Look, PGP source, uncompromised, is out there. Anyone that is too stupid to compile it and run presumed secure encryption is simply too stupid to live anyway.
As long as we keep electing mouth breathing idiots to our government, we should expect ass hat policy. All we can do is be smarter than a worm and take our security into our own hands, and avoid "security" that is "supervised".
The root of this issue is the voters that think this is a good idea. As I like to say "Just the tip, and only for a minute." If you vote based on party rather than policy, you are part of the problem. I'm a wild eye'd liberal that voted for Kay Baily Hutchinson many times because while she was a conservative, she supported policy I supported. I don't care what drawer people are in. I care about people.
If there's a better argument for anti-trust investigations against Google than this, then I can't think of it.
Let me put it like this:
You want to open a telephone company or a cable company. But the thicket of laws preventing access to telephone poles either owned by the government or by another company are off limits to you by law.
You want to put in wired phones, you cannot. You have to go to the local telecom monopoly and pay them - at rates they set - to use them. You are not permitted to install your own. If you build a subdivision, you are required to install the infrastructure then pay the local telephone/cable monopoly a fee to take them over from you and you don't get any money for it.
If you want to set up cell phone towers, then you have to go, hat in hand, to the major telecoms and ask "Please sir, may I have some spectrum?" because there's not any available that aren't in the major telecom's players hands. And spectrum is sold at auction so if you want to out bid a industry with billions of dollars, please feel free. In fact, please do - I want to watch.
Google does not stop you from creating your own search engine. If you don't want Google to index your site, it's a trivial entry in the robots.txt file to let them know they are not welcome. And unlike other search engine operators, Google actually honors your explicit request to drop your site from their index and stop spidering your site.
Google invested many hundreds of thousands of man hours to create an indexing system you want to force them to give away to others. Communists do that too, you know. Force people to give up their private property, labor, and time.
I'm good with it if you disagree with Google's business model - but Google isn't stopping anyone from creating an even better search engine.
So... when are you getting started on that better search engine? Again, I wanna watch. I have popcorn.
Maybe hire someone younger who has new ideas and is likely to invent the next big thing. Not some old fart that is going to sit around with his grand title while people worship his decades old accomplishments.
I get that sort of attitude at times from the younger folks I work with. Like the time they wanted to run a Ethernet connection a few thousand feet on a fence with repeaters. "Hum, guys, we get a lot of electrical noise from the substation next door and lighting around here. Might want to explore fibre." No no! they said. Every thing will be fine they said. After replacing a few Cisco routers over a year's time, they -ahem- installed fibre.
Or the time I said "Hey, let's not use discrete LEDs for that, let's use a matrix" Company went bankrupt when our competitors used -ahem- matrices.
Or maybe realize that it isn't chronological time the ossifies brains, but complacency, lack of ambition, lack of team work, and a lack of being open to ideas of others and doesn't have anything at all to do with how old someome is.
On the flip side of that, someone told me I was doing something wrong. Before I opened my mouth to say "Sonny boy, I've been doing this thirty years!" I thought about their criticism and realized that I had, in fact, been doing it wrong for 30 years. I was pretty damned embarrassed.
We all, in fact, live exactly the same length of time - right now. We don't live yesterday, we don't live tomorrow. We live right now.
If the US is trying to "back door" a "Official Secrets act". If you don't know what that is, it's a law in some jurisdictions that even if you are not sworn to protect secret information, and have no officially granted access to it, you are bound to preserve it's secrecy. Such laws are a prior restraint on free speech to those that did not agree to preserve secret information. While President Obama had a dismal record on this subject, the Trump Administration is on course for an even worse record on free speech. President Trump on on record many times saying he wishes to "Open up libel laws" - even for speech that is truthful.
All I can say is that I view truth as an absolute defense against libel, and if you are not read in to a program that you have absolutely no duty to preserve it's secrecy. While Bradly/Chelsea Manning and John Snowden clearly did have such a duty, Assange just as clearly did not. As much as I personally dislike Assange, he committed no crime vis-a-vi WikiLeaks. It's also just as clear that the US would love to rendition him to a black site however they can get their hands on him.
Maybe the key here is to not start on a course that has questionable ethics. In my view, what the US has done and continues to do has some facets with very questionable ethics. Yes, sometimes you have to do that. But it shouldn't appear to be the course of first resort.
