I am almost certain that angry consumers lodged complaints about these crooks with the hosting company long before this story was posted. I'm sure that the ISP did the usual ISP thing in such circumstances: Send back an e-mail telling the consumer/victim to take the matter up with the authorities.
Wouldn't it be great if there was an ISP who wasn't shielding spammers, scammers, and other crooks from angry victims? Wouldn't it be fantastic to send a complaint to an ISP about a scammer and have the ISP reply back with something like:
We have investigated your complaint and determined that our customer was knowingly operating a "phishing" scam for the purposes of identity theft. We have contacted federal, state, and local authorities, providing them with all information we have on this person. We have verified that the following is true and accurate contact information for the person in question as of the time of your complaint:
Name: Ima Scumball Address: 123 Maple Avenue Anytown, USA 98765-4321
Phone: 555-555-1234
Should you wish to pursue legal action against this person, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to provide expert witnesses to testify in any court case you file.
Good! If you're going to provide services to thieves and scammers, then you deserve to suffer for it. The ISP could have easily looked up the countless online complaints about this merchant before signing a contract with them.
I was having a dispute with one ISP and I started recording the phone calls. I confronted a member of their management staff with the recorded phone calls. He told me that the phone calls were recorded illegally and that I could be charged with a crime.
I then played the beginning of one of the recordings to him:
"This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes."
I said "that's the sound of your company giving me permission to record these phone calls." He was not a happy man, but they sure became a lot more helpful in resolving what had been a service nightmare. And the tech support people stopped lying.
Then maybe totally "free" isn't always a good thing.
Sure, it means that various "L33T h4x0R" script kiddies can download software without paying for it, but maybe that really doesn't make up for the fact that any military (not just ones from countries that you like) can incorporate software into systems designed to kill people. If you were a GPL software author, you could discover that code you wrote was used as part of a weapon system used to kill innocent people -- maybe even your own wife, children, and parents. (Yes, I know that MD is defensive, but OSS could just as easily be used for offensive weapons.)
#1 : All military contractors and personnel would suddenly stop contributing to any OSS efforts.
So what? If someone is a conscientious objector to war, why shouldn't he prohibit military use of his code? Is supporting OSS supposed to be a more important to him than his beliefs about killing human beings?
Fundamentalist Christians could be placing a "free for non-gay use" clause in their releases.
Oh no! The gay community would be denied access to thousands of amateurish Bible study programs! What a tragedy that would be. Were it not for the efforts of various right-wing groups, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would already be illegal, as would the other forms of discrimination that you point out.
Oh, and wouldn't you prefer the finite number of tax dollars available to be spent as wisely as possible?
You consider ballistic missile defense to be your tax dollars being spent as wisely as possible? That's scary.
Sorry... I forgot that Anonymous Cowards typically don't pay taxes.
Damn! You mean that I could have avoided taxes by simply not registering a handle on Slashdot?
It is when you are using the boss's phone line to discuss it. Like it or not.
Professionals have a right to some privacy whether you wish to respect it or not.
If the justification for so much privacy that you can't even mention that you are talking to your doctor is genuine, you can probably get medical leave in the first place (at least where I live).
I don't need to justify privacy. As a professional, I have a right to it. Maybe someone doesn't want their boss speculating about whether there are health problems ("our medical insurance premiums are going up and Bill's got another call from his doctor", "maybe I should put off promoting Bill until we see whether these calls from his doctor are about something serious", etc.).
I've replied as AC this time because I'm not interested in being notified about replies to this comment.
You replied as AC because you had no answer for these points:
1. "It doesn't matter if you have your boss's permission to use a private phone because the doctor will call you at your desk. They won't have patience when you put them on hold, only to discover that the conference room with the designated private phone is in use. It's not a plan."
2. "So just what kind of "crapload of trouble" can a business get for providing doorless restroom stalls? No one is making you use the stalls. No one is forcing you to work for that company. Can you provide any links to newspaper articles or court cases showing that a business got in serious trouble for not having doors on bathroom stalls?"
3. "Professionals have long expected privacy for occasional personal phone calls and it's only in the last two decades that this expectation has been eroded by the disgusting trend of putting people in cubicles. People like you are only making the situation [worse]. By condoning this type of arrangement, you're telling businesses that it's okay to put people in doorless cubicles where their every word is overheard. You're saying that it's normal for a professional to be in a cubicle where everyone within 50 feet knows when they clip a fingernail, cough, sneeze, or fart. Grow a pair and tell your boss that you expect to work in an office with a door. Tell him that you expect to be able to make or receive a phone call without everyone in the area hearing your every word. Don't sing the company song while they tear down office walls."
That's a perfactly valid reason for a personal call, IMO, and how hard is it to ask one's boss if they can take a private call from their doctor?
It's none of your boss's business that you're discussing a medical problem with your doctor. That's between you and the doctor. If you wanted people to know that you were talking to your doctor about a medical problem, then you wouldn't care about privacy, would you?
It doesn't matter if you have your boss's permission to use a private phone because the doctor will call you at your desk. They won't have patience when you put them on hold, only to discover that the conference room with the designated private phone is in use. It's not a plan.
Not offering privacy to people in the bathroom is a violation of an expected freedom that people have in this country.
