That's not true at all. I used to work for an ASP who had a couple run-ins with the RBL. The initial problem was with a single mail server for one of our clients that was set up incorrectly (open relay - yeah, I know, someone DID get fired over it too).
Unfortunately, neither the ASP or the customer received a single notification from the RBL folks that we were a condidate. Apparently they were sending their notifications to a non-existant email address. Can't remember what address it was off-hand, but it was a variation of postmaster@servername.com instead of postmaster@domain.com. So when they got no response, they blackholed the server.
Obviously the customer was upset when their customers couldn't receive so we found out what was the cause and closed the relay. Mind you, this wasn't some little fly-by-night web company that had the open relay. This was a VERY large company that is well-known in Europe and the US. Sure, spam is spam, but you would think that the RBL people would have enough sense to realize that this was a simpole configuration issue and not willfull spamming on the part of the company.
It then took us several weeks of fighting with the RBL people to convince them that the relay was closed and they should take us off the list. We would get one of them on the phone and ask them to try to use the relay, and it wouldn't work. And they still wouldn't take us off of the list.
Eventually we were taken off of the list. Hooray. I don't know if they periodically check back with people who managed to get off the list or what, but a few months later we were back on the list. Apparently someone tried to use the relay, and the firewall would accept the packet and scan it and then drop it. The relay wouldn't work, but they didn't get any kind of denial message either, so the RBL people ASS-umed that the relay was open again. The best way to explain it is this: instead of blackholing us because of concrete proof that the relay was open, the blackholed us because of a lack of concrete proof that the relay was closed.
Needless to say, I'm not interested in anything that the RBL has to offer. Especially because they are volunteers who do this "out of the kindness of their heart," there is no accountability. Maybe you can get off the list, maybe you can't. Maybe your company loses boatloads of money because your site is blocked and the person who has the power to take you off the list is a power-tripping moron. Who's responsible?
Typically a consulting company will take anywhere from 30%-50% of a persons bill rate to cover company expenses. Some people may balk at that, and that's fine. If you can manage to find the positions on your own and be able to bill the customers directly, then more power to you.
But let's face it, not all consultants are capable of doing this. It takes contacts, contacts, contacts to always be able to keep yourself working. It takes relatively good salesmanship skills to get new leads and turn them into positions,and it takes a sterling reputation. Most companies who use contractors find it more convenient to negotiate a standard contract with a consulting firm to fulfill all their outsourcing needs than to negotiate with individual contractors for specialized needs. Some people are capable of doing this, and some simply aren't.
Consulting firms definitely have their place. At this point in my career, I have the skills necessary to go solo. I don't have the contacts to keep me constantly employed, so I go through a consulting firm. Finding a decent firm isn't necessarily easy, but I believe I've done it (and I've worked for enough crappy firms to know it).
For an example, the firm that I work for takes 39%. I know this, because I know what the bill rate is and I know what my pay rate is. (Finding a company that is even up-front enough with you to tell you what they're billing is pretty rare.) Out of that 39%, they pay the salaries for the sales staff, recruiters, consultant relations staff(basically the people who keep me happy and make me happy when I'm not), general office staff, etc. Plus they pay commissions for the sales staff. Plus referral bonuses to consultants who refer new clients or new employees that work out. Plus the quarterly performance bonuses that we get, plus the raises every 6 months (that I'm eligible for even if the bill rate isn't upped). Plus the portions of taxes and benefits that the company picks up that I would otherwise be paying. Plus the monthly "appreciation evens" (aka, party with an open bar) for the employees. And so on and so on.
Realistically, there's quite a bit that I get for them taking 39%. The biggest benefit that I get is no worries. I don't have to worry about invoicing the client. I don't have to negotiate contacts. I don't have to worry about wether the contract that I just signed has a legal loophole that allows Big Company XYZ to stiff me when I can't meet the deadline because the project was twice the size originally projected. I don't have to worry about how to pay the rent when a company is paying on my invoices net 90 days instead of the 15 that I stipulated. I don't have to ever worry about lining up a job. I just call my rep and say "Find me another one, I think I'd like to do UNIX for awhile."
It's not a bad deal. And I still get paid pretty well.
In summary, going independent may be a great thing for a great many people, but it takes a while to get to the point in your professional life where it's reasonable and feasible. And GOOD consulting firms have an important role in getting people there.
This may be true for individuals, but let's grey it up a little more.
I am employed by a consulting firm. I get paid an hourly rate from my consulting firm. A big corporation contracts with my consulting firm for my services, at a rate based on work performed (hourly figure). I work at the customer site, using their equipment.
But I am considered a full-time employee of the consulting firm, not the big corporation that has contracted with my employer. And my employer can't be considered an employee, they are a vendor.
