#9. Secure your mobile electronic devices and delete sensitive data before crossing a US Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint. Ensure you have stored backup(s) in accessible locations in case your mobile electronics devices are retained by CBP officers for long term close inspection.
I've been renting facility space in a number of data centers over the last fifteen years, including Exodus (remember them?), IBM and Equinix. In particular Equinix facilities have always provided meeting rooms, work areas, (seriously locked-down) access terminals, great bathrooms and showers for visiting techs for at least 5-7 years. OK, the actual cage areas are pretty cold, but that's the nature of the beast -- I wouldn't want my equipment to overheat. Equinix also has tools you can checkout if you forgot yours or were missing something critical, and racks of screws, bolts, optical wipes, common cable adapters, blue Cisco terminal cables... just in case. (Other than paying them for service, not affiliated with or owning stock in Equinix. But perhaps I should have.)
I would always look forward to the free machine hot-chocolate when visiting for work assignments.
How far from March 2011 is it to the Constellation finish line? Do we reach a point where we've invested so much money we might as well finish it? I'm aware of the principle of not overvaluing sunk costs, but geez -- $500mil is a lot of money.
The article says these companies have the ability to decrypted encrypted packets on the fly, and use heuristic algorithms to detect packet delivery patterns that can identify traffic types and vendors. Interesting. What do the VPN vendors say about this? If they are metering based on port numbers, what about port forwarding, ssh tunneling, proxy servers and anonymous port forwarding services -- couldn't these make effective work arounds?
I've also wondered about situations where packets flow through two different companies' pipes on their way to you, and company A charges a surcharge for Google search packets, and company B charges a surcharge for Microsoft Bing search packets.... what happens then?
Why bother trying anything else they offer?
on
Microsoft Kills the Kin
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
IMO Microsoft just made their mobile platform problems worse. They spent all that time, money and effort to roll Kin out, made deals with other companies, blew out a huge advertising campaign, and then waited all of about a nanosecond to kill it.
Every Kin cell phone buyer is now locked into a (usually) 2 year contract to use and pay for a phone with no future. Didn't they do the same thing with OEMs and end-users of their DRM'ed PlaysForSure music?
Why in the world would anyone be stupid enough to skip over all that and buy into Windows 7 Phones? -- Because *this* time they'll get it right and not drop the tech at the first sign of turbulence?
I agree with the parent poster, OS X's parental controls work really well. Unfortunately we have two iMacs with the parental controls enabled, and my boys have learned to swap machines when the time runs out, or switch to the BootCamp Windows partitions to get around the controls. What I really need is an outside (from the iMacs) arbiter running on my house Linux network server to provide those controls so it is cumulative across all the login options. I've tried to set up LDAP on the linux server, but it's still not setup correctly.
Any crackpot organization can submit comments to the USTR, but why does anyone, including the mainstream media, take this seriously anymore when there are so many counter-examples of distinguished groups taking open source seriously? If the federal government "takes this under serious advisement", then maybe the Open Group can irritate Hamilton Beach and Kitchen-Aid by suggesting that toasting bread for breakfast is the equivalent of piracy.
It's entirely possible one of the teeming millions could come up with a solution the program scientists didn't think of, or a novel way to use a known technology in a new way.
I really need any or all of these apps to support hard links or symbolic links/aliases -- I have sometimes 4.. 5.. 6 different files of the same version of a song when it is included in collections, movie soundtracks, etc.
Being able to specify multiple album memberships for the same track is a killer need.
RAID-1 protects against disk failure but not against user error (i.e., accidentally deleting/overwriting). I've been using a single disk with a nightly automatic (cron) rsync to a second disk. Just make sure you copy back the deleted file before the rsync consigns the copy to oblivion.