So your expectation of privacy in a public (or business) restroom must be met, but professionals with an expectation of privacy for phone calls at work are just to be written off as unreasonable? There are public restrooms in this country with no doors on the stalls. School districts have even removed stall doors. Apparently, not everyone shares your expectation of privacy in restrooms.
It's not actually illegal, but it can still land them in a whole crapload of trouble if the lack of privacy is not directly connected with what the business actually does.
So just what kind of "crapload of trouble" can a business get for providing doorless restroom stalls? No one is making you use the stalls. No one is forcing you to work for that company. Can you provide any links to newspaper articles or court cases showing that a business got in serious trouble for not having doors on bathroom stalls?
Professionals have long expected privacy for occasional personal phone calls and it's only in the last two decades that this expectation has been eroded by the disgusting trend of putting people in cubicles. People like you are only making the situation. By condoning this type of arrangement, you're telling businesses that it's okay to put people in doorless cubicles where their every word is overheard. You're saying that it's normal for a professional to be in a cubicle where everyone within 50 feet knows when they clip a fingernail, cough, sneeze, or fart. Grow a pair and tell your boss that you expect to work in an office with a door. Tell him that you expect to be able to make or receive a phone call without everyone in the area hearing your every word. Don't sing the company song while they tear down office walls.
Actually, I don't think that's fine at all. When a person is off the clock, they are off the clock, and it better be *DAMN* important if someone's boss is going to interrupt their personal time with a business matter.
Many of the personal calls that many people make/get at work are *DAMN* important, too. If an employee needs to take a call from their doctor, they should be able to talk without fear of being overheard. If they can't, then the business needs to take steps so that they can.
One shouldn't need to go into specific details when justifying why a person might need to use the office phone for a personal call, and in fact many bosses are more than accomodating even if no reason is given, as long as it does not become a frequent occurence. So of course, this wouldn't even be an issue if a person is working for a good boss and they don't make personal calls that often.
Professionals should feel free to use their discretion as to the number of personal phone calls that they make or receive at work. If it becomes excessive, then the employee should be counseled. If it's not excessive, it's not the business of the employer.
However, I also recognize that the phone line is _NOT_ the employee's property to do what they will, and last time I checked, the so-called "right" to make personal phone calls while at work was not enumerated among human, constitutional, or civic rights.
The toilet at work is _NOT_ the employee's property, either, but I'm not in favor of the employee having to ask the boss's permission in order to use it -- even if the boss doesn't insist on knowing if it's number one or number two. Would you tolerate an office where the toilet stalls had no doors? I've never seen the so-called "right" to privacy while using a toilet enumerated among human, constitutional, or civic rights -- but I consider it a right nonetheless.
If you're job is so important that it requires privacy like this, they'll probably have put you in an office by now anyways.
Being able to take a private call about a family member who's been in an accident or diagnosed with a grave illness is important. Not having everyone in the office hear you start sobbing when you learn of the death of a parent is important. Having some privacy when your child's school nurse calls is important. People's families are important. Work is just a way to support those families.
Don't carry on a private conversation with someone while at work in the first place.
Do you work in a sweatshop or what? Professionals have, for decades, been afforded some level of privacy and it is only in recent years, with the horrifyingly greater acceptance of the cubicle, that such privacy has been eroded.
But then my sympathy for people that expect the "right" to make or accept personal calls at work in the first place is somewhere in the vicinity of zero anyways.
But you probably think that it's fine for businesses to call employees at home or on their cell phones. You don't have any problem with managers calling on evenings, weekends, or even during vacations, do you? You probably think that it's perfectly proper for the business to ask the employee to give up their personal time to put in overtime, don't you?
If the conversation isn't work related, one just has to bite the bullet and accept the fact that there is no reason why they should be afforded the luxury of increased privacy for such an activity.
[sarcasm\Why should an office worker feel that they have the right to privacy when their doctor's office calls? Why shouldn't their coworker hear about their (fill in the blank with embarassing medical condition)? Damnit, if a coworker has the nerve to get breast cancer, prostate cancer, anal fissures, genital warts, etc., it will lead to greater absenteeism, so that employee has no right to privacy. And how about these despicable employees who want privacy when talking to the nursing home about their elderly parent?[/sarcasm]
Yeah, you're a real gem of a human being, aren't you?
If personal calls are infrequent enough and the reason is legitimate, even if not work-related, they may permit it anyways.
Why the fsck should I have to explain something of a personal nature to my boss in order to get some privacy? What kind of inhuman prick are you? Eight hours of pay does not entitle the company to eight continuous hours of work without so much as a moment to handle personal business, whether of a financial, medical, or other nature.
People like you disgust me. You think that the only important thing is the corporation. Screw the employee. Screw the employee's family. It's all about the company coffers.
I am sure you could, too. Any lossy codec would be good if you use a high enough bit rate.
That's my point. My problem with iTunes, the Sony Music Store, etc. is not that they use lossy compression. Rather it's that they compress to the point of audibly degrading the music. I also have a problem that they try to assert control over how the purchaser uses the music later (through DRM).
But take a lossy codec at 128 kbs (the bit rate described in this article) and then encode it into another lossy codec with a low bit rate. That is what I was referring to.