So again, it's greyed up some more.
I guess the real question is how these people were recruited by MS. Did MS HR contract with the individuals, or were they outsourced from another company?
Speaking as a contractor/temp work, I can tell you something that may or may not be relevant. In every contract for every assignment that I've ever been offered, the duration was a specified period of time (however long the project is expected to take to complete), after which the company was supposed to either a) cut me loose or b) make me a permanent offer, unless the project went a little long at which point they could extend the contract for a fee untill the original project was completed.
Now, it's not too much of a stretch to see MS stringing along contractors/temps with the notion that they may get a position as an employee if they stick it out just a few more months as a temp.
"The case only covered temps from 1986-1997." If I recall, that was THE most profitable time to be a Microsoft employee, in terms of stock options. A full-time employee who got a basic stock package in 1986 would have had a portfolio worth several hundred thousand dollars today, if not over a million dollars.
You state that "With full health, pentions[sic], and stock options, Microsoft employees are some of the best treated workers I know." But the people that we are talking about are not Microsoft employees, but temps. People who don't have the health, pension and stock options...that's where this case came from to begin with.
And for the kicker, MS ended up settling for a measly $97 million. Sounds like a lot of money, but there are estimated to be between 8000 and 12000 members in the suit who the money will be divided up between. Even in the best case scenario that's only around $12000 per person, BEFORE the lawyers take their cut. But you can assume that the lawyers will probably take a third of that...
Sounds good on the surface, but price fixing is a messy deal.
In your proposed scenario you are no longer allowed to "sell" a domain name for more than $35, but you can still "transfer" the ownership of the domain for free. So what's to stop me from "transferring" ownership of my domain name to my new best friend who just gave me a gift of $10,000?
"There should also be a reason for owning a domain, it isn't right to buy a domain and just hold it down for a prolonged period."
I don't think so. For example, I wanted to put up a web site and mail server for my family. I wanted the domain name of xxxxxxxx.net (where xxxxxxxx is my surname), but it was already taken by an insurance company. xxxxxxxx.com was already taken by a real estate company. In order to get the domain name, I ended up getting xxxxxxxx.org, which is still pretty appropriate. But when I bought it, I bought it because I didn't think that it would be available by the time that I get got around to setting up the server. And nine months later, I'm just now getting around to setting up the server.
Does that make me a cyber-squatter? Well, in the sense that I bought a domain name and "squatted" on it for nine months, yes. But it certainly wasn't for nefarious purposes.
But if I had to prove to NSI before I bought the name that I had some sort of a use for it, that would have been ridiculous.
And now everyone in my family has cool firstname@lastname.org email addresses.
The system that he hijacked was that of a design firm called Market Vision, not IBM.NET's. The forging part was when he made the mail messages look like they came from addresses at IBM.NET. I don't know if this was your usual email address spoofing or something more tricky, but it's a different deal than what you seem to be suggesting.
It's a lot easier to hack the little guys than Big Blue (or AT&T actually, since they own IBM.NET).
My take on this, and IANAL, musician, or otherwise involved.
The claim that they are copying out music when they stream it over the net is kinda twisted. To me, it seems to be based on the assumption that the data could conceivably be recorded by the listener and then used to circumvent having to actually buy music.
I'm no genious, but I do not know offhand of an easy way to "record" streaming audio onto my PC.
I'm no genious, but I *DO* know offhand how to "record" audio from a radio broadcast. I just pop a tape into my "AM/FM tuner/cassette deck/stereo/whatever."
It seems to me that in order to be able to "copy" the digital data (aka music) in a streaming internet broadcast from one PC to another (in a usable form) would require somewhat more work than simply popping an audio casette in the deck at home, yet radio stations don't have to pay off the RIAA over broadcasts.
Just my two cents.
Some of the things that aren't very well pointed out in the CNNfn blurb might be relevant.
The first is that the satellites are not being bought by the government (as some people here have claimed).
The second is that Iridium/the bankruptcy court ended up selling their assets to a newly formed company called Iridium Satellite for the bargain price of around $25 million.
Iridium Satellite has determined that the only way that the satellite network will be feasible is to sell services to governments. Let's face it, the idea that even the above-average consumer would need a satellite phone is pretty crazy.
The US DOD already has a a couple thousand Iridium handsets in use. So they signed a deal to keep their service going (assuming that the service stays) for the next couple years. It's no biggie.
What honestly surprises me is that someone from the government would actually claim that it was to prevent re-intry when obviously it isn't.
My last job was was providing internal support for an ASP that happened to be a major web hosting company. In our building we had internal support, ASP support, and then the call center for the web hsoting company.
