I believe BT works by taking the file, and chunking it into pieces... but clients randomly download pieces.. they are not grabbed in order. This makes sense statistically if you want to share the load around.
To a degree, BT is designed so a client won't send chunks over a certain number to a certain host unless it has also received chunks from that host... is this not correct? This is to prevent pure leeching. You can leech, of course, but your rate will not be near what it can be if you upload.
The posession of child pornography is a felony. This isn't about some guy doing something against company policy.... whether the company thinks it's OK or not is irrelevant.... it's NOT ok.
And technically, if you have knowledge of a felony and don't report it, YOU have committed a crime, as well.
Secondly, if you are sitting in front of my computer, yes, it's my business what you do with it. You can make arguments about the quality of a work environment, sure... but ultimately, NO, you DONT have a right to do whatever you want with a computer that is not yours.
Furthermore, as someone in charge of the company's computing resource, you absolutely DO have the right to snoop around, especially when company policy dictates that computers are not for personal use and all data on all computers belong to the company.
As for people installing things you tell them not to... tighten up your controls and *prevent* them from installing it.
If they decide to release *ANY* of the code they wrote under a license that lets you use it at all, you should be happy.
How is it a slap in the face? IF it's *derived* from GPL code, obviously it has to be GPL. IF it's NOT, which is more likely the case, ie: It's their own original code, what right do you have to bitch about how they release it to you?
First, the obvious: IF you are concerned about YOUR obligations towards your clients, talk to a lawyer competent in the areas of law this involves.
Second.. a cursory reading of the case you linked says that case was not about scraping in general, but about a consultant doing scraping on behalf of a client who was not permitted lawful access to the site/service being scraped by way of a terms of use.
In other words: one party was indirectly accessing the site by way of a second party... it was determined that in the particular instance of this case, their action was not permitted.
But what if, on the other hand, you had a nice leather jacket just like mine, and I accidetnally wore it home from a party at your place, thinking it was mine, ebcause I was drunk and didn't realize that I left mine at home.
Do you throw me in jail, or just tell me "Hey man, you took my jacket"
If IBM knowingly infringed, YES, they should be penalized... but not the entire linux community, who in good faith will remove any code that is truly offending.
The reason mayn of us find it hard to believe that SCO's IP somehow "improved" linux, and helped it get into the business world, well, that's because we feel that linux surpassed sco in terms of performance and functionality a long, long time ago. SCO had nothing to teach linux.
You'd proably use the same tactics in their position. They are on the edge.. Microsoft, even if it produces good software, will lose a ton of money once their stranglehold on the industry is broken. It's a chicken and egg problem.. what happens when linux gains critical mass, and the dollars start pouring into application development? Believe me, for many busniess apps, all it takes is a few very significant clients to say they want linux versions to make them change platforms.
The real world application is, perhaps, psychological: getting people to realize that with a bit of effort each, we can all be networked to each other at high speed WITHOUT paying some company OR government for the privelege of just moving data around using equipment we own and airwaves that belong to everyone.
If it were *just* about people's inner beliefs, about pure spirtuality/religion, nobody would care. However, religion is a powerful social force, and defines groups of people who stick together, help each other, in business, vote as a block sometimes, etc. IT's a way of breaking down society that enough peopl throughout history see as defining enough to start WARS over.
So the philosophical rhetoric aside, knowing how many catholics, muslims, protestants, etc. is more than summing up someon'es belief. You can't tell me everyoen who put "catholic" down believes every word the catholic church told them, and therefore, falls into the exact same spiritual beliefs.. it just means "yeah I consider myself a catholic"
No, they are not deciding the name. The census is not a definition of legal religions. They are just not reporting it in the actual statistics for the country because they see it as UNIMPORTANT.
Who is giving you a hard time? Has a single one of the Canuck Jedi been harassed in any way because of the census? NO, because census data is for statistical purposes only, not personal targetting. Nobody cares about this, except the meida.
Who is complaining? Seems the media is making more noise than stats canada is. They just ignored it, cause it's not part of what they want to know. They don't give a fuck about your individual beliefs, they want to know the big numbers. If a million people put Jedi, they might mention it.
I think you should clarify what you mean by "distributed"... becuase that word is going to cause a lot of confusion.
