Oh come on. A properly patched network with a good firewall will work just fine. I run a multi-site network spanning 3 continents with very high uptime and very few problems with viruses. Our biggest security problems are things like people losing USB storage devices (we started encrypting them though, so that's less of a worry).
The tricks are as follows: 1: Good firewalls with IPS/IDS services 2: Hosted anti-spam solution 3: GOOD antivirus that's updated regularly 4: No local admin privs for any users 5: All admins have 2 accounts - their domain admin account and their local account 6: Enforce strong passords 7: Chop off the hands of anyone caught writing down passwords 8: 2-factor authentication 9: Segregated network (VLANs etc) 10: Whole disk encryption That's a reasonably secure network - sure, there are always ways in for someone that's REALLY determined, but Windows networks CAN be made reasonably secure with a fairly standard set of practices that translates across any OS.
Right, I get that - believe me, I'm very distrustful of the police and prosecution when it comes to evidence etc.... but hiding evidence is a very, very bad idea when your freedom is at stake.
Here, let me make it easy for you.
1: Wife is missing (and I didn't kill her) 2: I SOMEHOW find out where the body is without finding out who killer her. Because, you know, suddenly psychic powers are real - or some anonymous murderer thinks it's a nice thing to do. 3: Uhhhhh.... yeah, I can't get any farther than this.
Alternately:
1: I kill my wife and dispose of her body creatively. 2: Police start looking at me because, you know, motive and whatnot. 3: I get convicted in the face of overwhelming evidence. Hmm... that didn't work either. Crud.
OK... to be honest, the problem I'm having is that I really can't conceive of a way he can be innocent at this point. I really can't.
If you really want to protect yourself from police misconduct, it's usually best to be very open with a LAWYER first... and getting media / blogs involved is a huge help, too.
Or worse, we don't care if he's guilty because he's one of us.
I'm all for innocent-until-proven, believe me - but he's been PROVEN guilty at this point. Clinging to an idea of his innocence is a weird sort of cognitive dissonance I can't get behind.
While there ARE certainly plausible ways that he could have been not guilty AND known where the body is, I would imagine that if he was innocent and knew where the body was that he would, oh, I don't know.... maybe.... CALL THE POLICE AS SOON AS HE KNEW WHERE THE BODY OF HIS DEAD WIFE WAS.
I mean, if it was me, I'd be trying to find all of the evidence to clear my name that I could - and if I hadn't done the killing, you better believe I'd be demanding the police go all CSI on her body and the crime scene before we even get to the point of me being arrested. The fact that he knew where the body was and kept quiet is an indicator to me of intent.
And while indicative of intent, it is not further proof of his guilt. At least it DOES bring closure to the family of the deceased.
We're trying to incorporate more Linux systems in our office, but as an accounting firm, almost everything is Windows only. From Quickbooks to the ProSystemFX suites of Engagement and Tax, we're pretty well stuck on Windows for the most part.
That said, we've been working with Citrix on an experimental basis in order to add better remote functionality to our staff - and Linux boxes might wind up being the way to go on the client end. I know I've been using Ubuntu on my laptop exclusively for a year now, and a lot of our users have been coming up to me and asking what the deal is with the cube and whatnot (Beryl - check it out if you haven't yet, very very cool - http://www.beryl-project.org/), and I just use remote desktop to manage servers and once in a while run Windows apps if I really need to.
Also, and this is a total self-serving link, I just wrote about giving my kids Linux laptops. http://endcycle.blogspot.com/ - SO FAR, they love Edubuntu. We'll see how long that lasts, though.:) I think it's going to be good. My younger took about 3 minutes to look around, and the next thing I knew, she had changed her background and theming - I was really impressed. AAAAAaaanyway, back to the discussion.
okay, true- it was a bad analogy. I was in a hurry.
The point is, no one can "fix" an alcoholic. You can't. I can't. Here is the exception: The alcoholic decides to stop drinking.
Until that happens, you can have ANYONE you want giving it their best shot- that person's not going to help any more than (insert bad analogy here). Does that make more sense?
