Don't get me wrong -- I don't mean to offend. And yes, this is a highly polar issue, even outside of Slashdot.
However, I simply don't agree that because the government has the right to watch you that you somehow have less freedom because of it. I can still do everything that I would normally do.
On the other hand, perhaps the government should figure out how to adequately deal with the information that is has before it seeks to acquire more. I truly believe that government has the right to most information of that nature. And I truly believe that there are those who would do horrible things with the information. However, I also believe there are ways to negate or mitigate the effects of those people. So, before the government seeks to acquire more data, it needs to put better controls into place...
I've gone to dozens of sites. EP&R (FEMA), Coast Guard, Secret Service, etc. I've haven't been impressed by anything that I've seen. Sadly, the best systems I've seen at DHS are legacy and managed by DoJ (FBI). Generally, the systems themselves are screwed up. On the off-chance that the systems appear to be spotless, technically, the personnel controls and associated paper processes (e.g. the paper/email process of system access requests -- adding users) are screwed up and are highly susceptible to insider attack. Systems like that can still boost the rating because they don't necessarily straight out fail...
I don't know many GS-14's or -15's that actually do anything...and I've met a LOT.
The government needs to eliminate this bullshit job security and make people work for a living. If people don't work and meet performance standards, they should get fired.
But no, that's much too logical. Instead, we allow people to put in a good couple years when they're young (and want to work) and then support them through the rest of their life while they slack off and can't be fired. Most people need some sort of fear for their job or they won't work. It's as if every government worker past three years has won the lottery -- at least 50k/year for the rest of their life for doing nothing. Shit, I should stop contracting...
Trust me, most systems in DHS are not as locked down as you specify -- I've visited too many to recall as part of my job with the Inspector General. And in the event we find something that is locked down one way, they screw it up in too many other ways to count. This shit ain't hard, people.
And token-ring? Ugh. You ever been on a large token-ring network? I get your point, but I hope you mean a nice star-based closed-LAN environment.
I work for the DHS Inspector General -- the agency that conducts the FISMA assessment.
At least part of the reason that many agencies did worse this year than last can be attributed to:
- A better DHS systems inventory, meaning a larger population of poor systems, as opposed to the big attention-whore systems that are inevitably going to have more money for security. Unfortunately, the systems inventory *still* isn't very good and is primarily based on what managers report as owning, rather than a combination of reporting and discovery via scanning
- More information available to the Inspector General's office (and more information generally means more negative information, unfortunately). We could also more easily find exceptions/anomalies with the additional information
- Better FISMA assessment methodologies/processes on the part of the OIG than previous years. The process has been much more streamlined so that more work could be conducted in a shorter period of time (i.e. more problems can be found).
Those are just a few of the major reasons. There are other reasons that are more site specific, for example budget cuts, focus of efforts, etc.
...I wanted to reiterate that this is ONLY based on Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) reporting. Essentially, FISMA reporting is a basic assessment of system vulnerabilities and policies/procedures. Additionally, reporting is inaccurate, as the system being evaluated must be in the DHS systems inventory -- most systems are not because DHS has a poor inventory. Therefore, most systems are not even evaluated.
So, if this "report card" were properly reported, more systems would be in the population (and sample, since I feel sample size is too low). And if better, more in-depth security assessments were done, DHS would probably do even worse. I just wanted to give you the warm fuzzies...
Anyhow, people the under the CISO (Bob West) are working to get a better inventory and to improve FISMA reporting, but the processes are painfully slow due to growing pains, political battles and the typical laziness that consumes government workers.
We should get some more guys from the casino and porn industries in here to whip system security into shape...seriously...
Listen, nothing really negative happened to the people in question. So, their account and payment was temporarily placed on hold. What's the big deal? They weren't falsely accused of supporting terrorism. They weren't thrown into prison. It's simply a safeguard to prevent money launderers and their like that support terrorism, drug cartels, etc.
