This article points out several issues with using driver's licenses for ID: 1. They include information that's specific for driving that may be used other identifying features. 2. Each state has it's own standard. For example, some store social security numbers, other fingerprints, most store address, etc.
The core failing of this issue is that driver licenses (and social secuirity numbers) were never designed nor intended to provide general identification.
What is required is a standard that appies to the entire country for what can be used on ID's. One solution is to establish a National ID, administered by the federal government, which would replace the state drivers licenses and social security numbers strictly for providing identification in a secure manner. Another solution would be for the federal goverment to establish guidelines to be followed by the states in establishing IDs.
The current situation is unacceptable from both a privacy and an identification point of view.
Taking it to the next level
on
Google Juice
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Has anyone tried creating whack Chains, where searches on word_1, word_2 word_2, word_3 ... word_n-1, word_n will each return a single match?
Then create whack Cycles which would consist of word_1, word_2 word_2, word_3 ... word_n, word_1
Finally, whack Sets where choosing any two words from a pool would result in a whack?
The goal of each of these would be to make them as large as possible.
Usually the first phase in breaking into a network is identifying all the clients, servers, interconnections, and functions. Names such as dns.jdeli.com, websrv.jdeli.com, or mail.jdeli.com. Even worst are names that describe specific hardware or software features: iis.jdeli.com, linux.jdeli.com, Sparc5.jdeli.com
If you settle on a naming convetion that's easy for you to use, make sure it's also not easy for anyone unwanted to use either.
That being said, an elegant naming convention I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere here is the planets and moons. One implementation is [moon or surface feature].planet.jdeli.com: deimos.mars.jdeli.com, kepler.luna.jdeli.com
1. Release Windows for Machintosh: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
2. Bundle IE with the OS, release Office for MacWindows: Microsoft Standard Operating Procedure
3. Discontinue support for IE and Office for OS-X: claim that the effort in porting Windows has consumed resources previously used for Mac apps. Promise updates 'soon'
4. Release products that directly compete with iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto, iEtc... : replay the counter-Netscape strategy
5. Watch Apple dry up and turn to dust
Cringley uses Borland and Netscape to make his point. The more obvious conclusion is that "he who competes with Microsoft, dies." I don't think Apple users and shareholders would like that, would they?
I once received a email with an attachment.
The attachment was a ZIP file;
The ZIP file contained a powerpoint presentation;
The presentation had a single slide;
The only thing on the slide was a BMP picture;
The picture consisted of a scanned image
Of...
a printed email message!
Congress has not declared war, and therefore it is not a war.
Nowhere in the US Constitution does it state that Congress must declare war.
The powers of Congress over the military and military actions are defined in Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power to [...]
To Declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
The Authority of the President as Commander in Chief are defined in Article II, Section 2:
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States
To summarize the above articles, Congress establishes, maintains, and regulates the military. The President determines how, when, and where will military force be applied.
When the Consitution was written in the 1700's, armed conflicts were rigidly defined, where the the combatants consisted of formally recognized governments. In such an environment a Declaration of War made perfect sense. This system worked fairly well until the Second World War, which was the last time the United States formally declared war..
The tradition context of war was challenged with the rise of the Cold War and modern warfare techniques such as guerrillas, proxy wars, and non-state combatants. As armed conflict evolved, the US government had to address the issue. In 1973 the War Powers Act (WPA) was passed to address these issues. The primary reason for this act was to establish limits on the Commander in Chief's ability to use force without the formal consent of Congress, as exemplified by the Vietnam War. The WPA allows the President to commit military actions without a declaration of war, as long as certain reporting conditions to Congress are met. The heart of the WPA is Section 5 (b), which establishes concrete time limits, and Section 5 (c), which gives Congress the authority to terminate military action.
________________________
None of the words or meaning in the Constitution has changed, either. It still guarantees Justice to All. This includes a fair trial, just as much as it includes the lethal injection as punishment.
The fundamental question here is do we treat acts of terrorism as a crime or as an act of war? The various rights to trial enumerated in Section III and the Bill of Rights apply only to crimes. By history and precedent, acts of war are not treated the same as criminal acts. For example, the Nuremberg Trials were military tribunals with convictions determined by a panel of judges, not juries. Similar tribunals were called for the Japanese military and government, instead of trying them in US criminal courts for the attack on US territory (Pearl Harbor)
The US has been consistent in treating the attacks of September 11th as a military action, not criminal, to include the application of military courts to eventually try Al Qaeda members. This is no different than the application of justice at the end of WWII.
I'm a Comm & Info Officer in the USAF.
If you decide to join the Air Force, you'll have to ask yourself if you want to do strictly hands-on stuff, or do you want go into a managerial position? If you want manage, join as an officer. With the exception of the System Engineers, officers are expected to fill leadership roles. If you want to stay within a particular specialty, such as programming, then enlist (with a 4 year degree you may join at a higher enlisted rank than someone out of high school. Check with a recruiter. Yeah, I know...)
