It has already been revealed he did stuff like that.
But at an agency which is supposed to be secretive and paranoid -- if you have people falling for that, they're really not qualified to be working in that kind of environment.
Every few months my company sends out test emails to check for phishing, people's likelihood to click on spam, or chance of falling for social engineering. If you fail, you get sent to remedial data security training. If you repeatedly fail, they might decide you can't really be trusted around computers.
If the NSA has people who are not aware enough of these things to not do it, then they're doing a piss-poor job of training their people. There really is no excuse for people who have access to Top Secret information falling for this kind of thing -- there should never be a situation in which it makes sense to give your password to IT as far as I'm concerned.
If it actually does come out, I see only two explanations. 1) Nokia is trying to scare MS from sealing the deal. 2) it's a thinly veiled attempt at saying "we tried Android but our customers would not want it". Most likely the former.
Or, now that Elop is gone someone is genuinely trying to make Nokia a profitable and viable company again.
I strongly suspect there's still someone there who gives a damn and can see the situation they're in. And if that someone isn't beholden to Microsoft, they might actually be thinking of what they actually need to be doing instead of blindly going with the interests of Microsoft.
Any corporation contemplating to go bankrupt... I can help you to get there in less time and for 1/10th of the fees that Elop charges. He's kinda slow and overpriced.
Oh, bankrupt is easy... bankrupt and bought by Microsoft takes a little more work and planning.
The massive case of "Not Invented in Redmond" and the ensuing choices were either planned, or he was so lacking in objectivity as to be incompetent.
I think the shareholders of Nokia more or less got robbed, and Elop more or less drove the company into the ground.
But it has lost ground because it was slow to respond to Android's popularity in many countries.
And just how much of this can be laid at the feet of Microsoft?
Because once Stephen Elop got in there, he took what was a profitable company and turned it into a dog by changing their focus.
Microsoft doesn't care about Nokia, they care about having a division which makes Microsoft phones.
That Nokia is now realizing they might need to embrace Android to turn things around means it's going to be interesting to see when Microsoft finishes buying them. Because there's no way Redmond is going to allow them to make phones running anything but Microsoft stuff.
Microsoft has been nothing but bad for the viability of Nokia, and I don't see that changing in the future.
During Elop's tenure, Nokia annual revenues fell 40% from 41.7 Billion Euros per year to 25.3 Billion Euros per year. Nokia profits fell 92% from 2.4 Billion Euros per year to 188 Million Euros per year. Nokia handset sales fell 40% from 456 million units per year to 274 million units per year. Nokia share price which was at 7.12 Euros on the day Elop was hired, had fallen to 81% to a bottom level of 1.44 Euros two years later, after which it began trading at 4.14 Euros, up 36% on the day.
Elop was either grossly incompetent, or was there to lower the price of the company for the take over. Because he sure as hell failed to actually grow the company or do anything good for it.
Americans need to toughen up. Cancelling work and school because of a bit of ice and snow?
Right, because places which have palm trees and warmer climates are entirely prepared for stuff like this.
Hell, I go to Myrtle Beach in the middle of winter to get away from winter here... and I can assure you, snow and ice would happen infrequently enough to cause complete havoc, because it's a place where the golf courses are open year round.
Not so long ago (1999) Toronto called in the army because they had a lot of snow -- if a Canadian city which normally gets winter can be crippled by it, imagine a place where snow and ice is a rare and exceptional event.
Never underestimate just how much of a mess what we call a small amount of snow can cause in a place which doesn't normally have to deal with it.
If you have alligators and palm trees, it doesn't take much to really throw stuff into disarray.
Surely Time Warner understands by now that getting bought in an all stock deal is a stupid friggin' idea.
Because when AOL bought them with over-inflated.com stocks, it was a terrible idea and ended up with a grossly over-valued company with few actual assets owning a company which had both revenues and assets.
I predict that in the long run this will be a terrible idea for both consumers and stockholders.
The agent may be good, competent, smart, but errors still happen.
Error handling is the issue here, not error commission.
And what you do in the face of errors.
And in this case, either the government just assumed they were right and defended it, or they knew damned well they were wrong and hid it.
And, I'm sorry, but to me the entire rest of the handling of it is a fault of commission. By denying her access to the evidence (which was wrong in the first place) they denied her a way to properly fight the allegations and correct the error.
So either institutional incompetence, or institutional malice to keep their secret evidence safe and secure even if it's bullshit and has the effect of ruining people's lives.
As far as I'm concerned, if they weren't blatantly violating people's rights and not giving ample recourse to accusation, they've more or less set themselves up so that even if you aren't a terrorist, it is more convenient to stay the course than to admit error.
This is precisely why having secret courts, laws, and evidence is, and always has been, a terrible idea. Unless you're building your own police state -- and then it's awesome.
But what pissed me off was that a) I was never told that I was on the no-fly list b) Nobody was able to tell me why I ended up on it in the first place c) I had to clear my name to get off the list.
The first rule of the no-fly list is you do NOT talk about the no-fly list.