I'm not sure I get it. Regardless of whatever discount Microsoft will provide, Windows costs more than Linux, needs more hardware resources to run properly, requires more and deeper technical support, is highly susceptible to malware and, for the intended audience (children aged 8-16 in technology-under served poor communities) either overkill or harder to work with in general. It's not just the OS, either. Many of the third-party programming and application tools that come bundled with the Sugar/Linux environment cost more with the Windows OS. The only semi-cogent argument I've heard supporting Windows being deployed in this environment is that the children will somehow be disadvantaged when they grow up and take on jobs that will use Windows. Meanwhile there is every indication that the primary office tasks expected of any information worker (word processing, spreadsheet, Internet browsing and communications) will be migrating to Web-based appliances in the near future, almost certainly by the time the kids are ready to move into those jobs, and further diminishing any value of using Windows as the OS.
To my mind, Windows seems like an expensive and unneeded distraction for these children.
I have an N700 that I bought on Woot -- so I can't offer a fair comment on the N810's price.
I can say this about mine though:
1. It's small enough to fit in my car's glove box (title & registration box...) 2. I can use it to check news, email, SSH into my servers in an emergency... 3. It's quite easy to read web pages on the screen. 4. The on-screen keyboard is relatively easy to use for what it is.
and
5. It's almost perfect for leaving in my car or throwing into my backpack for the times when I *must* get back online, when I don't really want to lug a notebook computer.
Presumably the new model is faster ans more capable, and it supports Flash video, so I'll buy one when the current one finally fails. (So far, it's been pretty rugged.)
Some systems and applications are so mission-critical sensitive that the systems have to be certified in their configurations -- medical systems, traffic control, pharmaceutical manufacturing, banking and financial systems -- too many to be subject to this outrageous behavior.
The most secure setting provided (that I am aware of) is "do not install updates". If a system's certification can be sabotaged by Microsoft covert behavior, who's going to pay when a system fails and the system is demonstrated to have been subverted with tripwire-like checksum failures? Microsoft? The applications vendor?
Since the iPhone is a converged phone, media player, picture viewer, etc... I can easily see many people wanting to use the gadget out of the US for the other purposes without expecting to run up a huge data bill. Otherwise, why would the poster have taken their iPhones with them, but not using them...
This is a serious hole in the procedures that needs to be highlighted far and wide before AT&T and Apple unreasonably extract megabucks.
Why does every technical standards organization plan intensive, complicated and pervasive changes for midnight January 1st, when:
1. There will be no technical support available from vendors until they return from holiday, perhaps days later? 2. No one will be available to test, evaluate and identify distributed service outages, again for days. 3. The poor, maligned and disrespected IT staffs will have to miss the New Year's Eve parties, probably their best/only chance to hit up their drunken office colleagues and have a chance of success. Please, won't anyone think of the geek?
Which is a swell solution until the Swedish authorities tighten the screws by blocking alternate DNS resolution, either blocking out-of-band port 53 access or just blocking the specific IP addresses of known alternate DNS resolvers. Or making it illegal to use non-sanctioned domain name servers. The Internet will route around this, and they will combat it, and the pressure will build. Which is why using technical means to resolve a social problem will always be a stop-gap, flawed and frustrating process.
The classic "I'm not doing anything wrong so I don't have to worry about it" argument's strongest counter is error. You can be pure as the driven snow and still be swept up by mistake, by greedy or incompetent operators cutting corners or hiding other mistakes. Ask many of the current Guantanamo residents or any small child struck by bullets in a drive-by who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As tempting as it might be, you don't want to game the Federal Government. They have a whole bunch of +50 Whoop Your Ass potions and they control the factory.
We should start sending multi-page advertisements with our ISP payments embedded in the middle, to monetize the untapped revenue stream available when the ISPs want to get paid.
That's great, for the recipient ISP. But if you host a legitimate mailing list, and 10% of your destination addresses are to AOL which accepts Goodmail, and 15% are to Hotmail, which requires MicrosoftHappy, and 12% go to GMail, which requires ReallyGoogle, and there are another 15 vendors represented amongst the 30% of smaller ISPs, then how much will it cost to get messages through again?
And what kind of mail transfer infrastructure will be needed to handle all the certification and payments?
Slashdot Mirror
#9. Secure your mobile electronic devices and delete sensitive data before crossing a US Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint. Ensure you have stored backup(s) in accessible locations in case your mobile electronics devices are retained by CBP officers for long term close inspection.