If you decide to take the officer route, this is what you'll experience:
Since you indicated you're about to graduate, you'll most likely get your commission through Officer Training School (OTS) at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, AL. This is your standard 12 week-long drill of marching, PT, getting yelled at, saluting, standing at attention, etcetera.
After gratuating OTS, you'll head off to Basic Communications Officer Training (BCOT), located at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Miss. Three months long, the best thing about this school is that it's less than an hour from New Orleans. With a CS degree, you will have absolutely no problem with this course. Trust me. After that, you'll be off to your first assignment. The good thing about being a Comm officer is that it's a global specialty, unlike some other fields (especially pilots) that are restricted to a handful of locations.
The Comm and Info career field is huge. You could have a twenty year career and have a completely different job each assigment. This is just an example of some of the jobs I and some of my friends have filled:
Network infrastructure and fiber optics (routers, switches, working with construction crews)
Airfield Comm systems (Mostly radios and specialized Air Traffic Control and guidance systems)
Network Control Centers (care and feeding of server farms)
Satellite systems
Desktop support and Helpdesk management
Combat Comm (Not really combat, this is setting up basic comm systems in a bare field from scratch, living in tents, eating MRE's)
Radar systems
Security (Firewalls, IDS, passwork cracking, assesments, incident response...)
Visual Information (very cool job, get to work with graphic media, photography, etc)
Information Management ('Powerpoint Rangers')
Information Warfare (hacker in a uniform)
As for the other services, I've had some contact with the Navy and Army. If I didn't join the Air Force the Navy would have definitely been my second choice. Those guys are even more dependent on their systems, and it shows in the quality of their personnel.
As for the Army, let me just say those guys should be standing on top of a hill waving semaphore flags. I don't think they could handle anything more complex.
1. Global Command and Control System (GCCS) is the system used by the US military when it goes to war. It is a "system of sytems" that is used for the planning and execution of combat forces. GCCS is the single most important program in the DoD.
2. DISA has a very big say in the direction of IT in the DoD. It's in charge of planning IT needs on an Department-wide basis. Theoretically, DISA lays down the map, the Army, Air Force and Navy follow. Although this only impacts Sun systems, it will only be a matter of time before they apply the same thinking to the rest of the systems out there.
3. Given the importance of GCCS, should there be an incompatibility with it and another system, that system will have to be adapted to GCCS, and not the other way around. Applying this to the StarOffice vs MS Office debate, the easiest way to avoid Office proprietary issues interfering with GCCS funtionality will be to replace Office with Star Office
4. If the DoD saves $500 on software, that's $500 more it can spend on bullets/stealth aircraft/submarines. Most warfighters don't care who made it as long as it works. All it will take is one General to ask the obvious question.
Lets say your company purchases 100 licenses for "Office 2002" for a 3 year subscription.
Two years later, Microsoft introduces "Office "2004".
And a year after that, your licenses expire.
Which will be in Microsoft's bests interests:
A. Renew your licenses for $100 per seat
B. Upgrade to the new product and get new licenses for $250 per seat
There are a couple of ways Microsoft could "encourage" consumers to upgrade to new products:
1. Make the renewal process slow, beaurocratic, and potentially painful.
"You can only renew subcriptions during the renewal period, which is 10 days before your licenses expire. There will be a 60 to 90 days processing period. You must send the full payment in advance. Microsoft reserves the right to do a full software audit during the processing period. If we find you are out of compliance, you forfeit the entire resubscription fee..."
2. Play games with the pricing structure.
"Why renew Office 2002 for $249.50 when you can upgrade to Office 2004 for an extra fifty cents!"
3. Change the rules in the middle of the game.
"Microsoft will no longer support resubscriptions for products that have been upgraded"
Your best bet will be the ASUS 8400 series of laptops. Most laptops are custom designs that try to squeeze as much into the limited space as possible. In doing so they sacrifice the modularity that makes upgrading desktop PCs so easy.
The 8400 is a highly modular design that lets you swap the CPU, memory, modem/LAN, hard-drive, touchpad, display, DVD/CD-ROM, and even the motherboard. You'll need the same tools used for working on a desktop and a little more skill due to some of the smaller components.
Tom's Hardware recently did a write-up on this portable with many examples of customizing it.
The PHB IT mantra:
"No one has ever been fired for buying IBM, Intel, or Microsoft"
IBM's reputation standing behind Linux will have a profound effect on decisions made in the board room, especially combined with other factors:
It will effectively neutralize Microsoft's eternal strategy of ignoring the IT staff and concentrating on the managers to sell their products. Here IBM will offer, in the eyes of management, a serious comptetitor to Microsoft offerings, particularly in servers.
