Look, I'm in favor of LEO satellite internet as much as anyone else but I have VERY serious reservations about Amazon operating it in any capacity. They've shown, time and again, that they're not willing to do the Right Thing (tm) if it means any kind of hit to their bottom line. Going further, they seem quite intent on weaseling their way into our lives and using data about us all as a competitive advantage, both to their direct competition as well as to ourselves.
And, last I checked, this is at least the second proposal that's offering to launch a constellation of LEO satellites to provide internet services. Didn't SpaceX propose exactly the same service no more than a few months ago? If Amazon manages to do this alongside SpaceX, that's TWO separate and distinct constellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit to contend with. The complications of getting ONE constellation in place without interference are quite high, let alone two. Plus, as more and more nations flex their satellite-hitting technology for military purposes, it can only lead to trouble with regards to dangerous space debris.
Let's nationalize - no, GLOBALIZE this project so that a single constellation of satellites can serve multiple providers. That way, if China wants to censor content, that provider can do that for their territory. Heck, it wouldn't be that difficult to geo-lock signals to prevent, say, a North American provider out of Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. But - one of the advantages of a global constellation of internet-providing satellites is that you could, in theory, get your internet subscription from your home territory and travel literally anywhere int he world and still get access.
Regardless - this seems very much like a "Me too!" move from Bezos to counter Musk. They seem to be fighting over how much control one hyper-wealthy billionaire can have over the rest of us plebes. And I'm already tired of it.
It's not the soldiers with or without maps that are the issue, it's the other equipment that relies on GPS to know where *IT* is so it goes where it's supposed to go or report to the chain-of-command where it is.
That said, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why this would be an issue today. We, as civilians, have known that GPS can be jammed and hacked for quite a while. And the military would have been able to know about this from Red/Blue exercises for a lot longer than that. The question becomes - what have they done to mitigate that attack vector?
If they were smart, they'd use GPS as only one source of location input and use a pool of additional sources to get a consensus. If any one of the sources wildly disagrees with the rest, pitch that data out. This way, if GPS is jammed altogether or, worse, hacked to give an incorrect location, it could be detected and mitigated.
I think we need to stop focusing on the cards. Those aren't really the root of the problem. It's the retailers that set up insecure or insufficiently secure networks to transmit this data in the first place.
Payment processors should take this out of the hands of all retailers and provide direct, secure communication from the payment terminals. That is, a private VPN from each terminal back to the payment processor. The terminal is still technically connected to the customer network but wouldn't be directly accessible. The data that comes back from the terminal to the retailer's POS system is stripped of any full identifying data but with enough info for the retailer to conduct business.
That would stop all the MITM attacks and the scouring of stored data on the retailers' networks which seems to be the vast majority of the breaches.
That's actually the CEO's job, he just phrases it badly. And maybe something he's failing to realize (or articulate) is that automation can empower the workforce to do additional things that the company may want to branch out into or take on more customers.
I'm sorry that you're so cynical about this. What you describe hasn't been my experience - AT ALL. In fact, I've been given more and varied responsibilities, pay raises, and promotions as I've found more tasks to automate over the years at various employers. It allows me the time to explore new skills to benefit the company and, by extension, myself. It's one of those rare *virtuous* cycles.
It sounds like you may need to find a different employer if they don't value your efforts at streamlining things.
I'n not a coder but I do a lot of general IT work. Automating tasks is a big part of my responsibilities and it has never once put me out of a job. Instead, it made me more effective and productive, able to pass along the more mundane tasks and take on (and help to streamline or completely automate) additional tasks.
Automation, if done correctly, is simply a force multiplier. As noted, it allows you to get the mundane, repeatable tasks out of the way in order to address and tackle higher-level functions. This is, ideally, how you would advance in any organization. If you've automated yourself out of a job, you're probably doing it unethically and not stepping up to lead additional projects.
Insight: GDPR would likely cover this. As would a lot of the other PII laws in other countries that are getting closer to being fully aligned with GDPR. The U.S. isn't there just yet (Privacy Shield? Please...) but a new law in California is close and I hear Oklahoma is about to do something similar. It's only a matter of time before every country puts a strong law on the books protecting PII.
And make no mistake - the GDPR is no joke. The regulation body is self-funded from fines levied against violators. If you do ANY business with the E.U. or nations that have laws similar to GDPR, you need to comply. Failing to do so is VERY expensive.
Is GDPR a silver bullet that solves all the issues? No, but it's probably the best compromise between being able to do business and protecting PII for every individual.