Frankly, I'd be upset if an alarm wasn't raised and Homeland Security weren't notified of something like that. It is somewhat anomalous for someone to suddenly pay off that much money when historically they haven't been paying squat. In this case it was a false positive; in others, perhaps not.
Privacy? Please people, insurance and credit card companies are legally allowed to mine more data about us than Homeland Security is. Why? Because privacy advocates are all up in arms about any sort of data mining in the government, even if the activities are relatively helpful and non-intrusive. And the privacy advocates know about the data mining because government is transparent relative to credit and insurance agencies. We have no idea what kind of data mining is being performed there -- and they're only out to get our money, not protect our families...
started with netflix for obvious reasons. switched to blockbuster because the allure of getting a couple free in-store rentals each month was tempting (there is a blockbuster a few blocks from me in DC). also, blockbuster seems to have more titles available than netflix.
however, the simplicity and robustness of the user interface from netflix is extremely superior to blockbuster. ratings are much better. watching trailers and reading reviews is easier.
also, there are more categories in netflix. i like to watch lots of foreign films, and blockbuster doesnt break them apart like netflix breaks them into different subcategories -- japanese, chinese, etc.
overall, the little details really enhance my experience, so ive chosen netflix.
Oh right, and let's not forget the fact that a guy can buy a box of rubber gloves, some enema kits and boxed wine for pretty darn cheap too! God bless america and god bless cheap entertainment.
Is cheap gasoline unamerican? We do, after all, have extremely low gas prices when compared to most any other nation in the world.
Is cheap telephone service unamerican? Psha. It's essential to operate in this society, so no -- it's not. And broadband is fast becoming the next major transmission media (even though much of it is based on the PSTN). The fact that I even have to bring this up on a site like this makes me sick.
Are cheap cars unamerican? Yes. They're called Hyundai's and KIA's and, as such, are made in Korea. Of course, if we are talking strictly about cheap quality, rather than cheap financials, then cheap cars are certainly not unamerican. My old chevy cavalier was the cheapest piece of crap I've ever owned. So no, cheap cars are not entirely unamerican.
Is free (i.e. cheap) open-source software unamerican? Psha. F you too, arse-monkey!
Is cheap broadband unamerican? Oh wait, you already got that one. Sorry about that.
I've bought LCDs through Dell small business before. Prior to purchasing, I called up to ask about their dead pixel policy. I was told by several representatives that if I had even one dead pixel that Dell would ship me a new LCD, free of charge, and include return shipping.
And I took them up on that offer for the very first monitor I received:P
So, I'm not sure where you get that "Dell doesn't have a "no dead pixels" policy" statement from. I purchased several 2001FPs about a year ago, and I doubt their policy would have gotten worse, but it's possible.
No, I didn't RTFA, but come on people. Can we seriously trust the government to find abuses within its bloated self? Especially in DoJ?
Oh right, and let's not forget how incredibly useful the Inspector Generals are.
Wanna know what they do? They audit their own department (internal affairs) to make sure there are no abuses, corruption, etc.
Wanna know what's useless about the way the system is setup? The Inspector General of each department is appointed by the President. So, the same guy who doesn't want people trashing his departments (because he wants everyone to think that he and his administration are doing a great job) appoints the very same person that is supposed to be pointing out their flaws.
And people wonder why the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security got canned after releasing damning reports of how horrible everything was running and how incredibly insecure it was (is)...
Please. Of course they're not going to be able to find abuses. They want to keep their nice, comfortable government jobs, that they can't get fired from. Yet another plus of our government system. Fear for your job = productivity. Total job security = big fat-ass American going to BBQ every weekend, putting off work and lying about things to avoid work.
as a solution, possibly release limited functionality executables for windows machines. ie, dont spend too much time porting everything -- just enough to make the users want more and switch over.
i.e. you can have usable and secure, if you pay out the wazoo for it. unfortunately, most people don't -- they opt for usable and cheap.
draw a triangle. at one point write "usable", at the next point write "secure" and at the next point write "cheap". now pick one side to that triangle -- thats your system.
cant have your cake and eat it too, apparently.
