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User: silas_moeckel

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  1. Re:More planning could have prevented this on Explosion At ThePlanet Datacenter Drops 9,000 Servers · · Score: 1

    The point is redundant power feeds is a fairly cheap and common practice. They did not seem to have that in there world class data centers. They put themselves up against IBM datacenters and the three of those I've worked at all have n+2 power feeds into the building from multiple substations.

  2. Re:More planning could have prevented this on Explosion At ThePlanet Datacenter Drops 9,000 Servers · · Score: 1

    Actually the fact that they have to run off generators shows they did not have N+1 redundancy in there power feed. Reading though the lines it looks like they had a single power feed into the building then generators/UPS after that. I've designed and built "world class" data centers and data centers used by hosting providers don't get the two confused. Hosting is cost centric business in general and insurance is cheaper than gear. Now the funny bit about world class data centers is they are still expected to fail. Services running out of them are hosted at 2 locations if at all possible and a primary and backup set of gear per location. It's all rather expensive but thats how you get to 5 nines or better. Nothing will help you if you have a single DC and the fire trucks roll in and start cutting power.

  3. Re:QoS, but only on the Telco Side on Why BitTorrent Causes Latency and How To Fix It · · Score: 4, Informative

    Funny I'm a network guy and grok normal QOS. DD WRT and the like are capable of inbound QOS to some degree via inbound rate shaping. You loose some bandwidth and you can do the same with cisco kit and some creative use of it's rate shaping. It's not as good as QOS but it works.

  4. Re:I'll believe it when... on Verizon, Comcast Say They Are P2P Friendly · · Score: 1

    Sounds like your on the standard 384 up plan in which case you would need to throttle your torrent client to aprox 35-40kb to not saturate your outbound connection.

  5. Re:Amish on Purdue Plans a 1-Day Supercomputer "Barnraising" · · Score: 1

    They can frame a house in about the same amount of time. There is a lot of work to get the foundation ready and to finish the outside. A normal 4-6 man crew can frame a 3k square foot house and get it weather tight in about a week. They do about the same in a day or two.

  6. Nslug anyone on Data Center In a Shoe Box · · Score: 1

    The first one with it's ability to run via poe was nice but otherwise they look a like like the old lynksys nslug by the specs.

    Running a pair of notebook hard drives as a mirror set might cut it for a very modest office or a home user. But it seems a bit nicer to put it all into one package like the asus and linksys AP's with USB ports for drives and printers.

  7. Re:Stop it on Google Turns Over Data on Suspected Pedophiles In Brazil · · Score: 1

    Places have tried it for politicians it seems to work well. I think you would still need some professionals at the detective level to deal with murder investigations and such but the beat cop (minus the gun) should be easy enough.

  8. Re:Stop it on Google Turns Over Data on Suspected Pedophiles In Brazil · · Score: 1

    So were back to do we need serving as a cop to be like jury duty? Randomly pick people to server for short terms and make sure there normal job is waiting for them when they get back. Sure there are some people the join up because they want to serve the community others that just want a paycheck and others that go into it for the power or are seduced by it afterwards.

  9. Re:Buy a real SSL cert, with location info on Choosing an SSL Provider? · · Score: 1

    Funny I can do EV certs as a reseller and pretty much anybody with a D&B number and federal tax ID can become a reseller. So besides paying more money for the cert what is it really saying? SSL certs used to confer the same level of reputation and that got watered down via pricing wars now were up for yet another round of the same. Add some DNS hijacking and you can spoof just about any site with a valid SSL cert with all the ev goodness desired. SSL is good at securing a link between two hosts because thats what it's technically good for. The add on business bits about validating the identity of those hosts breaks when business gets involved since insurance is cheaper than validation.

  10. Re:Stop it on Google Turns Over Data on Suspected Pedophiles In Brazil · · Score: 1

    It seems to be a side thread. In any event I've had enough direct experience to tell me cops cant be trusted and the system is broken. This is usually the case where people and power are involved. It would seem a better system is needed and a solution was sought.