IBM will build upon support from administrators. Should decisionmakers have to choose between to viable solutions, the preference of the IT staff may actually be taken into account
Cost, cost, cost, and cost. Given two solutions, both backed by solid and reputable companies, management will tend to gravitate towards the cost effective one.
Overall, this ad campaign will do for Linux what IBM's adoption of MS-DOS did for Microsoft.
Combine this research with wearable computers
on
Uplifting Dolphins
·
· Score: 2
Envision this:
A small wearable computer designed to be worn on a diver's back. Unit could either fit under a wet/dry suit or attached to the SCUBA gear.
Unit has input and output devices for humans and dolphins:
Human input: Microphone (will require specially adapted head unit)
Human output: Earphones
Dolphin input: hydrophones
Dolphin output: underwater speakers
Human to dolphin communication:
Human speaks into microphone -> Speech recognition software processes input into intermediate symbols -> dolphin interface software takes intermediate symbols, translate into squeaks, whistles, pops, etc. -> output is feed to the underwater speakers -> Dolphin hears, and hopefully understands!
Dolphin to human will be by a similar process, with the input from the hydrophones and the output going to the earphones.
Issue to workout:
Dolphin software will obviously take the most work. Do dolphin speak via a standarized language? Does each pod have it's own dialect? Is the language regular or irregular? Context based or context free? In addition, software updates need to be worked out, ultimately leading to processes that learn new dialects or phrases in real-world use.
Hardware needs to be small, sturdy, waterproof, have enough power to last the time of a dive. Should have sufficient processor power and memory to support translations in at least near-real time.
I work in a particular five-sided building in Arlington, VA. Part of my job involves tracking down classified information that has been leaked onto uncleared computers and networks and 'sanitizing' them (degaussers are my friend). If I could have one wish in this world, it would be to rip every 3.5" floppy drive out of every computer rated 'Secret' and above.
Computers are very good at blindly following instructions. Humans, however, tend to suffer from problems such as laziness, ignorance, contempt, or outright disregard for the rules (and in the worst cases, greed...). No one has ever heard of a computer that decided to disregard its programming. Every case I have worked began with human error.
By their very nature, computers can't break the rules, but humans definately do.
As for the hard drive issue, I see two solutions:
1. Have a single drive for the entire machine, and the classified Virtual Machines (VMs) would operate with an encrypted file and swap space. Modify the OS so that unencrypted info can exist only in volitile RAM (I believe OpenBSD already does this).
2. Run at least two hard drives, one for the host OS and unclassified VMs, the other encrypted for the classified VMs. This would be easier to conform with existing regulations on classified handling and storage.
This may be great article that has generated some excellent discussion, It won't put a dent into the RIAA's efforts until the story is picked up by the mainstream media, and put into terms that the average American can understand.
This has had enough coverage on/. and the rest of the "geek press"; we now need to get CNN, USAtoday, etc to cover the story.
Headlines such as
"Publishers to prosecute reading children's stories" and
"Hollywood to ban VCRs"
are the way to get the message across. This will be the only way to get to the politicians who right now are aligned with the media if for lack of a strong (ie, voter affecting) counter-lobby.
From the article:
"The California Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ordered a lower court to show why defendant Matthew Pavlovich should remain in the case even though he is not a California resident."
The California Supreme Court is asking for for more information, and then based on that it will make a decision on if non-state residents can be sued in the jurisdiction.
Should the Cal SC decide non-residents can't be sued in California, there is no reason why they couldn't be sued in their home state. Of course, the resources to do that will be enormous, even for a well funded group.
Finally, the Court's question has no impact on the central issues in the case, which affects reverse engineering, "click through" licensing, and free speech.
By forcing BugTraq to point back to Microsoft instead of duplicating the information on their site, MS is creating a security vulnerability.
Should the MS site be owned, DOS'd, or the database corrupted, then their information could not be either trusted or accessed.
In a sense BT is providing a backup function to MS for getting out security information. And for any valuable information, no backup is an unnecessary risk.
Since Rambus apparently holds US Patent #87290470298514, Grand Unification Theorem as Applied to Memory Systems, expect to see this "Law office disguised as a engineering firm" (Intel quote) to haul IBM into court as soon as the technology is viable.
Modern vehicles are highly dependent on Electronic Control Units (ECUs) and their associated software. With ECUs controlling engines, transmissions, emmissions, anti-lock brakes and other safety devices, a car today couldn't operate if the ECU malfunctioned.
Under the current regulatory scheme, should a vehicle manufacturer build vehicles with a mechanical flaw that threatens passenger safety, There is a well defined process for voluntary inspections, notices, and if necessary full recalls.
Now suppose a vehicle manufacturer built vehicles with faulty hardware or buggy software. Given that the DMCA was passed after most of the recall regulations were put in place, a manufacturer could prevent reverse engineering or 3rd party inspection of their ECU's. If anything was learned from the recent Firestone tire debacle, manufacturers will drag their feet before admitting to any problem.
