Well, I can say this about internships. Companies do not want this risk. Plain and simple. It is a hard fact of the work environment. You simply do not give out root access to someone who "might" know what he/she is doing in a production environment. A lot of trust needs to be established for internships to work properly. You need the right kind of person (i.e. someone who would do nothing as opposed to doing "something" to try and fix a potential issue). The risk is extremely high if that person comes in and typo's something like "# rm -rf / home/johns/junk/" (which for those that do not know will begin deleting everything on the disk, not the junk folder in someone's home directory that he/she meant to delete).
Can it work out for some people? Sure. But most companies sure as hell won't bet their entire existance on it, since those people can potentially cause millions of dollars of damage and lost time/man hours/product delivery dates...
I can honestly say I lucked out. I personnally did get an internship in the IT field as a UNIX administrator. I also spent 5 months doing leg-work before being given "root" (which I can't say I blame them, there is a LOT of risk). Heck, I don't see how many places can give out "root" on an existing system(s) to anyone without at least 1 month under strick supervision, I don't care how much experience you have on your resume. That person still doesn't know crap about how the environment is setup. Especially since there are hundreds if not thousands of ways to do different things, let alone know the hostnames of all critical servers/infrastructure in the configuration...
I truely believe that there is a complete disconnect between most IT departments, HR, and management (you can replace IT with just about any engineering department as well). The latest management trend has been cost savings over the last 4-6 years (heck it only makes sense since most of that timeframe was/is a depression). But these departments are not a place that you can really save money. You either have to pay a person with your exact skill set requirements extremely well for his/her current skills/experience, or pay a for training someone who has a good portion of the skill sets. Well, the problem is in "cost savings" one of the first things to always go is the training budget. So that takes away your only second option in terms of hiring new personel. You are now left with paying someone extremely well because they meet you specific set of skill requirements, but again, since the management is in "cost savings" mode, they don't want to take this option either. Thus, they complain that there are no engineers available.
To the people in different HR departments, you need to start realizing that IT services are a fundamental part to most any business now. The people you are hiring are the people who will be litterally keeping your entire buisness running and operating. Do you even remotely believe that you have the knowledge base needed to be able to "Screen" candidates? If you answered yes, then why in the world are you working in the HR departnemt since if you have the technical knowledge to screen candidates for every concievible technical job, you most certainly have the knowledge to be making well into the 6 figure range, because that is a HELL of a lot of knowledge to have... Oh, you simply look for the keyword of the day... well, if that is the case, no wonder you can't find a qualified person for the job.
I mean, sure I could wear a $200 sports jacket, $50 long sleeve shirt, $30 tie, $90 pants, $120 shoes and $10 socks. But then who is going to pay to FIX those clothes when I have to craw under a floating tile server room floor on a concrete slab with electrical and HVAC? Or when I have to dig behind someone's workstation that hasn't been dusted in 3 years? Or play follow the network cable as it loops around under a desk, behind a cabinet, under a safe, under the cubical wall, under another desk, back under the SAME cubical wall, behind a bookshelf, loops around the filecabinet, under another cubical wall, under behind a set of bookshelves, behind a copy machine, under a cubical wall, wraps around a PC on the floor under a desk, goes behind the desk, under yet another cubical wall, up over a ergo table and finally connects to a port in the wall?
Yeah, I could wear "fashion" "business atire", but I would be spending more money each week repairing and replacing damaged clothing then I get paid in teh first place. So I wear jeans, black walking shoes (or work boots depending on if servers are being moved or need to be installed), and either a polo or other similar shirt, occasionally a T-Shirt. And if they get a tear or get dirty, or soaking wet (yes, soaking wet from finding water under a floating floor in a server room), or any of a hundred other things that happen when you don't sit behind a desk or just go to confrences or meetings, I don't really care too much.
So what problems do you still have? Seriously... You might just be using the wrong distro(s) for what you are trying to do. That is one of the few issues I can think that linux has, too many different versions causing research overload...
I mean seriously... Of coarse speeding tickets will be issued with it. That is how they will raise funding for it. However, figuring out how much they were speeding is a whole different story altogether... Now grant it, the 1/4 mile distance will limit some of the speeds, but in theory, someone could hit 100+ mph and slow back down to 5 mph before they hit the next scanner, thus the overall time spent going the 1/4 mile could still be same time spent for going that distance as it would if you simply went the speed limit.
