Mostly true.Except for cities where the Provincial Offences Act administrative duties have been downloaded to the municipalities, in which case the municipality gets the revenue (and the municipality funds the police force). (R.S.O. 1990 c. P33 s. 164(4))
Ever since playing through Half-Life 2, I've wanted to implement the automatic security cameras they have in the game.
The idea is to set up a pan & tilt camara mount, with a high-quality flash camera co-axial with a low-light/IR webcam. The webcam is plugged into motion/feature recognition software, and controls the pan/tilt, keeping the largest moving object in the middle of the frame. Once a certain threshold for size/movement is reached, a buzzer and red light activate, and the camera takes 3 or 4 flash pictures in rapid succession.
Anyone who's played HL2 can attest to the strong sense of Big Brother that these cameras evoke. Not to mention the fact that it would produce superior images, as it would wait until the target is sufficiently large in the frame, and the light/buzzer should cause the target to reflexively look towards the camera to investigate.
Thoughts? It's not so much a practical solution to the original stated problem, but maybe a fun project for someone with more mechanical skill and free time than I have...
Based on personal experience, heating a hard drive platter with a blowtorch for 30 seconds and then plunging it into ice water is a _very_ easy (and explosively effective) method of breaking a hard drive platter...
What worries me is the new crop of stand-alone ATMs. These units are operated by companies other than banks, and exist solely to collect $1.50 - $2.50 per transaction as a service fee.
I guess that the cryptographic engine that communicates to the Interac network must be supplied and approved by whatever payment provider the merchant chooses (GlobalPayments, etc.), but the pin pad keys themselves are usually integrated into the design of the front panel. I, therefore, have no assurance that the interface I'm entering my pin into is directly connected to the cryptographic system, without any sort of eavesdropping in the middle.
We had a problem with this a few years back here in Ontario, I can only assume that it will crop up elsewhere.
At least when I'm at a grocery store and I use a VeriFone SC500 (or whatever brand that store uses) with its seals intact, I can be reasonably confident that the device hasn't been modified to steal my pin. (Not 100% sure, of course, but the design of an ATM makes it much easier to subvert the electronics than a vendor-supplied pin pad does.) Of course, when the clerk swipes my card into their POS system rather than swiping it directly into the pad, I still have to be alert for cameras, shoulder-surfers, etc.
I found my debit card suddenly non-functional one day, and shortly thereafter got a call from the bank. Any card that had been used at a certain prominent gas station here in Hamilton had been hotlisted by the Interac folks, due to some sort of pin-harvesting scheme. Inconvenient, yes, but nice to know the banks at least try to stay on top of this sort of stuff.
Exchange Server 2003 includes a Messenger server, which you should look at implementing. If you can't get your users to stop using messenger, you can at least make sure communication between internal users doesn't leave your network.
In my high school programming class, we had limited classroom space, so 3 or 4 of us were placed in a storage room converted into a small lab. This created many opportunities to goof off, since the teacher spent most of his time in the main classroom.
One day I threw together a quick Turing app that dropped a random hex byte from the top of the screen, and animated two bars closing in from either side to "crunch" the number into a pipe character, which tumbled down into a heap at the bottom of the screen.
When my teacher came in and asked why I wasn't working, I showed him the screen and said I was just waiting for the computer to "crunch some numbers."
At my previous job, before I bought a car, I had to leave one night in the rain, and I had forgotten my umbrella. My supervisor offered to loan me one of her umbrellas. One was floral print, and the other seemed to be plain blue. I took the blue one, as it looked a little bit less effeminate...
So I walk outside and open the umbrella, and start walking to the bus stop downtown. I notice that I'm getting some odd looks and snickers from people, but I didn't think much of it. I stopped in at the Internet Café where I worked weekends for a coffee, and finally got a chance to look at what was printed on the umbrella:
Flourescent light ballasts are also a big source of EMI. People often underestimate the importance of proper cabling. You'd be surprised how many problems have been solve by swapping a network cable, even when the cable checks out fine on our double-plus expensive TDR cable tester.
