Ballmer... said the Redmond, Wash., company will issue security updates on a monthly schedule, except in "emergency" situations, to make it easier for users to keep their personal computers up to date.
What kind of security updates aren't emergency situations? This sounds like they'll be prioritizing these things -- in effect, determining on my behalf which security hole is more important.
As Schneier said later in the article, "Announcements never secured anything." This particular announcement, however, seems to indicate that they'll be securing even less than that.
Maybe SCO can use these guys to find their code in the Linux kernel! Then they wouldn't have to resort to displaying random functions in slide presentations and waving their hands a lot (presumably to dissipate the ensuing stink).
Unless I misunderstand something, it seems that the primary complaint from the Denver court was that the no-call list was discriminating. Non-profit and political cold-calling was still allowed under the plan.
Fine. Let's not discriminate: Make the other two organizations obey the list as well. An unwanted phone solicitation is just that, no matter who it's from.
I tried not to. What I alluding to more was SBC's refusal to provide that kind of information to the RIAA, as discussed here. Comcast should have done the same thing, or at least tried.
For what it's worth: I have a nearly identical setup (with an old 500MHz G3 laptop instead of a G4) and experienced exactly the same thing on my dual-G4. I had logged in and actually used the machine after the update, but it seemed dead the next morning. Haven't had a problem since, after repairing permissions, and I experienced no other problems on either machine at all.
While I don't agree with the article, in general, I do think that the phrase, "It doesn't corner very well" is strangely appropriate for both Java and SUVs.
they're paying you to be there and do a job, and whatever means they take to ensure they're getting their money's worth is reasonable
You're asking people to act like adults.
As a manager/owner, I hire people for certain positions and I expect them to Do The Right Thing while they're working for me. In return, my employees want me to give them the tools to do their job and then (pretty much) get the hell out of the way, which I'm happy to do. None of us wants micromanagement.
I know that my employees use the company's resources for their own use on occassion. As long as it isn't abused or cause trouble, I'm fine with that. I certainly don't want to waste my time looking over everyone's shoulder. That's far more hassle than it's worth.
If the company and employees both play by those kinds of rules -- they act like adults, in other words -- then the surveillance can go away. But both sides have to abide by the rules and, unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Most activity on the road is VERY intelligent. Lane swapping, and bumper riding require quick reflexes and keen senses.
I don't think that riding someone's ass down the road at 70mph is a sign of intelligence. Quick reflexes, maybe, but definitely not intelligence. Of course, you could say that skillful car handling is a particular kind of intelligence, but that wasn't what I meant by my first post.
Seeing women applying makeup and men catching up on the sports pages while barely piloting their two-ton tin can down the highway is more like what I was talking about. I don't particularly care if they crash and burn all by themselves -- that's Darwinism in action -- I just don't want to be involved in their stupidity. But since I can't always choose who is next to me on the road, I curse their stupidity on Slashdot instead.
A couple of axioms from the years I spent working for others and the more recent years of running my own business:
The customer is not always right. Some customers will try to push you around just because they can, or (more likely) because they have no idea what they're demanding. These people are not out to help you grow your business.
You don't have to keep every customer. Bad customers (like examples from the first item) should be tossed. Needy customers that don't pay on time, haggle over prices every time, or in any way cause you more grief than profit should be directed to your competitors.
It may sound a little harsh, but not jumping through customer-created ridiculous hoops will simplify your life tremendously (as well as keeping ulcers in check).
The wording in the topic makes me believe that the poster is currently a senior in high school, rather than someone who has just graduated. If that's the case, then anything above the mom-and-pop business should probably be avoided for now. Or rather, any business (large or small) with a sizable IT requirement should be avoided. That final year of school needs to be balanced with the business, and small customers/requirements will be much more understanding of that need.
That said, I entirely agree with the concept of demonstrating trust and understanding. How that happens depends on the customer, but in general being open, honest and truthful (always!) will build customer loyalty quickly.
I also recommend that, at some point nearer the end of the school year (when you'll have more time to acquire business next summer), you start passing out business cards to all of your consumer customers and encourage them to use your services in their workplace. The "return rate" of that kind of advertising is low, but when you're only a one-man business any increase in business helps tremendously. If you're good, that could snowball into a very profitable business in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Your problem may be due to the worms working their way around the Internet rather than due to a spammer intentionally using your domain. My email server recently suffered the same fate (though not quite that high of a volume) and I spent a bit of time tracking down the emails' origins through the bounces. In my case, they turned out to be coming from just a few unique systems and the volume slowly trickled to nothing after several days -- presumably because someone finally got around to patching their systems.
All the above is conjecture, of course. But it may be something for your ISP to think about. It may be possible to re-enable the MX for your domain in a short while without having to do anything.
