I know that I am coming into the discussion much too late for most people to see this comment, but when I saw this story I thought that I should share my personal Kevin Mitnick story.
When I was going to school, I worked at Kinko's. I worked at the branch in Thousand Oaks/Westlake California, which happens to be a more upscale community. We used to get all sorts of notable people coming in to get copies. While most of my co-workers were always freaking out when the more mainstream celebrities would come in (Tom Selleck, Hulk Hogan, Heather Locklear, Will Smith, and Martin Lawrence are a few that spring in to mind), I was always more impressed by some of the more obscure personailities that would come in, including my personal favorite Bas Rutten - who, incendentally, is such a nice guy that none of my co-workers would believe me when I told them what he did for a living.
However, the one "customer" that was the most interesting was Kevin Mitnick. For those of you who do not know, Kevin lives in Thousand Oaks. At the time, he lived about a quarter mile from Kinko's. He came in just about every day over a three month span. Myself and one of the graveyard guys were the only ones who even knew who Kevin Mitnick was. He used to come in, with a laptop, and set up over in one of the corners. He would never plug into our network, which was kind of odd, so everyone just assumed that he was coming in just to have a place to do some work.
One night, our cleaning crew discovered an 802.11b wireless internet hub hidden under a table. It was plugged into our network. The next morning, we unplugged it (FWIW, I believe the graveyard guy ended up taking it home). That day, Kevin came in, went to his normal spot, and started up his laptop. He started looking around, real confused, and walked over to where we had found the hub. When he saw that it was gone, he started looking really panicked. He went and picked up his laptop and left, all the time holding a piece of paper up to hide his face from the cameras. That was the last time he ever came in.
As I was reading this post, a thought popped into my head. You know how many websites now have you type in some data from an image when you register to weed out bots? What is to say that this concept will not find its way into this application?
Think about it. You visit the index page of Slashdot. You click on a story. You are taken to a page that has an advertisement, as well as a password field. In order to read the story, you must enter the third word of the advertisement.
As someone who spent a brief period of time working for a federal government law enforcement agency (with clearance), I can honestly tell you that, at least in our office, salary had very little to do with why no one sold information.
Contrary to what you posted, the motivation for employees to keep confidential info confidential is not that they know that this is the best job they will ever get. The motivation has to do with the fact that selling government information can get you arrested for espionage and/or treason.
Back to the original point, I fail to see how this is not an example of the capitalist system. Microsoft purchased labor from this employee. He did not live up to his end of the bargain. They chose to no longer purchase labor from him. Much in the same way that if you purchase software from Microsoft and find that it does not work correctly, you no longer purchase products from Microsoft.
I cannot speak for this particular situation, as I do not know all of the specifics, but here is some insight into how most contracted on-site copy facilities work.
I worked for a major copy shop while I was going to school (clue: blue aprons). We had on-site production facilities on many major business campuses. And believe me, we were made to sign the most strict, detailed C/NDA's that you have ever seen. Most on-site copy shop employees can be fired for many things more trivial than posting photos and locations online.
Now, it is very logical why you would want a contracted employee in the copy shop to be held to very high standard of confidentiality. When you work at a copy shop, you see all sorts of confidential information. Additionally, you are also in a position to leverage that information if you are unscrupulous. For example, we had an on site facility at two competing companies in the same field (biotech). I saw things at Company A that I could have easily sold to Company B for at least an order of magnitude of my annual salary (I didn't).
I think Microsoft's logic in this situation is that if this guy is willing to post pictures and information online just to get a couple of chuckles from the visitors of his blog, what is to say that he would not give confidential information for money?
Lisa: But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need
subliminal messages?
Smash: It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and
superliminal.
Lisa: Superliminal?
Smash: I'll show you. [opens the window, and shouts at Lenny and
Carl, who are standing on the corner] Hey, you! Join the
Navy!
Carl: Uh, yeah, all right.
Lenny: I'm in.
Re: Corporate use of spyware
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 1
Wow... as someone who was just about to send the above mentioned company my resume for an internship job they advertised at my school, I am in your debt. Thanks for the heads up.
