The authorized devices using the network are broadcasting their MAC addresses!!
This so very much reminds me of the well-known 'trick' of cloning a cell phone... sit somewhere where there are LOTS of targets, and just record the ESN/SID (or, in the case of 802.11b, the MAC address), program your own device, and off you go!
I still like the idea of VPN tunneling over the wireless segment. Yes, use the hardware safeguards, but don't trust them. Require SSH2 tunnels, perhaps using PGP-style public/private keysets to make things 'easier.' Of course, this opens up the problem of a stolen laptop compromising the network... but I never said this was a perfect world.
There is this company that used to advertise in Byte magazine: Dolch.
Their focus is on industrial, ruggedized systems -- ones that you could install an oscilloscope PCI card in, for example. Some have 5 1/4" internal bays, and these are usually the ones sporting the ISA/PCI expansion capability, too.
The only thing that stopped me when I used to look at these was the price -- they were twice what other computers of the day were. But that was 6 to 8 years ago.
If you decide to go through the thing page by page, know that some pages are just lists of part numbers (which you appear to be sick of). Download the sections (or the entire thing!) and you'll find mechanical drawings of all the parts with dimensions included.
Good luck -- I have a case I have to convert from AT to ATX power (thankfully, the motherboard isn't changing -- it's one of those dual-power ones). Thus I need to replace the big honkin' power switch on the front with a little momentary that'll connect with the motherboard. Fun, huh? I was worried until I found this place.
I rememeber an article in Discover magazine (online here) that talked about a "Star Machine." It was called "GRAPE," it was for the study of globular clusters, and one of it's iterations was the first teraflop system ever built.
It was used for calculating the gravitational interaction of thousands of bodies -- a very parallel and complex problem. The solution was many custom processors in parallel, and it was so successful (and cheap!) that it outperformed multi-million dollar supercomputers at a fraction of the cost.
The downside was that it was a single-use system -- it could only to the calculation it was hard-wired to do.
Since the site is slammed, I can't see what they're actually doing... but the name is sure close. The FPGA idea is neat, because it would relieve the single-use limitation.
I'm still not holding my breath waiting for one of these to appear under my desk, though...
If your discussion threads are purely professional, you don't need to worry. If you can get your users to do this, please let me know how you did it... you might even get a Nobel Prize for an achievement on that scale.
The liability of discussions groups and archives of such came out quite vividly with Netscape vs. Microsoft vs. The World. There was an internal news server, and two of the groups on that server gained Microsoft's attention: 'Bad Attitude' and 'Really Bad Attitude'. Microsoft subpoenaed the whole thing, and Netscape got a lesson in uniform application of their Document Retention Policy.
Discussion groups meet the legal standard for "written communication" They can be subpoenaed. You can go to jail for contempt of court if you try to refuse.
So...
Make a retention policy and stick to it!
Certain topics/information have statutory retention lengths. Make sure you're legal, and going to keep whatever branch of the government happy (SEC, IRS, FBI, ATF, TLA...)
On the other hand, if there is something ethically questionable or possibly criminal discussed, you can be held liable for destruction of evidence if you know the contents, and then erase the messages. If the CEO comes down and says "Erase everything in company.financial.off_shore_bank.secret_accounts",don't read it first.
Similarly, be mindful of what's on your backup tapes, and where they are. If there is confidential intellectual property discussed, take the extra steps to safeguard it.
I can find 3Com 3c589c ethernet cards on Pricewatch's 'Not Exactly New' section for ~$30. (That includes a dongle)
The newer 3c589d versions (which I use around the house -- I even have spares for laptop-owning friends!) are even less expensive. $18 from a place in Texas. Again, these include dongles -- an important distinction, as you can get bare cards for about $12. (But not, apparently, from places listed with Pricewatch)
Pricewatch can be a pain with all the frames, so...
You should be looking at what I saw -- or hopefully something even better.