I kind of lilked Uber when I was too sick to drive myself to the doctor's appointments. The drivers were usually pretty willing to give me an extra hand. Then I noticed something on my home LAN reports. A lot of connections to a HTTPS address I didn't recognize from my phone. A look up of the domain name came back with a private registration, and the IP addresses were allocated to large ISPs without sub-allocations. The certificate details weren't too helpful either.
So I started deleting apps from my phone. When I deleted Uber, and did a bare metal reload, those connections stopped. Since I didn't do a bare metal reload before deleting everything else, I can't say Uber was the cause. But SOMEONE was sure wanting to know something fairly often - twice to four times an hour.
Aside from the fact we already know from other reports that Uber likes to slurp data, and aside from avoiding rules largely placed as protectionism for Taxi services, I found that Uber did kinda meet my needs.
But not putting aside other considerations, I think Uber Corporation is being evil.
will only connect to a master list of cellular towers
Then they'd just order the cell site operators to include their stingray devices as "allowed". While there are security issues with the cell network, the biggest issue is unrestrained "law enforcement" breaking the law themselves.
Takes all the fun out being a Democrat The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is which way the guns point when they form up a firing squad. Republicans form up a circle and face outward, killing everybody. Democrats form up a circle and face inward, shooting themselves.
In the end, everybody dies. Which is no fun at all.
So, as a Liberal (not necessarily a democrat) what do I stand for?
Equal protection under the law. No one is above it, no one doesn't have the protections it recognizes. This means if a cop breaks the law, the police force shouldn't pay their legal bills to get them off. That means if someone that is not a citizen is arrested, they have all the rights of everyone else.
Social safety net. No kid should starve because his parents are drug abusing bums. No one with a legitimate inability to work should starve.
Basic education.
Armed forces that don't spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined.
Fair taxation. No more Burger King or Apple sending their profits to another country to avoid paying US taxes. They made the profit here, pay the taxes here. We can talk about reforming tax rates after folks are paying their fair shot. No more billionaires that pay less tax in absolute terms than I do. (Some get millions of dollars back they never paid in.)
Regulation of monopolies such as telephone companies. No more sweetheart laws to protect their profits and eliminate competition. They don't want regulation? Fine. Eliminate their government monopoly and remove barriers to market entry by others. Free markets don't always work, but usually they are better than anything else.
Government keeping it's nose out of my crotch. What I do and with whom I do it is none of your business, nor what medical procedures I may want or drugs I wish to enjoy. (But not while driving, flying an aircraft, that sort of thing.)
How about if I have to have an ID to drive, cash a check, or vote, that I have to show an ID when I buy ammunition?
How about we get rid of Citizens United law and learn how is paying for our representatives?
That'll do for a start. Let's not talk about what we disagree with - let's find common ground and work together.
I know this isn't a popular opinion around here, but hear me out.
I know this isn't a popular opinion, but hear -me- out.
The statue clearly states that US intelligence services are required to divulge security vulnerabilities to vendors in a timely manner. It is blindingly obvious this was not done. So my question is very simple.
Who is going to jail for violating Federal statues?
Oh - silly me. Only chumps and civilians go to jail for violating the law.
Here is the real problem - being able to access a computer is like being able to read their diary or eavesdrop on them. Before computers, this was also done. With computers, it's just easier. So what we are seeing the the degradation of everyone's privacy because it's easier to steal secrets from a computer that it is to, you know, actually do your fsck'ing job.
Enforcing the law isn't about sitting on your fat ass in Virginia - it's about doing the work, the right way, within not just the letter of the law but the spirit of it. Only then is our system of government consistent, valuable, and worth dying to preserve.
Now we have Windows for cars. If something messes up, reboot the car. I guess that's fine as long as it's not something like, I don't know - the breaks stop working and the accelerator is stuck full open. And the ignition lock is activated in the "ON" position.
Come back when you post with something other than "Anonymous Coward" I at least will put a some sort of name to what I think. If you are unwilling to do that - or provide some -very slight- insight, then all you have is #drainthewamp in one hand, and sewage to replace it with.
Typical alt-right lack of thought.
Being anonymous isn't a fault - not with Donald John Trump as president, anyway.
You're in great - FABULOUS - best you've ever seen - I mean it's beautiful! So Beautiful! - company.
Do you mean we know President Trump has praised and complemented President Putin? I believe we do.
Do you mean we are not unaware that President Putin has ordered the assassination of leaders critical of Mr. Putin? I believe we do know that.