1: You can't rehabilitate abuse. She was physically abusive. She wasn't when we got married 9 years previously, but became such eventually. Is that my fault? Could I have "fixed" that, really? 2: You can't rehabilitate alcoholics. Only they can do it. I couldn't fix her anymore than I could, say, change the transmission in my car. (and trust me, it's not a good idea to let me near a car with any kind of tools) 3: Families can be about unconditional love, sure - and no matter how much I showed, it was never reciprocated. So... do I stick around anyway, like an abused little puppy, hoping for a handout instead of a violent outburst? 4: I married her out of love. Is that the wrong reason?
See, after having had to restrain her entirely too many times and watching my possessions destroyed systematically and having my kids finally witness the violence she was capable of, I gave up on her. And you know what? My kids and I have never been happier than we have been since that time. I regret nothing, other than letting her get away with her violence for so long based on the idea of "holding the family together no matter what, for the kids". F--- that noise.
I never put my job before my family, but sometimes my job requires hours that are inconvenient for my family. We do all have a choice- I'm not bitching about the fact that I am in IT - I LOVE what I do for a living. The long hours, I'm saying, just aren't that great for a relationship. That's all.
It's NOT an unsurmountable obstacle, either - I have a very happy and fulfilling home life with my kids and relationship with a girlfriend as well as musical expression and other great things.
THAT said - some people don't know how to deal with the time pressures and constraints. That will be an issue whether he/she is in IT, a lawyer, or whatever.
I work as an IT person (net admin, specifically) and I went through a divorce with 2 kids.
I came out with a shared parenting plan and am considered the custodial or residential parent (the 2 kids live with me, and have structured times w/ their mother). My divorce, however, was not due directly to my workload. It was due to the fact that my ex is an alcoholic with violent tendencies... my long hours irritated her, sure - but that's about it.:)
Long hours suck the life out of everyone - but they are an unfortunate side-effect of what we have chosen to do for a living. This is beginning to change a bit, I've noticed - I can do my work from home when I need to be home with the kids due to a great implementation of citrix and vpns (not to toot my own horn), and my cell phone keeps me in constant contact when needed.
Oh my god... that's hysterical stuff. Someone needs to +1 funny this post.
I actually had one of our management types ask why it was we weren't using a linksys or netgear router (we have 100 people or so, 80 of which are CPAs in this accounting firm, so security is kind of an issue, right?) when they could be had for 80 bucks in the store instead of our proposal to spend several thousand on a full checkpoint solution...
It's tough to explain to non-IT people the difference between enterprise-grade and consumer-end equipment, and how much the price of what you're paying also includes the support for when things DO go belly-up.
I work for a local, independent accounting firm of about 75 CPAs and I can tell you that you're full of it (no offense intended, of course). There is a lot more to it than the handing off to assistants to copy and paste -
Our auditors, for example (about half of our staff) are trained in interrogation techniques to obtain the best picture of whatever company we're doing the audit of, and know how to mine data from sometimes literally thousands of pages of documents more efficiently than any accounting program I have ever seen.
The tax side CPA's are required to attend several long tax-law and industry-specific classes every year to maintain their certification, and work harder and put more thought into their work than any industry I've ever worked in. Right now, as we enter "tax season", I feel horribly for them - some of these guys will sleep at their desks in their cubicles and work straight through several weeks as we approach April 15th - like coders, in some ways... except accountants get better looking girls (should see the intern women here - holy cow).
If I went around to every accountant here and at any of the firms we partner with and asked them if they'd like a Money / Quicken / Quickbooks application that was standardized on the database end AND easy to use for the enduser, 99.9999% would think it to be an incredible idea. It's not the accountants that don't want this, believe me. They'd love to not have to sort through god knows how many different programs and file formats, and our company would LOVE to not have to buy several different versions of software that essentially does exactly the same thing every frickin' year. (Quickbooks Pro / Premiere 2001-2006, Quicken 2000-2006, Peachtree, money, etc)
Well... that's not completely accurate.:) We originally released for Windows, simply because more of us use Windows at home (bad, bad people, I know) but Linux (and maybe Mac) support have been very high on our agenda from the beginning.
i don't really think there's a contradiction, to be honest. the benchmarks used in advertising are much like the surveys used in politics- you point out whichever one is the one the makes you look best.
More importantly, the "average mom and pop" would not go on the net and look up benchmarks for processors. if they did, then they would not be the "average mom and pop" that they are advertised to be, right?:)
people ARE more knowledgeable right now, but not nearly enough to overcome the "higher MHz = Better" mentality so rampant right now.
