I think it's great that they are doing this, and they should be commended for it. But I couldn't help but notices that the artilce that was determined 'lame' here is still linked from the front page of their site....
They do kinda have a point. It would be great to be able to update everything that has a security problem in one sweep, but it might not be practical for linux, since not everything has to be installed (like NT).
As an after thought. Don't you have to apply 21 fixes to NT just to get it to run?!
Standing military and 'able' military are different.:) I was referring to their 'able' military, meaning the number of troops they are able to call up. You can't serously expect any country to goto any serious war with just their standing military.
As for the nukes, I've replied elsewhere on the numbers. But also you point out the fact about the kill vehicles. Assuming they actually work.:)
When I spoke of targeting Alaska I was intending on refering to other coutries as well. China wouldn't likely target Alaska, as you point it out, but a major city, or military base.
As for NK's missile program. Anything about it is speculation. I'm first to admit that I'm in no way an expert. But you also have to realize that NK is a very closed country. I find it unlikely that they hit the continental US at the moment. In the future it's of course quite possible that any country on earth could nuke us.:)
A single hit is rather impressive, given how it works. But also realize that although it had decoys, etc. That the target was ours. We knew everything about the missile, also it's weaknesses.
Technology does make quite a difference in a battle. You can't count on every country's tactics and moral to be as poor as Iraqs. The Iraqi war was won before it started.
When it comes to nuclear weapons 10 is a rather large number.:) The point I was trying to make there is that they have plenty so that if they attacked it could be quite costly.:)
As for the defensense of those areas it wouldn't do much. The system discussed here is best used for defense of the continental US, and maybe Hawaii and Alaska, depending on the origin of the attack.:)
On the response to a first strike. Assuming we have this system in a fully funtionaly and fully deployed. I think we'd likely take out all the incoming missles that we could. If any got through and actually caused a fairly large loss of life we would respond in kind. And they wouldn't have the same defense.
Just a simple question, why? The United Nations is a powerless political body. They can pass 'resolutions' and anything else they want. But they can't enforce anything. The members of the UN enforce these 'resolutions' and 'policies'. The US being the major member of the UN (military wise) dose the brunt of the enforcing.
Not to mention, giving this to the UN would give it to China, Russia, and several other countries that you really don't want to have the technology!
Your facts are a little mixed here. China is in NO way militarily small. With a population in the Billions they have the largest army in the world. It dosen't matter what kind of technology you have, you will be overwhelmed by hundreds of millions of troops coming at you. As for their nulcear weapons, they have a rather large number. Granted not as large as we do, or did, but when it comes to nukes. You don't need a lot. From the information I've been able to read china could launch an attack of several dozen missiles that could hit anywhere in the US. Not to mention the number they could launch at Hawaii and Alaska. Or at our allies in the east.
North Koreas is BELIEVED to be DEVELOPING a missle that could hit the continental US. Their only KNOWN and WORKING missile can just reach Japan.
And yes yes a test was sucessful. So? Patriot missile tests were 'sucessful' as well. That dosen't give them a good hit percentage. 'Official' hit percentages are always higher than 'acutual' hit percentages. Our most advanced intercept missile in operation, the Patriot, has a hit percentage of something like 30 -- 40 percent (if I remmeber correctly).
And I think we all know just about how much salt to take with military briefings. The military is worse than politicians when it comes to 'adjusting' facts. And it's easier for them, just Classify it and they can't really find out!
1) geigercounters wouldn't detect anything a lead lined crate.
2) a crate is MUCH larger than I'm talking about.
The suitcases the russians built are slightly larger than a carry on. They don't have to be big. They're a Nuclear Weapon! And they arn't packing 25-Megaton Bombs. What they pack are a few kilotons. But look at what we did with a few kilotons? Dosen't take much does it?
As for 'anyone' building a nuke. Why not? The plans are on the internet. For a few kiloton bomb you'd only have to get a small ammount of Uranium or a slightly larger amount of Plutonium. With the way Russian and all the small countries it spawned off any third world country could get the ammount they needed easily, if not the entire device. With more money you could produce your own. France has sold a couple nuclear reactors that use weapon grade uranium. Now the problem isn't that they sold them, it's who. One went to Iraq! and if I remmeber correctly a second went to Libya or some such country in it's class.
What exaclty keeps the general person from building a nuke? The Plutonium or Urianium. It's hard to come by cheap. But if you have the money, it's not a problem.