This being said, I find the laptop solution to a firewall to be ideal. I have a P233 ThinkPad that OpenBSD 2.8 installed on flawlessly, and the two previously mentioned PC Cards work with equal ease. Should I need a LAN elsewhere (where there is no cable modem or xDSL), all I need do is swap the lower ethernet card for a modem. The system runs IPF in stateful mode, DHCP server on ep1 (internal interface) only (of course), no X, and SSH allowing internal (listen address 10.0.0.1) access only.
It makes for quite an impressive tool -- it's interesting to see all the scans that get/dev/null-ed, too. That, and all the ICMP from caida.org.
The final thing -- it's silent, or nearly so. My previous firewall box was a P-100 with fans and noisy hard drives. It wasn't welcome in the living room where the cable comes into the house. I don't even notice the laptop, and it fits just like a book in the bookcase. Convenient! Add a small hub, or a 10/100 switch, and your private LAN party has internet access!
I've seen several cases where the security provided with 802.11b was not considered adequate.
The solution was to configure the network in such a way that access to the corporate LAN was impossible, unless
You authenticated with a VPN server, and tunneled your LAN connection over that -- in addition to the security already provided by the hardware
OR
You used SSH to tunnel (again to a gatekeeper/firewall machine), and then again to tunnel your X session over.
I know it's a lot, and it's not the easiest thing to just set up. Hardware is something you can plug in and have running 5 minutes later -- this takes a lot more work.
Remember that it's worth it -- you're already doing this, it needs to have the level of security the company is comfortable with. If you drive the project underground, you won't know what's going on, what hardware is being used -- or even by who.
Don't let your PHB be scared away by the fact that the hardware is not as secure as he'd like. You have options to make it more secure, and these options have already been enough to placate other PHBs.
You can do this. Yes, you can make a wireless connection secure enough -- unless you're doing something to piss off the NSA. If you're up against an adversary like that, my money's on them.
Selective Availability (SA) has been turned off. You don't need the software controlling the satelites to get max accuracy out of them, it's already there.
For those that don't know, SA is a set of two different time signals broadcast by the satelites. The military time signal is pure, but the civilian one had some noise injected into it to degrade the accuracy. Now that the signal degradation is no longer being done, your commercial receiver is just as accurate as the military versions.
Khadaffi | Saddam | Osama Bin Laden | Joe Militia just needs a unit from Garmin | Magellan | Trimble, and they can pick off anything in range. This has been the case for quite a while, as even with SA in use, the accuracy was about 100 FT. A good large bomb/missile has a blast radius larger than that.
Wear faraday cage clothes. Make sure all the pieces are connected, and there's a good ground. Metal soles on your shoes, or perhaps just some good contacts. If the energy can't penetrate your clothes, it can't burn you.
This just might bring back chain mail. Just think -- all those SCA people have something. Perhaps we'll see more people making their own metal clothes?
Or, to save yourself the trouble... don't be a troublemaker. Consume. Obey. Conform.
Jamie Zawinski (AKA jwz, famous for the camouflage netting tent at Netscape and the DNA Lounge nightclub) put together something like this when he was frustrated by vgetty.
Not something straight forward and stand alone, his solution covers everything from determining whether or not the phone will ring to pulling up information on the caller -- similar to what William Calvin describes.
It listens to the com port of a standard voice modem for Caller-ID info
Based on the Caller-ID (and its' entry in the database) it determines what action to take
Time-of-day and screensaver aware -- if you're asleep (and your computer is too), the phone doesn't ring.
Now, I don't see the recording part that you need here. As far as I can tell, this is a 'ring the phone only for people I care about, and then only when I'm awake' kind of thing.
The code for all this is available, perhaps it will help push things in the right direction.
I know it's an incomplete solution... but it might help in building something that will do what you want. I really like the idea of a MAPS/ORBS style telemarketer list so you can forward them to/dev/null. Too bad they program their PBXs to give out the "Out of Area" code.
I have a stack of 'em on my bookcase. About 6 months ago, I went into a Borders' bookstore and asked them if there existed any volumes I didn't have. Their response: "Bloom what? Who's Berke Breathed?"
Damn. Kids these days.
I was watching Scott Kurtz's birthday wishlist, just waiting for this one item to happen. He has quite a few really cool ideas on that list -- I hope someone that knows George Lucas can come through for him.