What do you think would happen if say... cyrix (via) would introduce an 800MHz CPU that not only outperformed a 2GHz chip and everything else out there, but also ran completely stable for half the price? Besides cows flying and hell freezing over, that is...:)
I think the chip would fail. Why? Only enthusiasts would understand the architecture improvements, and performance gains. They MIGHT be enough to keep the processor alive in the market long enough to survive and proliferate to the other segments, but it's doubtful.
AMD is gaining on intel for a few reasons, which are highly touted by the media- it's beaten Intel to the GHz barrier, not once, but twice now with the intro of the Duron at 1000 MHz. that's what is driving it up in sales, along with the perception of a serious value processor.
See, the fun thing here is the fact that the public doesn't give a damn about the benchmarks. They'll walk into local computer store "foo" and demand the highest speed they can get, so that they won't go obsolete as quickly. (this is THEIR perception)
"But sir or ma'am," the salesman will say, "for about 2/3 of the price, you can have this computer, which is arguably better and faster than the Intel Pentium 4."
"Oh no, we don't want ANYTHING other than Intel," says the mommy or daddy "We KNOW how important reliability is, and we KNOW that the 2 g-H-z (pronounced by letters) is MUCH faster than the A-M-D AthAlon you got there".
point by point now- no compiler is included with windows. whoopee. download any number of decent shareware, freeware, or malware compilers from any site you please.
Secure remote admin- umm, yah. you know anything about windows 2000? use the mmc once or twice. retract that statement.
servers if any type? hmmm... advanced, datacenter, nt, 2000, print, smnp, multi-homed routing (ripv1, v2, ospf all compliant), terminal services, file sharing, directory services... the list could go on.
"man pages" - check out 2k's F1 help sections. the best so far, and while lacking to a degree, are far more comprehensive than most need. and hey, if you don't think it's enough, go buy a frickin book. oh, you don't want to spend money on a book? why, is the copyright thing that much of an issue?
file system that can be reconfigured and defrags itself. again- in 2k, Dynamic Disks can be reconfigured (within limits) and hey, there's a myriad of scheduling options.
reasonable graph. tool for reconfig of file sys -see above.
spell checker - not in outlook express primarily (tho it is available there). it's in office. and it does a pretty good job (from 2k up, anyways.:)
smtp - is included
choice of gui- format it and install linux, you picky ass freak.:)
choice of browser- lesse, i got IE 6 beta running, netscape, and opera. i use opera and IE the most. why IE? cause it's actually really good. that's shocking, isn't it? using a product because of its quality instead of its ideology?
WP, Typesetter, spreadsheet, fax program- you WANT those included into windows? oh come on. begging to really push that anti trust suit a lot further, with those.
there's more, but your list wasn't good enough, sorry.
:)
the funny thing about this is that people found your comment funny.
it's scary.
i have been at my first true corporate job for about a year now, and i have witnessed firsthand the doublespeak jargon battles in the management meetings.
though reorganizing my primary action items is new to me, i will not hesitate to appropriate it for the greater good of telling my boss to suck it.
i have one user that keeps calling it the PCU... i keep correcting her, and i even took the time to walk her through the differences between computer and monitor, but bleh.
BLEH.
one of my primary responsibilities is to be on call to support a point of sale system. every once in a while, the system goes down and the computers need to be rebooted. not too tough, right? sure. YOU explain to the manager of a pizza store that pushing the button on the monitor is NOT the same as pushing the power on the computer.
I usually resort to their language- "hit the power button on the hard drive".... but man oh man, do i feel like a gimp when i do that.
Slashdot Mirror
i see what you did there. Awesome. :)
Mod funny please.
Oh come on. A properly patched network with a good firewall will work just fine. I run a multi-site network spanning 3 continents with very high uptime and very few problems with viruses. Our biggest security problems are things like people losing USB storage devices (we started encrypting them though, so that's less of a worry).
