If I read the findings correctly, there were a number of questionable things done:
-giving shell access to anyone who asked for it. -leaving ssh on and running.
But these weren't the most egregious things allowed:
Any machine, any operating system is vulnerable when PHYSICAL ACCESS TO THE BOX is allowed.
If someone can just walk up to it you might as well kiss your security goodbye.
Working in a large Fortune 500 company, I often notice post-it notes with passwords stickied to monitors or the underside of keyboards - it's not that different in the real world either.
Again, any operating system can be defeated if you have an account with the right priveleges and you have physical access to the box.
It's old information but still interesting many have seen this thing.
The two VTOL Stealth aircraft I spotted in outstate Minnesota back in 1989 haven't come into the white world yet - some of these things languish in classified museums.
Think of the technology here that could have been applied to other things such as retiring the space shuttle, etc.
Scaled up, this could have been quite interesting.
There were reports of this thing flying all over.
See Dan Zinngrabe's old Black Dawn black aircraft site for information.
This is the first I've heard that the aircraft dropped from the belly of the aircraft - most of the reports had it that the orbiter took off from the back of the larger bird.
We have a home theater but I kept my old Rotel 80 watt per channel integrated amp and Denon CD player and BIC turntable from the old days with the same speakers I had in high school (but with newer drivers).
It's still incredibly loud and clean and makes for a great monitoring system.
I've gotten entire turntable/receiver/speaker combos at garage sales for almost-stolen prices.
Here's another vote for old tech - it still sounds great.
I spent six years working for a large-ish financial institution and weathered layoff after layoff but I knew it couldn't last: the news came down they were outsourcing my group.
Of 13 people, they kept two and they were the youngest and least paid. The rest of us were scattered to the four winds or offered non-IT positions in the company. Not a desirable thing for most of us.
I actually felt sorry for the two who were hired on with the oursourcer because they were immediately swamped with more work than they could ever handle.
I looked at the intervening time between my last job and the current one as the best time to upgrade skills and obtain certifications because if I was working I'd never want to do it.
I was able to take advantage of the state I live in as they had a dis-located worker program thru the local unemployment office.
This was funded at the federal level so something similar might exist for you..
I had a series of courses I wanted to take as well as the associated tests and got the state to pay the freight on about one third of it with the rest of it paid for out of pocket. Painful when I was out of work but it was sort of a gamble.
But it was worth it - once I had four fresh certifications (and 15 years of solid experience to boot) that made a big difference in getting interviews, and getting an offer.
I was sending out resumes during the time I was jobless and it was mostly the same resume without the certs. I got a few offers but they were all significantly less money than I had been making and positions of less responsibility.
When the right offer came I jumped on it and many of my co-workers who are working on the certification track come to me for advice since they're in the position where I was previously.
The certs made me look more attractive to employers but ultimately it is the experience that will get you hired.
But sometimes they'll overlook the experience if you have no certs.
I considered it a cost of working in my desired field.
Your situation is different because you are working - but consider this - your chances of getting further employment after this job are higher if you do get those certifications - the experience and certs in your case go hand in hand.
So while it would be nice for your employer to shell out coin so you can do this, they are not obligated to.
I spent about $4,000 out of pocket that was part of my "just in case" fund on training and certifications and tests but it was worth it since I'm working and comfortable.
The main reasoning for lack of FW800 on the Macbooks is due to the fact that it consumes more power than FW400. Remember one of the big reasons for going to Intel was power consumption.
If you require an FW800 interface for this computer, at least one hardware manufacturer has announced an interface card for this purpose.
I have a Konica-Minolta Dimage Z3 which I've liked a lot despite having some shortcomings which I've worked around. The Z6 looked like a nicer version of the same camera but I'd only consider it if it were being sold on closeout now.
Sad, but ultimately the consumer will benefit. Those that remain will have to provide better features/capabilities at an affordable price in order to stay in business.
But where else am I going to foist the fact that I spent most of my vital early years practicing scales and writing music with no commercial potential to the point of losing all my social skills instead of hanging out with my peers?