The worst one that actually involved losing client data, was a laptop I was crushing and reinstalling. I had a tape backup of all the data, but I really should have tested the tape before I relied on it. Oops.
Then there was the time that I was pulling network cable. The network cable was dead, but the phone line adjacent to it was not. A wire slipped, and hit the hot pin of a 115VAC plug that wasn't all the way in. Result: one fried PBX. Oops.
Of course, the one that had me closest to actually defecating in my pants was when I was working on reinstalling the server OS for a client in a professional service industry. Needless to say, his server was home to a metric assload of client files. I didn't have a tape backup (that's one of the reasons why we were going to re-install), but I did have a full backup on another partition on the drive. Then the server install program blew that partition away. Oops. I was able to recover the partition without too much effort, but I was calling on all kinds of deities I don't believe in while I was waiting to see if it would work.
In Canada, as in the US, criminal and civil cases have different burdens of proof. A patent violation suit would be tried as a civil matter. In a civil case, the judge or jury will rule based on "a preponderance of probabilities", which essentially means whichever party he/she/they believe(s) the most.
Also, patent infringement is what is known as a "strict liability" tort, in that the plaintiff need only make their prima facia case to get a finding in their favour. Another example of a scrict liability offence (quasi-criminal, but the concept still stands) is a speeding violation: once the Crown (D.A. for you US types) adduces evidence that I was speeding, the only defence open to me (not counting a defence of necessity, which is a whole other can of worms) is to discredit the evidence used to make that prima facia case. For instance, I could argue that the radar gun was not properly calibrated, or the officer targeted the wrong car, etc... but once the prima facia case is made, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant.
In a patent infringement case, the same principle applies: once the plaintiff has established their prima facia case, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant, to discredit the evidence used to make that case. They could argue, for example, that there was sufficient prior art to render the patent in question invalid.
I find that the phrasing in the original story was misleading. In Canada, it's not a matter of saying "I think you infringed my patent, now defend yourself!", and then the defendant is on the hook. The plaintiff still needs to establish that the infringement actually happened. Once that is established, however, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant.
Cabling isn't our core business, but is a service we offer and that I have been trained to perform. So, here are some points you may want to consider:
1) Conduit, conduit, conduit It's been said before, and I'll say it again: install conduit, and lots of it. At least 1" to each single-gang box. If you have an unfinished basement or drop ceiling, it's always easier when you can run the conduit straight down, and put a box at the bottom to act as a pull point. Pull string. String is cheap, save your money.
2) Don't overwire. Once the conduit and string are in, installing extra cables is a trivial task. People here are saying to run 3 or 4 cables to a room even if you don't foresee using them. That's wasting money. Why drive up your capital costs unnecessarily? What if the cable specs change before you need the cable? What if you never use it? What if you want to pull in a different media, but the conduit is full of Cat5e you'll never use? String is cheap, save your money.
3) Don't clump. Unless you are planning to have the Mother Of All Multimedia Systems, or otherwise know for a fact that you will need a dozen connectors running to one piece of furniture, resist the urge to use a two-gang box. If you do this, you will more likely than not end up running patch cables halfway around the room. Instead, put two single-gang boxes on different walls. With a good modular termination system, you should be able to fit 6 modules on a single-gang faceplate.
4) Don't use Cat5e for phones. Cat 3 is cheaper, and more than sufficient for telephones. A 1000' box of 4-pair Cat5e costs $150 CAD. A 1000' box of Cat3 costs $50 CAD. If you haven't already decided the purpose for a cable, don't pull it. String is cheap, save your money.
5) Invest in a good modular termination system We use Panduit, but go with what works for you. Avoid IBDN, they're bloated and expensive.
6) Avoid combo cable It's a waste of money.
