There seems to be very little response from the traditional/big/mainstream antivirus companies.
We usually install something centrally-managed for our clients, like Panda or Symantec. They do a decent job of stopping viruses, and it makes for less work for us... But they do absolutely nothing for these new rogue things. They don't get detected, they don't get blocked, they don't get removed... Nothing at all.
You wind up having to actually sit down at the machine and run through a battery of individual scans... Slaving the HDD to another machine, booting into safe mode, booting into normal mode... Far more time-consuming than I'd like.
Those are some of the best-written software out there. No, really! The first time I encountered the more advanced ones, almost malware detection/removal software could detect them, and none of them could remove that malware. It was on a system for a friend where reformat/reinstall was not really an option (would have taken more time to do that) so I dug into it. It took 26 hours to completely remove the crap from the system - it had strewn source files through the Windows and System Restore directories, had several hidden processes which monitored process killing and file deletion and would modify, recompile, and reinstall multiple copies of itself again.
It isn't that they're especially well-written... They may be, I don't know. The problem is that the mainstream anti-virus/malware stuff (like Panda, Symantec, McAfee, etc.) does basically nothing for them. You need to use tools like - as you suggest - Malwarebytes and Spybot. Of course there's some lag between when something new comes out and when definitions get updated... But that's always been the case. If you're one of the first infections of anything it will be a pain to remove.
Ad-Aware couldn't detect them - and it's a shame. Ad-Aware is pretty much useless now. It seems that once they gained commercial viability they became complacent.
Agreed. We used to throw Ad-Aware at pretty much any computer that came through our door. We'd routinely recommend it as a complement to whatever antivirus the client was using. These days it is crap. Not even worth the time it takes to download.
What really annoys me is the fact that the mainstream antivirus products (Panda, Symantec, McAfee, etc.) do such a crappy job of dealing with these rogue antivirus things. Most of them don't do a thing. Don't detect the rogue stuff, don't disinfect it, nothing.
Which means that we have to use something like Malwarebytes or Spyware Doctor to remove them.
This is especially annoying for us... We're outsourced IT for our clients. We aren't there every day to take care of everything they need. We set things up as safely and securely as we can, manage it all as best we can, but we can't lock things down as tightly as I'd like because these folks need to be able to operate without us - installing their own software and updates, things like that. So it's only a matter of time before one of our clients stumbles into one of these rogue antivirus products.
Does anyone know of a good, centrally-managed (like Symantec of Panda) anti-virus/malware package that actually detects these rogue things?
An anonymous reader writes to wonder if the glory has gone out of IT. One blogger remembered his first impression upon entering a profession in IT that made it seem like the place to be with a new shiny around every corner. What experiences have others had? Has a more pervasive technical culture forced our IT gurus into obsolescence?
Glory? In IT? Are you serious?
Since when was IT ever glorious?
I work in IT because it's what I know. I'm relatively good at it. I can get the job done. People pay me for it.
Or someone would want to quickly glance at some information, but the computer would be locked and they'd either have to unlock it themselves or find someone else to unlock it.
We have this problem a lot at my work. WinXP pro machines. Once locked, the only way to get back into them is to forcefully restart the computer. Big time waster. Unfortunately there is not much we can do, as logging in and out every time someone goes on a 30 minute service call would waste even more time (logging in to computer, logging in to 2 websites, getting applications set up, etc) while students are waiting in line to be helped.
If you've got local administrative rights you can unlock a computer...
But the unlock process is messy - it basically just forcibly logs off the locked session. You can lose work that way.
And I don't like giving everyone local administrative rights - too many opportunities for things to go horribly wrong.
Re:The only person dumber than a computer salesper
on
Bad PC Sales Staff Exposed
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Your analogy doesn't really work.
My analogy? What analogy?
I pointed out that other fields have technical jargon as well.
I pointed out that people seem almost prideful of their ignorance in regard to computers. Which strikes me as odd.
And I pointed out that in any technical field you have a choice of either educating yourself or trusting the folks you deal with.
The only bit that was even vaguely analogous was when I pointed out that in any field it is a news story when people are taken advantage of.
How many people, for example, go to the doctor and expect to be told about things like cytokine storms or acetylsalicylic acid? To most people, these terms are just as meaningless as gigahertz or terabytes, if not more so. The doctor is paid so that they don't have to know these things. Part of his job is to translate these terms into things a layman can understand.
All very true.
But that doesn't change the fact that you have to either educate yourself, or trust that your doctor knows what they're talking about.
And it is still news if some doctor has been misleading patients.
Re:The only person dumber than a computer salesper
on
Bad PC Sales Staff Exposed
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
maybe we should reflect on how we've turned a subject that has such a huge potential for good, into a nerdy hell: full of jargon, technobabble and misinformation.
Right. Because fields like medicine, law, automotive repair, publishing, fashion, cooking, broadcast, engineering, carpentry, literature, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, politics, banking, insurance, etc. don't have any jargon, technobabble, or misinformation.
Every field has specialized language.
You either learn enough of the specialized language to make sure you aren't being taken for a ride, or you trust that the folks you're dealing with aren't going to abuse their position of power.
The primary difference is that many people don't feel the need to educate themselves in any way when it comes to computers. Many people seem almost proud of their ignorance. They'll happily declare that they don't know anything about computers.
Sure, they just want to get stuff done. So do I, when I get in my car and drive to the grocery store. But it's still a news story when the local repair shop is found to be lying to its customers and charging people for repairs they don't need.
No. What I did was no more stealing than when you (and lots of other people) download movies, songs, or tv shows. It's not real property - it's just internet data.