Can OOo open and read >90% of the current MS.doc format? Yes. Can OOo save to a MS.doc format that can be read by current MS Office products? YES.
So we have just clarified that by using OOo, anyone with OOo, OR MS Office can read our documents? YES!!! So, by moving to OOo, we not only allow our citizens the ability to use a free piece of software to communicate with us, we also can continue working just as we have been in the past? Pretty much, yes. Even with the dissabilities issues, there is no reason NOT to change to using OOo and saving a copy in OpenDocument format AND a.doc format for the time being. Interoperability software will be made if and only if there is a market for it. If no one uses OpenDoc, then no company will produce interoperibility software for the format or the software where OpenDoc is supported. BUT you can still use OOo and save the output to.doc format for the cases where this is required...
Have you even heard of programming? Its pretty simple to write a program to verify a documented structure. It is basically a bunch of case statements and parsers, which is no different then any high level software language compiler (in other words that piece of software that changes your code into machine code).
This is the whole problem. Novel for one person who was just introduced to a language is ancient news for another. The problem that will be faced is that the people who decide if it is "novel" or not, are NOT people who actually work in the field. These are not people with 10, 15, or 20 years of experience programming. You will be lucky to see someone who has 5 years experience, because lets face it here, no one with a decent amount of experience in software development/engineering (in other words the level of work that will get patents) will work for the saleries that a patent clerk recieves. You are looking at completely different pay scales that are not even in the same zip code, let alone ball-park.
Lets also not forget that software is a "LANGUAGE" as in, communication. If patents worked the same way with the "English" language as they do for "C, C++, JAVA, C#, Perl, etc., etc.,", then I would take out a patent on the use of an entrance way, be it a door, opening, gate, portal, window, chimney, for allowing a character or person to enter into a space where dialogue, or other plot or storyline event takes place that advances the work as a whole. Because, lets face it here, this is the kind of patents that are being granted in those other "computer" languages...
Re:IP will give these no advantage at all.
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TCP/IP Speakers
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· Score: 1
Actually, the imaging is what maked these so good. I myself was skeptical when I first saw them, but when I actually listened to them, the imaging was better then many floor-standers, let alone compaired to other in-walls that I have heard in the past. Part of it had to do with the fact that Polk Audio also has a cabinet designed to fit between the average stud length in homes. So it is really an enclosed cabnet with the correct volumn for the speakers. Yes it is extra, but you know what, the time savings it allows for custom installs and the improvement in sound more then make up for that added cost.
As for audio clarity, well, we have proven that time and time again that digital transmission is better then analog for signal integrety. The actual audio signal is what you want to transmit. In your standard speaker cables, transmitting the audio signal you have run into the resistance of the cable, the inductance of the cable, the capacitance of the cable and the easily injected noise of electro-magnetic fields which the cable passes thru. All of these will cause the signal to be altered. In a digital system such as the IP protocal, all transmissions are the pure signal, with no data loss and much more importantly, no data ADDED to the signal during the longest transmittion of the signal in any audio setup. What this translates into is less noise, less loss of power and a cleaner signal due to less interaction of inductance and capactitance in the cables.
Now the real advantage of a system like this. The controlling software. How long do you really think it will take for people to expand on things like this. For instance, take our hated/loved person, Mr. Bill Gates. He has a home which tracks the movements of people with-in it. Well, now the music that the person/persons were listening too can flow from room to room as the person/persons move around. Priority could be given, just like there is priority to environmental settings to temperature and lighting already. Approppriate stereo pairs could be chosen on the fly as you move about from place to place giving you a seemless listening experience while you still do other activities. Truely think about it.
Now as for 99% are wired in mono, well guess what. That goes out the door with the capabilities of this system. They are wired mono because it is impossible to wire them in stereo when you never know where the person will be. In those systems, they can not swap what inputs they use for the sound streams. Since now the controller is a piece of software that says send channel x to speaker y, the switching is as simple as a command on the computer. Again, tie in a location monitoring system with this and a whole new world opens up for ambient musical systems.