And the second rule is that since it's secret and arbitrary, you don't have any real recourse -- because as we see in the article, the government will stone-wall you and possibly lie to cover up their own incompetence.
When you have secret evidence someone isn't allowed to see or challenge, this is exactly what you'll get.
Because it become impossible to tell the difference between some malicious person just arbitrarily putting you on the list, and some incompetent idiot who didn't bother checking.
My guess, the government never bothered checking any facts during this process -- they just said it was secret evidence and that they didn't need to explain themselves.
And the government has very little interest in having it come to light that their No Fly List is based on sketchy, unsupported evidence, and that it's full of errors which can't be fixed because they're either lazy, incompetent, or acting in a malicious manner. Because then people would know how lousy of a job they're doing.
Corporations seldom act like communists states because it's the people at the top who get the big money and the perks with little concern for the rest (which is how *all* states end up I guess), though if you mean the Tyranny bit, then maybe.
Essentially rule by the wealthy and powerful over everyone else is what I've seen in most companies.
And, like most despots, usually the people at the top eventually believe their own story, and lose touch with what everyone else is doing -- and then you get your cult of personality.
Getting information from "Open Sources" goes back decades, because if you could read it in the paper, see it on the news, or look out your window... that was an "open source".
Collecting and using publicly available information for intelligence gathering predates your definition of 'open source' -- it was a term used in the second world war.
Sorry, but you're just plain wrong on this one. Long before it defined a software development model, it described means of gathering intelligence.
Corporate lobbying, banks putting profits over security, and a general unwillingness to pass laws putting the onus on the card processors to actually implement any security and be responsible when it goes wrong.
Ah, but if your phone is wrecked and you have to go in to get it fixed, they'll be able to identify if you were one of the people in the demonstration, and therefore be able to prove you were there and charge you.
It's one thing to just shut down all comms, it's another thing to be able to have some persistent evidence you were one of the people who they targeted.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to add another layer of tinfoil to my hat.
This will be both misused by malicious entities, and misused by the malicious entities we call governments.
It seems like every time people try to legislate solutions to these kinds of problems they just create more problems due to their stunning lack of understanding of the technology.
Slashdot Mirror
So this is going to make Nokia doing an Android device even more awkward when Microsoft finishes the purchase.
Because no way in hell Microsoft are going to want that.
And who is ensuring that the companies aren't going to harvest, retain, and ultimately sell all of the data about those kids?
The answer, probably nobody.
It has already been revealed he did stuff like that.
But at an agency which is supposed to be secretive and paranoid -- if you have people falling for that, they're really not qualified to be working in that kind of environment.
Every few months my company sends out test emails to check for phishing, people's likelihood to click on spam, or chance of falling for social engineering. If you fail, you get sent to remedial data security training. If you repeatedly fail, they might decide you can't really be trusted around computers.
If the NSA has people who are not aware enough of these things to not do it, then they're doing a piss-poor job of training their people. There really is no excuse for people who have access to Top Secret information falling for this kind of thing -- there should never be a situation in which it makes sense to give your password to IT as far as I'm concerned.
Or, now that Elop is gone someone is genuinely trying to make Nokia a profitable and viable company again.
I strongly suspect there's still someone there who gives a damn and can see the situation they're in. And if that someone isn't beholden to Microsoft, they might actually be thinking of what they actually need to be doing instead of blindly going with the interests of Microsoft.
Oh, bankrupt is easy ... bankrupt and bought by Microsoft takes a little more work and planning.
The massive case of "Not Invented in Redmond" and the ensuing choices were either planned, or he was so lacking in objectivity as to be incompetent.
I think the shareholders of Nokia more or less got robbed, and Elop more or less drove the company into the ground.
Or Microsoft has shot off all the toes they needed to get what they wanted -- which was an established brand to make Microsoft Phones.
Don't forget, it was Stephen Elop from Microsoft who has more or less ruined the company and dragged down their value by making terrible decisions.
And just how much of this can be laid at the feet of Microsoft?
Because once Stephen Elop got in there, he took what was a profitable company and turned it into a dog by changing their focus.
Microsoft doesn't care about Nokia, they care about having a division which makes Microsoft phones.
That Nokia is now realizing they might need to embrace Android to turn things around means it's going to be interesting to see when Microsoft finishes buying them. Because there's no way Redmond is going to allow them to make phones running anything but Microsoft stuff.
Microsoft has been nothing but bad for the viability of Nokia, and I don't see that changing in the future.
Because, really, these are appalling numbers:
Elop was either grossly incompetent, or was there to lower the price of the company for the take over. Because he sure as hell failed to actually grow the company or do anything good for it.
Right, because places which have palm trees and warmer climates are entirely prepared for stuff like this.
Hell, I go to Myrtle Beach in the middle of winter to get away from winter here ... and I can assure you, snow and ice would happen infrequently enough to cause complete havoc, because it's a place where the golf courses are open year round.
Not so long ago (1999) Toronto called in the army because they had a lot of snow -- if a Canadian city which normally gets winter can be crippled by it, imagine a place where snow and ice is a rare and exceptional event.