Think about it. If I'm right - it's not stealing. If you're right, then it is stealing and so too is downloading/bittorenting and you too are a thief. (ponder) Ooops.
When I download a song (which I will readily admit to doing) I use my own disk space and bandwidth, which I paid for, to make duplicates of bits stored on another server. While I may very well be failing to pay for the song (actually, I usually do pay for it) I am not actually taking anything away from anyone. The act of making my own copy of those bits does not remove those bits from the original owner's possession. That's why it's called copyright infringement and not theft.
You, on the other hand, made printouts. Those printouts used paper and toner. That paper and toner was removed from the printer by your hands. You took those printouts with you. You physically removed those printouts from the original owner's possession.
You, making those printouts and not paying for them, is the same as me walking out of Staples with a box of printer paper that I didn't pay for. It is theft.
The fact that you used another student's login to hide your actions does not make it any better.
The fact that other human beings on this planet have "sinned" does not make it any better.
This works for me because I know enough to do it, but lots of people just leave their computer on and running when they walk away. As a result, many office computers are left logged in when people go to lunch, or when they go home for the night. This, obviously, is a security vulnerability.
Sounds like lazy IT PHBs. At my company you're required to have a password-protected screen saver that kicks in after fifteen minutes, with policies set up so that you're automatically logged off an hour after your quitting time.
Yeah... I did that once...
It's easy enough to do, a couple clicks of the mouse. Group Policy lets you do all sorts of stuff. Set it up to lock the computers after about 15 minutes of inactivity, and log everyone off about an hour after closing time. Seemed like a great idea to me, especially since it was a medical office and they had expressed numerous concerns about security and confidentiality.
Then the screaming started. Folks would walk away from their computers and come back to a locked screen... But they wouldn't know how to log in. They didn't know what username and password to put in there because it looked ever so slightly different from what they saw when they first showed up in the morning. Or someone would walk away for an hour or two without logging off, and someone else would have to use their computer while they were gone. Or someone would want to quickly glance at some information, but the computer would be locked and they'd either have to unlock it themselves or find someone else to unlock it.
I sent around some emails explaining things. Detailed how long you could leave a machine idle before it locked. Explained which username and password to use. Made sure people had the ability to unlock other computers if they had to.
After about two days they made me disable those policies. They didn't even want the account to automatically log off after work, because it was easier to leave everything up and running overnight and come back to it in the morning...
The bank in one of our local grocery stores has frighteningly lax security...
There's a computer running Windows XP there, against the back wall, with the screen in plain view of anyone walking by. It is pretty much always on and always logged in, sitting at the Windows XP desktop. Usually with a couple programs minimized in the taskbar. It's also got a desktop wallpaper set with BGINFO, so it's displaying the computer name and IP address and whatever else.
The grocery store itself stays open long after the bank closes, and that computer is sitting there logged in and vulnerable. I don't know how many people (dozens? a hundred?) walk past it in a night. There's no security gate or anything, so somebody could probably just vault over the countertop and do something malicious if they wanted to... The security cameras would probably pick that up, but it might be too late. Of course there's a distinct possibility you wouldn't even need to do that... You might be able to get something useful just by standing at one of the checkout lines and snapping pictures with a decent digital camera.
And there's a couple more computers set up with their backs towards the customer... I assume these are for tellers to sit down and consult with people. They're set up kind of like a private consultation booth or something - maybe for folks looking to discuss a loan or whatever.
These two computers are literally sitting on the counter top with their backs towards the customer. Sure, you can't see the screen, which is an improvement... But I bet you could slip on a hardware keylogger without looking too suspicious. People are constantly walking through or idling there, waiting for someone to finish up in the store.
I believe the Negroponte's goal is to get computers into the hands of students in developing countries. Not to promote open source software.
One of the original goals/specifications was to have the entire platform be open source. This wasn't to save money. This was to allow those students to use the entire platform as a learning tool. They would be able to tinker with the guts if they wanted to. And they wouldn't be beholden to any particular company to roll out a new update/patch/localization/whatever.
Intel has stunned visitors at IDF by showing off the world's first four-screen laptop. The oddly-named 'Tangent Bay' has three miniature touchscreens set horizontally into the case below the main, full-sized panel. It is a fully functional prototype: delegates were able to scroll photos around the touchscreens by swiping with a finger. The idea smacked a little too much of the ill-fated Vista SideShow.
Four-screen laptop? I expected a laptop with 4 roughly full-sized screens. Not one full-sized screen and three tiny ones. And those three tiny ones, due to their positioning, may as well be one oddly-shaped screen.
Seems strange that they would put the screens above the keyboard. I think embedding an iPhone type touchscreen in place of the trackpad would be a far more useful thing.
While I agree that an iPhone type touchscreen could be very handy instead of a trackpad... I can also see some utility having those screens above the keyboard. It could be a nice way to display additional information without cluttering up your workspace - maybe the toolbars for Photo Shop, or your ribbon in Word, or just some CPU/RAM/HDD load meters out of the way.
Every 6 months to a year it seems there is yet another goof up that lets users access other users email (gmail) or data (google docs).
Unless I'm missing something, most of this revolves around users accessing their data through HTTP over insecure wireless, neither of which is required by Google.
Cat-5 is certainly the best option today; but I'm guessing that grandparent is hoping for something that wouldn't raise the costs of endpoint devices significantly.
I'll assume you're using CAT5 in a generic way to mean CAT5/CAT5e/CAT6... We don't run CAT5 anymore - it's all 5e or 6. I'm not even certain where we'd buy a spool of CAT5 anymore, seems like our vendors only sell CAT5e and CAT6 these days. And CAT6 isn't much more expensive anymore.