It is not illegal for them to USE the SSN. The illegal part is the RELEASE of the SSN. By allowing a student to enter the SSN and Name into the computer they violated privacy. And by attempting (yes, I say attempting, since it's not working so well) to force students to display the information.
Yes some have argued that the use is illegal, but the real point here is that the display and relase of the information (without perimssion) is illegal.
1) The computers are for the children to do work on. Except in maybe a computer class the computers are additional aids to teaching. There is still a teacher and they still teach. The kids still have to write (as much as we might hate it, that'll never go away) and read books.
2) We only know their basic setup. They might have more than one sever (a faster main server, and a slower backup). They might have several servers serving the entire network doing loadsharing. There isn't neccessarily a single server to go down.
3) (this is related to 1) Even if the server does go down and the network is lost. So? Nothing at that age level is yet taught totally on computers. Granted, the office staff will get a break, but chances are in a school like that there are two or three PCs in the office total and they probably already depend on a network. So if a network goes down in the normal office they get a break anyway.
Someone has already posted the people with ICBMs, granted about half of them can't reach us directly, but they can reach allies. And, though this is really another arguement, I think any Nuclear attack would be retaliated for, in some way.
The Need:
The american people have become apathetic to threat of nuclear weapons since the fall of the USSR. Now, the direct threat of a large scale nuclear war virtually disapeared when the USSR fell. They were the only ones with the large enough number of nuclear weapons to destroy the entire US. But with their fall the threat of a nuclear attack has only increased.
With rouge nations obtaining nuclear weapons, or the technology and equipment to build them, we have even more to worry about then at the cold war. Our only safeguard on the US main land, at the moment, is distance. Most of these countries have not developed a weapon that can be launched from their country and hit ours. But it's just a matter of time for them to develop one or get the technology for one. And our allies and outer 'holdings' are still under the threat. Such a defense system virtually eliminates the threat of such weapons.
The Counter Arguement:
It's been shown that the USSR developed nuclear weapons that could be carried in a suit case. Such a defense system would not protect against this. And I belive that this is a more likely attack than one of ICBMs. As I said early, most countries don't have ICBMs, they simply have comparitively short range missiles. Hence, it would be much easier, and much cheaper, to put a bunch of Nukes in suitcases, fly them into the US and detonate them. You won't know it's coming, and you won't be able to stop it.
The Questions:
These are more rehtorical than anything, though feel free to respond, I'm always interested in INTELLIGENT responses to them.
How Can We Build Such A Weapon? The Anti-Balistic Missile Act we signed with the USSR (and several other countries if I remmeber correctly) back in the 80s when we had Star Wars in development prevents weapon systems of this type. So how can we build one? Well...you could argue that the USSR fell and, hence, all treaties with it are null/void. But that would hurt, cause there are still some treaties there we count on. You could also argue that they can't do anything to stop us. They are destroying their missiles and are way too poor to start development on a system such as this.
Why build such a system? The treat from ICBMs is considerably small to that of terrorism (with or with nukes). Why build such an expensive system for something that's much less likely to happen than something currently happening? Well, one answer would be that no systems coming from such companies could defeat terrorism. And that's quite correct. But the money is the main point. Why not funnel that money into finding these know terrorist?
The End:
As a final parting comment. I'd be much more concerned about the nukes they can fly into the country with our own air planes than those of ICBMs, but government wants us to belive the only threat from nuclear weapons is that they are launched via ICBMs....
I belive more correctly that the CIA is the one mainly involved in Columbia. It has been since the Regan administration. Now, if the NSA feeds to the CIA....that's a totally different issue.
But if you want to get into columbia....well, this isn't really the place. But we've had troops/people involved in columbia fighting the 'drug war' for years.:)
You can find more about RAND at their site http://www.rand.org/. They've done a lot of interesting work, if you have the patience to read it. Their reports tend to be extreemly long and you surely don't want to try and print them (except maybe at work;)).
They do research for the Air Force, Army, and in other non-military fields such as health.
As for my original post. I did typo and miss adding Transmeta as one of those places like the NSA.;)
When was the last time you saw something come out of hollywood that was accurate? (Look at all the 'hacker' movies). Hollywood warps anything and everything to what makes a 'better' movie.
I've read a little on the NSA's history and their public mission. They relate more to geeks like us. They are computer, math, and science people. I've heard some say they are the biggest collection of brains in the US. I think that's probably true, except for maybe RAND. Some of the smarest people in the world work there, they just can't talk about what they are doing.