Well, others have probably already said it, but I will repeat. What in the world happens when you lose power? Take the New Orleans area, which many places STILL do not have power after weeks of time. No battery pack will last that long, I am sorry. So what happens when it loses all the power? Will it lock everyone inside? Will it lock everyone out? If they are locked out, that is worse then them being locked inside, especially when you look at the fact that this is aimed at the elderly! I can see the news reports already, "Elderly man freezes to death outside home because his door wouldn't open".
The movie industry still doesn't get "it". People won't buy something that is crippled. They will probably invest millions of dollars into this project, money that could be better spent on cutting the price of their products by $1-2, which would probably get them more sales and thus more profit. Really, anything over the production cost of the medium is pure profit on the better movies (that is, anything that wasn't a flop, because the theatrical release would normally already cover the cost of production of the movie itself).
So, knowing that, a medium like the internet where the costs of the content itself is litterally the cost of the bandwidth used to download/stream, just about any price is greedy. Now having said that I know that is not how things work...
The reason this is doomed is because people are not going to be able to use it how they want to. First off, there are too few households that do not have the capability to download a movie or even watch a video stream over the internet because no broadband access is availble. Add to that fact that people don't want to watch movies on their 17-19" 4:3 computer display if they have a 27" or larger TV, let alone a front projector or HDTV. Any DRM that is placed on the content will ensure that watching it on those displays will be very difficult unless they own a "Home Theater Personal Computer" (HTPC).
Even assuming that there is a HTPC, with broadband access and everything else required, why would someone want to use your product over the more conventional methods like purchasing the DVD, or renting the DVD? With the restrictions that will be put in place to give a "secure" method, what usage will be lost to the consumer?
At this point we are already well beyond the technical compitency of the average movie consumer, which means that the customer base is extremely limted, both do to technical requirements and technical know-how. You are now looking at a customer market that DO know what they are doing, and know how things work. So if your product is not as good in quality at the rental DVD that is avalible, they will simply use the higher quality product, because they actually know better then to take the PR department's word on it.
lol... an IS major, and you think you will only work 40 hours a week:roflmao:
You do know that the IS guys are the ones who are on call to fix the problems when the network/database/application/server/etc., breaks at 4:30pm on Friday night and needs to be up running perfectly on Monday morning because of the presentation that the sale's department is giving to a customer which whom if the sale does not occur will cause the company to go bankrupt and everyone will be layed-off with you possibly being fired first? You know this right? Really, please tell me you know this...
ummm... isn't that what the busses already do? AND not only that, but the bus is a heck of a lot more energy effecient in terms of fuel usage (most are disel, some turbo disel), which run more efficient to begin with and add in the fact that it carries 10-15x more kids then your typical family car.
See my post below. Basically, the area that contains the computer might not be approved to allow it to keep the disk in it while there is not an active, authorized user physically on the machine. The disk would need to be removed and placed in a safe whenever the system is not in use. When an authorized user needs to use the computer again, he/she needs to have the safe opened and then have the disk moved back in to the computer. Possibly even require the disk to be checked-out of a data control entity who verifies the user and keeps track of the disk itself.
There are several different levels of DoD classifications, even for systems that meet requirements for "secret" level data. And it all depends on exactly who your local DoD rep is and what they interpret the guidlines to mean.
The Department of Defence was very inteligent in crafting the guidlines. They left a lot of it in the hands of the local representitives to interpret the regulations and to the system administrators themselves to say what is and what is not security releavent (basically they knew that they did not have the best experts to craft and design a complete comprehensive security regulation and left a lot of it open for interpretation by actual security personnel at both the sites that maintain the equipment and the people who oversee them).
It also depends on who is your regulator. Do you need to meet NISPOM standards? Or some other standard? If NISPOM, what level (PL-1, PL-2, PL-3, etc.)? Again this all depends on who your overseeing entity is. Yes, ultimatly it is the DoD, but is it the Air Force, Navy, Army, etc., as this all makes a difference.
I am surprised that the hard drives themselves need to be in removable sleds. In my experience, the only reason to do this is to more easily de-classify the system, but it creates an increased headache as it is a little easier to physically remove the drive (yes, even those locking sleds are easily bypassed).
Some basic things that are required:
BIOS Level password is required.
Lockout all bootable mediums to only disk.
Disks themselves need to be tracked and marked.