But using CAT6 for the wiring isn't necessarily going to impact the cost of the endpoint devices at all. I can terminate that CAT6 with a couple RJ11 jacks and stick any old telephone on it. I don't need a fancy VOIP phone or anything like that.
You can run pretty much anything you want over ethernet, as long as you can get it in under 1Gb/s; but only if you are willing to put a full general purpose computer(or a dedicated embedded device, if the market has seen fit to provide one for your application) at each end. This is less than wholly useful when it comes to older devices, or cheaper devices that are still only shipping with some sort of non-ethernet connections.
Nobody said Ethernet, they said CAT(5|5e|6). That's just copper. You can run ethernet over it... But you can do lots of other things with it as well. There's really no need to use ethernet over CAT6 - that's typically what you do, but it's still just copper. You can send analog signals just as easily as digital.
If, say, you want to connect a projector and a DVD player, that is normally cheap and easy. A few analog video cables, supported by even the most awful players and projectors, or DVI/HDMI in the expensive seats. If you wanted to do that over ethernet, you'd need a comparatively high end projector, and a DVD player that supports ethernet connected projectors. I'm not sure any of the latter exist, so you'd have to use a full computer for the purpose. Doable; but hardly optimal.
Or you just get a CAT6 video extender. Takes your video from VGA or HDMI or DVI or whatever, passes it over your CAT6 to the other end, and pipes it back to VGA or HDMI or DVI or whatever. Great devices. We installed several of them in a dental office so we could mount televisions on a moving arm for the patients.
I'm not sure exactly how grandparent's desire would actually be made to work in a real world setting; but ethernet isn't quite it. It would arguably be a suitable basis for what he wants; but it wouldn't be the whole picture.
Again, we're not talking about ethernet, we're talking about CAT6. There's a difference between the network protocol and the wire it is transmitted over.
All the new construction we work in has bundles of CAT6 going everywhere. You don't see any special wiring for phones or anything like that... It's just all CAT6, terminated accordingly and patched into either the data or voice systems as appropriate. You'll still frequently see some coax cable running around for television... But that can easily be run to absolutely every room and terminated in a central location, then patched in as necessary like you would anything else. Or you could just throw everything across your CAT6 with an adapter or two thrown in.
Really, these days, you don't need all sorts of different cables and connectors and jacks. Run AC to the room, a bundle of CAT6 lines, and maybe a coax line - done! You can now connect pretty much anything to pretty much anything, anywhere in your house.
This isn't something theoretical... We're doing it now.
You probably don't want a bus cable... I remember troubleshooting some old bus networks... Pain in the ass. Entire network would freak out because somebody had unplugged something.
You can already do most of what you describe with CAT5e/CAT6. CAT6 obviously makes a great network cable... But you can easily use it to carry telephone as well (even if it isn't VOIP). Lots of the new construction we're working in just has bundles of CAT6 going everywhere. Run 3 or 4 lines of CAT6 to a wall and you're unlikely to have to run new cables anytime soon. Plenty of room to add data and voice.
You could even do video over CAT6 if you've got the hardware for it. Either by streaming the stuff from computer to computer... Or by using a video extender.
Is this just cheap components for Fiber? 100 meters is pretty far, I am guessing that this could have networking uses beyond ripping media to external drives.
100m is a good distance... More than I'd probably need for connecting a mobile device to anything else in my house... But it isn't amazing. Doesn't good ol' ethernet cap out around 100m?
I'm not a big fan of the ribbon in Office, largely because it is so vastly different from what I'm used to. Pretty much every other piece of software out there is menu-driven. And I've had to help a lot of our clients through the transition. So it has been a sore spot for me.
But once you get used to it, the ribbon actually works pretty well. You can customize it to your needs. And once you learn how everything works again, most things are accessible in fewer mouse-clicks. I know I'm clicking a lot less when I need to add in a page break.
And your keyboard shortcuts are still there. You can still mash CTRL+P to print, and things like that. You don't have to click on a ribbon button.
Plus, if you look at Firefox, it's virtually got a ribbon interface already. You've got big ol' buttons for back, forward, stop, home... Got a search box, and an address bar... Got a toolbar full of bookmarks...
I've got Word 2007 and Firefox 3.5 open right now, I'm looking at both of them, and the top of Firefox doesn't look that different from the top of Word.
The server, router, and optical switch are on one UPS.
The optical fiber never seems to go down, so I guess they have good power at the other end and at any intermediate units.
I love how everyone else on the planet has fiber to their home now. Even folks in the countryside.
We moved out of town while two of the local ISPs were in the process of rolling out fiber all over town. We're only about 1 mile outside of the city, and all we have available is dial-up, cable, or satellite. It sucks.
We live in the countryside, so power outages happen (too often), especially the annoying 1-10 minute outages which mean someone is working on the power line.
I'm in a similar situation at home. I've got the individual desktops on batteries, and our server, and the network hardware. Pretty much everything except the printer. But our cable Internet does not stay up during power outages - even brief ones. And it seems to take their equipment a good 10-15 minutes to recover from a power outage.
The main problem, at least in most of the 1st world, is that people are so used to reliable grid power that they don't think about it or see the risk. Look at any operation running somewhere where the power goes out on a frequent basis, and you'll find the above mentioned scenario very common.
That may very well be true... I've never done any work outside of the US, so I have no idea what kind of scenario is common elsewhere. And maybe I've just been exposed to some fairly clueless people... But I've yet to see a backup power system do what people thought it was going to do - allow them to stay open for business while the grid goes down.