I have contacted the webmaster of LA Tech (who's site it's hosted on) and one of the students there to try and obtain e-mail addresses. If I get any response I'll post it here.:)
Found some moreHere This is the site of Rachel W. I belive she is the one that was intervied in the article.:) NOTE: It appears the principals have changed since their school web page was updated.
Louisiana Governor Mike Foster Office of the Governor ATTN:Constituent Services P.O. Box 94004 Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804-9004 Phone(225)342-7015;(225)342-0991 FAX (225)342-7099 Email: http://www.gov.state.la.us/governor/ contact2.htm
Ruston Mayoral Office ATTN:Mayor Dan Hollingsworth 401 N. Trenton Street Ruston, Louisiana 71270 Phone(318)251-8621
Ruston High School ATTN:Principal Dr. Charles Scriber 900 Bearcat Drive Ruston, Louisiana 71270 Phone(318)255-0807
Lincoln Parish School Board ATTN: Superintendant Dr. Gerald Cobb ATTN: Assistant Superintendant Mr. Ronnie Suggs 410 S. Farmerville Street Ruston, Louisiana 71270 Phone (138)255-1430 FAX (318)255-0468
Administration: Randy Moore - Principal David Crowe - Assistant Principal Thomas Hay - Assistant Principal Glenda Smith - Assistant Principal
I was unable to find any e-mail addresses. But as one that lives in LA, it dosen't suprise me. Most school administration is behind the times.:) I'm continuing the search for e-mails.:)
Searching people.yahoo.com came up with a few interesting records. And if you have some money to spend you could really find out a lot about this adminstration (IE anything in public records). I will not post the info here, because e-mailing is one thing, calling a person at home is different.
"ID Card Policy: STUDENT I.D. CARDS
All Ruston High School students must have an I.D. card. The cost of the card is included in the school fee. The card will be coded for such things as:(1) class/grade (2) voting purposes (3) period(s) dismissed from school for work or part-time status (4) monthly lunch purchases.
RULES CONCERNING I.D. CARD
1. This I.D. card is to identify Ruston High School students, to insure the identification process in student management, and for control of visitors and unauthorized intruders on campus.
2. The I.D. card must be in the possession of the student at all times while at school, and penalties for non-possession will range from a detention assignment for a first violation, to suspension from school for later or major violations. Refusal to submit I.D. card is an automatic suspension, effective immediately.
3. Requirements for I.D. before participation:
a. check out library books b. purchase student tickets to athletic events c. check in and out of school d. submit with hall pass (telephone, restroom, locker, etc.) e. voting in school elections f. admission to dances and student sections for athletic events 4. The I.D. card is non-transferable. Illegal use of I.D. card not belonging to the student is a suspension offense and can be considered fraud or theft resulting in disciplinary action to the user and owner.
5. If this card is lost, damaged, or stolen, it is the student's responsibility to replace it immediately at a cost of $2.00.
6. Students scheduled to leave campus must have I.D. punched in the appropriate places."
Actually my experience in the work place is that IRC is TOTALLY filtered. I've worked for the government on an Air Force Base twice before and could never get IRC access. Also most companies who allow internet access run their own newsgroup/mail servers. They simply don't allow there to be any pornography newsgroups on their servers and they don't allow network connections to any other news server than their own. It's really not that hard to filter those two. But the main point here is that companies using the software being described here would know EVERYTHING you did while that software was running.
I trully belive that any company out there that has internet access/frequent computer use spies on their employees in one way or another. Now I'll clarify from above and say that they don't neccessarily do it in the same way. Some use firewalls to filter sites and e-mail the administrator if a user tries to access such a site. Some companies read e-mails. Some use "stealth software" to monitor. As with everything there are extreems, and policies vary greatly. Some have better policies than others.
The reason people stay is that 99% of the companies do similar things. True, certain companies have stricter policies than others, but in general all companies spy on their employees to some point. So moving to a new one really dosn't change anything.
Slashdot Mirror
So just out of curriousity. How does this pattent affect Microsoft's new passport service? It could get interesting...
I think it's great that they are doing this, and they should be commended for it. But I couldn't help but notices that the artilce that was determined 'lame' here is still linked from the front page of their site....
When reading, you'll notice that though the titles refer only to Linux, that a lot of the body of the "comments" refers to Unix, not Linux...
They do kinda have a point. It would be great to be able to update everything that has a security problem in one sweep, but it might not be practical for linux, since not everything has to be installed (like NT).
