One nice thing about DVI is that you can secure it to the device with its screws, just like a traditional computer cable. HDMI doesn't have that facility, and it's proving to cause some problems for home theater installers it seems, from what I heard from such folks at CES.
I honestly do not know but I'm guessing that they have a sort of "we trust you but we don't" strategy. That is, there are likely janitors on staff in the White House who have sufficient security clearance to be given access to the entire place. At the same time, there are likely a number of procedures in place to insure that those janitors don't access material they are not supposed to, and/or that it is easily detected if they do. (For example, classified documents are closely inventoried and kept under lock when not in use, copy machines are tightly controlled, etc. etc.)
As someone else pointed out there's an ambiguity in my sentence. I did not mean to suggest that there are some buildings, or even offices, where janitors are not allowed (though to be honest there very well could be). What I meant was that no single janitor has access to every building, only those to whom they are specifically assigned. The point being that if you were attempting to illegally gain entry into a building, is would not be enough to just forge or steal a janitor's badge, you have to forge or steal the right janitor's badge.
I misread. I thought you were referring to the Flash version. The HTML version is broken for me, too.
Re:Maybe I'm just a crumudgeon
on
One Year on Mars
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· Score: 2, Informative
Works fine with Firefox/WinXP for me. Are you sure you don't have any funny extensions installed? For example, I did indeed discover that the Tabbrowser Preferences extension doesn't play well with windows that have no menu bars.
Of course they do. Who empties the trash, mops the floors, replaces the toilet paper inthe bathrooms, etc? Janitors.
Of course. But no single janitor has access to every building in the government. Obviously, each building needs a janitorial staff. Each janitor's badge can be tied to database entries that allow them access only to the buildings that they are cleared to work in.
I have no doubt that janitors with high levels of clearance will be used as much as possible---where that clearance is required. But I'm talking about the Department of Agriculture here. There's no way a janitor with the clearance to roam the halls of the CIA is going to be wasted in the DOA (that is, unless he loses his clearance as you state).
I have a feeling we may be crossing paths here. My original illustration was simply to point out that it takes far more than just a badge to get into a building. I think you agree with that, actually. The original poster seemed to suggest that all a terrorist would have to do is forge a single badge and he could get into whatever government building he wanted.
Then perhaps you need a lesson in idioms: "you'll get no argument from me" implies agreement. Or are you reading his post differently than I? He seems pretty supportive of a centralized ID system, whereas in the post I liked you seemed otherwise.
No, I believe one of those badges given to a sub-contracted janitor would get them into an NSA building. Or do you believe the super agents scrub their own toilets at work?
What do you mean? If a janitor is assinged to a DoA building, he's not going to be able to enter an NSA building, even if the same contractor is used for both agencies.
Yes I'm assuming a minimal level of competent implementation but I think a reasonable amount, even for a government agency.
True, true. But let's reverse that for just a moment. Do you think a valid NSA, or more practically, a valid FBI ID would grant the bearer unfettered access to the Dept. of Agriculture and other "low-level" agencies?
Actually, no, I would not. I doubt it works that way now, either.
I would suspect that someone who looked "official" and had a convincing story would get pretty far with a reasonable fake.
Looks don't mean squat to an automatic card reader. I do agree with you that the more a security system relies on human evaluation, the less secure it will be. Nevertheless, just for convenience and efficiency sake more than anything else, a lot of places are moving to fully automated access controls (card-readers at doors or turnstiles, etc.)
The terrorist that defeats this, will be one with a valid ID as janitorial staff. Not someone trying to fake an ID as a junior senator. Duh.
Umm, I never said someone needed to impersonate a senator. In fact, a janitor is exactly the kind of thing I'd imagine, too. And yet, even janitors don't have access to every building in the government. My comment still applies.
Don't you wonder a little bit, that they're rushing to protect all the official buildings, when people like you and I will still be unsafe in public buildings?
Umm, no, I don't think they believe this would have stopped 9/11. In fact I'm hoping they go on the assumption that the terrorists are exploring different ideas as well. Besides, you sure do have some interesting logic: don't bother to protect anything because you're not protecting everything.
