Supporting iPhone (or iPad for that matter) for corporate email might be difficult -I do not believe that there are Notes or Outlook mail apps for these devices (although the new outlook webmail is pretty decent)
The other problem I have heard in the past is the lack of ability to provision the phones and apps in bulk instead of having to setup 100 different iTunes account for 100 devices -this is one of the things that probably gives IT departments (and procurement) nightmares.
For some reason IT folks think that all us iPhone toting folks are demanding that they support my iPhone. I don't expect you to support it, and most others don't either. At a basic level, I expect my IT department to not *actively* disallow use of such technology, which is what I see all the time, departments who see no middle ground between "100% supported" and "not on my network ever". It'd be nice if you could spend a few minutes helping me to figure out how to make my email work on the thing, fixing any server related issues in the process. I don't expect you do this for every crazy piece of hardware out there, but it would nice if you could be *helpful* as I try to figure it out myself.
I hate to break it to you, but whenever you allow something on your network, users will, from that moment on assume that you take full responsibility for their equipment. I've seen it many times. It happens on my network on a regular basis. Even if you don't demand supportability for *all* devices, company owned or not, from your IT people, a large contingent of users do just that. At most companies, as soon as IT says, "okay, you can use 'X'" IT is forever responsible for making it work. period.
Then your exchange servers are broken or your IT shop is clueless. iOS uses ActiveSync, which is designed to connected to Exchange servers (it's licensed from Microsoft). Of any Microsoft products, this has to be one of the easiest to configure and maintain that I've seen and that's saying a lot.
It's also completely worthless from a security standpoint. No encryption. You have to expose parts of your Exchange infrastructure to the Internet as well (Yes, you need to do that to do OWA over the Internet also). Since good security practices teach us that if you expose a system to the Internet, *eventually* you will get hacked.
Good For Exchange (GFE) at least provides on-board encryption for email/calendar/contacts, unlike ActiveSync. And you don't need to expose your servers to the Internet to provide services. Then again, GFE is crappy software.
Anyway, if you think ActiveSync is a viable solution then your corporate environment is either unconcerned or unaware of the serious security issues posed by it. Hmm...does that mean your IT people are clueless?
1. Record all your passwords
2. Place them in an envelope.
3. Place the envelope in a spaceworthy, superluminal-drive equipped vessel.
4. Send the vessel close to the event horizon of a black hole
5. Contract with an organization to send a message (via superluminal communications) to the vessel upon your death, ordering it to enter the black hole
6. Give your relatives/interested parties the location of the black hole
7. Have your relatives analyze the Hawking radiation from the black hole to recover the passwords
8. Profit!
Please see my follow up message. I clarify the point I was trying to make there. And yes, I did read all three definitions but decided to include that one to make my point.. Note that the OP only included definition 1..
Just to clarify my point. I didn't mean to say that shutting down the website *actually* preserved the integrity of the French Police. I meant to say that, in this case, it's fairly clear that the meaning of integrity was more in line with:
the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished:
rather than:
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
As to whether or not the court decision was correct, it appears that there was more than just video of cops doing nasty and illegal things. Whether that more was actually acceptable grounds for limiting speech, I don't know. I don't have all the facts. I know that's never stopped anyone on here, but I'm going to play this one a little conservatively.
Jean-Claude Delage, secretary general of the APN, said that '[t]he judges have analyzed the situation perfectly—this site being a threat to the integrity of the police — and made the right decision.'
integrity/integrit/
Noun: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
It seems that they have a bit of a problem with their English. A site that shines light onto questionable behaviors promotes integrity, as you should be acting in private in such a way that you can defend your actions if they were to ever become public. It's an intrinsic quality. This is only a threat in newspeak, or if you think perception is reality.
I guess that statement might make sense if he were talking about the cohesion of the police, but that would imply far greater dissent within their ranks concerning what behaviors have been revealed...
You are the one with the poor grasp of English. From the dictionary:
integrity [in-teg-ri-tee] Show IPA
noun
2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.
You're right. I know very little about collecting sales taxes. However, assuming that every point you've made is valid, my point (in case you forgot: "It *should* be easier now than it was 15 years ago.") hasn't been refuted by anything you wrote.
You mention the complexity. That complexity was there 15 years ago. You mention that software to do this exists today. Software existed for this purpose 15 years ago. One would hope that it's improved over the years. I know that underlying technologies have improved significantly over that period.
