Not exactly. Any business that processes credit cards has to be PCI compliant. That means truncating the credit card number or encrypting it. So any company that give the DHS access to unencrypted credit card numbers no longer PCI compliant and is liable for damages in the event of a breach (which this may be).
I'm working for a company that falls under the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, and think that it's a good standard. Let's face it, without some laws in place, most companies don't care squat about security. The law probably doesn't go far enough, but companies that don't do anything can now get screwed in lawsuits like these. That's a good thing.
The result of the law going into effect is pressure from up-on-high in the company to be in compliance with the law and gives justification to spend money on people and equipment/software/etc. Another company I worked at wouldn't even spend money for firewall software, because management dismissed IT's cost/benefit justification. If it didn't directly contribute to sales figures, it didn't happen. I'm glad I'm not there anymore.
Now, IT security is talked about at all levels, from IT all the way up through management. The question is asked and discussed "Is the sensitive information adaquately protected?". Having the GLBA as the hidden hammer, gives the question a lot of weight. And it's made a difference, with a lot more thought being put into it. Any planning does have project time and resources set aside specifically for security. There's actually time to audit and review existing equipment, and authorization to change any blatant findings.
Is it perfect? Well, no. More time and money could certainly be used. But the effort put into it certainly exceeds the bar that the GLBA provides. I do admire the company for that.
Danny
Re:It may be a throwback
on
Makers of MAKE
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Throwback may be a very good way to describe it. 20 years ago, it was erector sets and breadboards. Making a LCD digit count from 0 to 9 was fairly impressive.
Now, the amount of old electronics that can be reused instead of trashed is amazing...LCD panels, mp3 player, interfaces between computers and motors and sensors, video and wireless transmissions. All for mostly dirt cheap. Tinkerers can always stay ahead of corporate development, and it's way more fun.
I wholeheartedly agree. A combination of cfengine and cvs makes maintaining hordes of systems SO much easier. You can start thinking of a server in terms of +cvsserver +dnsserver +mailclient +kerberosclient and know that the right sets of configuration files will get on each machine. It is a steep learning curve to get it going. You'll have to pretty much lock yourself in the server room for a couple of days. But you'll gain the time back easily within a couple of months.
We use this in combination with OS autoinstallation scripts to deploy new servers really quickly. Autoinstall to get a base OS on. A few minutes to get hostname/IP right. Cfengine to blast the right packages and config files. Voila...working dns server, or web server, etc.
I've been watching the QCast forums since maybe Christmas. I've wanted it, but it doesn't have the performance to play decent resolutions yet. Most of what I want to watch is anime, usually encoded at 640x480. Sounds reasonable. But as of yet, the highest resolution video stream supported is 512x384. If they can get the resolution going, I'll likely buy and get rid of the really slow laptop sitting beside the playstation.
I'm copy below a posting from their forums. --- http://forum.broadq.com/6/ubb.x?a=tp c&s=250608123& f=898609356&m=943608 posted April 05, 2003 11:21 AM SVCD's are 480x480. We're still optimizing the ff/rw update for speed (which is why it's not out to beta yet), but there's a good chance that the new update will provide enough of a performance increase that SVCD-resolution MPEG2 files will play correctly...
FWIW, 480x480 files are 15% higher resolution than 512x384 files... So we would need to pick up at least 15% additional performance with the update for all of these files to play smoothly.
We don't need to work on the spindle speed. They're working on data density instead. Think about it. The data density on these drives is 4 times that of an 80GB drive. So if the data transfer on the 80GB drive is X*7200rpm, the 320GB is 4X*5400rpm = 3 times the raw throughput.
Despite being a happy tivo owner, I'm still tempted. I like the thought of being able to record the mpeg stream directly to get the best possible image quality. And it can do one thing the tivo can't - record Dolby Digital sound.
Some features I'd like to see:
- ability to extract the mpeg streams
- record to dvd+rw
Screw wireless. I already have it and it's entirely too easy to get it bundled with other things (ala cable/dsl router).