    Why are cops shooting anybody outside when a third party's life was endangered? Why do cops have lethal rounds chambered in the firearms? Why does it matter that a cop is in the KKK it's a legal organization isn't it (that is to show a point not support that bunch of idiots) did his mere membership put him under scrutiny? In general I've watched America turn into a police state over the last 30 years maybe it's just rebounding after feeing up after the whole communist witch hunts I wasn't alive for them so I cant really say. 30 years ago I lived in a town that didn't care what you did in your own home / land or anything without directly and adversely affecting another person. That get chewed away with the get tough on crime morality policing against drugs, DWI etc. Now I believe kiddy porn falls under the category of directly and adversely affecting another person with possession akin to having stolen property.

    Now that were firmly off topic how about them bears? Google seems to have done the required thing. I've had to look at kiddie porn cases for work before and in some cases we didn't wait for the paperwork in others we did because we used our own morals to decide maybe we were evil. When you see obvious abuse of a child (sex acts between adults and very young children) it's pretty obvious when you get a complaint and it's one kid in the bath tub it's not so clear.

  11. Re:Stop it on Google Turns Over Data on Suspected Pedophiles In Brazil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have one better. It was early spring and my wife and I are having our first night out after a new baby. We decide to go visit the local private nature center since it does not close at dark and is a good place to do some star gazing. It's also a fairly common lovers lane for the teenage set. We are there for about 15 minutes and a cop pulls up and start to give us the move along bit. Now were a quarter mile in the woods down a private road with no lights on. He instructs us that the park is closed after dark etc etc etc. He checks our ID. I mention that the park is not closed at dark and point him to the prominently displayed sign that allows for hiking camping horseback riding catch and release fishing and the "enjoyment of nature" and only forbids cutting down trees, campfires outside of the provided fire rings and leaving trash about. He still insists that we leave or be cited for trespassing so we go. I get over the town line and call his supervisor he wont even take the complaint over the phone and cites that the officer catches a lot of underage drinking and DWI and that he can go onto any private property if he see something suspicious. I let it drop as it's not worth my time.

    A few months later the feds arrest the guy for getting underage girls to have sex with him and each other and videotaping it for sale on the internet in exchange for not arresting them on DWI underage drinking and minor drug offenses. He apparently had also been taking the teenage set with a low light camera while at the park.

    Long story short cops are rarely white knights most are people doing a job that lets them feed there families with little skills outside what they were taught at the academy. Some are the worst of the bunch abusing the authority that they have sought to there own ends. Ever think that cops and congress critters should be like jury duty?

  12. Re:Marketing isn't the problem on BBC and ISPs Clash over iPlayer · · Score: 1

    Ah how things have changed in the nearly 20 years of commercial internet. I've worked in the business for most of those and 15 years ago those ISP's would have been having discussions about how to peer with the BBC so they and the BBC can reduce there costs. Big corp providers have made it harder and harder to get into the statement free peering club. As the client end has gone from mom and pop shops to large telco's they either already have statement free peering (used but called tier 1 but the marketing droids used it where not applicable) or are so huge it takes an act of to even think about it.

  13. Re:Unclarity on Xiotech Unveils Disruptive Storage Technology · · Score: 1

    You forgot the most important bit speed. SAN's are orders of magnitude faster than most internal hardware raid. Think many GB's of battery backed up write cache.

  14. Re:Cost shouldn't be the biggest issue on The Cost of Electronic Voting · · Score: 1

    Funny thing is I can come up with a system to do each without to much thought. Fancy display terminals etc with whatever you like for a GUI touch screen voice prompting morse code for all I care. Connect a modified daisy wheel printer with a mag stripe encoder. Print out in the vote in English (OK I'm biased here but I'm a one country one language sort of guy but thats a different topic) and brail that takes care of most people. Use an ink compatible with optical scanners and punch holes while encoding everything on a mag stripe. Add a couple reader booths before the ballot box so people with impairments can verify the ballot. Make the written version count in case of dispute and you have 3 other machine readable formats 5 formats total on the ballot. Attach a reader to the ballot box (mag stripe would seem the easiest) for instantaneously results if desired and let everybody view the official counting like they do now.