You called me ignorant and told me (essentially) to shut up. Perhaps I am ignorant, but you haven't refuted my main point. Did you just miss it because you were so hot to insult me?
In any case, I will continue to express myself. Please feel free to ignore me. I certainly don't mind. I won't tell you to shut up because I think you're an obnoxious jerk. Please continue to spew bile. I'd only request that if you're going to tell me I'm wrong, provide some details as to *why* I'm wrong -- not just re-stating the issues associated with the discussion and calling me ignorant.
I have no clue as to the exact number of tax laws on the books in 1996 vs 2011. I'm not your secretary. You google for it since you seem to care. I'd venture a guess that the number of taxing authorities in the US hasn't increased very much. I'd also hazard a guess that even if the number of tax laws has increased significantly, only a small percentage are new *sales* taxes implemented by existing or new taxing authorities. I do know that TCO per gigaflop is orders of magnitude cheaper than 15 years ago. I do know that data management and analysis tools are much better than 15 years ago.
So tell me, are you just being a dick because it's/. or do you actually have a point to make?
If we take your argument to its logical conclusion, then anyone who *ever* uses their DVR to skip commercials is depriving advertisers of potential revenue (assuming this behavior is reflected in the ratings (Nielsen here in the US) agencies reports of how many people watch a given television show.
Does that mean that anyone who skips commercials is a thief, since the implied agreement between a broadcaster and their product (that'd be you, btw) is that you get to watch for free in exchange for viewing advertisements? I'd love to see that one litigated.
Probably much less than having every state demand tax be paid to them at different rates for direct deliveries. If it was worse than that they wouldn't be lobbying for it.
Back int the '90s I worked for a clothing retailer with physical stores in at least 20 states. They also had an online division selling their clothes. While it wasn't exactly simple, they had software that would compute the appropriate sales tax for the localities where their physical store were located, both in the store (so the customer can pay the tax at purchase time) and in the back office.(to compute the tax amounts to be remitted to specific localities/states).
IIRC the law was (this has changed in some states now) that local (based on delivery address) sales tax *must* be collected for online purchases in states/localities where the vendor [paraphrasing] "has a substantial physical presence." The company would also charge sales tax for online purchases where required (in states/localities where they had physical stores). This was handled with the same tools that computed sales tax for their physical locations.
This is still true in New York, where I am charged sales tax (8.625% in NYC) if I purchase something from an online retailer (e.g., Best Buy, Macy's, etc.) that has a physical presence in my community.
This wasn't a big deal to do 15 years ago, so I think it's not the complexity that is at issue for Amazon. I wonder what their angle is? My guess is getting that two year tax holiday in TN as referenced in TNSFA.
Let's stop kidding ourselves here. If the Federal government tried to implement a national sales tax, the states *might* (if promised a share of the proceeds) reduce their sales taxes, but the consumer will likely then have to pay both national and state sales taxes. So IMHO, a national sales tax is anti-consumer *and* bad for business.
That's not quite the way I remember it. Instead, I remember the Tea Party having some valid complaints, but then they were quickly co-opted by some greedy politicians like Palin and Bachmann. The Tea Partiers were so dumb and gullible that when these politicians said "we're one of you!" they believed it and adopted them as their spokespeople. After this, the TPers' reputations were ruined.
And don't forget the Koch brothers. They were major contributor to TP candidates.
I just wish we could get back to the original definition of "Tea Bagger"
Thanks for your thoughtful post Gorzek. I am, in fact, aware of *why* companies do this sort of thing. I spent many years as a consultant and many companies for which I consulted did background checks, drug testing, extreme reference checking (ever have your grade school called to make sure you actually attended?), etc.
On the whole,. I don't have an issue with this. As you correctly pointed out, companies need to attempt to make sure that you're not going to be a liability to the organization. My point is that I don't like the idea of some HR lackey snooping around in my personal life -- and I'm not talking about whether or not I can pass a drug test or find three people to say something nice about me. Nor am I concerned about criminal background checks.
I don't have (m)any skeletons in my closet, not that it's any of your (or anyone else's for that matter) business. I don't need a job that badly that I need to put my social (networking) life up for judgement by a potential employer. I'm a professional you see. And that means that when I'm on the job, I'm doing my damnedest to make my employer successful. I have a long and proven track record of doing just that. If that's not enough, then I don't want to work for you.
