If Google had a way to PROVE that their service was secure, then that might be worth entertaining. Such PROOF would need to satisy concerns about the handling and passing of data and keys, and securely deleting information when the user requests it to be deleted.
Unless they can prove that they are secure, this is an utter joke. Their reputation has been trashed as a result of their unfortunate run in with the three letter orgs. Its a pity.
In light of the semi-recent revelations about MS/NSA collusion, I would think it would be an opportune time to mandate a switch to Linux. What money is saved in doing so could go towards funding the development of any other software they might need.
"All those clueless gits out there who scream "they should have a network administrator!" might want to keep in mind that a network administrator isn't worth his weight in fuel to ship out there, much less keep around during the eight months of the year they're pretty much cut off from the outside world."
Consider the following:
1. What is the cost of replacing a trashed system?
2. How much does downtime cost you?
3. What does it cost to get someone to your site to fix your system?
4. What POTENTIAL expenses/risks do you face if someone uses your equipment to do damage to another site.
Consider the following scenario:
a. Someone trashes your system and uses it to say hack a government system, steal credit card numbers, launch a phishing scam.
b. The feds come knocking on your employer's door and it is discovered that the system used to do the damage was managed by you.
c. You find out that it was some uneducated HIGH SCHOOL kid with a childish "hacker" name that manipulated your computer like a sock puppet.
d. People that have heard you rant about how "worthless" sys admins are start to wonder how credible the rest of your statements are.
"Given the fact that no financial records or systems were compromised, no safety or loss of life was threatened, and no critical system corrupted, we need to balance legitimate security needs with the legitimate needs of our scientists at the Pole,"
We need to take three big steps back and look at the forrest as a whole. Systems are frequently compromised for indirect gains. Ie. A compromised system can be used as a "diving board" - to access other systems that the attacker may not otherwise have access to. This exposes the organization that owns the system to additional "RISK". If an attacker compromises your system, and uses it to launch a damaging attack against another system, the finger will point at YOU until you or someone else can prove that your system was just a pawn. IANAL but I would imagine that the owner of the compromised system could be subject to legal action for neglecting to secure their system in the first place.
"Do we want to be attracting more women or do we want to be attracting the best people?"
Bottom line is it really does not matter... companies will pick who they want/need regardless of who is in the selection pool.
If you really dont care about the quality of work that your IT group produces but are more concerned with running an IT group as cheaply as reasonably possible, then perhaps this is a good thing - half weights may be attracted to places that are move diverse(gender wise).
Those outfits that want hard core nerds will continue to pay top dollar. The only downside that I see is that there will be more people to sort through.
Honestly, I dont think that introducing girls into the mix will scare away the nerds:)
Of course, it's spyware causing the pop-ups, and we recommend using a product like Ad-aware to take care of the issue
Adaware and other canned products will usually work fine for well known problems. For the latest threats you need someone who is skilled enough to research these problems, hunt them down, etc...
we take around two dozen to three dozen tech support calls from users each day. Many have something to do with pop-up ads making using our product nearly impossible
If the client is having a client side problem with popup ads, then why not charge for your service or refuse to troubleshoot the problem? I assume of course that your web server has not been compromised.
A few things to consider are:
1. is the end user using a "power user" or administrator account? If so I would suggest that they set up a regular local/domain user account - this account. The "power user" and administrator accounts give the end user the ability to modify the OS and registry big time. You really cannot blame the "evil empire" if people's pc's are getting hosed because they have administrative rights and are clicking in unsolicited links, OKing every popup window they see without reading them etc...
2. Educate your customers about using the web securely - if needed, contact their IT dept and explain the problem.
3. Most (Windows) people dont patch their machines - educate them about this - while the evil empire is usually slow in issuing patches, old patches are better than none at all.
One last thing - Windows/IE is targeted by crapware writers because of its popularity - this is why you do not see anywhere near as many *nix/mozilla infestations etc... Lately many sites have been advising people to dump ie and use mozilla instead. If mozilla grows in popularity as a result, expect to see malware targeted for this too.
If thrashing is causing degradation, I would seriously consider increasing RAM before improving on the swap drive.
Check the performance specs for that 2gig drive first. If you are connecting an older, slower drive, you may actually worsen performance. For best performance, use a drive that can supports whatever performance features your mobo offers ( UDMA-66, Serial ATA, etc... )
IF using Windows 2000/XP you can spread your page file accross multiple hard drives.
In anticipation of legal action from SCO, a Windows CE version will be released sometime during Q4. The CE version is prone to email worms, buffer overflows, lock-ups and bluescreens however the cost of licensing is predictable! A Windows Update feature will be added in order to ensure that consumers will purchase newer phones after a few years worth of security patches, bug fixes, and useless addons.
