You do realize menstrual cycles all align with women on warships?
Can you just imagine what the colony would be like for several days out of every month?
And no men and you expect the them, over 300 years, to maintain a reasonable society that new folks would want to be born into? Not slagging women, just saying you are creating a gender imbalance in live population that cannot fail to have profound psychological and then cultural consequences.
Any subsequent generations are effectively prisoners in an ark. They may not LIKE the fact they are on an ark. They may not want to go ahead with a eugenics program or even participate in this whole mission. They may even want to turn the ship around or just tune out and do SFA while the 'volunteers' do the work.
It's going to be messy. The series 'The 100' on Netflix appears to be exploring a similar sort of situation. The initial show premise involves a pre-series nuke war, space stations of Earth survive and conglomerate to produce the Ark, plan to wait a few hundred years to return to earth, 100 years short they discover a critical problem with carbon scrubbers that will take 6 months to fix but life support will break down in 100.... and they've already had to start putting lots of people in detention because they a) have too many people by reproduction and b) they have people who don't feel like they owe the system anything. It's an interesting study in exactly how draconian people on these sorts of space missions may have to become to maintain order and deal with crises like overpopulation.
So you are comparing lifetime expenditures on various coin-op video games over years of time versus single limited-duration expenditures in a single game app? Seems a bit like comparing apples and oranges.
I probably spent a few hundred dollars in coin machines in my lifetime. I never spend more than about $10-15 in one place (even at my most excessive which was university and John Elway's Football or MLB baseball).
And I can only imagine spending $10K a month if I had more money than I needed and if so, I am quite sure that money could be deployed in a more worthwhile fashion.
The world has finite resources. People's access to them often has little to do with how well they will be expended. (Yes, there's a judgment of value inherent in that statement.)
Still, with what can be done in the world with $10,000, anyone dropping $10,000/month on a virtual product in a game strikes me as wasteful and has an odd sense of the value of money and its uses.
That is, of course, just an opinion, not an assumption.
And why resort to insults and foul language? What did that add to your post?
This kind of chip has been designed. I am not quite sure if it has been produced, but if the people I know in the industry have a design sitting on the drawing board that they feel can be sold with a complete CA authority in it without fear of any tampering, then it is possible.
There are lots of different anti-tamper vectors you need to cover, but the truth is the tech exists to make it a really hard challenge for anyone, even a big agency. Of course, any backdooring in the software or hardware renders these protections rather moot.
Why do you suspect only apple has this software and can deploy it?
The latest exploit *we know of* made apple's update vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. If that's the case, then any OS module could be overwritten to introduce a backdoor, apps could be introduced which had backdoors, etc.
Beyond that, the 256 bit key is only as good as the RNG that cranked it out. That might or might not be a bulletproof one depending on where they got their key generation algorithm and implementation and what sources of entropy it uses to generate random numbers.
If Apple can do it, someone else can figure out how to. If the NSA can't keep its secrets and programs hidden in-house, what makes you think Apple can over the longer term? Or even has, for all you know?
There are many ways to make the memory inside it proof against intrusion.
I know of a company with a chip design that includes a mesh and a vacuum compartment. The mesh can detect electrical, thermal, or physical intrusions. The vacuum compartment, if breached, is another way of telling someone is trying to access the physical memory substrate. There's also some other detection mechanisms as well. All of them zeroize the memory well enough to prevent anyone getting anything useful off of it.
This sort of tech can also protect sea-of-gates style arrays in which code execution can live.
Although I generally agree with your thesis, I will point out those 'leaps' can be painful. The longer we can fight the slide towards statist or authoritarian rule, the longer we can make at least some progress before things get bad enough to need a bloody revolt.
So, keeping the slope of the decline as close to flat as we can by fighting attempts to hobble democracy still matters.
I do find it interesting that if you read the classics, you'll see Greeks and Romans arguing many of the issues of governance we face today. (Just further proof your thesis is spot-on.)
Also note that not all laser pointers are the same. The little laser pointer you play with your cat is available in much larger versions with a much stronger emitter. Those can do lasting eye damage fairly fast.