As for me, I take comfort in my laserdisc copy of A Wish for Wings that Work, and (of course) a working laserdisc player.
Something about this site bothers me. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but there are the tell-tales of something not quite right.
Elementary web design (not that it's a crime.)
Website hosted through an ISP account
Owner of the account is listed as (finger hdtv@oro.net)
Login: hdtv
Name: Richard Adams
Directory:/home/hdtv
Shell:/bin/bash
Last login Sun Feb 4 12:36 (PST) on pts/5 from DX2-66.happypcs.oro.net
No mail.
No Plan.
Domain referred to (169time.com) brings an 'Unable to locate server' error, though it is registered to one Ambir Adams
Domain registration lists an address of
11969 Mathis Way
Grass Valley, CA 95949
But mail orders are going to
12001 Mathis Way
Grass Valley, CA 95949
Online orders only through PayPal?
No pictures of the device.
Damn, this is a cool idea. I really wish this were true... but it screams "HOAX!!" even harder than the Seti@Home accelerator we saw a while back.
I pity the person who's going to have to pay the ISP bill when their website over-runs their allowed transfers for the month...
I remember, years ago, during the (seeming) height of the US military's interest in rail guns (and Popular Science, etc., etc...) a small group of college students with a more efficient answer...
it was a COIL Gun.
Really the same basic idea as a rail gun, but they 'wrapped' the rails around the payload to get more efficient use of the electromotive force -- more 'bang for your watt,' so to speak.
That, and it looked more like a gun barrel. It was so much cooler looking!
Google turns up some interesting things, from someone trying to sell handheld weapon plans, to science-museum, brick-destroying, 900 foot-per-second Coaxial Electromagnetic Mass Accelerators. The second one is rather small, too -- something like that should scale up without too much trouble...
God, that looks like fun. This brings back that feeling I had 10 years ago when I really wanted to build one of these things. Maybe now I'll pull my head out of the computer long enough...
Here's how to counter facial recognition (or most any other biometric tech, for that matter)...
GET CLONED.
Then make it well known that there are more than one of you running around. (Most helpful if this is done right at the time of your birth, so have someone plan ahead.) This way, all of you are approximately the same age -- that'll make it harder for The Man to get you Down.
The problem is that this assumes at least one of the yous is destined for a life of crime -- that, or you all are... each providing an alibi for the other.
When I lived in Connecticut I had @Home using a LanCity device -- 10 Mbit symmetric. It was unrestricted . When I ordered the service, @Home told me I would be getting "...about 1 Mbit/second upload and between 3 and 5 Mbit/second download..." Within the system, this was generally true. I could FTP files back and forth with another fellow on the cablemodem at 400 KiloBYTES a second. Incredible for $40/month.
However, the problem came when we tried to access any resource outside @Home's wires. In Connecticut, they hadn't installed enough connectivity to serve the number of users that they'd signed up. Another fellow started the CT@Home Users' Group, and we squeaked until the grease came in the form of another T3.
The upload cap isn't to preserve capacity. It's to make it unusable for commercial purposes. @Home techs told me many times that people were using the service to host their little website business or ISP. So, instead of kicking them off and losing their revenue, they just put a cap in place. The people who weren't "abusing" it weren't supposed to notice. (Too bad if they did.)
There is so much bandwidth available in a modern cable plant it's not funny. My current provider (Comcast in South Carolina) would absolutely love to make paying use of all their capacity, but there's these damn people that insist on not signing up for this wonderful digital-cable thing. The cretins. That means they have to double up on a lot of TV channels, when each channel is actually capable of over 60 MBit/second.
Yes, cheap cablemodems will likely have issues. A good device (like a Cisco) will handle it just fine, you get what you pay for. I just want @Home to actually deliver the service they teased us with -- @Home Pro:
Host your own domain!
Servers are okay!
REALLY! It's not vapor! (Yeah, right.)
The original point of all this was to say "Peer with Cogent, plug into their fiber, and solve the capacity issues." There's enough capacity there to make a 1 MBit cap feasible. Heck, I'd spring for a Cogent connection myself -- and damn the cablemodem!