What I want from my next cable box is a way to directly record the mpeg stream to either my tivo or the dvd+rw recorder I've been lusting after. Going from mpeg to analog s-video into the tivo to be re-mpeg encoded sucks. Not to mention that I can't record my favorite show (Jeremiah) in Dolby Digital.
I actually paid for a license for PGP Desktop for home and still use it heavily for pgpdisk (the encrypted virtual disk software). I like the thought that even if someone hacks into my computers with my login, they still have some work to do to get the important files.
While it sucked to see NAI drop PGP, I made sure I pulled down the latest build before my license expired. I can still get another couple of years use out of it.
I would like to think that someone will eventually pick it up. It's entirely too useful to let it die. It be nice if it turned free, but I would still pay a reasonable amount of money to get a new enhanced version.
The basic problem as I see it is too much information. The only way to find anything is go through a lot of it manually. We need to bridge the gap between "this is what I really want" and "this is what this information is about".
What we need is more context information. The computer needs to start understanding what we are saying. Something more than blind keyword searches.
We also need more in the way of information anywhere Where I can as my phone, my pda, my computer, my refrigerator 'what do I need to do now' or 'make sure I buy more beer' and have it do the right thing.
My first thought was: What does this mean for our Mars colony? Is this going to cause a massive ocean level increase, forcing a mass migration to Mars and sparking war between earth/mars and colonists/megacorporations? John Boone is NOT going to be pleased.
Does it matter at all if the source code is well documented and formatted, or some evil-looking obfuscated C code? That should sway whether it's speech or functional.
This was a long way of saying a fundamental concept. Sharing ideas/information with others ultimately helps you.
The human race now has thousands of years of accumulated knowledge. From making a fire to making a computer. Somewhere we have all these little bits of information that (virtually) everyone has access to.
And because all of this information is shared, our lives have been much improved over living in caves and hunting and such.
Of course with all the intellectual property laws, sharing can be a bad thing too. Tell and idea - someone else uses it/patents it and makes millions. Ick.
But overall, sharing is a GOOD THING. That's the underlying reason Open Source works.
Slashdot Mirror
Not exactly. Any business that processes credit cards has to be PCI compliant. That means truncating the credit card number or encrypting it. So any company that give the DHS access to unencrypted credit card numbers no longer PCI compliant and is liable for damages in the event of a breach (which this may be).
I'm working for a company that falls under the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, and think that it's a good standard. Let's face it, without some laws in place, most companies don't care squat about security. The law probably doesn't go far enough, but companies that don't do anything can now get screwed in lawsuits like these. That's a good thing.
The result of the law going into effect is pressure from up-on-high in the company to be in compliance with the law and gives justification to spend money on people and equipment/software/etc. Another company I worked at wouldn't even spend money for firewall software, because management dismissed IT's cost/benefit justification. If it didn't directly contribute to sales figures, it didn't happen. I'm glad I'm not there anymore.
Now, IT security is talked about at all levels, from IT all the way up through management. The question is asked and discussed "Is the sensitive information adaquately protected?". Having the GLBA as the hidden hammer, gives the question a lot of weight. And it's made a difference, with a lot more thought being put into it. Any planning does have project time and resources set aside specifically for security. There's actually time to audit and review existing equipment, and authorization to change any blatant findings.
Is it perfect? Well, no. More time and money could certainly be used. But the effort put into it certainly exceeds the bar that the GLBA provides. I do admire the company for that.
Danny
Now, the amount of old electronics that can be reused instead of trashed is amazing...LCD panels, mp3 player, interfaces between computers and motors and sensors, video and wireless transmissions. All for mostly dirt cheap. Tinkerers can always stay ahead of corporate development, and it's way more fun.
Danny
I just got my Fedex box this morning with my copy of Mac OS X "Tiger". Tiger Direct can sue all they want now...I'm NOT going to give it up.
Danny
I wholeheartedly agree. A combination of cfengine and cvs makes maintaining hordes of systems SO much easier. You can start thinking of a server in terms of +cvsserver +dnsserver +mailclient +kerberosclient and know that the right sets of configuration files will get on each machine. It is a steep learning curve to get it going. You'll have to pretty much lock yourself in the server room for a couple of days. But you'll gain the time back easily within a couple of months.