You may want to have the cables and conduit professionally installed, or just the conduit, or do it all yourself. I would personally recommend at least having the electrician install the conduit, but whatever you choose, make sure you specify exactly what you want, where you want it, and inspect the work before the walls go up. Particularly if you have the electrician pull the cables, some of the less reputable contractors tend to "forget" to install conduit, since they assume you won't look in the walls until it's too late. (No offence to any electricians reading, I'm sure 95% of you are good honest workers, but there are enough bad apples that it's important to see the work for yourself.)
This reminds me of a movie trailer I saw a few years ago... a mullet-sporting redneck is talking to his irlfriend about their new baby... "He has your eyes... and the facial features of several of my friends. HEY!" (Paraphrased)
Anyone remember the name of the movie? It's escaping me at the moment.
That's a load af hooie from PQ, AFAIK. NTFS5 is NTFS5 is NTFS5. Make yourself some PM5 bootdisks and learn to like the DOS interface. I do this regularly with Win2k server.
When you get into terrorism, all the rules change. You can't defend against terrorist attacks. To steal a line from the movie "Swordfish", we have to make the consequences of terrorism so horriffic that no one dares to attempt it. (Yeah, I know the movie was a bit hokey, but they got that part right.)
The response to this incident has to be carefully directed, but it must be brutal. Try to minimize civillian casualties, but make sure those responsible are totally and completely devastated.
Although I'm a pacifist by nature, there comes a time in every nation's life when she's just gotta kick some ass.
At a press conference this morning, Napster CEO Hank Barry officially conceded defeat to the RIAA.
"It's obvious that we cannot afford to fight this battle any further. Alright guys, you win. You've shut down Napster. Enjoy your victory."
Sources indicate that a fruit basket was delivered to RIAA HQ from Shawn Fanning at roughly the same time as Barry's announcement was made.
"Seeing as we no longer have any use for the napster.com domain name, we have opted to sell it to Bornagainnapster Inc., based out of <insert name of country with good Internet connectivity, loose copyright laws, and little respect for American lawers here>.
"Of course, hypothetically, if Bornagainnapster Inc. decided to use the napster.com domain name to point the millions of existing Napster clients to their own Napster root servers, the source for which we released earlier this morning, the service would appear to continue uninterrupted to current users of Napster's service. Please note however, that this is entirely the prerogative of Bornagainnapster Inc., and Napster Inc. of America has no remaining control over what happens to the technology we've released into the community.
"It's been a slice. Thank you."
Napster Co-founder Shawn Fanning then announced his plans to relocate to <insert name of country with good Internet connectivity, loose copyright laws, and little respect for American lawers here> to accept a position as CTO with "an unnamed Internet media company".
Okay, so it's a bit far-fetched, but if Fanning and Co. are really interested in seeing Napster continue to survive, wouldn't this be a feasable option? The main reason why Napster continues to dominate other file-sharing media such as Gnutella for MP3 distribution is the existing user base, and simple presentation to the user. It is still, IMHO, best-of-breed for it's purpose, which is providing access to MP3 files. The reason the RIAA has been able to go after Napster, is because of the centralized root servers. Why not just move those servers out of the RIAA's reach? Sure, it will take a little maneuvering to prevent legal difficulties, but I think it could be done...
Ever watch National Geographic, when lions are hunting a herd of wildebeest? The herd of wildebeest is only as quick as its slowest members, which is why the lions attack the slow and weak, improving the overall efficiency of the herd.
Now we all know that pot kills brain cells, but wouldn't the same logic apply? Wouldn't it go after the slow and weak brain cells first? Wouldn't this increase the overall efficiency of the brain?
This would explain why your brain churns out such great ideas when you're stoned:)
...but how about a humor slashbox that this can go in so those of us who don't want to see dumb humor don't have to
That feature has been implemented for months now.