Get @Home to plug into this, and then they can lift that @#^$ upload cap!!
Okay, I know there are better uses for bandwidth like this, but there are times when @Home really gets on my nerves -- like last night!
With all the incredible potential of the internet, using @Home is like trying to have a conversation with duct tape over your mouth... the only thing they want you to do is listen. God forbid you might actually have something to say.
(For the curious, @Home's webspace runs off Apache, and what feels like a 33.6 modem! That's what has me ticked.)
Okay, I'm not the first -- the AC got to it first, and quite correctly.
Still...
I saw the BlueManGroup in Boston a couple years back, the show was called "Tubes." It's still running. (It's no 'Cats', but this isn't Broadway, either!) If you've ever had fun whonking on a piece of PVC pipe for the noise it makes, these people are for you!
There's an article that appeared on CNN recently -- with some video
ESPN's 'extreme' site EXPN hosts some realmedia clips of them performing (I recommend the Cap'n Crunch clip, it's good for a laugh.)
There are 3 intel PIII commercials so far... you can get them here.
That ought to satisfy a minor craving... Damn I want to go see them again! (And remember, they're like Gallagher in some ways. If you have seats in the front rows, bring plastic.)
Know what? After thinking about it while writing this, I think taking on the 'Idea Box' would be right up their alley! Celebrity Death Match anyone?
As manufacturers have become more sophisticated, the energy levels of the x-ray machines have dropped. If fact, it's more of a fluoroscope than a 'real' x-ray machine -- the difference is that photographic plate x-rays require higher energy levels than video fluoroscopy.
However, recent events and paranoia about airline safety have seen new x-ray devices introduced which can image soft materials like plastic explosives and other things that would not have shown up with a 'conventional' machine. These devices (synthetic aperature x-rays, IIRC?) use a signifigantly higher energy level, and have been proven to fog film. (Remember how the security people will swear up and down that their machine is safe for film? No more!)
The worst part of it all is, for 'security reasons,' they (most often) won't tell you if they even have one of these higher-energy machines, never mind whether or not you just put your film (or your laptop) on one!
I guess the moral of the story is 'insist on hand-inspection for film and laptops.'
Gotta love that security paranoia. What are they expecting? That you're going to go down the hall, plug your super-whizz-bang-space-captain laptop into their PA system and hack the x-ray machine? Well... I've seen some airport security types that would believe that one...
When Exchange is installed, there's the location for the program itself, a location for the database, and a location for the temporary files (the log files). Each of these can be in a separate location.
These log files are where things are stored before they are committed to the permanent database, and they go away when the Exchange Agent is notified of a successful system backup. (Follow all that? Lots of pieces have to work together here...)
Now, if something (like a locked file) prevents your backup from completing fully (or it even reports the right (wrong?) errors...) Exchange will just leave those log files there. They pile up at a steady rate -- I saw 20 MB/day for a ~40 person college department.
Now, here's the kicker: When the drive where the log files are stored gets to the point where there is less than 10 MB available, Exchange is hard-wired to crash! There's nothing you can do about it, your only option is to free up more space.
Now, I understand that you're in a much larger situation than this. However, in this instance, I was dealing with about 60 GB of total drive space for the Exchange machine. There were users that had 500 MB email files, and they just had to have all their data available to them wherever they logged on!! (Sheesh.) They hadn't had a successful backup in 2 months, and called my company when the email was 'broken.' Fun.
Still, if it isn't your server to administer, and you end up with a Minesweeper Certified & Solitaire Expert (MC&SE) type running things... you can expect reboots about every 4 days, and panic backups about every 2 weeks.
Also, Exchange depends on about a half-dozen different services being turned on and running. Most should start at boot, but don't bet on it. There could be some reason one doesn't start (couldn't lock a file, or some silliness...), and then: No email!
Running an Exchange Server is a full-time job, especially for 1000 people.
<sarcasm> Remember it's
GroupWare not just email! </sarcasm>
I'd wager that your current system allows you more flexibility, keeps your users happier, and costs you less manpower than Exchange will.