Have we forgotten that Mars doesn't have a magnetic field to shield the solar winds from stripping away the atmosphere that's already there? Trying to terraform it to the point of having a stable atmosphere is a fools errand. It'll be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.
The difference I see today vs. yesteryear is that the populace at-large is doing less critical thinking about how news should be ingested. That is, asking the following questions: Who is writing it? Why are they writing it? Is it to inform or entertain (or both)? What viewpoint are they trying to convey and why is that viewpoint important from the perspective of the author? How is it important to you as the reader/viewer?
Picking up on the objective of the author was one of the little details that was stressed for a short period when I was in high school (more than half my life ago... wow, I feel old). I think my classes covered that subject for all of about two weeks before moving on to other test-able curricula.
We see a lot of stress on the "what" and not much on the "why" and "who." While we ought to trust the news outlets to do that job, certain "news" outlets absolutely have an agenda and either selectively choose to report certain facts to reinforce their message or omit certain facts that may undermine that message. Another tactic is presenting opinion as "fact" or outright lying. Knowing what kind of message the outlet is trying to convey is as important as the content they publish. Much of the "fake news" can easily be filtered out by the reader if they just apply those basic steps while seeking out reporting from multiple diverse sources and knowing how to properly independently fact-check sources.
I guess I'm saying that people, in general, may need a refresher on those critical thinking skills.
If someone wants it bad enough, they're going to get it no matter how well you protect it. The question then becomes, how expensive/difficult to you want to make it for someone to obtain? How much effort are YOU willing to go through to make it that way?
Personally, I don't worry that much about it. I assume the "bad guys" already have the data they want about me and just limit myself to basic data loss measures - backups on-site and off-site. The hardware I use is replaced regularly, anyway, and if someone wants my desktop or laptop bad enough, they can have it. I've got enough spares to get back up and running again in an hour or two. Note that this also mitigates most natural disaster situations, as well.
Sure, I encrypt anything particularly sensitive, like banking info. By the time someone gets into those files, I'll have already noticed the missing hardware and changed all the logins. If they DID manage to get into my finances before I got the logins changed - you guys have fun with the couple hundred bucks! I'm a husband and father of 2. I have a few assets but nothing immediately liquid enough for anyone to ruin me.
In a nutshell, I'm really only a valuable target for the casual ID thieves for which I've already protected myself. I'm not worth the time of a dedicated professional and, really, there's not much I can do to stop them, anyway, if they want my info bad enough. They probably already have most of it as it is.
Back when I was in school (when the Earth was still cooling) this was called, "Critical Thinking." It wasn't given its own dedicated program as it was intertwined with everything else being taught. It's not just citing sources and peer review, though. It requires one to analyze why someone is saying what they're saying. Put another way, it's critical to question the motivations of the communicator as much as it is to question the veracity of the message, itself. The best bullshitters are able to use cherry-picked, real, verifiable facts to back up their claims. Their messages only fall apart if one questions their motivation and looks for additional data to fill in a larger picture.
It seems as though this basic skill stopped being taught in primary and secondary schools and replaced with ignorant structures that teach only to standardized tests.
Basic comprehension and competency isn't really enough. A good education teaches you facts and provides knowledge. A GREAT education teaches you how to teach yourself. Having an open mind and being willing to admit being wrong in the face of new evidence is what separates the latter from the former.
The U.S. military has been testing mortar rounds that can alter their trajectory mid-flight for quite a while now. I remember seeing some "documentaries" on one of the more pro-military channels a few years back showing just how a system works. They were even testing rounds with active seeker heads and fins so they could do target analysis mid-flight and adjust to the target's movement, acquire an alternate target, or even self-detonate in the air (assuming no targets are present) so no "duds" would be left behind to blow up when a farmer or kid (etc.) finds it years later.
Even if it wasn't a wildly successful program (as far as I can tell, it wasn't), it does prove that tracking a mortar round's trajectory back to the source isn't as straight-forward as basic ballistics, anymore.
I had this thought pretty much immediately, as well. However, at the current sizes of commercially-available "drones", the military already has a such a system that could be easily adapted for anti-drone use - chaff.
Otherwise, if they can be detected using radar, IR, etc., a CWIS-style system (though probably a little lighter caliber round) would be just as effective.
It may be a drop in the bucket now (Facebook's 100kw solar array for a facility consuming 25Mw is just that), but the infrastructure is in place to put in better panels later as they're developed. Additionally, if using otherwise "wasted" space (such as a rooftop), why not put it in place? The long-term power cost savings for such a facility (that is planned for the long term, anyway) will eventually pay for for the system a few times over, even if the impact to overall energy usage is that proverbial drop in the bucket. In other words, it makes business (read: financial) sense to do it.