Those of us who worked with internal or ASP customers had it easy. As long as we clocked our 40 hours, we could come and go as we pleased. There was a game room (right next to the call center, no less) with couches and TV's and ping-pong, free soft drinks, etc. All we had to do was get the job done.
The folks in the call center had it considerably more rough. They all had strictly assigned shifts to ensure the proper coverage during peak hours. They were strictly monitored with regards to break and lunch times. Call times were strictly monitored, abondonment rates, etc. They were pretty much chained to their desks, though they could see us playing ping-pong in the game room.
I think that it just comes down to pure numbers. It's very easy to log and report on call center numbers. The phone system makes it a snap to monitor call times, available times, and all the other statistics that are needed to ensure that the job is getting done (or more to the point, exactly what the analyst is doing all the time).
Those of us who are at a higher tier of support can't be so easily measured. The basic measurement is almost a "did anything break today? If so, did they fix it" kind of thing. I mean, sure there are some metrics for measuring what developers and sysadmins are up to, but nothing nearly so cut and dried as call center logs.
It was interesting seeing two completely different environments depending on which area of the company that you worked in.
The Linksys *IS* a Linux box. When you telnet into the RT311/314 box, hit option 99 and then there is an option on the menu to pull up a shell session.
I know that's not exactly what you meant by Linux box, but it's a point that's worht mentioning.
Of course I'm legit, but I might not want to always be legit in the future.
The absolute most simple answer for this you have already provided in your tagline. Who is to determine what is legit? Sure, there are plenty of non-legit things that they could conceivably use carnivore to help investigate...today. But what happens if tomorrow they take something that is legit and make it illegal?
I'm not pro-NRA or anything, but what if owning guns becomes illegal? It wouldn't affect me, but I know quite a few people who'd be up in arms (no pun intended) over it. Would you want them to be able to snoop on you to see what you're saying about the new gun laws?
Maybe they outlaw PGP instead. Maybe they mandate yadda yadda that you don't agree with. Heck, in many places in the US (this "great country chock full of freedom") there are laws that restrict a consenting adults rights to get a hummer (not the SUV). Go figure. Laws don't always make sense, and one day we may all find ourselves on the other side of them (if we're not already).
1. Point #1 is irrelevant, because had that happened we would still be in the same situation, only the roles would be reversed.
2. The electoral college doesn't do all that much to normalize power distribution. Vermont gets 3 electoral votes and California gets 54. How often do you hear of presidential candidates campaigning in Vermont? Never. How often do you hear of them campaigning in California? All the time.
When you really look at it though, does it matter in this day and age where the candidates focus their compaigns? Every state has PAC's that run commercials bashing the opponent and glorifying their candidate. You get national news covereage no matter what state you live in. You get so much campaign coverage that it's almost sickening regardless of where you live. In my entire life I have never once been to a candidates rally, yet I know where they stand on the issues, especially those that are important to me.
Back in the day when the Electoral College was devised, there really wasn't much of an American nation...just a relatively loose federation of independent states. People were much more inclined to refer to themselves as a Virginian or a New Yorker than an American. That's why the small states were afraid of being steamrollered by the larger states.
Nowdays, it really doesn't matter that much. Candidates will always campaign to the largest blocks of voters. In the old days it was to Virginians or New Yorkers. Now days it's to blue-collar workers, housewives, or farmers.
Interesting point. My friends and I have discussed this very issue at length, and we've agreed that the electoral college is a somewhat flawed notion.
A prime example is California, which has a boatload of electoral votes (54 I believe). If the race goes 49%-51% (or even closer!), then the party who took the 51% gets ALL of the votes for the state of California. Suddently 49% of the state population (which is actually still larger than the entirety of most other state's populations) effectively don't get their voice heard in the electoral college. Sure it's a somwhat skewed example, but it serves it's purpose.
So then you think about the popular vote. Maybe we should directly elect by popular vote. Well, then you get into the whole recount situation again, only this time it's on a nationwide scale. Suddenly an election where the margin of victory is 500,000-1,000,000 votes becomes close enough for a recount. What a mess that would be.
So then we started thinking about changing the electoral college rather than doing away with it. If I'm not mistaken, as it stands now each state gets two votes in the Electoral College, plus 1 vote for each congressional district in the state. But the states go all-or-nothing when allocating electors. What if they broke it down so that each district sends an elector based on who won the majority in that district? Then the two extra votes could go to who won the popular vote in the state.
You'd still keep the degree of granularlity that they have now in voting districts, and any recounts would be done on a district basis, making the numbers much more manageable (if ever a recount was needed). But the benefit to it is you get a more accurate representation in the electoral college of what the will of the people truly is. And I don't just mean in terms of the percentage of electoral votes that go Republican or Democrat, because this opens it wider to third parties.
