find it hard to beleive that someone would sell out for just US$2,000.00. Perhaps Hollings just needs a rap on the forehead to get him to stop being stupid.
...When Russia has to tell it's citizens not to vist the United States because they might be thrown in jail for something they did in their own country. It's just too ironic.
Re:Wow... that's a reeeeaaaal stretch.
on
Sklyarov Indicted
·
· Score: 2
real deal with this is that he did commit a crime in the good 'ol USA
Really? My understanding is that he didn't sell or provide the software here. The company he works for did. The fact that he owns a part of that company has on place in this discussion. Ford stock holders own part of Ford, are they being sued in their own right?
No, the only way they could get him was with a real streach on the "long arm" provision of US code. That's the real stretch.
He talks about the market share decrease in Apache
If it took five Windows2000/IIS servers to do the same work as one Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP, is that really a net loss of market share when it goes from Linux to Windows, or is that just yet another system for the black hats to go carding at?
I give a rats (_o_) about what OS I run, I really just want to
Get the job done
for low bucks
secure
available
When it takes 5 pretty good servers on one OS to do the work of 1 low end server, gee, do you really think I would want to change?
Oh, the change from 1 Linux to 5 2000's was driven by a boss that thought because the tech's didn't use a GUI, it must be old, bad, no good software.
Sure, point and click to your ignorant pea brained content, jerk. But I'm not bitter.
Jamie, you are either uneducated on the facts or willfully ignoring them by claiming that the test run of the US Missile Defense shield was anything other than a success.
One question: Does the SMD intercept at the forign warehouse, or domestic, when shipping a nuke FedEx?
'Nother for ya: You know how many TONS of drugs cross the border every week. So how does SMD intercept nukes being ported over the border by "mules"? And can it be adapted to target drugs?
If you don't want to spend money like water, and don't care if your delevery system is photogenic and phallic, then missles as platforms don't make sense - Spider Robinson
Slashdot Mirror
I'm still waiting for the period that "we won't need programmers anymore because the systems will program themselves." That was 15 years ago, and it still hasn't happened yet. Computers interact with people, at what ever remove they be. People don't generally model well.
Znnn..... Znnnn.... Znnug! OK. I'm awake now. .
Now, I'm not saying this couldn't be done, and in fact many facets of NASA do run on Windows. However, I'm not gonna buy a ticket for the moon tour if I'm riding on a shuttle using Windows as the OS for flight control. Not even Unix. Nope. I want something crafted just for the task. After all, once you hit the ground at 35,000 Mph, pressing reset doesn't do you any good.
Gee, and it was such a good idea, I thought. Now that The DMA and all is kicking in to rise the tone of spam^H^H^H^H direct e-mail marketing, we can all be happy programmed comsumers of what ever swill^H^H^H^H^H exciting products they want to ram^H^H^H offer!
Well, just in case, I'll go ahead and finish up my paper and see if I can get it submitted for review.
Our city need money for roads, and schools. Our children need more parks and playgrounds, and children's programs to keep our youth off the streets. As we go into this new century, our city faces questions of crime, of poverty - Mr. Jaquith talks about Linucks and Debean or whatever it's called - I, for one, cannot make heads or tails of it.
Mr. Jaquith's possible response:
My honored opponent cannot make heads or tails of the concept of open source. Allow me to simplify matters some what. When Bill Gate's home town asked what software they should use, Bill Gates, co-founder of the largest software company in the world, recommended open source.
My honored opponent wants more money for things we need, such as roads, schools, and youth programs. I completely agree. Freeing ourselves of the enourmous costs of closed, propritary, expensive software will let us, in the long term, put that money to those uses.
And that's his perogative, of course - the right to campaign freely is what makes this country what it is, the unshakeable roots of our culture. But not to put too fine a point on it, do the people of Charlottville really care about my worthy opponent's issues?
My honored opponent and I want the same things. We each, however, wish to accomplish that in differing ways. No matter who wins this election, you, the voter, are the real winner. The people should care that we spend too much money to write letters, too much money to print checks, and too much money to keep track of it all. These are areas of improvment I see we can make. These are simple things, really, and while we will have to train people in the new ways, we have to train them in the current software anyway. At least with open source, we are not forced to upgrade to new systems every two years, re-train on the new systems, and upgrade expensive hardware in the bargan. My friends, this is precicely what we have to do now with our current systems. My proposal has the advantage that we are able to control our costs more effectively than if we allow Microsoft to dictate to us when, how, and how much our upgrades will cost. We won't have to drop our youth programs because we have to buy a software upgrade this year. We don't have to reduce services because someone half a contenant away decides it's time for us to buy the newest version. Those choices will be firmly in our hands, to steer our own course, to determine our, and our children's, destiny.