I just finished reading Bruce Schneier's new book, Beyond Fear, and he made a comment about Nokia phones. I don't have the quote handy, but Schneier described a "feature" in Nokia phones where they pulled maximum power if they detected a non-Nokia battery installed. Presumably this is to make customers believe that these batteries have shorter lifespans and therefore push everyone into buying only Nokia batteries.
Does anyone have any additional information on this? If true, could it be related to this fire incident?
Thanks! Your explanation filled in some of the gaps in my understanding. What I didn't see at first was the requirement for all the excess power near the plant, in order to fulfill demand farther down the line. I can see how that could turn nearby substations and lines into hot, glowing items.
If I was able, I'd mod you up about +15. Thanks again for the explanation.
Now I'm convinced that I know less than I thought about power plants, nuclear or otherwise.
I thought the "grid" was, basically, composed of consumers and producers of energy. I know that there is a balancing act between supply, demand, and the requirement to balance the loads within line segments, but it was my understanding that as long as there were consumers for your energy then you could generate it.
That's an oversimplification, I know. But I don't understand this case: A major power producer goes offline, but the consumers don't. Why can't the remaining producers take up at least some of the slack?
I'm really looking for information, here. Any references, links, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
While I was actually trying to be funny in my first post, I still thought there was an element of truth in the question.
As you say, a nuclear plant consumes about 10% of the produced energy for its own uses. Why should it shut down if the external grid loses power? Isn't that what the plant is supposed to do? Supply power to the grid?
I confess to being a programmer, not an expert on nuclear power plants. That probably explains a lot....
Blackout affecting cities from New York to Detroit
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, August 14, 2003
NEW YORK -- A huge power blackout hit U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday, driving workers in New York and Toronto into the streets, shutting subways in blistering heat and closing four nuclear power plants in Ohio and New York state.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there was no evidence of terrorism as a cause. "Probably a natural occurrence which disrupted the power system up there," he said, referring to a power grid based in the Niagara Falls area.
The FBI was checking into the extraordinary outages but had no immediate information about the cause, said spokesman Bill Carter in Washington. Blackouts stretched from New York City as far west as Detroit, at least.
"We have no idea how extensive it is," said an official with the Office for Emergency Management in New York City.
The power outage shut down nuclear power plants??? What the hell are those things for?
It seemed suspicious that the government would step in and ban stem cell research, and your post helps convince me that it really was just a political maneuver to appease the morally outraged. Or for the feds to at least appear moral. A better solution would have been to have never taken a position on stem cell research to begin with, but that's wishful thinking now.
A risk comes with announcing The Way It Really Works, however. Some other morally outraged individual will eventually figure out what's going on -- perhaps by reading it on Slashdot -- and raise a stink. Enough of a stink, and the feds will either have to back down or try to enforce the policy. That could get ugly. One of the rules I learned after having a kid was, "Don't make unenforceable rules." Maybe the feds should read a parenting book.
Personally, I'm completely in favor of stem cell research and wish the government would stop trying to stick its nose into places it doesn't belong (I won't start that list -- the textarea field isn't big enough).
When a computer is examined as evidence for some misdeed there exists a question of whether the contents of the hard drive were modified during the examination(s). If it can be proven that any data was modified -- even something like a dirty bit being flipped -- then the whole case could get thrown out as tampering with evidence. Because of this, many computer forensic types will rip the drive out a target computer, make a device copy of it, then examine that instead.
Now, this new secure IDE will complicate this procedure. The examiner can either use the target computer, which may contaminate the evidence, or they have to duplicate the hardware, all the way to the motherboard.
I confess to not reading the article thoroughly (well, not at all) so this is just conjecture: If only the data of each sector is encrypted then the examiner could potentially create a bit copy of the drive (without decrypting the data), then use the IDE's key to decrypt the copy. But if anything beyond the data (eg, block bound values and the like) is encrypted then it's possible that not even a device copy will work.
Now, whether all of the above is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing is definitely up for interpretation....
Slashdot Mirror
As Schneier said later in the article, "Announcements never secured anything." This particular announcement, however, seems to indicate that they'll be securing even less than that.
Maybe SCO can use these guys to find their code in the Linux kernel! Then they wouldn't have to resort to displaying random functions in slide presentations and waving their hands a lot (presumably to dissipate the ensuing stink).
Fine. Let's not discriminate: Make the other two organizations obey the list as well. An unwanted phone solicitation is just that, no matter who it's from.
You can look here and find samples.
I tried not to. What I alluding to more was SBC's refusal to provide that kind of information to the RIAA, as discussed here. Comcast should have done the same thing, or at least tried.
For what it's worth: I have a nearly identical setup (with an old 500MHz G3 laptop instead of a G4) and experienced exactly the same thing on my dual-G4. I had logged in and actually used the machine after the update, but it seemed dead the next morning. Haven't had a problem since, after repairing permissions, and I experienced no other problems on either machine at all.