It's not so big a stretch to think he had a neighbor or someone in a nearby neighborhood riding on his network coattails so to speak.
My work laptop has wireless and as a traveling system administrator I see many, many unsecured wireless networks in the course of my duties.
My neighborhood has probably half a dozen unsecured access points that I could help them secure if I had a clue whose networks they are (many of them have really great descriptive titles like "Linksys", very few actually have real identification as to their owners unlike many of the secured sites I see).
My feeling: if it's not this guy, if he really had someone using his access it is likely a teen or twentysomething who was surfing using his facilities.
In fact, a log could be set-up to detect the IP and/or mac address of whatever device was attempting to connect to it but then again that would require expertise.
And that's presuming this guy isn't lying thru his teeth of which remains to be seen.
A true computer forensics expert could look at the drive of the machine to truly determine whether or not he had shared this in all likelihood.
Not to mention: I needed to upgrade in June. My G4 400 was literally starting to fall apart. Years of 24x7 use had taken its toll, the power supply was failing, the DVD-ROM drive had died and the ability to do serious work was crippled by the fact that the CPU had stayed the same yet six years had passed and newer versions of applications I used for audio work were having increasing cpu demands.
The fact remains - with the cross platform capability of the Xcode compiler there will be PowerPC apps for years to come.
I'll eventually upgrade but I'm good for at least another five to six years if I really want to hold out.
I'd say the difference between sluggish and snappy started when the 2.5 duals came out. You could sense a different that the 2.0s were reasonably quick but the 2.5s' actually had snap.
And with each new version of OS X, the interface speed increased. That is until Tiger where you can sense the window resizing/opening was faster than that of Panther but other things were slower and the beach ball returned for a lot of people.
I talk to many people with 2.5 duals who say that Panther under 2.5 dual was the fastest Mac OS X machine they experienced.
And if you had a better video card (i.e. ATI X800 versus ATI Radeons below the 9600 XT) you would experience better performance. And a faster drive also added "snap".
When 10.43 comes out, I'm hoping some of the speed has been restored.
But yeah, it does seem that to equal the old single user Mac OS cooperative multitasking interface speed, you would need a nine gigahertz quad cpu, quad core cpu.
While OGG would be of interest to Linux fans, few outside of the "avid computer enthusiast" sphere have heard of it or would have use for it.
Now, the optical digital inputs/outputs would be of interest to me for sure but I can't see the average consumer wanting it or seeing a need for it.
All iPods have been useable as external storage drives since the first model was released.
Most individuals consider the lack of a radio a plus mainly due to the inane radio formats in this country (USA).
Generally, what the average consumer is looking for is ease of use, that it is compact and looks cool. Sound is probably a secondary consideration for some of them.
My family still has a 1st Generation 5 GB iPod and it's still on its original battery and up until just recently has gotten a lot of use.
It was actually my wifes but once she got a Mini around May she lets it sit around. I'm thinking of annexing it for the car.
My 20 gig 4th gen unit is great but that original iPod is still a pretty robust device. My wife even spilled orange juice on it and after it was cleaned off it still works like a champ.
Dr Pepper: I was given a blackberry by my employer when I started back in february and my wife has had assorted medical issues causing her to be hospitalized three times since then and it has been instrumental in allowing me to be there for her as well as being connected enough with work to stay in touch with what is going on. I'm hoping that she will get better (and your wife too) but you can never know with the medical world and health is a fragile thing sometimes.
Here's hoping that there is some sort of way for these devices to continue to function. NTP sounds like soulless bloodsuckers who just want the money involved - they're likely thinking that all this will do is get them a big windfall and inconveniencing a bunch of VIPs. What they're really doing in a lot of cases is hurting the average individual who has a need for the product and in our cases it's about staying in touch while being where we need to be.
I want to do a cover of that song with your lyrics. Cool.
And a video could be done with a fifteen foot high wall of water cooled cases which overflow and then drown the band but no sounds of fans to ruin anyones day.
I've played in many different bands but early on in my development I was in a group with a hanger-on who had a portable dB meter.
