Today I'm more worried about someone using my lost card as a credit card.
Good point. I've seen debit cards which require entering a pin to complete the transaction, which would seem to be ok ( password / token ), although certainly not all have that requirement.
Somehow, the world's ATM banking systems have managed to get by with a bare minimum of fraud for more than 20 years by relying upon only four-digit codes. So what do the banking geeks grasp about password management?
While the article continues to say that simple passwords are good, it overlooks the other half of the equation: the ATM card. Without both, no access is granted which seems to be the strength of the ATM.
The prevelence of password only authentication seems to be a hardware problem. Everyone has a keyboard, but almost no one has ( for instance ) a securid token.
A USB dongle might be the easiest solution, although standardization is obviously a problem. Gawd knows I wouldn't want to have one USB dongle for yahoo, one for NYTimes, one for my bank, et. al.
One of the reasons not to link to Wikipedia is the fact that it is simply not a reliable source of information. Anyone can make changes to a definition at just about any time.
Doesn't this also mean that anyone can correct erroneous information? Not that there is a requirement to do so, of course, but at least the possibility exists.
Then you turn off his power, cut his phone line, and cause his gas oven to blow up. Ohh. wait.. real life doesn't follow movie rules about what "hackers" can do?
Quiet you! I'm busily hacking into the orbital defense satellite system to shoot a plasma cannon at the interloper.
No honey, it's not a pr0n site... that's just a slick facade the government uses to hide access to their weapons platform controls... yes, this will take a while...
NB: Not responsible for the reactions of the humor impaired.
IMO, this isn't really immortality because my current consciousness (the me that is me without the meat) doesn't continue on into the new body.
I can see what you're describing, but I had a different impression. Consciousness (IIRC) was stored in a "cortical sack", described as a small metal lozenge. That sack was moved from body to body, thus the same consciousness in a series of bodies (with some down time during the transfer).
Of course, other things happened as well. Off site backups of the consciousness, transmitting the consciousness, et. al.. You could argue that a person restored from backup had "died" and been "reborn".
The bottom line is that assets and power will quickly become (even more) concentrated in the top 1% or so of the population.
You might also consider reading the book Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan:
The author handles immortality differently ( the same consciousness in different bodies ), but the result is the same: a class of super-rich "Methusulas".
Oh yes, and the Catholics hate the idea. Since a Catholic's consciousness can't be installed in a new body because of the consciousness's religious objections, they've become the perfect murder victims ( since they're unable to testify in court as they're "dead" ).
Re:I bet "girl games" would have girls on them too
on
Getting the Girl
·
· Score: 1
If you go to the magazine section and see all the silly men's magazines, they have pretty girls on them (occasionally men).
Magazines like men's health and men's fitness seem to have almost exclusively men on the cover.
I don't mean a bunch of lipstick lesbians in a film collective that are making their own films.
Now there's a poster whos watched Coupling. Great rant in the "lesbian spank inferno" episode wherein the main character relates many technological advances to the desire of the average guy for a better look at naked bottoms. Funny as hell, but also seems to be very true.
Not to mention, you've also helped to reinforce my point that the problem isn't with the OS, it's with the users.
I'd suggest the users are more of a problem, but you should not overlook the OS. IE page jacking via active-x specifically is one of the great ways to show even regular users the benefits of mozilla.
Controlling a corporate environment is much different than a home computer. You can't just take away admin rights from a home computer because then they wouldn't be able to install anything, evenly "legitimate" stuff (see what I said above).
Perhaps that's the source of our continuing discussion. We seem to be comming at this from different perspectives.
You can't prevent malware installation if you don't know whether or not it's malware.
Then prevent all installations unless a determination can be made.
Identifying non-malware via, say, always getting software updates from a trusted source, verifying a sha1 / md5sum signature where apropo, et. al.
If 90% of malware infections come from bad users ( where's that statistic from, anyway? ) then don't let the users be bad ( i.e. revoke all admin rights from them ).
