Well, I'd mod you +0.5 Funny and -0.5 Flamebait, so it evens out.
I think the implied point of the parent post is that there are companies which would not (and apparently do not) respond so quickly. At least, this is the perception, judging by comments in other/. stories).
So, it's really a comment about the apparent level of Google's bureacracy (i.e., not as bad as some), not their technical expertise. Of course, that's really just a comment about how bad other companies are perceived to be with regards to responding to things like that.
Not that it matters, but I think you're both right, only you're more right. Whether or not buying a new computer is "a solution" depends on how you define the problem.
If the problem is stated as "fix this computer", then buying a new one is not a solution. If the problem is "eliminate the offending application", then buying a new computer is a solution, although possibly just a temporary one. Since the parent post mentioned the need/desire to upgrade anyway, I'm inclined to go with the latter definition.
I agree with most of Schneier's statements, and certainly with his intent and motives. But, there were two cases he sited that I think are legitimate areas of concern:
Meanwhile, a man who tampered with a bathroom smoke detector on a flight to San Antonio was cleared of terrorism, but only after having his house searched.
It's been awhile since I've flown, but if I remember correctly there are signs in the lavatories in airplanes (US flights, anyway) saying that it's a federal crime to tamper with the smoke detectors. Tampering with ANY electrical equipment on an airplane while in flight just seems foolish to me, so I think it's appropriate for that slap guy to get slapped around a little for doing so.
And on August 18, a plane flying from London to Egypt made an emergency landing in Italy when someone found a bomb threat scrawled on an air sickness bag. Nothing was found on the plane, and no one knows how long the note was on board.
This reminds me of an incidence I witnessed in a bank, back in the day when there weren't ATM machines and you had to go inside to make deposits and withdrawals.
I was standing in line and the guy in front of me started snickering and beckoning to his friends. When he got to the teller, she got a real serious look on her face and asked the guy if he was serious. It turns out that someone had written a note on the back of the withdrawal/deposit slip he was using saying something like "This is a bank robbery". The guy said that he wasn't serious and that he hadn't written the note, and then got a bit of a scolding from the bank teller who told him that, to a bank employee, these jokes are not funny.
While it seems like a harmless prank, the fact is that the bank employee (and, in case sited in Bruce's newsletter, the airline) cannot afford NOT to take these threats seriously. In these cases, it's not just that someone did something that looked suspicious. In these cases, someone deliberately went to the trouble to write down the threat.
Even though it's highly unlikely that a terrorist would bother putting a bomb threat on a plane, imagine if someone did and the airline ignored it and then it turned out to be real? The public would crucify the airline for not taking appropriate security measures. So, while it's unfortunate that the action of some moron caused the flight to be diverted and a lot of people to be inconvenienced, I think that was the prudent choice, in this case.
I've used Yahoo Mail for about a year or so, and gmail (sparingly) for a few months. Some observations:
Ads: yeah, there are a lot of them in Yahoo. Thankfully, the big flash ads only appear in the "Mail Home" page. Once you click on a mail folder (like your Inbox), it goes away and you get your list of messages like normal. But, there are also banner ads and little ad/links above and below the folder list. Personally, I've gotten so used to these things that I don't even notice them anymore.
Platforms: I've used both IE/Windows and Firefox/OS X with no real problems. It does, however, require Javascript and cookies to be enabled.
Speed: I haven't had any problems, but have not tried using this over a dial-up connection. I've actually found it a little faster than my gmail account (which is usually fast, but occasionally seems to hang up between page loads).
Sending/Receiving: occasionally I'd receive a response to an e-mail sent to multiple recipients before I'd receive the original message. But, I've never had a problem with anyone not receiving messages I've sent. Occasionally, though, a series of replies and forwards would cause my address to appear in both the To: and CC: lists, causing me to receive multiple copies of the same message.
Spam: I've been lucky and haven't gotten any in my Yahoo mail account. It does have SpamGuard for filtering messages. For that matter, I haven't gotten any in my gmail account either, but I haven't had/used that account for very long.