Note the big Monty Python foot next to the headline. That denotes that this story is in the "It's funny. Laugh." category. Now, click on that little "Preferences" link along the sidebar and scroll down a bit. See the big "Exclude Stories" section? Good. Now click on the little checkbox next to "It's funny. Laugh." and you will no longer be harassed by humourous stories.
Let's assume J. Random Crax0r is trying to get into my system, or DoS it, or jab at it with cyber-doggie-doo-on-a-stick, or whatever. What's my objetctive? The same thing if someone were attacking me IRL: neutralize the threat.
I don't believe that "hacking back" is per se illegal... it all depends on the situation. For instance, if this particular er33t d00d is launching an attack on my computer, I should be perfectly justified in taking whatever actions are necessary to eliminate the threat. If this means simply blocking him out at the firewall, that's nifty-cool by me. On the other hand, if I can disable his computer remotely and stop the attack, that is acceptable as well, in my opinion. Disabling his computer and playing hopscotch with a magnet on his hard disk would not be acceptable, however.
Let's say the attacker had hijacked another machine, and was using it to do his evil deeds. Well, my condolences to the user whose machine was hijacked, but that doesn't eliminate the threat to me now, does it? I still think I would be justified in disabling the attacking machine, if it were necessary to stop the attack. Say someone steals a car, and is trying to run down my car with it. Wouldn't be justified in disabling the other car, even though the attackers don't own it? Of course I would be, because it still poses a threat.
Of course, as in real life, the less force that is used, the better. The important thing is to draw the distinction between neutralizing the threat, and seeking retaliation.
Slashdot Mirror
Mostly true.Except for cities where the Provincial Offences Act administrative duties have been downloaded to the municipalities, in which case the municipality gets the revenue (and the municipality funds the police force). (R.S.O. 1990 c. P33 s. 164(4))
Ever since playing through Half-Life 2, I've wanted to implement the automatic security cameras they have in the game.
The idea is to set up a pan & tilt camara mount, with a high-quality flash camera co-axial with a low-light/IR webcam. The webcam is plugged into motion/feature recognition software, and controls the pan/tilt, keeping the largest moving object in the middle of the frame. Once a certain threshold for size/movement is reached, a buzzer and red light activate, and the camera takes 3 or 4 flash pictures in rapid succession.
Anyone who's played HL2 can attest to the strong sense of Big Brother that these cameras evoke. Not to mention the fact that it would produce superior images, as it would wait until the target is sufficiently large in the frame, and the light/buzzer should cause the target to reflexively look towards the camera to investigate.
Thoughts? It's not so much a practical solution to the original stated problem, but maybe a fun project for someone with more mechanical skill and free time than I have...
You know, that would've been a lot more topical back when we weren't so close to parity.
Based on personal experience, heating a hard drive platter with a blowtorch for 30 seconds and then plunging it into ice water is a _very_ easy (and explosively effective) method of breaking a hard drive platter...
What worries me is the new crop of stand-alone ATMs. These units are operated by companies other than banks, and exist solely to collect $1.50 - $2.50 per transaction as a service fee.
I guess that the cryptographic engine that communicates to the Interac network must be supplied and approved by whatever payment provider the merchant chooses (GlobalPayments, etc.), but the pin pad keys themselves are usually integrated into the design of the front panel. I, therefore, have no assurance that the interface I'm entering my pin into is directly connected to the cryptographic system, without any sort of eavesdropping in the middle.
We had a problem with this a few years back here in Ontario, I can only assume that it will crop up elsewhere.
At least when I'm at a grocery store and I use a VeriFone SC500 (or whatever brand that store uses) with its seals intact, I can be reasonably confident that the device hasn't been modified to steal my pin. (Not 100% sure, of course, but the design of an ATM makes it much easier to subvert the electronics than a vendor-supplied pin pad does.) Of course, when the clerk swipes my card into their POS system rather than swiping it directly into the pad, I still have to be alert for cameras, shoulder-surfers, etc.