You see how simple that is? I want to work for a company that has similar values to my own. I've always believed that while it may not be necessary to bet your job on the work that you do, you should be willing to do so. As I said before, if that's not enough, then I don't want to work for you.
That said, I don't necessarily fault companies for doing this sort of thing. In some ways it's an IQ test. Just like a drug test, if you know it's coming and you can't clean up before the test, then maybe there's some sort of problem. In my case, my SN profile(s) are locked down. Not because I feel I have to hide my life, but because I value my privacy.
We all have needs. Both employers and employees. I'm focused on my needs. One of which is privacy. I'm not really interested in the needs of corporations. That may sound selfish, but those corporations aren't concerned about my needs either.:)
I don't really quite know where to step in on this argument. I personally think that companies that do these sort of background checks are taking the wrong approach to human resource management, but I also can't really stand up for someone that posts utter dribble online then whines about not getting that professional job they want because they aren't professional. [snip]
[Emphasis Added]
Here's where I have an issue. Why is it my employer's concern what I do when I'm not working? I can see criminal background checks, verification of employment and references and even (although it sticks in my craw) drug testing. The first two are okay because people lie and these areas may impact job performance and/or other employees. The third also may impact job performance, but is really not anyone's business (that being said, if you can't stop long enough to pass an employment drug test that you've been warned about, you may well have a drug problem).
What difference does it make to your job performance it we don't act, as you say, "professionally" in our leisure time? I don't work 24x7 and when I'm not working, I do decidedly non-professional things. What they are and who I do them with is nobody's damn business but mine and those with whom I'm doing those things. My employer is my employer and pays me to perform services for them. When I'm not performing services for them (i.e., not paying me), they have no say as to what I do or don't do.
Any employer who wants to check my SN profile(s) is in for a rude shock. Unless you're my SN "friend" you don't see anything. Period. Beyond that, if a prospective employer attempted to access my SN profile(s) or paid someone else to do so and I find out about it, they will need to find someone else to fill that vacancy. Not because I have anything to hide especially, but if an employer thinks that's their purview then it's a strong sign that I don't want to work for such people.
Work/Life balance is more than just making sure you're home to tuck the munchkins in at night.
Re:Not just no encryption -- also logging EVERYTHI
on
Pakistan Bans Encryption
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Based on my reading of the law (thanks for posting the link to the PDF, AC), you can still encrypt traffic (think banks, online retailers, etc.) as long those who employ it add additional network links to the Pakistani government, pass all traffic to the government and provide them with the appropriate keys. Said additional links and any supporting hardware and/or software to be implemented at the TLS/SSL users' expense.
AFAICT, The 120 days that the OP refers to isn't how long they have to keep the data, it's how long ISPs have to implement the environment.
America is a strange country. On one hand it used to have a really developed science and technology, but on the other hand a large segment of the population always shared a deeply anti-intellectual bias. These people have deep mistrust for abstraction and allegories. Only in such poisonous atmosphere of anti-intellectual backlash literalist interpretation of the Bible could develop, these literal interpretations gave then something concrete and immutable to hold on to.
This is nothing new. People will believe almost anything and in the US this is taken to the extreme. As long as it's presented as "religious" teaching (think Scientology, Fundamentalist *anything*, etc.), some folks will, naively and bone-headedly (ooh! I think I coined a new adverb:) ), believe it. This says it quite succinctly: The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious
seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the
unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more
bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together.
-- Sir Peter Medawar
My only problem with that (comparatively enlightened) attitude is that you can take pretty much any message you feel like out of the bible, depending on which places you put the emphasis.
And that's the problem with most religions. If you base a belief system on demonstrably false tenets, then you have no basis for verifying the validity of *any* interpretations, literal or otherwise.
That said, I have no issue with those who hold to such belief systems -- I just don't like fanatics. "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -Winston Churchill [emphasis added]
...Some days I think those who don't care about their privacy are ahead of those of us that do. Privacy is dead, and they are not wasting effort fighting the tide.
This, IMHO, is the party line that our corporate overlords want us to take. We don't need to do so and I, for one, refuse to bow down to the scumbags who want inside my underwear.
The power comes through the basement and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the transfer switches that switch to generator power are down there as well. A bunch of London banks found out that this is a common mistake when the Thames flooded last year.