Why not set up a sheet-fed scanner with a black background and then run the cards through it. (Since they're old, and library materials, see if you can find one with a mostly straight feed path...)
Then a custom app (of your own -- or a willing CS major's -- design) can look for the presence or absence of contrast in specific locations. Punch cards have registration marks, so exact positioning on the scanner is not terribly an issue. Then you have the data in a machine-readable format, and conversion to something you can use should be the downhill stretch.
Just an idea, sorry I can't help with an implementation... I hope this gives you some inspiration.
Slashdot Mirror
The authorized devices using the network are broadcasting their MAC addresses!!
This so very much reminds me of the well-known 'trick' of cloning a cell phone... sit somewhere where there are LOTS of targets, and just record the ESN/SID (or, in the case of 802.11b, the MAC address), program your own device, and off you go!
I still like the idea of VPN tunneling over the wireless segment. Yes, use the hardware safeguards, but don't trust them. Require SSH2 tunnels, perhaps using PGP-style public/private keysets to make things 'easier.' Of course, this opens up the problem of a stolen laptop compromising the network... but I never said this was a perfect world.
Their focus is on industrial, ruggedized systems -- ones that you could install an oscilloscope PCI card in, for example. Some have 5 1/4" internal bays, and these are usually the ones sporting the ISA/PCI expansion capability, too.
- The "FlexPAC" offers PIII processors
- The "TransPAC" is their PC-104 offering
- And the "MegaPAC" reminds me of the old Osborne lugable (just with modern innards).
- Portables product page.
The only thing that stopped me when I used to look at these was the price -- they were twice what other computers of the day were. But that was 6 to 8 years ago.All of these sport (of course) integrated keyboards , trackpoint mice, and LCD panels.
Of course, you could just look at their
Happy hunting!
Their catalog is browsable based on categories, from product to manufacturer, and online in Acrobat format:
- Individual catalog sections
- Switches section of the catalog (bottom of the page)
- Entire 698 page catalog (This is a link to the actual
.PDF (28 MB!) catalog)
If you decide to go through the thing page by page, know that some pages are just lists of part numbers (which you appear to be sick of). Download the sections (or the entire thing!) and you'll find mechanical drawings of all the parts with dimensions included.Good luck -- I have a case I have to convert from AT to ATX power (thankfully, the motherboard isn't changing -- it's one of those dual-power ones). Thus I need to replace the big honkin' power switch on the front with a little momentary that'll connect with the motherboard. Fun, huh? I was worried until I found this place.
It was used for calculating the gravitational interaction of thousands of bodies -- a very parallel and complex problem. The solution was many custom processors in parallel, and it was so successful (and cheap!) that it outperformed multi-million dollar supercomputers at a fraction of the cost.
The downside was that it was a single-use system -- it could only to the calculation it was hard-wired to do.
Since the site is slammed, I can't see what they're actually doing... but the name is sure close. The FPGA idea is neat, because it would relieve the single-use limitation.
I'm still not holding my breath waiting for one of these to appear under my desk, though...
There are high-resolutions of the second generation device at http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/graphics/library/screens hot/0103ibm/linuxwatch.html?chkpt=0103ibm. (This time, no flash ads.)
I really like that clock face -- anyone know the name of the program?
The liability of discussions groups and archives of such came out quite vividly with Netscape vs. Microsoft vs. The World. There was an internal news server, and two of the groups on that server gained Microsoft's attention: 'Bad Attitude' and 'Really Bad Attitude'. Microsoft subpoenaed the whole thing, and Netscape got a lesson in uniform application of their Document Retention Policy.
- (Jamie Zawinski's
- account of the fiasco)
The basic point here is...So...
Last thing,
Well, that's my two cents. Good luck!
The newer 3c589d versions (which I use around the house -- I even have spares for laptop-owning friends!) are even less expensive. $18 from a place in Texas. Again, these include dongles -- an important distinction, as you can get bare cards for about $12. (But not, apparently, from places listed with Pricewatch)
Pricewatch can be a pain with all the frames, so...