All administrative access needs to be loged with each individual person who has administrative access having a seperate account (no generic accounts allowed)
System critical files need to be monitored for both failed attempts to alter/access and successful attempts (depends on OS and your rep as to what the "system critical files" entail, I deal mostly on UNIX and LINUX OS's and these include everything under "/etc" and "/var/", as well as some other areas)
Login Banners are required. There are specific texts that need to be displayed at/before login to people who are going to log in
Specific rules are in place for "screen lock" occuring after a set amount of time
Stickers/signs are required for designating the system as a classified system
These are just some of the measures that are normally required. Other things such as system location, monitor placement (i.e. does it face out into an isle where others migh be able to see it, can it be seen from a window, etc.), physical locks on the system, security tamper tape over the possible entry points into the system, removable media, such as floppy disks, CD-RW's, DVD+/-RW's, tape drives, etc., are also part of the specific rules of your area and how to deal with those media.
Open storage of "secret" data is also something that might be needed for the area that the systems are located in. This "could" be the reason for the removable drives, as your local policy might not allow the drive to be kept in the system while an authorized user is not actively using the system (hence the drive must be pulled out of the computer and locked in an approved safe).
Again, it all depends on who is your oversight group, and what their standards are and who interprets the standards for your site. Any and all of those factors will contribute to a specific set of security requirements.
They will have you run a demo of their requirements to meet their satisfaction. One thing that I suggest not showing them is how easy it is to gain complete control of any computer that you have physical access to (even with BIOS passwords, and such, it only takes 2 minutes to break open just about any case, pull the BIOS battery, switch the CMOS jumper and boot up without any BIOS password, change the boot medium to a USB thumbdrive/CDROM/floppy/seperate hard drive and crack the root/administrator password). Let alone simply connecting up a laptop/palmtop computer to the classified network port (if there is a classified network) and start hacking away....
Yes... Just what the doctor ordered...
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MS & Game Rentals
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Because you all know you want those 3-4 year old games for $5-15 month charge when you can buy then for $5 bucks...
The idea is a perfect idea. Restrict all adult websites to ".xxx" domain. All existing sites should be removed from their current domains and ported to ".xxx". This is a great benefit to everyone (well some brand/name issues will have to be worked out in the transition, but still).
Why is this good? Well simply because now if you don't want your son/daughter/child/person/computer from accessing adult sites, you simply block the entire ".xxx" domain and are done with it. No more mish-mash of site lists, etc. All legal adult sites must be moved within a given time-frame (say 1-2 years, basically long enough to get the word out and leave up re-directs).
So, how do the FEDs access the database which is "offline"? I mean actually think about it for a minute. Once you get past the barrier of the fact that very FBI site office potentially needing access to this database, you are then talking about hundreds if not thousands of different codes/names/passwords, any one of which would then need to be manually typed onto the system which "is" connected to the net to gain access to the said router/firewall.
It really would not be long before this information was snooped and then leaked. One thing you are dealing with is the fact that you are connecting up to someone else's system, which means they have FULL access to whatever data you send it and can capture the entire connection to then reverse engineer the access method and codes.
You also need to deal with the fact that now each and every router/firewall will have to have a way to identify itself to the outside world. Unless there is one single id/password that all devices must use, there must be a way to identify that device so that the proper code can be looked-up somehow. So not only do we have a backdoor in the security devices, we also have said device broadcasting to the world what type/model so that any/all device specific hacks/backdoors/etc, can be easily run by malicious people because you now lost your next best defensive measure, the fact that the other guy probably does not know for sure what all your protective measures you have running.
Cisco already HAS a fix. AND HAS HAD that fix out since April. They are pissed because it was exposed that there was a SERIOUS flaw in their previous IOS software, which Cisco had not disclosed to the public, even though they made a patch, and basically told people that it was an update, NOT THAT IS FIXED A MAJOR SECURITY FLAW, since that would cause the public to think that Cisco screwed up, and we can't have that can we?
What I mean to say is this. Once you have your standard security suite in place (firewalls, ip-chains, standard configs locked down, etc.), all that is left is to simply monitor the activity logs.
That is all that CAN be done, since there will always be new security holes found and exploits created. Having a well planned and documented monitoring process involving going through the log files on a daily/constant basis is the best that you can do. Yes, this is time consuming and arduous redundant process. There are products out there to help minimize the task, but they can only help to a point. You simple just have to look at the logs being generated from your firewall, routers, and all your local systems.
