"Banishing coal electricity really is possible"
Sure it is if you are willing to ignore the consequences. The majority of electric power on the globe is generated by coal. Remove coal from the equation and at a minimum you are reducing global power production by 50%. Can you see the population of any country, especially the leading industrial countries, putting up with this? No power means no jobs.
Show me one fact that contradicts anything I said. I have worked in both Israel, Egypt, and Kuwait over the past 15 years and am entitled to my opinions based on direct observation.
The wealthy outsiders were already there. Or at least those who where able to escape from Europe or the ones who were forced out of all the Arab countries. Of course I don't think wealthy is the term I would use to describe them seeing as all their possessions were either stolen or destroyed. The state creating actions of the UN were SOP at the time. No doubt the British and UN passed the state creating declaration because they were counting on the Arabs to render the declaration null and void by killing anyone who pushed for the agreement. Unfortunately things didn't work out quite as planed. Arab's are the only ones on earth who get a free pass on racism and are immune from criticism so their delicate sensibilities are not offended. They demand respect from the world but the have never offered any in return. They also get a pass on initiating 3 outright and offensive attempts at genocide. Since they got their assess handed to them militarily they have spent the past 40 years repeating lies and practicing deceit in an attempt to re-write history. They shout their bigotry and genocidal goals without reservation on a daily basis. The Arabs have worked hard to earn the hate and disdain sent thier way. But since they always blame their problems on someone else I doubt the situation will ever improve.
I doubt many people have access to a SCADA system at home and anyone trying to compromise this type of system would have harder time getting hold of a SCADA test bed then they would getting access to any OS.
"American Freedom" is still a going concern. Your take on the US from Eastern Europe was probably so warped by the informational bias (both anti and pro) you would not recognize the country if you were to visit. People in the US are always pilloried as knowing nothing about the rest of the world but these same people are just as clueless about the real US. They tend to judge the US based on it's exported entertainment.
You are using your definition of "corruption" to validate your argument. What one man sees as normal another could see as corruption. The argument then devolves into determining what degree of corruption is necessary to support one sides arguments against the other. And there are already open forums, independent citizen groups, and the Freedom of Information Act. But the majority do not use these means when challenging government actions.
"We borrow more from China "
The US does not borrow money from China, China purchases US securities and bonds because it is a safe and stable investment. They currently hold only about 6% of all outstanding securities. If China was somehow trying destabilize the US they would lose all of the money they have invested.
Every country in the world spies on one another. It's SOP and has been so since countries were first recognized. What do you think the embassies are used for? Probably 70% of the embassy staffs report to their version of State Security. Diplomatic immunity is not for the ambassadors and political staff it is for protecting the spies who get caught.
What would help would be the ability to short stop our elected representatives when they obviously show a pattern of malfeasance or an inability or unwillingness to fulfill the promises they made to get elected. Why allow someone a full term if it becomes obvious they are doing a bad job and not honoring the promises they made when running for election. We need to put pressure on those elected to perform as advertised. Maybe with the possibility of losing their job mid-term hanging over their head they can focus a little more clearly on the issues at hand. This would also encourage more honesty when campaigning because they know if they don't at least try to honor their promises they can be booted out. They are no different than anyone else who gets fired because the are not satisfying their employer. In the private sector even contracts specifying a mandated length of employment have escape clauses. Our elected officials today do nothing but run for elections. They rarely commit themselves to any action or decision based unless the election polls look favorable. ie. If I do X I might not get re-elected but if I do Y or take no definitive stance my chances of being re-elected go up.
It's easier to find a smart or at least somewhat knowledgeable person then trying to find a smart or knowledgeable group. As the number of people in the group increases the IQ level decreases proportionally. Working for the greater good is overrated. You need people to actually define what the greater good actually consists of before you run off to support it.
I think Germany decided to fix their retirement system without wasting time re-defining the retirement age. They followed the "let's kill all the Jews, who everyone knows are filthy rich, and use their money and assets to fix the fatherland's pension plans". This method had the added benefit of reducing the number of Germans who would live long enough to retire.