- This is the search I ran
You should be looking at what I saw -- or hopefully something even better.This being said, I find the laptop solution to a firewall to be ideal. I have a P233 ThinkPad that OpenBSD 2.8 installed on flawlessly, and the two previously mentioned PC Cards work with equal ease. Should I need a LAN elsewhere (where there is no cable modem or xDSL), all I need do is swap the lower ethernet card for a modem. The system runs IPF in stateful mode, DHCP server on ep1 (internal interface) only (of course), no X, and SSH allowing internal (listen address 10.0.0.1) access only.
It makes for quite an impressive tool -- it's interesting to see all the scans that get /dev/null-ed, too. That, and all the ICMP from caida.org.
The final thing -- it's silent, or nearly so. My previous firewall box was a P-100 with fans and noisy hard drives. It wasn't welcome in the living room where the cable comes into the house. I don't even notice the laptop, and it fits just like a book in the bookcase. Convenient! Add a small hub, or a 10/100 switch, and your private LAN party has internet access!
The solution was to configure the network in such a way that access to the corporate LAN was impossible, unless
- You authenticated with a VPN server, and tunneled your LAN connection over that -- in addition to the security already provided by the hardware
- You used SSH to tunnel (again to a gatekeeper/firewall machine), and then again to tunnel your X session over.
I know it's a lot, and it's not the easiest thing to just set up. Hardware is something you can plug in and have running 5 minutes later -- this takes a lot more work.OR
Remember that it's worth it -- you're already doing this, it needs to have the level of security the company is comfortable with. If you drive the project underground, you won't know what's going on, what hardware is being used -- or even by who.
Don't let your PHB be scared away by the fact that the hardware is not as secure as he'd like. You have options to make it more secure, and these options have already been enough to placate other PHBs.
You can do this. Yes, you can make a wireless connection secure enough -- unless you're doing something to piss off the NSA. If you're up against an adversary like that, my money's on them.
Just trying to keep things in perspective.
For those that don't know, SA is a set of two different time signals broadcast by the satelites. The military time signal is pure, but the civilian one had some noise injected into it to degrade the accuracy. Now that the signal degradation is no longer being done, your commercial receiver is just as accurate as the military versions.
Khadaffi | Saddam | Osama Bin Laden | Joe Militia just needs a unit from Garmin | Magellan | Trimble, and they can pick off anything in range. This has been the case for quite a while, as even with SA in use, the accuracy was about 100 FT. A good large bomb/missile has a blast radius larger than that.
This just might bring back chain mail. Just think -- all those SCA people have something. Perhaps we'll see more people making their own metal clothes?
Or, to save yourself the trouble... don't be a troublemaker. Consume. Obey. Conform.
Yeah, right.
Not something straight forward and stand alone, his solution covers everything from determining whether or not the phone will ring to pulling up information on the caller -- similar to what William Calvin describes.
- It listens to the com port of a standard voice modem for Caller-ID info
- Based on the Caller-ID (and its' entry in the database) it determines what action to take
- Time-of-day and screensaver aware -- if you're asleep (and your computer is too), the phone doesn't ring.
Now, I don't see the recording part that you need here. As far as I can tell, this is a 'ring the phone only for people I care about, and then only when I'm awake' kind of thing.The code for all this is available, perhaps it will help push things in the right direction.
- Program Description: Caller ID Hack (Overview)
- Database Program: The Insidious Big Brother Database
- CODE: Modem control & database interface
- CODE: Phone-ring-sound script (Parts are specific to SGI)
- CODE: Laptop-Home call notification
I know it's an incomplete solution... but it might help in building something that will do what you want. I really like the idea of a MAPS/ORBS style telemarketer list so you can forward them to- "Classics of Western Literature"
I have a stack of 'em on my bookcase. About 6 months ago, I went into a Borders' bookstore and asked them if there existed any volumes I didn't have. Their response: "Bloom what? Who's Berke Breathed?"Damn. Kids these days.
I was watching Scott Kurtz's birthday wishlist, just waiting for this one item to happen. He has quite a few really cool ideas on that list -- I hope someone that knows George Lucas can come through for him.