Can it haze fellow rookie officers ?
Can it collaborate with other robocops to beat some innocent PCP addicted addict to a pulp in the middle of the street with clubs?
Can it cane 10 year old kids for spray-painting walls?
Perhaps this functionality will be available in version 2.0:)
10: greet fellow citizens
20: warn civillians agains the perrils of using illegal drugs
30: report all crimes no matter how small to the HK police
40: duplicate and distribute american cd and dvd media
50: goto 10
It might cost around HK$300,000 to develop and build, but the service it provides the Hong Kong crime prevention drive is priceless.
Wanna add more drive to crime prevention? How about giving Robbie III here a Shaolin kung-fu expansion module complete with Tiger, Monkey, and Dragon Style add-ins, multilingual screams, grunts, and taunts like "You killed my brother... I will avenge you!"
Learn to ask yourself the right questions. Rather than asking "How can I become smarter" ask yourself things like "What information sources will yield the most information per unit of time spent reading", "Once I attain higher intellegence, will I be satisfied? If not, what am I really looking for?", "How can I work around my areas of mental weakness?", "Which areas are weak/strong".
Think more in terms of optimization and enhancement. Keep in mind the cost and benefit of each persuit. Read bios of smart and/or effective people. Try reading or doing something completely new.
Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and you shall recieve.... hmmm ?
I prefer to use multiple layers on machines that matter... If security is important to you, use IP filtering, a hardware firewall, and software firewall. If you need to use PPTP, a decent hardware firewall will have a mechanism for allowing you to open the port from the inside only...
There is another subtle non-technical issue present - its this dramatic "nobody in the whole world can fit it" tone. Closing a port is a simple task. Either your "technical" contacts are lousy, or you did not explain the problem to them correctly (or to us for that matter)
Some things that would help are:
1. A Windows 2000 Pro. MCSE Certification Book
2. A shrink
3. Google
Seriously, the cert. book is an excellent resource for end users. Though it won't make you a guru, you will at least have a clue;)
The major mistake that creationists make is their attempt to interpret biblical information in a scientific context. It should be noted that the author(s) of the book of Genesis did not write the story of the creation in order to teach how the world came to be, rather it was written to express a spiritual concept - that of a parental higher power, god, or divine origin that preceedes mankind. It suggests that this god preceedes mankind and is therefor not man made. Mistake number two is trying to create a scientific theory that justifies this misinterpretation (putting the cart in front of the horse)
Nasa has a tendency to have dramatic accidents occasionally... And we have a shortage on good school teachers ( in NY at least ). We should send some politicians up instead... Allow them to paste their ad's on the sides of the ship etc.. If the ship blows up, we lose one more politician...
How about offering unlimited free calls? The catch would be that you play advertisements in the background as the two parties talk. As long as they are on the phone they are exposed to advertisements playing in the background.
This is the same idea behind those annoying banner ads that we have all learned to block out:) - Hell, it seems to be working for netzero - why not?
Personally, I prefer to send back the return envelope with a little surprise - a smidgen of dog crap, a dead bug, etc... As far as the AOL CD's go, I used to use the free trial until it ran out, then switch to their competitor's free trail, and then switch back to AOL again - I went for years without paying for service - and they did'nt seem to mind either.
Forget about buying "paperless office" software. This is a dumb idea that only serves to filter money into some unimaginative software company's pocket. If you need to save your corespondence, save it to a directory(folder). Make a rule or standard for filing and naming these documents - hell, in the old days companies would hire 'secrataries' to do this sort of thing - they didnt have to be intelligent or usefull either - just organized. The cost of hiring a secratary wasnt too bad either - still isnt.
The problem with these "paperless office" or "document management" systems is that:
1. They are overkill.
2. They are usually proprietary
3. Its one more thing for the average employee to f*ck up.
4. New employees will have to learn this system
5. It costs money
6. If you have a problem with it, you better hope the software provider is capable of fixing it
7. It makes your data less mobile - If you decide to go with another system 10 years down the road, you will have to figure out a way to translate the data from the old system to the new system.
My Advice, K.I.S.S. - Keep it simple stupid!
Slashdot Mirror
Immediately, an image of Wile E. Cyote standing at the side of the street with a maliciously formed speed limit sign popped into my mind.
If Google had a way to PROVE that their service was secure, then that might be worth entertaining. Such PROOF would need to satisy concerns about the handling and passing of data and keys, and securely deleting information when the user requests it to be deleted. Unless they can prove that they are secure, this is an utter joke. Their reputation has been trashed as a result of their unfortunate run in with the three letter orgs. Its a pity.