People can go to PC Bang, XLG, etc, and play Half Life or Counter Strike... which means they do not have to buy a copy. Remember, it is not most popular game, it is best selling
The fact that the Sims does not translate to PC Cafes is good for their revenue stream.
I know it is all the rage to bash Microsoft for anything it does, and for the most part, it is fairly justified... however, in this case, it does not seem justified.
CeBit has a standing rule that there are to be no game demonstrations that can be played by conference attenders. Sony broke that rule.
From what I have read, it seems that the justification for CeBit's rule is quite sensible... people flock to the games, and ignore other booths, block passage ways, and more or less behave far more absurdly than if they were looking at, say, trackballs. Had Sony (or anyone for that matter) had objections to this rule, they could have simply not had a booth. By participating in this conference, they choose to adhere to a certain set of rules.
Now, as to the big scandal of Microsoft blowing the whistle. There is a lot of talk about how it Microsoft was an evil tattletale, because they did not report the rule violation (which has occrued for the last three years) until they were making a competitive product. Well, duh.
To give a horribly flawed analogy... lets say I am a highschool athlete (I am not/was not). For our example, lets pretend I play football. Now, say one day in class, I overhear some baseball player talking about how he is using some bat that has a cork center, which is against the rules because it gives him an unfair advantage. As a football player, I could care less. Now, suppose 2 years down the line, I decide to tryout for baseball. Again, I overhear said baseball player talking about his "wonderbat". Now, if I now suddenly decided to report the violation, does this make me a bully? Hardly.
When I was about 5, my grandmother gave me a small set of screw drivers. It turned out to be the best gift I was ever given.
Once my parents explained the concept of how the tools fundamentally worked, I began taking apart just about everything in the house. I disassembled my Speak and Spell, and reassembled it inside of a "robot" I made out of cardboard boxes. I took apart an old answering machine. I took apart an old easy chair. Pretty much anything that was held together by phillips or slotted screws, I attempted to take apart.
When I was a bit older, my father gave me an old IBM PC-AT to take apart. I disassembled and reassembled that thing probably a thousand times. Eventually, I took it apart, and reassembled it inside of He-Man's Castle Greyskull... which I still have to this day.
Every time I tinker inside of my computer, hack at my kernel, build something in my woodshop, or work on my pickup, I owe all of it to those silly toy screwdrivers.
I tried to place an order, but it turns out I was in violation of the DMCA...
Delivery
Man
Can't find
Address
Wow... that was bad... I will shut up now.
Dear Senator,
As a result of the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, all conferences concerning Linux have been rebooked outside the country. By my count, the United States' lost economic benefits total eleven dollars and fifty eight cents for this fiscal year.
The almighty dollar has spoken.
How is it that every single discussion here gradually turns into a MS vs Open Source argument? Seriously, you guys must be a blast at parties...
"Hey, man, you want a beer?"
"Speaking of free beer... "
You can actualy test this out without being a beta tester. AOL simply blocked this particualr revision number. To sign on, all you need to do is change your revision number.
To find the revision number and change it, copy record # 20-0-6 from main.adb to a working AOL 4/5 main.idx. Use an FDO script to look for a possible revision number. Once you know what the revision number is, open main.idx in a hex editor and go to the offset of record # 20-0-6. Find the revision number and change it to a working one of AOL 4/5. (you need to log on to a windows version of the aol software, go to help>about aol, and then hit "ctrl r") Once the revision number is changed, Gamera can sign on like a normal AOL client.