[Emphasis Added]
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I can't speak to the locations of specific equipment at every location in Manhattan. However, having done consulting and full-time work for a surprising (at least it was to me when I counted them all up) number of Fortune 100 companies, I can tell you that the financial sector is well prepared for almost any eventuality.
In fact, at one firm their primary data center was (and still is, I'm sure) located in the desert of the southwest (as several posters pointed out, it's a pretty good place to avoid natural disasters). The data center looks just like all the other buildings in the office park where it lives. However, unlike the other buildings, The outer walls are feet-thick steel reinforced concrete and access is strictly controlled. It's weatherproof and mostly bombproof. Power comes from multiple mains and generators can provide (as long as they have fuel) power almost indefinitely. Other firms' data centers/hot sites may not be quite so hardened, but they have plenty of equipment and geographic diversity. This makes weather (however severe) in one region a temporary inconvenience rather than a disaster. Too much money is at stake to take any chances with their businesses.
Other, smaller companies for whom milliseconds aren't quite so important have hot, warm and even cold sites in geographically diverse locations which might cause significant disruption if a switch-over is required, but only for as long as it takes to get the DR site into production.
None of this stuff is new and emergency procedures have been further refined since we had a few problems here in NYC about ten years ago. You might have heard about that.
Except all the financial computer systems that rely on power and other utilities that are housed in the basements of the buildings which could get swamped by the storm surge. I know a lot of that stuff has moved to Jersey, but I'm not sure how vulnerable that area is to storm surge.
Except that they're not in basements. They're in raised-floor rooms on (relatively) high floors of 40-50 story buildings. There may well be communications infrastructure in the basement, the systems and storage are all in climate-controlled, UPS'd raised floor environments. If those were to fail, there are hot and warm backup sites in NJ, PA and elsewhere.
As someone who lived through Agnes and Gloria, I can tell you that Manhattan and the Bronx are likely pretty safe. Long Island (the island, not Nassau and Suffolk counties) are a different story.
Slashdot Mirror
Supporting iPhone (or iPad for that matter) for corporate email might be difficult -I do not believe that there are Notes or Outlook mail apps for these devices (although the new outlook webmail is pretty decent) The other problem I have heard in the past is the lack of ability to provision the phones and apps in bulk instead of having to setup 100 different iTunes account for 100 devices -this is one of the things that probably gives IT departments (and procurement) nightmares.
cf. Good Technologies
just sayin'
For some reason IT folks think that all us iPhone toting folks are demanding that they support my iPhone. I don't expect you to support it, and most others don't either. At a basic level, I expect my IT department to not *actively* disallow use of such technology, which is what I see all the time, departments who see no middle ground between "100% supported" and "not on my network ever". It'd be nice if you could spend a few minutes helping me to figure out how to make my email work on the thing, fixing any server related issues in the process. I don't expect you do this for every crazy piece of hardware out there, but it would nice if you could be *helpful* as I try to figure it out myself.
I hate to break it to you, but whenever you allow something on your network, users will, from that moment on assume that you take full responsibility for their equipment. I've seen it many times. It happens on my network on a regular basis. Even if you don't demand supportability for *all* devices, company owned or not, from your IT people, a large contingent of users do just that. At most companies, as soon as IT says, "okay, you can use 'X'" IT is forever responsible for making it work. period.
Then your exchange servers are broken or your IT shop is clueless. iOS uses ActiveSync, which is designed to connected to Exchange servers (it's licensed from Microsoft). Of any Microsoft products, this has to be one of the easiest to configure and maintain that I've seen and that's saying a lot.
It's also completely worthless from a security standpoint. No encryption. You have to expose parts of your Exchange infrastructure to the Internet as well (Yes, you need to do that to do OWA over the Internet also). Since good security practices teach us that if you expose a system to the Internet, *eventually* you will get hacked.
Good For Exchange (GFE) at least provides on-board encryption for email/calendar/contacts, unlike ActiveSync. And you don't need to expose your servers to the Internet to provide services. Then again, GFE is crappy software.
Anyway, if you think ActiveSync is a viable solution then your corporate environment is either unconcerned or unaware of the serious security issues posed by it. Hmm...does that mean your IT people are clueless?