In light of the semi-recent revelations about MS/NSA collusion, I would think it would be an opportune time to mandate a switch to Linux. What money is saved in doing so could go towards funding the development of any other software they might need.
"All those clueless gits out there who scream "they should have a network administrator!" might want to keep in mind that a network administrator isn't worth his weight in fuel to ship out there, much less keep around during the eight months of the year they're pretty much cut off from the outside world."
Consider the following:
1. What is the cost of replacing a trashed system?
2. How much does downtime cost you?
3. What does it cost to get someone to your site to fix your system?
4. What POTENTIAL expenses/risks do you face if someone uses your equipment to do damage to another site.
Consider the following scenario:
a. Someone trashes your system and uses it to say hack a government system, steal credit card numbers, launch a phishing scam.
b. The feds come knocking on your employer's door and it is discovered that the system used to do the damage was managed by you.
c. You find out that it was some uneducated HIGH SCHOOL kid with a childish "hacker" name that manipulated your computer like a sock puppet.
d. People that have heard you rant about how "worthless" sys admins are start to wonder how credible the rest of your statements are.
"Given the fact that no financial records or systems were compromised, no safety or loss of life was threatened, and no critical system corrupted, we need to balance legitimate security needs with the legitimate needs of our scientists at the Pole,"
We need to take three big steps back and look at the forrest as a whole. Systems are frequently compromised for indirect gains. Ie. A compromised system can be used as a "diving board" - to access other systems that the attacker may not otherwise have access to. This exposes the organization that owns the system to additional "RISK". If an attacker compromises your system, and uses it to launch a damaging attack against another system, the finger will point at YOU until you or someone else can prove that your system was just a pawn. IANAL but I would imagine that the owner of the compromised system could be subject to legal action for neglecting to secure their system in the first place.
"Do we want to be attracting more women or do we want to be attracting the best people?"
:)
Bottom line is it really does not matter... companies will pick who they want/need regardless of who is in the selection pool.
If you really dont care about the quality of work that your IT group produces but are more concerned with running an IT group as cheaply as reasonably possible, then perhaps this is a good thing - half weights may be attracted to places that are move diverse(gender wise).
Those outfits that want hard core nerds will continue to pay top dollar. The only downside that I see is that there will be more people to sort through.
Honestly, I dont think that introducing girls into the mix will scare away the nerds
"Loud ads AND search functionality for a mere $105 million? What a steal!"
Dont forget, you also get the infamous "SideSearch" parasite. No installation necessary!
Of course, it's spyware causing the pop-ups, and we recommend using a product like Ad-aware to take care of the issue
Adaware and other canned products will usually work fine for well known problems. For the latest threats you need someone who is skilled enough to research these problems, hunt them down, etc...
we take around two dozen to three dozen tech support calls from users each day. Many have something to do with pop-up ads making using our product nearly impossible
If the client is having a client side problem with popup ads, then why not charge for your service or refuse to troubleshoot the problem? I assume of course that your web server has not been compromised.
A few things to consider are:
1. is the end user using a "power user" or administrator account? If so I would suggest that they set up a regular local/domain user account - this account. The "power user" and administrator accounts give the end user the ability to modify the OS and registry big time. You really cannot blame the "evil empire" if people's pc's are getting hosed because they have administrative rights and are clicking in unsolicited links, OKing every popup window they see without reading them etc...
2. Educate your customers about using the web securely - if needed, contact their IT dept and explain the problem.
3. Most (Windows) people dont patch their machines - educate them about this - while the evil empire is usually slow in issuing patches, old patches are better than none at all.
One last thing - Windows/IE is targeted by crapware writers because of its popularity - this is why you do not see anywhere near as many *nix/mozilla infestations etc... Lately many sites have been advising people to dump ie and use mozilla instead. If mozilla grows in popularity as a result, expect to see malware targeted for this too.
If thrashing is causing degradation, I would seriously consider increasing RAM before improving on the swap drive.
Check the performance specs for that 2gig drive first. If you are connecting an older, slower drive, you may actually worsen performance. For best performance, use a drive that can supports whatever performance features your mobo offers ( UDMA-66, Serial ATA, etc... )
IF using Windows 2000/XP you can spread your page file accross multiple hard drives.
In anticipation of legal action from SCO, a Windows CE version will be released sometime during Q4. The CE version is prone to email worms, buffer overflows, lock-ups and bluescreens however the cost of licensing is predictable! A Windows Update feature will be added in order to ensure that consumers will purchase newer phones after a few years worth of security patches, bug fixes, and useless addons.
domo arigato mister roboto... [ flashback! ]
Can it haze fellow rookie officers ?