We're in agreement. Transcoding across lossy codecs is always a bad thing. The psychoacoustic models are based on getting an unmolested copy as the starting point. I know of no studies as to what happens when one goes from one lossy codec to another. But I'd be willing to bet that it is a bad thing, and probably worse than just an additive function.
Care to wager on that? I will bet that I can use a "lossy" codec and you will not be able to distinguish the lossy encoding from the original CD in blind listening tests.
I've got more than 300 audio CDs, and none of them have any visible scratches (as far as I know, anyway)
Your vision may be better than mine, but the data track on a CD is approximately 1/50 the width of a human hair. Can you see a scratch that fine? People don't realize this, but even new CDs are usually read with errors. No matter how carefully handle the CDs, chances are that the error rate is going to get higher over time. And audio CD error correction is "lossy" in that the data stream is not guaranteed to be unaffected.
- scratches on the CD just aren't something you're concerned about when you buy music.
Speak for yourself. Others do take that into consideration, often ripping the CD with something like Exact Audio Copy to back it up before errors reduce the fidelity of the recording.
The reason I don't buy from online services is I refuse to pay money for lossy codecs.
Then you're just being silly. "Lossy" refers to the data stream, not the sound. "Lossy" does not mean that the sound is audibly inferior or that you could hear the difference in a blind test. In fact, I've administered such tests to a few fellow audiophiles and proved that I could create a "lossy" MP3 that is audibly indistinguishable from the original recording. (The tests I conducted involved skilled listeners in their 20's and 30's using a Rega Planet CD player through Sennheiser SR-325 headphones and a Creek headphone amp. They selected the music. I encoded it to MP3 and then brought it back to WAV. I recorded a CD with several copies of each track - encoded and virgin. They were unable to detect the difference and their results were, statistically speaking, no better than a coin toss.)
That said, most of the online services have substandard, low-bit-rate recordings which do sound audibly inferior to CDs. That's the reason to boycott those services, not because the codecs are lossy.
The USA ownes the internet only as much as Britain ownes all the worlds railways.
The USA owns the Internet from a governing standpoint. We created domain names and IP addresses and we have the right to determine how they are handed out.
There are over 1,200 flights that travel through London's Heathrow airport every day. International airlines have been taking off and landing there for decades, funding much of its operation, growth, and expansion. Given that, would you support a U.N. takeover of Heathrow airport? Would you want the U.N. to decide whether a block of gates was assigned to Air France or British Airways? Would you want the U.N. taking over air traffic control for Heathrow airport? In time of war, would you rather be able to deny your enemies access to Heathrow airport, or would you rather that the U.N. decided if they could land there?
That's what you're pushing for on the Internet. We (the U.S.) funded its invention and development and then allowed other countries to connect to it, providing them with IP addresses and top-level domains. Now the countries that we invited to connect to the Internet are demanding that the internet be run by a multinational committee that controls top-level domains, name space, and assignment of IP addresses.
Can you get past your own bullshit to see that the internet, despite starting in the US, does not belong to the US?
Don't be rude and vulgar.
Can you not see that many people, companies and organisations funded and built the collection of networks that is called the internet and that many of those same people/companies/organisations are not in the USA?
You own everything that you've connected to the internet, but that doesn't mean that you own the right to control the Internet IP and name space.
ahh yes, security through obscurity, the model of the lazy admin. lolL
I have extensive professional computer security expertise. Since your knowledge is clearly lacking, let me teach you a bit...
"Security through obscurity" refers to the use of undocumented addresses, port numbers, hardware features, protocols, etc. NAT is well-documented and well-understood. NAT is not "security through obscurity" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's one key aspect of most enterprise security plans.
NAT acts as a firewall by dropping unrequested traffic. Obviously, more substantial monitoring and firewalling is usually recommended.
NAT insulates individual systems from direct exposure on the network. If a port-level exploit is uncovered, a hacker won't be able to hit that port when the target system is behind NAT.
NAT provides anonymity by not exposing the IP addess of a particular computer to the network. Someone sniffing traffic would not know if the traffic from my company is coming from our office in Virginia, Arizona, Maryland, etc.
NAT provides fewer IPs for an attacker to target. That makes for an easier to defend and monitor perimeter.
As to the link you provided to the 1998 ramblings of someone going by the name "Kazu,", it's laughable and hardly even readable: "Recently, many sites install firewall to protect their security. In many cases, NAT is used combined with firewall. This probably lets people misunderstand that NAT is essencial for firewall." What's next? "Tonto like firewall. Firewall good." It also doesn't support your contention that NAT is security through obscurity.
Deciding ownership is not something done by vote, committee, or edict. You either own something or you do not. The owners of the Internet are the ones who funded its invention, the ones who decided to open it up to other countries, and the ones who have controlled it since its inception: The U.S.
But don't take away my company's opportunity to pay a higher price for those addresses.
If we don't want to sell you the addresses, that's our business and ours alone. I don't understand why you think that you should have a right to force the the U.S. to sell IP addresses that it does not want to allocate.
1. It's more secure. We use one address for security and anonymity, not because we don't have lots of IP addresses. 2. You don't have another solution (other than trying to hijack the Internet from the people who invented it and paid for its development).