Basically impossible? All it takes is an adequate UPS setup, with a proper transfer switch and a diesel generator - and a proper maintenance plane to go with it. There's nothing hard or magical about it - it just costs more. Maintenance and fuel.
The actual quote was "From what I've seen that's basically impossible." I never claimed to be omniscient or omnipresent. I'm just basing my statements on my own observations.
Folks will put in an "adequate" UPS setup... And then ignore it for several years while they add more and more hardware... And then act amazed when everything falls over after a power outage - never realizing that the batteries hadn't been regularly tested and were dead or completely insufficient for the current needs.
Or they'll put in a generator and insufficient batteries to keep everything up while the generator starts.
Or they won't keep the generator fueled up and ready to go.
Or, my favorite - they'll actually do a great job of protecting the server room and completely forget about the rest of the building. The servers will be up and humming along, but there'll be no power to the workstations, so nobody can use those servers. Or maybe all the manufacturing equipment is unpowered so they can't actually do anything. And everybody winds up standing around, twiddling their thumbs anyway.
Plenty of places have proper backup facilities.
I'm glad. Really, I am. It's good to know that they're not all as bad as what I've seen. Reassuring, actually, to think that the hospital I wind up in might not be as clueless as the places that I've worked.
But that doesn't change anything about how horrible the backup plans have been at many (most?) of the places I've worked.
Many businesses have dozens or hundreds of remote offices / branches / stores. If those stores depend on the HQ site to be running (as many or most do), then having a very reliable generator is critical. Sure, if you lose power for a single site, your customers at that single site will be forgiving and don't expect you to have a generator at every store. However, if your HQ is in Chicago and loses power for 12 hours from an ice storm, your customers that can't shop at your Palm Beach location are going to be pissed that you are now closed nationwide.
If you're that big, I'd expect you to have multiple data centers distributed geographically. If your data center in Chicago loses power for 12 hours from an ice storm, I'd expect the Palm Beach store to be accessing a data center somewhere else.
Even with generators and whatnot... If there's an ice storm in Chicago you're likely looking at an outage. You'll have lines down, trees falling over, issues with your ISP and whatever else. Just keeping your data center up in the middle of that kind of havoc isn't going to do you much good.
I've been involved in this field for about 15 years. The funniest misconception I've run into, time and time again, is that an unmaintained UPS, unmaintained battery bank, unmaintained transfer switch, and unmaintained generator will somehow act as magical charms so as to be more reliable than the commercial power they are supposedly backing up.
A lot of folks don't really contemplate what a loss of power means to their business.
Some IT journal or salesperson or someone tells them that they need backup power for their servers, so they throw in a pile of batteries or generators or whatever... And when the power goes out they're left in dark cubicles with dead workstations. Or their manufacturing equipment doesn't run, so it doesn't really matter if the computers are up. Or all their internal network equipment is happy, but there's no electricity between them and the ISP - so their Internet is down anyway.
I'll stand behind a few batteries for servers... Enough to keep them running until they can shut down properly... But actually staying up and running while the power is out? From what I've seen that's basically impossible.
How does that work? In a proprietary project if your boss says "do this" you either do it or find another job.
Sure... You're given an assignment and you basically have to do it. But somewhere along the line somebody has to decide what is a priority and what isn't. Somebody decides what actually gets done. And it doesn't really matter if it's a proprietary project or not - stuff slips through the cracks.
You think a company is going to drop everything to refactor some code just because it's getting a little long in the tooth? Even though everything works? You think a company is going to put a whole lot of time and effort into optimizing their code to get the installation down under ## GB, even though HDDs are dirt cheap and the code actually works?
It all comes down to priorities. And important stuff can get a low priority with proprietary code just as easily as open source.
In an open source project you could just flame the hell out of the guy that told you on the public mailing list and carry on working on something else.
You can... And nobody is going to force you to write any code in particular... But the situation is a little unique in open source software... If you are unwilling to update your code, for whatever reason, someone else can. Some other random guy on the mailing list can make the changes. And if you're seen as enough of an obstruction, they'll just fork your code and carry on without you.
And in a proprietary project if customers want something fixed they can threaten to not pay which in even the most incompetent company will tend to make your boss tell you to fix it.
Maybe... It depends on just how badly you need a particular piece of software. I've got clients paying for upgrades and support to buggy software because they can't run their business without it. Year after year, thousands of dollars, and the software still sucks. And they complain about it constantly. But they can't do business without it. So they learn where the bugs are and work around them.
In open source that mechanism does not exist.
No... But in open source you're never tied to a specific vendor. Absolute worst-case scenario you can pay someone to fix those bugs for you.
How does it take 68 people to monitor that few servers, and most of them BLADES?!?
The summary:
The Online Network services group alone has "data centers from Texas to Seoul, and monitor over 13,250 server blades, 75,000 cpu cores, and 112.5 terabytes of blade RAM. [Pearce] points out the picture of the GNOC (Global Network Operations Center) in their slideshow, a data core that even has televisions tuned to the weather stations. They use those to ensure that conditions of the data center are up to their standards; with only a staff of 68 people they ensure connectivity across the globe for the numerous WoW servers."
Is a bit confusing, to say the least. But it sounds like those 68 people are not monitoring a pile of blades in a single location. It sounds like those people are monitoring server scattered across the globe. Further, I doubt if all 68 of them work 24/7 - while the servers will need to be monitored nearly 24/7. So I'd assume there are various shifts through the day/week.
All things considered... 68 people doesn't sound like an absurd number to me.
Slashdot Mirror
There seems to be very little response from the traditional/big/mainstream antivirus companies.