That particular band was proud of its extreme volume and the goal was to "peg" the dB meter at least once during a practice session.
I can tell you we did this on numerous occasions. I believe that the thing topped out at 135 dbs.
And yes, it was damn loud. It got tiring after a few times and I knew it wasn't very good for the ears. In one case I know we blew up gear that couldn't handle that kind of volume.
After this sort of chicanery and I started working in a hearing aid plant and had my hearing tested I took more pains to use earplugs and moderate volume.
The test in an anechoic chamber was a revealing thing - I could hear bodily functions happening easily. Creepy. At that time there was a slight lessening of the high frequencies between 18-22 khz and I was not surprised. I did a test later and my hearing had surprisingly improved just slightly but was about the same.
My hearing definetely has some degredation but is not nearly as it might have been had I not employed earplugs on a regular basis when playing high volume music.
I've probably sustained more damage from attending concerts in my early days.
But the WORST damage my ears underwent was when I was in a car with an insane friend when we were young and dumb and he was lighting whistling bottle rockets and chucking them out the car at various things and lit one and dropped it in the car and it ended up under the drivers seat.
That thing whistling and exploding to this day was the loudest sound I've ever heard, even louder than witnessing the space shuttle taking off, louder than the Concorde flying overhead at about 800 feet. My ears rang for almost a business week.
Interestingly, music became much nicer to play after the ear fatigue was mitigated by earplugs.
Afterwards you wouldn't have that ears ringing in a painful manner for hours (or days) feeling.
I don't bother with earplugs if I'm playing acoustically at a wedding or devotional music but high volume rock or jazz stuff gets the plugs.
It was landing at the Minneapolis / St. Paul international airport and I was taking an MTC bus to work and the route the bus took was right past one of the main approach vectors for the runway which was directly on the east side of the highway.
The plane approached from the West, flew over the highway at a height of about 150 feet (!) and promptly landed on the runway to our right.
Surprising that an aircraft could make a C-5 Galaxy seem small.
I later heard that the Antonov was there to pick up a group of locomotives a local railroad had sold to another railroad.
I suppose when you can't ship by rail, ship by the biggest damn airplane you can think of.
Still, there's a larger bird they make called the Mriya which was originally designed to haul around their Buran Space Shuttle derivative.
I understand there's a handful of the 124 but only one 225. The 225 is a beautiful bird with an unusual tail structure. And now I hear a second of the larger 225s is nearing completion.
Can you imagine what it would be like to fly one of them?
Postscript: the Antonovs have a very distinctive audio signature and last summer I heard it flying overhead and ran out of the house just as a friend called me and said he'd seen the AN-124 flying to the southeast and sure enough there it was.
Slashdot Mirror
If I read the findings correctly, there were a number
of questionable things done:
-giving shell access to anyone who asked for it.
-leaving ssh on and running.
But these weren't the most egregious things allowed:
Any machine, any operating system is vulnerable when
PHYSICAL ACCESS TO THE BOX is allowed.
If someone can just walk up to it you might as well
kiss your security goodbye.
Working in a large Fortune 500 company, I often notice
post-it notes with passwords stickied to monitors or the
underside of keyboards - it's not that different in the
real world either.
Again, any operating system can be defeated if you have
an account with the right priveleges and you have physical
access to the box.
For those who wanted information on this thing, see:
w n.spml
http://members.macconnect.com/users/q/quellish/da
It's old information but still interesting many
have seen this thing.
The two VTOL Stealth aircraft I spotted in
outstate Minnesota back in 1989 haven't come
into the white world yet - some of these
things languish in classified museums.
Brilliant Buzzard finally goes white.
Amazing.
Think of the technology here that could have been
applied to other things such as retiring the space
shuttle, etc.
Scaled up, this could have been quite interesting.
There were reports of this thing flying all over.
See Dan Zinngrabe's old Black Dawn black aircraft
site for information.
This is the first I've heard that the aircraft dropped
from the belly of the aircraft - most of the reports
had it that the orbiter took off from the back of the
larger bird.
Agreed.