You've allowed planes from all over the world to land at your airports, so the U.N. should step in and sieze control of all airports in your country. How dare you be so pig-headed as to insist on maintaining control of something that you funded and built? The nerve of some people!
You're placing obstacles in front of people just so you can satisfy your socialist model of IP address distribution.
It's not a socialist model at all (that's what the U.N. wants -- IP addresses given out for the good of all). This is a capitalist model, where the owners of something get to decide with whom they share it and under what terms.
It should be first come, first serve, pay as you go.
When you set up a competing worldwide network, you can implement whatever policy you choose.
Please find enclosed an invoice for the following developments:
Your analogy is grossly flawed.
The U.S. is not demanding royalties or a lump-sum payment for inventing the Internet. They are simply insisting on maintaining control of something that they invented.
The U.N. is acting like a houseguest who's demanding a say in what color the walls are painted, who cuts the lawn, and who gets to occupy which rooms. When you're invited into someone's home, you don't get to dictate how that home is run -- even if you voluntarily make improvements. You can point to the neat stereo that you set up or the nice garden that you planted, but that doesn't mean that you get to have your name on the deed of the house.
Your country is free to create your own separate network of computers using all of the protocols and standards of the Internet. We won't ask for a dime in return. Maybe in a few years, you will invite other countries to interconnect. Then they can start trying to wrestle control of your network out of your hands and you can better understand how the people of the U.S. feel now.
Oh great, the U.S. just decided to donate 25% of their IP addresses to Sub Saharan Africa. Now I gotta dick around with NAT all day while Mugabi and his fuckwads get to surf pr0n from a Class A. Fuck that!
If NAT seems so tough to you, then maybe the Internet is not your sandbox. When you can get a $20 router that can put 250 systems onto a single IP address, I hardly think that NAT is so damned terrible. In fact, the firm for which I work has several thousand employees and all web surfing goes through a single IP address.
Hmm.. was that the one where he ordered the missle bombardment of an aspirin factory,
Please provide a complete list of all civilian target bombed by the Bush administration, including, where available, civilian casualties. His mistakes far outnumber Clinton's.
or the one where the beaurocratic shackles he had previously placed on the CIA, the FBI and the military caused the information about Bin Laden to arrive so late that we blew up an empty mud hut?
Regale us with tales about Bush's intelligence successes. I need a good laugh. You'll note that Bush has been President since 2000 and we still don't have Bin Laden, that the WMD claims were completely bogus, and that we're in another Vietnam type of situation. Yeah, he's really fixed the intelligence gathering, hasn't he?
A casualty of war -- just like the numerous civilian targets bombed by Bush. US air raids in Kandahar destroyed residents' homes with no connection to the Taliban, and demolished vacant buildings. The New York Times reported that civilian casualties included shopkeepers, tailors, car battery repairmen and other small businesspeople, as well as residents of the city's destitute slums..
What makes me chuckle are the Democrats who were all for going into Iraq and said so publicly, but now say that they were always against the war.
In most cases, they are saying that they wouldn't have been for the war if they had known about the WMD hoax being put on by the Bush administration.
"Siding with the Bush administration on ANY issue doesn't make you a right-wing, anti-science, anti-environment, war-mongering, redneck, torture advocating, moron AT ALL."
Just like bashing Bush at every opportunity doesn't make you a left-wing
I am a left-wing liberal and proud of it.
, believe-all-junk-science,
Just what is "junk-science"? Peer-reviewed science published in reputable journals? Any science article that doesn't allude to God? Are you talking about global warming, which is accepted fact by even the EPA?
screw-all-businesses,
Like poor Sony, who has installed countless root-kits? The only businesses that get "screwed" by lefties are disreputable, unethical ones.
anti-military,
If you want anti-military, just look to the Bush administration, who sent our troops over to Iraq with inadequate armor, forcing many military families to buy armor to protect their loved ones. In 2003, the Bush administration tried to cut combat pay of the 157,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (by rolling back "imminent danger pay" by $75 a month and "family separation allowances" by $150 a month). And who fought against that? Democrats.
intellectually snobbish,
Because we don't say "nuculer"?
narrow-minded,
It's the right-wingers who fit that description, pushing to ban gay marriage, take away abortion rights, and even prevent terminally ill people from using doctor-prescribed medical marijuana. It's the right-wingers who try to censor television, radio, and even the Internet. If you want narrow-minded, just look to your own people.
"don't do a fu*king thing to people who are trying to kill everything you know and love" (aka. "just talk to them and they'll love all of us") asshole?
In August of 1998, Clinton ordered an air strike against bin Laden and his compatriots because of "compelling information they were planning additional terrorist attacks against our citizens and others with the inevitable collateral casualties and.. seeking to acquire chemical weapons and other dangerous weapons." Many Republicans denounced the bombings as an attempt to divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Hitler's regime was evil, too, but that doesn't mean that they never had a good idea. The Volkswagen, or 'People's Car' comes to mind: Inexpensive, reliable, and fuel-efficient.
Siding with the Bush administration on this one issue doesn't make you a right-wing, anti-science, anti-environment, war-mongering, redneck, torture advocating, moron any more than saying you like the Volkswagen Beetle makes you a Nazi.