The first well known virus to spread extensively in the wild was the Morris Worm. The virus used a buffer overrun exploit to infect the machine but the unchecked replication kicked in because of a rather simple mistake Morris made in his code.
Re:GET THE FUCK OFF MY LAWN.
on
IBM Turns 100
·
· Score: 1
When I said PC I should have said "personal computer".
Believe it or not but not everything needs to devolve into political idealology pissing matches. The rise of the right causing the decline of the US science is a political slogan not a fact. Both the left and the right have their heads up their asses when it comes to anything these days let alone science. Judging by your comments you sound like one of those idealogy blinded neophytes who do nothing but moan about the future and get in the way of people trying to actually live a life instead of just endlessly complaining about it and then blaming others for your problems. There is no doubt that there are instances where budgets get smaller due to swings in the economy but it is usually cyclical in nature and doesn't warrant a blanket denounciation of the whole idea. For thing like the particle accelerators and observational arrays someone is footing the bill without looking to make a return an investment. I mean particle accelerators are nice big toys but they don't really contribute anything yet except for proving or disproving someones idea on how the universe is built but someone got the funding. They probably played the left and right against one another using the God particle as the reason they needed the money. The right was hoping they would find the god particle and the left was hoping they didn't and they got funding from both sides. If you want a Pure or Big Science discussion I am afraid your going to have to be a little more specific. Science and technology levels are usually advanced by necessity.
The military industrial complex is the most well funded part of the government. I don't know if they have discovered any ground breaking scientific principle lately but they have sure been applying the ones we have. Just a few things the military has contributed to science and technology over the years: nuclear technology for both weapons and power, computing technology on several levels including the little Darpa project now known as the Internet. Orbital satellite applications for real life uses like GPS based guidance and navigation systems, all types of applied electomagnetic spectrum manipulation. Material science used in the stealth projects. The companies providing all of this are for the most part private and public corporations contracted to the governments military and with most of the scientists invloved in this type of work educated and doing their research in this country. To the military "disruptive tech" just means anything more than 5 years old. Also for every successful project or technology application there were probably several different attempts made at solving the same problems which fed research groups the funding to meet the demands.
Re:IBM = Innovator? Not in my lifetime.
on
IBM Turns 100
·
· Score: 1
When the PC first came out it was an IBM. IBM was the sole supplier of "PC's" until commodity hardware companies started getting in the act. This was also when MS slipped through a hole in their agreement with IBM and took over exclusive distributing rights for the OS deployed on commodity hardware. IBM did make the mistake of not taking the PC platform seriously at the beginning and placed their bets on the mid-range and large scale mainframes.
What do consider Big Science? Getting a better picture of the universe can be a good thing but it doesn't really contribute much to day to day life but people are still funding, building, operating, and sharing observatories, particle accelerators, solar test farms, and other large scale research level projects for pure academic and scientific study. I think it is amazing that there are still people who fund these types of programs without ever expecting a return on their investments in their life time. In today's dog eat dog world these types of people are getting harder to find. To me Big Science today should concentrate on alternative energy science and bio-medical research. Big Science applies to the military who have been pushing the limit of technology forward for the last 2000 years. While the general public makes do with incremental advancements in computer technology focused on generating more sales the military often jumps ahead with radical new methods and technology without needing to worry about backwards capadibility concerns and often not needing to worry about funding from our generous and duplitious politicians. While normal people are debating the finer points of game controllers and cpu architecture the military is using holographic heads up targeting technology to aim and fire missles just by blinking your eyes while flying at mach 2 and simulataneous monitoring up to 100 potential threats in the air and on the ground in real time.
I missed nothing sport. You think these posers today will be treated any differently then Mitnik if caught? If anything it will be worse. The department of HomeLand Security will see to that. And an attack is an attack. Whether for fun or profit the people executing these attacks to "piss off people" will be surprised at the draconian penalties thrown their way if caught. I am not saying it is fair but when has fairness ever mattered? People will pitch a fit and rage about the injustice of it all and we will finally start getting some entertainment value out of the whole episode.
