Point taken, but I think the appropriate security/convenience tradeoff needs to be assessed for different situations. Messing up a building's HVAC is going to wreak a lot less havoc that messing up water, power or sewage systems.
I also have a question. How is connection between PLC's to the Internet handled for such things? Is the PLC directly connected (probably a very bad idea) or is it through a computer that can be used as a firewall?
That's not the whole answer. First, there were remotely monitored and controlled systems before the Internet (though I'm not sure how the various links were implemented). Second, I suspect that the convenience, or perceived convenience, may be as important as cost. Lastly, anything you can't connect to the Internet seems outdated (whether or not the connection is a good idea).
repairs to the confidence in the financial system after some banker has diddled the risk models to ignore the sub prime lending risks.......
That confidence was destroyed by the financial system itself several years ago. Considering what the financial scam artists got away with, I don't see how hackers could make it any worse. By contrast, water and power actually work.
What use is an air-gapped machine? How do you communicate, how do you control it?
As hard as it may be to remember these days, it is possible to communicate without the Internet (especially when that communication need only be local).
"Proper firewalling" is a pipe dream....Keep in mind that many of these systems have hidden backdoors or default admin accounts for maintenance. And the reply "it's OK if it's properly configured" would be true if every system had network admin that was 100% competent. Do you wish to make that claim?
I think some people used to "conventional" IT don't appreciate how unrealistic it is "properly configure" (in terms of security) every box on a SCADA network. A typical network consists of a plethora of different types of boxes, with different OS's (often just RTOS's, which are usually not that security conscious), and all sorts of configuration, testing and latency requirements that go beyond what's needed in normal IT. Think in terms of making sure that robot arm doesn't smash into anything after your latest security update. Also, these boxes aren't, and realistically can't be, monitored all the time by checking log files and so forth.
A similar situation occurs in aircraft, including military aircraft. I assure people there aren't firewalls or other security provisions between various avionics boxes. The big concern is reliable, error free and low latency communications between boxes. It's bad news if an actuator/sensor for a flight control surface has trouble, or takes too long, to talk to the main fly-by-wire system. Security is about "don't let it through unless you're sure", which obviously conflicts with the more important goals.
Statistics. That unforgiving bitch no one asked to be invited that tries to manipulate all of our lives.
Statistics don't manipulate people - people manipulate people.
Seriously. I wish more people understood more about statistics, in particular their elementary application, because that would avoid much of what you're talking about. If nothing else beat into their heads two basic points. First, correlation does not demonstrate correlation. Most people here have heard that a thousand times, but it's not widely appreciated in the general population. Second, statistical behavior is not deterministic. That's the ultimate "duh, no kidding", but it's usually unappreciated. If person A belongs to group G, P(success|G) < P(success|!G), it doesn't determine whether person A will succeed.
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics" only applies to people who don't understand statistics and their application.
This is a sticky issue but there are differences between men and women. Anthropologists and neurologists have been proving this for some time.
I presume you're talking about the nature part of nature vs. nurture. Yes, there are differences, but you haven't cited any specific differences which have a causal effect on who decides to go into CS. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but waving your arm and saying that because there are differences, it must account for this difference, is a very fuzzy argument.
tour guides in Paris dismiss anything younger than 500 years as "contemporary"
Are we citizens of the New Republic supposed to be impressed by European claims of greater antiquity? There are places in the Mideast, India and China where anything younger than 2,000 years is dismissed as contemporary.
farms... that were abandoned by their owners after lucrative mill towns sprung up across New England
Actually the main reason that so many New England farms were abandoned is that farmers were moving to the Midwest, where the farmland was much better. I love New England, but the poor rocky soil makes it a lousy place to farm.
felrom, do you get paid for this? That's your second partisan shill post. There's an article about something corrupt that a Republican did, and immediately there are (several) screeds about Obama. It's like the China shills that pop up every time there's an article critical of China.
There's no honest person who can be outraged at Christie's politically motivated law breaking, and content with the last 5 years of the same, time and again, from the president.
Translation: you're outraged that there would be an article about a corrupt act by a Republican, that isn't immediately "balanced" by a rant in the same article about unrelated corruption amongst Democrats.
It is really telling that your entire list refers to a certain Democratic president, and mixes in things that (in your opinion) are bad policy. There are plenty of legitimate complaints about corruption in government, and then there are partisan shills. By acting as the latter, you demonstrate that you have no real concern about the former.
How? Broadcasting over the air is a way of distributing content. Aereo does exactly the same thing. Think of it as a repeater for the broadcast signals. The broadcasters should be happy that another party is helping to distribute their content. The broadcasters get paid via advertising revenues, which are proportional to the number of viewers. Why should they object to more viewers?
Sounds like the law was financed by the chinese government. Now we pretty much HAVE to buy from china. They're one of the few rare earth suppliers and also their companies have no problems forging documents where their minerals came from.
