Ask Google "define:fraudulent conveyance" this is what you get
# A transfer of property intended to place assets out of reach of rightful creditors. www.compassincorporated.com/definitions.htm
# The illegal transfer of property or assets, the intention of which is to defraud creditors or to avoid payment of an obligation. www.alqlist.com/glossary.html
# the transfer of valuable assets from a company which i) occurs when the company is technically insolvent, ii) renders the company insolvent, or iii) is made for less than adequate consideration. The spate of leveraged buyouts and other highly leveraged transactions in the 1980s has spurred a number of fraudulent conveyance allegations in recent years. www.rightwayunlimited.com/Bankruptcy-Divorce/Bankr uptcy-Term-Glossary.php
# The transfer of property for less than reasonably equivalent value. The bankruptcy court can set aside a fraudulent conveyance. www.coenlaw.com/bankterms2.html
Hmm... Seems like somebody thought this scheme up before you did! Imagine that.
I do think that some massive corporate and political reform are necessary, but I don't agree with removing for-profit corporations. I think that probably all the same ends can be acheived if personal liability (economically, criminally) was re-introduced into corporate ownership, but letting them strive for the efficiencies of a for-profit company which benefits us all.
Ummm... Getting rid of limited liability would most definitely qualify as "massive corporate... reform." If not limited personal liability, what reason do you see for organizing a business as a corporation?
While censorship is bad, it is certainly not why people are concerned with ICANN.
ICANN is making policy decisions (such as which gTLDs to add to the roots and resolution of disputes over domain names) when its authority to make these decisions is murky at best. It has made policy decisions, such as ceding control of.com/.net to Verisign, which have led to unnecessary monopoly situations, and resulting inflated prices. The decisions on gTLDs to add to the root were driven primarily by domestic politics, rather than legitimate technical and governance concerns. These policy decisions affect Internet users around the world. ICANN is answerable to none of these users. ICANN is only effectively answerable to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As such, it makes it decisions in the interests of the DoC, which are not necessarily aligned with the interests of the user community.
[A]s the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective
You know who wrote that? Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn. If anybody's qualified to talk about Gore's contribution to the early days of the 'Net, it's those two.
Original Document Look, in the early '90s, 6 years before Slashdot, when there were less than a 1/4 million hosts on the 'Net, Gore introduced the Act that would ultimately fund the development of Mosaic. In the '70s, Gore was pushing support for networks, when nobody was talking network. Through the '80s, he pushed for consolidation of disparate government networks.
In the '90s, he drove the Clinton administration's focus on the 'Net. Was that administration perfect on technical issues? Far from it. But Gore was generally a positive force. He pushed against the CDA (which was getting rammed down the admin's throat riding on the Telecommunications Act). He was wrong on key escrow, but he pushed back on Clipper.
The Internet was not built exclusively on protocols and software. It required funding and political support. Gore has been a net positive force for us. Nobody is going to take us seriously and stand up for the issues that are important to us if we eventually go after everybody who does just that.
"The states that have already talked about signing on are big states: California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri."
Only CO and MO from that list went to Bush in 2000. Their 19 EV's would, however, have swung the election toward the popular vote winner.
Incidentally, this collection of states would also have swung the elections of 1888 and 1876 to the Democratic candidate, who had a plurality of the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. Depending on the interpretation of Alabama's votes, this collection of states could also have swung the 1960 election to Nixon.
More analagous: Is it fair to charge people more for dry cleaning, AND charge the clothing manufacturer as well, to clean clothes that you did not manufacture?
Fine. Then charge Joe down the street for the increased bandwidth he consumes. Don't try to extort money from a third party (youtube) with whom you have no direct business relationship. Look. The ISP has already been compensated on both sides for the traffic being carried. If they feel that that compensation is not sufficient, then they need to renegotiate with one of the entities with which they actually have a business relationship (either the customer - "Joe down the street" or their peering partner that delivers the traffic from youtube).
New York State Consolidated Laws TITLE J OFFENSES INVOLVING THEFT ARTICLE 155 LARCENY... S 155.00 Larceny; definitions of terms.
The following definitions are applicable to this title:...
7-c. "Access device" means any telephone calling card number, credit card number, account number, mobile identification number, electronic serial number or personal identification number that can be used to obtain telephone service.... S 155.05 Larceny; defined.
1. A person steals property and commits larceny when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property from an owner thereof.