I've posted this before, but think it is worth repeating... When we first started kraproom.com, we hosted with pair, after hearing rave reviews. Everything went fine for the first week or so, until someone got mad at us for not posting something of theirs. He then sent an email to pair, claiming that we had spammed him. He sent no headers, and was the only one to complain, yet pair decided this was proof enough, and took our site offline for two weeks. No contact first, just took it off. After tracking down their abuse department (they don't have a phone number. literaly), We were able to find out who sent in the spam report. After speaking with him, he settled down, and emailed pair explaining that he had only done this to get revenge, and that he hadn't been spammed. The abuse tech told us that he didnt care, and that our site would stil be down for the two weeks whether we did or didn't, simply because being accused of spamming is enough proof for them. We ended up switching hosts, and luckily for us, we don't make any money off of our site, so we were realtively ok in that sense as well. But if you are planning to host something that is mission critical, I recommend looking elsewhere
Perhaps I should clarify.... AOL is not preventing 8 year olds from playing "So Many Bodies, So Few Bullets". What they are doing is allowing parents who don't want their kids playing said games to restrict them from doing so.
The game rating will probably be set up the same way all of the other ratings are set up on aol. Parents choose which ratings group (if any) to apply to a given screen name. For instance, Young Child cannot go into unmoderated chats, whereas Teen can do pretty much everything except browse alt.binaries.erotica.*
I would advise anyone running anything significant to be wary of pair. The site I work on ( www.kraproom.com ) was hosted there for a bit, until we found out their interesting anti-spam policy. If you get one complaint, even without headers, they pull down your account for a week. In our case, we were even able to prove the malicous intent of the person who sent the complaint, but it fell on deaf ears.
>* Semi-auto, at least. The ultimate would be >switch-selectable (semi/fully), but dunno if >those even exist for PB. Figure it'd play the >role of an SMG. If the thing could take a clip >or some other kind of quick loading mechanism, >so much the better.
Unless you have cash falling out of your pockets, fully auto is rather silly for a paint marker. First off, you use a ton of paint, which gets costly if you use anything above brass eagle quality. Second, if you have to fire off 30 rounds to hit one target, you are probably going to get worked anyway : )
>* Not too heavy, or alternately, perhaps a >lightweight folding stock.
For the ultimate in lightweight, consider a remote feed for your C02 tank... cuts the weight of the gun at least in half, and makes it a lot more managable.
Slashdot Mirror
When I was going to school, I worked at Kinko's. I worked at the branch in Thousand Oaks/Westlake California, which happens to be a more upscale community. We used to get all sorts of notable people coming in to get copies. While most of my co-workers were always freaking out when the more mainstream celebrities would come in (Tom Selleck, Hulk Hogan, Heather Locklear, Will Smith, and Martin Lawrence are a few that spring in to mind), I was always more impressed by some of the more obscure personailities that would come in, including my personal favorite Bas Rutten - who, incendentally, is such a nice guy that none of my co-workers would believe me when I told them what he did for a living.
However, the one "customer" that was the most interesting was Kevin Mitnick. For those of you who do not know, Kevin lives in Thousand Oaks. At the time, he lived about a quarter mile from Kinko's. He came in just about every day over a three month span. Myself and one of the graveyard guys were the only ones who even knew who Kevin Mitnick was. He used to come in, with a laptop, and set up over in one of the corners. He would never plug into our network, which was kind of odd, so everyone just assumed that he was coming in just to have a place to do some work.
One night, our cleaning crew discovered an 802.11b wireless internet hub hidden under a table. It was plugged into our network. The next morning, we unplugged it (FWIW, I believe the graveyard guy ended up taking it home). That day, Kevin came in, went to his normal spot, and started up his laptop. He started looking around, real confused, and walked over to where we had found the hub. When he saw that it was gone, he started looking really panicked. He went and picked up his laptop and left, all the time holding a piece of paper up to hide his face from the cameras. That was the last time he ever came in.
"let's not forget soap" /. story. Sort of a public service message for geeks.
Someone really ought to post this comment on every
Think about it. You visit the index page of Slashdot. You click on a story. You are taken to a page that has an advertisement, as well as a password field. In order to read the story, you must enter the third word of the advertisement.
Contrary to what you posted, the motivation for employees to keep confidential info confidential is not that they know that this is the best job they will ever get. The motivation has to do with the fact that selling government information can get you arrested for espionage and/or treason.