The recording of police dispatch traffic falls under a different mandate but achieves similar results. Every PSAP has such a mandate but is specified on a case-by-case and agency-by-agency basis.
Also, I'm pretty sure the normal dispatch radio traffic doesn't overlap much with the FAA radio traffic (if ever) and I doubt that sort of traffic was recorded by the NYPD under their records-retention mandate. Obviously, they'll have their own radio dispatch traffic recorded (which probably has some aircraft-to-dispatch traffic) but will probably leave the FAA to record anything going on in the skies between the aircraft and the tower. What was released was the FAA recordings and was most likely not recorded by the NYPD. I don't think we've heard the NYPD dispatch traffic yet and, at this point, I doubt we will.
I speak with some experience on this sort of matter but only from the perspective of my locality - as in, not NYC.
The flight controller didn't do any of the recording. The FAA (a *federal* agency, mind you) mandates ALL radio transmissions be recorded. The flight controller's only job is to control traffic. They have zero ability to trigger, delete, modify, etc., recordings. The pilot of every aircraft should know this so it wouldn't be something they'd be all that concerned about. Their supervisors/managers on the ground may not know this, however... And the FAA is quite good about responding to FOIA requests.
Also, firing a federal employee is actually really hard, even for cause. Usually, they're just given a crappy job with almost nothing to do so they'll feel motivated to quit on their own. Trust me, that's actually a LOT easier than getting firing someone at the federal level. Besides, even the NYPD can't get a federal employee fired since the NYPD is a state-level agency.
The most likely outcome, in my opinion, is that the NYPD will grudgingly admit their mistake, tell the pair to knock it off in some semi-friendly manner while the cameras are watching, then go back to business-as-usual until they're caught in their own lies again. Meanwhile, we'll all continue to bitch and moan about the "police state" and post ignorant comments in random places on the internet. Heck, I'm doing that right now!
There are a number of assumptions being made about all of this.
First, it's assuming one is using BlueCoat to begin with.
Second, it's assuming that the users of BlueCoat products are using some of BlueCoat's subscription services to ease management of those devices.
Third, it's assuming that the users of BlueCoat products are not modifying the filters by hand.
I've had some hands-on experience with BlueCoat products in the past, particularly the web-filtering/proxy devices described here, and our organization was large enough to have some of our staff (including myself) manage it part-time as part of their full-time IT responsibilities. We set it up in full white-list mode so that everything not explicitly allowed was blocked by default. We could have set it up in black-list mode or even a hybrid black- and white-list mode. We did not, however, subscribe to the filtering list that BlueCoat offers. That's just one option a customer can choose.
It is unacceptable to me that such filter subscriptions should block well-meaning websites under the guise of preventing porn. But it's entirely possible to remove or even white-list those same sites, on an individual basis, by the customer even if they're included as part of the filter subscription configuration. It's lazy on the part of the staff at BlueCoat for maintaining an inaccurate list and it's lazy on the part of IT managers and staff for keeping those sites blocked if their policies didn't specifically prohibit users from accessing them. The blame can't be solely pinned on BlueCoat, but they certainly share a significant portion of it with IT staff.
I'm in a similar situation and I actually have planned for a worst-case scenario. However, my storage needs are slightly more modest at about 5TB (give or take).
My main, active archive exists on my primary desktop and is the location that will get the most changes. That, in turn, is backed up to a dedicated NAS server (currently an 8-bay Synology unit packed with 3TB disks) in my home. THAT, in turn, is backed up, off-site to a friend's NAS units of similar construction and capacity via CrashPlan. The free version offers "backup to a friend's computer" as an option, though the paid subscription offers to store data on CrashPlan's servers, instead. The cost is fairly reasonable for that option if none of your friends has enough storage for you.
One other last point - it might not make sense to back up EVERYTHING you have. Photos, critical documents, etc. (things you can't easily replace) should absolutely be backed up. Copies of game files, software installations, etc. (things that can be replaced relatively easily from the original media) should probably be left out of the backup set. That limits the amount of remote storage required as well as the time it takes to back up those items in the first place.
Alternatively - use one of your ISP's DNS servers, one Google DNS server, and, if possible, one other 3rd party DNS server. Assign them in any order you'd like. For me, it's OpenDNS, Google DNS, ISP DNS, in that order, as I'd prefer to get results from someone OTHER than my ISP but also not Google, if I can avoid it. They already know far too much about everything as it is. There's no sense in giving them an additional information vector.