The tricks are as follows:
1: Good firewalls with IPS/IDS services
2: Hosted anti-spam solution
3: GOOD antivirus that's updated regularly
4: No local admin privs for any users
5: All admins have 2 accounts - their domain admin account and their local account
6: Enforce strong passords
7: Chop off the hands of anyone caught writing down passwords
8: 2-factor authentication
9: Segregated network (VLANs etc)
10: Whole disk encryption
That's a reasonably secure network - sure, there are always ways in for someone that's REALLY determined, but Windows networks CAN be made reasonably secure with a fairly standard set of practices that translates across any OS.
Right, I get that - believe me, I'm very distrustful of the police and prosecution when it comes to evidence etc.... but hiding evidence is a very, very bad idea when your freedom is at stake.
Here, let me make it easy for you.
1: Wife is missing (and I didn't kill her)
2: I SOMEHOW find out where the body is without finding out who killer her. Because, you know, suddenly psychic powers are real - or some anonymous murderer thinks it's a nice thing to do.
3: Uhhhhh.... yeah, I can't get any farther than this.
Alternately:
1: I kill my wife and dispose of her body creatively.
2: Police start looking at me because, you know, motive and whatnot.
3: I get convicted in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Hmm... that didn't work either. Crud.
OK... to be honest, the problem I'm having is that I really can't conceive of a way he can be innocent at this point. I really can't.
If you really want to protect yourself from police misconduct, it's usually best to be very open with a LAWYER first... and getting media / blogs involved is a huge help, too.
Or worse, we don't care if he's guilty because he's one of us.
I'm all for innocent-until-proven, believe me - but he's been PROVEN guilty at this point. Clinging to an idea of his innocence is a weird sort of cognitive dissonance I can't get behind.
While there ARE certainly plausible ways that he could have been not guilty AND known where the body is, I would imagine that if he was innocent and knew where the body was that he would, oh, I don't know.... maybe.... CALL THE POLICE AS SOON AS HE KNEW WHERE THE BODY OF HIS DEAD WIFE WAS.
I mean, if it was me, I'd be trying to find all of the evidence to clear my name that I could - and if I hadn't done the killing, you better believe I'd be demanding the police go all CSI on her body and the crime scene before we even get to the point of me being arrested. The fact that he knew where the body was and kept quiet is an indicator to me of intent.
And while indicative of intent, it is not further proof of his guilt. At least it DOES bring closure to the family of the deceased.
Thank you for mentioning that system - the iTunes server functionality intrigues me. I'm looking into getting one for my house now.
If it's vista, follow the directions here to recover your MBR.
We're trying to incorporate more Linux systems in our office, but as an accounting firm, almost everything is Windows only. From Quickbooks to the ProSystemFX suites of Engagement and Tax, we're pretty well stuck on Windows for the most part.
:) I think it's going to be good. My younger took about 3 minutes to look around, and the next thing I knew, she had changed her background and theming - I was really impressed. AAAAAaaanyway, back to the discussion.
That said, we've been working with Citrix on an experimental basis in order to add better remote functionality to our staff - and Linux boxes might wind up being the way to go on the client end. I know I've been using Ubuntu on my laptop exclusively for a year now, and a lot of our users have been coming up to me and asking what the deal is with the cube and whatnot (Beryl - check it out if you haven't yet, very very cool - http://www.beryl-project.org/), and I just use remote desktop to manage servers and once in a while run Windows apps if I really need to.
Also, and this is a total self-serving link, I just wrote about giving my kids Linux laptops. http://endcycle.blogspot.com/ - SO FAR, they love Edubuntu. We'll see how long that lasts, though.
i know this thread is long-dead, but I'm dropping back in anyway to (first of all) say thanks.
:)
You're dead-on about how closely we mirror each other - it's strange.
Stay strong, and keep your kid stronger.
okay, true- it was a bad analogy. I was in a hurry.
The point is, no one can "fix" an alcoholic. You can't. I can't.
Here is the exception:
The alcoholic decides to stop drinking.
Until that happens, you can have ANYONE you want giving it their best shot- that person's not going to help any more than (insert bad analogy here). Does that make more sense?
Wow....
1: You can't rehabilitate abuse. She was physically abusive. She wasn't when we got married 9 years previously, but became such eventually. Is that my fault? Could I have "fixed" that, really?
2: You can't rehabilitate alcoholics. Only they can do it. I couldn't fix her anymore than I could, say, change the transmission in my car. (and trust me, it's not a good idea to let me near a car with any kind of tools)
3: Families can be about unconditional love, sure - and no matter how much I showed, it was never reciprocated. So... do I stick around anyway, like an abused little puppy, hoping for a handout instead of a violent outburst?