Back to the original point, I fail to see how this is not an example of the capitalist system. Microsoft purchased labor from this employee. He did not live up to his end of the bargain. They chose to no longer purchase labor from him. Much in the same way that if you purchase software from Microsoft and find that it does not work correctly, you no longer purchase products from Microsoft.
I worked for a major copy shop while I was going to school (clue: blue aprons). We had on-site production facilities on many major business campuses. And believe me, we were made to sign the most strict, detailed C/NDA's that you have ever seen. Most on-site copy shop employees can be fired for many things more trivial than posting photos and locations online.
Now, it is very logical why you would want a contracted employee in the copy shop to be held to very high standard of confidentiality. When you work at a copy shop, you see all sorts of confidential information. Additionally, you are also in a position to leverage that information if you are unscrupulous. For example, we had an on site facility at two competing companies in the same field (biotech). I saw things at Company A that I could have easily sold to Company B for at least an order of magnitude of my annual salary (I didn't).
I think Microsoft's logic in this situation is that if this guy is willing to post pictures and information online just to get a couple of chuckles from the visitors of his blog, what is to say that he would not give confidential information for money?
Lisa: But you have recruiting ads on TV. Why do you need subliminal messages?
Smash: It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal.
Lisa: Superliminal?
Smash: I'll show you.
[opens the window, and shouts at Lenny and Carl, who are standing on the corner]
Hey, you! Join the Navy!
Carl: Uh, yeah, all right.
Lenny: I'm in.
Wow ... as someone who was just about to send the above mentioned company my resume for an internship job they advertised at my school, I am in your debt. Thanks for the heads up.
People can go to PC Bang, XLG, etc, and play Half Life or Counter Strike ... which means they do not have to buy a copy. Remember, it is not most popular game, it is best selling
The fact that the Sims does not translate to PC Cafes is good for their revenue stream.
CeBit has a standing rule that there are to be no game demonstrations that can be played by conference attenders. Sony broke that rule.
From what I have read, it seems that the justification for CeBit's rule is quite sensible ... people flock to the games, and ignore other booths, block passage ways, and more or less behave far more absurdly than if they were looking at, say, trackballs. Had Sony (or anyone for that matter) had objections to this rule, they could have simply not had a booth. By participating in this conference, they choose to adhere to a certain set of rules.
Now, as to the big scandal of Microsoft blowing the whistle. There is a lot of talk about how it Microsoft was an evil tattletale, because they did not report the rule violation (which has occrued for the last three years) until they were making a competitive product. Well, duh.
To give a horribly flawed analogy ... lets say I am a highschool athlete (I am not/was not). For our example, lets pretend I play football. Now, say one day in class, I overhear some baseball player talking about how he is using some bat that has a cork center, which is against the rules because it gives him an unfair advantage. As a football player, I could care less. Now, suppose 2 years down the line, I decide to tryout for baseball. Again, I overhear said baseball player talking about his "wonderbat". Now, if I now suddenly decided to report the violation, does this make me a bully? Hardly.
Wow ... that was a horrible analogy. Sorry.
Imagine yelling any of the following in to a cell phone while in public ...
"Brenda went down? When? How long?"
"Hey, I just checked the logs, and someone has been fingering Mike!"
"Well, mount Jennifer and see what happens."
"Probe Mark and make sure there are no leaks."
"Yeah, Martha is one of the SCSI ones"
etc, etc, etc.
Who cares what David Crosby, Stephen Stills, or Graham Nash have to say about Microsoft?
Once my parents explained the concept of how the tools fundamentally worked, I began taking apart just about everything in the house. I disassembled my Speak and Spell, and reassembled it inside of a "robot" I made out of cardboard boxes. I took apart an old answering machine. I took apart an old easy chair. Pretty much anything that was held together by phillips or slotted screws, I attempted to take apart.
When I was a bit older, my father gave me an old IBM PC-AT to take apart. I disassembled and reassembled that thing probably a thousand times. Eventually, I took it apart, and reassembled it inside of He-Man's Castle Greyskull ... which I still have to this day.