I found my debit card suddenly non-functional one day, and shortly thereafter got a call from the bank. Any card that had been used at a certain prominent gas station here in Hamilton had been hotlisted by the Interac folks, due to some sort of pin-harvesting scheme. Inconvenient, yes, but nice to know the banks at least try to stay on top of this sort of stuff.
Exchange Server 2003 includes a Messenger server, which you should look at implementing. If you can't get your users to stop using messenger, you can at least make sure communication between internal users doesn't leave your network.
About 10^-33m.
In my high school programming class, we had limited classroom space, so 3 or 4 of us were placed in a storage room converted into a small lab. This created many opportunities to goof off, since the teacher spent most of his time in the main classroom.
One day I threw together a quick Turing app that dropped a random hex byte from the top of the screen, and animated two bars closing in from either side to "crunch" the number into a pipe character, which tumbled down into a heap at the bottom of the screen.
When my teacher came in and asked why I wasn't working, I showed him the screen and said I was just waiting for the computer to "crunch some numbers."
As an amusing side note...
At my previous job, before I bought a car, I had to leave one night in the rain, and I had forgotten my umbrella. My supervisor offered to loan me one of her umbrellas. One was floral print, and the other seemed to be plain blue. I took the blue one, as it looked a little bit less effeminate...
So I walk outside and open the umbrella, and start walking to the bus stop downtown. I notice that I'm getting some odd looks and snickers from people, but I didn't think much of it. I stopped in at the Internet Café where I worked weekends for a coffee, and finally got a chance to look at what was printed on the umbrella:
"WANG"
Flourescent light ballasts are also a big source of EMI. People often underestimate the importance of proper cabling. You'd be surprised how many problems have been solve by swapping a network cable, even when the cable checks out fine on our double-plus expensive TDR cable tester.
The worst one that actually involved losing client data, was a laptop I was crushing and reinstalling. I had a tape backup of all the data, but I really should have tested the tape before I relied on it. Oops.
Then there was the time that I was pulling network cable. The network cable was dead, but the phone line adjacent to it was not. A wire slipped, and hit the hot pin of a 115VAC plug that wasn't all the way in. Result: one fried PBX. Oops.
Of course, the one that had me closest to actually defecating in my pants was when I was working on reinstalling the server OS for a client in a professional service industry. Needless to say, his server was home to a metric assload of client files. I didn't have a tape backup (that's one of the reasons why we were going to re-install), but I did have a full backup on another partition on the drive. Then the server install program blew that partition away. Oops. I was able to recover the partition without too much effort, but I was calling on all kinds of deities I don't believe in while I was waiting to see if it would work.
- Adam
IANAL.
In Canada, as in the US, criminal and civil cases have different burdens of proof. A patent violation suit would be tried as a civil matter. In a civil case, the judge or jury will rule based on "a preponderance of probabilities", which essentially means whichever party he/she/they believe(s) the most.
Also, patent infringement is what is known as a "strict liability" tort, in that the plaintiff need only make their prima facia case to get a finding in their favour. Another example of a scrict liability offence (quasi-criminal, but the concept still stands) is a speeding violation: once the Crown (D.A. for you US types) adduces evidence that I was speeding, the only defence open to me (not counting a defence of necessity, which is a whole other can of worms) is to discredit the evidence used to make that prima facia case. For instance, I could argue that the radar gun was not properly calibrated, or the officer targeted the wrong car, etc... but once the prima facia case is made, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant.
In a patent infringement case, the same principle applies: once the plaintiff has established their prima facia case, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant, to discredit the evidence used to make that case. They could argue, for example, that there was sufficient prior art to render the patent in question invalid.
I find that the phrasing in the original story was misleading. In Canada, it's not a matter of saying "I think you infringed my patent, now defend yourself!", and then the defendant is on the hook. The plaintiff still needs to establish that the infringement actually happened. Once that is established, however, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant.
- Adam
Now that women have this, combined with a device to open jars, we men are officially obsolete.