Imagine if someone discovered a flaw in an anti-lock brake module that caused it to fail under certain circumstances, or a faulty engine controller that could cause the vehicle to surge and loose traction... Now imagine the public being kept unaware by the manufacturer that chooses to silence the information rather than loose some profit.
GOOoooood Evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to a special Battlebot's presentation of Political Grudge Match Duels to the Death!
Tonight we have for you two hot battles: first up we have George Bush and his Team Pachyderm versus Al Gore and the Lock-Box-Rocks-Crue in the slap-down for the presidency of the United States. Our second duel-to-end-all-duels pits Bill Gate's Innovatin'-and-Devestatin' Microsoft against Janet Reno and the Department of Kicking-your-Ass Justice
But first, the Rumble for White House
This match has some baaaad blood between the combatants and they're ready for some metal shredding action tonight. Team Pachyderm's 'Bot is ready for a kill. We go to Donna D'Erico ringside with George Bush jr.:
DE: "Gov Bush, what's your strategy for tonight?"
GB:...
DE: "Uhh, sir, please speak into the microphone, not my cleavage..."
GB: "Uhhh, sorry. Donna, we're not going to fall for Gore's fuzzy engineering. Since I'm all about inclusion, my 'Bot is going to reach across to the Democrats, grab hold, and spin them at about 1000 rpm."
DE: "Is it true, that to appease the Christian Coalition, your machine cannot make left turns, it can only go right?"
GB: "Let me make one thing straight. I'm my own man, at least that's what my daddy tells me. But yes, that's true."
DE: "Thanks, Govenor. Back to Battlebot central"
Thanks, Erica. And now for a technical analysis of Lock-Box-Rocks-Crue's "Analator", we turn to Bill Nye
BN: "The Analator has an ingenious design for a weapon. It basically sits there, lulling it's opponent into boredom, then it unleashes a barage of micro-detailed projectiles. It's only weakness is when it's near anyone's wife"
And now we go to the floor to determine the next Leader of the Free World (tm)!
["Red team, are you ready?" flip switch. "Blue team, are you ready?" flip switch]
Buzzzzzzz
And they're off! Bush swerves to the right, trying to flank Gore. Gore turns and stands his ground. Bush misses by a wide margin and slams right into the buzz saws! Gore approaches from behind and prepares to unleash a barage of projectiles. Bush breaks free from the blades, and grabs hold of Gore! The Analator gives a big audible sigh as it tries to break free of Pachyderm's grip. And Bush spins him right up against the spike wall! Unbelievable! Gore is stuck on top of the spikes! He can't move! The side-judge begins the count...
And it's over! Gore loses by Robot TKO!
And now for our next match... Oh wait! President elect Bush's first act is to declare Microsoft the winner!
What makes Exchange/Outlook and Lotus Notes so attractive in the workplace isn't any one of their particular services, but the effective combination of their features to cover the key aspects of business. If you intend to compete against these current commercial packages, your project will have to offer AND improve upon services they offer.
The one area I see that you can radically improve upon is the integration of project management.
As my workplace is wall-to-wall Microsoft, I will comment on Exchange/Outlook and MS Project. If I had a penny for everytime I beat my head against Project's inability to integrate with anything else, I'd be richer than, ahem, Bill Gates... These are just the easy examples:
Get Project tasks to coordinate with Outlook tasks.
Synchronize Project Schedule with Calendar.
Project Resources could align nicely with Outlook Contacts
Some things in Outlook that could be improved:
The preference settings are a mess. In your program, please make user changes straightfoward!
Central management for contacts. Example: If 10 people in a department have Bob Q as a contact, Exchange stores 10 instances of Bob Q's information. Should Bob Q change his phone, for instance, then that's 10 manual updates in the department. Central Management would mean that Bob Q's info would be updated only once, preferably by Bob Q himself!
Improve the Task interface, especially when being worked on by a team. Tasks should be automatically updated between all members, not just between an individual and the "tasker"
So here's a synopsis of what I'd want in an office client/server suite:
Create, modify, and destroy personnel, resources and projects.
Assign personnel and resources to project teams
Centrally managed schedules, tasks, and contacts sharable between all team members.
Designate certain rights to project members. i.e, all members may read the schedule, but only the project leader may change it.
Combined scheduling and calendar features
A simple interface, preferably browser based
And finally, please pay attention to security! I have yet to see a.vbs script that wasn't a virus!!!!
Asteroid and planetary exploitation and reuse
on
On Asteroid Mining
·
· Score: 1
For any suitably sized asteroid, you could first mine most of the core for valuable minerals, and on the surface build various support structures such as a foundry, launch facility, etc.
Leave enough material in the surface to keep it stable, you could then convert the hollowed out core into habitats. The asteroid belt could hold more population than the entire surface of the earth.
A similar idea could be applied to the moon, which would become an important harbor between the Earth and "the Belt". Another harbor area to explore would be Mars' moons Deimos and Phobos.