We usually install something centrally-managed for our clients, like Panda or Symantec. They do a decent job of stopping viruses, and it makes for less work for us... But they do absolutely nothing for these new rogue things. They don't get detected, they don't get blocked, they don't get removed... Nothing at all.
You wind up having to actually sit down at the machine and run through a battery of individual scans... Slaving the HDD to another machine, booting into safe mode, booting into normal mode... Far more time-consuming than I'd like.
Those are some of the best-written software out there. No, really! The first time I encountered the more advanced ones, almost malware detection/removal software could detect them, and none of them could remove that malware. It was on a system for a friend where reformat/reinstall was not really an option (would have taken more time to do that) so I dug into it. It took 26 hours to completely remove the crap from the system - it had strewn source files through the Windows and System Restore directories, had several hidden processes which monitored process killing and file deletion and would modify, recompile, and reinstall multiple copies of itself again.
It isn't that they're especially well-written... They may be, I don't know. The problem is that the mainstream anti-virus/malware stuff (like Panda, Symantec, McAfee, etc.) does basically nothing for them. You need to use tools like - as you suggest - Malwarebytes and Spybot. Of course there's some lag between when something new comes out and when definitions get updated... But that's always been the case. If you're one of the first infections of anything it will be a pain to remove.
Ad-Aware couldn't detect them - and it's a shame. Ad-Aware is pretty much useless now. It seems that once they gained commercial viability they became complacent.
Agreed. We used to throw Ad-Aware at pretty much any computer that came through our door. We'd routinely recommend it as a complement to whatever antivirus the client was using. These days it is crap. Not even worth the time it takes to download.
What really annoys me is the fact that the mainstream antivirus products (Panda, Symantec, McAfee, etc.) do such a crappy job of dealing with these rogue antivirus things. Most of them don't do a thing. Don't detect the rogue stuff, don't disinfect it, nothing.
Which means that we have to use something like Malwarebytes or Spyware Doctor to remove them.
This is especially annoying for us... We're outsourced IT for our clients. We aren't there every day to take care of everything they need. We set things up as safely and securely as we can, manage it all as best we can, but we can't lock things down as tightly as I'd like because these folks need to be able to operate without us - installing their own software and updates, things like that. So it's only a matter of time before one of our clients stumbles into one of these rogue antivirus products.
Does anyone know of a good, centrally-managed (like Symantec of Panda) anti-virus/malware package that actually detects these rogue things?
An anonymous reader writes to wonder if the glory has gone out of IT. One blogger remembered his first impression upon entering a profession in IT that made it seem like the place to be with a new shiny around every corner. What experiences have others had? Has a more pervasive technical culture forced our IT gurus into obsolescence?
Glory? In IT? Are you serious?
Since when was IT ever glorious?
I work in IT because it's what I know. I'm relatively good at it. I can get the job done. People pay me for it.
But glory?
Yeah.. Right.
Or someone would want to quickly glance at some information, but the computer would be locked and they'd either have to unlock it themselves or find someone else to unlock it.
We have this problem a lot at my work. WinXP pro machines. Once locked, the only way to get back into them is to forcefully restart the computer. Big time waster. Unfortunately there is not much we can do, as logging in and out every time someone goes on a 30 minute service call would waste even more time (logging in to computer, logging in to 2 websites, getting applications set up, etc) while students are waiting in line to be helped.
If you've got local administrative rights you can unlock a computer...
But the unlock process is messy - it basically just forcibly logs off the locked session. You can lose work that way.
And I don't like giving everyone local administrative rights - too many opportunities for things to go horribly wrong.
Your analogy doesn't really work.
My analogy? What analogy?
I pointed out that other fields have technical jargon as well.
I pointed out that people seem almost prideful of their ignorance in regard to computers. Which strikes me as odd.
And I pointed out that in any technical field you have a choice of either educating yourself or trusting the folks you deal with.
The only bit that was even vaguely analogous was when I pointed out that in any field it is a news story when people are taken advantage of.
How many people, for example, go to the doctor and expect to be told about things like cytokine storms or acetylsalicylic acid? To most people, these terms are just as meaningless as gigahertz or terabytes, if not more so. The doctor is paid so that they don't have to know these things. Part of his job is to translate these terms into things a layman can understand.
All very true.
But that doesn't change the fact that you have to either educate yourself, or trust that your doctor knows what they're talking about.
And it is still news if some doctor has been misleading patients.
maybe we should reflect on how we've turned a subject that has such a huge potential for good, into a nerdy hell: full of jargon, technobabble and misinformation.
Right. Because fields like medicine, law, automotive repair, publishing, fashion, cooking, broadcast, engineering, carpentry, literature, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, politics, banking, insurance, etc. don't have any jargon, technobabble, or misinformation.
Every field has specialized language.
You either learn enough of the specialized language to make sure you aren't being taken for a ride, or you trust that the folks you're dealing with aren't going to abuse their position of power.
The primary difference is that many people don't feel the need to educate themselves in any way when it comes to computers. Many people seem almost proud of their ignorance. They'll happily declare that they don't know anything about computers.
Sure, they just want to get stuff done. So do I, when I get in my car and drive to the grocery store. But it's still a news story when the local repair shop is found to be lying to its customers and charging people for repairs they don't need.
No. What I did was no more stealing than when you (and lots of other people) download movies, songs, or tv shows. It's not real property - it's just internet data.
Think about it. If I'm right - it's not stealing. If you're right, then it is stealing and so too is downloading/bittorenting and you too are a thief. (ponder) Ooops.