What's a pilot's eyesight worth? I'd say millions, given a lost career at the annual pay rate of a multi-engine Airline Transport Pilot's salary, not counting the human cost. So if people can cause this sort of damage with these pointers, why is it not worth pursuing?
I'm all for hardening up the planes with appropriate countermeasures.
Frankly, being a bit mean, I'd be okay with a back-trace and counter-measure system... but then I'm a big believer in the effect of effective self-defense. Yes, deterrence from splattering one idiot may not stop every idiot. But it will have stopped that idiot. Even if all it did was lase them back with a strong laser pointer.... (okay that's a bad idea and I know it, but I hate the attitude that some people have that these kind of crappy pranks are somehow okay for kids to be pulling (or adults)... stupidity SHOULD be painful....)
That would depend whether that distraction, piled on top of perhaps many others occurring at the same time, led to some important fact being overlooked...
The PD, by the way, will follow up on snowballs. People have been killed from snowballs (or ice) hurled from overpasses causing car accidents on major thoroughfares. That in fact IS worth prosecuting. That is REAL harm.
Also, red herring comparison in the sense that the average pilot of an airliner having a mishap means way more involved parties than just himself or himself and a couple of friends/relatives as is the car case. It can involve hundreds of people. If you were wanting to compare packed buses and snowball/rock chuckers or tanker tractor trailer combos, then maybe you'd be closer to an accurate comparison.
Probably until at least 2001-2002, the a large federal police force's main communications gateways were running OS/2 Warp Connect. Why? It was pretty robust (as long as you didn't use HPFS which didn't behave well in a machine crash as far as preserving open files).
I liked OS/2. It's a real pity IBM marketed Windows 3.1 and later 95 with its IBM desktops when OS/2 was a) available, b) more capable, and c) better thought out. The triumph of marketing over quality (much like the ancient Beta vs. VHS battle).
In the Nehterlands, in the early 2000s, they had an online commerce system that works as follows:
You have a credit card. It has a number. You want to buy something online. Your vendor, after your cart is totalled, gives you an amount and a vendor code. You go to your bank's website in your browser. You access your credit card account. You create a payment by entering the vendor code and total. A one-time code is generated that you copy and paste into the vendor's payment form.
This means: a) The vendor NEVER has your CC number (so can't lose it) b) The vendor can only charge ONCE against that number c) The vendor gets paid, your data stays secure
WHERE IS THIS SYSTEM IN NORTH AMERICA?
WHY DO WE KEEP HAVING TO GIVE CC NUMBERS TO VENDORS?
Our banks aren't catching up because they couldn't catch a clue to save their lives.
I once had a friend have fraudulent charges on his CC. He went through the process do get them acknowledged with his CC company and written off. He asked when he'd get a new card with a new CC number. They weren't planning on sending him one. Yes, you heard me....
He asked them to kindly assign him a new number and send him another. They countered with the fact that he could just sign off any other bogus charges and they'd make them go away.
And you wonder where 18% interest rates come from?
Our banks are absolutely hopeless when it comes to innovating or even catching up with what the rest of hte world has been doing forever.
The chip and pin is slightly better (in prevention, but not in dealing with a breach) than the signature. Harder to argue later with your CC company thought because you can't argue 'well, that is clearly NOT my signature you have on file!'.... they'll just say 'they had your pin and chip, so too bad, so sad, you are liable....'.
One time numbers are the way to go for online transactions. I'm not sure what cure there is for CC used at brick and mortar outlets other than DON"T DO IT.
You've got good cops. You've got bad cops who will engage in criminality for personal gain. You've got decent cops who still cover for a fellow blue brother by reflex. You've got so-so cops that might do some not so hot things but not stand for others. You've got a lot of peer pressure within PDs. You've got political cops and police agencies who have goals not related to the individual street officer. You've got an IT infrastructure that cannot keep national secrets (NSA/Snowden) and now you've got poorly funded local cops wanting biometric data they cannot a guarantee secure.
So, there's lots of ways this sort of thing can go badly wrong, counting various agencies and involved parties with self-interest that might not align with citizen interest. Then you've got all the accidents, incompetence, short IT budgets, poor IT practices...and so you'e got lots of accidental ways things can go bad.