2. Larceny includes a wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of another`s property, with the intent prescribed in subdivision one of this section, committed in any of the following ways:...
(b) By acquiring lost property.
A person acquires lost property when he exercises control over property of another which he knows to have been lost or mislaid, or to have been delivered under a mistake as to the identity of the recipient or the nature or amount of the property, without taking reasonable measures to return such property to the owner;... S 155.30 Grand larceny in the fourth degree.
A person is guilty of grand larceny in the fourth degree when he steals property and when:
1. The value of the property exceeds one thousand dollars; or...
10. The property consists of an access device which the person intends to use unlawfully to obtain telephone service.
Grand larceny in the fourth degree is a class E felony.
Yeah, but they don't have the capital to run the connection to the last mile. This is not about control of backbones. This is all about the copper into the end users' homes.
"Since the internet is not regulated like a utility"
Yes, but what these companies are leveraging is their control of last-mile connectivity, which is regulated like a utility. These organizations enjoy monopolies granted to them by municipal governments, just like other utilities.
Since we're into outlandish analogies:
Imagine that your city granted PowerCo the right to exclusively provide power service to all of the houses in the city on a promise that power usage fee rates would be set by a particular formula or 3rd party organization. Imagine that WidgetCo produced a widget that consumes an enormous amount of electricity, and everybody in your city buys their widget. Now, PowerCo needs to generate more power to feed the widgets, but does not want to incur the capital expenditure to build a new plant. Now, the city's residents _are_ paying for the power used by their widgets. PowerCo could go to the city, and ask for rates to increase or for a grant or a loan to fund their new plant. In that instance, though, the city could just say "Well, ElectriCo's just over in the next city, and they seem to think that they could pick up the slack if we let them into this market." Or, PowerCo could go to WidgetCo and say "If you don't fund our new plant, we'll make it impossible for your widgets to use our power." Then, in a stroke of pure genius, PowerCo decides to do exactly that - they make it impossible to power WidgetCo's widgets using electricity provided by PowerCo, and produce their own widgets (which are of lesser quality, and cost more - but can be used with the electricity provided by PowerCo). A victory for the consumer?
"The Telcos claim that the government has no business telling them how to price their products"
Not only that, but the only reason a lot of these telcos are in business in the first place is because the governments (usually municipal) granted them a coercive monopoly over last-mile connectivity. Besides which, the development much of their networks were funded with tax dollars anyway (in the form of grants, loan guarantees,...)
Look, if you enjoy a monopoly because of the actions of government, don't whine when government sees fit to regulate your actions.
Almost. This is not about narrow control of the backbone, though. It's about leveraging control over the last mile (as is evidenced by the strong support from small rural cable operators who have no control over the backbone).
Most of the broadband providers on the other side of the net-neutrality debate enjoy a localized monopoly (in some cases, explicitly granted by municipal governments and in some cases, a natural monopoly). In order not to be seen as directly abusing this monopoly (and potentially seeing competition in last-mile connectivity through revocation of franchise), they are not directly raising fees on their customers, but rather are extorting third parties for fees for services for which they have already been paid. They are trying to externalize an expense (bandwidth) for which they have already received revenue.
They have already leveraged a last mile connectivity monopoly (usually granted by municipal governments) to dominant local share in the broadband ISP market. Moreover, as you have raised, many are using a monopoly (often granted by municipal governments) over last mile connectivity to leverage share in other markets - VoIP, video streaming,...
It sounds like this is family/friends you've built for/supported in the past, rather than customers... If that's the case, you may want to try what I've done...
I have a tiered support arrangement with my family and friends. - Everybody who lives in my house (me, my wife and a renter) uses one of a couple Linux boxes on the local network. Home directories are NFS mounts off of a machine that only I get to touch. Authentication is a small Kerberos domain. Mail/web space is also hosted by me. Occasionally, they'll ask me to install something. If it's appropriate, I will. Typically, gaming happens on the consoles, web browsing, word processing, email and accounting on the computer. It has worked well so far. - My parents and my parents-in-law get free support. - My parents have a few XP boxes and a Treo. I provide mail service for them. I keep their boxes mostly up-to-date, and clean up the mess when they get malware. XP is the appropriate decision for them, as the pro tax prep software my dad uses is unavailable for anything else, and my mom makes heavy use of Media Center. - My in-laws used to have an XP box. My father-in-law bought an HP at Future Shop (the first computer he'd ever used) a year and a half ago, and within 1 month, it was riddled with malware, slow and generally crappy. I installed FC4 on it, locked it down, and set him up with everything he needed. He uses it for web browsing, email [family overseas], payroll and word processing. Linux suits his needs far better than XP ever did. - Friends (not friends-of-friends) work on a simple system. They describe a problem, and I identify it as one of a) a six-pack problem, b) a 24 problem or c) a single-malt scotch problem. - All others (and most people in the above groups if named Bob) know my hourly rates (with a 2 hr min) and make an assessment of whether it's worth the price to get their problem fixed. They are properly invoiced through my consulting corp. and usually can write off the expense.