Do you believe we are unaware of President Trump's financial interest in in the Russian block? I believe we are aware of it.
I think the discernment here is to observe President Putin's actions, and to measure it against the freedoms our founders thought important. If they are congruent, then your view is correct. If they significantly diverge, then perhaps you'd like to explain to those "too stupid" to understand how killing people for expressing their opinion is just dandy and OK.
Since this departs from your own willingness to use your mouth as a cock sock for President Trump, I'm sure you'll disagree with these points. I'm simply devastated by that.
Passwords/passcodes are not protected under the First Amendment, they are not considered speech.
They may be protected, as a key on a keyring, under the Fourth or Firth Amendments
Here's my problem. If I have a key, I can be compelled to surrender it. I accept that.
With a PIN, Password, of combination, I have to say something.
If you can force me to speak the truth, then I have no right against self incrimination. In other words, forcing me to speak the truth of something I know, you can force me to confess. After all, police may try to get you to open your safe, but more likely they'll just call a safe cracker and open it without my help. I don't see the difference in ordered encryption back doors, forcing Diebold to manufacture bank vaults with "police bypass combinations", or ordering me to tell the truth and not remain silent. Sure as anything, sooner or later folks that shouldn't have it will, or that the police themselves will abuse it.
Minimal upkeep (no need for Antivirus, UI-munging applications, anti-MS-spyware fix-ups, anti-forced-upgrade fixups, registry editing, etc.) That's changing. Rapidly.
The hardware generally outlasts its competition (my main laptop is a 4-year-old MacBook Pro in near-perfect condition, that shows no signs of slowing down.) and a damned good thing because the prices are outrageous. I had to replace a floppy drive once. My cost as a dealer was $108. PC floppies were running about $22.
It's UNIX under the hood (open Terminal.app, go nuts.) I run Unix or Linux on everything from an ARM to an IBM System Z to a HP supercomputer (well, not any more...)
99.9% of the commercial/consumer stuff made for Windows will also have an OSX version (which is the only reason left that my main laptop isn't a Linux one - stupid CG software houses...) Diverging development branches just mean half the developers for twice the bugs.
Resale value, as in, >2 year old Macs actually have one. Since I commonly work for employers on a "Use it until it dies" hardware refresh policy, resale value is not important.
Were you required to take this oath? Did you ever repeat it in front of anyone?
As systems administrators, we are given and entrusted with over arching powers to serve others. It is our duty and special trust to do so, given to us by our employers and a covenant with our users not to abuse those powers. It is a trust, given to us by sometimes complete strangers. It is a special relationship, easily abused for personal gain or for plain spite.
I can see that this relationship is not understood, nor honored. I just don't understand that view point.
The easiest way to see price discrimination is to go to the rich side of town and go to the grocery store. Observe the price of milk, hamburger, cheese and gasoline. Now to to the poor side of town, repeat.
Clue - if the rich folks think the price is too high on common items, they have the means and time to seek a lower price on commodity items. The poorer side of town is usually time and/or mobility constrained and won't do so.
I noticed that on different platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux), I will see different prices on things like airline tickets or car prices. (You'll need to use source obfuscation - EG hide your real IP). Hint - most car sites are run on exactly the same back ends as all the others.
Also - if you notice a letter code on price tags (pretty rare now days) think I N T R O D U C E S. 10 letters. assign a number for each. This is the cost of the item to the store. Stupid store owners will use 0 - 9 in order. The most common is to assign either even or odd numbers to the first 5, then vice versa.
Smart shop keepers use an initial digit or code, then pick any 10 letter word with no repeating letters. There are over 80 words starting with "B" that don't repeat letters - BLOCKHEADS is one. I like to find these shops, figure out the "code", then consistently offer the owner (Never an employee that might not know the code) exactly one cent above their cost. I like to see just how long it takes the shop owner to figure out I know what he's doing. My all time best effort is 22 years and counting - but he may just be playing stupid. When I have a special order I can't get anywhere else, I'll pay for it up front and don't haggle the price.
That said, I'm a firm believer in enlightened self interest. In my hobby, there are a lot of things I could order on line and save about 40%. But I still buy local and pay full retail. While I could save some bucks by ordering a week in advance, it's in my interest to have it local, where I can walk in and walk out with what I need. Sometimes a cheap price hurts me more in the long run than other considerations. Besides, despite violently opposing political views, this is a guy that I could call at 3AM and know he'd come help.