With seting up services that scan the default system configurations and monitor critical file changes, as well as watching your firewall logs, you can catch and stop most attacks as they are occuring, before major damage can be done. But again, most places will not do this because it is time consuming to actually look at all the log files. This is why months pass sometimes before someone finally sees the log which shows a change to the password file which added a new user...
Well, a nice and fiarly cheap add-on are Polaroid Sonic Range/Distance Finders. Basically a poor man's sonar. I believe they only cost about $20. Get a good servo to mount it on and you can get some pretty decent 360 range mapping to add to the camera. This would allow much more detailed mapping to be done of the area that the robot is in for realitively little cost. There are some API's already in existance for the devices coded in C and other languages.
...get to the hospital quickly, this will keep me from doing so. Where I live, it is over 10 minutes faster if I jump in the car and drive off to the hospital then it is for the ambulence to respond.
Or how about places like Camden, NJ, which was ranked the most dangerous city in the USA? Cops don't even stop at the stop signs and stop lights there. Heck, they don't even pull you over for blowing thru the red light either, cause you are more likely to be mugged, robbed or killed stopping at the light then you are at getting into a car accident!
Seriously, when I read the topic, I immediatly said to myself, "Sun's first laptop? No way." They are collecting dust in one of our server rooms on top of an equipment rack/storage shelf. We had them back in the early-mid 90's when laptops were not really big (well big as in popular, cause these are certainly big pigs compaired to what is out there now).
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Can it work out for some people? Sure. But most companies sure as hell won't bet their entire existance on it, since those people can potentially cause millions of dollars of damage and lost time/man hours/product delivery dates...
I can honestly say I lucked out. I personnally did get an internship in the IT field as a UNIX administrator. I also spent 5 months doing leg-work before being given "root" (which I can't say I blame them, there is a LOT of risk). Heck, I don't see how many places can give out "root" on an existing system(s) to anyone without at least 1 month under strick supervision, I don't care how much experience you have on your resume. That person still doesn't know crap about how the environment is setup. Especially since there are hundreds if not thousands of ways to do different things, let alone know the hostnames of all critical servers/infrastructure in the configuration...
I truely believe that there is a complete disconnect between most IT departments, HR, and management (you can replace IT with just about any engineering department as well). The latest management trend has been cost savings over the last 4-6 years (heck it only makes sense since most of that timeframe was/is a depression). But these departments are not a place that you can really save money. You either have to pay a person with your exact skill set requirements extremely well for his/her current skills/experience, or pay a for training someone who has a good portion of the skill sets. Well, the problem is in "cost savings" one of the first things to always go is the training budget. So that takes away your only second option in terms of hiring new personel. You are now left with paying someone extremely well because they meet you specific set of skill requirements, but again, since the management is in "cost savings" mode, they don't want to take this option either. Thus, they complain that there are no engineers available.
To the people in different HR departments, you need to start realizing that IT services are a fundamental part to most any business now. The people you are hiring are the people who will be litterally keeping your entire buisness running and operating. Do you even remotely believe that you have the knowledge base needed to be able to "Screen" candidates? If you answered yes, then why in the world are you working in the HR departnemt since if you have the technical knowledge to screen candidates for every concievible technical job, you most certainly have the knowledge to be making well into the 6 figure range, because that is a HELL of a lot of knowledge to have...
Oh, you simply look for the keyword of the day... well, if that is the case, no wonder you can't find a qualified person for the job.
Yeah, I could wear "fashion" "business atire", but I would be spending more money each week repairing and replacing damaged clothing then I get paid in teh first place. So I wear jeans, black walking shoes (or work boots depending on if servers are being moved or need to be installed), and either a polo or other similar shirt, occasionally a T-Shirt. And if they get a tear or get dirty, or soaking wet (yes, soaking wet from finding water under a floating floor in a server room), or any of a hundred other things that happen when you don't sit behind a desk or just go to confrences or meetings, I don't really care too much.
So what problems do you still have? Seriously... You might just be using the wrong distro(s) for what you are trying to do. That is one of the few issues I can think that linux has, too many different versions causing research overload...
Now I just have to patent my "system of obfuscating an identification system for automobiles from digital optical collective devices".