As long as our taxes and payrolls for city workers are processed in a timely manner, as long as other computerized fuctions are carried out properly - why should we change them? Even Mr. Jaquith cannot tell us how they will save any meaningful amount of time - in fact, I tell you it will cost us time, as our town employees are forced to learn the new system. So why does Mr. Jaquith want this?
I can tell you that. He believes that it is wrong, my friends, to pay for software. He believes a product that costs thousands of man-hours to produce must be given away for free, and that those who would not do this are evil. Go to a web site called slashdot.org, or freshmeat.net, or read any "linux advocacy" magazine, and the "open source" position becomes clear.
My worthy opponent is correct. It will cost time and money to switch to a new system. This is why I want to investigate the use of open source software. Since some open source software has been given to the betterment of mankind, should we turn up our noses and close our eyes because someone decided to give us this gift? Should refuse this gift just because it doesn't line a corporation's pockets with even more money?
My opponent wants to put words in my mouth. He wants you to read things not said by me, not endorced by me, and not written at my behest as what I beleive. Well, he can ask you to do that, and some may even think that way. I cannot, and will not, tell anyone what they should beleive. This is, as my opponent points out, a free country. Since this is true, allow me the freedom of telling you what I think, and not what my opponent whats you to think about me. As for free software, if that is what the author wants to do with it, then I'll take them up on their offer. If that isn't what they want to do with their software, and we need it, of course we should pay for it. But do we need to pay for it over, and over and over again? Do you have to buy a new hammer for each nail? I say it's high time we quit buying a new hammer every time we need to drive a nail. If that's new fangled thinking, then I'm guilty as charged.
OK, rant mode off now.
Harry Homeowner doesn't really care what system sends out his property tax bill, he just wants that bill to be lower. If you can invoke the self interest of the voter, do that. Ideologs don't fair well at that polls, but others that promise to bannish a boogieman do. I forget what movie it was that the guy playing president said "All he's interested in is telling you why you should be afraid of it, and who is to blame for it." There is more truth to that than anything else.
But really, public service is to serve the public need. If you are running just to get open source into the city IT infrastructure, you are running for the wrong reason and should get out now.
A last note; don't try to do this all at once. Pick a department that isn't cricital to the operations of other departments, and do them as a proof of concept. Or pick one facet of city business and do that. DON'T try to change the world overnight, because it just won't happen.
Good luck!
That's why I may have a halo at work, but sleep in the dog house. Oh, yeah, my wife is a programmer. You would figure she'd understand, right? Nah! Go figure.
The problem is distinction. Systems administrators are not (and should not be) required to be licensed. This makes having tools which could be used for testing or black hat hacking always open to targeting by unsophisticated law enforcement. We've seen this time and again on Slashdot.
Our current internet is impossible to completely secure and still offer usable services. A big problem with security are ISP's that require you uninstall any firewall software before they will support you. Firewall software on broadband should be required, not by law, but by the ISP being responsible. No firewall, no connection.Same for virus engines and current virus signature data files.
The other big security hole on the internet is the constant bugs found in software such as Outlook and Outlook Express by Microsoft. Other vendors are guilty too, but by far the most problems are with MS products, and they just keep turning up. Part is sloppy code, part is just the way simplistic programs have to be written for the (now) average user. Harry Homeowner doesn't understand a lot about computers, nor does he want to. He wants to get on AOL or MSN, cruse the internet, and get his e-mail. As long as the most common user is of this type, security of all types will be very difficult to implement.
Another part of the problem is that many non-technical people keep looking for the magic bullet to fix all the security problems, and want to pass laws to make it so. They forget that a law in the United States has no effect in China, and vice-versa.
We will always have rogues with us. That will never change. There are some simple things we can do to improve security, one being that outbound filtering be emplaced. This doesn't require a law, but a bit of effort on the part of a router owner.
As simple as it is to use, the internet is far from simple. Most people that use telephones don't understand how they work, and the same is true for computer users. Any law requiring one thing for forbidding another will have very little long term effect on computer security for the mid-level black hat. At most, you will make life a bit harder for script kiddies, but not for long and not very much. Conversely, you will be making our (honest administrators) life difficult.
Correct. Sorry, I made a mistake calculating the total, and it does throw the total off by an order of mag.
Oops. I guess that's why I keep getting more in my check than they think I should! *grin*
I've noticed that I tend to moderate up most things, and only mod down Goat Sex type posts. I don't even do the "First Post!" type comments down. The Goat Sex guy may have had a point at one time, but it's been made, let's move on now. Nothing to see here.