I am employed by a company I love working for, with I boss I think is wonderful. I expect to be terminated shortly, for reasons that are partly -my- fault, party just business.
Yeah, I'd totally not even think of doing something like this. First of all, it's completely unethical. Second, it's against my ethics. Third, it violated the System Administrators Oath.
I have an ansible scrip over in github that will do up to 2047 servers as a slum lord email hosting service that will handle over 16 million domain names with unlimited user accounts on various cloud services. (AWS, Azure, Google, Linode, Rackspace)
Now I know why it suddenly got 20 downloads.
I'm kidding of course. I do have such a playbook, but I only share it with folks I know are not spammers.
Just what we need: a plan that makes the chemtrail loons even more sure they're right.
I'm depressed today, sorry. But as I see things, the most common choices I see others take are:
1. Ignore it - global warming is just somebody's religion 2, Ignore it - global warming is just China's way to get a trade advantage. 3. Ignore it - because our great grandfathers didn't have this problem! 4. Ignore it - because there's that one whack job over there that says hundreds of thousands of other scientists, trained in the field, are absolutely wrong. 5. Ignore it - because there's lots of people that say it's just a libtard wet dream. 6. Ignore it - because it would cost too much for me to change how I live. 7. Ignore it - because I don't want to think about it while I've got cats playing on You Tube. 8. Ignore it - because you're all special snowflakes and you should just shut up, cupcake! 9. Ignore it - because, believe me, it's beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing you ever saw, and MEXICO WILL PAY FOR IT! BELIEVE ME! 10.... 199. Realize that there is a consensus of people that have studied this all their lives are sure that there is a cascade point after which nothing will stop catastrophic climate change that will likely reduce the world population between 80 and 95%. They do disagree as to when this point is. Some believe it has already passed.
During world war II, the English used to say, in a droll voice, "You can count on Americans to make the right choice... after they've tried everything else." My fear is that is no longer true.
I get that some disagree with "that whole climate change thing". I don't understand why. It's as if you go to five doctors and they all tell you, "I'm sorry, but you have cancer, and it's too late for any certain cure. My opinion is that you should put your affairs in order." and you go "Naw... It's just muscle strain. I'll be fine!" Is it possible all five are wrong? Yes. Is it likely?... there's the rub.
I'm not going to argue with folks about it. Climate change is indeed a form of religion, and if one insists on adopting shibboleth of those that disbelieve, then there really isn't any point in discussing it with them any further. I'll simply hand them a tube of liniment and wish them well.
When I see stories of credit card fraud, I have to ask a very simple question:
Why haven't card companies moved to make the fraud process less prone to being abused?
It's trivial to commit CC Fraud even with chips in the card, and it's not likely to have prosecution if you don't do it too frequently or too blatantly. Or if you are a large company. Further, the merchant is the one the frequently has to pay for the fraud, not the card issuer, even if the merchant has "run the card" and been validated.
On the flip side, I had to have a card canceled twice because a company continued to charge it after I closed the account. Turns out the first "cancel", the card issuer "helped me" by informing the people changing my card of my new card number. I had to cancel the card again, and very specifically instruct the card issuer not to redirect any further changes for the card. If it's the wrong number, decline the transaction.
I hate having my boss looped in, because then he wants what I'm doing. I tell him, and even if it's exactly the same thing he told me to do last time, I get told "that's not what I want" and then... it goes down hill. Despite the fact I love working for my boss, despite the fact I love working for this company, I decided earlier today that "it's time to move on". I've been in IT for multiple decades. I don't have any sort of diva pride - I just want to do the job my boss wants me to do, the way he wants it done. But a constantly moving goal post is a race that gets pretty old after two years, and I'm ready for a new kind of waltz. One where I don't feel like I have three left feet and one of them is in a bucket of cement.
"OK Google, what's in a whopper?" "Hello, The Burger King(tm) Whopper - search results on Burger King(tm) have been removed due to terminal stupidity of the company. Enjoy a WhataBurger(tm), it's better anyway."
Slashdot Mirror
Look, PGP source, uncompromised, is out there. Anyone that is too stupid to compile it and run presumed secure encryption is simply too stupid to live anyway.
As long as we keep electing mouth breathing idiots to our government, we should expect ass hat policy. All we can do is be smarter than a worm and take our security into our own hands, and avoid "security" that is "supervised".