Assuming 100v/120v (as is common in the U.S. and a few other places), a 30A plug is going to be quite different than the standard 2- or 3-prong plug typically found inside the average home. Instead, they're usually the circular variety with a twist-to-lock design. They're nice for devices with high-current requirements, like air compressors and some welders. But it's probably more practical to put in more of the 20A variety so those devices with the more typical 3-prong plugs can connect.
My point was that Google has diversified so much that ad revenue from search isn't a make/break deal for the survivability or even general health of the company. They're not going to give it up without a significant fight but, while it's also a big one, it's not their only revenue stream. Not by a long shot. They'll survive - comfortably - without the search portal if they have to.
Good point. And this is also ignoring that the question is rather moot, anyway. Google's dominance in the search-engine game isn't as important as it once was. Their other service offerings, like GMail, Maps, etc., are FAR more important to the company that the search engine and portal. Even *if* a competitor comes along and de-thrones Google from the search space, Google has far more going on in other aspects of its business to worry about it for more than a few minutes. Watson de-throning Google in search isn't going to disrupt Google as much as the original article might suggest.
Google's main income is ad revenue in those products, including search. The users are the product being sold to advertisers. As long as Google can keep getting eyeballs on ads, no matter the service offering, their income stream is safe.
If saying, "no," isn't an option, try these suggestions.
One option might be to set up a laptop with some sort of reversion/reimaging software. If you're into Windows, try something like DeepFreeze. This is probably the least labor-intensive option. You just need to un-freeze it, in a clean state, to do software and OS updates before re-freezing it again. The user has full control over the computer (as much as you want, anyway) and is simply reset to the pre-defined state upon reboot. The DeepFreeze software, I believe, can also leave some areas unlocked so changes there can persist through a reboot, if desired.
Another option might be to set up a laptop to PXE boot and get a read-only image to boot from. Configure all changes to be saved to local media until you decide to wipe it clean. This requires some network infrastructure to set up as well as keeping the custom boot image up-to-date.
Yet another option would be offer up an "unlocked" laptop but drop it on a "protected" VLAN with heavy internet filtering. Again, there's some network infrastructure to set up as well as some likely subscription fees for filtering software/hardware at the gateway. The bonus here is that, if you have any (now or later), kids' computers can be placed on that VLAN without too much worry on your part. It also protects the rest of your computer equipment from being attached from the inside of your LAN by a compromised device since it'll be on a totally separate "untrusted" VLAN. This isn't exclusive to the other options presented here, either, and can be used in combination.
You could also just bite the bullet and simply re-image the laptop every time someone uses it. Again, if you're into Windows, you could easily set up Windows Server with WDS and capture a customized WIM image so it'll have all the apps you want installed from the get-go. Other options exist for Linux and Mac.
One last option I can think of involves an Android tablet that can be re-imaged back to stock form easily. Samsung units are good about this with the ODIN tool and a USB connection. Just connect the device to the computer, select the appropriate image in the ODIN utility, and it's back to factory-fresh form in a matter of minutes.
vPro only works when you've got all the supporting pieces to allow it to work. And the remote access part of it is under the AMT umbrella.
Got that K-series Core i5/i7? vPro isn't going to work. Got a Z75 chipset? Again, vPro isn't baked in and it won't work. Got a computer with an older Core2 CPU? There's an extensive list of requirements which probably were never shipped with consumer-grade computers when new (it was quite specific).
Even if we assume the computer has all the right hardware, you still need to enable and configure it in the BIOS (if it isn't enabled by default), then make sure you've got access through the router/firewall. Remember, we're assuming a relative is calling for help on their home computer.
My reason for LogMeIn over RDP (even the Remote Assistance feature) is two-fold:
First, I get unprompted, unrequested access to the computer. The person actually requesting help doesn't need to do a thing other than make sure the computer is powered on (and, presumably, connected to the internet). They don't have to click on anything. They don't have to be walked through opening ports on the router/firewall. If the computer is powered on and connected to the internet, I can just log in and get to work on the problem. If they've got a problem impacting LogMeIn connectivity, their problem is likely severe enough to require me on-site, anyway.
Second, assuming a LogMeIn Pro account is used, there's the back-end file transfer and other management tools I can use without interfering with the user sitting at the keyboard. I can set up alerts for all sorts of behavioral problems - event log triggers, application crashes, CPU/Memory usage above a threshold for a period of time, etc. That way, I would know about problems BEFORE they called for my help.