They look small but don't sound that way.
I actually have multiple sets of speakers
for mixing on the computer:
-actual studio monitors.
-consumer computer speakers with sub.
-integrated amp with large stereo speakers.
With these switchable setups I can mix for what I guesstimate people have in
their homes.
Agreed, studio monitors will get you where you want to go.
We have a home theater but I kept
my old Rotel 80 watt per channel integrated amp and Denon CD player
and BIC turntable from the old days
with the same speakers I had in
high school (but with newer drivers).
It's still incredibly loud and clean and makes for a great monitoring system.
I've gotten entire turntable/receiver/speaker combos at garage sales for almost-stolen prices.
Here's another vote for old tech - it
still sounds great.
What I want to know is:
-did he want the cigarette?
-or the several ton, two humped animal?
I am inclined to believe the latter since there are
all night convenience stores in Minnesota.
I worked for a technology company in the early 1990s that
had celebrity clients as customers.
You would definetely recognize two high profile clients.
One was a high profile television show that lasted in
excess of ten years. The other was a legendary musician.
Oddly enough, I had no stories about tirades or anything.
The TV show guys needed us to help them achieve their ends
in many cases and were fairly easy to work with.
The legendary musician was actually cooler to deal with
than most of our customers.
It was a fun gig while it lasted.
I spent six years working for a large-ish financial institution and weathered layoff after layoff but I knew it couldn't last: the news came down they were outsourcing my group.
Of 13 people, they kept two and they were the youngest and least paid. The rest of us were scattered to the four winds or offered non-IT positions in the company. Not a desirable thing for most of us.
I actually felt sorry for the two who were hired on with the oursourcer because they were immediately swamped with more work than they could ever handle.
I looked at the intervening time between my last job and the current one as the best time to upgrade skills and obtain certifications because if I was working I'd never want to do it.
I was able to take advantage of the state I live in as they had a dis-located worker program thru the local unemployment office.
This was funded at the federal level so something similar might exist for you..
I had a series of courses I wanted to take as well as the associated tests and got the state to pay the freight on about one third of it with the rest of it paid for out of pocket. Painful when I was out of work but it was sort of a gamble.
But it was worth it - once I had four fresh certifications (and 15 years of solid experience to boot) that made a big difference in getting interviews, and getting an offer.
I was sending out resumes during the time I was jobless and it was mostly the same resume without the certs. I got a few offers but they were all significantly less money than I had been making and positions of less responsibility.
When the right offer came I jumped on it and many of my co-workers who are working on the certification track come to me for advice since they're in the position where I was previously.
The certs made me look more attractive to employers but ultimately it is the experience that will get you hired.
But sometimes they'll overlook the experience if you have no certs.
I considered it a cost of working in
my desired field.
Your situation is different because you are working - but consider this - your chances of getting further employment after this job are higher if you do get those certifications - the experience
and certs in your case go hand in hand.
So while it would be nice for your employer to shell out coin so you can do this, they are not obligated to.
I spent about $4,000 out of pocket that was part of my "just in case" fund on training and certifications and tests but it was worth it since I'm working and comfortable.
The main reasoning for lack of FW800 on the Macbooks is due to the fact that it consumes more power than FW400. Remember one of the big
reasons for going to Intel was
power consumption.
If you require an FW800 interface for
this computer, at least one hardware manufacturer has announced an
interface card for this purpose.
Thanks. That was great.
I could hear it in my head even.
I have a Konica-Minolta Dimage Z3 which I've liked a lot
despite having some shortcomings which I've worked around.
The Z6 looked like a nicer version of the same camera but
I'd only consider it if it were being sold on closeout now.
Sad, but ultimately the consumer will benefit. Those that
remain will have to provide better features/capabilities at
an affordable price in order to stay in business.
I can just imagine a playlist with
such hits as Kraftwerk's "Geiger
Counter", and "Radioactivity" on
that beast for the proper mood.
But where else am I going to
foist the fact that I spent
most of my vital early years practicing scales and
writing music with no
commercial potential to
the point of losing all
my social skills instead
of hanging out with my peers?