I recommend Linux where it is appropriate, as it lowers my time-commitment (and hence their costs), and recommend XP where Linux won't address their needs (media, gaming, specific needed applications). I encourage them to use my mail services (spam / virus filtered), rather than the generally less-reliable ISP mail services, and set them up with appropriate tools to address their needs. They all have reasonable NATing packet-filters (either recycled Linux box or reasonable SOHO router) in front of all of their machines, and don't install new hardware without talking to me first.
That's it. They are leveraging their monopoly in one area (browser) to increase the share in another by targetting those that don't care. Google and Yahoo don't have a monopoly browser that they can exploit to obtain users who will not take any positive step to change the default.
I read the paper. I am still concerned about a few aspects.
- Little analysis is given to the effect (in practice) of glue records. A footnote mentions that glue is not authoritative, but does not elaborate on how glue is actually used in the chain. - TCB is a poor metric for assessing the attack profile with respect to a name. You talk in your comment about the vulnerabilities depending on the shape of the graph, and assert "In practice, DNS dependence graphs tend to be long and narrow." (not supported by your published data/analysis) In the paper, you briefly mention a distinction between a "partial hijack" and a "complete hijack," but do not elaborate or provide relevant data. I would suggest that the cardinality of the trust graph does not support your thesis as strongly as an analysis of the depth of the graph would. Certainly, an analysis that examines depths of transitive trust chains (as negatives wrt attack profile) and breadth of delegation (as potentially positives due to increased redundancy) would be far more relevant to the thesis of your paper. I would love to see metrics such as minimum depth, maximum depth and average depth calculated and analyzed (and would love to see the raw data you have available - drop me an email).
N.B. High fanout does not necessarily improve security. It only does so if the added chains are more secure than the existing chains...
None of these points attacks the core thesis of the paper, IMHO. The vulnerability stats were rough, and were only used tangentially to the argument. The argument is that in practice, there is a larger (and deeper) trust graph (and thus a larger attack exposure) associated with a given name than would appear to immediate observation. This should raise concern, regardless of the incidence of vulnerable DNS servers.
You seem to assume that the only quality awarded in a commission-based system is volume. I used to work sales at Future Shop in Canada, and we were commissioned on profit, and assessed on volume, margin and warranty %age.
Because margin varied widely from system to system (and typically the higher-end systems were running at lower margins than the low-mid range), incentives did not disproportionately favour the most expensive systems. What's more, the good margin on accessories and peripherals meant that you could actually get service for a purchase other than a system. We had salespeople who made reasonable coin selling mostly printers, scanners, ink and accessories.
We also had good buyers that ensured good product mix. We always had low, mid and high end systems on the floor with comparable profit in each. If products were returned, we lost the commission (in addition to time off the floor to deal with the return). So we had an incentive to find a product that would fit the customer, and no incentive to push them to something above their needs.
Through my time there, I ended up competitive shopping in almost every location of every major computer retailer in the city. The salespeople that were on commission had far better product (and competitive) knowledge (and generally provided better service) than non-commissioned salespeople because they had an incentive to engage with their job. The guys who couldn't be bothered to learn got dumped quickly.
Then, apparently, FS got sent away from the U.S. with their tail between their legs (b/c of poorly planned expansion), and were running purely on cash flow. They switched to volume-based commission, and dropped their sales training. Then they got bought by BB. They haven't been the same since.
Commissioned sales done right can improve the customer experience.
It seems that a lot of the comments here see a massive paradox in the (employer) stated lack of supply of CS practitioners, and the (employee/student) stated lack of demand.
Having been through the job search process a few times (and having read the recent academic articles on the subject), it seems the problem is this. Employers in North America are no longer willing to help develop software professionals. In other professions, we see employers taking an active interest in professional development from the entry level up.