Cabling isn't our core business, but is a service we offer and that I have been trained to perform. So, here are some points you may want to consider:
1) Conduit, conduit, conduit
It's been said before, and I'll say it again: install conduit, and lots of it. At least 1" to each single-gang box. If you have an unfinished basement or drop ceiling, it's always easier when you can run the conduit straight down, and put a box at the bottom to act as a pull point. Pull string. String is cheap, save your money.
2) Don't overwire.
Once the conduit and string are in, installing extra cables is a trivial task. People here are saying to run 3 or 4 cables to a room even if you don't foresee using them. That's wasting money. Why drive up your capital costs unnecessarily? What if the cable specs change before you need the cable? What if you never use it? What if you want to pull in a different media, but the conduit is full of Cat5e you'll never use? String is cheap, save your money.
3) Don't clump.
Unless you are planning to have the Mother Of All Multimedia Systems, or otherwise know for a fact that you will need a dozen connectors running to one piece of furniture, resist the urge to use a two-gang box. If you do this, you will more likely than not end up running patch cables halfway around the room. Instead, put two single-gang boxes on different walls. With a good modular termination system, you should be able to fit 6 modules on a single-gang faceplate.
4) Don't use Cat5e for phones.
Cat 3 is cheaper, and more than sufficient for telephones. A 1000' box of 4-pair Cat5e costs $150 CAD. A 1000' box of Cat3 costs $50 CAD. If you haven't already decided the purpose for a cable, don't pull it. String is cheap, save your money.
5) Invest in a good modular termination system
We use Panduit, but go with what works for you. Avoid IBDN, they're bloated and expensive.
6) Avoid combo cable
It's a waste of money.
You may want to have the cables and conduit professionally installed, or just the conduit, or do it all yourself. I would personally recommend at least having the electrician install the conduit, but whatever you choose, make sure you specify exactly what you want, where you want it, and inspect the work before the walls go up. Particularly if you have the electrician pull the cables, some of the less reputable contractors tend to "forget" to install conduit, since they assume you won't look in the walls until it's too late. (No offence to any electricians reading, I'm sure 95% of you are good honest workers, but there are enough bad apples that it's important to see the work for yourself.)
- Adam
*cough*
*Considers introducing himself as one of the Great Old Ones*
This reminds me of a movie trailer I saw a few years ago... a mullet-sporting redneck is talking to his irlfriend about their new baby... "He has your eyes... and the facial features of several of my friends. HEY!" (Paraphrased)
Anyone remember the name of the movie? It's escaping me at the moment.
Except that it is a different product with different technologies made by a different company with different functions.
The system in the article you reference is based on the location of the phone, whereas the system in this article is based on the location of the tag.
Amazing what you can learn from reading the article, eh?
That's a load af hooie from PQ, AFAIK. NTFS5 is NTFS5 is NTFS5. Make yourself some PM5 bootdisks and learn to like the DOS interface. I do this regularly with Win2k server.
- Adam
Germanium is an element. A Geranium is a plant. It pisses me off supposedly intelligent people refer to "Silicon-Geranium" fab methods.
Be sure to fertilise that chip.
- Adam
Why sue someone when you can avoid feeding lawyers and bring the opposing into your own camp, at the same time?
Simple. Precedent.
- Adam
It's not about throwing out the rules.
When you get into terrorism, all the rules change. You can't defend against terrorist attacks. To steal a line from the movie "Swordfish", we have to make the consequences of terrorism so horriffic that no one dares to attempt it. (Yeah, I know the movie was a bit hokey, but they got that part right.)
The response to this incident has to be carefully directed, but it must be brutal. Try to minimize civillian casualties, but make sure those responsible are totally and completely devastated.
Although I'm a pacifist by nature, there comes a time in every nation's life when she's just gotta kick some ass.
- Adam
For Immediate Release:
At a press conference this morning, Napster CEO Hank Barry officially conceded defeat to the RIAA.