Yeah, I know, "Godwin's Law." The biggest difference between the Bush administration and the Nazis is that we now know what went on in the Nazi's secret torture facilities.
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't it be great if there was an ISP who wasn't shielding spammers, scammers, and other crooks from angry victims? Wouldn't it be fantastic to send a complaint to an ISP about a scammer and have the ISP reply back with something like:
A man can dream...
Yeah, it'll cost their hosting company a fortune!
Good! If you're going to provide services to thieves and scammers, then you deserve to suffer for it. The ISP could have easily looked up the countless online complaints about this merchant before signing a contract with them.
I was having a dispute with one ISP and I started recording the phone calls. I confronted a member of their management staff with the recorded phone calls. He told me that the phone calls were recorded illegally and that I could be charged with a crime.
I then played the beginning of one of the recordings to him:
"This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes."
I said "that's the sound of your company giving me permission to record these phone calls." He was not a happy man, but they sure became a lot more helpful in resolving what had been a service nightmare. And the tech support people stopped lying.
Slippery slope, my friends. Free is free.
Then maybe totally "free" isn't always a good thing.
Sure, it means that various "L33T h4x0R" script kiddies can download software without paying for it, but maybe that really doesn't make up for the fact that any military (not just ones from countries that you like) can incorporate software into systems designed to kill people. If you were a GPL software author, you could discover that code you wrote was used as part of a weapon system used to kill innocent people -- maybe even your own wife, children, and parents. (Yes, I know that MD is defensive, but OSS could just as easily be used for offensive weapons.)
#1 : All military contractors and personnel would suddenly stop contributing to any OSS efforts.
So what? If someone is a conscientious objector to war, why shouldn't he prohibit military use of his code? Is supporting OSS supposed to be a more important to him than his beliefs about killing human beings?
Fundamentalist Christians could be placing a "free for non-gay use" clause in their releases.
Oh no! The gay community would be denied access to thousands of amateurish Bible study programs! What a tragedy that would be. Were it not for the efforts of various right-wing groups, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation would already be illegal, as would the other forms of discrimination that you point out.
Oh, and wouldn't you prefer the finite number of tax dollars available to be spent as wisely as possible?
You consider ballistic missile defense to be your tax dollars being spent as wisely as possible? That's scary.
Sorry... I forgot that Anonymous Cowards typically don't pay taxes.
Damn! You mean that I could have avoided taxes by simply not registering a handle on Slashdot?
It is when you are using the boss's phone line to discuss it. Like it or not.
Professionals have a right to some privacy whether you wish to respect it or not.
If the justification for so much privacy that you can't even mention that you are talking to your doctor is genuine, you can probably get medical leave in the first place (at least where I live).
I don't need to justify privacy. As a professional, I have a right to it. Maybe someone doesn't want their boss speculating about whether there are health problems ("our medical insurance premiums are going up and Bill's got another call from his doctor", "maybe I should put off promoting Bill until we see whether these calls from his doctor are about something serious", etc.).
I've replied as AC this time because I'm not interested in being notified about replies to this comment.
You replied as AC because you had no answer for these points:
1. "It doesn't matter if you have your boss's permission to use a private phone because the doctor will call you at your desk. They won't have patience when you put them on hold, only to discover that the conference room with the designated private phone is in use. It's not a plan."
2. "So just what kind of "crapload of trouble" can a business get for providing doorless restroom stalls? No one is making you use the stalls. No one is forcing you to work for that company. Can you provide any links to newspaper articles or court cases showing that a business got in serious trouble for not having doors on bathroom stalls?"
3. "Professionals have long expected privacy for occasional personal phone calls and it's only in the last two decades that this expectation has been eroded by the disgusting trend of putting people in cubicles. People like you are only making the situation [worse]. By condoning this type of arrangement, you're telling businesses that it's okay to put people in doorless cubicles where their every word is overheard. You're saying that it's normal for a professional to be in a cubicle where everyone within 50 feet knows when they clip a fingernail, cough, sneeze, or fart. Grow a pair and tell your boss that you expect to work in an office with a door. Tell him that you expect to be able to make or receive a phone call without everyone in the area hearing your every word. Don't sing the company song while they tear down office walls."
That's a perfactly valid reason for a personal call, IMO, and how hard is it to ask one's boss if they can take a private call from their doctor?
It's none of your boss's business that you're discussing a medical problem with your doctor. That's between you and the doctor. If you wanted people to know that you were talking to your doctor about a medical problem, then you wouldn't care about privacy, would you?
It doesn't matter if you have your boss's permission to use a private phone because the doctor will call you at your desk. They won't have patience when you put them on hold, only to discover that the conference room with the designated private phone is in use. It's not a plan.
Not offering privacy to people in the bathroom is a violation of an expected freedom that people have in this country.
So your expectation of privacy in a public (or business) restroom must be met, but professionals with an expectation of privacy for phone calls at work are just to be written off as unreasonable? There are public restrooms in this country with no doors on the stalls. School districts have even removed stall doors. Apparently, not everyone shares your expectation of privacy in restrooms.
It's not actually illegal, but it can still land them in a whole crapload of trouble if the lack of privacy is not directly connected with what the business actually does.