Every time I tinker inside of my computer, hack at my kernel, build something in my woodshop, or work on my pickup, I owe all of it to those silly toy screwdrivers.
Wow. That looks pretty funny out of context.
C++ (extra cheese)
I tried to place an order, but it turns out I was in violation of the DMCA ...
Delivery
Man
Can't find
Address
Wow ... that was bad ... I will shut up now.
Dear Senator, As a result of the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov, all conferences concerning Linux have been rebooked outside the country. By my count, the United States' lost economic benefits total eleven dollars and fifty eight cents for this fiscal year. The almighty dollar has spoken.
How is it that every single discussion here gradually turns into a MS vs Open Source argument? Seriously, you guys must be a blast at parties ...
"Hey, man, you want a beer?"
"Speaking of free beer ... "
You can actualy test this out without being a beta tester. AOL simply blocked this particualr revision number. To sign on, all you need to do is change your revision number.
To find the revision number and change it, copy record # 20-0-6 from main.adb to a working AOL 4/5 main.idx. Use an FDO script to look for a possible revision number. Once you know what the revision number is, open main.idx in a hex editor and go to the offset of record # 20-0-6. Find the revision number and change it to a working one of AOL 4/5. (you need to log on to a windows version of the aol software, go to help>about aol, and then hit "ctrl r") Once the revision number is changed, Gamera can sign on like a normal AOL client.
I've posted this before, but think it is worth repeating ... When we first started kraproom.com, we hosted with pair, after hearing rave reviews. Everything went fine for the first week or so, until someone got mad at us for not posting something of theirs. He then sent an email to pair, claiming that we had spammed him. He sent no headers, and was the only one to complain, yet pair decided this was proof enough, and took our site offline for two weeks. No contact first, just took it off. After tracking down their abuse department (they don't have a phone number. literaly), We were able to find out who sent in the spam report. After speaking with him, he settled down, and emailed pair explaining that he had only done this to get revenge, and that he hadn't been spammed. The abuse tech told us that he didnt care, and that our site would stil be down for the two weeks whether we did or didn't, simply because being accused of spamming is enough proof for them. We ended up switching hosts, and luckily for us, we don't make any money off of our site, so we were realtively ok in that sense as well. But if you are planning to host something that is mission critical, I recommend looking elsewhere
Facing a barrage of criticism, Slashdot user spam368 today withdrew a claim stating that he achieved first post.
Perhaps I should clarify .... AOL is not preventing 8 year olds from playing "So Many Bodies, So Few Bullets". What they are doing is allowing parents who don't want their kids playing said games to restrict them from doing so.
The game rating will probably be set up the same way all of the other ratings are set up on aol. Parents choose which ratings group (if any) to apply to a given screen name. For instance, Young Child cannot go into unmoderated chats, whereas Teen can do pretty much everything except browse alt.binaries.erotica.*
I would advise anyone running anything significant to be wary of pair. The site I work on ( www.kraproom.com ) was hosted there for a bit, until we found out their interesting anti-spam policy. If you get one complaint, even without headers, they pull down your account for a week. In our case, we were even able to prove the malicous intent of the person who sent the complaint, but it fell on deaf ears.
>and you cant hit your brother in the face with one.
... try it ... its fun
But you can tell him that a paintball is a gum ball
>* Semi-auto, at least. The ultimate would be >switch-selectable (semi/fully), but dunno if >those even exist for PB. Figure it'd play the >role of an SMG. If the thing could take a clip >or some other kind of quick loading mechanism, >so much the better.
... cuts the weight of the gun at least in half, and makes it a lot more managable.
Unless you have cash falling out of your pockets, fully auto is rather silly for a paint marker. First off, you use a ton of paint, which gets costly if you use anything above brass eagle quality. Second, if you have to fire off 30 rounds to hit one target, you are probably going to get worked anyway : )
>* Not too heavy, or alternately, perhaps a >lightweight folding stock.
For the ultimate in lightweight, consider a remote feed for your C02 tank