I agree, regarding the poor analogy in TFA. People's mistrust of Internet reliability is more akin to the mistrust of optical character recognition rather than photocopying. Does/would anyone not proofread important documents scanned and interpreted by their OCR software?
Although it's been awhile, some of us do remember outages at MAE-West (1998, 2000, for example) which slowed the Internet to a crawl for many people. So, that mistrust is not without basis.
Most importantly, though, it's not just availability (or the lack thereof) that breeds distrust in third-party web application services. There are also issues of privacy, accountability, quality of service, and control, just to name a few.
TFA was pretty sparse on details, so here's a stab at what I think it was talking/worried about: <guess> The concern might be that this is similar to the movement to hold ISPs responsible for their content.
The trick is that sites like myspace.com allow users to post their own content. Now, suppose some randy under-aged teenager posts sexually-suggestive photos or vids of him/herself on his/her myspace page. Technically, this would be considered child pornography and would be illegal (in the US, anyway).
So, the concern might be that the FCC will come down on myspace for allowing this to happen(even if myspace eventually pulls the content once they become aware of it), in the same way that the FCC fined CBS $500,000 for Janet Jackson's nipple slip during the Superbowl.
If that occurs, then that puts a huge burden on myspace to police their content before allowing it to be published. Since that's really not feasible, that means sites like myspace and youtube (et al) might have to pack it in. That would be a shame.
Of course, the FCC would have jurisdiction only over US-based sites, I think, but that would still suck. </guess>
What's the Difference between a Challenge and a Banning? A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. The positive message of Banned Books Week: Free People Read Freely is that due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.
How is the List of Most Challenged Books Tabulated? The American Library Association (ALA) collects information from two sources: newspapers and reports submitted by individuals, some of whom use the Challenge Database Form. All challenges are compiled into a database. Reports of challenges culled from newspapers across the country are compiled in the bimonthly Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom (published by the ALA, $40 per year); those reports are then compiled in the Banned Books Week Resource Guide. Challenges reported to the ALA by individuals are kept confidential. In these cases, ALA will release only the title of the book being challenged, the state and the type of institution (school, public library). The name of the institution and its town will not be disclosed.
So I think it just means that these books have been challenged or banned somewhere, not necessarily everywhere, and they're not necessarily challenged/banned any longer.
That was the dealbreaker for me since the main lighting fixtures in my apartment are on dimmer switches. On the other hand, I just found some advertised by Energy Federation Inc. I don't know if they work well and they're awfully expensive, but the Krypton Torpedo might be a good alternative (and has a cool name).
Oh, and a 100 lb woman in stiletto heels can exert over 1000 psi if she balances on her heel.
Wasn't that covered in chapter 12 of Sex Tips from a Dominatrix? I think the term "thumb drive" has a completely different meaning in that industry, too.
I agree whole-heartedly. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of thing happening.
A cow-orker of mine once told me about a relative of his who had used a rainbow table to crack the admin passwords where he works. His rationale, like the FBI consultant's, was that he did this to get around the bureaucracy. My cow-orker was astonished that it was so easy to crack the admin passwords with the rainbow table, but he didn't seem to comprehend that it was unethical for his relative to do so in the first place.
Who does anything for just 15 minutes unless they're interrupted?
Sounds like my sex life.
But seriously, when it comes to games, who shells out the $20-$50 (plus the cost of the console, for console games) to play only a few minutes a day? This is like Lays' old ad campaign for their potato chips: "Betcha can't eat just one!" Why would you want to? You bought the whole bag!
Wow. Your situation and mine are so similar it's frightening.
Windows developer: check switched to Mac: check because of OS X: check and because "it works": check never going back: check
The only thing I'd add is that I stayed away from Apple for so long because I prefer having a command-line interface and really don't like mouse-centric GUIs. My impression of early Macs was that they were all GUI all the time. They had all the bells and whistles, but you couldn't get rid of them if you wanted to, and I prefer simple, clean, square lines. So, in the past, Windows suited me better.