Even if 90% of refusals are from drunkards and stoners (doubtful, enough people dislike it on principle), how does that allow the police or anybody to make different decisions? No legitimate way I can see.
Please clarify how any such statistical knowledge would permit any change in police procedure without violating the US Constitution?
Many companies don't engage in succession planning and they really should.
I know quite a few IT managers of even significant operations who don't have effective succession options even after them repeatedly bringing the risks to managements attention. I call this management style 'the ostrich'.
It's amazing how fired and bankrupt companies can get when the 'never happens' scenario ensues - somebody takes another job, gets hit by a care, has a heart attack, etc.
There are also a lot of areas where there isn't a clear ethical line.
You work in petrochem. Are you killing the planet or providing necessary energy? You are an interior ballistics expert working for a swedish arms manufacturer (Hi Oerjan). The weapons can be used to stomp ruthless murderers and terrorists or it can be shot into crowded buses. Do you own all of that? You build dams. They provide power but they flood habitat. Are you doing something ethically good or bad? You develop car engines. Cars get people around. Your engine might save on greenhouse gases. But it furthers the automotive culture. Ehtical or not?
I have written software for: Large HR system, massive multi-user gaming platform, 3G/4G network policy enforcement, massive online gaming platform where many of the games were slots, poker, etc, major federal police force dispatch and mobile computing software, point of sale systems, network management systems, RCAF Tactical Navigation Trainer, etc.
I'd say at least half of the projects had some dodgy aspect somewhere in them (the online gambling one was the most distasteful but it was legal and thus within general public acceptance although I felt a bit slimy as did many developers). You can pick ethical issues out in most projects both in terms of the final product, the marketing, or the underlying model of operations that the invention supports.
Do engineers own all of that? That's a lot to expect. If none of us worked on projects in any way dodgy ethically or morally, society would not have most of what it has today. I'd image a good 70% of technology would not exist.
Software design and architecture Coding in various languages Understanding scripting Understanding hardware to the extent you need to interface with it an design well (which, if you work in UI for instance, isn't a whole heck of a lot) Knowing a lot of toolsets related to programming: languages, deployment tools, code debuggers, maybe a bit about debugging IP if you do networked apps, IDEs, compilers, IDLs, maybe ability to read a core, etc.
This is not exactly the IP network manager's issues nor the manager of productivity and enterprise software and backup solutions set of skills.
Those would linclude: a) Understanding repositories (email alone is its own huge beast software wise with lots of idioscyncratic stuff) - this could include administering your companies source repositories and recovering ones that crash, something devs don't often have to deal with b) Understanding RAIDs, Clouds, and other backup hardware and software (again, its own beast) c) Understanding scripting (okay, one commonality) d) Understanding all sorts of admin tools for users, accounts, security policy, etc. across multiple OSes and platforms (not something the average developer has to know, certainly not from the perspective of a manager) e) Understanding network capacity planning, troubleshooting, network monitoring and troubleshooting toolsets, and everything there is to know about wired and wireless LANs, WAN access tech, routers, hubs, switches, firewalls, gateways, and so on f) Understanding all the office and productivity software your users use or might need to plan for future needs g) Understanding all of the legal and internal policy limitations which affect anything to do with data retention, employee dismissal, privacy, etc. as it pertains to IT activity h) Help desk ops - knowing everything about all of your customers diverse platforms and OSes from an operational point of view and to support all development operations and enterprise activities
The skill sets can overlap in places (more if your programmer has to work on multiple platforms, works closer to hardware or the network, or the like) but it is distinct. No IT manager I know can ever keep up with the full width and breadth of deployed environments. They all play to black gods that when they have to patch a SAN or rebuild an email store, that it comes up okay. They all have higher stress, in any busy environment, than most developers. (I say that as a developer with two decades of experience in military, large corporation, multi-tiered, networked, sometimes massively multi-user systems for possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of users or 7 million as the last 3G/LTE policy software I worked on was supporting....)
I wouldn't trade my job, no matter how bad the day (like the day, 6 months out of school, I was in an RCMP command center when the dispatch system and mobile computing systems crashed, and the dispatchers were trying to figure out where everyone was and if it was possible to land ERT in a school parking lot due to autofire in a public park.... and I had to get the entire system back up ASAP), for the average job of an IT manager.