The root of this issue is the voters that think this is a good idea. As I like to say "Just the tip, and only for a minute." If you vote based on party rather than policy, you are part of the problem. I'm a wild eye'd liberal that voted for Kay Baily Hutchinson many times because while she was a conservative, she supported policy I supported. I don't care what drawer people are in. I care about people.
Connections by James Burke.
Good news: There's three seasons
Bad news: There's only three seasons.
If there's a better argument for anti-trust investigations against Google than this, then I can't think of it.
Let me put it like this:
You want to open a telephone company or a cable company. But the thicket of laws preventing access to telephone poles either owned by the government or by another company are off limits to you by law.
You want to put in wired phones, you cannot. You have to go to the local telecom monopoly and pay them - at rates they set - to use them. You are not permitted to install your own. If you build a subdivision, you are required to install the infrastructure then pay the local telephone/cable monopoly a fee to take them over from you and you don't get any money for it.
If you want to set up cell phone towers, then you have to go, hat in hand, to the major telecoms and ask "Please sir, may I have some spectrum?" because there's not any available that aren't in the major telecom's players hands. And spectrum is sold at auction so if you want to out bid a industry with billions of dollars, please feel free. In fact, please do - I want to watch.
Google does not stop you from creating your own search engine. If you don't want Google to index your site, it's a trivial entry in the robots.txt file to let them know they are not welcome. And unlike other search engine operators, Google actually honors your explicit request to drop your site from their index and stop spidering your site.
Google invested many hundreds of thousands of man hours to create an indexing system you want to force them to give away to others. Communists do that too, you know. Force people to give up their private property, labor, and time.
I'm good with it if you disagree with Google's business model - but Google isn't stopping anyone from creating an even better search engine.
So... when are you getting started on that better search engine? Again, I wanna watch. I have popcorn.
Let's not, and say we did.
I don't like my own party anymore, much less the republicans. I don't want to hear from any of the lying scumbags.
Maybe hire someone younger who has new ideas and is likely to invent the next big thing. Not some old fart that is going to sit around with his grand title while people worship his decades old accomplishments.
I get that sort of attitude at times from the younger folks I work with. Like the time they wanted to run a Ethernet connection a few thousand feet on a fence with repeaters. "Hum, guys, we get a lot of electrical noise from the substation next door and lighting around here. Might want to explore fibre." No no! they said. Every thing will be fine they said. After replacing a few Cisco routers over a year's time, they -ahem- installed fibre.
Or the time I said "Hey, let's not use discrete LEDs for that, let's use a matrix" Company went bankrupt when our competitors used -ahem- matrices.
Or maybe read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Or maybe realize that it isn't chronological time the ossifies brains, but complacency, lack of ambition, lack of team work, and a lack of being open to ideas of others and doesn't have anything at all to do with how old someome is.
On the flip side of that, someone told me I was doing something wrong. Before I opened my mouth to say "Sonny boy, I've been doing this thirty years!" I thought about their criticism and realized that I had, in fact, been doing it wrong for 30 years. I was pretty damned embarrassed.
We all, in fact, live exactly the same length of time - right now. We don't live yesterday, we don't live tomorrow. We live right now.
Just sayin'.
If the US is trying to "back door" a "Official Secrets act". If you don't know what that is, it's a law in some jurisdictions that even if you are not sworn to protect secret information, and have no officially granted access to it, you are bound to preserve it's secrecy. Such laws are a prior restraint on free speech to those that did not agree to preserve secret information. While President Obama had a dismal record on this subject, the Trump Administration is on course for an even worse record on free speech. President Trump on on record many times saying he wishes to "Open up libel laws" - even for speech that is truthful.
All I can say is that I view truth as an absolute defense against libel, and if you are not read in to a program that you have absolutely no duty to preserve it's secrecy. While Bradly/Chelsea Manning and John Snowden clearly did have such a duty, Assange just as clearly did not. As much as I personally dislike Assange, he committed no crime vis-a-vi WikiLeaks. It's also just as clear that the US would love to rendition him to a black site however they can get their hands on him.
Maybe the key here is to not start on a course that has questionable ethics. In my view, what the US has done and continues to do has some facets with very questionable ethics. Yes, sometimes you have to do that. But it shouldn't appear to be the course of first resort.
I kind of lilked Uber when I was too sick to drive myself to the doctor's appointments. The drivers were usually pretty willing to give me an extra hand. Then I noticed something on my home LAN reports. A lot of connections to a HTTPS address I didn't recognize from my phone. A look up of the domain name came back with a private registration, and the IP addresses were allocated to large ISPs without sub-allocations. The certificate details weren't too helpful either.