ADP like any other big coporation has grown through global acquisitions of smaller companies that provide the same type of services and they inherit a wide range of applications and data that must be consolidated. It takes time to do this and some people will need to keep using the old systems until it can be integrated with the rest of the systems. New or exisiting customers do not have this problem. ADP also relies heavily on Salesforce integration which takes some decision making power away from the internal IT group. Some corporate payroll systems also have their own requirements and limitations on how their internal systems interface with a 3rd party which can create a whole other set of problems.
MSIE is still the recommended browser although a lot of the internet applications are also tested against FF, Chrome, and Safari. And ActiveX controls have been removed from the equation as the applications have matured over the years. There might be a old application out there some where using ActiveX but I have not seen any in the applications coming from corporate IT.
The government or law enforcement agencies do not necessarily need to track the source of these attacks by scouring the internet looking for any footprints left behind. They are more likely to recruit someone to infiltrate groups like these and gather information from the people participating in the attacks. The enforcement agencies can set up the agent to pull off a noteworthy infiltration to get peoples attention and work from there. The most useful intelligence today is still culled from people rather than technological sources. Even most of the malware attacks today rely on social engineering and user actions to initiate the attack process.
"Why would that be helpful? It would give them a chance to pull their pants up and not be exposed to the world, which is the entire point?"
Outing them does more harm to the users than it does to the company. Shaming would be an valid option if the company was warned of a vulnerability and did not fix the problem in a timely manner.
"You have to publicly shame these companies due if the company was informed of the vulnerability and firms into taking security seriously"
How do you know the are not taken security seriously? No matter what level of security you put in place there are still potential vulnerabilities. There is no online site that is 100% secure or free from vulnerabilities..
If they notified the victim of the security lapses before they went public it would be helpful. And if these guys get caught they will be treated as criminals.
Slashdot Mirror
"Banishing coal electricity really is possible" Sure it is if you are willing to ignore the consequences. The majority of electric power on the globe is generated by coal. Remove coal from the equation and at a minimum you are reducing global power production by 50%. Can you see the population of any country, especially the leading industrial countries, putting up with this? No power means no jobs.
Show me one fact that contradicts anything I said. I have worked in both Israel, Egypt, and Kuwait over the past 15 years and am entitled to my opinions based on direct observation.
The wealthy outsiders were already there. Or at least those who where able to escape from Europe or the ones who were forced out of all the Arab countries. Of course I don't think wealthy is the term I would use to describe them seeing as all their possessions were either stolen or destroyed. The state creating actions of the UN were SOP at the time. No doubt the British and UN passed the state creating declaration because they were counting on the Arabs to render the declaration null and void by killing anyone who pushed for the agreement. Unfortunately things didn't work out quite as planed. Arab's are the only ones on earth who get a free pass on racism and are immune from criticism so their delicate sensibilities are not offended. They demand respect from the world but the have never offered any in return. They also get a pass on initiating 3 outright and offensive attempts at genocide. Since they got their assess handed to them militarily they have spent the past 40 years repeating lies and practicing deceit in an attempt to re-write history. They shout their bigotry and genocidal goals without reservation on a daily basis. The Arabs have worked hard to earn the hate and disdain sent thier way. But since they always blame their problems on someone else I doubt the situation will ever improve.
I doubt many people have access to a SCADA system at home and anyone trying to compromise this type of system would have harder time getting hold of a SCADA test bed then they would getting access to any OS.
People will use any exaggeration and false accusations when criticising the US about anything because it helps them believe they are better.
"American Freedom" is still a going concern. Your take on the US from Eastern Europe was probably so warped by the informational bias (both anti and pro) you would not recognize the country if you were to visit. People in the US are always pilloried as knowing nothing about the rest of the world but these same people are just as clueless about the real US. They tend to judge the US based on it's exported entertainment.