In this last election the Green party got a respectable number of votes in the Pacific Northwest, but they didn't get a single electoral vote. But if it were broken out by district that probably wouldn't have been the case. Not that I'm a Nader supporter, but a lot of people were. Getting the smaller parties involved would be a good thing, I think.
Because it's actually the right of the states to hold elections and determine how those elections are held, as well as what procedures and laws govern the electoral process. This is the case regardless of whether the election is for a federal office or not. If you look into it, you'll see that there are no federally run elections. The states merely hold their elections and report the results (aka, certify) of votes on federal issues to the federal government. Election laws vary from state to state, and even from municipality to municipality.
The other point that I'd like to make is that it was not a "re-writing" of the laws by the Florida Supreme Court (though the Bush camp would have you believe otherwise). The court's job is to interpret the law as it applies to a specific situation.
Think back to high school government class and remember the three branches:
1. Legislative - creates the laws
2. Executive - enacts the laws
3. Judicial - applies the laws
Obviously there was some degree of ambiguity in the laws that allowed the courts the discretion to decide the way that did.
They would also have an asset register, where they track things like desktop PC's. That takes care of 90% of your licenses. Then servers, that's the other 5%.
Hmm...proving that accounting is not quite as simple as we would like to believe.
They didn't *have* to pay anything. However, their internal audit uncovered that they couldn't find the license info for some of the products. At that point their options were to
a) Keep looking and hope they can find them.
b) Keep looking, not find them, then buy new licenses to make up for the ones that they cannot find.
c) Admit to themselves that they're not going to find the licenses and just buy new licenses to make up for the ones that they cannot find, saving the time and cost of having to keep looking.
d) Play hardball with Microsoft over it, eventually get it taken to court and admit to a judge that your own audits indicate that some of the software you use isn't licensed and then lose the case, be forced to buy the licenses to bring the city back into compliance, be assessed fines for piracy, and then have the legal costs to pay on top of it all.
They chose option C. It's all about bully tactics.
Since software licensing generally isn't a very high priority for most small-to-medium sized buisnesses (25-500 employees), it's a fair bet that at many companies the licensing records aren't kept well enough to endure an audit. Even if all the software is legal, it's easy to lose the records. So all Microsoft has to do is pick a company and "beat the bushes" about an audit. It costs MS the time it takes for an attorney to write a nasty letter. Then the "suspect" company has to do all the work trying to account for the software they use. If the audit shows that they are legal, it costs MS nothing. If the audit shows that the company may not be 100% legal, the company ends up paying the costs to make it all look legal without having to go to court, and MS picks up some extra money for little-to-no-effort.
It's quite a racket, absolutely unethical, and perfectly legal. It's the fault of the companies who don't keep good records that they get burned on it.
Well, it's actually not that simple when using MS Apps.
At the company that I used to work for, we were a primarily MS shop. Every new PC came with NT4 pre-installed. With that comes a nifty little booklet that teaches you how to point and click and also has the OS license/certificate of authenticity attached to it. There would also be booklets for Office, etc.
For our recordkeeping, when a new PC was ordered for a user, there was a requisition and interview process that generated a paper trail that documented what licenses needed to be ordered (CAL's, Office, etc). When the new PC arrived, the physical license had to be torn off of the booklet and stapled to the paperwork for the PC.
However, on top of that we also had one of the "blanket plans," aka Microsoft Select. That works reasonably well because MS ships us installation media for everything that they make on a regular basis, and we just call our software vendor (and MS partner) and say, we need 10 more licenses of product X. They start the paperwork to send us a bill and we install from our media kit.
If the MS-Gestapo ever came in for an audit, we'd simply pull up our copy of the licensing records (which were also maintained by the vendor and updated when we purchased new licenses) and then count paperwork licenses from the OEM installations.
It used to be worse than that though before MS changed it's policy about re-imaging/re-installing an OEM installation from Select media. Untill this past year, if we wanted to re-build a PC image, we legally had to either a) start from the restore CD that came with that model or b) buy a second license for the new image and build it from scratch, then buy additional licenses for every PC that we imaged with it.
Fortunately, MS realized just how incredibly shady this was and "magnanimously" changed the rules to give companies like the one I used to work for more leeway.
At any rate, my point was that it's not that simple to just buy a "blanket plan" because so much crap comes pre-installed and licensed that it's easy to confuse the count.
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That's not true at all. I used to work for an ASP who had a couple run-ins with the RBL. The initial problem was with a single mail server for one of our clients that was set up incorrectly (open relay - yeah, I know, someone DID get fired over it too).