This hardly seems a revolutionary idea... isn't this what most organizations do?
And you think Linux or MacOS are any less succesptible?
Thats not the point.
The point is, focusing on post infection scanning solutions are short sighted. You consume many more resources looking for things that aren't there, the scanning softare requires near constant updates to be effective, et. al.
Better to have security built into the foundation rather than trying to remediate failure later. Note that this design principal is vendor neutral.
True, security is a process and nothing is perfect. However, bad design can render any other procedures ineffective.
All your survey seems to show is a number of surveyed doctors believe in chrsitianity.
If you took a survey in 1400 in Europe, you might find a majority of people thought the world was flat and if you went too far in one direction you'd fall off.
Belief does not equal fact.
I'd also hope that christian doctors would keep their faith separate and distinct from their professional practice. I'd hate to think my doctor was consulting a gospel to figure out how to prescribe treatment.
Whether you believe in a God or not, is the idea so black and white that people can't even maintain a healthy, respectful dialogue about it?
I find it very hard to speak with a capital C Christian; I rejected their beliefs and their faith years ago. I'm sure christianity has it's good points, but all I see is an organization which promotes guilt to further obedience to it's leaders.
Similarly, I'm uncomfortable with atheists as despite my rejection of christianity I do feel a spiritual connection ( note: feel, as in "can not prove" ). I've found a lot of my feelings in wittings on taoism, zen buddhism and in other places.
With both groups, confusion abounds.
If I tell a christian that I believe in a divine being, they assume I'm christian and are very confused when I say I'm not.
Similarly, athiests tend to be confused that I'm not chrsitian but beleive in the divine.
So yes, it's difficult to have a dialog about it. Many speakers assume that to beleive in god is to be christian, and to not be christian is to be an athiest when that just isn't so.
Our most famous crash and burn ( to date ) was an attempt to migrate a number of different applications to an Oracle Applications suite.
We expected a web based desktop client wouldn't require configuration; a jinitiator component required numerous desktop visits.
We expected streamlined operation; In fact the replacement product required more end user data entry and provided less critical information ( i.e. fewer metrics the end users have come to expect).
Management drank the marketroids cool aid. They should have asked the end users to evaluate the software before commiting to a purchase, rather than shoehorning the end users into accepting what was the cheapest.
A cheap Dell for half the cost would get the job done too, but then 3 months later you'd be cleaning off spyware, explaining how to use a virus scanner, etc, etc.
Good point, and it's why my mother uses a Mac. Yes, there is a greater initial cost, but the Mac OS and hardware require less maintenance over time.
My sister uses Apple as well, a powerbook IIRC. She's carted it across three continents, dropped it enough times the case is held together by duct tape and it still works fine.
Apple is expensive in the short term, but a good value in the long term.
How much cooperation do you think you are going to get with that attitude?
The problem we run into here: Customers want their data. A 1 - 2 week turn around is unacceptable, yet the mainframe types can't / won't deliver faster.
I think in an earlier post you nailed it; it's a management problem. Unless / until management gets with the program, clients will drive for replacement of mainframe systems. As I said, they control our budget, so it's simple for them to cut funding.
I'm not trying to be condescending, and I'm surprised that you got that from my comments. Some of the mainframe types ( not management ) have expressed an interest in relational systems; they'll be very useful ( and probably in charge of ) the replacement systems. They want to work on integration and / or migration.
Bottom line: Our current systems are expensive mainframe emulation on a NT cluster. For what our customers pay in maintenance, they can buy a new relational system every year. They don't integrate with our relational systems ( management problem here, it seems ). We're spending a lot of money and not getting what we want. That has to change, and the way it will change (right now) is a replacement system.
I don't disagree that mainframes can be good systems. They wouldn't have survived this long if they were crap. Here, however, they're not doing what we want, probably from mainframe management obstenance.
Most of the time on slashdot we hear about projects failing because of politics, poor management, money... This one sounds like its going to fail because of the technical people being stubborn.