IF you want a few linux boxes to all basically share a lot of files, so you can log into any one, do whatever, only install stuff once... nfs is fine. If it's just on a private network just for you.
NFS is not considered a "distributed" filesystem... but I'm not sure that's what yo want anyway.
Fake US currency is a much larger problem outside the US than it is internally.. if you go to a foreign country with a currency pegged against the dollar, or a place where the dollar is accepted generally, you will find people inspect the bills much more carefully, and are more knowledgable about how to detect fakes than your average american clerk. Don't make the mistake of thinking they know less about it than you do. They often won't accept bills if they are too beat up, even if they appear real.
You general don't check all your 20s, especially if they are all in the new format. If it was a roll of old 20s, battered and beaten, you might check them very carefully, as even the fact that they are all old format raises a flag.
Your bill would have to be pretty damn good to fool the change machine.
Most businesses that can make lots of change are wise to laundering, and take steps to prevent it.
THe way counterfeitters make money is by selling counterfeit dollars in bulk to someone else for so many cents on the dollar.... nowhere near face value. Like, to a drug dealer, or anyone else into the underworld who is in a better position to launder it.
The $1 and $2 were phased out due to cost, not money laundering. Coins last a lot longer, plain and simple.
The $1000 is another issue; the logic being that joe average will go a lifetime without EVER using using a $1000 bill.
And the next logical coin to come up would be the fiver. ANd hopefull they'll ditch the pennies, as The Netherlands did. (The cent still exists in electronic transactions, but for cash transcions, you round to the nearest 5c)
Canada has $1000 bills (may have been discontinued recently, not sure) We don't have a federal reserve. He's talking about Canadian money.
You are correct though... nobody has to make change. They just can't refuse to let you pay a debt with smaller bills... so if you owe $2000, and I give you two $1000 bills, you can't refuse saying "Hey those are too big I don't want them" and then sue me for not paying you money I owe.
If I owe you $500, you can demand exact change.
In some countries, there are limits to this, for instance, at one point in HK, you could use the one cent bill (yes, really was one), but right on the bill it says "legal tender for the payment of any mount up to $2".. the point being, you don't have to accept a truckload of them.
Well, askign them to accept it, or call the cops was a good move, but only because it would embarass them and make a good story for you. However, the "Legal Tender" phrase does NOT mean they have to accept it. It means that it's legal to pay down a debt.
If you owe me $100, and give me five 20s, I can't refuse to accept it because it's legal for the payment of that debt.
However, ANYONE, and ANY business, has the legal right to ask for exact change only.
Remember, though, the reason every bill isn't checked thoroughly in the US is because counterfeitting is not that common.
If it is known to be more common in an area, people DO check more carefully, it's as simple as that. When you want to know if a bill is real or not, you will be glad those features aer there. If you live in the US, you won't see the real need for this because counterfeit US bills are a much larger problem outside the US.
Yes, old notes are valid money. BUT you forgot, or don't know, that cash circulates... bills eventually, from banks, make their way back to the Fed, where old ones are destroyed and new ones issued in their place. That's what he means. You will find many less old bills in circulation now than when they were first issued.
Furthermore, the reason YOU don't care about counterfeit bills is because you live in a country where counterfeit bills are extremely rare (The US). Counterfeit US currency is MUCH more of a problem outside the US, where a HUGE portion of the US cash in play exists. Over 1/3 of US bills are outside the US.
Counterfeitters who are in it for "the fun of it" are not the ones to worry about. It's those who pass off huge amounts of fake bills that are at issue, and as the number of old-style bills in circulation goes down every day, and the number fo new bills goes up, having any significant amount of old style bills used in a transaction gets mroe and more suspect, and people will look at it closer and closer.
If it was good enough to be given to you, it is good enough to spend, except if you spend that fake $100 at the wrong place, you'll end up spending the afternoon with the police, and if they find that you KNEW it was fake, you'll be spending a lot more time with them. I guarantee after the first time you lose a few hundred bucks due to counterfeit bills that you "didn't think to check closely", you'll see it in a different way.
If you try to, say, deposit them in a bank, and the bank realizes they are fake, you don't get your money, or your bills back.