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Look, I'm in favor of LEO satellite internet as much as anyone else but I have VERY serious reservations about Amazon operating it in any capacity. They've shown, time and again, that they're not willing to do the Right Thing (tm) if it means any kind of hit to their bottom line. Going further, they seem quite intent on weaseling their way into our lives and using data about us all as a competitive advantage, both to their direct competition as well as to ourselves.
And, last I checked, this is at least the second proposal that's offering to launch a constellation of LEO satellites to provide internet services. Didn't SpaceX propose exactly the same service no more than a few months ago? If Amazon manages to do this alongside SpaceX, that's TWO separate and distinct constellations of satellites in low-Earth orbit to contend with. The complications of getting ONE constellation in place without interference are quite high, let alone two. Plus, as more and more nations flex their satellite-hitting technology for military purposes, it can only lead to trouble with regards to dangerous space debris.
Let's nationalize - no, GLOBALIZE this project so that a single constellation of satellites can serve multiple providers. That way, if China wants to censor content, that provider can do that for their territory. Heck, it wouldn't be that difficult to geo-lock signals to prevent, say, a North American provider out of Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. But - one of the advantages of a global constellation of internet-providing satellites is that you could, in theory, get your internet subscription from your home territory and travel literally anywhere int he world and still get access.
Regardless - this seems very much like a "Me too!" move from Bezos to counter Musk. They seem to be fighting over how much control one hyper-wealthy billionaire can have over the rest of us plebes. And I'm already tired of it.
It's not the soldiers with or without maps that are the issue, it's the other equipment that relies on GPS to know where *IT* is so it goes where it's supposed to go or report to the chain-of-command where it is.
That said, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why this would be an issue today. We, as civilians, have known that GPS can be jammed and hacked for quite a while. And the military would have been able to know about this from Red/Blue exercises for a lot longer than that. The question becomes - what have they done to mitigate that attack vector?
If they were smart, they'd use GPS as only one source of location input and use a pool of additional sources to get a consensus. If any one of the sources wildly disagrees with the rest, pitch that data out. This way, if GPS is jammed altogether or, worse, hacked to give an incorrect location, it could be detected and mitigated.
I think we need to stop focusing on the cards. Those aren't really the root of the problem. It's the retailers that set up insecure or insufficiently secure networks to transmit this data in the first place.
Payment processors should take this out of the hands of all retailers and provide direct, secure communication from the payment terminals. That is, a private VPN from each terminal back to the payment processor. The terminal is still technically connected to the customer network but wouldn't be directly accessible. The data that comes back from the terminal to the retailer's POS system is stripped of any full identifying data but with enough info for the retailer to conduct business.
That would stop all the MITM attacks and the scouring of stored data on the retailers' networks which seems to be the vast majority of the breaches.
That's actually the CEO's job, he just phrases it badly. And maybe something he's failing to realize (or articulate) is that automation can empower the workforce to do additional things that the company may want to branch out into or take on more customers.
I'm sorry that you're so cynical about this. What you describe hasn't been my experience - AT ALL. In fact, I've been given more and varied responsibilities, pay raises, and promotions as I've found more tasks to automate over the years at various employers. It allows me the time to explore new skills to benefit the company and, by extension, myself. It's one of those rare *virtuous* cycles.
It sounds like you may need to find a different employer if they don't value your efforts at streamlining things.
I'n not a coder but I do a lot of general IT work. Automating tasks is a big part of my responsibilities and it has never once put me out of a job. Instead, it made me more effective and productive, able to pass along the more mundane tasks and take on (and help to streamline or completely automate) additional tasks.
Automation, if done correctly, is simply a force multiplier. As noted, it allows you to get the mundane, repeatable tasks out of the way in order to address and tackle higher-level functions. This is, ideally, how you would advance in any organization. If you've automated yourself out of a job, you're probably doing it unethically and not stepping up to lead additional projects.
Insight: GDPR would likely cover this. As would a lot of the other PII laws in other countries that are getting closer to being fully aligned with GDPR. The U.S. isn't there just yet (Privacy Shield? Please...) but a new law in California is close and I hear Oklahoma is about to do something similar. It's only a matter of time before every country puts a strong law on the books protecting PII.
And make no mistake - the GDPR is no joke. The regulation body is self-funded from fines levied against violators. If you do ANY business with the E.U. or nations that have laws similar to GDPR, you need to comply. Failing to do so is VERY expensive.
Is GDPR a silver bullet that solves all the issues? No, but it's probably the best compromise between being able to do business and protecting PII for every individual.