You are using your definition of "corruption" to validate your argument. What one man sees as normal another could see as corruption. The argument then devolves into determining what degree of corruption is necessary to support one sides arguments against the other. And there are already open forums, independent citizen groups, and the Freedom of Information Act. But the majority do not use these means when challenging government actions.
"We borrow more from China " The US does not borrow money from China, China purchases US securities and bonds because it is a safe and stable investment. They currently hold only about 6% of all outstanding securities. If China was somehow trying destabilize the US they would lose all of the money they have invested.
"Do not run Windows on control systems." OK, What OS has no vulnerabilities open to attack?
Every country in the world spies on one another. It's SOP and has been so since countries were first recognized. What do you think the embassies are used for? Probably 70% of the embassy staffs report to their version of State Security. Diplomatic immunity is not for the ambassadors and political staff it is for protecting the spies who get caught.
What would help would be the ability to short stop our elected representatives when they obviously show a pattern of malfeasance or an inability or unwillingness to fulfill the promises they made to get elected. Why allow someone a full term if it becomes obvious they are doing a bad job and not honoring the promises they made when running for election. We need to put pressure on those elected to perform as advertised. Maybe with the possibility of losing their job mid-term hanging over their head they can focus a little more clearly on the issues at hand. This would also encourage more honesty when campaigning because they know if they don't at least try to honor their promises they can be booted out. They are no different than anyone else who gets fired because the are not satisfying their employer. In the private sector even contracts specifying a mandated length of employment have escape clauses. Our elected officials today do nothing but run for elections. They rarely commit themselves to any action or decision based unless the election polls look favorable. ie. If I do X I might not get re-elected but if I do Y or take no definitive stance my chances of being re-elected go up.
It's easier to find a smart or at least somewhat knowledgeable person then trying to find a smart or knowledgeable group. As the number of people in the group increases the IQ level decreases proportionally. Working for the greater good is overrated. You need people to actually define what the greater good actually consists of before you run off to support it.
I think Germany decided to fix their retirement system without wasting time re-defining the retirement age. They followed the "let's kill all the Jews, who everyone knows are filthy rich, and use their money and assets to fix the fatherland's pension plans". This method had the added benefit of reducing the number of Germans who would live long enough to retire.
The Chinese government figured out a clever way to collect information on all the potential trouble makers.
The first well known virus to spread extensively in the wild was the Morris Worm. The virus used a buffer overrun exploit to infect the machine but the unchecked replication kicked in because of a rather simple mistake Morris made in his code.
When I said PC I should have said "personal computer".
Believe it or not but not everything needs to devolve into political idealology pissing matches. The rise of the right causing the decline of the US science is a political slogan not a fact. Both the left and the right have their heads up their asses when it comes to anything these days let alone science. Judging by your comments you sound like one of those idealogy blinded neophytes who do nothing but moan about the future and get in the way of people trying to actually live a life instead of just endlessly complaining about it and then blaming others for your problems. There is no doubt that there are instances where budgets get smaller due to swings in the economy but it is usually cyclical in nature and doesn't warrant a blanket denounciation of the whole idea. For thing like the particle accelerators and observational arrays someone is footing the bill without looking to make a return an investment. I mean particle accelerators are nice big toys but they don't really contribute anything yet except for proving or disproving someones idea on how the universe is built but someone got the funding. They probably played the left and right against one another using the God particle as the reason they needed the money. The right was hoping they would find the god particle and the left was hoping they didn't and they got funding from both sides. If you want a Pure or Big Science discussion I am afraid your going to have to be a little more specific. Science and technology levels are usually advanced by necessity. The military industrial complex is the most well funded part of the government. I don't know if they have discovered any ground breaking scientific principle lately but they have sure been applying the ones we have. Just a few things the military has contributed to science and technology over the years: nuclear technology for both weapons and power, computing technology on several levels including the little Darpa project now known as the Internet. Orbital satellite applications for real life uses like GPS based guidance and navigation systems, all types of applied electomagnetic spectrum manipulation. Material science used in the stealth projects. The companies providing all of this are for the most part private and public corporations contracted to the governments military and with most of the scientists invloved in this type of work educated and doing their research in this country. To the military "disruptive tech" just means anything more than 5 years old. Also for every successful project or technology application there were probably several different attempts made at solving the same problems which fed research groups the funding to meet the demands.