First, realize that counterfeit US currency is a much larger problem outside the US, for joe average. I live in Central America.. and seeing counterfeit bills is much more common. It's not like you see them every day, but if someone hands you US cash, especialy $100, you look very carefully. I've seen people who receive the odd counterfeit bill right from the bank.
It's not to absolutely prevent counterfeitting, but to make it easier to detect fakes. So if the bank hands you a stack of new-style 100s, it's easier for you to inpsect the bill than it is for old ones.. both because they are less worn, and becuase of the newer features. I've seen a counterfeit 100 that fooled several bankers.. it ahd everything, the 2 tone ink, watermarks, the embedded black thread or whatever it is, etc. If you compared it side by side, you could see it was wrong.. the watermark face was too fuzzy, the embedded strip wasn't clear enough, the 2tone ink wasnt' quite the right color, and the serial number was slightly wrong in color, and the paper didn't quite feel right.. but despite all that, you could easily convince yourself it WAS real.
IF someone handed you a stack of bills, and they were all old 100s... you are going to be suspicious. You are going to study carefully whether they are real or not. If I get a stack of 20s out of the machine, and one of them is oldschool, I have a more careful look at it.. something I woudln't do if they hadn't changed the printing. Doubly so if it's a 100.
It's not as rampant in the US because people are interrogated for passing counterfeit currency. Here, if someone passes one, the store or bank just says "this is counterfeit" punches a hole in it, and gives it back to you. Unless you were, say, trying to pass off a big stack of them, the cops aren't even called... it's no big deal, it's a fact of life.
If you walked into walmart with a bunch of 20s that don't feel quite right, look old and beat up, and are the old style, you can be sure that it's more likely someone will take a close look at them than if they were the newer ones and felt the same. And then you'd go to jail.
As for "printing as much as you destroy", now you are talking about a whole different issue.. the amount of cash in circulation is a meaningless number, other than meaning "do we have enough cash to conveniently let our economy work". The actual money that exists and cash in circulation are two very different things.
ON a side note... coming from a place where US currency in bad shape is not as accepted.. the newer large-face bills actually end up with the face getting rubbed off where the bill is folded much quicker than the older ones. IT's kind of annoying, because here, a bill in bad shape is not always accepted, as ultimtaely the US banks that take currency from foreign banks reject currency in bad shape.
Because those adsl modems are really ethernet bridges of a sort, and it's easier for the isp to build a large layer 2 network than it is a large layer 3 network, what with changing topology and such. So they roll out a huge layer 2 network, then use PPPoE to move the actual data in question, as if it were a real dedicated circuit.
Cable providers, on the other hand, treat their networks as a more static, and use things like dhcp instead.. they don't need pppoe (and they were around earlier.... and had some nifty dhcp + filtering hacks)
I don't want to be a bummer.. but there are a lot of factual errors in this post.
A switch will not protect you, and an attacker is certainly not screwed if a switch is in place. A switch is NOT a security measure, not in the least.
Look up ettercap, and read about arp spoofing / arp poisoning.
It is highly effecitve, and extremely easy to do... I can plug into your switched network, redirect all traffic destined for any computer or computer(s) I want (including something really interesting like your gateway, so I can see all internet traffic), analyze/sniff/steal/modify it, then send it on the way to where it's supposed to be. You won't notice.
Thinking switches == preventing sniffing attacks is a common mistake made by those new to the concept of switches.
There are other reasons why switches don't help... switch logic is generally (but not necessarily) like a hub that learns what NOT to do. If it doesn't know where a certain mac address is, most switches will broadcast the packet to all ports (otherwise, they aren't acting transparently). A switch is a way to squeeze more traffic out of a lan.. a way to deal with congestion.. not a security device. You can trick many switches into broadcasting all traffic by simply arp spamming them to fill up the switching tables with bunk. That is still crude, compaerd to arp poisoning, which doesn't involve manipulating the switch in the least...
Speaking of "TCP is not secure ofver wifi and is not always secure over ethernet" is inaccurate.
Ethernet is not a security layer. neither is tcp. TCP Is *never* secure. Security happens at other layers.. ipsec, secure tunnels, etc. The 3-way-handshake has nothing to do with security.