I do not agree that this is a single point of failure. Just because a terrorist succeeds in forging a government ID doesn't mean he's succeeded in gaining access to any building he chooses. The access controls for each government agency are likely decentralized.
Squirrels can still put nuts in many places with this system. This is a standardized, centralized identification system, not a centralized access system. In other words, the information that controls who is allowed into what building can still be decentralized.
This is a very thoughtful analysis, and yet I still think it's a bit flawed, for two reasons.
First of all, 10 security systems are not necessarily more secure than a single system if a successful breach is defined as breaking into any one of them. That's because now there are 10 times as many possible methods for compromise. In other words, if there are 10 security systems, and a terrorist wishes to compromise just one of them, he is now free to analyze all ten and choose the weakest. Granted, with a single security system the terrorists have only one to focus on. So I can't say one system is certainly stronger than ten, but I don't think ten is a clear winner either.
Secondly, I think it's important to differentiate between a unified identification system and a unified security system. It's not enough for someone to forge the badge if he wishes to enter a secure building. That's because the building's security system limits access to only those badges pre-cleared for access. So the forger must now duplicate the valid ID of one of that building's occupants.
The point being that while the identification system is indeed centralized, the security for each building need not be.
Let's forget terrorists for a moment, do you really believe these badges would be designed so that an employee of the Department of Agriculture can gain access to an NSA building?
Wait a minute! Are you saying that the federal government is instituting a standardized system for identifying people who work for the federal government?
Oh, no, what's next? Will this spread to privfate companies? Will I have to hold a little magnetic badge up to a card reader in order for it to unlock the door to my office building? The horror!
Who needs a laser? Now THIS is a fun cat toy, even if it looks like one of those Pokemon thingies. My cat will testify: this is the only thing that can keep her from her next nap.
First of all, let me thank Xshare for the excellent one-sentence explanation of how the probabilities so quickly vanished after peaking at 1/37th.
Having said that, doesn't this suggest that their method for computing probabilities might need some examining? How is it that the probability can change by over 3 orders of magnitude within a week---a full 30 years or more before the event itself?
At the very least, I would assume that these folks have some sort of idea what the log-variance is of the probabilities they're computing. It might behoove them to hold off on reporting the numbers until that log-variance dips below a certain amount---at least when the event is so far out.
I don't know, I suppose it might behoove us to have, say, a decade of warning so we could figure out what to do if necessary. But 30 years? I'm not so sure the hype this week was necessary.
I welcome everyone else's thoughts on this...
Re:It Stays Exactly the Same, Year after Year! NOT
on
New Calendar Proposal
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· Score: 1
Silly me. I missed that. My mind was clouded after he told us all to basically suck it up that our birthdays were going to change.
Re:It Stays Exactly the Same, Year after Year! NOT
on
New Calendar Proposal
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· Score: 1
Man, if you thought Y2K was bad, wait for Y4K.
It Stays Exactly the Same, Year after Year! NOT
on
New Calendar Proposal
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· Score: 4, Interesting
On this page, he makes the claim about the calendar: "It Stays Exactly the Same, Year after Year!"
Only, it doesn't. About every 5-6 years or so he inserts an extra week in the calendar between June and July.
No, it's not every 5 years, and no, it's not every 6 years. It's sometimes 5, and sometimes 6. You'll just have to ask him.
So will someone tell me why this is any less difficult than what we currently use?
While I am certain that this post is going to invite many a troll, the Bible is not the only ancient text to document extended life spans. That's not to say they're not all blowing smoke, but it's not out of the question that some sort of significant cosmological or climatological shift might have contributed to shortening our natural lifespan.
Quite simple. If you posit that you have any rights whatsoever (and that is a simple, deep structures within the brain assumption), then it must be inferred that I have the same rights.
No it mustn't.
First of all, What if I determined you to be mentally defective, or otherwise inferior to me in some way? I can just as easily put forth a Darwinian defense that you do not deserve to live, because you risk spreading your genes.
Secondly, I do NOT posit that I have any rights. I want them, because they are in my best personal, selfish interest; I'm glad that my government enforces them, and would they not I would seek to secure them. But I have no illusion that I'm naturally entitled to them just because I exist. If I decided it was in my self-interest to kill you, I would. But of course for a whole host of reasons it is not, including the fact that we as a society punish murderers.