When the PC first came out it was an IBM. IBM was the sole supplier of "PC's" until commodity hardware companies started getting in the act. This was also when MS slipped through a hole in their agreement with IBM and took over exclusive distributing rights for the OS deployed on commodity hardware. IBM did make the mistake of not taking the PC platform seriously at the beginning and placed their bets on the mid-range and large scale mainframes.
What do consider Big Science? Getting a better picture of the universe can be a good thing but it doesn't really contribute much to day to day life but people are still funding, building, operating, and sharing observatories, particle accelerators, solar test farms, and other large scale research level projects for pure academic and scientific study. I think it is amazing that there are still people who fund these types of programs without ever expecting a return on their investments in their life time. In today's dog eat dog world these types of people are getting harder to find. To me Big Science today should concentrate on alternative energy science and bio-medical research. Big Science applies to the military who have been pushing the limit of technology forward for the last 2000 years. While the general public makes do with incremental advancements in computer technology focused on generating more sales the military often jumps ahead with radical new methods and technology without needing to worry about backwards capadibility concerns and often not needing to worry about funding from our generous and duplitious politicians. While normal people are debating the finer points of game controllers and cpu architecture the military is using holographic heads up targeting technology to aim and fire missles just by blinking your eyes while flying at mach 2 and simulataneous monitoring up to 100 potential threats in the air and on the ground in real time.
I missed nothing sport. You think these posers today will be treated any differently then Mitnik if caught? If anything it will be worse. The department of HomeLand Security will see to that. And an attack is an attack. Whether for fun or profit the people executing these attacks to "piss off people" will be surprised at the draconian penalties thrown their way if caught. I am not saying it is fair but when has fairness ever mattered? People will pitch a fit and rage about the injustice of it all and we will finally start getting some entertainment value out of the whole episode.
ADP like any other big coporation has grown through global acquisitions of smaller companies that provide the same type of services and they inherit a wide range of applications and data that must be consolidated. It takes time to do this and some people will need to keep using the old systems until it can be integrated with the rest of the systems. New or exisiting customers do not have this problem. ADP also relies heavily on Salesforce integration which takes some decision making power away from the internal IT group. Some corporate payroll systems also have their own requirements and limitations on how their internal systems interface with a 3rd party which can create a whole other set of problems.
MSIE is still the recommended browser although a lot of the internet applications are also tested against FF, Chrome, and Safari. And ActiveX controls have been removed from the equation as the applications have matured over the years. There might be a old application out there some where using ActiveX but I have not seen any in the applications coming from corporate IT.
The government or law enforcement agencies do not necessarily need to track the source of these attacks by scouring the internet looking for any footprints left behind. They are more likely to recruit someone to infiltrate groups like these and gather information from the people participating in the attacks. The enforcement agencies can set up the agent to pull off a noteworthy infiltration to get peoples attention and work from there. The most useful intelligence today is still culled from people rather than technological sources. Even most of the malware attacks today rely on social engineering and user actions to initiate the attack process.
"Why would that be helpful? It would give them a chance to pull their pants up and not be exposed to the world, which is the entire point?" Outing them does more harm to the users than it does to the company. Shaming would be an valid option if the company was warned of a vulnerability and did not fix the problem in a timely manner. "You have to publicly shame these companies due if the company was informed of the vulnerability and firms into taking security seriously" How do you know the are not taken security seriously? No matter what level of security you put in place there are still potential vulnerabilities. There is no online site that is 100% secure or free from vulnerabilities..
If they notified the victim of the security lapses before they went public it would be helpful. And if these guys get caught they will be treated as criminals.