PPPoE does not strip the ppp stuff from the frame and route the ethernet packet.... it allows a PPP session to be created , usually to an access server of sorts, via ethernet protocols, which then removes the PPP layer to be left with whichever protocols were sent via PPP.. usual IP, and then does whatever it is configured to do with that particular protocol (such as routing IP)
If you want it in terms of encapsulation it's (Ethernet(PPPoE(IP))) (could be ipx instead of ip, or any other protocol, as PPP is general purpose)
PPPoE does not require physical connectivity.. it requires Ethernet connectivity. It works perfectly fine over any gizmos that work with ethernet. 802.11 family, proprietary wireless ethernet bridges, adsl bridges, cable modems, etcetera.
Wireless creates more risk by increasing the availability of your network to attackers.. that's it. There is no other magic reason it's more insecure than other protocols.
From a networking point of view, it is no more secure than wired ethernet. It's the same thing.
From a physical point of view, it is less secure, as it can allow someone in an area you don't have physical control over to access your network.
Small rural communities in the US are often quite good at doing things together.. from selling farm products to power to phone to cable TV to Internet.... I've seen many a CO-OP that hadnles these things. IF you think collecting the fee for high speed net access to everyon'es home is some kind of barrier to entry, you are very mistaken. That's what the guy means by "we are used to doing things together"
Generally setting up access like this for a small community involves setting up a small ISP, as a real business, co-owned by the community, with real employees... not a big for-profit business.
Likening it to a building owner who wants to provide cheap internet to his building, and be an isp without doing any work is kind of silly.. the mentaility of those involved is totally different.
And while yuo are high and mighty on the poor guy who bought a T1 from your company, realize your company salesmen probably heard his whole plan, then told him how he shoudl buy it form them because they offer the best support. Sure, he didn't check with the actual admin/support department... but you can bet he told the guy he would be taken care of if he went with you.
The product the techs often think teh company is selling and what the company is representing to it's clients is often very different. YOu may see it in purely technical terms... your clients, and your sales people, and everyone else in the company doesn't.
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I believe BT works by taking the file, and chunking it into pieces... but clients randomly download pieces.. they are not grabbed in order. This makes sense statistically if you want to share the load around.
To a degree, BT is designed so a client won't send chunks over a certain number to a certain host unless it has also received chunks from that host... is this not correct? This is to prevent pure leeching. You can leech, of course, but your rate will not be near what it can be if you upload.
The posession of child pornography is a felony. This isn't about some guy doing something against company policy.... whether the company thinks it's OK or not is irrelevant.... it's NOT ok.
And technically, if you have knowledge of a felony and don't report it, YOU have committed a crime, as well.
Secondly, if you are sitting in front of my computer, yes, it's my business what you do with it. You can make arguments about the quality of a work environment, sure... but ultimately, NO, you DONT have a right to do whatever you want with a computer that is not yours.
Furthermore, as someone in charge of the company's computing resource, you absolutely DO have the right to snoop around, especially when company policy dictates that computers are not for personal use and all data on all computers belong to the company.
As for people installing things you tell them not to... tighten up your controls and *prevent* them from installing it.
Isn't there a federal law that prohibits firing someone for reporting illegal activity?
Right. The accuser will be the police, who find all the kiddie porn on his computer.
The accuser is the person who is charging you.... or giving evidence in court against you.
Anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?
Finally, a nice, heavy frying pan that won't scratch.
If they decide to release *ANY* of the code they wrote under a license that lets you use it at all, you should be happy.
How is it a slap in the face? IF it's *derived* from GPL code, obviously it has to be GPL. IF it's NOT, which is more likely the case, ie: It's their own original code, what right do you have to bitch about how they release it to you?
Just because they used linux?
First, the obvious: IF you are concerned about YOUR obligations towards your clients, talk to a lawyer competent in the areas of law this involves.
Second.. a cursory reading of the case you linked says that case was not about scraping in general, but about a consultant doing scraping on behalf of a client who was not permitted lawful access to the site/service being scraped by way of a terms of use.
In other words: one party was indirectly accessing the site by way of a second party... it was determined that in the particular instance of this case, their action was not permitted.
But what if, on the other hand, you had a nice leather jacket just like mine, and I accidetnally wore it home from a party at your place, thinking it was mine, ebcause I was drunk and didn't realize that I left mine at home.