Right now, there is no integration. Our customers and I both want integration. Linking the accounting and payroll systems seems obvious to us, much less so to our maineframe types. Our customers want new functionality in the payroll system ( they're calling it human capital management ) which the mainframe types seem either reluctant or unable to provide.
You're probably right; stubborn techs / tech management seems to have created this problem. Mainframe maintenance costs and the lack of COBOL programmers who are willing to work with relational systems around here are other factors as well. The solution we're working towards is the elimination of mainframes, which eliminates the human stumbling blocks and the high maintenance costs for the proprietary hardware.
Now if you what you really meant is that your customers want ad-hoc queries then ISAM sucks.
Our customers do end up wanting ad-hoc queries, since they don't seem to know what they want until they get it. If that makes sense.
You make a valid point about ISAM being faster than relational; in some cases it can be. Relational is always memory intensive; reading a denormalized table and spewing the output will usually be much faster ( thus the guidence to denormalize for OLAP ).
The other aspect though is system integration. I haven't found a way to link mainframe systems to relational systems, except via flat file. Even then, "link" is a relative concept. There was talk of trying something more advanced over ODBC ( since the Clearpath system runs in emulation on a NT cluster, it's theoretically possible ), but both flat file and ODBC were nixed.
Getting rid of our mainframes and replacing them with purely relational systems will enable us to at least attempt integrating the data ( probably through some sort of software layer ), which is more than we have now.
The stumbling block to integration could be entirely management, or technological, or ( most likely ) both. Either way, the elimination of mainframes from here should solve the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Software back then were simple like motorcycles
So... software back then were ridden by fat old guys trying to pretend they're still young rebels?
[badum-ching]
Today I'm more worried about someone using my lost card as a credit card.
Good point. I've seen debit cards which require entering a pin to complete the transaction, which would seem to be ok ( password / token ), although certainly not all have that requirement.
From TFA:
Somehow, the world's ATM banking systems have managed to get by with a bare minimum of fraud for more than 20 years by relying upon only four-digit codes. So what do the banking geeks grasp about password management?
While the article continues to say that simple passwords are good, it overlooks the other half of the equation: the ATM card. Without both, no access is granted which seems to be the strength of the ATM.
The prevelence of password only authentication seems to be a hardware problem. Everyone has a keyboard, but almost no one has ( for instance ) a securid token.
A USB dongle might be the easiest solution, although standardization is obviously a problem. Gawd knows I wouldn't want to have one USB dongle for yahoo, one for NYTimes, one for my bank, et. al.
One of the reasons not to link to Wikipedia is the fact that it is simply not a reliable source of information. Anyone can make changes to a definition at just about any time.
Doesn't this also mean that anyone can correct erroneous information? Not that there is a requirement to do so, of course, but at least the possibility exists.
Then you turn off his power, cut his phone line, and cause his gas oven to blow up. Ohh. wait.. real life doesn't follow movie rules about what "hackers" can do?
Quiet you! I'm busily hacking into the orbital defense satellite system to shoot a plasma cannon at the interloper.
No honey, it's not a pr0n site... that's just a slick facade the government uses to hide access to their weapons platform controls... yes, this will take a while...
NB: Not responsible for the reactions of the humor impaired.
The plot rambles, the protagonist is completely unlikable, the writing style is dull and repetitive, and it really bogs down in the final chapters.
True, but the first part has tons of sex and violence, so it's not all bad.
IMO, this isn't really immortality because my current consciousness (the me that is me without the meat) doesn't continue on into the new body.
I can see what you're describing, but I had a different impression. Consciousness (IIRC) was stored in a "cortical sack", described as a small metal lozenge. That sack was moved from body to body, thus the same consciousness in a series of bodies (with some down time during the transfer).
Of course, other things happened as well. Off site backups of the consciousness, transmitting the consciousness, et. al.. You could argue that a person restored from backup had "died" and been "reborn".
The bottom line is that assets and power will quickly become (even more) concentrated in the top 1% or so of the population.