  15. Re:Better than Uzi Water Guns on Roleplayers Seek Removal of Nerf Gun Ban · · Score: 1

    Possibly cops should not be 2 seconds away from shooting anybody? Seriously they have a hard job but lets not let them off there is little reason for cops to even have a gun let alone unholster it. Having society alter itself to make the job of policing easier means the police have already failed.

  16. Re:Old Technologies that are still kicking... on Why OldTech Keeps Kicking · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I can think of a couple major backup applications (netbackup) still use tar when you get down to the tape level there really isn't any good reason to replace it.

  17. Re:I guess you could spin this into anything on Passport Files of Presidential Hopefuls Snooped · · Score: 1

    I agree with your sentiment about ID. As far as terrorists please stop being a sheep you can not live life without pissing people off singlely or collectivly because anger is not a rational thing. If you want out of the middle east thats your perogative but please do not use the theat of violence as your justification. Also dont think that it will stop terrorists from attacking there will allways be somethig that pisses somebody off enough to blow something up if for no other reason than metal desiese. There is no way to complety prevent this as long as we allow it to sway our course if terrorist is not effective as swaying public opinion then it's no longer usefull as a tool.

  18. Re:I wish our IT was like this. on Pleasing Google's Tech-Savvy Staff · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately thats a world that CTO's have to build. It's very easy to segment things I've even done it during my time as a CTO. Ultimately to build silo teams has to be a management choice and it involves giving up some control. But then again being able to give up control and instead lead is when management gets fun (and keeping your guys out of office politics and getting them what they need to be successful but thats another thread) granted I'm a CS major that manages because it makes my projects successful so my views might be different from the MBA types.

    On the email bit it's all about the design scale a couple hundred emails when thats your best choice is one thing designing an entire enterprise architecture and extending it is another.

  19. Re:I wish our IT was like this. on Pleasing Google's Tech-Savvy Staff · · Score: 1

    I think your experienced divided shops to much. Try a silo approach where teams do full life cycle with admins involved from the specifications phase (things like can it work with our existing SSO engine CB evals on adding new platforms to the mix etc) and the devs involved with long term support (write a bad app you gets 3am calls, feedback loops weed out bad calls and blind passing up). Once your done a few projects that way it often leads to a much better integration.

    My favorite MTA fun is a large insurance company that the programs use the email system as a message passing queue between systems think 10 million internal emails an hour. I see this all the time since oracle and the like seem to support email and ftp as built in functions so they are what get used. Scale the system up and it's a nightmare vs using the right technology's.

  20. Re:In other news on Supreme Court to Hear FCC Indecency Case · · Score: 1

    Now now this isn't the line of the Christian conservative overlords. Nobody gets to look at anybody else's naughty bits it seems the leaves got detached when we left the garden of eden and they want them back with staples if required.

    OK now that we got that over with as a parent of a three year old they have already figured out there bits and the opposites genders bits they understand as girls grow up they get breasts etc. Many children have seen there parents nude many spent significant portions of there first year attached to a breast and often watched there younger siblings get breast fed (I know I know your supposed to buy that stuff in a box thats "better" for they even seem to like it better most be all that sugar). In any event I would not let my child watch porn till he becomes into the age of majority though I am sure he will before that. I would not take issue with him watching an explicit film on STD and prevention (though I think this should be the parents choice) say when he is a preen or child birth even now.

    On TV specifically mythtv and the like are a parents friend, I've recorded many shows for him and stripped the commercials most TV time is just down time it's needed sometimes but reading a story to them is just as good and often more fulfilling to the parent.