Tantalum is not a rare earth, and Australia is the world's largest tantalum supplier.
These supply line traceability audits would surely present a very high burden of compliance, and high costs, for this extra bureaucracy, even for a company like Intel.
Really? You have reliable estimates of the costs, or is it just your ideology that tells you it must be true? Similarly, if we require all diesel fuel sold in this country to be ULSD, it will raise costs enormously. Oh, that's right, even the oil companies say it only costs $0.07/gallon.
Also, if you're uncertain that tantalum is so essential for your electronic lifestyle that suffering in war torn areas is irrelevant, it's good to know there are no wars in Australia. They're the world's major supplier of tantalum. Avoiding "blood tantalum" really is a matter of "sanitizing" your supply chain.
You could switch to multilayer ceramics, but those probably won't give you the required capacitance, so you'll have to use lots of them, so your smartphone will need to be 50% larger.
First, nothing in a cell phone requires high capacitance. Generally big caps are needed for power supply applications, but the amount of capacitance needed is proportional to current consumption and inversely proportional to switching frequency. Obviously cell phones don't draw much current, or the batteries wouldn't last. Also, low voltage switching (DC:DC) converters often run at several MHz these days, which makes the required capacitance (and the size of inductors) much less. At those frequencies ESR and ESL are often a bigger consideration than capacitance, and for that ceramic beats tantalum hands downs. I sprinkle little DC:DC's like that all over my designs. I can't remember the last time I used tantalum. IIRC most of the data sheets either recommend, or outright require, ceramics. Modern high CV ceramics are amazing. Lastly, if you really do need bulk capacitance, solid electrolyte aluminum electrolytics are a good substitute. Maybe not quite up to tantalum, but much better than the old wet electrolyte aluminums, both in terms of electrical performance and reliability/longevity. I used to use tantalum caps all the time, but I don't think I've used one in at least 10 years.
Slashdot Mirror
So you deny that there are differences between men and women?
No, but I'm now forced to deny your ability to follow simple logic.
Point taken, but I think the appropriate security/convenience tradeoff needs to be assessed for different situations. Messing up a building's HVAC is going to wreak a lot less havoc that messing up water, power or sewage systems.
I also have a question. How is connection between PLC's to the Internet handled for such things? Is the PLC directly connected (probably a very bad idea) or is it through a computer that can be used as a firewall?
unless they inherently do not need to communicate for the task
Unless they inherently do not need to communicate beyond the local network.
for example .... uh
Most SCADA systems. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
That's not the whole answer. First, there were remotely monitored and controlled systems before the Internet (though I'm not sure how the various links were implemented). Second, I suspect that the convenience, or perceived convenience, may be as important as cost. Lastly, anything you can't connect to the Internet seems outdated (whether or not the connection is a good idea).
repairs to the confidence in the financial system after some banker has diddled the risk models to ignore the sub prime lending risks.......
That confidence was destroyed by the financial system itself several years ago. Considering what the financial scam artists got away with, I don't see how hackers could make it any worse. By contrast, water and power actually work.
What use is an air-gapped machine? How do you communicate, how do you control it?
As hard as it may be to remember these days, it is possible to communicate without the Internet (especially when that communication need only be local).
"Proper firewalling" is a pipe dream. ...Keep in mind that many of these systems have hidden backdoors or default admin accounts for maintenance. And the reply "it's OK if it's properly configured" would be true if every system had network admin that was 100% competent. Do you wish to make that claim?
I think some people used to "conventional" IT don't appreciate how unrealistic it is "properly configure" (in terms of security) every box on a SCADA network. A typical network consists of a plethora of different types of boxes, with different OS's (often just RTOS's, which are usually not that security conscious), and all sorts of configuration, testing and latency requirements that go beyond what's needed in normal IT. Think in terms of making sure that robot arm doesn't smash into anything after your latest security update. Also, these boxes aren't, and realistically can't be, monitored all the time by checking log files and so forth.
A similar situation occurs in aircraft, including military aircraft. I assure people there aren't firewalls or other security provisions between various avionics boxes. The big concern is reliable, error free and low latency communications between boxes. It's bad news if an actuator/sensor for a flight control surface has trouble, or takes too long, to talk to the main fly-by-wire system. Security is about "don't let it through unless you're sure", which obviously conflicts with the more important goals.
Want security? Don't connect to the Internet.
Combined with your earlier point, that's a tautology:
There are differences between men and women.
Such as?
The choose different types of work.
Why?
Because there are differences between men and women.
Beat the 2 points I mentioned into people's heads, and then we can work on the fancy stuff.
Oops, "correlation does not demonstrate correlation" should obviously be "correlation does not demonstrate causation".
Statistics. That unforgiving bitch no one asked to be invited that tries to manipulate all of our lives.
Statistics don't manipulate people - people manipulate people.