As an after thought. Don't you have to apply 21 fixes to NT just to get it to run?!
Standing military and 'able' military are different. :) I was referring to their 'able' military, meaning the number of troops they are able to call up. You can't serously expect any country to goto any serious war with just their standing military.
:)
:)
As for the nukes, I've replied elsewhere on the numbers. But also you point out the fact about the kill vehicles. Assuming they actually work.
When I spoke of targeting Alaska I was intending on refering to other coutries as well. China wouldn't likely target Alaska, as you point it out, but a major city, or military base.
As for NK's missile program. Anything about it is speculation. I'm first to admit that I'm in no way an expert. But you also have to realize that NK is a very closed country. I find it unlikely that they hit the continental US at the moment. In the future it's of course quite possible that any country on earth could nuke us.
A single hit is rather impressive, given how it works. But also realize that although it had decoys, etc. That the target was ours. We knew everything about the missile, also it's weaknesses.
Technology does make quite a difference in a battle. You can't count on every country's tactics and moral to be as poor as Iraqs. The Iraqi war was won before it started.
When it comes to nuclear weapons 10 is a rather large number. :) The point I was trying to make there is that they have plenty so that if they attacked it could be quite costly. :)
:)
As for the defensense of those areas it wouldn't do much. The system discussed here is best used for defense of the continental US, and maybe Hawaii and Alaska, depending on the origin of the attack.
The problem is in the perfect world it would work alright. But any body larger than 1 becomes political. :)
On the response to a first strike. Assuming we have this system in a fully funtionaly and fully deployed. I think we'd likely take out all the incoming missles that we could. If any got through and actually caused a fairly large loss of life we would respond in kind. And they wouldn't have the same defense.
Just a simple question, why? The United Nations is a powerless political body. They can pass 'resolutions' and anything else they want. But they can't enforce anything. The members of the UN enforce these 'resolutions' and 'policies'. The US being the major member of the UN (military wise) dose the brunt of the enforcing.
Not to mention, giving this to the UN would give it to China, Russia, and several other countries that you really don't want to have the technology!
Why would you want to do that?!
Your facts are a little mixed here. China is in NO way militarily small. With a population in the Billions they have the largest army in the world. It dosen't matter what kind of technology you have, you will be overwhelmed by hundreds of millions of troops coming at you. As for their nulcear weapons, they have a rather large number. Granted not as large as we do, or did, but when it comes to nukes. You don't need a lot. From the information I've been able to read china could launch an attack of several dozen missiles that could hit anywhere in the US. Not to mention the number they could launch at Hawaii and Alaska. Or at our allies in the east.
North Koreas is BELIEVED to be DEVELOPING a missle that could hit the continental US. Their only KNOWN and WORKING missile can just reach Japan.
And yes yes a test was sucessful. So? Patriot missile tests were 'sucessful' as well. That dosen't give them a good hit percentage. 'Official' hit percentages are always higher than 'acutual' hit percentages. Our most advanced intercept missile in operation, the Patriot, has a hit percentage of something like 30 -- 40 percent (if I remmeber correctly).
And I think we all know just about how much salt to take with military briefings. The military is worse than politicians when it comes to 'adjusting' facts. And it's easier for them, just Classify it and they can't really find out!
It took a little time. But I've aquired the e-mail address for the Principal
;)
Dr. Sciber's e-mail address:
cscriber@lincolnschools.org
School's phone number:
(318) 255-0807
Enjoy....and SLASHDOT!
Well. A few errors there.
1) geigercounters wouldn't detect anything a lead lined crate.
2) a crate is MUCH larger than I'm talking about.
The suitcases the russians built are slightly larger than a carry on. They don't have to be big. They're a Nuclear Weapon! And they arn't packing 25-Megaton Bombs. What they pack are a few kilotons. But look at what we did with a few kilotons? Dosen't take much does it?
As for 'anyone' building a nuke. Why not? The plans are on the internet. For a few kiloton bomb you'd only have to get a small ammount of Uranium or a slightly larger amount of Plutonium. With the way Russian and all the small countries it spawned off any third world country could get the ammount they needed easily, if not the entire device. With more money you could produce your own. France has sold a couple nuclear reactors that use weapon grade uranium. Now the problem isn't that they sold them, it's who. One went to Iraq! and if I remmeber correctly a second went to Libya or some such country in it's class.
What exaclty keeps the general person from building a nuke? The Plutonium or Urianium. It's hard to come by cheap. But if you have the money, it's not a problem.