Do you throw me in jail, or just tell me "Hey man, you took my jacket"
If IBM knowingly infringed, YES, they should be penalized... but not the entire linux community, who in good faith will remove any code that is truly offending.
The reason mayn of us find it hard to believe that SCO's IP somehow "improved" linux, and helped it get into the business world, well, that's because we feel that linux surpassed sco in terms of performance and functionality a long, long time ago. SCO had nothing to teach linux.
You'd proably use the same tactics in their position. They are on the edge.. Microsoft, even if it produces good software, will lose a ton of money once their stranglehold on the industry is broken. It's a chicken and egg problem.. what happens when linux gains critical mass, and the dollars start pouring into application development? Believe me, for many busniess apps, all it takes is a few very significant clients to say they want linux versions to make them change platforms.
The real world application is, perhaps, psychological: getting people to realize that with a bit of effort each, we can all be networked to each other at high speed WITHOUT paying some company OR government for the privelege of just moving data around using equipment we own and airwaves that belong to everyone.
If it were *just* about people's inner beliefs, about pure spirtuality/religion, nobody would care.
However, religion is a powerful social force, and defines groups of people who stick together, help each other, in business, vote as a block sometimes, etc. IT's a way of breaking down society that enough peopl throughout history see as defining enough to start WARS over.
So the philosophical rhetoric aside, knowing how many catholics, muslims, protestants, etc. is more than summing up someon'es belief. You can't tell me everyoen who put "catholic" down believes every word the catholic church told them, and therefore, falls into the exact same spiritual beliefs.. it just means "yeah I consider myself a catholic"
No, they are not deciding the name. The census is not a definition of legal religions. They are just not reporting it in the actual statistics for the country because they see it as UNIMPORTANT.
Who is giving you a hard time? Has a single one of the Canuck Jedi been harassed in any way because of the census? NO, because census data is for statistical purposes only, not personal targetting. Nobody cares about this, except the meida.
Who is complaining? Seems the media is making more noise than stats canada is. They just ignored it, cause it's not part of what they want to know. They don't give a fuck about your individual beliefs, they want to know the big numbers. If a million people put Jedi, they might mention it.
I think you should clarify what you mean by "distributed"... becuase that word is going to cause a lot of confusion.
IF you want a few linux boxes to all basically share a lot of files, so you can log into any one, do whatever, only install stuff once... nfs is fine. If it's just on a private network just for you.
NFS is not considered a "distributed" filesystem... but I'm not sure that's what yo want anyway.
But nothing the guy asked about requires "distributed". His post really sounds like he means "networked"
Fake US currency is a much larger problem outside the US than it is internally.. if you go to a foreign country with a currency pegged against the dollar, or a place where the dollar is accepted generally, you will find people inspect the bills much more carefully, and are more knowledgable about how to detect fakes than your average american clerk. Don't make the mistake of thinking they know less about it than you do. They often won't accept bills if they are too beat up, even if they appear real.
You general don't check all your 20s, especially if they are all in the new format. If it was a roll of old 20s, battered and beaten, you might check them very carefully, as even the fact that they are all old format raises a flag.
Your bill would have to be pretty damn good to fool the change machine.
Most businesses that can make lots of change are wise to laundering, and take steps to prevent it.
THe way counterfeitters make money is by selling counterfeit dollars in bulk to someone else for so many cents on the dollar.... nowhere near face value. Like, to a drug dealer, or anyone else into the underworld who is in a better position to launder it.
The $1 and $2 were phased out due to cost, not money laundering. Coins last a lot longer, plain and simple.
The $1000 is another issue; the logic being that joe average will go a lifetime without EVER using using a $1000 bill.
And the next logical coin to come up would be the fiver. ANd hopefull they'll ditch the pennies, as The Netherlands did. (The cent still exists in electronic transactions, but for cash transcions, you round to the nearest 5c)
Canada has $1000 bills (may have been discontinued recently, not sure) We don't have a federal reserve. He's talking about Canadian money.
You are correct though... nobody has to make change. They just can't refuse to let you pay a debt with smaller bills... so if you owe $2000, and I give you two $1000 bills, you can't refuse saying "Hey those are too big I don't want them" and then sue me for not paying you money I owe.
If I owe you $500, you can demand exact change.