So I started deleting apps from my phone. When I deleted Uber, and did a bare metal reload, those connections stopped. Since I didn't do a bare metal reload before deleting everything else, I can't say Uber was the cause. But SOMEONE was sure wanting to know something fairly often - twice to four times an hour.
Aside from the fact we already know from other reports that Uber likes to slurp data, and aside from avoiding rules largely placed as protectionism for Taxi services, I found that Uber did kinda meet my needs.
But not putting aside other considerations, I think Uber Corporation is being evil.
will only connect to a master list of cellular towers
Then they'd just order the cell site operators to include their stingray devices as "allowed". While there are security issues with the cell network, the biggest issue is unrestrained "law enforcement" breaking the law themselves.
Takes all the fun out being a Democrat
The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is which way the guns point when they form up a firing squad.
Republicans form up a circle and face outward, killing everybody.
Democrats form up a circle and face inward, shooting themselves.
In the end, everybody dies. Which is no fun at all.
So, as a Liberal (not necessarily a democrat) what do I stand for?
Equal protection under the law. No one is above it, no one doesn't have the protections it recognizes. This means if a cop breaks the law, the police force shouldn't pay their legal bills to get them off. That means if someone that is not a citizen is arrested, they have all the rights of everyone else.
Social safety net. No kid should starve because his parents are drug abusing bums. No one with a legitimate inability to work should starve.
Basic education.
Armed forces that don't spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined.
Fair taxation. No more Burger King or Apple sending their profits to another country to avoid paying US taxes. They made the profit here, pay the taxes here. We can talk about reforming tax rates after folks are paying their fair shot. No more billionaires that pay less tax in absolute terms than I do. (Some get millions of dollars back they never paid in.)
Regulation of monopolies such as telephone companies. No more sweetheart laws to protect their profits and eliminate competition. They don't want regulation? Fine. Eliminate their government monopoly and remove barriers to market entry by others. Free markets don't always work, but usually they are better than anything else.
Government keeping it's nose out of my crotch. What I do and with whom I do it is none of your business, nor what medical procedures I may want or drugs I wish to enjoy. (But not while driving, flying an aircraft, that sort of thing.)
How about if I have to have an ID to drive, cash a check, or vote, that I have to show an ID when I buy ammunition?
How about we get rid of Citizens United law and learn how is paying for our representatives?
That'll do for a start. Let's not talk about what we disagree with - let's find common ground and work together.
I know this isn't a popular opinion around here, but hear me out.
I know this isn't a popular opinion, but hear -me- out.
The statue clearly states that US intelligence services are required to divulge security vulnerabilities to vendors in a timely manner. It is blindingly obvious this was not done. So my question is very simple.
Who is going to jail for violating Federal statues?
Oh - silly me. Only chumps and civilians go to jail for violating the law.
Here is the real problem - being able to access a computer is like being able to read their diary or eavesdrop on them. Before computers, this was also done. With computers, it's just easier. So what we are seeing the the degradation of everyone's privacy because it's easier to steal secrets from a computer that it is to, you know, actually do your fsck'ing job.
Enforcing the law isn't about sitting on your fat ass in Virginia - it's about doing the work, the right way, within not just the letter of the law but the spirit of it. Only then is our system of government consistent, valuable, and worth dying to preserve.
Otherwise it's just another big lie.
Now we have Windows for cars. If something messes up, reboot the car. I guess that's fine as long as it's not something like, I don't know - the breaks stop working and the accelerator is stuck full open. And the ignition lock is activated in the "ON" position.
Yeah - totally can't happen, right?
Come back when you post with something other than "Anonymous Coward"
I at least will put a some sort of name to what I think. If you are unwilling to do that - or provide some -very slight- insight, then all you have is #drainthewamp in one hand, and sewage to replace it with.
Typical alt-right lack of thought.
Being anonymous isn't a fault - not with Donald John Trump as president, anyway.
You're in great - FABULOUS - best you've ever seen - I mean it's beautiful! So Beautiful! - company.
Dudes - Adjit pai has your back on this! Calm down and relax!
Alternative facts not withstanding - who needs any sort of oversight or regulation of the Internet? It routes around total authoritarian control.
You're meaning is unclear.