Ironically, this seems to be shifting. Mac now has OS X (it's got bash!), while Windows is becoming "swoopier" (a la the EMP). I hate the way WinXP looks and always choose the "Classic" options. But the reports of the interface changes in Office 12 was the kicker. No thank you.
So now I use a PowerBook for my personal computing, turned off/down as many of the animation and sound effects as I could and am a happy clam.
Those nifty "TO" and "FROM" fields let them know who you're contacting
and, of course, those can be spoofed. So, using e-mail header information to identify criminals and/or terrorists seems like it could produce a lot of false positives.
From a personal privacy perspective, I have no issue with it. People can choose to use the service or not. From a business perspective, this scares me.
At first blush, I agreed with you completely. But, after researching this a little more, it's less scary that I thought.
Where I work, we are bound by HIPAA to restrict who has access to certain information. So, I was concerned that one careless or unscrupulous person with sufficient computer privileges could end up releasing a lot of sensitive information. While that data would not be accessible to the public, it would be accessible by some Google employees; and that would violate HIPAA.
Thankfully, there are a couple of mitigating factors that help ease my mind about this.
First, files aren't copied to Google unless the "Search Across Computers" feature in Google Desktop is enabled. Hopefully this feature isn't enabled by default (if it is, then I'd suggest that Google change that). So, it requires user interaction to set that up. It would be even better if activating this feature causes a confirmation dialog to pop up warning the user about files being copied to Google. If this already happens, then I'd say that Google has exercised due diligence.
While your data is automatically deleted from our servers, you can use the Clear my Files from Google button to manually remove all your files from Google Desktop servers.
That means we have some measure of control over the files stored on Google.
So, while I wouldn't recommend that we use it where I work (and don't use it personally), I don't consider this to be evil (as long as all of those things that Google claims about Google Desktop are true and remain true).
You are invited to "Death to Infidels" by Al Qaeda.
Host: Osama Bin Laden
Location: mountainous region by Afghanistan/Pakistan border; third cave on the left; limited parking
When: February 10, 2006
Phone: 1-800-ALQAEDA
Join us for an evening of food, fun and fundamentalism
Enjoy some of Ayman al-Zawahiri's famous peach cobbler
as we plot the downfall of Western imperialism. Meet
the Axis of Evil: Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!
BYOWMD
See also h ttp://terrorist.meetup.com
Click below to visit Evite for more information about the event and also to RSVP. h ttp://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?in viteId=DEATHTOAMERICA&src=email
This invitation was sent to you by Al Qaeda using Evite. To remove yourself from this guest list please click on the link above.
[This is a joke, of course -- please don't/. evite.com or meetup.com; those URLs are bogus.]
those who "police the police" but yet are paid by the "police" they're "policing"
Yeah, that's a little odd.
According to the Integrity Commitee's website, "The [Integrity Commitee] does not have purview regarding whistleblower retaliation or discrimination matters. Whistleblower retaliation matters fall within the purview of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel." So, I'm not sure how the IC fits in with regards to those allegations.
Also, the Executive Order No. 12993 (included in a report to the US Senate) says that "[f]or certain administrative allegations against Inspector Generals... it is desirable to authorize an independent investigative mechanism" (that mechanism being the Integrity Committee).
The Integrity Committee includes "three or more IGs, representing both the PCIE [President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency] and the ECIE [Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency.]"
According to the PCIE/ECIE FAQ, "Presidentially-appointed IGs make up the PCIE" (including the IG for NASA).
While that doesn't mean that something fishy is going on (I don't know that the IC is "paid" by the PCIE or IGs), it's not as clear-cut as I would have liked. I would prefer the body that investigates the IGs to not have any connection to them. I thought that's what "independent" meant.
Using the REG utility in WinXP or Win2K Resource Kit, it's not too hard to write a script to scan your PC's registries for this key. Something like for/f %%i in (computerlist.txt) do (
echo %%i >>scanlist.txt
reg query \\%%i\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersi on\Run/s | find "ScanRegistry" >>scanlist.txt 2>&1 )
Although the iPod is more popular than other types of portable music players, its ability to cause noise-induced hearing isn't any higher, experts said.