Have we forgotten that Mars doesn't have a magnetic field to shield the solar winds from stripping away the atmosphere that's already there? Trying to terraform it to the point of having a stable atmosphere is a fools errand. It'll be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.
The difference I see today vs. yesteryear is that the populace at-large is doing less critical thinking about how news should be ingested. That is, asking the following questions: Who is writing it? Why are they writing it? Is it to inform or entertain (or both)? What viewpoint are they trying to convey and why is that viewpoint important from the perspective of the author? How is it important to you as the reader/viewer?
Picking up on the objective of the author was one of the little details that was stressed for a short period when I was in high school (more than half my life ago... wow, I feel old). I think my classes covered that subject for all of about two weeks before moving on to other test-able curricula.
We see a lot of stress on the "what" and not much on the "why" and "who." While we ought to trust the news outlets to do that job, certain "news" outlets absolutely have an agenda and either selectively choose to report certain facts to reinforce their message or omit certain facts that may undermine that message. Another tactic is presenting opinion as "fact" or outright lying. Knowing what kind of message the outlet is trying to convey is as important as the content they publish. Much of the "fake news" can easily be filtered out by the reader if they just apply those basic steps while seeking out reporting from multiple diverse sources and knowing how to properly independently fact-check sources.
I guess I'm saying that people, in general, may need a refresher on those critical thinking skills.
If someone wants it bad enough, they're going to get it no matter how well you protect it. The question then becomes, how expensive/difficult to you want to make it for someone to obtain? How much effort are YOU willing to go through to make it that way?
Personally, I don't worry that much about it. I assume the "bad guys" already have the data they want about me and just limit myself to basic data loss measures - backups on-site and off-site. The hardware I use is replaced regularly, anyway, and if someone wants my desktop or laptop bad enough, they can have it. I've got enough spares to get back up and running again in an hour or two. Note that this also mitigates most natural disaster situations, as well.
Sure, I encrypt anything particularly sensitive, like banking info. By the time someone gets into those files, I'll have already noticed the missing hardware and changed all the logins. If they DID manage to get into my finances before I got the logins changed - you guys have fun with the couple hundred bucks! I'm a husband and father of 2. I have a few assets but nothing immediately liquid enough for anyone to ruin me.
In a nutshell, I'm really only a valuable target for the casual ID thieves for which I've already protected myself. I'm not worth the time of a dedicated professional and, really, there's not much I can do to stop them, anyway, if they want my info bad enough. They probably already have most of it as it is.
Back when I was in school (when the Earth was still cooling) this was called, "Critical Thinking." It wasn't given its own dedicated program as it was intertwined with everything else being taught. It's not just citing sources and peer review, though. It requires one to analyze why someone is saying what they're saying. Put another way, it's critical to question the motivations of the communicator as much as it is to question the veracity of the message, itself. The best bullshitters are able to use cherry-picked, real, verifiable facts to back up their claims. Their messages only fall apart if one questions their motivation and looks for additional data to fill in a larger picture.
It seems as though this basic skill stopped being taught in primary and secondary schools and replaced with ignorant structures that teach only to standardized tests.
Basic comprehension and competency isn't really enough. A good education teaches you facts and provides knowledge. A GREAT education teaches you how to teach yourself. Having an open mind and being willing to admit being wrong in the face of new evidence is what separates the latter from the former.
The U.S. military has been testing mortar rounds that can alter their trajectory mid-flight for quite a while now. I remember seeing some "documentaries" on one of the more pro-military channels a few years back showing just how a system works. They were even testing rounds with active seeker heads and fins so they could do target analysis mid-flight and adjust to the target's movement, acquire an alternate target, or even self-detonate in the air (assuming no targets are present) so no "duds" would be left behind to blow up when a farmer or kid (etc.) finds it years later.
Even if it wasn't a wildly successful program (as far as I can tell, it wasn't), it does prove that tracking a mortar round's trajectory back to the source isn't as straight-forward as basic ballistics, anymore.
I had this thought pretty much immediately, as well. However, at the current sizes of commercially-available "drones", the military already has a such a system that could be easily adapted for anti-drone use - chaff.
Otherwise, if they can be detected using radar, IR, etc., a CWIS-style system (though probably a little lighter caliber round) would be just as effective.
It may be a drop in the bucket now (Facebook's 100kw solar array for a facility consuming 25Mw is just that), but the infrastructure is in place to put in better panels later as they're developed. Additionally, if using otherwise "wasted" space (such as a rooftop), why not put it in place? The long-term power cost savings for such a facility (that is planned for the long term, anyway) will eventually pay for for the system a few times over, even if the impact to overall energy usage is that proverbial drop in the bucket. In other words, it makes business (read: financial) sense to do it.