Lastly, Given Mercury's size and location, it would make an excellent location for a solar power generation facility, made from locally available materials. Any ideas on how to get the power of the planet?
I'll stop now:)
Slashdot Mirror
This article points out several issues with using driver's licenses for ID:
1. They include information that's specific for driving that may be used other identifying features.
2. Each state has it's own standard. For example, some store social security numbers, other fingerprints, most store address, etc.
The core failing of this issue is that driver licenses (and social secuirity numbers) were never designed nor intended to provide general identification.
What is required is a standard that appies to the entire country for what can be used on ID's. One solution is to establish a National ID, administered by the federal government, which would replace the state drivers licenses and social security numbers strictly for providing identification in a secure manner. Another solution would be for the federal goverment to establish guidelines to be followed by the states in establishing IDs.
The current situation is unacceptable from both a privacy and an identification point of view.
Has anyone tried creating whack Chains, where searches on
word_1, word_2
word_2, word_3
...
word_n-1, word_n
will each return a single match?
Then create whack Cycles which would consist of
word_1, word_2
word_2, word_3
...
word_n, word_1
Finally, whack Sets where choosing any two words from a pool would result in a whack?
The goal of each of these would be to make them as large as possible.
Usually the first phase in breaking into a network is identifying all the clients, servers, interconnections, and functions. Names such as dns.jdeli.com, websrv.jdeli.com, or mail.jdeli.com.
Even worst are names that describe specific hardware or software features: iis.jdeli.com, linux.jdeli.com, Sparc5.jdeli.com
If you settle on a naming convetion that's easy for you to use, make sure it's also not easy for anyone unwanted to use either.
That being said, an elegant naming convention I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere here is the planets and moons. One implementation is [moon or surface feature].planet.jdeli.com: deimos.mars.jdeli.com, kepler.luna.jdeli.com
1. Release Windows for Machintosh: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
2. Bundle IE with the OS, release Office for MacWindows: Microsoft Standard Operating Procedure
3. Discontinue support for IE and Office for OS-X: claim that the effort in porting Windows has consumed resources previously used for Mac apps. Promise updates 'soon'
4. Release products that directly compete with iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto, iEtc... : replay the counter-Netscape strategy
5. Watch Apple dry up and turn to dust
Cringley uses Borland and Netscape to make his point. The more obvious conclusion is that "he who competes with Microsoft, dies." I don't think Apple users and shareholders would like that, would they?
I once received a email with an attachment.
The attachment was a ZIP file;
The ZIP file contained a powerpoint presentation;
The presentation had a single slide;
The only thing on the slide was a BMP picture;
The picture consisted of a scanned image
Of...
a printed email message!
Nowhere in the US Constitution does it state that Congress must declare war.
The powers of Congress over the military and military actions are defined in Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power to [...]
To Declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
The Authority of the President as Commander in Chief are defined in Article II, Section 2:
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States
To summarize the above articles, Congress establishes, maintains, and regulates the military. The President determines how, when, and where will military force be applied.
When the Consitution was written in the 1700's, armed conflicts were rigidly defined, where the the combatants consisted of formally recognized governments. In such an environment a Declaration of War made perfect sense. This system worked fairly well until the Second World War, which was the last time the United States formally declared war..
The tradition context of war was challenged with the rise of the Cold War and modern warfare techniques such as guerrillas, proxy wars, and non-state combatants. As armed conflict evolved, the US government had to address the issue. In 1973 the War Powers Act (WPA) was passed to address these issues. The primary reason for this act was to establish limits on the Commander in Chief's ability to use force without the formal consent of Congress, as exemplified by the Vietnam War. The WPA allows the President to commit military actions without a declaration of war, as long as certain reporting conditions to Congress are met. The heart of the WPA is Section 5 (b), which establishes concrete time limits, and Section 5 (c), which gives Congress the authority to terminate military action.
________________________
None of the words or meaning in the Constitution has changed, either. It still guarantees Justice to All. This includes a fair trial, just as much as it includes the lethal injection as punishment.
The fundamental question here is do we treat acts of terrorism as a crime or as an act of war? The various rights to trial enumerated in Section III and the Bill of Rights apply only to crimes. By history and precedent, acts of war are not treated the same as criminal acts. For example, the Nuremberg Trials were military tribunals with convictions determined by a panel of judges, not juries. Similar tribunals were called for the Japanese military and government, instead of trying them in US criminal courts for the attack on US territory (Pearl Harbor)
The US has been consistent in treating the attacks of September 11th as a military action, not criminal, to include the application of military courts to eventually try Al Qaeda members. This is no different than the application of justice at the end of WWII.
If you decide to take the officer route, this is what you'll experience: Since you indicated you're about to graduate, you'll most likely get your commission through Officer Training School (OTS) at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, AL. This is your standard 12 week-long drill of marching, PT, getting yelled at, saluting, standing at attention, etcetera.