So just what kind of "crapload of trouble" can a business get for providing doorless restroom stalls? No one is making you use the stalls. No one is forcing you to work for that company. Can you provide any links to newspaper articles or court cases showing that a business got in serious trouble for not having doors on bathroom stalls?
Professionals have long expected privacy for occasional personal phone calls and it's only in the last two decades that this expectation has been eroded by the disgusting trend of putting people in cubicles. People like you are only making the situation. By condoning this type of arrangement, you're telling businesses that it's okay to put people in doorless cubicles where their every word is overheard. You're saying that it's normal for a professional to be in a cubicle where everyone within 50 feet knows when they clip a fingernail, cough, sneeze, or fart. Grow a pair and tell your boss that you expect to work in an office with a door. Tell him that you expect to be able to make or receive a phone call without everyone in the area hearing your every word. Don't sing the company song while they tear down office walls.
Actually, I don't think that's fine at all. When a person is off the clock, they are off the clock, and it better be *DAMN* important if someone's boss is going to interrupt their personal time with a business matter.
Many of the personal calls that many people make/get at work are *DAMN* important, too. If an employee needs to take a call from their doctor, they should be able to talk without fear of being overheard. If they can't, then the business needs to take steps so that they can.
One shouldn't need to go into specific details when justifying why a person might need to use the office phone for a personal call, and in fact many bosses are more than accomodating even if no reason is given, as long as it does not become a frequent occurence. So of course, this wouldn't even be an issue if a person is working for a good boss and they don't make personal calls that often.
Professionals should feel free to use their discretion as to the number of personal phone calls that they make or receive at work. If it becomes excessive, then the employee should be counseled. If it's not excessive, it's not the business of the employer.
However, I also recognize that the phone line is _NOT_ the employee's property to do what they will, and last time I checked, the so-called "right" to make personal phone calls while at work was not enumerated among human, constitutional, or civic rights.
The toilet at work is _NOT_ the employee's property, either, but I'm not in favor of the employee having to ask the boss's permission in order to use it -- even if the boss doesn't insist on knowing if it's number one or number two. Would you tolerate an office where the toilet stalls had no doors? I've never seen the so-called "right" to privacy while using a toilet enumerated among human, constitutional, or civic rights -- but I consider it a right nonetheless.
If you're job is so important that it requires privacy like this, they'll probably have put you in an office by now anyways.
Being able to take a private call about a family member who's been in an accident or diagnosed with a grave illness is important. Not having everyone in the office hear you start sobbing when you learn of the death of a parent is important. Having some privacy when your child's school nurse calls is important. People's families are important. Work is just a way to support those families.
Don't carry on a private conversation with someone while at work in the first place.
Do you work in a sweatshop or what? Professionals have, for decades, been afforded some level of privacy and it is only in recent years, with the horrifyingly greater acceptance of the cubicle, that such privacy has been eroded.
But then my sympathy for people that expect the "right" to make or accept personal calls at work in the first place is somewhere in the vicinity of zero anyways.
But you probably think that it's fine for businesses to call employees at home or on their cell phones. You don't have any problem with managers calling on evenings, weekends, or even during vacations, do you? You probably think that it's perfectly proper for the business to ask the employee to give up their personal time to put in overtime, don't you?
If the conversation isn't work related, one just has to bite the bullet and accept the fact that there is no reason why they should be afforded the luxury of increased privacy for such an activity.
[sarcasm\Why should an office worker feel that they have the right to privacy when their doctor's office calls? Why shouldn't their coworker hear about their (fill in the blank with embarassing medical condition)? Damnit, if a coworker has the nerve to get breast cancer, prostate cancer, anal fissures, genital warts, etc., it will lead to greater absenteeism, so that employee has no right to privacy. And how about these despicable employees who want privacy when talking to the nursing home about their elderly parent?[/sarcasm]
Yeah, you're a real gem of a human being, aren't you?
If personal calls are infrequent enough and the reason is legitimate, even if not work-related, they may permit it anyways.
Why the fsck should I have to explain something of a personal nature to my boss in order to get some privacy? What kind of inhuman prick are you? Eight hours of pay does not entitle the company to eight continuous hours of work without so much as a moment to handle personal business, whether of a financial, medical, or other nature.
People like you disgust me. You think that the only important thing is the corporation. Screw the employee. Screw the employee's family. It's all about the company coffers.
I am sure you could, too. Any lossy codec would be good if you use a high enough bit rate.
That's my point. My problem with iTunes, the Sony Music Store, etc. is not that they use lossy compression. Rather it's that they compress to the point of audibly degrading the music. I also have a problem that they try to assert control over how the purchaser uses the music later (through DRM).
But take a lossy codec at 128 kbs (the bit rate described in this article) and then encode it into another lossy codec with a low bit rate. That is what I was referring to.
We're in agreement. Transcoding across lossy codecs is always a bad thing. The psychoacoustic models are based on getting an unmolested copy as the starting point. I know of no studies as to what happens when one goes from one lossy codec to another. But I'd be willing to bet that it is a bad thing, and probably worse than just an additive function.
even non-audiofiles can hear the distortion.
Care to wager on that? I will bet that I can use a "lossy" codec and you will not be able to distinguish the lossy encoding from the original CD in blind listening tests.