Unfortunately, neither the ASP or the customer received a single notification from the RBL folks that we were a condidate. Apparently they were sending their notifications to a non-existant email address. Can't remember what address it was off-hand, but it was a variation of postmaster@servername.com instead of postmaster@domain.com. So when they got no response, they blackholed the server.
Obviously the customer was upset when their customers couldn't receive so we found out what was the cause and closed the relay. Mind you, this wasn't some little fly-by-night web company that had the open relay. This was a VERY large company that is well-known in Europe and the US. Sure, spam is spam, but you would think that the RBL people would have enough sense to realize that this was a simpole configuration issue and not willfull spamming on the part of the company.
It then took us several weeks of fighting with the RBL people to convince them that the relay was closed and they should take us off the list. We would get one of them on the phone and ask them to try to use the relay, and it wouldn't work. And they still wouldn't take us off of the list.
Eventually we were taken off of the list. Hooray. I don't know if they periodically check back with people who managed to get off the list or what, but a few months later we were back on the list. Apparently someone tried to use the relay, and the firewall would accept the packet and scan it and then drop it. The relay wouldn't work, but they didn't get any kind of denial message either, so the RBL people ASS-umed that the relay was open again. The best way to explain it is this: instead of blackholing us because of concrete proof that the relay was open, the blackholed us because of a lack of concrete proof that the relay was closed.
Needless to say, I'm not interested in anything that the RBL has to offer. Especially because they are volunteers who do this "out of the kindness of their heart," there is no accountability. Maybe you can get off the list, maybe you can't. Maybe your company loses boatloads of money because your site is blocked and the person who has the power to take you off the list is a power-tripping moron. Who's responsible?
Typically a consulting company will take anywhere from 30%-50% of a persons bill rate to cover company expenses. Some people may balk at that, and that's fine. If you can manage to find the positions on your own and be able to bill the customers directly, then more power to you.
But let's face it, not all consultants are capable of doing this. It takes contacts, contacts, contacts to always be able to keep yourself working. It takes relatively good salesmanship skills to get new leads and turn them into positions,and it takes a sterling reputation. Most companies who use contractors find it more convenient to negotiate a standard contract with a consulting firm to fulfill all their outsourcing needs than to negotiate with individual contractors for specialized needs. Some people are capable of doing this, and some simply aren't.
Consulting firms definitely have their place. At this point in my career, I have the skills necessary to go solo. I don't have the contacts to keep me constantly employed, so I go through a consulting firm. Finding a decent firm isn't necessarily easy, but I believe I've done it (and I've worked for enough crappy firms to know it).
For an example, the firm that I work for takes 39%. I know this, because I know what the bill rate is and I know what my pay rate is. (Finding a company that is even up-front enough with you to tell you what they're billing is pretty rare.) Out of that 39%, they pay the salaries for the sales staff, recruiters, consultant relations staff(basically the people who keep me happy and make me happy when I'm not), general office staff, etc. Plus they pay commissions for the sales staff. Plus referral bonuses to consultants who refer new clients or new employees that work out. Plus the quarterly performance bonuses that we get, plus the raises every 6 months (that I'm eligible for even if the bill rate isn't upped). Plus the portions of taxes and benefits that the company picks up that I would otherwise be paying. Plus the monthly "appreciation evens" (aka, party with an open bar) for the employees. And so on and so on.
Realistically, there's quite a bit that I get for them taking 39%. The biggest benefit that I get is no worries. I don't have to worry about invoicing the client. I don't have to negotiate contacts. I don't have to worry about wether the contract that I just signed has a legal loophole that allows Big Company XYZ to stiff me when I can't meet the deadline because the project was twice the size originally projected. I don't have to worry about how to pay the rent when a company is paying on my invoices net 90 days instead of the 15 that I stipulated. I don't have to ever worry about lining up a job. I just call my rep and say "Find me another one, I think I'd like to do UNIX for awhile."
It's not a bad deal. And I still get paid pretty well.
In summary, going independent may be a great thing for a great many people, but it takes a while to get to the point in your professional life where it's reasonable and feasible. And GOOD consulting firms have an important role in getting people there.
This may be true for individuals, but let's grey it up a little more.
I am employed by a consulting firm. I get paid an hourly rate from my consulting firm. A big corporation contracts with my consulting firm for my services, at a rate based on work performed (hourly figure). I work at the customer site, using their equipment.
But I am considered a full-time employee of the consulting firm, not the big corporation that has contracted with my employer. And my employer can't be considered an employee, they are a vendor.
So again, it's greyed up some more.
I guess the real question is how these people were recruited by MS. Did MS HR contract with the individuals, or were they outsourced from another company?