Lawyers article for a year, and have a well understood progression from articling student to partner. Throughout the process, the contributions made are appropriate for their level of progression and an appreciated, relevant part of the practice's business. As a result, the legal field has a downstream supply of experienced lawyers, and even students and fresh grads can find work.
By contrast, the tech industry seems to expect experienced developers to appear out of thin air. Industry participation in internship programs is down. Postings for entry-level and early-mid level positions are practically non-existent. Yet demand for 10+ yrs experienced developers is high. Well, guess what? Experienced developers don't just pop into existence. The industry recognizes that much of the innovative work (that they need experienced developers for) isn't amenable to offshoring. They need to recognize that by offshoring the entry-level grunt work, they are starving their future demand for experienced developers (and ultimately rendering future innovation far more difficult).
Interesting thought... I would argue that the issue is not taxation at all, but molly-coddling of an industry that keeps the current-account deficit from being recognized as a truly disastrous occurrence. IP-related areas are one of the few areas where the US trade balance is still on the export side. This is about keeping the world's eyes off of the mismanagement of economic and monetary policy in the United States.
Besides which, the article provided examples that almost exclusively looked at counterfeit consumer goods (cigarettes, fashion, shampoo,...), certainly not matters that the mentioned act deals with. The above-mentioned counterfeiting is illegal due to trademakr infringement. The act deals exclusively with copyright infringement.
This is an interesting observation which both amuses and depresses me... Tha answer is that...
While this may be part of the issue, we _know_ that at least as it relates to congressional races in the U.S., the bigger cause of tight margins is Gerrymandering. This is why redistricting is a contentious issue in the U.S. When redistricting time comes around, the incumbents in the state legislature tend to "pack" their opponents into a few districts, while engineering small pluralities favouring them in a greater number of districts. This creates a few landslides for their opponents, and a large number of "squeakers" (which are not really squeakers, as they've been fairly well forecast by computer statistical models) favouring them. While both parties have engaged in this practice, it has tended to favour Repubs more than Dems, because Repubs have been able to seduce black Democratic reps with packed districts, ensuring what is seen as greater representation for African-Americans (a number of districts effectively guaranteed to fall to African-American Democratic candidates by landslides due to packing of the district).
Slashdot Mirror
Ask Google "define:fraudulent conveyance" this is what you get
Hmm... Seems like somebody thought this scheme up before you did! Imagine that.
Ummm... Getting rid of limited liability would most definitely qualify as "massive corporate... reform." If not limited personal liability, what reason do you see for organizing a business as a corporation?
While censorship is bad, it is certainly not why people are concerned with ICANN.
.com/.net to Verisign, which have led to unnecessary monopoly situations, and resulting inflated prices. The decisions on gTLDs to add to the root were driven primarily by domestic politics, rather than legitimate technical and governance concerns. These policy decisions affect Internet users around the world. ICANN is answerable to none of these users. ICANN is only effectively answerable to the U.S. Department of Commerce. As such, it makes it decisions in the interests of the DoC, which are not necessarily aligned with the interests of the user community.
ICANN is making policy decisions (such as which gTLDs to add to the roots and resolution of disputes over domain names) when its authority to make these decisions is murky at best. It has made policy decisions, such as ceding control of
You know who wrote that? Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn. If anybody's qualified to talk about Gore's contribution to the early days of the 'Net, it's those two.
Original Document
Look, in the early '90s, 6 years before Slashdot, when there were less than a 1/4 million hosts on the 'Net, Gore introduced the Act that would ultimately fund the development of Mosaic. In the '70s, Gore was pushing support for networks, when nobody was talking network. Through the '80s, he pushed for consolidation of disparate government networks.
In the '90s, he drove the Clinton administration's focus on the 'Net. Was that administration perfect on technical issues? Far from it. But Gore was generally a positive force. He pushed against the CDA (which was getting rammed down the admin's throat riding on the Telecommunications Act). He was wrong on key escrow, but he pushed back on Clipper.
The Internet was not built exclusively on protocols and software. It required funding and political support. Gore has been a net positive force for us. Nobody is going to take us seriously and stand up for the issues that are important to us if we eventually go after everybody who does just that.
"The states that have already talked about signing on are big states: California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri."
Only CO and MO from that list went to Bush in 2000. Their 19 EV's would, however, have swung the election toward the popular vote winner.