You might also consider reading the book Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan:
The author handles immortality differently ( the same consciousness in different bodies ), but the result is the same: a class of super-rich "Methusulas".
Oh yes, and the Catholics hate the idea. Since a Catholic's consciousness can't be installed in a new body because of the consciousness's religious objections, they've become the perfect murder victims ( since they're unable to testify in court as they're "dead" ).
If you go to the magazine section and see all the silly men's magazines, they have pretty girls on them (occasionally men).
Magazines like men's health and men's fitness seem to have almost exclusively men on the cover.
I don't mean a bunch of lipstick lesbians in a film collective that are making their own films.
Now there's a poster whos watched Coupling. Great rant in the "lesbian spank inferno" episode wherein the main character relates many technological advances to the desire of the average guy for a better look at naked bottoms. Funny as hell, but also seems to be very true.
Not to mention, you've also helped to reinforce my point that the problem isn't with the OS, it's with the users.
I'd suggest the users are more of a problem, but you should not overlook the OS. IE page jacking via active-x specifically is one of the great ways to show even regular users the benefits of mozilla.
Controlling a corporate environment is much different than a home computer. You can't just take away admin rights from a home computer because then they wouldn't be able to install anything, evenly "legitimate" stuff (see what I said above).
Perhaps that's the source of our continuing discussion. We seem to be comming at this from different perspectives.
You can't prevent malware installation if you don't know whether or not it's malware.
Then prevent all installations unless a determination can be made.
Identifying non-malware via, say, always getting software updates from a trusted source, verifying a sha1 / md5sum signature where apropo, et. al.
If 90% of malware infections come from bad users ( where's that statistic from, anyway? ) then don't let the users be bad ( i.e. revoke all admin rights from them ).
This hardly seems a revolutionary idea... isn't this what most organizations do?
And you think Linux or MacOS are any less succesptible?
Thats not the point.
The point is, focusing on post infection scanning solutions are short sighted. You consume many more resources looking for things that aren't there, the scanning softare requires near constant updates to be effective, et. al.
Better to have security built into the foundation rather than trying to remediate failure later. Note that this design principal is vendor neutral.
True, security is a process and nothing is perfect. However, bad design can render any other procedures ineffective.
If Microsoft can get a good, real-time scanning software package going, then it might just be onto something.
I'd rather prevent the malware from getting installed in the first place, rather than burn disk io and cpu cycles to find and remove it later.
Exactly.
This is so obviously an attempt to suck more money out of the public, even joe average consumer should be able to see it.
All your survey seems to show is a number of surveyed doctors believe in chrsitianity.
If you took a survey in 1400 in Europe, you might find a majority of people thought the world was flat and if you went too far in one direction you'd fall off.
Belief does not equal fact.
I'd also hope that christian doctors would keep their faith separate and distinct from their professional practice. I'd hate to think my doctor was consulting a gospel to figure out how to prescribe treatment.
Whether you believe in a God or not, is the idea so black and white that people can't even maintain a healthy, respectful dialogue about it?
I find it very hard to speak with a capital C Christian; I rejected their beliefs and their faith years ago. I'm sure christianity has it's good points, but all I see is an organization which promotes guilt to further obedience to it's leaders.
Similarly, I'm uncomfortable with atheists as despite my rejection of christianity I do feel a spiritual connection ( note: feel, as in "can not prove" ). I've found a lot of my feelings in wittings on taoism, zen buddhism and in other places.
With both groups, confusion abounds.
If I tell a christian that I believe in a divine being, they assume I'm christian and are very confused when I say I'm not.
Similarly, athiests tend to be confused that I'm not chrsitian but beleive in the divine.
So yes, it's difficult to have a dialog about it. Many speakers assume that to beleive in god is to be christian, and to not be christian is to be an athiest when that just isn't so.
Our most famous crash and burn ( to date ) was an attempt to migrate a number of different applications to an Oracle Applications suite.