I opt for usable and secure for corporate and government environments; secure and cheap for home and small business.
the entries that relied simply on obfuscation via text formatting (although that anime one looked kinda cool), kind of took the easy way out.
i mean, realistically, how hard is it to strip out white space in vi or some other editor that has find/replace? once the white place is gone, place tabs as appropriate.
real obfuscation comes from indecipherable variable names, unused variables, complex algorithms that accomplish no more than simple iteration, etc.
besides, the best way to write obfuscated code in C is to write it in one big string that is really just PERL -- and then use C to recreate PERL. I mean, come on guys: PERL = OBFUSCATION.
...people running these pirated versions of windows on machines sold with linux *generally* have an available windows license to use, but dont realize they can do so.
I mean, if someone buys a new computer with linux on it to replace their windows box, then they've got a license available, whether or not they have the original cd and key.
most of the time people just need to buy an upgrade, if that.
...and I game quite a bit. Maybe you need to use a USB mouse or get a different video card...
The only problems are the dead pixel on one and weird lighting pattern on another (you can only see it when the screen is black, but still backlit/on).
...like Maryland. E-voting without a paper trail is total crap.
And closed source e-voting is even stupider. Public systems that are the basis of our freakin' democracy (or constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition; whatever you want to call it) should be available for everyone to see.
and do it well, unlike the script kiddies bombarding your systems.
then leave a note on their windoze desktop saying they've been pwned and to stop f'in around on other peoples servers or youll upload kiddie porn to their HD and send the secret service after you...and maybe you already did...
Slashdot Mirror
Don't get me wrong -- I don't mean to offend. And yes, this is a highly polar issue, even outside of Slashdot.
However, I simply don't agree that because the government has the right to watch you that you somehow have less freedom because of it. I can still do everything that I would normally do.
On the other hand, perhaps the government should figure out how to adequately deal with the information that is has before it seeks to acquire more. I truly believe that government has the right to most information of that nature. And I truly believe that there are those who would do horrible things with the information. However, I also believe there are ways to negate or mitigate the effects of those people. So, before the government seeks to acquire more data, it needs to put better controls into place...
I've gone to dozens of sites. EP&R (FEMA), Coast Guard, Secret Service, etc. I've haven't been impressed by anything that I've seen. Sadly, the best systems I've seen at DHS are legacy and managed by DoJ (FBI). Generally, the systems themselves are screwed up. On the off-chance that the systems appear to be spotless, technically, the personnel controls and associated paper processes (e.g. the paper/email process of system access requests -- adding users) are screwed up and are highly susceptible to insider attack. Systems like that can still boost the rating because they don't necessarily straight out fail...
I don't know many GS-14's or -15's that actually do anything...and I've met a LOT.
The government needs to eliminate this bullshit job security and make people work for a living. If people don't work and meet performance standards, they should get fired.
But no, that's much too logical. Instead, we allow people to put in a good couple years when they're young (and want to work) and then support them through the rest of their life while they slack off and can't be fired. Most people need some sort of fear for their job or they won't work. It's as if every government worker past three years has won the lottery -- at least 50k/year for the rest of their life for doing nothing. Shit, I should stop contracting...
The privacy advocates would squash that before it gets passed the planning phase...
Trust me, most systems in DHS are not as locked down as you specify -- I've visited too many to recall as part of my job with the Inspector General. And in the event we find something that is locked down one way, they screw it up in too many other ways to count. This shit ain't hard, people.
And token-ring? Ugh. You ever been on a large token-ring network? I get your point, but I hope you mean a nice star-based closed-LAN environment.
I work for the DHS Inspector General -- the agency that conducts the FISMA assessment.