IT managers are always treated as overhead. Thus nobody wants to pay for them or give the support to ensure a robust infrastructure.
Two questions I'd propose for execs: A) What is your cost if key industrial data is lost and irrecoverable because the IT budget isn't sufficient to protect it? B) What is your cost per day if key manufacturing ops are suspended due to an IT system failure again due to insufficient investment?
These can be catastrophic. I've seen companies who've lost datastores (hardware failure, corruption, backups that had never been tested because nobody every wants to buy a system to unpack bacukups on or to spend the time and money to verify them) of code actually have to rewrite multi-month projects. That can be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention contractual
They refer to it most of the time as 'the legal system' versus the 'justice system'.
Justice system is most often a misnomer. We can rarely provide any worthwhile justice. We can, however, enforce a code of laws.
I think the penalty here is vastly disproportionate. On the other hand, I do think the guy knowingly broke the law and should have suffered a penalty. Probation for two years seems reasonable. The fine should have been more in the $5-10K range as a 'hurts but won't kill you' fine. It has to be bad enough to deter reoccurence, but dropping a nuke($183K) seems overblown and not sensible.
I wonder if the severity of the penalty will help with any appeal?
I noted at one point that BC Tel Mobility (now Telus) had two COs located on different fault planes and hardened up with bunker-like security and power systems. They do think of earthquakes.
I worked on 3G/4G networks auth and policy enforcement software. It is hideously complicated. I'm surprised that anytime you make a call it goes through without any disasters.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realize menstrual cycles all align with women on warships?
Can you just imagine what the colony would be like for several days out of every month?
And no men and you expect the them, over 300 years, to maintain a reasonable society that new folks would want to be born into? Not slagging women, just saying you are creating a gender imbalance in live population that cannot fail to have profound psychological and then cultural consequences.
This plan is a bad one.
The initial crop of people are volunteers.
Any subsequent generations are effectively prisoners in an ark. They may not LIKE the fact they are on an ark. They may not want to go ahead with a eugenics program or even participate in this whole mission. They may even want to turn the ship around or just tune out and do SFA while the 'volunteers' do the work.
It's going to be messy. The series 'The 100' on Netflix appears to be exploring a similar sort of situation. The initial show premise involves a pre-series nuke war, space stations of Earth survive and conglomerate to produce the Ark, plan to wait a few hundred years to return to earth, 100 years short they discover a critical problem with carbon scrubbers that will take 6 months to fix but life support will break down in 100.... and they've already had to start putting lots of people in detention because they a) have too many people by reproduction and b) they have people who don't feel like they owe the system anything. It's an interesting study in exactly how draconian people on these sorts of space missions may have to become to maintain order and deal with crises like overpopulation.
So you are comparing lifetime expenditures on various coin-op video games over years of time versus single limited-duration expenditures in a single game app? Seems a bit like comparing apples and oranges.
I probably spent a few hundred dollars in coin machines in my lifetime. I never spend more than about $10-15 in one place (even at my most excessive which was university and John Elway's Football or MLB baseball).
And I can only imagine spending $10K a month if I had more money than I needed and if so, I am quite sure that money could be deployed in a more worthwhile fashion.
The world has finite resources. People's access to them often has little to do with how well they will be expended. (Yes, there's a judgment of value inherent in that statement.)
Well, your point is perhaps accurate.
Still, with what can be done in the world with $10,000, anyone dropping $10,000/month on a virtual product in a game strikes me as wasteful and has an odd sense of the value of money and its uses.
That is, of course, just an opinion, not an assumption.
And why resort to insults and foul language? What did that add to your post?
This kind of chip has been designed. I am not quite sure if it has been produced, but if the people I know in the industry have a design sitting on the drawing board that they feel can be sold with a complete CA authority in it without fear of any tampering, then it is possible.
There are lots of different anti-tamper vectors you need to cover, but the truth is the tech exists to make it a really hard challenge for anyone, even a big agency. Of course, any backdooring in the software or hardware renders these protections rather moot.
Why do you suspect only apple has this software and can deploy it?
The latest exploit *we know of* made apple's update vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. If that's the case, then any OS module could be overwritten to introduce a backdoor, apps could be introduced which had backdoors, etc.