I've got more than 300 audio CDs, and none of them have any visible scratches (as far as I know, anyway)
Your vision may be better than mine, but the data track on a CD is approximately 1/50 the width of a human hair. Can you see a scratch that fine? People don't realize this, but even new CDs are usually read with errors. No matter how carefully handle the CDs, chances are that the error rate is going to get higher over time. And audio CD error correction is "lossy" in that the data stream is not guaranteed to be unaffected.
- scratches on the CD just aren't something you're concerned about when you buy music.
Speak for yourself. Others do take that into consideration, often ripping the CD with something like Exact Audio Copy to back it up before errors reduce the fidelity of the recording.
The reason I don't buy from online services is I refuse to pay money for lossy codecs.
Then you're just being silly. "Lossy" refers to the data stream, not the sound. "Lossy" does not mean that the sound is audibly inferior or that you could hear the difference in a blind test. In fact, I've administered such tests to a few fellow audiophiles and proved that I could create a "lossy" MP3 that is audibly indistinguishable from the original recording. (The tests I conducted involved skilled listeners in their 20's and 30's using a Rega Planet CD player through Sennheiser SR-325 headphones and a Creek headphone amp. They selected the music. I encoded it to MP3 and then brought it back to WAV. I recorded a CD with several copies of each track - encoded and virgin. They were unable to detect the difference and their results were, statistically speaking, no better than a coin toss.)
That said, most of the online services have substandard, low-bit-rate recordings which do sound audibly inferior to CDs. That's the reason to boycott those services, not because the codecs are lossy.
The USA ownes the internet only as much as Britain ownes all the worlds railways.
The USA owns the Internet from a governing standpoint. We created domain names and IP addresses and we have the right to determine how they are handed out.
There are over 1,200 flights that travel through London's Heathrow airport every day. International airlines have been taking off and landing there for decades, funding much of its operation, growth, and expansion. Given that, would you support a U.N. takeover of Heathrow airport? Would you want the U.N. to decide whether a block of gates was assigned to Air France or British Airways? Would you want the U.N. taking over air traffic control for Heathrow airport? In time of war, would you rather be able to deny your enemies access to Heathrow airport, or would you rather that the U.N. decided if they could land there?
That's what you're pushing for on the Internet. We (the U.S.) funded its invention and development and then allowed other countries to connect to it, providing them with IP addresses and top-level domains. Now the countries that we invited to connect to the Internet are demanding that the internet be run by a multinational committee that controls top-level domains, name space, and assignment of IP addresses.
Can you get past your own bullshit to see that the internet, despite starting in the US, does not belong to the US?
Don't be rude and vulgar.
Can you not see that many people, companies and organisations funded and built the collection of networks that is called the internet and that many of those same people/companies/organisations are not in the USA?
You own everything that you've connected to the internet, but that doesn't mean that you own the right to control the Internet IP and name space.
ahh yes, security through obscurity, the model of the lazy admin. lolL
I have extensive professional computer security expertise. Since your knowledge is clearly lacking, let me teach you a bit...
"Security through obscurity" refers to the use of undocumented addresses, port numbers, hardware features, protocols, etc. NAT is well-documented and well-understood. NAT is not "security through obscurity" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's one key aspect of most enterprise security plans.
NAT acts as a firewall by dropping unrequested traffic. Obviously, more substantial monitoring and firewalling is usually recommended.
NAT insulates individual systems from direct exposure on the network. If a port-level exploit is uncovered, a hacker won't be able to hit that port when the target system is behind NAT.
NAT provides anonymity by not exposing the IP addess of a particular computer to the network. Someone sniffing traffic would not know if the traffic from my company is coming from our office in Virginia, Arizona, Maryland, etc.
NAT provides fewer IPs for an attacker to target. That makes for an easier to defend and monitor perimeter.
As to the link you provided to the 1998 ramblings of someone going by the name "Kazu,", it's laughable and hardly even readable: "Recently, many sites install firewall to protect their security. In many cases, NAT is used combined with firewall. This probably lets people misunderstand that NAT is essencial for firewall." What's next? "Tonto like firewall. Firewall good." It also doesn't support your contention that NAT is security through obscurity.
Stick to topics that you know better.
ahhh, so who gets to decide on the owners?
Deciding ownership is not something done by vote, committee, or edict. You either own something or you do not. The owners of the Internet are the ones who funded its invention, the ones who decided to open it up to other countries, and the ones who have controlled it since its inception: The U.S.
But don't take away my company's opportunity to pay a higher price for those addresses.
If we don't want to sell you the addresses, that's our business and ours alone. I don't understand why you think that you should have a right to force the the U.S. to sell IP addresses that it does not want to allocate.
So I should apply your solution to my problem.
Because:
1. It's more secure. We use one address for security and anonymity, not because we don't have lots of IP addresses.
2. You don't have another solution (other than trying to hijack the Internet from the people who invented it and paid for its development).
You've allowed planes from all over the world to land at your airports, so the U.N. should step in and sieze control of all airports in your country. How dare you be so pig-headed as to insist on maintaining control of something that you funded and built? The nerve of some people!
You're placing obstacles in front of people just so you can satisfy your socialist model of IP address distribution.