Do you mean we know President Trump has praised and complemented President Putin?
I believe we do.
Do you mean we are not unaware that President Putin has ordered the assassination of leaders critical of Mr. Putin?
I believe we do know that.
Do you believe we are unaware of President Trump's financial interest in in the Russian block?
I believe we are aware of it.
I think the discernment here is to observe President Putin's actions, and to measure it against the freedoms our founders thought important. If they are congruent, then your view is correct. If they significantly diverge, then perhaps you'd like to explain to those "too stupid" to understand how killing people for expressing their opinion is just dandy and OK.
Since this departs from your own willingness to use your mouth as a cock sock for President Trump, I'm sure you'll disagree with these points. I'm simply devastated by that.
Passwords/passcodes are not protected under the First Amendment, they are not considered speech.
They may be protected, as a key on a keyring, under the Fourth or Firth Amendments
Here's my problem.
If I have a key, I can be compelled to surrender it. I accept that.
With a PIN, Password, of combination, I have to say something.
If you can force me to speak the truth, then I have no right against self incrimination. In other words, forcing me to speak the truth of something I know, you can force me to confess. After all, police may try to get you to open your safe, but more likely they'll just call a safe cracker and open it without my help. I don't see the difference in ordered encryption back doors, forcing Diebold to manufacture bank vaults with "police bypass combinations", or ordering me to tell the truth and not remain silent. Sure as anything, sooner or later folks that shouldn't have it will, or that the police themselves will abuse it.
* The shit just works. Agree
Minimal upkeep (no need for Antivirus, UI-munging applications, anti-MS-spyware fix-ups, anti-forced-upgrade fixups, registry editing, etc.) That's changing. Rapidly.
The hardware generally outlasts its competition (my main laptop is a 4-year-old MacBook Pro in near-perfect condition, that shows no signs of slowing down.) and a damned good thing because the prices are outrageous. I had to replace a floppy drive once. My cost as a dealer was $108. PC floppies were running about $22.
It's UNIX under the hood (open Terminal.app, go nuts.) I run Unix or Linux on everything from an ARM to an IBM System Z to a HP supercomputer (well, not any more...)
99.9% of the commercial/consumer stuff made for Windows will also have an OSX version (which is the only reason left that my main laptop isn't a Linux one - stupid CG software houses...) Diverging development branches just mean half the developers for twice the bugs.
Resale value, as in, >2 year old Macs actually have one. Since I commonly work for employers on a "Use it until it dies" hardware refresh policy, resale value is not important.
Were you required to take this oath? Did you ever repeat it in front of anyone?
As systems administrators, we are given and entrusted with over arching powers to serve others. It is our duty and special trust to do so, given to us by our employers and a covenant with our users not to abuse those powers. It is a trust, given to us by sometimes complete strangers. It is a special relationship, easily abused for personal gain or for plain spite.
I can see that this relationship is not understood, nor honored.
I just don't understand that view point.
The easiest way to see price discrimination is to go to the rich side of town and go to the grocery store. Observe the price of milk, hamburger, cheese and gasoline. Now to to the poor side of town, repeat.
Clue - if the rich folks think the price is too high on common items, they have the means and time to seek a lower price on commodity items. The poorer side of town is usually time and/or mobility constrained and won't do so.
I noticed that on different platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux), I will see different prices on things like airline tickets or car prices. (You'll need to use source obfuscation - EG hide your real IP). Hint - most car sites are run on exactly the same back ends as all the others.
Also - if you notice a letter code on price tags (pretty rare now days) think I N T R O D U C E S. 10 letters. assign a number for each. This is the cost of the item to the store. Stupid store owners will use 0 - 9 in order. The most common is to assign either even or odd numbers to the first 5, then vice versa.
Smart shop keepers use an initial digit or code, then pick any 10 letter word with no repeating letters. There are over 80 words starting with "B" that don't repeat letters - BLOCKHEADS is one. I like to find these shops, figure out the "code", then consistently offer the owner (Never an employee that might not know the code) exactly one cent above their cost. I like to see just how long it takes the shop owner to figure out I know what he's doing. My all time best effort is 22 years and counting - but he may just be playing stupid. When I have a special order I can't get anywhere else, I'll pay for it up front and don't haggle the price.
That said, I'm a firm believer in enlightened self interest. In my hobby, there are a lot of things I could order on line and save about 40%. But I still buy local and pay full retail. While I could save some bucks by ordering a week in advance, it's in my interest to have it local, where I can walk in and walk out with what I need.