1. Record all your passwords
2. Place them in an envelope.
3. Place the envelope in a spaceworthy, superluminal-drive equipped vessel.
4. Send the vessel close to the event horizon of a black hole
5. Contract with an organization to send a message (via superluminal communications) to the vessel upon your death, ordering it to enter the black hole
6. Give your relatives/interested parties the location of the black hole
7. Have your relatives analyze the Hawking radiation from the black hole to recover the passwords
8. Profit!
Please see my follow up message. I clarify the point I was trying to make there. And yes, I did read all three definitions but decided to include that one to make my point.. Note that the OP only included definition 1..
Just to clarify my point. I didn't mean to say that shutting down the website *actually* preserved the integrity of the French Police. I meant to say that, in this case, it's fairly clear that the meaning of integrity was more in line with:
the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished:
rather than:
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
As to whether or not the court decision was correct, it appears that there was more than just video of cops doing nasty and illegal things. Whether that more was actually acceptable grounds for limiting speech, I don't know. I don't have all the facts. I know that's never stopped anyone on here, but I'm going to play this one a little conservatively.
Have a nice day
Jean-Claude Delage, secretary general of the APN, said that '[t]he judges have analyzed the situation perfectly—this site being a threat to the integrity of the police — and made the right decision.'
integrity /integrit/
Noun: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
It seems that they have a bit of a problem with their English. A site that shines light onto questionable behaviors promotes integrity, as you should be acting in private in such a way that you can defend your actions if they were to ever become public. It's an intrinsic quality. This is only a threat in newspeak, or if you think perception is reality. I guess that statement might make sense if he were talking about the cohesion of the police, but that would imply far greater dissent within their ranks concerning what behaviors have been revealed...
You are the one with the poor grasp of English. From the dictionary:
integrity [in-teg-ri-tee] Show IPA
noun
2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.
If you don't have it, get it!
Mind you it is a little embarrassing to get caught ripping off Steve Martin.
Not so. "Shithead! Come here Shithead!" That's actually relevant here :) :) :)>/p>
... and in Zuccotti park it's "shit man I ran out of weed"
Thank you Freewheelin' Franklin!
I betcha the 1% never thought of this!
You're right. I know very little about collecting sales taxes. However, assuming that every point you've made is valid, my point (in case you forgot: "It *should* be easier now than it was 15 years ago.") hasn't been refuted by anything you wrote.
You mention the complexity. That complexity was there 15 years ago. You mention that software to do this exists today. Software existed for this purpose 15 years ago. One would hope that it's improved over the years. I know that underlying technologies have improved significantly over that period.
You called me ignorant and told me (essentially) to shut up. Perhaps I am ignorant, but you haven't refuted my main point. Did you just miss it because you were so hot to insult me?
In any case, I will continue to express myself. Please feel free to ignore me. I certainly don't mind. I won't tell you to shut up because I think you're an obnoxious jerk. Please continue to spew bile. I'd only request that if you're going to tell me I'm wrong, provide some details as to *why* I'm wrong -- not just re-stating the issues associated with the discussion and calling me ignorant.
Have a nice day!
I have no clue as to the exact number of tax laws on the books in 1996 vs 2011. I'm not your secretary. You google for it since you seem to care. I'd venture a guess that the number of taxing authorities in the US hasn't increased very much. I'd also hazard a guess that even if the number of tax laws has increased significantly, only a small percentage are new *sales* taxes implemented by existing or new taxing authorities. I do know that TCO per gigaflop is orders of magnitude cheaper than 15 years ago. I do know that data management and analysis tools are much better than 15 years ago.
So tell me, are you just being a dick because it's /. or do you actually have a point to make?
I didn't say it was easy. I did also mention that this retailer also had an online division which collected sales taxes where required.
My point was that if it was doable 15 years ago, it should be easier to do so now.
If we take your argument to its logical conclusion, then anyone who *ever* uses their DVR to skip commercials is depriving advertisers of potential revenue (assuming this behavior is reflected in the ratings (Nielsen here in the US) agencies reports of how many people watch a given television show.
Does that mean that anyone who skips commercials is a thief, since the implied agreement between a broadcaster and their product (that'd be you, btw) is that you get to watch for free in exchange for viewing advertisements? I'd love to see that one litigated.
No doubt it would negatively affect Amazon
Probably much less than having every state demand tax be paid to them at different rates for direct deliveries. If it was worse than that they wouldn't be lobbying for it.
Back int the '90s I worked for a clothing retailer with physical stores in at least 20 states. They also had an online division selling their clothes. While it wasn't exactly simple, they had software that would compute the appropriate sales tax for the localities where their physical store were located, both in the store (so the customer can pay the tax at purchase time) and in the back office.(to compute the tax amounts to be remitted to specific localities/states).