At least part of the reason that many agencies did worse this year than last can be attributed to:
- A better DHS systems inventory, meaning a larger population of poor systems, as opposed to the big attention-whore systems that are inevitably going to have more money for security. Unfortunately, the systems inventory *still* isn't very good and is primarily based on what managers report as owning, rather than a combination of reporting and discovery via scanning
- More information available to the Inspector General's office (and more information generally means more negative information, unfortunately). We could also more easily find exceptions/anomalies with the additional information
- Better FISMA assessment methodologies/processes on the part of the OIG than previous years. The process has been much more streamlined so that more work could be conducted in a shorter period of time (i.e. more problems can be found).
Those are just a few of the major reasons. There are other reasons that are more site specific, for example budget cuts, focus of efforts, etc.
...I wanted to reiterate that this is ONLY based on Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) reporting. Essentially, FISMA reporting is a basic assessment of system vulnerabilities and policies/procedures. Additionally, reporting is inaccurate, as the system being evaluated must be in the DHS systems inventory -- most systems are not because DHS has a poor inventory. Therefore, most systems are not even evaluated.
So, if this "report card" were properly reported, more systems would be in the population (and sample, since I feel sample size is too low). And if better, more in-depth security assessments were done, DHS would probably do even worse. I just wanted to give you the warm fuzzies...
Anyhow, people the under the CISO (Bob West) are working to get a better inventory and to improve FISMA reporting, but the processes are painfully slow due to growing pains, political battles and the typical laziness that consumes government workers.
We should get some more guys from the casino and porn industries in here to whip system security into shape...seriously...
Listen, nothing really negative happened to the people in question. So, their account and payment was temporarily placed on hold. What's the big deal? They weren't falsely accused of supporting terrorism. They weren't thrown into prison. It's simply a safeguard to prevent money launderers and their like that support terrorism, drug cartels, etc.
Frankly, I'd be upset if an alarm wasn't raised and Homeland Security weren't notified of something like that. It is somewhat anomalous for someone to suddenly pay off that much money when historically they haven't been paying squat. In this case it was a false positive; in others, perhaps not.
Privacy? Please people, insurance and credit card companies are legally allowed to mine more data about us than Homeland Security is. Why? Because privacy advocates are all up in arms about any sort of data mining in the government, even if the activities are relatively helpful and non-intrusive. And the privacy advocates know about the data mining because government is transparent relative to credit and insurance agencies. We have no idea what kind of data mining is being performed there -- and they're only out to get our money, not protect our families...
started with netflix for obvious reasons. switched to blockbuster because the allure of getting a couple free in-store rentals each month was tempting (there is a blockbuster a few blocks from me in DC). also, blockbuster seems to have more titles available than netflix.
however, the simplicity and robustness of the user interface from netflix is extremely superior to blockbuster. ratings are much better. watching trailers and reading reviews is easier.
also, there are more categories in netflix. i like to watch lots of foreign films, and blockbuster doesnt break them apart like netflix breaks them into different subcategories -- japanese, chinese, etc.
overall, the little details really enhance my experience, so ive chosen netflix.
Oh right, and let's not forget the fact that a guy can buy a box of rubber gloves, some enema kits and boxed wine for pretty darn cheap too! God bless america and god bless cheap entertainment.
Is cheap gasoline unamerican? We do, after all, have extremely low gas prices when compared to most any other nation in the world.
Is cheap telephone service unamerican? Psha. It's essential to operate in this society, so no -- it's not. And broadband is fast becoming the next major transmission media (even though much of it is based on the PSTN). The fact that I even have to bring this up on a site like this makes me sick.
Are cheap cars unamerican? Yes. They're called Hyundai's and KIA's and, as such, are made in Korea. Of course, if we are talking strictly about cheap quality, rather than cheap financials, then cheap cars are certainly not unamerican. My old chevy cavalier was the cheapest piece of crap I've ever owned. So no, cheap cars are not entirely unamerican.
Is free (i.e. cheap) open-source software unamerican? Psha. F you too, arse-monkey!