4: I married her out of love. Is that the wrong reason?
See, after having had to restrain her entirely too many times and watching my possessions destroyed systematically and having my kids finally witness the violence she was capable of, I gave up on her. And you know what? My kids and I have never been happier than we have been since that time. I regret nothing, other than letting her get away with her violence for so long based on the idea of "holding the family together no matter what, for the kids". F--- that noise.
I never put my job before my family, but sometimes my job requires hours that are inconvenient for my family. We do all have a choice- I'm not bitching about the fact that I am in IT - I LOVE what I do for a living. The long hours, I'm saying, just aren't that great for a relationship. That's all.
It's NOT an unsurmountable obstacle, either - I have a very happy and fulfilling home life with my kids and relationship with a girlfriend as well as musical expression and other great things.
THAT said - some people don't know how to deal with the time pressures and constraints. That will be an issue whether he/she is in IT, a lawyer, or whatever.
I work as an IT person (net admin, specifically) and I went through a divorce with 2 kids.
:)
I came out with a shared parenting plan and am considered the custodial or residential parent (the 2 kids live with me, and have structured times w/ their mother). My divorce, however, was not due directly to my workload. It was due to the fact that my ex is an alcoholic with violent tendencies... my long hours irritated her, sure - but that's about it.
Long hours suck the life out of everyone - but they are an unfortunate side-effect of what we have chosen to do for a living. This is beginning to change a bit, I've noticed - I can do my work from home when I need to be home with the kids due to a great implementation of citrix and vpns (not to toot my own horn), and my cell phone keeps me in constant contact when needed.
ARGH i used all my mod points already...
+1 - realistic voice of unparanoid reason
though here, it'd be more likely:
-1 - disturbing lack of tinfoil hat
Oh my god... that's hysterical stuff. Someone needs to +1 funny this post.
I actually had one of our management types ask why it was we weren't using a linksys or netgear router (we have 100 people or so, 80 of which are CPAs in this accounting firm, so security is kind of an issue, right?) when they could be had for 80 bucks in the store instead of our proposal to spend several thousand on a full checkpoint solution...
It's tough to explain to non-IT people the difference between enterprise-grade and consumer-end equipment, and how much the price of what you're paying also includes the support for when things DO go belly-up.
:huh:
I work for a local, independent accounting firm of about 75 CPAs and I can tell you that you're full of it (no offense intended, of course). There is a lot more to it than the handing off to assistants to copy and paste -
Our auditors, for example (about half of our staff) are trained in interrogation techniques to obtain the best picture of whatever company we're doing the audit of, and know how to mine data from sometimes literally thousands of pages of documents more efficiently than any accounting program I have ever seen.
The tax side CPA's are required to attend several long tax-law and industry-specific classes every year to maintain their certification, and work harder and put more thought into their work than any industry I've ever worked in. Right now, as we enter "tax season", I feel horribly for them - some of these guys will sleep at their desks in their cubicles and work straight through several weeks as we approach April 15th - like coders, in some ways... except accountants get better looking girls (should see the intern women here - holy cow).
If I went around to every accountant here and at any of the firms we partner with and asked them if they'd like a Money / Quicken / Quickbooks application that was standardized on the database end AND easy to use for the enduser, 99.9999% would think it to be an incredible idea. It's not the accountants that don't want this, believe me. They'd love to not have to sort through god knows how many different programs and file formats, and our company would LOVE to not have to buy several different versions of software that essentially does exactly the same thing every frickin' year. (Quickbooks Pro / Premiere 2001-2006, Quicken 2000-2006, Peachtree, money, etc)
rofl... easily one of the funniest moments in Interweb history. :)
Nah.... not too worried about a slashdotting, unless this post makes it to the front page of www.slashdot.org instead.
Well... that's not completely accurate. :) We originally released for Windows, simply because more of us use Windows at home (bad, bad people, I know) but Linux (and maybe Mac) support have been very high on our agenda from the beginning.
so it CAN'T be too bad. :)
besides, the romulans are, as they say, bad ass. Could actually be good!