Seriously. I wish more people understood more about statistics, in particular their elementary application, because that would avoid much of what you're talking about. If nothing else beat into their heads two basic points. First, correlation does not demonstrate correlation. Most people here have heard that a thousand times, but it's not widely appreciated in the general population. Second, statistical behavior is not deterministic. That's the ultimate "duh, no kidding", but it's usually unappreciated. If person A belongs to group G, P(success|G) < P(success|!G), it doesn't determine whether person A will succeed.
"Lies, damn lies, and statistics" only applies to people who don't understand statistics and their application.
This is a sticky issue but there are differences between men and women. Anthropologists and neurologists have been proving this for some time.
I presume you're talking about the nature part of nature vs. nurture. Yes, there are differences, but you haven't cited any specific differences which have a causal effect on who decides to go into CS. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but waving your arm and saying that because there are differences, it must account for this difference, is a very fuzzy argument.
tour guides in Paris dismiss anything younger than 500 years as "contemporary"
Are we citizens of the New Republic supposed to be impressed by European claims of greater antiquity? There are places in the Mideast, India and China where anything younger than 2,000 years is dismissed as contemporary.
farms ... that were abandoned by their owners after lucrative mill towns sprung up across New England
Actually the main reason that so many New England farms were abandoned is that farmers were moving to the Midwest, where the farmland was much better. I love New England, but the poor rocky soil makes it a lousy place to farm.
"To an American a hundred years is a long time, and to a Briton a hundred miles is a long distance."
-- attribution unknown
Is he hiring 7th graders for his staff or something?
Take that back! I have a son in the 7th grade, and I assure you that most 7th graders are more mature than politicians.
I would have broken his legs or something
So you do understand NJ.
felrom, do you get paid for this? That's your second partisan shill post. There's an article about something corrupt that a Republican did, and immediately there are (several) screeds about Obama. It's like the China shills that pop up every time there's an article critical of China.
There's no honest person who can be outraged at Christie's politically motivated law breaking, and content with the last 5 years of the same, time and again, from the president.
Translation: you're outraged that there would be an article about a corrupt act by a Republican, that isn't immediately "balanced" by a rant in the same article about unrelated corruption amongst Democrats.
It is really telling that your entire list refers to a certain Democratic president, and mixes in things that (in your opinion) are bad policy. There are plenty of legitimate complaints about corruption in government, and then there are partisan shills. By acting as the latter, you demonstrate that you have no real concern about the former.
Aereo is essentially a leech on the system
How? Broadcasting over the air is a way of distributing content. Aereo does exactly the same thing. Think of it as a repeater for the broadcast signals. The broadcasters should be happy that another party is helping to distribute their content. The broadcasters get paid via advertising revenues, which are proportional to the number of viewers. Why should they object to more viewers?
Sounds like the law was financed by the chinese government. Now we pretty much HAVE to buy from china. They're one of the few rare earth suppliers and also their companies have no problems forging documents where their minerals came from.
Tantalum is not a rare earth, and Australia is the world's largest tantalum supplier.
humans will ALWAYS find something to fight over
Since they'll never be peace on earth, it doesn't matter how much war on earth there is?
These supply line traceability audits would surely present a very high burden of compliance, and high costs, for this extra bureaucracy, even for a company like Intel.
Really? You have reliable estimates of the costs, or is it just your ideology that tells you it must be true? Similarly, if we require all diesel fuel sold in this country to be ULSD, it will raise costs enormously. Oh, that's right, even the oil companies say it only costs $0.07/gallon.
Also, if you're uncertain that tantalum is so essential for your electronic lifestyle that suffering in war torn areas is irrelevant, it's good to know there are no wars in Australia. They're the world's major supplier of tantalum. Avoiding "blood tantalum" really is a matter of "sanitizing" your supply chain.
You could switch to multilayer ceramics, but those probably won't give you the required capacitance, so you'll have to use lots of them, so your smartphone will need to be 50% larger.
First, nothing in a cell phone requires high capacitance. Generally big caps are needed for power supply applications, but the amount of capacitance needed is proportional to current consumption and inversely proportional to switching frequency. Obviously cell phones don't draw much current, or the batteries wouldn't last. Also, low voltage switching (DC:DC) converters often run at several MHz these days, which makes the required capacitance (and the size of inductors) much less. At those frequencies ESR and ESL are often a bigger consideration than capacitance, and for that ceramic beats tantalum hands downs. I sprinkle little DC:DC's like that all over my designs. I can't remember the last time I used tantalum. IIRC most of the data sheets either recommend, or outright require, ceramics. Modern high CV ceramics are amazing. Lastly, if you really do need bulk capacitance, solid electrolyte aluminum electrolytics are a good substitute. Maybe not quite up to tantalum, but much better than the old wet electrolyte aluminums, both in terms of electrical performance and reliability/longevity. I used to use tantalum caps all the time, but I don't think I've used one in at least 10 years.
So (large) diamonds aren't a necessity, but it is a necessity to make smartphones and iPads smaller?