(see: http://www.myspace.com/aliensporebomb for corroboration).
We now return you to your regularly scheduled slashdot
experience and apologize for
any inconvenience.
It's not so big a stretch to think he had
a neighbor or someone in a nearby
neighborhood riding on his network
coattails so to speak.
My work laptop has wireless and as a
traveling system administrator I see
many, many unsecured wireless networks
in the course of my duties.
My neighborhood has probably half a
dozen unsecured access points that I
could help them secure if I had a clue
whose networks they are (many of them
have really great descriptive titles
like "Linksys", very few actually have
real identification as to their owners
unlike many of the secured sites I see).
My feeling: if it's not this guy, if he
really had someone using his access it
is likely a teen or twentysomething who
was surfing using his facilities.
In fact, a log could be set-up to
detect the IP and/or mac address of
whatever device was attempting to
connect to it but then again that
would require expertise.
And that's presuming this guy isn't
lying thru his teeth of which remains
to be seen.
A true computer forensics expert
could look at the drive of the
machine to truly determine whether
or not he had shared this in all
likelihood.
Not to mention: I needed to upgrade in June. My G4 400 was literally
starting to fall apart. Years of 24x7 use had taken its toll, the power
supply was failing, the DVD-ROM drive had died and the ability to do
serious work was crippled by the fact that the CPU had stayed the same
yet six years had passed and newer versions of applications I used for
audio work were having increasing cpu demands.
The fact remains - with the cross platform capability of the Xcode
compiler there will be PowerPC apps for years to come.
I'll eventually upgrade but I'm good for at least another five to six
years if I really want to hold out.
I'd say the difference between sluggish and snappy started when the
2.5 duals came out. You could sense a different that the 2.0s were
reasonably quick but the 2.5s' actually had snap.
And with each new version of OS X, the interface speed increased.
That is until Tiger where you can sense the window resizing/opening
was faster than that of Panther but other things were slower and the
beach ball returned for a lot of people.
I talk to many people with 2.5 duals who say that Panther under 2.5
dual was the fastest Mac OS X machine they experienced.
And if you had a better video card (i.e. ATI X800 versus ATI Radeons
below the 9600 XT) you would experience better performance. And a
faster drive also added "snap".
When 10.43 comes out, I'm hoping some of the speed has been restored.
But yeah, it does seem that to equal the old single user Mac OS
cooperative multitasking interface speed, you would need a nine
gigahertz quad cpu, quad core cpu.
Just a thought.
Those refurbs and demo models make for great deals.
I ended up getting a G5 2.5 dual processor machine for $700 less than
the original asking price plus three years of service free.
You can get some great deals. If you have an apple store near
your home, peruse what they call the refresh bin.
I saw some dual 2.3s in there for well under the original asking price.
It's still expensive but you can't expect a dual processor high-er end
machine for "louie's stolen computer emporium off the back of a truck"
prices.
I could run it.
But I prefer not to.
At the moment.
While OGG would be of interest to Linux fans, few outside of the
"avid computer enthusiast" sphere have heard of it or would have
use for it.
Now, the optical digital inputs/outputs would be of interest to
me for sure but I can't see the average consumer wanting it or
seeing a need for it.
All iPods have been useable as external storage drives since the
first model was released.
Most individuals consider the lack of a radio a plus mainly due
to the inane radio formats in this country (USA).
Generally, what the average consumer is looking for is ease
of use, that it is compact and looks cool. Sound is probably
a secondary consideration for some of them.
My family still has a 1st Generation 5 GB iPod and it's still on
its original battery and up until just recently has gotten a lot
of use.
It was actually my wifes but once she got a Mini around May she
lets it sit around. I'm thinking of annexing it for the car.
My 20 gig 4th gen unit is great but that original iPod is still
a pretty robust device. My wife even spilled orange juice on it
and after it was cleaned off it still works like a champ.
I thought the Ars "beating" of the Nano could have been a bit better.
I would have liked to see it tossed down the stairs into a catbox.