In some countries, there are limits to this, for instance, at one point in HK, you could use the one cent bill (yes, really was one), but right on the bill it says "legal tender for the payment of any mount up to $2".. the point being, you don't have to accept a truckload of them.
Well, askign them to accept it, or call the cops was a good move, but only because it would embarass them and make a good story for you. However, the "Legal Tender" phrase does NOT mean they have to accept it. It means that it's legal to pay down a debt.
If you owe me $100, and give me five 20s, I can't refuse to accept it because it's legal for the payment of that debt.
However, ANYONE, and ANY business, has the legal right to ask for exact change only.
Remember, though, the reason every bill isn't checked thoroughly in the US is because counterfeitting is not that common.
If it is known to be more common in an area, people DO check more carefully, it's as simple as that. When you want to know if a bill is real or not, you will be glad those features aer there.
If you live in the US, you won't see the real need for this because counterfeit US bills are a much larger problem outside the US.
Yes, old notes are valid money. BUT you forgot, or don't know, that cash circulates... bills eventually, from banks, make their way back to the Fed, where old ones are destroyed and new ones issued in their place. That's what he means. You will find many less old bills in circulation now than when they were first issued.
Furthermore, the reason YOU don't care about counterfeit bills is because you live in a country where counterfeit bills are extremely rare (The US). Counterfeit US currency is MUCH more of a problem outside the US, where a HUGE portion of the US cash in play exists. Over 1/3 of US bills are outside the US.
Counterfeitters who are in it for "the fun of it" are not the ones to worry about. It's those who pass off huge amounts of fake bills that are at issue, and as the number of old-style bills in circulation goes down every day, and the number fo new bills goes up, having any significant amount of old style bills used in a transaction gets mroe and more suspect, and people will look at it closer and closer.
If it was good enough to be given to you, it is good enough to spend, except if you spend that fake $100 at the wrong place, you'll end up spending the afternoon with the police, and if they find that you KNEW it was fake, you'll be spending a lot more time with them. I guarantee after the first time you lose a few hundred bucks due to counterfeit bills that you "didn't think to check closely", you'll see it in a different way.
If you try to, say, deposit them in a bank, and the bank realizes they are fake, you don't get your money, or your bills back.
First, realize that counterfeit US currency is a much larger problem outside the US, for joe average. I live in Central America.. and seeing counterfeit bills is much more common. It's not like you see them every day, but if someone hands you US cash, especialy $100, you look very carefully. I've seen people who receive the odd counterfeit bill right from the bank.
It's not to absolutely prevent counterfeitting, but to make it easier to detect fakes. So if the bank hands you a stack of new-style 100s, it's easier for you to inpsect the bill than it is for old ones.. both because they are less worn, and becuase of the newer features. I've seen a counterfeit 100 that fooled several bankers.. it ahd everything, the 2 tone ink, watermarks, the embedded black thread or whatever it is, etc. If you compared it side by side, you could see it was wrong.. the watermark face was too fuzzy, the embedded strip wasn't clear enough, the 2tone ink wasnt' quite the right color, and the serial number was slightly wrong in color, and the paper didn't quite feel right.. but despite all that, you could easily convince yourself it WAS real.
IF someone handed you a stack of bills, and they were all old 100s... you are going to be suspicious. You are going to study carefully whether they are real or not. If I get a stack of 20s out of the machine, and one of them is oldschool, I have a more careful look at it.. something I woudln't do if they hadn't changed the printing. Doubly so if it's a 100.
It's not as rampant in the US because people are interrogated for passing counterfeit currency. Here, if someone passes one, the store or bank just says "this is counterfeit" punches a hole in it, and gives it back to you. Unless you were, say, trying to pass off a big stack of them, the cops aren't even called... it's no big deal, it's a fact of life.
If you walked into walmart with a bunch of 20s that don't feel quite right, look old and beat up, and are the old style, you can be sure that it's more likely someone will take a close look at them than if they were the newer ones and felt the same. And then you'd go to jail.
As for "printing as much as you destroy", now you are talking about a whole different issue.. the amount of cash in circulation is a meaningless number, other than meaning "do we have enough cash to conveniently let our economy work". The actual money that exists and cash in circulation are two very different things.