:)
Can it collaborate with other robocops to beat some innocent PCP addicted addict to a pulp in the middle of the street with clubs?
Can it cane 10 year old kids for spray-painting walls?
Perhaps this functionality will be available in version 2.0
10: greet fellow citizens
20: warn civillians agains the perrils of using illegal drugs
30: report all crimes no matter how small to the HK police
40: duplicate and distribute american cd and dvd media
50: goto 10
It might cost around HK$300,000 to develop and build, but the service it provides the Hong Kong crime prevention drive is priceless.
Wanna add more drive to crime prevention? How about giving Robbie III here a Shaolin kung-fu expansion module complete with Tiger, Monkey, and Dragon Style add-ins, multilingual screams, grunts, and taunts like "You killed my brother... I will avenge you!"
Learn to ask yourself the right questions. Rather than asking "How can I become smarter" ask yourself things like "What information sources will yield the most information per unit of time spent reading", "Once I attain higher intellegence, will I be satisfied? If not, what am I really looking for?", "How can I work around my areas of mental weakness?", "Which areas are weak/strong". Think more in terms of optimization and enhancement. Keep in mind the cost and benefit of each persuit. Read bios of smart and/or effective people. Try reading or doing something completely new. Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and you shall recieve.... hmmm ?
I prefer to use multiple layers on machines that matter... If security is important to you, use IP filtering, a hardware firewall, and software firewall. If you need to use PPTP, a decent hardware firewall will have a mechanism for allowing you to open the port from the inside only... There is another subtle non-technical issue present - its this dramatic "nobody in the whole world can fit it" tone. Closing a port is a simple task. Either your "technical" contacts are lousy, or you did not explain the problem to them correctly (or to us for that matter) Some things that would help are: 1. A Windows 2000 Pro. MCSE Certification Book 2. A shrink 3. Google Seriously, the cert. book is an excellent resource for end users. Though it won't make you a guru, you will at least have a clue ;)
One small oversight...
There's the assumption that windows is somehow better... I dont think linux would benefit much from utilizing windows's code.
Anyone with information about this crime is encouraged to contact UT's IT director via email. VISA-1234-5678-9012-3456-EXP1207@ut.edu
The major mistake that creationists make is their attempt to interpret biblical information in a scientific context. It should be noted that the author(s) of the book of Genesis did not write the story of the creation in order to teach how the world came to be, rather it was written to express a spiritual concept - that of a parental higher power, god, or divine origin that preceedes mankind. It suggests that this god preceedes mankind and is therefor not man made. Mistake number two is trying to create a scientific theory that justifies this misinterpretation (putting the cart in front of the horse)
Nasa has a tendency to have dramatic accidents occasionally... And we have a shortage on good school teachers ( in NY at least ). We should send some politicians up instead... Allow them to paste their ad's on the sides of the ship etc.. If the ship blows up, we lose one more politician...
I guess you could accomplish this adjusting the air pressure in the room where the lightbulb is "printed".
How about offering unlimited free calls? The catch would be that you play advertisements in the background as the two parties talk. As long as they are on the phone they are exposed to advertisements playing in the background.
:) - Hell, it seems to be working for netzero - why not?
This is the same idea behind those annoying banner ads that we have all learned to block out
And for next year.... the "Roasted Turkey with mashed potatos and gravy PC" - Nice work!
Personally, I prefer to send back the return envelope with a little surprise - a smidgen of dog crap, a dead bug, etc... As far as the AOL CD's go, I used to use the free trial until it ran out, then switch to their competitor's free trail, and then switch back to AOL again - I went for years without paying for service - and they did'nt seem to mind either.
Forget about buying "paperless office" software. This is a dumb idea that only serves to filter money into some unimaginative software company's pocket. If you need to save your corespondence, save it to a directory(folder). Make a rule or standard for filing and naming these documents - hell, in the old days companies would hire 'secrataries' to do this sort of thing - they didnt have to be intelligent or usefull either - just organized. The cost of hiring a secratary wasnt too bad either - still isnt. The problem with these "paperless office" or "document management" systems is that: 1. They are overkill. 2. They are usually proprietary 3. Its one more thing for the average employee to f*ck up. 4. New employees will have to learn this system 5. It costs money 6. If you have a problem with it, you better hope the software provider is capable of fixing it 7. It makes your data less mobile - If you decide to go with another system 10 years down the road, you will have to figure out a way to translate the data from the old system to the new system. My Advice, K.I.S.S. - Keep it simple stupid!