After gratuating OTS, you'll head off to Basic Communications Officer Training (BCOT), located at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Miss. Three months long, the best thing about this school is that it's less than an hour from New Orleans. With a CS degree, you will have absolutely no problem with this course. Trust me. After that, you'll be off to your first assignment. The good thing about being a Comm officer is that it's a global specialty, unlike some other fields (especially pilots) that are restricted to a handful of locations.
The Comm and Info career field is huge. You could have a twenty year career and have a completely different job each assigment. This is just an example of some of the jobs I and some of my friends have filled:
Network infrastructure and fiber optics (routers, switches, working with construction crews)
Airfield Comm systems (Mostly radios and specialized Air Traffic Control and guidance systems)
Network Control Centers (care and feeding of server farms)
Satellite systems
Desktop support and Helpdesk management
Combat Comm (Not really combat, this is setting up basic comm systems in a bare field from scratch, living in tents, eating MRE's)
Radar systems
Security (Firewalls, IDS, passwork cracking, assesments, incident response...)
Visual Information (very cool job, get to work with graphic media, photography, etc)
Information Management ('Powerpoint Rangers')
Information Warfare (hacker in a uniform)
As for the other services, I've had some contact with the Navy and Army. If I didn't join the Air Force the Navy would have definitely been my second choice. Those guys are even more dependent on their systems, and it shows in the quality of their personnel.
As for the Army, let me just say those guys should be standing on top of a hill waving semaphore flags. I don't think they could handle anything more complex.
Reading the document, the crack hinges on collecting a sufficient number of public keys. The solution is obvious:
Ban the sharing of public keys!
Oh, wait...
1. Global Command and Control System (GCCS) is the system used by the US military when it goes to war. It is a "system of sytems" that is used for the planning and execution of combat forces. GCCS is the single most important program in the DoD.
2. DISA has a very big say in the direction of IT in the DoD. It's in charge of planning IT needs on an Department-wide basis. Theoretically, DISA lays down the map, the Army, Air Force and Navy follow. Although this only impacts Sun systems, it will only be a matter of time before they apply the same thinking to the rest of the systems out there.
3. Given the importance of GCCS, should there be an incompatibility with it and another system, that system will have to be adapted to GCCS, and not the other way around. Applying this to the StarOffice vs MS Office debate, the easiest way to avoid Office proprietary issues interfering with GCCS funtionality will be to replace Office with Star Office
4. If the DoD saves $500 on software, that's $500 more it can spend on bullets/stealth aircraft/submarines. Most warfighters don't care who made it as long as it works. All it will take is one General to ask the obvious question.
Lets say your company purchases 100 licenses for "Office 2002" for a 3 year subscription.
Two years later, Microsoft introduces "Office "2004".
And a year after that, your licenses expire.
Which will be in Microsoft's bests interests:
A. Renew your licenses for $100 per seat
B. Upgrade to the new product and get new licenses for $250 per seat
There are a couple of ways Microsoft could "encourage" consumers to upgrade to new products:
1. Make the renewal process slow, beaurocratic, and potentially painful.
"You can only renew subcriptions during the renewal period, which is 10 days before your licenses expire. There will be a 60 to 90 days processing period. You must send the full payment in advance. Microsoft reserves the right to do a full software audit during the processing period. If we find you are out of compliance, you forfeit the entire resubscription fee..."
2. Play games with the pricing structure.
"Why renew Office 2002 for $249.50 when you can upgrade to Office 2004 for an extra fifty cents!"
3. Change the rules in the middle of the game.
"Microsoft will no longer support resubscriptions for products that have been upgraded"
"Don't trust code written by Microsoft"
The 8400 is a highly modular design that lets you swap the CPU, memory, modem/LAN, hard-drive, touchpad, display, DVD/CD-ROM, and even the motherboard. You'll need the same tools used for working on a desktop and a little more skill due to some of the smaller components.
Tom's Hardware recently did a write-up on this portable with many examples of customizing it.
The PHB IT mantra:
"No one has ever been fired for buying IBM, Intel, or Microsoft"
IBM's reputation standing behind Linux will have a profound effect on decisions made in the board room, especially combined with other factors:
It will effectively neutralize Microsoft's eternal strategy of ignoring the IT staff and concentrating on the managers to sell their products. Here IBM will offer, in the eyes of management, a serious comptetitor to Microsoft offerings, particularly in servers.
IBM will build upon support from administrators. Should decisionmakers have to choose between to viable solutions, the preference of the IT staff may actually be taken into account
Cost, cost, cost, and cost. Given two solutions, both backed by solid and reputable companies, management will tend to gravitate towards the cost effective one.
Overall, this ad campaign will do for Linux what IBM's adoption of MS-DOS did for Microsoft.