When I download a song (which I will readily admit to doing) I use my own disk space and bandwidth, which I paid for, to make duplicates of bits stored on another server. While I may very well be failing to pay for the song (actually, I usually do pay for it) I am not actually taking anything away from anyone. The act of making my own copy of those bits does not remove those bits from the original owner's possession. That's why it's called copyright infringement and not theft.
You, on the other hand, made printouts. Those printouts used paper and toner. That paper and toner was removed from the printer by your hands. You took those printouts with you. You physically removed those printouts from the original owner's possession.
You, making those printouts and not paying for them, is the same as me walking out of Staples with a box of printer paper that I didn't pay for. It is theft.
The fact that you used another student's login to hide your actions does not make it any better.
The fact that other human beings on this planet have "sinned" does not make it any better.
Then make the lock at 11 minutes or u can give your mouse a click while u re talking.Doesnt sound that hard.U just have to adopt.
But... I don't want any more children.
This works for me because I know enough to do it, but lots of people just leave their computer on and running when they walk away. As a result, many office computers are left logged in when people go to lunch, or when they go home for the night. This, obviously, is a security vulnerability.
Sounds like lazy IT PHBs. At my company you're required to have a password-protected screen saver that kicks in after fifteen minutes, with policies set up so that you're automatically logged off an hour after your quitting time.
Yeah... I did that once...
It's easy enough to do, a couple clicks of the mouse. Group Policy lets you do all sorts of stuff. Set it up to lock the computers after about 15 minutes of inactivity, and log everyone off about an hour after closing time. Seemed like a great idea to me, especially since it was a medical office and they had expressed numerous concerns about security and confidentiality.
Then the screaming started. Folks would walk away from their computers and come back to a locked screen... But they wouldn't know how to log in. They didn't know what username and password to put in there because it looked ever so slightly different from what they saw when they first showed up in the morning. Or someone would walk away for an hour or two without logging off, and someone else would have to use their computer while they were gone. Or someone would want to quickly glance at some information, but the computer would be locked and they'd either have to unlock it themselves or find someone else to unlock it.
I sent around some emails explaining things. Detailed how long you could leave a machine idle before it locked. Explained which username and password to use. Made sure people had the ability to unlock other computers if they had to.
After about two days they made me disable those policies. They didn't even want the account to automatically log off after work, because it was easier to leave everything up and running overnight and come back to it in the morning...
The bank in one of our local grocery stores has frighteningly lax security...
There's a computer running Windows XP there, against the back wall, with the screen in plain view of anyone walking by. It is pretty much always on and always logged in, sitting at the Windows XP desktop. Usually with a couple programs minimized in the taskbar. It's also got a desktop wallpaper set with BGINFO, so it's displaying the computer name and IP address and whatever else.
The grocery store itself stays open long after the bank closes, and that computer is sitting there logged in and vulnerable. I don't know how many people (dozens? a hundred?) walk past it in a night. There's no security gate or anything, so somebody could probably just vault over the countertop and do something malicious if they wanted to... The security cameras would probably pick that up, but it might be too late. Of course there's a distinct possibility you wouldn't even need to do that... You might be able to get something useful just by standing at one of the checkout lines and snapping pictures with a decent digital camera.
And there's a couple more computers set up with their backs towards the customer... I assume these are for tellers to sit down and consult with people. They're set up kind of like a private consultation booth or something - maybe for folks looking to discuss a loan or whatever.
These two computers are literally sitting on the counter top with their backs towards the customer. Sure, you can't see the screen, which is an improvement... But I bet you could slip on a hardware keylogger without looking too suspicious. People are constantly walking through or idling there, waiting for someone to finish up in the store.
ctl + alt + del -> k on windows
For XP and newer there's an even easier way...
WinKey + L
Instantly locks your computer.
I believe the Negroponte's goal is to get computers into the hands of students in developing countries. Not to promote open source software.
One of the original goals/specifications was to have the entire platform be open source. This wasn't to save money. This was to allow those students to use the entire platform as a learning tool. They would be able to tinker with the guts if they wanted to. And they wouldn't be beholden to any particular company to roll out a new update/patch/localization/whatever.
Intel has stunned visitors at IDF by showing off the world's first four-screen laptop. The oddly-named 'Tangent Bay' has three miniature touchscreens set horizontally into the case below the main, full-sized panel. It is a fully functional prototype: delegates were able to scroll photos around the touchscreens by swiping with a finger. The idea smacked a little too much of the ill-fated Vista SideShow.
Four-screen laptop? I expected a laptop with 4 roughly full-sized screens. Not one full-sized screen and three tiny ones. And those three tiny ones, due to their positioning, may as well be one oddly-shaped screen.
Seems strange that they would put the screens above the keyboard. I think embedding an iPhone type touchscreen in place of the trackpad would be a far more useful thing.
While I agree that an iPhone type touchscreen could be very handy instead of a trackpad... I can also see some utility having those screens above the keyboard. It could be a nice way to display additional information without cluttering up your workspace - maybe the toolbars for Photo Shop, or your ribbon in Word, or just some CPU/RAM/HDD load meters out of the way.
Every 6 months to a year it seems there is yet another goof up that lets users access other users email (gmail) or data (google docs).
Unless I'm missing something, most of this revolves around users accessing their data through HTTP over insecure wireless, neither of which is required by Google.
It can be as simple as using https://mail.google.com/
There's even a handy little checkbox in the Gmail options to always use HTTPS.
Cat-5 is certainly the best option today; but I'm guessing that grandparent is hoping for something that wouldn't raise the costs of endpoint devices significantly.