Your entire argument seems to be that we have rights that the rest of the animal kingdom does not have---simply by virtue of the fact that we can conceive of them and they cannot. I'm quite content in letting that sit in evidence of my claim that natural rights are entirely man-made. So please keep on making your arguments; by their very complexity you are proving my point.
Class Act---while there are quite a few examples of animals who kill members of their own species (some even eat their own young) for various reasons, I most definitely agree that humans are unique in their propensity to murder for malicious reasons.
To me that only reinforces my argument that the morality of murder is an entirely man-made concept. When an animal does it, it is presumably for some hard-wired instinctual reason, with no contemplation or remorse. Only we can weigh the decision intelligently (or not) and come down on one side or the other.
Slashdot Mirror
One nice thing about DVI is that you can secure it to the device with its screws, just like a traditional computer cable. HDMI doesn't have that facility, and it's proving to cause some problems for home theater installers it seems, from what I heard from such folks at CES.
I honestly do not know but I'm guessing that they have a sort of "we trust you but we don't" strategy. That is, there are likely janitors on staff in the White House who have sufficient security clearance to be given access to the entire place. At the same time, there are likely a number of procedures in place to insure that those janitors don't access material they are not supposed to, and/or that it is easily detected if they do. (For example, classified documents are closely inventoried and kept under lock when not in use, copy machines are tightly controlled, etc. etc.)
As someone else pointed out there's an ambiguity in my sentence. I did not mean to suggest that there are some buildings, or even offices, where janitors are not allowed (though to be honest there very well could be). What I meant was that no single janitor has access to every building, only those to whom they are specifically assigned. The point being that if you were attempting to illegally gain entry into a building, is would not be enough to just forge or steal a janitor's badge, you have to forge or steal the right janitor's badge.
I misread. I thought you were referring to the Flash version. The HTML version is broken for me, too.
Works fine with Firefox/WinXP for me. Are you sure you don't have any funny extensions installed? For example, I did indeed discover that the Tabbrowser Preferences extension doesn't play well with windows that have no menu bars.
Of course. But no single janitor has access to every building in the government. Obviously, each building needs a janitorial staff. Each janitor's badge can be tied to database entries that allow them access only to the buildings that they are cleared to work in.
I have a feeling we may be crossing paths here. My original illustration was simply to point out that it takes far more than just a badge to get into a building. I think you agree with that, actually. The original poster seemed to suggest that all a terrorist would have to do is forge a single badge and he could get into whatever government building he wanted.
Then perhaps you need a lesson in idioms: "you'll get no argument from me" implies agreement. Or are you reading his post differently than I? He seems pretty supportive of a centralized ID system, whereas in the post I liked you seemed otherwise.
What do you mean? If a janitor is assinged to a DoA building, he's not going to be able to enter an NSA building, even if the same contractor is used for both agencies.
Yes I'm assuming a minimal level of competent implementation but I think a reasonable amount, even for a government agency.
Umm, yes we will. Or was that your other personality?
Actually, no, I would not. I doubt it works that way now, either.
I would suspect that someone who looked "official" and had a convincing story would get pretty far with a reasonable fake.
Looks don't mean squat to an automatic card reader. I do agree with you that the more a security system relies on human evaluation, the less secure it will be. Nevertheless, just for convenience and efficiency sake more than anything else, a lot of places are moving to fully automated access controls (card-readers at doors or turnstiles, etc.)
Umm, I never said someone needed to impersonate a senator. In fact, a janitor is exactly the kind of thing I'd imagine, too. And yet, even janitors don't have access to every building in the government. My comment still applies.
Don't you wonder a little bit, that they're rushing to protect all the official buildings, when people like you and I will still be unsafe in public buildings?
Umm, no, I don't think they believe this would have stopped 9/11. In fact I'm hoping they go on the assumption that the terrorists are exploring different ideas as well. Besides, you sure do have some interesting logic: don't bother to protect anything because you're not protecting everything.
I do not agree that this is a single point of failure. Just because a terrorist succeeds in forging a government ID doesn't mean he's succeeded in gaining access to any building he chooses. The access controls for each government agency are likely decentralized.