What is that 6.5 million based on? Is that the retail price of the product normally?
I'm guessing that it's the "value" of the merchandise, as reported by the companies who made it.
As I understand it, companies over-inflate their products' value so it looks like they're giving you a great discount. That's why the Ronco Six Star Plus Cutlery Set has an $850 value but is yours for only $39.95 (plus Shipping and Handling), and why all that crap they had on Wheel of Fortune cost so much.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I'd mod you +0.5 Funny and -0.5 Flamebait, so it evens out.
/. stories).
I think the implied point of the parent post is that there are companies which would not (and apparently do not) respond so quickly. At least, this is the perception, judging by comments in other
So, it's really a comment about the apparent level of Google's bureacracy (i.e., not as bad as some), not their technical expertise. Of course, that's really just a comment about how bad other companies are perceived to be with regards to responding to things like that.
Just for the record, I'm not a Google-evangelist.
Not that it matters, but I think you're both right, only you're more right. Whether or not buying a new computer is "a solution" depends on how you define the problem.
If the problem is stated as "fix this computer", then buying a new one is not a solution. If the problem is "eliminate the offending application", then buying a new computer is a solution, although possibly just a temporary one. Since the parent post mentioned the need/desire to upgrade anyway, I'm inclined to go with the latter definition.
I agree with most of Schneier's statements, and certainly with his intent and motives. But, there were two cases he sited that I think are legitimate areas of concern:
Meanwhile, a man who tampered with a bathroom smoke detector on a flight to San Antonio was cleared of terrorism, but only after having his house searched.
It's been awhile since I've flown, but if I remember correctly there are signs in the lavatories in airplanes (US flights, anyway) saying that it's a federal crime to tamper with the smoke detectors. Tampering with ANY electrical equipment on an airplane while in flight just seems foolish to me, so I think it's appropriate for that slap guy to get slapped around a little for doing so.
And on August 18, a plane flying from London to Egypt made an emergency landing in Italy when someone found a bomb threat scrawled on an air sickness bag. Nothing was found on the plane, and no one knows how long the note was on board.
This reminds me of an incidence I witnessed in a bank, back in the day when there weren't ATM machines and you had to go inside to make deposits and withdrawals.
I was standing in line and the guy in front of me started snickering and beckoning to his friends. When he got to the teller, she got a real serious look on her face and asked the guy if he was serious. It turns out that someone had written a note on the back of the withdrawal/deposit slip he was using saying something like "This is a bank robbery". The guy said that he wasn't serious and that he hadn't written the note, and then got a bit of a scolding from the bank teller who told him that, to a bank employee, these jokes are not funny.
While it seems like a harmless prank, the fact is that the bank employee (and, in case sited in Bruce's newsletter, the airline) cannot afford NOT to take these threats seriously. In these cases, it's not just that someone did something that looked suspicious. In these cases, someone deliberately went to the trouble to write down the threat.
Even though it's highly unlikely that a terrorist would bother putting a bomb threat on a plane, imagine if someone did and the airline ignored it and then it turned out to be real? The public would crucify the airline for not taking appropriate security measures. So, while it's unfortunate that the action of some moron caused the flight to be diverted and a lot of people to be inconvenienced, I think that was the prudent choice, in this case.
Heh. Personally, my favorite is Yoyodyne. More tech-related things should use the yoyo- prefix. Darn -- Yoyosoft is already taken.
I agree, regarding the poor analogy in TFA. People's mistrust of Internet reliability is more akin to the mistrust of optical character recognition rather than photocopying. Does/would anyone not proofread important documents scanned and interpreted by their OCR software?
Although it's been awhile, some of us do remember outages at MAE-West (1998, 2000, for example) which slowed the Internet to a crawl for many people. So, that mistrust is not without basis.
Most importantly, though, it's not just availability (or the lack thereof) that breeds distrust in third-party web application services. There are also issues of privacy, accountability, quality of service, and control, just to name a few.