Envision this:
A small wearable computer designed to be worn on a diver's back. Unit could either fit under a wet/dry suit or attached to the SCUBA gear.
Unit has input and output devices for humans and dolphins:
Human input: Microphone (will require specially adapted head unit)
Human output: Earphones
Dolphin input: hydrophones
Dolphin output: underwater speakers
Human to dolphin communication:
Human speaks into microphone -> Speech recognition software processes input into intermediate symbols -> dolphin interface software takes intermediate symbols, translate into squeaks, whistles, pops, etc. -> output is feed to the underwater speakers -> Dolphin hears, and hopefully understands!
Dolphin to human will be by a similar process, with the input from the hydrophones and the output going to the earphones.
Issue to workout:
Dolphin software will obviously take the most work. Do dolphin speak via a standarized language? Does each pod have it's own dialect? Is the language regular or irregular? Context based or context free? In addition, software updates need to be worked out, ultimately leading to processes that learn new dialects or phrases in real-world use.
Hardware needs to be small, sturdy, waterproof, have enough power to last the time of a dive. Should have sufficient processor power and memory to support translations in at least near-real time.
I work in a particular five-sided building in Arlington, VA. Part of my job involves tracking down classified information that has been leaked onto uncleared computers and networks and 'sanitizing' them (degaussers are my friend). If I could have one wish in this world, it would be to rip every 3.5" floppy drive out of every computer rated 'Secret' and above.
Computers are very good at blindly following instructions. Humans, however, tend to suffer from problems such as laziness, ignorance, contempt, or outright disregard for the rules (and in the worst cases, greed...). No one has ever heard of a computer that decided to disregard its programming. Every case I have worked began with human error.
By their very nature, computers can't break the rules, but humans definately do.
As for the hard drive issue, I see two solutions:
1. Have a single drive for the entire machine, and the classified Virtual Machines (VMs) would operate with an encrypted file and swap space. Modify the OS so that unencrypted info can exist only in volitile RAM (I believe OpenBSD already does this).
2. Run at least two hard drives, one for the host OS and unclassified VMs, the other encrypted for the classified VMs. This would be easier to conform with existing regulations on classified handling and storage.
This may be great article that has generated some excellent discussion, It won't put a dent into the RIAA's efforts until the story is picked up by the mainstream media, and put into terms that the average American can understand. /. and the rest of the "geek press"; we now need to get CNN, USAtoday, etc to cover the story.
This has had enough coverage on
Headlines such as
"Publishers to prosecute reading children's stories" and
"Hollywood to ban VCRs"
are the way to get the message across. This will be the only way to get to the politicians who right now are aligned with the media if for lack of a strong (ie, voter affecting) counter-lobby.
From the article:
"The California Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ordered a lower court to show why defendant Matthew Pavlovich should remain in the case even though he is not a California resident."
The California Supreme Court is asking for for more information, and then based on that it will make a decision on if non-state residents can be sued in the jurisdiction.
Should the Cal SC decide non-residents can't be sued in California, there is no reason why they couldn't be sued in their home state. Of course, the resources to do that will be enormous, even for a well funded group.
Finally, the Court's question has no impact on the central issues in the case, which affects reverse engineering, "click through" licensing, and free speech.
Hopefully, It will run Wine?
By forcing BugTraq to point back to Microsoft instead of duplicating the information on their site, MS is creating a security vulnerability.
Should the MS site be owned, DOS'd, or the database corrupted, then their information could not be either trusted or accessed.
In a sense BT is providing a backup function to MS for getting out security information. And for any valuable information, no backup is an unnecessary risk.
Since Rambus apparently holds US Patent #87290470298514, Grand Unification Theorem as Applied to Memory Systems, expect to see this "Law office disguised as a engineering firm" (Intel quote) to haul IBM into court as soon as the technology is viable.
Given all the hardware coverage, how soon before we see an emulator for the PS2?
With the scarcity of the unit, I could just imagine desparate parents downloading the program just in time for the holidays...
Modern vehicles are highly dependent on Electronic Control Units (ECUs) and their associated software. With ECUs controlling engines, transmissions, emmissions, anti-lock brakes and other safety devices, a car today couldn't operate if the ECU malfunctioned.
Under the current regulatory scheme, should a vehicle manufacturer build vehicles with a mechanical flaw that threatens passenger safety, There is a well defined process for voluntary inspections, notices, and if necessary full recalls.
Now suppose a vehicle manufacturer built vehicles with faulty hardware or buggy software. Given that the DMCA was passed after most of the recall regulations were put in place, a manufacturer could prevent reverse engineering or 3rd party inspection of their ECU's. If anything was learned from the recent Firestone tire debacle, manufacturers will drag their feet before admitting to any problem.
Imagine if someone discovered a flaw in an anti-lock brake module that caused it to fail under certain circumstances, or a faulty engine controller that could cause the vehicle to surge and loose traction... Now imagine the public being kept unaware by the manufacturer that chooses to silence the information rather than loose some profit.