Beyond that, the 256 bit key is only as good as the RNG that cranked it out. That might or might not be a bulletproof one depending on where they got their key generation algorithm and implementation and what sources of entropy it uses to generate random numbers.
If Apple can do it, someone else can figure out how to. If the NSA can't keep its secrets and programs hidden in-house, what makes you think Apple can over the longer term? Or even has, for all you know?
There are many ways to make the memory inside it proof against intrusion.
I know of a company with a chip design that includes a mesh and a vacuum compartment. The mesh can detect electrical, thermal, or physical intrusions. The vacuum compartment, if breached, is another way of telling someone is trying to access the physical memory substrate. There's also some other detection mechanisms as well. All of them zeroize the memory well enough to prevent anyone getting anything useful off of it.
This sort of tech can also protect sea-of-gates style arrays in which code execution can live.
Although I generally agree with your thesis, I will point out those 'leaps' can be painful. The longer we can fight the slide towards statist or authoritarian rule, the longer we can make at least some progress before things get bad enough to need a bloody revolt.
So, keeping the slope of the decline as close to flat as we can by fighting attempts to hobble democracy still matters.
I do find it interesting that if you read the classics, you'll see Greeks and Romans arguing many of the issues of governance we face today. (Just further proof your thesis is spot-on.)
Also note that not all laser pointers are the same. The little laser pointer you play with your cat is available in much larger versions with a much stronger emitter. Those can do lasting eye damage fairly fast.
What's a pilot's eyesight worth? I'd say millions, given a lost career at the annual pay rate of a multi-engine Airline Transport Pilot's salary, not counting the human cost. So if people can cause this sort of damage with these pointers, why is it not worth pursuing?
I'm all for hardening up the planes with appropriate countermeasures.
Frankly, being a bit mean, I'd be okay with a back-trace and counter-measure system... but then I'm a big believer in the effect of effective self-defense. Yes, deterrence from splattering one idiot may not stop every idiot. But it will have stopped that idiot. Even if all it did was lase them back with a strong laser pointer.... (okay that's a bad idea and I know it, but I hate the attitude that some people have that these kind of crappy pranks are somehow okay for kids to be pulling (or adults)... stupidity SHOULD be painful....)
That would depend whether that distraction, piled on top of perhaps many others occurring at the same time, led to some important fact being overlooked...
The PD, by the way, will follow up on snowballs. People have been killed from snowballs (or ice) hurled from overpasses causing car accidents on major thoroughfares. That in fact IS worth prosecuting. That is REAL harm.
Also, red herring comparison in the sense that the average pilot of an airliner having a mishap means way more involved parties than just himself or himself and a couple of friends/relatives as is the car case. It can involve hundreds of people. If you were wanting to compare packed buses and snowball/rock chuckers or tanker tractor trailer combos, then maybe you'd be closer to an accurate comparison.
Probably until at least 2001-2002, the a large federal police force's main communications gateways were running OS/2 Warp Connect. Why? It was pretty robust (as long as you didn't use HPFS which didn't behave well in a machine crash as far as preserving open files).
I liked OS/2. It's a real pity IBM marketed Windows 3.1 and later 95 with its IBM desktops when OS/2 was a) available, b) more capable, and c) better thought out. The triumph of marketing over quality (much like the ancient Beta vs. VHS battle).
Remember Independence Day?
Sorry for the unpleasant mental bleach moment, but that is the logical follow up to this post about Roswell and Linux.
In the Nehterlands, in the early 2000s, they had an online commerce system that works as follows:
You have a credit card. It has a number.
You want to buy something online. Your vendor, after your cart is totalled, gives you an amount and a vendor code.
You go to your bank's website in your browser. You access your credit card account. You create a payment by entering the vendor code and total. A one-time code is generated that you copy and paste into the vendor's payment form.
This means:
a) The vendor NEVER has your CC number (so can't lose it)
b) The vendor can only charge ONCE against that number
c) The vendor gets paid, your data stays secure
WHERE IS THIS SYSTEM IN NORTH AMERICA?
WHY DO WE KEEP HAVING TO GIVE CC NUMBERS TO VENDORS?