IIRC the law was (this has changed in some states now) that local (based on delivery address) sales tax *must* be collected for online purchases in states/localities where the vendor [paraphrasing] "has a substantial physical presence." The company would also charge sales tax for online purchases where required (in states/localities where they had physical stores). This was handled with the same tools that computed sales tax for their physical locations.
This is still true in New York, where I am charged sales tax (8.625% in NYC) if I purchase something from an online retailer (e.g., Best Buy, Macy's, etc.) that has a physical presence in my community.
This wasn't a big deal to do 15 years ago, so I think it's not the complexity that is at issue for Amazon. I wonder what their angle is? My guess is getting that two year tax holiday in TN as referenced in TNSFA.
Let's stop kidding ourselves here. If the Federal government tried to implement a national sales tax, the states *might* (if promised a share of the proceeds) reduce their sales taxes, but the consumer will likely then have to pay both national and state sales taxes. So IMHO, a national sales tax is anti-consumer *and* bad for business.
That's not quite the way I remember it. Instead, I remember the Tea Party having some valid complaints, but then they were quickly co-opted by some greedy politicians like Palin and Bachmann. The Tea Partiers were so dumb and gullible that when these politicians said "we're one of you!" they believed it and adopted them as their spokespeople. After this, the TPers' reputations were ruined.
And don't forget the Koch brothers. They were major contributor to TP candidates.
I just wish we could get back to the original definition of "Tea Bagger"
Thanks for your thoughtful post Gorzek. I am, in fact, aware of *why* companies do this sort of thing. I spent many years as a consultant and many companies for which I consulted did background checks, drug testing, extreme reference checking (ever have your grade school called to make sure you actually attended?), etc.
On the whole,. I don't have an issue with this. As you correctly pointed out, companies need to attempt to make sure that you're not going to be a liability to the organization. My point is that I don't like the idea of some HR lackey snooping around in my personal life -- and I'm not talking about whether or not I can pass a drug test or find three people to say something nice about me. Nor am I concerned about criminal background checks.
I don't have (m)any skeletons in my closet, not that it's any of your (or anyone else's for that matter) business. I don't need a job that badly that I need to put my social (networking) life up for judgement by a potential employer. I'm a professional you see. And that means that when I'm on the job, I'm doing my damnedest to make my employer successful. I have a long and proven track record of doing just that. If that's not enough, then I don't want to work for you.
You see how simple that is? I want to work for a company that has similar values to my own. I've always believed that while it may not be necessary to bet your job on the work that you do, you should be willing to do so. As I said before, if that's not enough, then I don't want to work for you.
That said, I don't necessarily fault companies for doing this sort of thing. In some ways it's an IQ test. Just like a drug test, if you know it's coming and you can't clean up before the test, then maybe there's some sort of problem. In my case, my SN profile(s) are locked down. Not because I feel I have to hide my life, but because I value my privacy.
We all have needs. Both employers and employees. I'm focused on my needs. One of which is privacy. I'm not really interested in the needs of corporations. That may sound selfish, but those corporations aren't concerned about my needs either. :)
I don't really quite know where to step in on this argument. I personally think that companies that do these sort of background checks are taking the wrong approach to human resource management, but I also can't really stand up for someone that posts utter dribble online then whines about not getting that professional job they want because they aren't professional. [snip]
[Emphasis Added]
Here's where I have an issue. Why is it my employer's concern what I do when I'm not working? I can see criminal background checks, verification of employment and references and even (although it sticks in my craw) drug testing. The first two are okay because people lie and these areas may impact job performance and/or other employees. The third also may impact job performance, but is really not anyone's business (that being said, if you can't stop long enough to pass an employment drug test that you've been warned about, you may well have a drug problem).
What difference does it make to your job performance it we don't act, as you say, "professionally" in our leisure time? I don't work 24x7 and when I'm not working, I do decidedly non-professional things. What they are and who I do them with is nobody's damn business but mine and those with whom I'm doing those things. My employer is my employer and pays me to perform services for them. When I'm not performing services for them (i.e., not paying me), they have no say as to what I do or don't do.