TFA was pretty sparse on details, so here's a stab at what I think it was talking/worried about:
<guess>
The concern might be that this is similar to the movement to hold ISPs responsible for their content.
The trick is that sites like myspace.com allow users to post their own content. Now, suppose some randy under-aged teenager posts sexually-suggestive photos or vids of him/herself on his/her myspace page. Technically, this would be considered child pornography and would be illegal (in the US, anyway).
So, the concern might be that the FCC will come down on myspace for allowing this to happen(even if myspace eventually pulls the content once they become aware of it), in the same way that the FCC fined CBS $500,000 for Janet Jackson's nipple slip during the Superbowl.
If that occurs, then that puts a huge burden on myspace to police their content before allowing it to be published. Since that's really not feasible, that means sites like myspace and youtube (et al) might have to pack it in. That would be a shame.
Of course, the FCC would have jurisdiction only over US-based sites, I think, but that would still suck.
</guess>
So I think it just means that these books have been challenged or banned somewhere, not necessarily everywhere, and they're not necessarily challenged/banned any longer.
They sell donkey sex at McDonald's now? Do you get fries with that? I'm lovin' it!
They don't work with dimmers.
That was the dealbreaker for me since the main lighting fixtures in my apartment are on dimmer switches. On the other hand, I just found some advertised by Energy Federation Inc. I don't know if they work well and they're awfully expensive, but the Krypton Torpedo might be a good alternative (and has a cool name).
Oh, and a 100 lb woman in stiletto heels can exert over 1000 psi if she balances on her heel.
Wasn't that covered in chapter 12 of Sex Tips from a Dominatrix? I think the term "thumb drive" has a completely different meaning in that industry, too.
Seriously, if this thing really is an MECO then what are all of the things that we've thought were black holes?
Holly: Grit. Five specks of grit on the scanner-scope. See, the thing about grit is, it's black, and the thing about scanner-scopes...
Rimmer: Oh, shut up.
Full transcript here.
I agree whole-heartedly. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of thing happening.
A cow-orker of mine once told me about a relative of his who had used a rainbow table to crack the admin passwords where he works. His rationale, like the FBI consultant's, was that he did this to get around the bureaucracy. My cow-orker was astonished that it was so easy to crack the admin passwords with the rainbow table, but he didn't seem to comprehend that it was unethical for his relative to do so in the first place.
OT, but if you're curious: "Survival of the fittest, man, and we got the fucking gun" is a lyric from the song "We got the gun" by Clint Mansell
Who does anything for just 15 minutes unless they're interrupted?
Sounds like my sex life.
But seriously, when it comes to games, who shells out the $20-$50 (plus the cost of the console, for console games) to play only a few minutes a day? This is like Lays' old ad campaign for their potato chips: "Betcha can't eat just one!" Why would you want to? You bought the whole bag!
Agreed. After all, profanity is the one language all programmers know best, dammit!
I recently switched from windows to mac...
Wow. Your situation and mine are so similar it's frightening.
Windows developer: check
switched to Mac: check
because of OS X: check
and because "it works": check
never going back: check
The only thing I'd add is that I stayed away from Apple for so long because I prefer having a command-line interface and really don't like mouse-centric GUIs. My impression of early Macs was that they were all GUI all the time. They had all the bells and whistles, but you couldn't get rid of them if you wanted to, and I prefer simple, clean, square lines. So, in the past, Windows suited me better.
Ironically, this seems to be shifting. Mac now has OS X (it's got bash!), while Windows is becoming "swoopier" (a la the EMP). I hate the way WinXP looks and always choose the "Classic" options. But the reports of the interface changes in Office 12 was the kicker. No thank you.
So now I use a PowerBook for my personal computing, turned off/down as many of the animation and sound effects as I could and am a happy clam.
Those nifty "TO" and "FROM" fields let them know who you're contacting
and, of course, those can be spoofed. So, using e-mail header information to identify criminals and/or terrorists seems like it could produce a lot of false positives.