"It's obvious that we cannot afford to fight this battle any further. Alright guys, you win. You've shut down Napster. Enjoy your victory."
Sources indicate that a fruit basket was delivered to RIAA HQ from Shawn Fanning at roughly the same time as Barry's announcement was made.
"Seeing as we no longer have any use for the napster.com domain name, we have opted to sell it to Bornagainnapster Inc., based out of <insert name of country with good Internet connectivity, loose copyright laws, and little respect for American lawers here>.
"Of course, hypothetically, if Bornagainnapster Inc. decided to use the napster.com domain name to point the millions of existing Napster clients to their own Napster root servers, the source for which we released earlier this morning, the service would appear to continue uninterrupted to current users of Napster's service. Please note however, that this is entirely the prerogative of Bornagainnapster Inc., and Napster Inc. of America has no remaining control over what happens to the technology we've released into the community.
"It's been a slice. Thank you."
Napster Co-founder Shawn Fanning then announced his plans to relocate to <insert name of country with good Internet connectivity, loose copyright laws, and little respect for American lawers here> to accept a position as CTO with "an unnamed Internet media company".
Okay, so it's a bit far-fetched, but if Fanning and Co. are really interested in seeing Napster continue to survive, wouldn't this be a feasable option? The main reason why Napster continues to dominate other file-sharing media such as Gnutella for MP3 distribution is the existing user base, and simple presentation to the user. It is still, IMHO, best-of-breed for it's purpose, which is providing access to MP3 files. The reason the RIAA has been able to go after Napster, is because of the centralized root servers. Why not just move those servers out of the RIAA's reach? Sure, it will take a little maneuvering to prevent legal difficulties, but I think it could be done...
Opinions?
- Adam
No no no, you're missing the point...
Ever watch National Geographic, when lions are hunting a herd of wildebeest? The herd of wildebeest is only as quick as its slowest members, which is why the lions attack the slow and weak, improving the overall efficiency of the herd.
Now we all know that pot kills brain cells, but wouldn't the same logic apply? Wouldn't it go after the slow and weak brain cells first? Wouldn't this increase the overall efficiency of the brain?
This would explain why your brain churns out such great ideas when you're stoned :)
- Adam
That feature has been implemented for months now.
Note the big Monty Python foot next to the headline. That denotes that this story is in the "It's funny. Laugh." category. Now, click on that little "Preferences" link along the sidebar and scroll down a bit. See the big "Exclude Stories" section? Good. Now click on the little checkbox next to "It's funny. Laugh." and you will no longer be harassed by humourous stories.
Hope this was edumacational.
- Adam
Let's assume J. Random Crax0r is trying to get into my system, or DoS it, or jab at it with cyber-doggie-doo-on-a-stick, or whatever. What's my objetctive? The same thing if someone were attacking me IRL: neutralize the threat.
I don't believe that "hacking back" is per se illegal... it all depends on the situation. For instance, if this particular er33t d00d is launching an attack on my computer, I should be perfectly justified in taking whatever actions are necessary to eliminate the threat. If this means simply blocking him out at the firewall, that's nifty-cool by me. On the other hand, if I can disable his computer remotely and stop the attack, that is acceptable as well, in my opinion. Disabling his computer and playing hopscotch with a magnet on his hard disk would not be acceptable, however.
Let's say the attacker had hijacked another machine, and was using it to do his evil deeds. Well, my condolences to the user whose machine was hijacked, but that doesn't eliminate the threat to me now, does it? I still think I would be justified in disabling the attacking machine, if it were necessary to stop the attack. Say someone steals a car, and is trying to run down my car with it. Wouldn't be justified in disabling the other car, even though the attackers don't own it? Of course I would be, because it still poses a threat.
Of course, as in real life, the less force that is used, the better. The important thing is to draw the distinction between neutralizing the threat, and seeking retaliation.
Just my $0.03 CDN.
- Adam Schumacher