ON a side note... coming from a place where US currency in bad shape is not as accepted.. the newer large-face bills actually end up with the face getting rubbed off where the bill is folded much quicker than the older ones. IT's kind of annoying, because here, a bill in bad shape is not always accepted, as ultimtaely the US banks that take currency from foreign banks reject currency in bad shape.
Because those adsl modems are really ethernet bridges of a sort, and it's easier for the isp to build a large layer 2 network than it is a large layer 3 network, what with changing topology and such. So they roll out a huge layer 2 network, then use PPPoE to move the actual data in question, as if it were a real dedicated circuit.
Cable providers, on the other hand, treat their networks as a more static, and use things like dhcp instead.. they don't need pppoe (and they were around earlier.... and had some nifty dhcp + filtering hacks)
I don't want to be a bummer.. but there are a lot of factual errors in this post.
A switch will not protect you, and an attacker is certainly not screwed if a switch is in place. A switch is NOT a security measure, not in the least.
Look up ettercap, and read about arp spoofing / arp poisoning.
It is highly effecitve, and extremely easy to do... I can plug into your switched network, redirect all traffic destined for any computer or computer(s) I want (including something really interesting like your gateway, so I can see all internet traffic), analyze/sniff/steal/modify it, then send it on the way to where it's supposed to be. You won't notice.
Thinking switches == preventing sniffing attacks is a common mistake made by those new to the concept of switches.
There are other reasons why switches don't help... switch logic is generally (but not necessarily) like a hub that learns what NOT to do. If it doesn't know where a certain mac address is, most switches will broadcast the packet to all ports (otherwise, they aren't acting transparently). A switch is a way to squeeze more traffic out of a lan.. a way to deal with congestion.. not a security device. You can trick many switches into broadcasting all traffic by simply arp spamming them to fill up the switching tables with bunk.
That is still crude, compaerd to arp poisoning, which doesn't involve manipulating the switch in the least...
Speaking of "TCP is not secure ofver wifi and is not always secure over ethernet" is inaccurate.
Ethernet is not a security layer. neither is tcp. TCP Is *never* secure. Security happens at other layers.. ipsec, secure tunnels, etc.
The 3-way-handshake has nothing to do with security.
PPPoE does not strip the ppp stuff from the frame and route the ethernet packet.... it allows a PPP session to be created , usually to an access server of sorts, via ethernet protocols, which then removes the PPP layer to be left with whichever protocols were sent via PPP.. usual IP, and then does whatever it is configured to do with that particular protocol (such as routing IP)
If you want it in terms of encapsulation it's
(Ethernet(PPPoE(IP))) (could be ipx instead of ip, or any other protocol, as PPP is general purpose)
PPPoE does not require physical connectivity.. it requires Ethernet connectivity. It works perfectly fine over any gizmos that work with ethernet. 802.11 family, proprietary wireless ethernet bridges, adsl bridges, cable modems, etcetera.
Wireless creates more risk by increasing the availability of your network to attackers.. that's it. There is no other magic reason it's more insecure than other protocols.
From a networking point of view, it is no more secure than wired ethernet. It's the same thing.
From a physical point of view, it is less secure, as it can allow someone in an area you don't have physical control over to access your network.
Small rural communities in the US are often quite good at doing things together.. from selling farm products to power to phone to cable TV to Internet.... I've seen many a CO-OP that hadnles these things. IF you think collecting the fee for high speed net access to everyon'es home is some kind of barrier to entry, you are very mistaken.
That's what the guy means by "we are used to doing things together"
Generally setting up access like this for a small community involves setting up a small ISP, as a real business, co-owned by the community, with real employees... not a big for-profit business.
Likening it to a building owner who wants to provide cheap internet to his building, and be an isp without doing any work is kind of silly.. the mentaility of those involved is totally different.
And while yuo are high and mighty on the poor guy who bought a T1 from your company, realize your company salesmen probably heard his whole plan, then told him how he shoudl buy it form them because they offer the best support. Sure, he didn't check with the actual admin/support department... but you can bet he told the guy he would be taken care of if he went with you.
The product the techs often think teh company is selling and what the company is representing to it's clients is often very different. YOu may see it in purely technical terms... your clients, and your sales people, and everyone else in the company doesn't.