Never underestimate just how much of a mess what we call a small amount of snow can cause in a place which doesn't normally have to deal with it.
If you have alligators and palm trees, it doesn't take much to really throw stuff into disarray.
Seriously, don't be a douche.
Ah, but suck is additive ... which means you'll probably end up with an entity which sucks more than either could possibly be on their own.
And, of course, there's no chance in hell that this new entity will just decide to increase rates and win on both ends.
I'm sure they'll be nothing but paragons of looking out for the consumer.
Or, they'll gouge you on both ends and chalk it up to corporate profits.
Surely Time Warner understands by now that getting bought in an all stock deal is a stupid friggin' idea.
Because when AOL bought them with over-inflated .com stocks, it was a terrible idea and ended up with a grossly over-valued company with few actual assets owning a company which had both revenues and assets.
I predict that in the long run this will be a terrible idea for both consumers and stockholders.
And what you do in the face of errors.
And in this case, either the government just assumed they were right and defended it, or they knew damned well they were wrong and hid it.
And, I'm sorry, but to me the entire rest of the handling of it is a fault of commission. By denying her access to the evidence (which was wrong in the first place) they denied her a way to properly fight the allegations and correct the error.
So either institutional incompetence, or institutional malice to keep their secret evidence safe and secure even if it's bullshit and has the effect of ruining people's lives.
As far as I'm concerned, if they weren't blatantly violating people's rights and not giving ample recourse to accusation, they've more or less set themselves up so that even if you aren't a terrorist, it is more convenient to stay the course than to admit error.
This is precisely why having secret courts, laws, and evidence is, and always has been, a terrible idea. Unless you're building your own police state -- and then it's awesome.
The first rule of the no-fly list is you do NOT talk about the no-fly list.
And the second rule is that since it's secret and arbitrary, you don't have any real recourse -- because as we see in the article, the government will stone-wall you and possibly lie to cover up their own incompetence.
When you have secret evidence someone isn't allowed to see or challenge, this is exactly what you'll get.
Because it become impossible to tell the difference between some malicious person just arbitrarily putting you on the list, and some incompetent idiot who didn't bother checking.
My guess, the government never bothered checking any facts during this process -- they just said it was secret evidence and that they didn't need to explain themselves.
And the government has very little interest in having it come to light that their No Fly List is based on sketchy, unsupported evidence, and that it's full of errors which can't be fixed because they're either lazy, incompetent, or acting in a malicious manner. Because then people would know how lousy of a job they're doing.
But when/if they do own it ... you can bet an Android phone is going to be deemed something they don't want to be doing any more.
No, they're Republicans in name too.
They don't have D's next to their name.
I most certainly will not stop trying to build the best damned monkeys this world has ever seen.
They will be able to fling poo with great accuracy across vast distances.
People won't know I've released the monkeys until they get monkey poo in the face and have NO idea of where it came from.
And when not flinging poo from afar, they will entertain me by choreographing monkey dance numbers.
I shall never give up my quest for a better monkey.
Once again, companies try to prevent competition through legislation ... and apparently some lawmakers aren't above giving it to them.
This is just buggy whip makers trying to ensure they still get their cut.
Free market my ass.
Wow, have we given up all semblance of trying to be editors and know the English language? Or are we just throwing words at it?
I can only assume that should say If new wolves do not appear, or all of the current wolves leave
.
Pretty sad, guys.
Well, I would say it's mostly equivalent to Oligarchy or Feudalism.
Corporations seldom act like communists states because it's the people at the top who get the big money and the perks with little concern for the rest (which is how *all* states end up I guess), though if you mean the Tyranny bit, then maybe.
Essentially rule by the wealthy and powerful over everyone else is what I've seen in most companies.
And, like most despots, usually the people at the top eventually believe their own story, and lose touch with what everyone else is doing -- and then you get your cult of personality.
Then, you need to check better.
Getting information from "Open Sources" goes back decades, because if you could read it in the paper, see it on the news, or look out your window ... that was an "open source".
Collecting and using publicly available information for intelligence gathering predates your definition of 'open source' -- it was a term used in the second world war.
Sorry, but you're just plain wrong on this one. Long before it defined a software development model, it described means of gathering intelligence.
Tom Clancy would be proud of that one.
Open Sources to find state secrets is somewhat impressive.
Maybe the NSA just needs to learn how to use Google a little better instead of just spying on all of us.
Corporate lobbying, banks putting profits over security, and a general unwillingness to pass laws putting the onus on the card processors to actually implement any security and be responsible when it goes wrong.
Ah, but if your phone is wrecked and you have to go in to get it fixed, they'll be able to identify if you were one of the people in the demonstration, and therefore be able to prove you were there and charge you.
It's one thing to just shut down all comms, it's another thing to be able to have some persistent evidence you were one of the people who they targeted.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to add another layer of tinfoil to my hat.
*sigh* Yeah, you're probably right.
This will be both misused by malicious entities, and misused by the malicious entities we call governments.
It seems like every time people try to legislate solutions to these kinds of problems they just create more problems due to their stunning lack of understanding of the technology.