I mean seriously... Of coarse speeding tickets will be issued with it. That is how they will raise funding for it. However, figuring out how much they were speeding is a whole different story altogether... Now grant it, the 1/4 mile distance will limit some of the speeds, but in theory, someone could hit 100+ mph and slow back down to 5 mph before they hit the next scanner, thus the overall time spent going the 1/4 mile could still be same time spent for going that distance as it would if you simply went the speed limit.
Nice catch :) I would love to see someone try that if they are sued under the DMCA...
Can OOo open and read >90% of the current MS .doc format? Yes. Can OOo save to a MS .doc format that can be read by current MS Office products? YES.
So we have just clarified that by using OOo, anyone with OOo, OR MS Office can read our documents? YES!!! So, by moving to OOo, we not only allow our citizens the ability to use a free piece of software to communicate with us, we also can continue working just as we have been in the past? Pretty much, yes. Even with the dissabilities issues, there is no reason NOT to change to using OOo and saving a copy in OpenDocument format AND a .doc format for the time being. Interoperability software will be made if and only if there is a market for it. If no one uses OpenDoc, then no company will produce interoperibility software for the format or the software where OpenDoc is supported. BUT you can still use OOo and save the output to .doc format for the cases where this is required...
Have you even heard of programming? Its pretty simple to write a program to verify a documented structure. It is basically a bunch of case statements and parsers, which is no different then any high level software language compiler (in other words that piece of software that changes your code into machine code).
Lets also not forget that software is a "LANGUAGE" as in, communication. If patents worked the same way with the "English" language as they do for "C, C++, JAVA, C#, Perl, etc., etc.,", then I would take out a patent on the use of an entrance way, be it a door, opening, gate, portal, window, chimney, for allowing a character or person to enter into a space where dialogue, or other plot or storyline event takes place that advances the work as a whole. Because, lets face it here, this is the kind of patents that are being granted in those other "computer" languages...
As for audio clarity, well, we have proven that time and time again that digital transmission is better then analog for signal integrety. The actual audio signal is what you want to transmit. In your standard speaker cables, transmitting the audio signal you have run into the resistance of the cable, the inductance of the cable, the capacitance of the cable and the easily injected noise of electro-magnetic fields which the cable passes thru. All of these will cause the signal to be altered. In a digital system such as the IP protocal, all transmissions are the pure signal, with no data loss and much more importantly, no data ADDED to the signal during the longest transmittion of the signal in any audio setup. What this translates into is less noise, less loss of power and a cleaner signal due to less interaction of inductance and capactitance in the cables.
Now the real advantage of a system like this. The controlling software. How long do you really think it will take for people to expand on things like this. For instance, take our hated/loved person, Mr. Bill Gates. He has a home which tracks the movements of people with-in it. Well, now the music that the person/persons were listening too can flow from room to room as the person/persons move around. Priority could be given, just like there is priority to environmental settings to temperature and lighting already. Approppriate stereo pairs could be chosen on the fly as you move about from place to place giving you a seemless listening experience while you still do other activities. Truely think about it.
Now as for 99% are wired in mono, well guess what. That goes out the door with the capabilities of this system. They are wired mono because it is impossible to wire them in stereo when you never know where the person will be. In those systems, they can not swap what inputs they use for the sound streams. Since now the controller is a piece of software that says send channel x to speaker y, the switching is as simple as a command on the computer. Again, tie in a location monitoring system with this and a whole new world opens up for ambient musical systems.
Well, others have probably already said it, but I will repeat. What in the world happens when you lose power? Take the New Orleans area, which many places STILL do not have power after weeks of time. No battery pack will last that long, I am sorry. So what happens when it loses all the power? Will it lock everyone inside? Will it lock everyone out? If they are locked out, that is worse then them being locked inside, especially when you look at the fact that this is aimed at the elderly! I can see the news reports already, "Elderly man freezes to death outside home because his door wouldn't open".