Speaking as a contractor/temp work, I can tell you something that may or may not be relevant. In every contract for every assignment that I've ever been offered, the duration was a specified period of time (however long the project is expected to take to complete), after which the company was supposed to either a) cut me loose or b) make me a permanent offer, unless the project went a little long at which point they could extend the contract for a fee untill the original project was completed.
Now, it's not too much of a stretch to see MS stringing along contractors/temps with the notion that they may get a position as an employee if they stick it out just a few more months as a temp.
"The case only covered temps from 1986-1997." If I recall, that was THE most profitable time to be a Microsoft employee, in terms of stock options. A full-time employee who got a basic stock package in 1986 would have had a portfolio worth several hundred thousand dollars today, if not over a million dollars.
You state that "With full health, pentions[sic], and stock options, Microsoft employees are some of the best treated workers I know." But the people that we are talking about are not Microsoft employees, but temps. People who don't have the health, pension and stock options...that's where this case came from to begin with.
And for the kicker, MS ended up settling for a measly $97 million. Sounds like a lot of money, but there are estimated to be between 8000 and 12000 members in the suit who the money will be divided up between. Even in the best case scenario that's only around $12000 per person, BEFORE the lawyers take their cut. But you can assume that the lawyers will probably take a third of that...
Sounds good on the surface, but price fixing is a messy deal.
In your proposed scenario you are no longer allowed to "sell" a domain name for more than $35, but you can still "transfer" the ownership of the domain for free. So what's to stop me from "transferring" ownership of my domain name to my new best friend who just gave me a gift of $10,000?
"There should also be a reason for owning a domain, it isn't right to buy a domain and just hold it down for a prolonged period."
I don't think so. For example, I wanted to put up a web site and mail server for my family. I wanted the domain name of xxxxxxxx.net (where xxxxxxxx is my surname), but it was already taken by an insurance company. xxxxxxxx.com was already taken by a real estate company. In order to get the domain name, I ended up getting xxxxxxxx.org, which is still pretty appropriate. But when I bought it, I bought it because I didn't think that it would be available by the time that I get got around to setting up the server. And nine months later, I'm just now getting around to setting up the server.
Does that make me a cyber-squatter? Well, in the sense that I bought a domain name and "squatted" on it for nine months, yes. But it certainly wasn't for nefarious purposes.
But if I had to prove to NSI before I bought the name that I had some sort of a use for it, that would have been ridiculous.
And now everyone in my family has cool firstname@lastname.org email addresses.
The system that he hijacked was that of a design firm called Market Vision, not IBM.NET's. The forging part was when he made the mail messages look like they came from addresses at IBM.NET. I don't know if this was your usual email address spoofing or something more tricky, but it's a different deal than what you seem to be suggesting.
It's a lot easier to hack the little guys than Big Blue (or AT&T actually, since they own IBM.NET).
You forgot the next line, which goes something like:
"It's orbiting at 90 miles a second, so it's reckoned, 'round a sun that is the source of all our power."
Which would put it at about 324000 MPH. Maybe it was "19 miles a second"...I can't remember exactly.
My take on this, and IANAL, musician, or otherwise involved. The claim that they are copying out music when they stream it over the net is kinda twisted. To me, it seems to be based on the assumption that the data could conceivably be recorded by the listener and then used to circumvent having to actually buy music. I'm no genious, but I do not know offhand of an easy way to "record" streaming audio onto my PC. I'm no genious, but I *DO* know offhand how to "record" audio from a radio broadcast. I just pop a tape into my "AM/FM tuner/cassette deck/stereo/whatever." It seems to me that in order to be able to "copy" the digital data (aka music) in a streaming internet broadcast from one PC to another (in a usable form) would require somewhat more work than simply popping an audio casette in the deck at home, yet radio stations don't have to pay off the RIAA over broadcasts. Just my two cents.
Some of the things that aren't very well pointed out in the CNNfn blurb might be relevant.
The first is that the satellites are not being bought by the government (as some people here have claimed).
The second is that Iridium/the bankruptcy court ended up selling their assets to a newly formed company called Iridium Satellite for the bargain price of around $25 million.
Iridium Satellite has determined that the only way that the satellite network will be feasible is to sell services to governments. Let's face it, the idea that even the above-average consumer would need a satellite phone is pretty crazy.
The US DOD already has a a couple thousand Iridium handsets in use. So they signed a deal to keep their service going (assuming that the service stays) for the next couple years. It's no biggie.
What honestly surprises me is that someone from the government would actually claim that it was to prevent re-intry when obviously it isn't.
But seriously folks...