The recording of police dispatch traffic falls under a different mandate but achieves similar results. Every PSAP has such a mandate but is specified on a case-by-case and agency-by-agency basis.
Also, I'm pretty sure the normal dispatch radio traffic doesn't overlap much with the FAA radio traffic (if ever) and I doubt that sort of traffic was recorded by the NYPD under their records-retention mandate. Obviously, they'll have their own radio dispatch traffic recorded (which probably has some aircraft-to-dispatch traffic) but will probably leave the FAA to record anything going on in the skies between the aircraft and the tower. What was released was the FAA recordings and was most likely not recorded by the NYPD. I don't think we've heard the NYPD dispatch traffic yet and, at this point, I doubt we will.
I speak with some experience on this sort of matter but only from the perspective of my locality - as in, not NYC.
The flight controller didn't do any of the recording. The FAA (a *federal* agency, mind you) mandates ALL radio transmissions be recorded. The flight controller's only job is to control traffic. They have zero ability to trigger, delete, modify, etc., recordings. The pilot of every aircraft should know this so it wouldn't be something they'd be all that concerned about. Their supervisors/managers on the ground may not know this, however... And the FAA is quite good about responding to FOIA requests.
Also, firing a federal employee is actually really hard, even for cause. Usually, they're just given a crappy job with almost nothing to do so they'll feel motivated to quit on their own. Trust me, that's actually a LOT easier than getting firing someone at the federal level. Besides, even the NYPD can't get a federal employee fired since the NYPD is a state-level agency.
The most likely outcome, in my opinion, is that the NYPD will grudgingly admit their mistake, tell the pair to knock it off in some semi-friendly manner while the cameras are watching, then go back to business-as-usual until they're caught in their own lies again. Meanwhile, we'll all continue to bitch and moan about the "police state" and post ignorant comments in random places on the internet. Heck, I'm doing that right now!
There are a number of assumptions being made about all of this.
First, it's assuming one is using BlueCoat to begin with.
Second, it's assuming that the users of BlueCoat products are using some of BlueCoat's subscription services to ease management of those devices.
Third, it's assuming that the users of BlueCoat products are not modifying the filters by hand.
I've had some hands-on experience with BlueCoat products in the past, particularly the web-filtering/proxy devices described here, and our organization was large enough to have some of our staff (including myself) manage it part-time as part of their full-time IT responsibilities. We set it up in full white-list mode so that everything not explicitly allowed was blocked by default. We could have set it up in black-list mode or even a hybrid black- and white-list mode. We did not, however, subscribe to the filtering list that BlueCoat offers. That's just one option a customer can choose.
It is unacceptable to me that such filter subscriptions should block well-meaning websites under the guise of preventing porn. But it's entirely possible to remove or even white-list those same sites, on an individual basis, by the customer even if they're included as part of the filter subscription configuration. It's lazy on the part of the staff at BlueCoat for maintaining an inaccurate list and it's lazy on the part of IT managers and staff for keeping those sites blocked if their policies didn't specifically prohibit users from accessing them. The blame can't be solely pinned on BlueCoat, but they certainly share a significant portion of it with IT staff.
I'm in a similar situation and I actually have planned for a worst-case scenario. However, my storage needs are slightly more modest at about 5TB (give or take).
My main, active archive exists on my primary desktop and is the location that will get the most changes. That, in turn, is backed up to a dedicated NAS server (currently an 8-bay Synology unit packed with 3TB disks) in my home. THAT, in turn, is backed up, off-site to a friend's NAS units of similar construction and capacity via CrashPlan. The free version offers "backup to a friend's computer" as an option, though the paid subscription offers to store data on CrashPlan's servers, instead. The cost is fairly reasonable for that option if none of your friends has enough storage for you.
One other last point - it might not make sense to back up EVERYTHING you have. Photos, critical documents, etc. (things you can't easily replace) should absolutely be backed up. Copies of game files, software installations, etc. (things that can be replaced relatively easily from the original media) should probably be left out of the backup set. That limits the amount of remote storage required as well as the time it takes to back up those items in the first place.
Alternatively - use one of your ISP's DNS servers, one Google DNS server, and, if possible, one other 3rd party DNS server. Assign them in any order you'd like. For me, it's OpenDNS, Google DNS, ISP DNS, in that order, as I'd prefer to get results from someone OTHER than my ISP but also not Google, if I can avoid it. They already know far too much about everything as it is. There's no sense in giving them an additional information vector.