Incidentally, this collection of states would also have swung the elections of 1888 and 1876 to the Democratic candidate, who had a plurality of the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. Depending on the interpretation of Alabama's votes, this collection of states could also have swung the 1960 election to Nixon.
More analagous: Is it fair to charge people more for dry cleaning, AND charge the clothing manufacturer as well, to clean clothes that you did not manufacture?
Fine. Then charge Joe down the street for the increased bandwidth he consumes. Don't try to extort money from a third party (youtube) with whom you have no direct business relationship. Look. The ISP has already been compensated on both sides for the traffic being carried. If they feel that that compensation is not sufficient, then they need to renegotiate with one of the entities with which they actually have a business relationship (either the customer - "Joe down the street" or their peering partner that delivers the traffic from youtube).
New York State Consolidated Laws ... ... ... ... ... ...
TITLE J
OFFENSES INVOLVING THEFT
ARTICLE 155
LARCENY
S 155.00 Larceny; definitions of terms.
The following definitions are applicable to this title:
7-c. "Access device" means any telephone calling card number, credit
card number, account number, mobile identification number, electronic
serial number or personal identification number that can be used to
obtain telephone service.
S 155.05 Larceny; defined.
1. A person steals property and commits larceny when, with intent to
deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to
a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property
from an owner thereof.
2. Larceny includes a wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of
another`s property, with the intent prescribed in subdivision one of
this section, committed in any of the following ways:
(b) By acquiring lost property.
A person acquires lost property when he exercises control over
property of another which he knows to have been lost or mislaid, or to
have been delivered under a mistake as to the identity of the recipient
or the nature or amount of the property, without taking reasonable
measures to return such property to the owner;
S 155.30 Grand larceny in the fourth degree.
A person is guilty of grand larceny in the fourth degree when he
steals property and when:
1. The value of the property exceeds one thousand dollars; or
10. The property consists of an access device which the person intends
to use unlawfully to obtain telephone service.
Grand larceny in the fourth degree is a class E felony.
"Like a lot of Bush supporters, she cites the leaks of information as reasons to not take this to court"
Ummm... yeah... because the Court is _far_ more likely than the administration officials (who already have access) to leak this information.
"[1]Even if we have to have secret trials by jury because the evidence is so dangerous, [2]I don't think things should be hidden from the courts."
re: 2: Absolutely, the executive should not have carte blanche to hide their misdeeds from the Court.
re: 1: Star Chamber
Yeah, but they don't have the capital to run the connection to the last mile. This is not about control of backbones. This is all about the copper into the end users' homes.
"Since the internet is not regulated like a utility"
Yes, but what these companies are leveraging is their control of last-mile connectivity, which is regulated like a utility. These organizations enjoy monopolies granted to them by municipal governments, just like other utilities.
Since we're into outlandish analogies:
Imagine that your city granted PowerCo the right to exclusively provide power service to all of the houses in the city on a promise that power usage fee rates would be set by a particular formula or 3rd party organization. Imagine that WidgetCo produced a widget that consumes an enormous amount of electricity, and everybody in your city buys their widget. Now, PowerCo needs to generate more power to feed the widgets, but does not want to incur the capital expenditure to build a new plant. Now, the city's residents _are_ paying for the power used by their widgets. PowerCo could go to the city, and ask for rates to increase or for a grant or a loan to fund their new plant. In that instance, though, the city could just say "Well, ElectriCo's just over in the next city, and they seem to think that they could pick up the slack if we let them into this market." Or, PowerCo could go to WidgetCo and say "If you don't fund our new plant, we'll make it impossible for your widgets to use our power." Then, in a stroke of pure genius, PowerCo decides to do exactly that - they make it impossible to power WidgetCo's widgets using electricity provided by PowerCo, and produce their own widgets (which are of lesser quality, and cost more - but can be used with the electricity provided by PowerCo). A victory for the consumer?
"The Telcos claim that the government has no business telling them how to price their products"
Not only that, but the only reason a lot of these telcos are in business in the first place is because the governments (usually municipal) granted them a coercive monopoly over last-mile connectivity. Besides which, the development much of their networks were funded with tax dollars anyway (in the form of grants, loan guarantees,...)
Look, if you enjoy a monopoly because of the actions of government, don't whine when government sees fit to regulate your actions.