As for me, I take comfort in my laserdisc copy of A Wish for Wings that Work, and (of course) a working laserdisc player.
All hail Bill! (Ack! Thppt!)
Login: hdtv
Name: Richard Adams
Directory:
Shell:
Last login Sun Feb 4 12:36 (PST) on pts/5 from DX2-66.happypcs.oro.net
No mail.
No Plan.
Domain referred to (169time.com) brings an 'Unable to locate server' error, though it is registered to one Ambir Adams
11969 Mathis Way
Grass Valley, CA 95949
12001 Mathis Way
Grass Valley, CA 95949
Online orders only through PayPal?
No pictures of the device. Damn, this is a cool idea. I really wish this were true... but it screams " HOAX!! " even harder than the Seti@Home accelerator we saw a while back.
I pity the person who's going to have to pay the ISP bill when their website over-runs their allowed transfers for the month...
- it was a COIL Gun.
Really the same basic idea as a rail gun, but they 'wrapped' the rails around the payload to get more efficient use of the electromotive force -- more 'bang for your watt,' so to speak.That, and it looked more like a gun barrel. It was so much cooler looking!
Google turns up some interesting things, from someone trying to sell handheld weapon plans, to science-museum, brick-destroying, 900 foot-per-second Coaxial Electromagnetic Mass Accelerators. The second one is rather small, too -- something like that should scale up without too much trouble...
God, that looks like fun. This brings back that feeling I had 10 years ago when I really wanted to build one of these things. Maybe now I'll pull my head out of the computer long enough...
Oh, wait. Jet boat first.
- GET CLONED.
Then make it well known that there are more than one of you running around. (Most helpful if this is done right at the time of your birth, so have someone plan ahead.) This way, all of you are approximately the same age -- that'll make it harder for The Man to get you Down.The problem is that this assumes at least one of the yous is destined for a life of crime -- that, or you all are... each providing an alibi for the other.
Ah, but isn't this science stuff fun?
Good.
'Secure by default' should be the norm, not the exception.
However, the problem came when we tried to access any resource outside @Home's wires. In Connecticut, they hadn't installed enough connectivity to serve the number of users that they'd signed up. Another fellow started the CT@Home Users' Group, and we squeaked until the grease came in the form of another T3.
The upload cap isn't to preserve capacity. It's to make it unusable for commercial purposes. @Home techs told me many times that people were using the service to host their little website business or ISP. So, instead of kicking them off and losing their revenue, they just put a cap in place. The people who weren't "abusing" it weren't supposed to notice. (Too bad if they did.)
There is so much bandwidth available in a modern cable plant it's not funny. My current provider (Comcast in South Carolina) would absolutely love to make paying use of all their capacity, but there's these damn people that insist on not signing up for this wonderful digital-cable thing. The cretins. That means they have to double up on a lot of TV channels, when each channel is actually capable of over 60 MBit/second.
Yes, cheap cablemodems will likely have issues. A good device (like a Cisco) will handle it just fine, you get what you pay for. I just want @Home to actually deliver the service they teased us with -- @Home Pro:
- Host your own domain!
- Servers are okay!
- REALLY! It's not vapor! (Yeah, right.)
The original point of all this was to say "Peer with Cogent, plug into their fiber, and solve the capacity issues." There's enough capacity there to make a 1 MBit cap feasible. Heck, I'd spring for a Cogent connection myself -- and damn the cablemodem!Okay, I know there are better uses for bandwidth like this, but there are times when @Home really gets on my nerves -- like last night!
With all the incredible potential of the internet, using @Home is like trying to have a conversation with duct tape over your mouth... the only thing they want you to do is listen. God forbid you might actually have something to say.
(For the curious, @Home's webspace runs off Apache, and what feels like a 33.6 modem! That's what has me ticked.)
Still...
I saw the BlueManGroup in Boston a couple years back, the show was called "Tubes." It's still running. (It's no 'Cats', but this isn't Broadway, either!) If you've ever had fun whonking on a piece of PVC pipe for the noise it makes, these people are for you!