The movie industry still doesn't get "it". People won't buy something that is crippled. They will probably invest millions of dollars into this project, money that could be better spent on cutting the price of their products by $1-2, which would probably get them more sales and thus more profit. Really, anything over the production cost of the medium is pure profit on the better movies (that is, anything that wasn't a flop, because the theatrical release would normally already cover the cost of production of the movie itself). So, knowing that, a medium like the internet where the costs of the content itself is litterally the cost of the bandwidth used to download/stream, just about any price is greedy. Now having said that I know that is not how things work... The reason this is doomed is because people are not going to be able to use it how they want to. First off, there are too few households that do not have the capability to download a movie or even watch a video stream over the internet because no broadband access is availble. Add to that fact that people don't want to watch movies on their 17-19" 4:3 computer display if they have a 27" or larger TV, let alone a front projector or HDTV. Any DRM that is placed on the content will ensure that watching it on those displays will be very difficult unless they own a "Home Theater Personal Computer" (HTPC). Even assuming that there is a HTPC, with broadband access and everything else required, why would someone want to use your product over the more conventional methods like purchasing the DVD, or renting the DVD? With the restrictions that will be put in place to give a "secure" method, what usage will be lost to the consumer? At this point we are already well beyond the technical compitency of the average movie consumer, which means that the customer base is extremely limted, both do to technical requirements and technical know-how. You are now looking at a customer market that DO know what they are doing, and know how things work. So if your product is not as good in quality at the rental DVD that is avalible, they will simply use the higher quality product, because they actually know better then to take the PR department's word on it.
You do know that the IS guys are the ones who are on call to fix the problems when the network/database/application/server/etc., breaks at 4:30pm on Friday night and needs to be up running perfectly on Monday morning because of the presentation that the sale's department is giving to a customer which whom if the sale does not occur will cause the company to go bankrupt and everyone will be layed-off with you possibly being fired first? You know this right? Really, please tell me you know this...
ummm... isn't that what the busses already do? AND not only that, but the bus is a heck of a lot more energy effecient in terms of fuel usage (most are disel, some turbo disel), which run more efficient to begin with and add in the fact that it carries 10-15x more kids then your typical family car.
See my post below. Basically, the area that contains the computer might not be approved to allow it to keep the disk in it while there is not an active, authorized user physically on the machine. The disk would need to be removed and placed in a safe whenever the system is not in use. When an authorized user needs to use the computer again, he/she needs to have the safe opened and then have the disk moved back in to the computer. Possibly even require the disk to be checked-out of a data control entity who verifies the user and keeps track of the disk itself.
It also depends on who is your regulator. Do you need to meet NISPOM standards? Or some other standard? If NISPOM, what level (PL-1, PL-2, PL-3, etc.)? Again this all depends on who your overseeing entity is. Yes, ultimatly it is the DoD, but is it the Air Force, Navy, Army, etc., as this all makes a difference.
I am surprised that the hard drives themselves need to be in removable sleds. In my experience, the only reason to do this is to more easily de-classify the system, but it creates an increased headache as it is a little easier to physically remove the drive (yes, even those locking sleds are easily bypassed).
Some basic things that are required:
BIOS Level password is required.
Lockout all bootable mediums to only disk.
Disks themselves need to be tracked and marked.
All administrative access needs to be loged with each individual person who has administrative access having a seperate account (no generic accounts allowed)
System critical files need to be monitored for both failed attempts to alter/access and successful attempts (depends on OS and your rep as to what the "system critical files" entail, I deal mostly on UNIX and LINUX OS's and these include everything under "/etc" and "/var/", as well as some other areas)
Login Banners are required. There are specific texts that need to be displayed at/before login to people who are going to log in
Specific rules are in place for "screen lock" occuring after a set amount of time
Stickers/signs are required for designating the system as a classified system
These are just some of the measures that are normally required. Other things such as system location, monitor placement (i.e. does it face out into an isle where others migh be able to see it, can it be seen from a window, etc.), physical locks on the system, security tamper tape over the possible entry points into the system, removable media, such as floppy disks, CD-RW's, DVD+/-RW's, tape drives, etc., are also part of the specific rules of your area and how to deal with those media.
Open storage of "secret" data is also something that might be needed for the area that the systems are located in. This "could" be the reason for the removable drives, as your local policy might not allow the drive to be kept in the system while an authorized user is not actively using the system (hence the drive must be pulled out of the computer and locked in an approved safe).
Again, it all depends on who is your oversight group, and what their standards are and who interprets the standards for your site. Any and all of those factors will contribute to a specific set of security requirements.