I'll assume you're using CAT5 in a generic way to mean CAT5/CAT5e/CAT6... We don't run CAT5 anymore - it's all 5e or 6. I'm not even certain where we'd buy a spool of CAT5 anymore, seems like our vendors only sell CAT5e and CAT6 these days. And CAT6 isn't much more expensive anymore.
But using CAT6 for the wiring isn't necessarily going to impact the cost of the endpoint devices at all. I can terminate that CAT6 with a couple RJ11 jacks and stick any old telephone on it. I don't need a fancy VOIP phone or anything like that.
You can run pretty much anything you want over ethernet, as long as you can get it in under 1Gb/s; but only if you are willing to put a full general purpose computer(or a dedicated embedded device, if the market has seen fit to provide one for your application) at each end. This is less than wholly useful when it comes to older devices, or cheaper devices that are still only shipping with some sort of non-ethernet connections.
Nobody said Ethernet, they said CAT(5|5e|6). That's just copper. You can run ethernet over it... But you can do lots of other things with it as well. There's really no need to use ethernet over CAT6 - that's typically what you do, but it's still just copper. You can send analog signals just as easily as digital.
If, say, you want to connect a projector and a DVD player, that is normally cheap and easy. A few analog video cables, supported by even the most awful players and projectors, or DVI/HDMI in the expensive seats. If you wanted to do that over ethernet, you'd need a comparatively high end projector, and a DVD player that supports ethernet connected projectors. I'm not sure any of the latter exist, so you'd have to use a full computer for the purpose. Doable; but hardly optimal.
Or you just get a CAT6 video extender. Takes your video from VGA or HDMI or DVI or whatever, passes it over your CAT6 to the other end, and pipes it back to VGA or HDMI or DVI or whatever. Great devices. We installed several of them in a dental office so we could mount televisions on a moving arm for the patients.
I'm not sure exactly how grandparent's desire would actually be made to work in a real world setting; but ethernet isn't quite it. It would arguably be a suitable basis for what he wants; but it wouldn't be the whole picture.
Again, we're not talking about ethernet, we're talking about CAT6. There's a difference between the network protocol and the wire it is transmitted over.
All the new construction we work in has bundles of CAT6 going everywhere. You don't see any special wiring for phones or anything like that... It's just all CAT6, terminated accordingly and patched into either the data or voice systems as appropriate. You'll still frequently see some coax cable running around for television... But that can easily be run to absolutely every room and terminated in a central location, then patched in as necessary like you would anything else. Or you could just throw everything across your CAT6 with an adapter or two thrown in.
Really, these days, you don't need all sorts of different cables and connectors and jacks. Run AC to the room, a bundle of CAT6 lines, and maybe a coax line - done! You can now connect pretty much anything to pretty much anything, anywhere in your house.
This isn't something theoretical... We're doing it now.
You probably don't want a bus cable... I remember troubleshooting some old bus networks... Pain in the ass. Entire network would freak out because somebody had unplugged something.
You can already do most of what you describe with CAT5e/CAT6. CAT6 obviously makes a great network cable... But you can easily use it to carry telephone as well (even if it isn't VOIP). Lots of the new construction we're working in just has bundles of CAT6 going everywhere. Run 3 or 4 lines of CAT6 to a wall and you're unlikely to have to run new cables anytime soon. Plenty of room to add data and voice.
You could even do video over CAT6 if you've got the hardware for it. Either by streaming the stuff from computer to computer... Or by using a video extender.
Is this just cheap components for Fiber? 100 meters is pretty far, I am guessing that this could have networking uses beyond ripping media to external drives.
100m is a good distance... More than I'd probably need for connecting a mobile device to anything else in my house... But it isn't amazing. Doesn't good ol' ethernet cap out around 100m?
I dunno...
I'm not a big fan of the ribbon in Office, largely because it is so vastly different from what I'm used to. Pretty much every other piece of software out there is menu-driven. And I've had to help a lot of our clients through the transition. So it has been a sore spot for me.
But once you get used to it, the ribbon actually works pretty well. You can customize it to your needs. And once you learn how everything works again, most things are accessible in fewer mouse-clicks. I know I'm clicking a lot less when I need to add in a page break.
And your keyboard shortcuts are still there. You can still mash CTRL+P to print, and things like that. You don't have to click on a ribbon button.
Plus, if you look at Firefox, it's virtually got a ribbon interface already. You've got big ol' buttons for back, forward, stop, home... Got a search box, and an address bar... Got a toolbar full of bookmarks...
I've got Word 2007 and Firefox 3.5 open right now, I'm looking at both of them, and the top of Firefox doesn't look that different from the top of Word.
The server, router, and optical switch are on one UPS.
The optical fiber never seems to go down, so I guess they have good power at the other end and at any intermediate units.
I love how everyone else on the planet has fiber to their home now. Even folks in the countryside.
We moved out of town while two of the local ISPs were in the process of rolling out fiber all over town. We're only about 1 mile outside of the city, and all we have available is dial-up, cable, or satellite. It sucks.
We live in the countryside, so power outages happen (too often), especially the annoying 1-10 minute outages which mean someone is working on the power line.
I'm in a similar situation at home. I've got the individual desktops on batteries, and our server, and the network hardware. Pretty much everything except the printer. But our cable Internet does not stay up during power outages - even brief ones. And it seems to take their equipment a good 10-15 minutes to recover from a power outage.
The main problem, at least in most of the 1st world, is that people are so used to reliable grid power that they don't think about it or see the risk. Look at any operation running somewhere where the power goes out on a frequent basis, and you'll find the above mentioned scenario very common.
That may very well be true... I've never done any work outside of the US, so I have no idea what kind of scenario is common elsewhere. And maybe I've just been exposed to some fairly clueless people... But I've yet to see a backup power system do what people thought it was going to do - allow them to stay open for business while the grid goes down.