My last job was was providing internal support for an ASP that happened to be a major web hosting company. In our building we had internal support, ASP support, and then the call center for the web hsoting company.
Those of us who worked with internal or ASP customers had it easy. As long as we clocked our 40 hours, we could come and go as we pleased. There was a game room (right next to the call center, no less) with couches and TV's and ping-pong, free soft drinks, etc. All we had to do was get the job done.
The folks in the call center had it considerably more rough. They all had strictly assigned shifts to ensure the proper coverage during peak hours. They were strictly monitored with regards to break and lunch times. Call times were strictly monitored, abondonment rates, etc. They were pretty much chained to their desks, though they could see us playing ping-pong in the game room.
I think that it just comes down to pure numbers. It's very easy to log and report on call center numbers. The phone system makes it a snap to monitor call times, available times, and all the other statistics that are needed to ensure that the job is getting done (or more to the point, exactly what the analyst is doing all the time).
Those of us who are at a higher tier of support can't be so easily measured. The basic measurement is almost a "did anything break today? If so, did they fix it" kind of thing. I mean, sure there are some metrics for measuring what developers and sysadmins are up to, but nothing nearly so cut and dried as call center logs.
It was interesting seeing two completely different environments depending on which area of the company that you worked in.
The Linksys *IS* a Linux box. When you telnet into the RT311/314 box, hit option 99 and then there is an option on the menu to pull up a shell session. I know that's not exactly what you meant by Linux box, but it's a point that's worht mentioning.
Of course I'm legit, but I might not want to always be legit in the future.
The absolute most simple answer for this you have already provided in your tagline. Who is to determine what is legit? Sure, there are plenty of non-legit things that they could conceivably use carnivore to help investigate...today. But what happens if tomorrow they take something that is legit and make it illegal?
I'm not pro-NRA or anything, but what if owning guns becomes illegal? It wouldn't affect me, but I know quite a few people who'd be up in arms (no pun intended) over it. Would you want them to be able to snoop on you to see what you're saying about the new gun laws?
Maybe they outlaw PGP instead. Maybe they mandate yadda yadda that you don't agree with. Heck, in many places in the US (this "great country chock full of freedom") there are laws that restrict a consenting adults rights to get a hummer (not the SUV). Go figure. Laws don't always make sense, and one day we may all find ourselves on the other side of them (if we're not already).
1. Point #1 is irrelevant, because had that happened we would still be in the same situation, only the roles would be reversed.
2. The electoral college doesn't do all that much to normalize power distribution. Vermont gets 3 electoral votes and California gets 54. How often do you hear of presidential candidates campaigning in Vermont? Never. How often do you hear of them campaigning in California? All the time.
When you really look at it though, does it matter in this day and age where the candidates focus their compaigns? Every state has PAC's that run commercials bashing the opponent and glorifying their candidate. You get national news covereage no matter what state you live in. You get so much campaign coverage that it's almost sickening regardless of where you live. In my entire life I have never once been to a candidates rally, yet I know where they stand on the issues, especially those that are important to me.
Back in the day when the Electoral College was devised, there really wasn't much of an American nation...just a relatively loose federation of independent states. People were much more inclined to refer to themselves as a Virginian or a New Yorker than an American. That's why the small states were afraid of being steamrollered by the larger states.
Nowdays, it really doesn't matter that much. Candidates will always campaign to the largest blocks of voters. In the old days it was to Virginians or New Yorkers. Now days it's to blue-collar workers, housewives, or farmers.
Interesting point. My friends and I have discussed this very issue at length, and we've agreed that the electoral college is a somewhat flawed notion.
A prime example is California, which has a boatload of electoral votes (54 I believe). If the race goes 49%-51% (or even closer!), then the party who took the 51% gets ALL of the votes for the state of California. Suddently 49% of the state population (which is actually still larger than the entirety of most other state's populations) effectively don't get their voice heard in the electoral college. Sure it's a somwhat skewed example, but it serves it's purpose.
So then you think about the popular vote. Maybe we should directly elect by popular vote. Well, then you get into the whole recount situation again, only this time it's on a nationwide scale. Suddenly an election where the margin of victory is 500,000-1,000,000 votes becomes close enough for a recount. What a mess that would be.
So then we started thinking about changing the electoral college rather than doing away with it. If I'm not mistaken, as it stands now each state gets two votes in the Electoral College, plus 1 vote for each congressional district in the state. But the states go all-or-nothing when allocating electors. What if they broke it down so that each district sends an elector based on who won the majority in that district? Then the two extra votes could go to who won the popular vote in the state.