We use this in combination with OS autoinstallation scripts to deploy new servers really quickly. Autoinstall to get a base OS on. A few minutes to get hostname/IP right. Cfengine to blast the right packages and config files. Voila...working dns server, or web server, etc.
Danny
I've been watching the QCast forums since maybe Christmas. I've wanted it, but it doesn't have the performance to play decent resolutions yet. Most of what I want to watch is anime, usually encoded at 640x480. Sounds reasonable. But as of yet, the highest resolution video stream supported is 512x384. If they can get the resolution going, I'll likely buy and get rid of the really slow laptop sitting beside the playstation.
p c&s=250608123& f=898609356&m=943608
I'm copy below a posting from their forums.
---
http://forum.broadq.com/6/ubb.x?a=t
posted April 05, 2003 11:21 AM
SVCD's are 480x480. We're still optimizing the ff/rw update for speed (which is why it's not out to beta yet), but there's a good chance that the new update will provide enough of a performance increase that SVCD-resolution MPEG2 files will play correctly...
FWIW, 480x480 files are 15% higher resolution than 512x384 files... So we would need to pick up at least 15% additional performance with the update for all of these files to play smoothly.
-- [Eric. CTO, BroadQ, LLC.]
-----
Danny Rappleyea
We don't need to work on the spindle speed. They're working on data density instead. Think about it. The data density on these drives is 4 times that of an 80GB drive. So if the data transfer on the 80GB drive is X*7200rpm, the 320GB is 4X*5400rpm = 3 times the raw throughput.
Despite being a happy tivo owner, I'm still tempted. I like the thought of being able to record the mpeg stream directly to get the best possible image quality. And it can do one thing the tivo can't - record Dolby Digital sound.
Some features I'd like to see:
- ability to extract the mpeg streams
- record to dvd+rw
Danny
Screw wireless. I already have it and it's entirely too easy to get it bundled with other things (ala cable/dsl router).
What I want from my next cable box is a way to directly record the mpeg stream to either my tivo or the dvd+rw recorder I've been lusting after. Going from mpeg to analog s-video into the tivo to be re-mpeg encoded sucks. Not to mention that I can't record my favorite show (Jeremiah) in Dolby Digital.
When's this coming?
Danny
I actually paid for a license for PGP Desktop for home and still use it heavily for pgpdisk (the encrypted virtual disk software). I like the thought that even if someone hacks into my computers with my login, they still have some work to do to get the important files.
While it sucked to see NAI drop PGP, I made sure I pulled down the latest build before my license expired. I can still get another couple of years use out of it.
I would like to think that someone will eventually pick it up. It's entirely too useful to let it die. It be nice if it turned free, but I would still pay a reasonable amount of money to get a new enhanced version.
What we need is more context information. The computer needs to start understanding what we are saying. Something more than blind keyword searches.
We also need more in the way of information anywhere Where I can as my phone, my pda, my computer, my refrigerator 'what do I need to do now' or 'make sure I buy more beer' and have it do the right thing.
Danny
My first thought was: What does this mean for our Mars colony? Is this going to cause a massive ocean level increase, forcing a mass migration to Mars and sparking war between earth/mars and colonists/megacorporations? John Boone is NOT going to be pleased.
Why does the kernel go through stable and then unstable forks? Can't it always be an unstable build, like with Windows?
Does it matter at all if the source code is well documented and formatted, or some evil-looking obfuscated C code? That should sway whether it's speech or functional.
Awesome setup. I like :-)
Dan
This was a long way of saying a fundamental concept. Sharing ideas/information with others ultimately helps you.
The human race now has thousands of years of accumulated knowledge. From making a fire to making a computer. Somewhere we have all these little bits of information that (virtually) everyone has access to.
And because all of this information is shared, our lives have been much improved over living in caves and hunting and such.
Of course with all the intellectual property laws, sharing can be a bad thing too. Tell and idea - someone else uses it/patents it and makes millions. Ick.
But overall, sharing is a GOOD THING. That's the underlying reason Open Source works.
Danny