- Their website is at www.blueman.com
- You can hear demos of their custom-made (or custom-used...) instruments from their site
- They've just released a CD titled "AUDIO"
- They have regular performances in New York, Boston, Chicago and Las Vegas
- There's an article that appeared on CNN recently -- with some video
- ESPN's 'extreme' site EXPN hosts some realmedia clips of them performing (I recommend the Cap'n Crunch clip, it's good for a laugh.)
- There are 3 intel PIII commercials so far... you can get them here.
That ought to satisfy a minor craving... Damn I want to go see them again! (And remember, they're like Gallagher in some ways. If you have seats in the front rows, bring plastic.)Know what? After thinking about it while writing this, I think taking on the 'Idea Box' would be right up their alley! Celebrity Death Match anyone?
However, recent events and paranoia about airline safety have seen new x-ray devices introduced which can image soft materials like plastic explosives and other things that would not have shown up with a 'conventional' machine. These devices (synthetic aperature x-rays, IIRC?) use a signifigantly higher energy level, and have been proven to fog film. (Remember how the security people will swear up and down that their machine is safe for film? No more!)
The worst part of it all is, for 'security reasons,' they (most often) won't tell you if they even have one of these higher-energy machines, never mind whether or not you just put your film (or your laptop) on one!
I guess the moral of the story is 'insist on hand-inspection for film and laptops.'
Gotta love that security paranoia. What are they expecting? That you're going to go down the hall, plug your super-whizz-bang-space-captain laptop into their PA system and hack the x-ray machine? Well... I've seen some airport security types that would believe that one...
There's also a lot of other hardware listed here. Look under "hardware" and "other".
A short list:
- Elevators (get to your floor in express mode!)
- Libertel MN-2 phone (tetris)
- HP ScanJets (music, among other things)
- HP Oscilloscope (credits & games)
- Canon Printers (music)
- LG televisions (tetris)
Look at the site for the complete list, it's not terribly long (but it is fun!)These log files are where things are stored before they are committed to the permanent database, and they go away when the Exchange Agent is notified of a successful system backup. (Follow all that? Lots of pieces have to work together here...)
Now, if something (like a locked file) prevents your backup from completing fully (or it even reports the right (wrong?) errors...) Exchange will just leave those log files there. They pile up at a steady rate -- I saw 20 MB/day for a ~40 person college department.
Now, here's the kicker: When the drive where the log files are stored gets to the point where there is less than 10 MB available, Exchange is hard-wired to crash! There's nothing you can do about it, your only option is to free up more space.
Now, I understand that you're in a much larger situation than this. However, in this instance, I was dealing with about 60 GB of total drive space for the Exchange machine. There were users that had 500 MB email files, and they just had to have all their data available to them wherever they logged on!! (Sheesh.) They hadn't had a successful backup in 2 months, and called my company when the email was 'broken.' Fun.
Still, if it isn't your server to administer, and you end up with a Minesweeper Certified & Solitaire Expert (MC&SE) type running things... you can expect reboots about every 4 days, and panic backups about every 2 weeks.
Also, Exchange depends on about a half-dozen different services being turned on and running. Most should start at boot, but don't bet on it. There could be some reason one doesn't start (couldn't lock a file, or some silliness...), and then: No email!
Running an Exchange Server is a full-time job, especially for 1000 people.
- <sarcasm> Remember it's
- GroupWare not just email! </sarcasm>
I'd wager that your current system allows you more flexibility, keeps your users happier, and costs you less manpower than Exchange will.Good luck.
Specifically, in " Where's the IT angle? We never were any good at geometry... "posted there 15 November 2000 at 10:42am. (Go there if you want to see the whole thing -- this is just over half!)
On the other hand, it's good to see that other slashdotters read The Register...
(Just a plea from someone who still enjoys some older games, and doesn't have (or want) a Voodoo card.)
Then a custom app (of your own -- or a willing CS major's -- design) can look for the presence or absence of contrast in specific locations. Punch cards have registration marks, so exact positioning on the scanner is not terribly an issue. Then you have the data in a machine-readable format, and conversion to something you can use should be the downhill stretch.
Just an idea, sorry I can't help with an implementation... I hope this gives you some inspiration.