Any employer who wants to check my SN profile(s) is in for a rude shock. Unless you're my SN "friend" you don't see anything. Period. Beyond that, if a prospective employer attempted to access my SN profile(s) or paid someone else to do so and I find out about it, they will need to find someone else to fill that vacancy. Not because I have anything to hide especially, but if an employer thinks that's their purview then it's a strong sign that I don't want to work for such people.
Work/Life balance is more than just making sure you're home to tuck the munchkins in at night.
Based on my reading of the law (thanks for posting the link to the PDF, AC), you can still encrypt traffic (think banks, online retailers, etc.) as long those who employ it add additional network links to the Pakistani government, pass all traffic to the government and provide them with the appropriate keys. Said additional links and any supporting hardware and/or software to be implemented at the TLS/SSL users' expense.
AFAICT, The 120 days that the OP refers to isn't how long they have to keep the data, it's how long ISPs have to implement the environment.
N.B. IANAL
America is a strange country. On one hand it used to have a really developed science and technology, but on the other hand a large segment of the population always shared a deeply anti-intellectual bias. These people have deep mistrust for abstraction and allegories. Only in such poisonous atmosphere of anti-intellectual backlash literalist interpretation of the Bible could develop, these literal interpretations gave then something concrete and immutable to hold on to.
This is nothing new. People will believe almost anything and in the US this is taken to the extreme. As long as it's presented as "religious" teaching (think Scientology, Fundamentalist *anything*, etc.), some folks will, naively and bone-headedly (ooh! I think I coined a new adverb :) ), believe it. This says it quite succinctly:
The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together.
-- Sir Peter Medawar
My only problem with that (comparatively enlightened) attitude is that you can take pretty much any message you feel like out of the bible, depending on which places you put the emphasis.
And that's the problem with most religions. If you base a belief system on demonstrably false tenets, then you have no basis for verifying the validity of *any* interpretations, literal or otherwise.
That said, I have no issue with those who hold to such belief systems -- I just don't like fanatics. "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -Winston Churchill [emphasis added]
Step 1: Collect NotSanguine's underpants Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!
They just want in, they don't want the underwear. :)
...Some days I think those who don't care about their privacy are ahead of those of us that do. Privacy is dead, and they are not wasting effort fighting the tide.
This, IMHO, is the party line that our corporate overlords want us to take. We don't need to do so and I, for one, refuse to bow down to the scumbags who want inside my underwear.
The power comes through the basement and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the transfer switches that switch to generator power are down there as well. A bunch of London banks found out that this is a common mistake when the Thames flooded last year.
[Emphasis Added]
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. I can't speak to the locations of specific equipment at every location in Manhattan. However, having done consulting and full-time work for a surprising (at least it was to me when I counted them all up) number of Fortune 100 companies, I can tell you that the financial sector is well prepared for almost any eventuality.
In fact, at one firm their primary data center was (and still is, I'm sure) located in the desert of the southwest (as several posters pointed out, it's a pretty good place to avoid natural disasters). The data center looks just like all the other buildings in the office park where it lives. However, unlike the other buildings, The outer walls are feet-thick steel reinforced concrete and access is strictly controlled. It's weatherproof and mostly bombproof. Power comes from multiple mains and generators can provide (as long as they have fuel) power almost indefinitely. Other firms' data centers/hot sites may not be quite so hardened, but they have plenty of equipment and geographic diversity. This makes weather (however severe) in one region a temporary inconvenience rather than a disaster. Too much money is at stake to take any chances with their businesses.
Other, smaller companies for whom milliseconds aren't quite so important have hot, warm and even cold sites in geographically diverse locations which might cause significant disruption if a switch-over is required, but only for as long as it takes to get the DR site into production.
None of this stuff is new and emergency procedures have been further refined since we had a few problems here in NYC about ten years ago. You might have heard about that.
Except all the financial computer systems that rely on power and other utilities that are housed in the basements of the buildings which could get swamped by the storm surge. I know a lot of that stuff has moved to Jersey, but I'm not sure how vulnerable that area is to storm surge.
Except that they're not in basements. They're in raised-floor rooms on (relatively) high floors of 40-50 story buildings. There may well be communications infrastructure in the basement, the systems and storage are all in climate-controlled, UPS'd raised floor environments. If those were to fail, there are hot and warm backup sites in NJ, PA and elsewhere.
As someone who lived through Agnes and Gloria, I can tell you that Manhattan and the Bronx are likely pretty safe. Long Island (the island, not Nassau and Suffolk counties) are a different story.