(fingers seriously crossed)
april fools is still quite a ways off, guys.
sometimes, it seems, the ridiculous is more real than the fantasy.
wow.
great way to start my morning.... with a cup of coffee snarfed out my nose and into my lap. thanks, slashdot.
i don't really think there's a contradiction, to be honest. the benchmarks used in advertising are much like the surveys used in politics- you point out whichever one is the one the makes you look best. :)
:)
More importantly, the "average mom and pop" would not go on the net and look up benchmarks for processors. if they did, then they would not be the "average mom and pop" that they are advertised to be, right?
people ARE more knowledgeable right now, but not nearly enough to overcome the "higher MHz = Better" mentality so rampant right now.
What do you think would happen if say... cyrix (via) would introduce an 800MHz CPU that not only outperformed a 2GHz chip and everything else out there, but also ran completely stable for half the price? Besides cows flying and hell freezing over, that is...
I think the chip would fail. Why? Only enthusiasts would understand the architecture improvements, and performance gains. They MIGHT be enough to keep the processor alive in the market long enough to survive and proliferate to the other segments, but it's doubtful.
AMD is gaining on intel for a few reasons, which are highly touted by the media- it's beaten Intel to the GHz barrier, not once, but twice now with the intro of the Duron at 1000 MHz. that's what is driving it up in sales, along with the perception of a serious value processor.
What were we talking about again, sorry?
See, the fun thing here is the fact that the public doesn't give a damn about the benchmarks. They'll walk into local computer store "foo" and demand the highest speed they can get, so that they won't go obsolete as quickly. (this is THEIR perception)
"But sir or ma'am," the salesman will say, "for about 2/3 of the price, you can have this computer, which is arguably better and faster than the Intel Pentium 4."
"Oh no, we don't want ANYTHING other than Intel," says the mommy or daddy "We KNOW how important reliability is, and we KNOW that the 2 g-H-z (pronounced by letters) is MUCH faster than the A-M-D AthAlon you got there".
right.
christ. i gotta handle this?
:)
:)
point by point now- no compiler is included with windows. whoopee. download any number of decent shareware, freeware, or malware compilers from any site you please.
Secure remote admin- umm, yah. you know anything about windows 2000? use the mmc once or twice. retract that statement.
servers if any type? hmmm... advanced, datacenter, nt, 2000, print, smnp, multi-homed routing (ripv1, v2, ospf all compliant), terminal services, file sharing, directory services... the list could go on.
"man pages" - check out 2k's F1 help sections. the best so far, and while lacking to a degree, are far more comprehensive than most need. and hey, if you don't think it's enough, go buy a frickin book. oh, you don't want to spend money on a book? why, is the copyright thing that much of an issue?
file system that can be reconfigured and defrags itself. again- in 2k, Dynamic Disks can be reconfigured (within limits) and hey, there's a myriad of scheduling options.
reasonable graph. tool for reconfig of file sys -see above.
spell checker - not in outlook express primarily (tho it is available there). it's in office. and it does a pretty good job (from 2k up, anyways.
smtp - is included
choice of gui- format it and install linux, you picky ass freak.
choice of browser- lesse, i got IE 6 beta running, netscape, and opera. i use opera and IE the most. why IE? cause it's actually really good. that's shocking, isn't it? using a product because of its quality instead of its ideology?
WP, Typesetter, spreadsheet, fax program- you WANT those included into windows? oh come on. begging to really push that anti trust suit a lot further, with those.
there's more, but your list wasn't good enough, sorry.
:)
the funny thing about this is that people found your comment funny.
it's scary.
i have been at my first true corporate job for about a year now, and i have witnessed firsthand the doublespeak jargon battles in the management meetings.
though reorganizing my primary action items is new to me, i will not hesitate to appropriate it for the greater good of telling my boss to suck it.
i have one user that keeps calling it the PCU... i keep correcting her, and i even took the time to walk her through the differences between computer and monitor, but bleh.
BLEH.
one of my primary responsibilities is to be on call to support a point of sale system. every once in a while, the system goes down and the computers need to be rebooted. not too tough, right? sure. YOU explain to the manager of a pizza store that pushing the button on the monitor is NOT the same as pushing the power on the computer.
I usually resort to their language- "hit the power button on the hard drive".... but man oh man, do i feel like a gimp when i do that.