You'd still keep the degree of granularlity that they have now in voting districts, and any recounts would be done on a district basis, making the numbers much more manageable (if ever a recount was needed). But the benefit to it is you get a more accurate representation in the electoral college of what the will of the people truly is. And I don't just mean in terms of the percentage of electoral votes that go Republican or Democrat, because this opens it wider to third parties.
In this last election the Green party got a respectable number of votes in the Pacific Northwest, but they didn't get a single electoral vote. But if it were broken out by district that probably wouldn't have been the case. Not that I'm a Nader supporter, but a lot of people were. Getting the smaller parties involved would be a good thing, I think.
Because it's actually the right of the states to hold elections and determine how those elections are held, as well as what procedures and laws govern the electoral process. This is the case regardless of whether the election is for a federal office or not. If you look into it, you'll see that there are no federally run elections. The states merely hold their elections and report the results (aka, certify) of votes on federal issues to the federal government. Election laws vary from state to state, and even from municipality to municipality.
The other point that I'd like to make is that it was not a "re-writing" of the laws by the Florida Supreme Court (though the Bush camp would have you believe otherwise). The court's job is to interpret the law as it applies to a specific situation.
Think back to high school government class and remember the three branches:
1. Legislative - creates the laws
2. Executive - enacts the laws
3. Judicial - applies the laws
Obviously there was some degree of ambiguity in the laws that allowed the courts the discretion to decide the way that did.
Exactly, hence the quotes around magnanimous.
Hmm...proving that accounting is not quite as simple as we would like to believe.
*nix is headed somewhat in that direction with things like RPM...
It's still not MS-Simple, but it's certainly Linux-Simplified.
They didn't *have* to pay anything. However, their internal audit uncovered that they couldn't find the license info for some of the products. At that point their options were to
a) Keep looking and hope they can find them.
b) Keep looking, not find them, then buy new licenses to make up for the ones that they cannot find.
c) Admit to themselves that they're not going to find the licenses and just buy new licenses to make up for the ones that they cannot find, saving the time and cost of having to keep looking.
d) Play hardball with Microsoft over it, eventually get it taken to court and admit to a judge that your own audits indicate that some of the software you use isn't licensed and then lose the case, be forced to buy the licenses to bring the city back into compliance, be assessed fines for piracy, and then have the legal costs to pay on top of it all.
They chose option C. It's all about bully tactics.
Since software licensing generally isn't a very high priority for most small-to-medium sized buisnesses (25-500 employees), it's a fair bet that at many companies the licensing records aren't kept well enough to endure an audit. Even if all the software is legal, it's easy to lose the records. So all Microsoft has to do is pick a company and "beat the bushes" about an audit. It costs MS the time it takes for an attorney to write a nasty letter. Then the "suspect" company has to do all the work trying to account for the software they use. If the audit shows that they are legal, it costs MS nothing. If the audit shows that the company may not be 100% legal, the company ends up paying the costs to make it all look legal without having to go to court, and MS picks up some extra money for little-to-no-effort.
It's quite a racket, absolutely unethical, and perfectly legal. It's the fault of the companies who don't keep good records that they get burned on it.
Well, it's actually not that simple when using MS Apps.
At the company that I used to work for, we were a primarily MS shop. Every new PC came with NT4 pre-installed. With that comes a nifty little booklet that teaches you how to point and click and also has the OS license/certificate of authenticity attached to it. There would also be booklets for Office, etc.
For our recordkeeping, when a new PC was ordered for a user, there was a requisition and interview process that generated a paper trail that documented what licenses needed to be ordered (CAL's, Office, etc). When the new PC arrived, the physical license had to be torn off of the booklet and stapled to the paperwork for the PC.
However, on top of that we also had one of the "blanket plans," aka Microsoft Select. That works reasonably well because MS ships us installation media for everything that they make on a regular basis, and we just call our software vendor (and MS partner) and say, we need 10 more licenses of product X. They start the paperwork to send us a bill and we install from our media kit.
If the MS-Gestapo ever came in for an audit, we'd simply pull up our copy of the licensing records (which were also maintained by the vendor and updated when we purchased new licenses) and then count paperwork licenses from the OEM installations.
It used to be worse than that though before MS changed it's policy about re-imaging/re-installing an OEM installation from Select media. Untill this past year, if we wanted to re-build a PC image, we legally had to either a) start from the restore CD that came with that model or b) buy a second license for the new image and build it from scratch, then buy additional licenses for every PC that we imaged with it.
Fortunately, MS realized just how incredibly shady this was and "magnanimously" changed the rules to give companies like the one I used to work for more leeway.
At any rate, my point was that it's not that simple to just buy a "blanket plan" because so much crap comes pre-installed and licensed that it's easy to confuse the count.
Hey, I feel the same way about rap "music", but just because I don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't culture.