I've been renting facility space in a number of data centers over the last fifteen years, including Exodus (remember them?), IBM and Equinix. In particular Equinix facilities have always provided meeting rooms, work areas, (seriously locked-down) access terminals, great bathrooms and showers for visiting techs for at least 5-7 years. OK, the actual cage areas are pretty cold, but that's the nature of the beast -- I wouldn't want my equipment to overheat. Equinix also has tools you can checkout if you forgot yours or were missing something critical, and racks of screws, bolts, optical wipes, common cable adapters, blue Cisco terminal cables... just in case. (Other than paying them for service, not affiliated with or owning stock in Equinix. But perhaps I should have.)
I would always look forward to the free machine hot-chocolate when visiting for work assignments.
How far from March 2011 is it to the Constellation finish line? Do we reach a point where we've invested so much
money we might as well finish it? I'm aware of the principle of not overvaluing sunk costs, but geez -- $500mil is
a lot of money.
The article says these companies have the ability to decrypted encrypted packets on the fly, and use heuristic algorithms to detect packet
delivery patterns that can identify traffic types and vendors. Interesting. What do the VPN vendors say about this? If they are metering based
on port numbers, what about port forwarding, ssh tunneling, proxy servers and anonymous port forwarding services -- couldn't these make
effective work arounds?
I've also wondered about situations where packets flow through two different companies' pipes on their way to you, and company A charges
a surcharge for Google search packets, and company B charges a surcharge for Microsoft Bing search packets.... what happens then?
IMO Microsoft just made their mobile platform problems worse. They spent all that time, money and effort to roll Kin out,
made deals with other companies, blew out a huge advertising campaign, and then waited all of about a nanosecond to
kill it.
Every Kin cell phone buyer is now locked into a (usually) 2 year contract to use and pay for a phone with no future. Didn't
they do the same thing with OEMs and end-users of their DRM'ed PlaysForSure music?
Why in the world would anyone be stupid enough to skip over all that and buy into Windows 7 Phones? -- Because *this*
time they'll get it right and not drop the tech at the first sign of turbulence?
OK -- so let one child bring in a whole bag of candy and share it. Then place the entire school in lockdown. You can't coddle these... children.
I agree with the parent poster, OS X's parental controls work really well. Unfortunately we have two iMacs with the parental controls enabled, and my boys have learned to swap machines when the time runs out, or switch to the BootCamp Windows partitions to get around the controls. What I really need is an outside (from the iMacs) arbiter running on my house Linux network server to provide those controls so it is cumulative across all the login options. I've tried to set up LDAP on the linux server, but it's still not setup correctly.
Any crackpot organization can submit comments to the USTR, but why does anyone, including the mainstream media, take this seriously anymore when
there are so many counter-examples of distinguished groups taking open source seriously? If the federal government "takes this under serious advisement",
then maybe the Open Group can irritate Hamilton Beach and Kitchen-Aid by suggesting that toasting bread for breakfast is the equivalent of piracy.
There's villainy afoot!
1. We get solar power from human hair.
2. We get lighting from gnashing sugary candy in our teeth.
...
N. Bodies in the Machine's Power Plant.
Beware!
So, did they see the plug?
It's entirely possible one of the teeming millions could come up with a solution the program scientists didn't think of, or a novel way to use a known technology in a new way.
It's just not very likely.
They could practice passing packets using jungle telegraph or the toilets.
I really need any or all of these apps to support hard links or symbolic links/aliases -- I have sometimes 4.. 5.. 6 different files of the same version of a song when it is included in collections, movie soundtracks, etc.
Being able to specify multiple album memberships for the same track is a killer need.
RAID-1 protects against disk failure but not against user error (i.e., accidentally deleting/overwriting). I've been using a single disk with a nightly automatic (cron) rsync to a second disk. Just make sure you copy back the deleted file before the rsync consigns the copy to oblivion.