It is not illegal for them to USE the SSN. The illegal part is the RELEASE of the SSN. By allowing a student to enter the SSN and Name into the computer they violated privacy. And by attempting (yes, I say attempting, since it's not working so well) to force students to display the information.
Yes some have argued that the use is illegal, but the real point here is that the display and relase of the information (without perimssion) is illegal.
A fair statement, but not neccesairly correct.
1) The computers are for the children to do work on. Except in maybe a computer class the computers are additional aids to teaching. There is still a teacher and they still teach. The kids still have to write (as much as we might hate it, that'll never go away) and read books.
2) We only know their basic setup. They might have more than one sever (a faster main server, and a slower backup). They might have several servers serving the entire network doing loadsharing. There isn't neccessarily a single server to go down.
3) (this is related to 1) Even if the server does go down and the network is lost. So? Nothing at that age level is yet taught totally on computers. Granted, the office staff will get a break, but chances are in a school like that there are two or three PCs in the office total and they probably already depend on a network. So if a network goes down in the normal office they get a break anyway.
Someone has already posted the people with ICBMs, granted about half of them can't reach us directly, but they can reach allies. And, though this is really another arguement, I think any Nuclear attack would be retaliated for, in some way.
The Need:
The american people have become apathetic to threat of nuclear weapons since the fall of the USSR. Now, the direct threat of a large scale nuclear war virtually disapeared when the USSR fell. They were the only ones with the large enough number of nuclear weapons to destroy the entire US. But with their fall the threat of a nuclear attack has only increased.
With rouge nations obtaining nuclear weapons, or the technology and equipment to build them, we have even more to worry about then at the cold war. Our only safeguard on the US main land, at the moment, is distance. Most of these countries have not developed a weapon that can be launched from their country and hit ours. But it's just a matter of time for them to develop one or get the technology for one. And our allies and outer 'holdings' are still under the threat. Such a defense system virtually eliminates the threat of such weapons.
The Counter Arguement:
It's been shown that the USSR developed nuclear weapons that could be carried in a suit case. Such a defense system would not protect against this. And I belive that this is a more likely attack than one of ICBMs. As I said early, most countries don't have ICBMs, they simply have comparitively short range missiles. Hence, it would be much easier, and much cheaper, to put a bunch of Nukes in suitcases, fly them into the US and detonate them. You won't know it's coming, and you won't be able to stop it.
The Questions:
These are more rehtorical than anything, though feel free to respond, I'm always interested in INTELLIGENT responses to them.
How Can We Build Such A Weapon?
The Anti-Balistic Missile Act we signed with the USSR (and several other countries if I remmeber correctly) back in the 80s when we had Star Wars in development prevents weapon systems of this type. So how can we build one? Well...you could argue that the USSR fell and, hence, all treaties with it are null/void. But that would hurt, cause there are still some treaties there we count on. You could also argue that they can't do anything to stop us. They are destroying their missiles and are way too poor to start development on a system such as this.
Why build such a system?
The treat from ICBMs is considerably small to that of terrorism (with or with nukes). Why build such an expensive system for something that's much less likely to happen than something currently happening? Well, one answer would be that no systems coming from such companies could defeat terrorism. And that's quite correct. But the money is the main point. Why not funnel that money into finding these know terrorist?
The End:
As a final parting comment. I'd be much more concerned about the nukes they can fly into the country with our own air planes than those of ICBMs, but government wants us to belive the only threat from nuclear weapons is that they are launched via ICBMs....
#include "std_disclaimer.h"
I belive more correctly that the CIA is the one mainly involved in Columbia. It has been since the Regan administration. Now, if the NSA feeds to the CIA....that's a totally different issue.
:)
But if you want to get into columbia....well, this isn't really the place. But we've had troops/people involved in columbia fighting the 'drug war' for years.
You can find more about RAND at their site http://www.rand.org/. They've done a lot of interesting work, if you have the patience to read it. Their reports tend to be extreemly long and you surely don't want to try and print them (except maybe at work ;)).
;)
They do research for the Air Force, Army, and in other non-military fields such as health.
As for my original post. I did typo and miss adding Transmeta as one of those places like the NSA.
When was the last time you saw something come out of hollywood that was accurate? (Look at all the 'hacker' movies). Hollywood warps anything and everything to what makes a 'better' movie.