On the other hand, someone is always going to get ticked off no matter what you do, sometimes even if you do exactly what they espouse they want. This is called Damned if you do, Damned if you don't, and Damn them all anyway.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that if you give yourself and out to edit or remove comments, that same out conversely gives you a liability to do that on demand from someone else. I was reading the other day that a judge ruled that as a general rule, postings to forum sites are generally accepted to be opinion, not statements of fact (IANAL). As such, these are not for the most part actionable in any case, though you can START an action anyway.
The real problem here is the legal system that allowes for suit for just about any reason. You may not win, but for (in Texas) $144.00 you can submit a complaint to a court, send a Sheriff to drop off papers to appear in court, and scare the living bejesus out of almost everyone involved. Take a walk through case law on a site like findlaw, and you will see the most amazing suits for what seems to you and me to be the silliest reasons. One guy's family sued a plane manufacturer for not putting in the operating manual for the plane that gas was required to fly, and his family won the case.(I think it was Cessna, it might have been Piper. The guy was killed when the plane crashed after running out of gas. May have been overturned later, but look at the cost of fighting it!) I don't know that making the filing of a suit harder is the answer. A more technologically cluefull bench would be a start, and perhaps sanctions against those lawyers and their clients that bring silly stuff to court may help. I don't have an answer for this problem, and I don't pretend that I do.
I guess this all boils down to this: no matter how you do it, be consistant. No execptions to posted rules at all ever, unless ordered by a court. No matter what you do, someone sometime will bring an action against you no matter what it is you do.
Remember, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Some restrictions apply.
Waldo, Inc., Robert Heinlein. It's been mentioned several times that this book mentioned waterbeds and "waldos", remote handling devices, in this book.
Star Trek, with the automatic sliding door with out pressure mats to make contact. (I still think those worked best, you never got hit in the ass with one of those doors.)
Those are only the three I can think of off hand. Hope that helps.
I think the chief problem here is all the OS'es that came with relay enabled by default. This isn't Unix specific by the way, plenty of other OS'es, and some databases (Lotus Notes for one) used to come with SMTP on, even if not used, and permitting relay for any that care to send an e-mail.
Is this the fault of the admin involved? Well, yes, it is, but sometimes it hard to remember you're supposed to drain the swamp when you are hip deep in large, scally, sharptoothed preditors. I've been guilty of that once or twice myself, when I was very young and innocent. I was fortunate that I saw it before it was used.
I like the fact that sendmail for RedHat comes enabled only for the loopback address. If you don't know how to configure sendmail, you just arn't going to use it. That's an instant off for spammers.
I've a domain that I've been trying to get changes for almost three months now. Tangled owners, netblocks, uncooperative NSI/third party, and Oh yes, BBNPlanet is in there somewhere. Ha!
Lets say it takes about 2 seconds per-person per e-mail to decide it's spam and hit delete.
OK, that's 4,500 seconds, or about 1.25 hours. Lets say the average pay per person with an e-mail box is $221.00 per day.
So, total, it costs my employer 276.25 per day just to delete spam.
Now, let's say that 1 in 100 of those e-mails deleted really wasn't spam, but real e-mail. If the user notices they deleted a legit e-mail, and goes to get it out of the trash, lets say that it takes them about 30 seconds to retreive it. That makes 22 per day, at 30 seconds each, at 221 per day, that is another 41.50 per day.
Grand total now is 317.25 per day completely pissed away because someone wants to sell some lady a penis enlarger, or some gay guy hot teen bitches.
OK, now about content filtering. I've looked at quite a few, and all choke on the amount of e-mail we have. Others, running on unstable OS'es, are a complete joke. The only thing that does seem to work for a week at a time is to block based on IP. If I could find an IP distribution map by country, I'd be a happy camper. Sure, I could zot 202/8, 203/8, 210/8, 211/8, 64/8 and a few others, but more and more these netblocks are getting re-assigned to US companies that I don't want to block.
One thing that's helped quite a bit is blocking all of DialSprit's assignments, and a few others. The RBL helps, but it's too easy to get off and too hard to get on.
It's important to remember that customer service is part of what a company is. If it sucks, chances are that they have pissed off someone you may want an interview with at some point.
If you don't have a job now, then take it. You can sleep in alleys, but ya gotta eat. If you are one of the fortunate that are working, you may want to give this a pass.
I have WorldCom for LD, and I get nasty calls to collect before the bill even arrives in the mail. They keep wanting me to go direct debit, but if they can't get their billing cycles right, what makes them think I'll trust them with my bank account? I'd change, but since I make about 2 LD calls a year, it's not worth it to me.