Almost. This is not about narrow control of the backbone, though. It's about leveraging control over the last mile (as is evidenced by the strong support from small rural cable operators who have no control over the backbone).
Most of the broadband providers on the other side of the net-neutrality debate enjoy a localized monopoly (in some cases, explicitly granted by municipal governments and in some cases, a natural monopoly). In order not to be seen as directly abusing this monopoly (and potentially seeing competition in last-mile connectivity through revocation of franchise), they are not directly raising fees on their customers, but rather are extorting third parties for fees for services for which they have already been paid. They are trying to externalize an expense (bandwidth) for which they have already received revenue.
They have already leveraged a last mile connectivity monopoly (usually granted by municipal governments) to dominant local share in the broadband ISP market. Moreover, as you have raised, many are using a monopoly (often granted by municipal governments) over last mile connectivity to leverage share in other markets - VoIP, video streaming,...
It sounds like this is family/friends you've built for/supported in the past, rather than customers... If that's the case, you may want to try what I've done...
I have a tiered support arrangement with my family and friends.
- Everybody who lives in my house (me, my wife and a renter) uses one of a couple Linux boxes on the local network. Home directories are NFS mounts off of a machine that only I get to touch. Authentication is a small Kerberos domain. Mail/web space is also hosted by me. Occasionally, they'll ask me to install something. If it's appropriate, I will. Typically, gaming happens on the consoles, web browsing, word processing, email and accounting on the computer. It has worked well so far.
- My parents and my parents-in-law get free support.
- My parents have a few XP boxes and a Treo. I provide mail service for them. I keep their boxes mostly up-to-date, and clean up the mess when they get malware. XP is the appropriate decision for them, as the pro tax prep software my dad uses is unavailable for anything else, and my mom makes heavy use of Media Center.
- My in-laws used to have an XP box. My father-in-law bought an HP at Future Shop (the first computer he'd ever used) a year and a half ago, and within 1 month, it was riddled with malware, slow and generally crappy. I installed FC4 on it, locked it down, and set him up with everything he needed. He uses it for web browsing, email [family overseas], payroll and word processing. Linux suits his needs far better than XP ever did.
- Friends (not friends-of-friends) work on a simple system. They describe a problem, and I identify it as one of a) a six-pack problem, b) a 24 problem or c) a single-malt scotch problem.
- All others (and most people in the above groups if named Bob) know my hourly rates (with a 2 hr min) and make an assessment of whether it's worth the price to get their problem fixed. They are properly invoiced through my consulting corp. and usually can write off the expense.
I recommend Linux where it is appropriate, as it lowers my time-commitment (and hence their costs), and recommend XP where Linux won't address their needs (media, gaming, specific needed applications). I encourage them to use my mail services (spam / virus filtered), rather than the generally less-reliable ISP mail services, and set them up with appropriate tools to address their needs. They all have reasonable NATing packet-filters (either recycled Linux box or reasonable SOHO router) in front of all of their machines, and don't install new hardware without talking to me first.
"I surfed to Google"
That's it. They are leveraging their monopoly in one area (browser) to increase the share in another by targetting those that don't care. Google and Yahoo don't have a monopoly browser that they can exploit to obtain users who will not take any positive step to change the default.
FWIW, please don't do this. Do this instead
./installoracle.sh
ssh -x some_server
Will tunnel the X info over an encrypted connection to your workstation, rather than in plaintext (as modding DISPLAY) will do...
XDM != X Server. The X server still runs on the thin clients.
I read the paper. I am still concerned about a few aspects.
- Little analysis is given to the effect (in practice) of glue records. A footnote mentions that glue is not authoritative, but does not elaborate on how glue is actually used in the chain.
- TCB is a poor metric for assessing the attack profile with respect to a name. You talk in your comment about the vulnerabilities depending on the shape of the graph, and assert "In practice, DNS dependence graphs tend to be long and narrow." (not supported by your published data/analysis) In the paper, you briefly mention a distinction between a "partial hijack" and a "complete hijack," but do not elaborate or provide relevant data. I would suggest that the cardinality of the trust graph does not support your thesis as strongly as an analysis of the depth of the graph would. Certainly, an analysis that examines depths of transitive trust chains (as negatives wrt attack profile) and breadth of delegation (as potentially positives due to increased redundancy) would be far more relevant to the thesis of your paper. I would love to see metrics such as minimum depth, maximum depth and average depth calculated and analyzed (and would love to see the raw data you have available - drop me an email).