Assuming 100v/120v (as is common in the U.S. and a few other places), a 30A plug is going to be quite different than the standard 2- or 3-prong plug typically found inside the average home. Instead, they're usually the circular variety with a twist-to-lock design. They're nice for devices with high-current requirements, like air compressors and some welders. But it's probably more practical to put in more of the 20A variety so those devices with the more typical 3-prong plugs can connect.
My point was that Google has diversified so much that ad revenue from search isn't a make/break deal for the survivability or even general health of the company. They're not going to give it up without a significant fight but, while it's also a big one, it's not their only revenue stream. Not by a long shot. They'll survive - comfortably - without the search portal if they have to.
Good point. And this is also ignoring that the question is rather moot, anyway. Google's dominance in the search-engine game isn't as important as it once was. Their other service offerings, like GMail, Maps, etc., are FAR more important to the company that the search engine and portal. Even *if* a competitor comes along and de-thrones Google from the search space, Google has far more going on in other aspects of its business to worry about it for more than a few minutes. Watson de-throning Google in search isn't going to disrupt Google as much as the original article might suggest.
Google's main income is ad revenue in those products, including search. The users are the product being sold to advertisers. As long as Google can keep getting eyeballs on ads, no matter the service offering, their income stream is safe.
If saying, "no," isn't an option, try these suggestions.
One option might be to set up a laptop with some sort of reversion/reimaging software. If you're into Windows, try something like DeepFreeze. This is probably the least labor-intensive option. You just need to un-freeze it, in a clean state, to do software and OS updates before re-freezing it again. The user has full control over the computer (as much as you want, anyway) and is simply reset to the pre-defined state upon reboot. The DeepFreeze software, I believe, can also leave some areas unlocked so changes there can persist through a reboot, if desired.
Another option might be to set up a laptop to PXE boot and get a read-only image to boot from. Configure all changes to be saved to local media until you decide to wipe it clean. This requires some network infrastructure to set up as well as keeping the custom boot image up-to-date.
Yet another option would be offer up an "unlocked" laptop but drop it on a "protected" VLAN with heavy internet filtering. Again, there's some network infrastructure to set up as well as some likely subscription fees for filtering software/hardware at the gateway. The bonus here is that, if you have any (now or later), kids' computers can be placed on that VLAN without too much worry on your part. It also protects the rest of your computer equipment from being attached from the inside of your LAN by a compromised device since it'll be on a totally separate "untrusted" VLAN. This isn't exclusive to the other options presented here, either, and can be used in combination.
You could also just bite the bullet and simply re-image the laptop every time someone uses it. Again, if you're into Windows, you could easily set up Windows Server with WDS and capture a customized WIM image so it'll have all the apps you want installed from the get-go. Other options exist for Linux and Mac.
One last option I can think of involves an Android tablet that can be re-imaged back to stock form easily. Samsung units are good about this with the ODIN tool and a USB connection. Just connect the device to the computer, select the appropriate image in the ODIN utility, and it's back to factory-fresh form in a matter of minutes.
vPro only works when you've got all the supporting pieces to allow it to work. And the remote access part of it is under the AMT umbrella.
Got that K-series Core i5/i7? vPro isn't going to work. Got a Z75 chipset? Again, vPro isn't baked in and it won't work. Got a computer with an older Core2 CPU? There's an extensive list of requirements which probably were never shipped with consumer-grade computers when new (it was quite specific).
Even if we assume the computer has all the right hardware, you still need to enable and configure it in the BIOS (if it isn't enabled by default), then make sure you've got access through the router/firewall. Remember, we're assuming a relative is calling for help on their home computer.
I don't normally reply to ACs but I need to here.
My reason for LogMeIn over RDP (even the Remote Assistance feature) is two-fold:
First, I get unprompted, unrequested access to the computer. The person actually requesting help doesn't need to do a thing other than make sure the computer is powered on (and, presumably, connected to the internet). They don't have to click on anything. They don't have to be walked through opening ports on the router/firewall. If the computer is powered on and connected to the internet, I can just log in and get to work on the problem. If they've got a problem impacting LogMeIn connectivity, their problem is likely severe enough to require me on-site, anyway.
Second, assuming a LogMeIn Pro account is used, there's the back-end file transfer and other management tools I can use without interfering with the user sitting at the keyboard. I can set up alerts for all sorts of behavioral problems - event log triggers, application crashes, CPU/Memory usage above a threshold for a period of time, etc. That way, I would know about problems BEFORE they called for my help.