I say it's time we all went and bought one (using our credit card, of course!) and took it home, spend hours hooking it up only to find, horror of horrors! It won't play the MP3's we made of our grage band! I want my money back, I'm suing for false and misleading ads! Whaaa! Whaa! You don't credit my credit card, I'm calling the issuer and telling them the product wasn't as advertised! Whaaaa!
And, by the way, please purchase this crap at Circuit City, the spammers that won't stop spamming until you get the e-mail address of some admins.
It's black letter law. Use copyright to maintain or establish a monopoly, loose the copyright.
IANAL.
Intellectual Property owners have fallen into the fallacy that they may control every aspect of their work.
The doctrine of "first sale" stands in their way, and they feel this deprives them of profit. In fact, it does to an extent, but that extent is the deal they have made with the people of America.
Let us take an example from real life. Many text books are now only offered on CD-ROM. The publishers, not wanting to pass up any profit, have constructed these CD-ROMS so that a license key is required to access the book. Well and fine, except that these keys only last for a year. If you wish to access these books after that time, you are required to purchase the book again. These CD-ROM books are priced at about the same as the no longer available paper books.
If I wanted to use a clip of the World Trade Center attack in a report on terrorism, I cannot simply zip over to CNN.COM and down load it. The site doesn't allow me to save a copy of this to my system and reuse it how I wish. Even though this would be fair use, I cannot do so because of the technology used.
Fair use is in large part intent. Technology cannot read minds. It follows that there is no way to control intellectual property with technology while preserving fair use. Fair use it part of the bargain intellectual property owners have made with the public in exchange for copyright laws.
Society is in large part it's history. With history locked up, we have no past. A country ignorant of it's past has no future.
While Osama bin-Laden would like to destroy America, it is my considered opinion that the SSSCA would do far more destroy what makes America what it is than he ever could.
Destroy a man, you have taken him from his society. Destroy thought, you have killed his society.
Far from locking up Intellectual Property more than it already is, we should be ensuring that fair use rights are preserved.
Fair use is FAIR.
IANAL - Except that I seem to recall that you can use trademarks in product identification in critizism. So they can prohibit away, won't do any good. HOWEVER: Before I do this, I'd check it out with my own legal team. Nothing like trained attack begeals from MS to ruin your lunch hour. - IANAL
Off topic, but has anyone seen how much money the RIAA, MPAA, TV and cable folks are forking out to our elected officals? A cool US$ 38 Million.
I see two things here: One, perhaps the boss is trying to get as much work as possible so that billing can be at a high level. Second, (s)he may have the same QOS concerns you do, but has reasons not to address them at this time.
What ever you choose to do, a calm, reasoned approch is always a better way than a hot-headed, "My way or the highway" attitude. You can leave if it bothers you that much, but don't leave in a huff. It won't do you any good and will cost you later.
While not trying to burst your bubble, nor am I disagreeing with your points, I do want to point out that Hollings got only US$2,000.00 from Disney. See: this at OpenSecrets.org for a break down of Hollings contributors.
A more interesting page is who did MPAA and RIAA give tons of money to. For that info, click here MPAA or here for RIAA.
Personally, I find it hard to beleive that someone would sell out for just US$2,000.00. Perhaps Hollings just needs a rap on the forehead to get him to stop being stupid.
...When Russia has to tell it's citizens not to vist the United States because they might be thrown in jail for something they did in their own country. It's just too ironic.
Really? My understanding is that he didn't sell or provide the software here. The company he works for did. The fact that he owns a part of that company has on place in this discussion. Ford stock holders own part of Ford, are they being sued in their own right?
No, the only way they could get him was with a real streach on the "long arm" provision of US code. That's the real stretch.
IANAL
If it took five Windows2000/IIS servers to do the same work as one Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP, is that really a net loss of market share when it goes from Linux to Windows, or is that just yet another system for the black hats to go carding at?
I give a rats (_o_) about what OS I run, I really just want to
Get the job done
for low bucks
secure
available
When it takes 5 pretty good servers on one OS to do the work of 1 low end server, gee, do you really think I would want to change?
Oh, the change from 1 Linux to 5 2000's was driven by a boss that thought because the tech's didn't use a GUI, it must be old, bad, no good software.
Sure, point and click to your ignorant pea brained content, jerk. But I'm not bitter.
One question: Does the SMD intercept at the forign warehouse, or domestic, when shipping a nuke FedEx?
'Nother for ya: You know how many TONS of drugs cross the border every week. So how does SMD intercept nukes being ported over the border by "mules"? And can it be adapted to target drugs?
If you don't want to spend money like water, and don't care if your delevery system is photogenic and phallic, then missles as platforms don't make sense - Spider Robinson