  21. How hard is this in the US on The Semantics of File Sharing · · Score: 2, Informative

    OK you have two types of things property, it just is at the founding of the US that potentially included other people but it was something had. The right to own property and keep is is a basic fundamental right, it can be taken away via the courts or via eminent domain but otherwise it's yours to do what you please with.

    Copyright created IP and is supposed to last for a limited time only to foster the creation of more creative works. We started going down the slippery slope when it got extended further and further. As people had control over things via copyright for longer and longer it looks more and more like property.

    There needs to be a balance between the two competing forces some copyright holders have lots of money and have been buying congress critters for years (Disney and others) to keep expanding the scope of copyright. The people who have a lot of money as a whole but little on the average have a desire to be able to use things freely after copyright has expired. It would appear that the people in general ignore copyright it does little for them in there view. Striking a balance does not seem to hard music more than a few years old is past it's peak same for movies. Software is a bit of a special class as it's iterative so lets put that as maybe a few years without updates. To some extent go back to requiring registration of copyright but add a copy be sent to archive at the library of congress in it's most complete form (copy's of the original film or studio master as released, binary and source for software). Mix in the freedom to format shift copyright material. Allow the import of materials legally acquired in the source country. Ban any technical/contractual means restricting the application of users rights. After thats done you could look at making personal copyright infringement a minor criminal infraction like j walking or speeding nothing to go to court for and leave egregious forms like mass duplication of fake DVD's where they are. You might end up with a working system at this rate IP is the prohibition of our age it looked good on paper but not in application.

  22. Re:Isn't that reasoning contradictory? on Why Americans Don't Buy DVD Recorders · · Score: 1

    I can burn the recordings off my tivo and since they have 2TB of space each I very rarely delete. I have most of my season passes set to keep the latests 5 recordings and auto purge anything older. Movies generally stick around forever unless it needs space. I will say the default tivo hd sizes are pitiful since my upgrade drives cost nearly as much as the HD tivo's they went into it seems to be a cost issue.

  23. Re:Depends on the Market on Is the IT Department Dead? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Funny I have clients what outsource there PCE to PCI certified hosting providers. Really it's not much different that the way paypal works they never know the customers card data they just get a UID from that provider and pass that back to them whenever they need to charge or credit anything. It makes it past a PCI audit and since the provider themselves has been independently audited and insured it makes the companies have a warm fuzzy that they don't have any direct exposure.

  24. Re:Over hyped on PI License May Soon Be Required for Computer Forensics · · Score: 1

    It all depends on context when you get a request from the FBI because one of your clients is hosting kiddie porn we were motivated to help. Keeping those guys online to gather more evidence was a bit abhorrent. Lucky I never got a request without something signed by a judge and it was allways for something that I found morally wrong at least from the feds. Local cops love sending mere letters its like there to lazy or just fishing. My favorite was a state cop from Georgia that wanted all email to and from somebody forwarded to him just because he asked nice and then insisted to our legal dept that since we could read customers emails for technical and TOS compliance purposes he could have a copy, strangely he never got a judge to sign anything. In case your wondering we fed outbound emails through spam filters to keep the spammers from buying a 5 buck a month web hosting account and abusing our smtp relays.

    Back on point there are some smart people in the Secret Service at least as it relates to computer forensics they only seem to get called in if they first level guys get stumped or it's a big todo, and they were smart enough to break encrypted passwords quickly (rainbow tables I would assume).

  25. Over hyped on PI License May Soon Be Required for Computer Forensics · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know I'm not supposed to read the article but this is about needing a PI license work for a licensed firm to testify is court. First thing I would tack on would be they should also have there PE licensed firm or not. Yes it's a bit of a slippery slope it might also get the Secret Service and the FBI to get there agents some decent skills since every time I had interaction with it a tar.gz file was unfathomable to them and everything involves lot of baby steps and spoon feeding. Unfortunately most of these investigators are just using some pretty badly written applications and get stumped by anything with real encryption or not running windows, on the good side encase and similar is a good first step in the evidence chain.