I've read a little on the NSA's history and their public mission. They relate more to geeks like us. They are computer, math, and science people. I've heard some say they are the biggest collection of brains in the US. I think that's probably true, except for maybe RAND. Some of the smarest people in the world work there, they just can't talk about what they are doing.
I have contacted the webmaster of LA Tech (who's site it's hosted on) and one of the students there to try and obtain e-mail addresses. If I get any response I'll post it here. :)
Found some moreHere This is the site of Rachel W. I belive she is the one that was intervied in the article. :) NOTE: It appears the principals have changed since their school web page was updated.
Louisiana Governor Mike Foster
Office of the Governor
ATTN:Constituent Services
P.O. Box 94004
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804-9004
Phone(225)342-7015;(225)342-0991
FAX (225)342-7099
Email: http://www.gov.state.la.us/governor/ contact2.htm
Ruston Mayoral Office
ATTN:Mayor Dan Hollingsworth
401 N. Trenton Street
Ruston, Louisiana 71270
Phone(318)251-8621
Ruston High School
ATTN:Principal Dr. Charles Scriber
900 Bearcat Drive
Ruston, Louisiana 71270
Phone(318)255-0807
Lincoln Parish School Board
ATTN: Superintendant Dr. Gerald Cobb
ATTN: Assistant Superintendant Mr. Ronnie Suggs
410 S. Farmerville Street
Ruston, Louisiana 71270
Phone (138)255-1430
FAX (318)255-0468
The article has a link to the school's policy/web page.
:) I'm continuing the search for e-mails. :)
The office's phone number is:
(318)225-0807
Administration:
Randy Moore - Principal
David Crowe - Assistant Principal
Thomas Hay - Assistant Principal
Glenda Smith - Assistant Principal
I was unable to find any e-mail addresses. But as one that lives in LA, it dosen't suprise me. Most school administration is behind the times.
Searching people.yahoo.com came up with a few interesting records. And if you have some money to spend you could really find out a lot about this adminstration (IE anything in public records). I will not post the info here, because e-mailing is one thing, calling a person at home is different.
"ID Card Policy:
STUDENT I.D. CARDS
All Ruston High School students must have an I.D. card. The cost of the card is included in the school fee. The card will be
coded for such things as:(1) class/grade (2) voting purposes (3) period(s) dismissed from school for work or part-time status
(4) monthly lunch purchases.
RULES CONCERNING I.D. CARD
1. This I.D. card is to identify Ruston High School students, to insure the identification process in student management, and for
control of visitors and unauthorized intruders on campus.
2. The I.D. card must be in the possession of the student at all times while at school, and penalties for non-possession will range
from a detention assignment for a first violation, to suspension from school for later or major violations. Refusal to submit I.D.
card is an automatic suspension, effective immediately.
3. Requirements for I.D. before participation:
a. check out library books
b. purchase student tickets to athletic events
c. check in and out of school
d. submit with hall pass (telephone, restroom, locker, etc.)
e. voting in school elections
f. admission to dances and student sections for athletic events
4. The I.D. card is non-transferable. Illegal use of I.D. card not belonging to the student is a suspension offense and can be
considered fraud or theft resulting in disciplinary action to the user and owner.
5. If this card is lost, damaged, or stolen, it is the student's responsibility to replace it immediately at a cost of $2.00.
6. Students scheduled to leave campus must have I.D. punched in the appropriate places."
So if the company owns the patent for the gene that makes us have a certain trait....does that mean that I can be sued if I have that trait?
(NOTE: I'm and NOT being serious here. I find the fact that any company/person/etc. would have the gall to patent something in nature appaling!)
Actually my experience in the work place is that IRC is TOTALLY filtered. I've worked for the government on an Air Force Base twice before and could never get IRC access. Also most companies who allow internet access run their own newsgroup/mail servers. They simply don't allow there to be any pornography newsgroups on their servers and they don't allow network connections to any other news server than their own. It's really not that hard to filter those two. But the main point here is that companies using the software being described here would know EVERYTHING you did while that software was running.
I trully belive that any company out there that has internet access/frequent computer use spies on their employees in one way or another. Now I'll clarify from above and say that they don't neccessarily do it in the same way. Some use firewalls to filter sites and e-mail the administrator if a user tries to access such a site. Some companies read e-mails. Some use "stealth software" to monitor. As with everything there are extreems, and policies vary greatly. Some have better policies than others.
The reason people stay is that 99% of the companies do similar things. True, certain companies have stricter policies than others, but in general all companies spy on their employees to some point. So moving to a new one really dosn't change anything.