N.B. High fanout does not necessarily improve security. It only does so if the added chains are more secure than the existing chains...
None of these points attacks the core thesis of the paper, IMHO. The vulnerability stats were rough, and were only used tangentially to the argument. The argument is that in practice, there is a larger (and deeper) trust graph (and thus a larger attack exposure) associated with a given name than would appear to immediate observation. This should raise concern, regardless of the incidence of vulnerable DNS servers.
You seem to assume that the only quality awarded in a commission-based system is volume. I used to work sales at Future Shop in Canada, and we were commissioned on profit, and assessed on volume, margin and warranty %age.
Because margin varied widely from system to system (and typically the higher-end systems were running at lower margins than the low-mid range), incentives did not disproportionately favour the most expensive systems. What's more, the good margin on accessories and peripherals meant that you could actually get service for a purchase other than a system. We had salespeople who made reasonable coin selling mostly printers, scanners, ink and accessories.
We also had good buyers that ensured good product mix. We always had low, mid and high end systems on the floor with comparable profit in each. If products were returned, we lost the commission (in addition to time off the floor to deal with the return). So we had an incentive to find a product that would fit the customer, and no incentive to push them to something above their needs.
Through my time there, I ended up competitive shopping in almost every location of every major computer retailer in the city. The salespeople that were on commission had far better product (and competitive) knowledge (and generally provided better service) than non-commissioned salespeople because they had an incentive to engage with their job. The guys who couldn't be bothered to learn got dumped quickly.
Then, apparently, FS got sent away from the U.S. with their tail between their legs (b/c of poorly planned expansion), and were running purely on cash flow. They switched to volume-based commission, and dropped their sales training. Then they got bought by BB. They haven't been the same since.
Commissioned sales done right can improve the customer experience.
It seems that a lot of the comments here see a massive paradox in the (employer) stated lack of supply of CS practitioners, and the (employee/student) stated lack of demand.
Having been through the job search process a few times (and having read the recent academic articles on the subject), it seems the problem is this. Employers in North America are no longer willing to help develop software professionals. In other professions, we see employers taking an active interest in professional development from the entry level up.
Lawyers article for a year, and have a well understood progression from articling student to partner. Throughout the process, the contributions made are appropriate for their level of progression and an appreciated, relevant part of the practice's business. As a result, the legal field has a downstream supply of experienced lawyers, and even students and fresh grads can find work.
By contrast, the tech industry seems to expect experienced developers to appear out of thin air. Industry participation in internship programs is down. Postings for entry-level and early-mid level positions are practically non-existent. Yet demand for 10+ yrs experienced developers is high. Well, guess what? Experienced developers don't just pop into existence. The industry recognizes that much of the innovative work (that they need experienced developers for) isn't amenable to offshoring. They need to recognize that by offshoring the entry-level grunt work, they are starving their future demand for experienced developers (and ultimately rendering future innovation far more difficult).
Interesting thought... I would argue that the issue is not taxation at all, but molly-coddling of an industry that keeps the current-account deficit from being recognized as a truly disastrous occurrence. IP-related areas are one of the few areas where the US trade balance is still on the export side. This is about keeping the world's eyes off of the mismanagement of economic and monetary policy in the United States.
Besides which, the article provided examples that almost exclusively looked at counterfeit consumer goods (cigarettes, fashion, shampoo,...), certainly not matters that the mentioned act deals with. The above-mentioned counterfeiting is illegal due to trademakr infringement. The act deals exclusively with copyright infringement.
This is an interesting observation which both amuses and depresses me... Tha answer is that...
While this may be part of the issue, we _know_ that at least as it relates to congressional races in the U.S., the bigger cause of tight margins is Gerrymandering. This is why redistricting is a contentious issue in the U.S. When redistricting time comes around, the incumbents in the state legislature tend to "pack" their opponents into a few districts, while engineering small pluralities favouring them in a greater number of districts. This creates a few landslides for their opponents, and a large number of "squeakers" (which are not really squeakers, as they've been fairly well forecast by computer statistical models) favouring them. While both parties have engaged in this practice, it has tended to favour Repubs more than Dems, because Repubs have been able to seduce black Democratic reps with packed districts, ensuring what is seen as greater representation for African-Americans (a number of districts effectively guaranteed to fall to African-American Democratic candidates by landslides due to packing of the district).