We expected a web based desktop client wouldn't require configuration; a jinitiator component required numerous desktop visits.
We expected streamlined operation; In fact the replacement product required more end user data entry and provided less critical information ( i.e. fewer metrics the end users have come to expect).
Management drank the marketroids cool aid. They should have asked the end users to evaluate the software before commiting to a purchase, rather than shoehorning the end users into accepting what was the cheapest.
Now that Linux is mainstream I'll have to turn my back on it and find another cause to fight for. Has Netcraft confirmed the BSD rumours?
Well, if it's unpopular causes you're after, I understand the Democratic Party is always looking for volunteers.
[badum-ching]
And what the heck does car porn look like? The hood up, or something?
[badum-ching]
A cheap Dell for half the cost would get the job done too, but then 3 months later you'd be cleaning off spyware, explaining how to use a virus scanner, etc, etc.
Good point, and it's why my mother uses a Mac. Yes, there is a greater initial cost, but the Mac OS and hardware require less maintenance over time.
My sister uses Apple as well, a powerbook IIRC. She's carted it across three continents, dropped it enough times the case is held together by duct tape and it still works fine.
Apple is expensive in the short term, but a good value in the long term.
How much cooperation do you think you are going to get with that attitude?
The problem we run into here: Customers want their data. A 1 - 2 week turn around is unacceptable, yet the mainframe types can't / won't deliver faster.
I think in an earlier post you nailed it; it's a management problem. Unless / until management gets with the program, clients will drive for replacement of mainframe systems. As I said, they control our budget, so it's simple for them to cut funding.
I'm not trying to be condescending, and I'm surprised that you got that from my comments. Some of the mainframe types ( not management ) have expressed an interest in relational systems; they'll be very useful ( and probably in charge of ) the replacement systems. They want to work on integration and / or migration.
Bottom line: Our current systems are expensive mainframe emulation on a NT cluster. For what our customers pay in maintenance, they can buy a new relational system every year. They don't integrate with our relational systems ( management problem here, it seems ). We're spending a lot of money and not getting what we want. That has to change, and the way it will change (right now) is a replacement system.
I don't disagree that mainframes can be good systems. They wouldn't have survived this long if they were crap. Here, however, they're not doing what we want, probably from mainframe management obstenance.
No offense taken, but one comment:
Most of the time on slashdot we hear about projects failing because of politics, poor management, money... This one sounds like its going to fail because of the technical people being stubborn.
Right now, there is no integration. Our customers and I both want integration. Linking the accounting and payroll systems seems obvious to us, much less so to our maineframe types. Our customers want new functionality in the payroll system ( they're calling it human capital management ) which the mainframe types seem either reluctant or unable to provide.
You're probably right; stubborn techs / tech management seems to have created this problem. Mainframe maintenance costs and the lack of COBOL programmers who are willing to work with relational systems around here are other factors as well. The solution we're working towards is the elimination of mainframes, which eliminates the human stumbling blocks and the high maintenance costs for the proprietary hardware.
Now if you what you really meant is that your customers want ad-hoc queries then ISAM sucks.
Our customers do end up wanting ad-hoc queries, since they don't seem to know what they want until they get it. If that makes sense.
You make a valid point about ISAM being faster than relational; in some cases it can be. Relational is always memory intensive; reading a denormalized table and spewing the output will usually be much faster ( thus the guidence to denormalize for OLAP ).
The other aspect though is system integration. I haven't found a way to link mainframe systems to relational systems, except via flat file. Even then, "link" is a relative concept. There was talk of trying something more advanced over ODBC ( since the Clearpath system runs in emulation on a NT cluster, it's theoretically possible ), but both flat file and ODBC were nixed.
Getting rid of our mainframes and replacing them with purely relational systems will enable us to at least attempt integrating the data ( probably through some sort of software layer ), which is more than we have now.
The stumbling block to integration could be entirely management, or technological, or ( most likely ) both. Either way, the elimination of mainframes from here should solve the problem.