I'm not sure I get it. Regardless of whatever discount Microsoft will provide, Windows costs more than Linux, needs more hardware resources to run properly, requires more and deeper technical support, is highly susceptible to malware and, for the intended audience (children aged 8-16 in technology-under served poor communities) either overkill or harder to work with in general. It's not just the OS, either. Many of the third-party programming and application tools that come bundled with the Sugar/Linux environment cost more with the Windows OS. The only semi-cogent argument I've heard supporting Windows being deployed in this environment is that the children will somehow be disadvantaged when they grow up and take on jobs that will use Windows. Meanwhile there is every indication that the primary office tasks expected of any information worker (word processing, spreadsheet, Internet browsing and communications) will be migrating to Web-based appliances in the near future, almost certainly by the time the kids are ready to move into those jobs, and further diminishing any value of using Windows as the OS.
To my mind, Windows seems like an expensive and unneeded distraction for these children.
I have an N700 that I bought on Woot -- so I can't offer a fair comment on the N810's price.
I can say this about mine though:
1. It's small enough to fit in my car's glove box (title & registration box...)
2. I can use it to check news, email, SSH into my servers in an emergency...
3. It's quite easy to read web pages on the screen.
4. The on-screen keyboard is relatively easy to use for what it is.
and
5. It's almost perfect for leaving in my car or throwing into my backpack for the times
when I *must* get back online, when I don't really want to lug a notebook computer.
Presumably the new model is faster ans more capable, and it supports Flash video, so I'll buy
one when the current one finally fails. (So far, it's been pretty rugged.)
Some systems and applications are so mission-critical sensitive that the systems have to be certified in their configurations -- medical systems, traffic control, pharmaceutical manufacturing, banking and financial systems -- too many to be subject to this outrageous behavior.
The most secure setting provided (that I am aware of) is "do not install updates". If a system's certification can be sabotaged by Microsoft covert behavior, who's going to pay when a system fails and the system is demonstrated to have been subverted with tripwire-like checksum failures? Microsoft? The applications vendor?
Since the iPhone is a converged phone, media player, picture viewer, etc... I can easily
see many people wanting to use the gadget out of the US for the other purposes without
expecting to run up a huge data bill. Otherwise, why would the poster have taken their iPhones with them, but not using them...
This is a serious hole in the procedures that needs to be highlighted far and wide before AT&T and Apple unreasonably extract megabucks.
Why does every technical standards organization plan intensive, complicated and pervasive changes for midnight January 1st, when:
1. There will be no technical support available from vendors until they return from holiday, perhaps days later?
2. No one will be available to test, evaluate and identify distributed service outages, again for days.
3. The poor, maligned and disrespected IT staffs will have to miss the New Year's Eve parties, probably their best/only chance to hit up their drunken office colleagues and have a chance of success. Please, won't anyone think of the geek?
Which is a swell solution until the Swedish authorities tighten the screws by blocking alternate DNS resolution, either blocking out-of-band port 53 access or just blocking the specific IP addresses of known alternate DNS resolvers. Or making it illegal to use non-sanctioned domain name servers. The Internet will route around this, and they will combat it, and the pressure will build. Which is why using technical means to resolve a social problem will always be a stop-gap, flawed and frustrating process.
The classic "I'm not doing anything wrong so I don't have to worry about it" argument's strongest counter is error. You can be pure as the driven snow and still be swept up by mistake, by greedy or incompetent operators cutting corners or hiding other mistakes. Ask many of the current Guantanamo residents or any small child struck by bullets in a drive-by who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As tempting as it might be, you don't want to game the Federal Government. They have a whole bunch of +50 Whoop Your Ass potions and they control the factory.
We should start sending multi-page advertisements with our ISP payments embedded in the middle, to monetize the untapped revenue stream available when the ISPs want to get paid.
That's great, for the recipient ISP. But if you host a legitimate mailing list, and 10% of your destination addresses are to AOL which accepts Goodmail, and 15% are to Hotmail, which requires MicrosoftHappy, and 12% go to GMail, which requires ReallyGoogle, and there are another 15 vendors represented amongst the 30% of smaller ISPs, then how much will it cost to get messages through again?
And what kind of mail transfer infrastructure will be needed to handle all the certification and payments?