At first blush, I agreed with you completely. But, after researching this a little more, it's less scary that I thought.
Where I work, we are bound by HIPAA to restrict who has access to certain information. So, I was concerned that one careless or unscrupulous person with sufficient computer privileges could end up releasing a lot of sensitive information. While that data would not be accessible to the public, it would be accessible by some Google employees; and that would violate HIPAA.
Thankfully, there are a couple of mitigating factors that help ease my mind about this.
First, files aren't copied to Google unless the "Search Across Computers" feature in Google Desktop is enabled. Hopefully this feature isn't enabled by default (if it is, then I'd suggest that Google change that). So, it requires user interaction to set that up. It would be even better if activating this feature causes a confirmation dialog to pop up warning the user about files being copied to Google. If this already happens, then I'd say that Google has exercised due diligence.
Secondly, according to Google,
That means we have some measure of control over the files stored on Google.
So, while I wouldn't recommend that we use it where I work (and don't use it personally), I don't consider this to be evil (as long as all of those things that Google claims about Google Desktop are true and remain true).
Interestingly, Google Desktop is not available for Mac OS or Linux, yet.
You are invited to "Death to Infidels" by Al Qaeda.
n viteId=DEATHTOAMERICA&src=email
/. evite.com or meetup.com; those URLs are bogus.]
Host: Osama Bin Laden
Location: mountainous region by Afghanistan/Pakistan border; third cave on the left; limited parking
When: February 10, 2006
Phone: 1-800-ALQAEDA
Join us for an evening of food, fun and fundamentalism
Enjoy some of Ayman al-Zawahiri's famous peach cobbler
as we plot the downfall of Western imperialism. Meet
the Axis of Evil: Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!
BYOWMD
See also h ttp://terrorist.meetup.com
Click below to visit Evite for more information about the event and also to RSVP.
h ttp://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?i
This invitation was sent to you by Al Qaeda using Evite. To remove yourself
from this guest list please click on the link above.
[This is a joke, of course -- please don't
those who "police the police" but yet are paid by the "police" they're "policing"
Yeah, that's a little odd.
According to the Integrity Commitee's website, "The [Integrity Commitee] does not have purview regarding whistleblower retaliation or discrimination matters. Whistleblower retaliation matters fall within the purview of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel." So, I'm not sure how the IC fits in with regards to those allegations.
Also, the Executive Order No. 12993 (included in a report to the US Senate) says that "[f]or certain administrative allegations against Inspector Generals... it is desirable to authorize an independent investigative mechanism" (that mechanism being the Integrity Committee).
The Integrity Committee includes "three or more IGs, representing both the PCIE [President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency] and the ECIE [Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency.]"
According to the PCIE/ECIE FAQ, "Presidentially-appointed IGs make up the PCIE" (including the IG for NASA).
While that doesn't mean that something fishy is going on (I don't know that the IC is "paid" by the PCIE or IGs), it's not as clear-cut as I would have liked. I would prefer the body that investigates the IGs to not have any connection to them. I thought that's what "independent" meant.
LOL -- it's a First-Person Titrator!
F-Secure has details about this too.
/f %%i in (computerlist.txt) do (i on\Run /s | find "ScanRegistry" >>scanlist.txt 2>&1
Using the REG utility in WinXP or Win2K Resource Kit, it's not too hard to write a script to scan your PC's registries for this key. Something like
for
echo %%i >>scanlist.txt
reg query \\%%i\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers
)
then look in scanlist.txt for any 'hits'.
Although the iPod is more popular than other types of portable music players, its ability to cause noise-induced hearing isn't any higher, experts said.
Damn all that noise-induced hearing!
What is that 6.5 million based on? Is that the retail price of the product normally?
I'm guessing that it's the "value" of the merchandise, as reported by the companies who made it.
As I understand it, companies over-inflate their products' value so it looks like they're giving you a great discount. That's why the Ronco Six Star Plus Cutlery Set has an $850 value but is yours for only $39.95 (plus Shipping and Handling), and why all that crap they had on Wheel of Fortune cost so much.