While I don't agree with the article, in general, I do think that the phrase, "It doesn't corner very well" is strangely appropriate for both Java and SUVs.
But does it matter? What Verisign is doing is wrong. Exactly how they're wrong is irrelevant.
Is it because the Department of Homeland Security isn't even remotely qualified for that task?
Naw, couldn't be....
As a manager/owner, I hire people for certain positions and I expect them to Do The Right Thing while they're working for me. In return, my employees want me to give them the tools to do their job and then (pretty much) get the hell out of the way, which I'm happy to do. None of us wants micromanagement.
I know that my employees use the company's resources for their own use on occassion. As long as it isn't abused or cause trouble, I'm fine with that. I certainly don't want to waste my time looking over everyone's shoulder. That's far more hassle than it's worth.
If the company and employees both play by those kinds of rules -- they act like adults, in other words -- then the surveillance can go away. But both sides have to abide by the rules and, unfortunately, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Seeing women applying makeup and men catching up on the sports pages while barely piloting their two-ton tin can down the highway is more like what I was talking about. I don't particularly care if they crash and burn all by themselves -- that's Darwinism in action -- I just don't want to be involved in their stupidity. But since I can't always choose who is next to me on the road, I curse their stupidity on Slashdot instead.
Actually, I'm still waiting for some of the drivers on the local freeways to start exhibiting real intelligence.
-
The customer is not always right. Some customers will try to push you around just because they can, or (more likely) because they have no idea what they're demanding. These people are not out to help you grow your business.
-
You don't have to keep every customer. Bad customers (like examples from the first item) should be tossed. Needy customers that don't pay on time, haggle over prices every time, or in any way cause you more grief than profit should be directed to your competitors.
It may sound a little harsh, but not jumping through customer-created ridiculous hoops will simplify your life tremendously (as well as keeping ulcers in check).That said, I entirely agree with the concept of demonstrating trust and understanding. How that happens depends on the customer, but in general being open, honest and truthful (always!) will build customer loyalty quickly.
I also recommend that, at some point nearer the end of the school year (when you'll have more time to acquire business next summer), you start passing out business cards to all of your consumer customers and encourage them to use your services in their workplace. The "return rate" of that kind of advertising is low, but when you're only a one-man business any increase in business helps tremendously. If you're good, that could snowball into a very profitable business in a surprisingly short amount of time.
All the above is conjecture, of course. But it may be something for your ISP to think about. It may be possible to re-enable the MX for your domain in a short while without having to do anything.
Does anyone have any additional information on this? If true, could it be related to this fire incident?
If I was able, I'd mod you up about +15. Thanks again for the explanation.
I thought the "grid" was, basically, composed of consumers and producers of energy. I know that there is a balancing act between supply, demand, and the requirement to balance the loads within line segments, but it was my understanding that as long as there were consumers for your energy then you could generate it.
That's an oversimplification, I know. But I don't understand this case: A major power producer goes offline, but the consumers don't. Why can't the remaining producers take up at least some of the slack?
I'm really looking for information, here. Any references, links, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
As you say, a nuclear plant consumes about 10% of the produced energy for its own uses. Why should it shut down if the external grid loses power? Isn't that what the plant is supposed to do? Supply power to the grid?
I confess to being a programmer, not an expert on nuclear power plants. That probably explains a lot....
Hopefully not just over the event horizon....
A risk comes with announcing The Way It Really Works, however. Some other morally outraged individual will eventually figure out what's going on -- perhaps by reading it on Slashdot -- and raise a stink. Enough of a stink, and the feds will either have to back down or try to enforce the policy. That could get ugly. One of the rules I learned after having a kid was, "Don't make unenforceable rules." Maybe the feds should read a parenting book.
Personally, I'm completely in favor of stem cell research and wish the government would stop trying to stick its nose into places it doesn't belong (I won't start that list -- the textarea field isn't big enough).
When a computer is examined as evidence for some misdeed there exists a question of whether the contents of the hard drive were modified during the examination(s). If it can be proven that any data was modified -- even something like a dirty bit being flipped -- then the whole case could get thrown out as tampering with evidence. Because of this, many computer forensic types will rip the drive out a target computer, make a device copy of it, then examine that instead.
Now, this new secure IDE will complicate this procedure. The examiner can either use the target computer, which may contaminate the evidence, or they have to duplicate the hardware, all the way to the motherboard.
I confess to not reading the article thoroughly (well, not at all) so this is just conjecture: If only the data of each sector is encrypted then the examiner could potentially create a bit copy of the drive (without decrypting the data), then use the IDE's key to decrypt the copy. But if anything beyond the data (eg, block bound values and the like) is encrypted then it's possible that not even a device copy will work.
Now, whether all of the above is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing is definitely up for interpretation....