Sometimes a cheap price hurts me more in the long run than other considerations. Besides, despite violently opposing political views, this is a guy that I could call at 3AM and know he'd come help.
And vice versa.
I am employed by a company I love working for, with I boss I think is wonderful. I expect to be terminated shortly, for reasons that are partly -my- fault, party just business.
Yeah, I'd totally not even think of doing something like this. First of all, it's completely unethical. Second, it's against my ethics. Third, it violated the System Administrators Oath.
https://lopsa.org/CodeOfEthics
I have an ansible scrip over in github that will do up to 2047 servers as a slum lord email hosting service that will handle over 16 million domain names with unlimited user accounts on various cloud services. (AWS, Azure, Google, Linode, Rackspace)
Now I know why it suddenly got 20 downloads.
I'm kidding of course. I do have such a playbook, but I only share it with folks I know are not spammers.
Just what we need: a plan that makes the chemtrail loons even more sure they're right.
I'm depressed today, sorry. But as I see things, the most common choices I see others take are:
1. Ignore it - global warming is just somebody's religion ...
2, Ignore it - global warming is just China's way to get a trade advantage.
3. Ignore it - because our great grandfathers didn't have this problem!
4. Ignore it - because there's that one whack job over there that says hundreds of thousands of other scientists, trained in the field, are absolutely wrong.
5. Ignore it - because there's lots of people that say it's just a libtard wet dream.
6. Ignore it - because it would cost too much for me to change how I live.
7. Ignore it - because I don't want to think about it while I've got cats playing on You Tube.
8. Ignore it - because you're all special snowflakes and you should just shut up, cupcake!
9. Ignore it - because, believe me, it's beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing you ever saw, and MEXICO WILL PAY FOR IT! BELIEVE ME!
10.
199. Realize that there is a consensus of people that have studied this all their lives are sure that there is a cascade point after which nothing will stop catastrophic climate change that will likely reduce the world population between 80 and 95%. They do disagree as to when this point is. Some believe it has already passed.
During world war II, the English used to say, in a droll voice, "You can count on Americans to make the right choice ... after they've tried everything else ." My fear is that is no longer true.
I get that some disagree with "that whole climate change thing". I don't understand why. It's as if you go to five doctors and they all tell you, "I'm sorry, but you have cancer, and it's too late for any certain cure. My opinion is that you should put your affairs in order." and you go "Naw... It's just muscle strain. I'll be fine!" Is it possible all five are wrong? Yes. Is it likely? ... there's the rub.
I'm not going to argue with folks about it. Climate change is indeed a form of religion, and if one insists on adopting shibboleth of those that disbelieve, then there really isn't any point in discussing it with them any further. I'll simply hand them a tube of liniment and wish them well.
When I see stories of credit card fraud, I have to ask a very simple question:
Why haven't card companies moved to make the fraud process less prone to being abused?
It's trivial to commit CC Fraud even with chips in the card, and it's not likely to have prosecution if you don't do it too frequently or too blatantly. Or if you are a large company. Further, the merchant is the one the frequently has to pay for the fraud, not the card issuer, even if the merchant has "run the card" and been validated.
On the flip side, I had to have a card canceled twice because a company continued to charge it after I closed the account. Turns out the first "cancel", the card issuer "helped me" by informing the people changing my card of my new card number. I had to cancel the card again, and very specifically instruct the card issuer not to redirect any further changes for the card. If it's the wrong number, decline the transaction.
I hate having my boss looped in, because then he wants what I'm doing. I tell him, and even if it's exactly the same thing he told me to do last time, I get told "that's not what I want" and then ... it goes down hill. Despite the fact I love working for my boss, despite the fact I love working for this company, I decided earlier today that "it's time to move on". I've been in IT for multiple decades. I don't have any sort of diva pride - I just want to do the job my boss wants me to do, the way he wants it done. But a constantly moving goal post is a race that gets pretty old after two years, and I'm ready for a new kind of waltz. One where I don't feel like I have three left feet and one of them is in a bucket of cement.
For what it's worth, my opinion is to do this:
"OK Google, what's in a whopper?"
"Hello, The Burger King(tm) Whopper - search results on Burger King(tm) have been removed due to terminal stupidity of the company. Enjoy a WhataBurger(tm), it's better anyway."
https://pi-hole.net/
Much better and protects the entire network.