Basically impossible? All it takes is an adequate UPS setup, with a proper transfer switch and a diesel generator - and a proper maintenance plane to go with it. There's nothing hard or magical about it - it just costs more. Maintenance and fuel.
The actual quote was "From what I've seen that's basically impossible." I never claimed to be omniscient or omnipresent. I'm just basing my statements on my own observations.
Folks will put in an "adequate" UPS setup... And then ignore it for several years while they add more and more hardware... And then act amazed when everything falls over after a power outage - never realizing that the batteries hadn't been regularly tested and were dead or completely insufficient for the current needs.
Or they'll put in a generator and insufficient batteries to keep everything up while the generator starts.
Or they won't keep the generator fueled up and ready to go.
Or, my favorite - they'll actually do a great job of protecting the server room and completely forget about the rest of the building. The servers will be up and humming along, but there'll be no power to the workstations, so nobody can use those servers. Or maybe all the manufacturing equipment is unpowered so they can't actually do anything. And everybody winds up standing around, twiddling their thumbs anyway.
Plenty of places have proper backup facilities.
I'm glad. Really, I am. It's good to know that they're not all as bad as what I've seen. Reassuring, actually, to think that the hospital I wind up in might not be as clueless as the places that I've worked.
But that doesn't change anything about how horrible the backup plans have been at many (most?) of the places I've worked.
Many businesses have dozens or hundreds of remote offices / branches / stores. If those stores depend on the HQ site to be running (as many or most do), then having a very reliable generator is critical.
Sure, if you lose power for a single site, your customers at that single site will be forgiving and don't expect you to have a generator at every store.
However, if your HQ is in Chicago and loses power for 12 hours from an ice storm, your customers that can't shop at your Palm Beach location are going to be pissed that you are now closed nationwide.
If you're that big, I'd expect you to have multiple data centers distributed geographically. If your data center in Chicago loses power for 12 hours from an ice storm, I'd expect the Palm Beach store to be accessing a data center somewhere else.
Even with generators and whatnot... If there's an ice storm in Chicago you're likely looking at an outage. You'll have lines down, trees falling over, issues with your ISP and whatever else. Just keeping your data center up in the middle of that kind of havoc isn't going to do you much good.
I've been involved in this field for about 15 years. The funniest misconception I've run into, time and time again, is that an unmaintained UPS, unmaintained battery bank, unmaintained transfer switch, and unmaintained generator will somehow act as magical charms so as to be more reliable than the commercial power they are supposedly backing up.
A lot of folks don't really contemplate what a loss of power means to their business.
Some IT journal or salesperson or someone tells them that they need backup power for their servers, so they throw in a pile of batteries or generators or whatever... And when the power goes out they're left in dark cubicles with dead workstations. Or their manufacturing equipment doesn't run, so it doesn't really matter if the computers are up. Or all their internal network equipment is happy, but there's no electricity between them and the ISP - so their Internet is down anyway.
I'll stand behind a few batteries for servers... Enough to keep them running until they can shut down properly... But actually staying up and running while the power is out? From what I've seen that's basically impossible.
How does that work? In a proprietary project if your boss says "do this" you either do it or find another job.
Sure... You're given an assignment and you basically have to do it. But somewhere along the line somebody has to decide what is a priority and what isn't. Somebody decides what actually gets done. And it doesn't really matter if it's a proprietary project or not - stuff slips through the cracks.
You think a company is going to drop everything to refactor some code just because it's getting a little long in the tooth? Even though everything works? You think a company is going to put a whole lot of time and effort into optimizing their code to get the installation down under ## GB, even though HDDs are dirt cheap and the code actually works?
It all comes down to priorities. And important stuff can get a low priority with proprietary code just as easily as open source.
In an open source project you could just flame the hell out of the guy that told you on the public mailing list and carry on working on something else.
You can... And nobody is going to force you to write any code in particular... But the situation is a little unique in open source software... If you are unwilling to update your code, for whatever reason, someone else can. Some other random guy on the mailing list can make the changes. And if you're seen as enough of an obstruction, they'll just fork your code and carry on without you.
And in a proprietary project if customers want something fixed they can threaten to not pay which in even the most incompetent company will tend to make your boss tell you to fix it.
Maybe... It depends on just how badly you need a particular piece of software. I've got clients paying for upgrades and support to buggy software because they can't run their business without it. Year after year, thousands of dollars, and the software still sucks. And they complain about it constantly. But they can't do business without it. So they learn where the bugs are and work around them.
In open source that mechanism does not exist.
No... But in open source you're never tied to a specific vendor. Absolute worst-case scenario you can pay someone to fix those bugs for you.
How does it take 68 people to monitor that few servers, and most of them BLADES?!?
The summary:
The Online Network services group alone has "data centers from Texas to Seoul, and monitor over 13,250 server blades, 75,000 cpu cores, and 112.5 terabytes of blade RAM. [Pearce] points out the picture of the GNOC (Global Network Operations Center) in their slideshow, a data core that even has televisions tuned to the weather stations. They use those to ensure that conditions of the data center are up to their standards; with only a staff of 68 people they ensure connectivity across the globe for the numerous WoW servers."
Is a bit confusing, to say the least. But it sounds like those 68 people are not monitoring a pile of blades in a single location. It sounds like those people are monitoring server scattered across the globe. Further, I doubt if all 68 of them work 24/7 - while the servers will need to be monitored nearly 24/7. So I'd assume there are various shifts through the day/week.
All things considered... 68 people doesn't sound like an absurd number to me.