Is cheap broadband unamerican? Oh wait, you already got that one. Sorry about that.
I can go on...
I've bought LCDs through Dell small business before. Prior to purchasing, I called up to ask about their dead pixel policy. I was told by several representatives that if I had even one dead pixel that Dell would ship me a new LCD, free of charge, and include return shipping.
:P
And I took them up on that offer for the very first monitor I received
So, I'm not sure where you get that "Dell doesn't have a "no dead pixels" policy" statement from. I purchased several 2001FPs about a year ago, and I doubt their policy would have gotten worse, but it's possible.
If so, these findings certainly make sense... :P
No, I didn't RTFA, but come on people. Can we seriously trust the government to find abuses within its bloated self? Especially in DoJ?
Oh right, and let's not forget how incredibly useful the Inspector Generals are.
Wanna know what they do? They audit their own department (internal affairs) to make sure there are no abuses, corruption, etc.
Wanna know what's useless about the way the system is setup? The Inspector General of each department is appointed by the President. So, the same guy who doesn't want people trashing his departments (because he wants everyone to think that he and his administration are doing a great job) appoints the very same person that is supposed to be pointing out their flaws.
And people wonder why the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security got canned after releasing damning reports of how horrible everything was running and how incredibly insecure it was (is)...
Please. Of course they're not going to be able to find abuses. They want to keep their nice, comfortable government jobs, that they can't get fired from. Yet another plus of our government system. Fear for your job = productivity. Total job security = big fat-ass American going to BBQ every weekend, putting off work and lying about things to avoid work.
I'd mod this troll, but it's actually a pretty mirror. Damn my flagrant metrosexuality...
If anyone else says Real Player, I'll kick them in the shins.
as a solution, possibly release limited functionality executables for windows machines. ie, dont spend too much time porting everything -- just enough to make the users want more and switch over.
i.e. you can have usable and secure, if you pay out the wazoo for it. unfortunately, most people don't -- they opt for usable and cheap.
draw a triangle. at one point write "usable", at the next point write "secure" and at the next point write "cheap". now pick one side to that triangle -- thats your system.
cant have your cake and eat it too, apparently.
I opt for usable and secure for corporate and government environments; secure and cheap for home and small business.
the entries that relied simply on obfuscation via text formatting (although that anime one looked kinda cool), kind of took the easy way out.
i mean, realistically, how hard is it to strip out white space in vi or some other editor that has find/replace? once the white place is gone, place tabs as appropriate.
real obfuscation comes from indecipherable variable names, unused variables, complex algorithms that accomplish no more than simple iteration, etc.
besides, the best way to write obfuscated code in C is to write it in one big string that is really just PERL -- and then use C to recreate PERL. I mean, come on guys: PERL = OBFUSCATION.
pussies.
...people running these pirated versions of windows on machines sold with linux *generally* have an available windows license to use, but dont realize they can do so.
I mean, if someone buys a new computer with linux on it to replace their windows box, then they've got a license available, whether or not they have the original cd and key.
most of the time people just need to buy an upgrade, if that.
...and I game quite a bit. Maybe you need to use a USB mouse or get a different video card...
The only problems are the dead pixel on one and weird lighting pattern on another (you can only see it when the screen is black, but still backlit/on).
it may not get rid of the stink, but itll mask it and make it smell disgustingly purfumy, which could be an improvement...
That way all intentionally false statements about Darl McBride's mom can still stay up there and be modded +5 Funny!
...like Maryland. E-voting without a paper trail is total crap.
And closed source e-voting is even stupider. Public systems that are the basis of our freakin' democracy (or constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition; whatever you want to call it) should be available for everyone to see.
and do it well, unlike the script kiddies bombarding your systems.
then leave a note on their windoze desktop saying they've been pwned and to stop f'in around on other peoples servers or youll upload kiddie porn to their HD and send the secret service after you...and maybe you already did...