They will have you run a demo of their requirements to meet their satisfaction. One thing that I suggest not showing them is how easy it is to gain complete control of any computer that you have physical access to (even with BIOS passwords, and such, it only takes 2 minutes to break open just about any case, pull the BIOS battery, switch the CMOS jumper and boot up without any BIOS password, change the boot medium to a USB thumbdrive/CDROM/floppy/seperate hard drive and crack the root/administrator password). Let alone simply connecting up a laptop/palmtop computer to the classified network port (if there is a classified network) and start hacking away....
Because you all know you want those 3-4 year old games for $5-15 month charge when you can buy then for $5 bucks...
The idea is a perfect idea. Restrict all adult websites to ".xxx" domain. All existing sites should be removed from their current domains and ported to ".xxx". This is a great benefit to everyone (well some brand/name issues will have to be worked out in the transition, but still). Why is this good? Well simply because now if you don't want your son/daughter/child/person/computer from accessing adult sites, you simply block the entire ".xxx" domain and are done with it. No more mish-mash of site lists, etc. All legal adult sites must be moved within a given time-frame (say 1-2 years, basically long enough to get the word out and leave up re-directs).
I predict a hughe cash infushion in the near future for this research project from our great government in the name of anti-terrorism.
It really would not be long before this information was snooped and then leaked. One thing you are dealing with is the fact that you are connecting up to someone else's system, which means they have FULL access to whatever data you send it and can capture the entire connection to then reverse engineer the access method and codes.
You also need to deal with the fact that now each and every router/firewall will have to have a way to identify itself to the outside world. Unless there is one single id/password that all devices must use, there must be a way to identify that device so that the proper code can be looked-up somehow. So not only do we have a backdoor in the security devices, we also have said device broadcasting to the world what type/model so that any/all device specific hacks/backdoors/etc, can be easily run by malicious people because you now lost your next best defensive measure, the fact that the other guy probably does not know for sure what all your protective measures you have running.
Cisco already HAS a fix. AND HAS HAD that fix out since April. They are pissed because it was exposed that there was a SERIOUS flaw in their previous IOS software, which Cisco had not disclosed to the public, even though they made a patch, and basically told people that it was an update, NOT THAT IS FIXED A MAJOR SECURITY FLAW, since that would cause the public to think that Cisco screwed up, and we can't have that can we?
What I mean to say is this. Once you have your standard security suite in place (firewalls, ip-chains, standard configs locked down, etc.), all that is left is to simply monitor the activity logs. That is all that CAN be done, since there will always be new security holes found and exploits created. Having a well planned and documented monitoring process involving going through the log files on a daily/constant basis is the best that you can do. Yes, this is time consuming and arduous redundant process. There are products out there to help minimize the task, but they can only help to a point. You simple just have to look at the logs being generated from your firewall, routers, and all your local systems. With seting up services that scan the default system configurations and monitor critical file changes, as well as watching your firewall logs, you can catch and stop most attacks as they are occuring, before major damage can be done. But again, most places will not do this because it is time consuming to actually look at all the log files. This is why months pass sometimes before someone finally sees the log which shows a change to the password file which added a new user...
Well, a nice and fiarly cheap add-on are Polaroid Sonic Range/Distance Finders. Basically a poor man's sonar. I believe they only cost about $20. Get a good servo to mount it on and you can get some pretty decent 360 range mapping to add to the camera. This would allow much more detailed mapping to be done of the area that the robot is in for realitively little cost. There are some API's already in existance for the devices coded in C and other languages.
...get to the hospital quickly, this will keep me from doing so. Where I live, it is over 10 minutes faster if I jump in the car and drive off to the hospital then it is for the ambulence to respond. Or how about places like Camden, NJ, which was ranked the most dangerous city in the USA? Cops don't even stop at the stop signs and stop lights there. Heck, they don't even pull you over for blowing thru the red light either, cause you are more likely to be mugged, robbed or killed stopping at the light then you are at getting into a car accident!
Seriously, when I read the topic, I immediatly said to myself, "Sun's first laptop? No way." They are collecting dust in one of our server rooms on top of an equipment rack/storage shelf. We had them back in the early-mid 90's when laptops were not really big (well big as in popular, cause these are certainly big pigs compaired to what is out there now).