Now that would have been cool, especially if it was able to still
play "kids cereal" by Z afterwards.
Dr Pepper: I was given a blackberry by my employer when I
started back in february and my wife has had assorted medical
issues causing her to be hospitalized three times since then
and it has been instrumental in allowing me to be there for
her as well as being connected enough with work to stay in
touch with what is going on. I'm hoping that she will get
better (and your wife too) but you can never know with the
medical world and health is a fragile thing sometimes.
Here's hoping that there is some sort of way for these devices
to continue to function. NTP sounds like soulless bloodsuckers
who just want the money involved - they're likely thinking that
all this will do is get them a big windfall and inconveniencing
a bunch of VIPs. What they're really doing in a lot of cases is
hurting the average individual who has a need for the product and
in our cases it's about staying in touch while being where we need
to be.
I want to do a cover of that song with your lyrics. Cool.
And a video could be done with a fifteen foot high wall of
water cooled cases which overflow and then drown the band
but no sounds of fans to ruin anyones day.
I've played in many different bands but early on in my development I was in a group with a hanger-on who had a portable dB meter.
That particular band was proud of its extreme volume and the goal was to "peg" the dB meter at least once during a practice session.
I can tell you we did this on numerous occasions.
I believe that the thing topped out at 135 dbs.
And yes, it was damn loud. It got tiring after
a few times and I knew it wasn't very good for
the ears. In one case I know we blew up gear
that couldn't handle that kind of volume.
After this sort of chicanery and I started
working in a hearing aid plant and had my
hearing tested I took more pains to use
earplugs and moderate volume.
The test in an anechoic chamber was a
revealing thing - I could hear bodily
functions happening easily. Creepy.
At that time there was a slight lessening
of the high frequencies between 18-22 khz
and I was not surprised. I did a test
later and my hearing had surprisingly
improved just slightly but was about the
same.
My hearing definetely has some degredation
but is not nearly as it might have been had
I not employed earplugs on a regular basis
when playing high volume music.
I've probably sustained more damage from
attending concerts in my early days.
But the WORST damage my ears underwent was
when I was in a car with an insane friend
when we were young and dumb and he was
lighting whistling bottle rockets and
chucking them out the car at various things
and lit one and dropped it in the car and
it ended up under the drivers seat.
That thing whistling and exploding to this
day was the loudest sound I've ever heard,
even louder than witnessing the space shuttle
taking off, louder than the Concorde flying
overhead at about 800 feet. My ears rang
for almost a business week.
Interestingly, music became much nicer to play
after the ear fatigue was mitigated by earplugs.
Afterwards you wouldn't have that ears ringing
in a painful manner for hours (or days) feeling.
I don't bother with earplugs if I'm playing
acoustically at a wedding or devotional music
but high volume rock or jazz stuff gets the
plugs.
Your ears will thank you.
I've actually seen an Antonov AN-124 Condor landing from about 300 feet away and it was an incredible, jaw droppingly impressive sight.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124
It was landing at the Minneapolis / St. Paul international airport and I was taking an MTC
bus to work and the route the bus took was right
past one of the main approach vectors for the
runway which was directly on the east side of
the highway.
The plane approached from the West, flew over
the highway at a height of about 150 feet (!)
and promptly landed on the runway to our right.
Surprising that an aircraft could make a C-5
Galaxy seem small.
I later heard that the Antonov was there to
pick up a group of locomotives a local railroad
had sold to another railroad.
I suppose when you can't ship by rail, ship by
the biggest damn airplane you can think of.
Still, there's a larger bird they make called
the Mriya which was originally designed to haul around their Buran Space Shuttle derivative.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225
I understand there's a handful of the 124 but only
one 225. The 225 is a beautiful bird with an
unusual tail structure. And now I hear a second
of the larger 225s is nearing completion.
Can you imagine what it would be like to fly one
of them?
Postscript: the Antonovs have a very distinctive
audio signature and last summer I heard it flying
overhead and ran out of the house just as a friend
called me and said he'd seen the AN-124 flying to
the southeast and sure enough there it was.