It's not a socialist model at all (that's what the U.N. wants -- IP addresses given out for the good of all). This is a capitalist model, where the owners of something get to decide with whom they share it and under what terms.
It should be first come, first serve, pay as you go.
When you set up a competing worldwide network, you can implement whatever policy you choose.
Dear US,
Please find enclosed an invoice for the following developments:
Your analogy is grossly flawed.
The U.S. is not demanding royalties or a lump-sum payment for inventing the Internet. They are simply insisting on maintaining control of something that they invented.
The U.N. is acting like a houseguest who's demanding a say in what color the walls are painted, who cuts the lawn, and who gets to occupy which rooms. When you're invited into someone's home, you don't get to dictate how that home is run -- even if you voluntarily make improvements. You can point to the neat stereo that you set up or the nice garden that you planted, but that doesn't mean that you get to have your name on the deed of the house.
Your country is free to create your own separate network of computers using all of the protocols and standards of the Internet. We won't ask for a dime in return. Maybe in a few years, you will invite other countries to interconnect. Then they can start trying to wrestle control of your network out of your hands and you can better understand how the people of the U.S. feel now.
Oh great, the U.S. just decided to donate 25% of their IP addresses to Sub Saharan Africa. Now I gotta dick around with NAT all day while Mugabi and his fuckwads get to surf pr0n from a Class A. Fuck that!
If NAT seems so tough to you, then maybe the Internet is not your sandbox. When you can get a $20 router that can put 250 systems onto a single IP address, I hardly think that NAT is so damned terrible. In fact, the firm for which I work has several thousand employees and all web surfing goes through a single IP address.
Hmm.. was that the one where he ordered the missle bombardment of an aspirin factory,
Please provide a complete list of all civilian target bombed by the Bush administration, including, where available, civilian casualties. His mistakes far outnumber Clinton's.
or the one where the beaurocratic shackles he had previously placed on the CIA, the FBI and the military caused the information about Bin Laden to arrive so late that we blew up an empty mud hut?
Regale us with tales about Bush's intelligence successes. I need a good laugh. You'll note that Bush has been President since 2000 and we still don't have Bin Laden, that the WMD claims were completely bogus, and that we're in another Vietnam type of situation. Yeah, he's really fixed the intelligence gathering, hasn't he?
Yeah, Bubba bombed an aspirin factory.
A casualty of war -- just like the numerous civilian targets bombed by Bush. US air raids in Kandahar destroyed residents' homes with no connection to the Taliban, and demolished vacant buildings. The New York Times reported that civilian casualties included shopkeepers, tailors, car battery repairmen and other small businesspeople, as well as residents of the city's destitute slums..
What makes me chuckle are the Democrats who were all for going into Iraq and said so publicly, but now say that they were always against the war.
In most cases, they are saying that they wouldn't have been for the war if they had known about the WMD hoax being put on by the Bush administration.
"Siding with the Bush administration on ANY issue doesn't make you a right-wing, anti-science, anti-environment, war-mongering, redneck, torture advocating, moron AT ALL."
Actually, it does on many issues.
Just like bashing Bush at every opportunity doesn't make you a left-wing
.. seeking to acquire chemical weapons and other dangerous weapons." Many Republicans denounced the bombings as an attempt to divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky affair.
I am a left-wing liberal and proud of it.
, believe-all-junk-science,
Just what is "junk-science"? Peer-reviewed science published in reputable journals? Any science article that doesn't allude to God? Are you talking about global warming, which is accepted fact by even the EPA?
screw-all-businesses,
Like poor Sony, who has installed countless root-kits? The only businesses that get "screwed" by lefties are disreputable, unethical ones.
anti-military,
If you want anti-military, just look to the Bush administration, who sent our troops over to Iraq with inadequate armor, forcing many military families to buy armor to protect their loved ones. In 2003, the Bush administration tried to cut combat pay of the 157,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (by rolling back "imminent danger pay" by $75 a month and "family separation allowances" by $150 a month). And who fought against that? Democrats.
intellectually snobbish,
Because we don't say "nuculer"?
narrow-minded,
It's the right-wingers who fit that description, pushing to ban gay marriage, take away abortion rights, and even prevent terminally ill people from using doctor-prescribed medical marijuana. It's the right-wingers who try to censor television, radio, and even the Internet. If you want narrow-minded, just look to your own people.
"don't do a fu*king thing to people who are trying to kill everything you know and love" (aka. "just talk to them and they'll love all of us") asshole?
In August of 1998, Clinton ordered an air strike against bin Laden and his compatriots because of "compelling information they were planning additional terrorist attacks against our citizens and others with the inevitable collateral casualties and
Bush administration evil
Hitler's regime was evil, too, but that doesn't mean that they never had a good idea. The Volkswagen, or 'People's Car' comes to mind: Inexpensive, reliable, and fuel-efficient.
Siding with the Bush administration on this one issue doesn't make you a right-wing, anti-science, anti-environment, war-mongering, redneck, torture advocating, moron any more than saying you like the Volkswagen Beetle makes you a Nazi.
Yeah, I know, "Godwin's Law." The biggest difference between the Bush administration and the Nazis is that we now know what went on in the Nazi's secret torture facilities.