GOOoooood Evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to a special Battlebot's presentation of Political Grudge Match Duels to the Death!
...
Tonight we have for you two hot battles: first up we have George Bush and his Team Pachyderm versus Al Gore and the Lock-Box-Rocks-Crue in the slap-down for the presidency of the United States. Our second duel-to-end-all-duels pits Bill Gate's Innovatin'-and-Devestatin' Microsoft against Janet Reno and the Department of Kicking-your-Ass Justice
But first, the Rumble for White House
This match has some baaaad blood between the combatants and they're ready for some metal shredding action tonight. Team Pachyderm's 'Bot is ready for a kill. We go to Donna D'Erico ringside with George Bush jr.:
DE: "Gov Bush, what's your strategy for tonight?"
GB:
DE: "Uhh, sir, please speak into the microphone, not my cleavage..."
GB: "Uhhh, sorry. Donna, we're not going to fall for Gore's fuzzy engineering. Since I'm all about inclusion, my 'Bot is going to reach across to the Democrats, grab hold, and spin them at about 1000 rpm."
DE: "Is it true, that to appease the Christian Coalition, your machine cannot make left turns, it can only go right?"
GB: "Let me make one thing straight. I'm my own man, at least that's what my daddy tells me. But yes, that's true."
DE: "Thanks, Govenor. Back to Battlebot central"
Thanks, Erica. And now for a technical analysis of Lock-Box-Rocks-Crue's "Analator", we turn to Bill Nye
BN: "The Analator has an ingenious design for a weapon. It basically sits there, lulling it's opponent into boredom, then it unleashes a barage of micro-detailed projectiles. It's only weakness is when it's near anyone's wife"
And now we go to the floor to determine the next Leader of the Free World (tm)!
["Red team, are you ready?" flip switch. "Blue team, are you ready?" flip switch]
Buzzzzzzz
And they're off! Bush swerves to the right, trying to flank Gore. Gore turns and stands his ground. Bush misses by a wide margin and slams right into the buzz saws! Gore approaches from behind and prepares to unleash a barage of projectiles. Bush breaks free from the blades, and grabs hold of Gore! The Analator gives a big audible sigh as it tries to break free of Pachyderm's grip. And Bush spins him right up against the spike wall! Unbelievable! Gore is stuck on top of the spikes! He can't move! The side-judge begins the count...
And it's over! Gore loses by Robot TKO!
And now for our next match... Oh wait! President elect Bush's first act is to declare Microsoft the winner!
Well thats all from San Francisco. Good Night!!!
What makes Exchange/Outlook and Lotus Notes so attractive in the workplace isn't any one of their particular services, but the effective combination of their features to cover the key aspects of business. If you intend to compete against these current commercial packages, your project will have to offer AND improve upon services they offer.
.vbs script that wasn't a virus!!!!
The one area I see that you can radically improve upon is the integration of project management.
As my workplace is wall-to-wall Microsoft, I will comment on Exchange/Outlook and MS Project. If I had a penny for everytime I beat my head against Project's inability to integrate with anything else, I'd be richer than, ahem, Bill Gates... These are just the easy examples:
Get Project tasks to coordinate with Outlook tasks.
Synchronize Project Schedule with Calendar.
Project Resources could align nicely with Outlook Contacts
Some things in Outlook that could be improved:
The preference settings are a mess. In your program, please make user changes straightfoward!
Central management for contacts. Example: If 10 people in a department have Bob Q as a contact, Exchange stores 10 instances of Bob Q's information. Should Bob Q change his phone, for instance, then that's 10 manual updates in the department. Central Management would mean that Bob Q's info would be updated only once, preferably by Bob Q himself!
Improve the Task interface, especially when being worked on by a team. Tasks should be automatically updated between all members, not just between an individual and the "tasker"
So here's a synopsis of what I'd want in an office client/server suite:
Create, modify, and destroy personnel, resources and projects.
Assign personnel and resources to project teams
Centrally managed schedules, tasks, and contacts sharable between all team members.
Designate certain rights to project members. i.e, all members may read the schedule, but only the project leader may change it.
Combined scheduling and calendar features
A simple interface, preferably browser based
And finally, please pay attention to security! I have yet to see a
For any suitably sized asteroid, you could first mine most of the core for valuable minerals, and on the surface build various support structures such as a foundry, launch facility, etc. :)
Leave enough material in the surface to keep it stable, you could then convert the hollowed out core into habitats. The asteroid belt could hold more population than the entire surface of the earth.
A similar idea could be applied to the moon, which would become an important harbor between the Earth and "the Belt". Another harbor area to explore would be Mars' moons Deimos and Phobos.
Lastly, Given Mercury's size and location, it would make an excellent location for a solar power generation facility, made from locally available materials. Any ideas on how to get the power of the planet?
I'll stop now