Squirrels can still put nuts in many places with this system. This is a standardized, centralized identification system, not a centralized access system. In other words, the information that controls who is allowed into what building can still be decentralized.
This is a very thoughtful analysis, and yet I still think it's a bit flawed, for two reasons.
First of all, 10 security systems are not necessarily more secure than a single system if a successful breach is defined as breaking into any one of them. That's because now there are 10 times as many possible methods for compromise. In other words, if there are 10 security systems, and a terrorist wishes to compromise just one of them, he is now free to analyze all ten and choose the weakest. Granted, with a single security system the terrorists have only one to focus on. So I can't say one system is certainly stronger than ten, but I don't think ten is a clear winner either.
Secondly, I think it's important to differentiate between a unified identification system and a unified security system. It's not enough for someone to forge the badge if he wishes to enter a secure building. That's because the building's security system limits access to only those badges pre-cleared for access. So the forger must now duplicate the valid ID of one of that building's occupants.
The point being that while the identification system is indeed centralized, the security for each building need not be.
Let's forget terrorists for a moment, do you really believe these badges would be designed so that an employee of the Department of Agriculture can gain access to an NSA building?
Wait a minute! Are you saying that the federal government is instituting a standardized system for identifying people who work for the federal government?
Oh, no, what's next? Will this spread to privfate companies? Will I have to hold a little magnetic badge up to a card reader in order for it to unlock the door to my office building? The horror!
No, why should we? There's no reason to assume that his pension precludes supplementation.
Who needs a laser? Now THIS is a fun cat toy, even if it looks like one of those Pokemon thingies. My cat will testify: this is the only thing that can keep her from her next nap.
First of all, let me thank Xshare for the excellent one-sentence explanation of how the probabilities so quickly vanished after peaking at 1/37th.
Having said that, doesn't this suggest that their method for computing probabilities might need some examining? How is it that the probability can change by over 3 orders of magnitude within a week---a full 30 years or more before the event itself?
At the very least, I would assume that these folks have some sort of idea what the log-variance is of the probabilities they're computing. It might behoove them to hold off on reporting the numbers until that log-variance dips below a certain amount---at least when the event is so far out.
I don't know, I suppose it might behoove us to have, say, a decade of warning so we could figure out what to do if necessary. But 30 years? I'm not so sure the hype this week was necessary.
I welcome everyone else's thoughts on this...
Silly me. I missed that. My mind was clouded after he told us all to basically suck it up that our birthdays were going to change.
Man, if you thought Y2K was bad, wait for Y4K.
Only, it doesn't. About every 5-6 years or so he inserts an extra week in the calendar between June and July.
No, it's not every 5 years, and no, it's not every 6 years. It's sometimes 5, and sometimes 6. You'll just have to ask him.
So will someone tell me why this is any less difficult than what we currently use?
While I am certain that this post is going to invite many a troll, the Bible is not the only ancient text to document extended life spans. That's not to say they're not all blowing smoke, but it's not out of the question that some sort of significant cosmological or climatological shift might have contributed to shortening our natural lifespan.
Quite simple. If you posit that you have any rights whatsoever (and that is a simple, deep structures within the brain assumption), then it must be inferred that I have the same rights.
No it mustn't.
First of all, What if I determined you to be mentally defective, or otherwise inferior to me in some way? I can just as easily put forth a Darwinian defense that you do not deserve to live, because you risk spreading your genes.
Secondly, I do NOT posit that I have any rights. I want them, because they are in my best personal, selfish interest; I'm glad that my government enforces them, and would they not I would seek to secure them. But I have no illusion that I'm naturally entitled to them just because I exist. If I decided it was in my self-interest to kill you, I would. But of course for a whole host of reasons it is not, including the fact that we as a society punish murderers.
Your entire argument seems to be that we have rights that the rest of the animal kingdom does not have---simply by virtue of the fact that we can conceive of them and they cannot. I'm quite content in letting that sit in evidence of my claim that natural rights are entirely man-made. So please keep on making your arguments; by their very complexity you are proving my point.
To me that only reinforces my argument that the morality of murder is an entirely man-made concept. When an animal does it, it is presumably for some hard-wired instinctual reason, with no contemplation or remorse. Only we can weigh the decision intelligently (or not) and come down on one side or the other.