Our banks aren't catching up because they couldn't catch a clue to save their lives.
I once had a friend have fraudulent charges on his CC. He went through the process do get them acknowledged with his CC company and written off. He asked when he'd get a new card with a new CC number. They weren't planning on sending him one. Yes, you heard me....
He asked them to kindly assign him a new number and send him another. They countered with the fact that he could just sign off any other bogus charges and they'd make them go away.
And you wonder where 18% interest rates come from?
Our banks are absolutely hopeless when it comes to innovating or even catching up with what the rest of hte world has been doing forever.
The chip and pin is slightly better (in prevention, but not in dealing with a breach) than the signature. Harder to argue later with your CC company thought because you can't argue 'well, that is clearly NOT my signature you have on file!'.... they'll just say 'they had your pin and chip, so too bad, so sad, you are liable....'.
One time numbers are the way to go for online transactions. I'm not sure what cure there is for CC used at brick and mortar outlets other than DON"T DO IT.
It's more complicated than that.
You've got good cops.
You've got bad cops who will engage in criminality for personal gain.
You've got decent cops who still cover for a fellow blue brother by reflex.
You've got so-so cops that might do some not so hot things but not stand for others.
You've got a lot of peer pressure within PDs.
You've got political cops and police agencies who have goals not related to the individual street officer.
You've got an IT infrastructure that cannot keep national secrets (NSA/Snowden) and now you've got poorly funded local cops wanting biometric data they cannot a guarantee secure.
So, there's lots of ways this sort of thing can go badly wrong, counting various agencies and involved parties with self-interest that might not align with citizen interest. Then you've got all the accidents, incompetence, short IT budgets, poor IT practices...and so you'e got lots of accidental ways things can go bad.
How does it help to know that?
Even if 90% of refusals are from drunkards and stoners (doubtful, enough people dislike it on principle), how does that allow the police or anybody to make different decisions? No legitimate way I can see.
Please clarify how any such statistical knowledge would permit any change in police procedure without violating the US Constitution?
Yes, because you can trust the police and the government never to abuse data or leak it to some other agency that will....
Eh? What?
I can carry a JVM on a USB key as well as complete Javadocs. I'd say its quite portable!
(Okay, that's a dumb comment, but seriously... yours is a bit much too)
The post mentions Finland's contribution was the national ID card system.
Eek, that's horrible. Even in our cold Canadian winters, we tend to do better than that!
That amount of heat convinces me that AZ is a place for rattlesnakes and sand but not humans....
Of course, I myself don't enjoy temps about 85 F much when humidity is significant as it is in SE Ontario. 80 F is a lovely summer temp.
Many companies don't engage in succession planning and they really should.
I know quite a few IT managers of even significant operations who don't have effective succession options even after them repeatedly bringing the risks to managements attention. I call this management style 'the ostrich'.
It's amazing how fired and bankrupt companies can get when the 'never happens' scenario ensues - somebody takes another job, gets hit by a care, has a heart attack, etc.
There are also a lot of areas where there isn't a clear ethical line.
You work in petrochem. Are you killing the planet or providing necessary energy?
You are an interior ballistics expert working for a swedish arms manufacturer (Hi Oerjan). The weapons can be used to stomp ruthless murderers and terrorists or it can be shot into crowded buses. Do you own all of that?
You build dams. They provide power but they flood habitat. Are you doing something ethically good or bad?
You develop car engines. Cars get people around. Your engine might save on greenhouse gases. But it furthers the automotive culture. Ehtical or not?
I have written software for: Large HR system, massive multi-user gaming platform, 3G/4G network policy enforcement, massive online gaming platform where many of the games were slots, poker, etc, major federal police force dispatch and mobile computing software, point of sale systems, network management systems, RCAF Tactical Navigation Trainer, etc.
I'd say at least half of the projects had some dodgy aspect somewhere in them (the online gambling one was the most distasteful but it was legal and thus within general public acceptance although I felt a bit slimy as did many developers). You can pick ethical issues out in most projects both in terms of the final product, the marketing, or the underlying model of operations that the invention supports.
Do engineers own all of that? That's a lot to expect. If none of us worked on projects in any way dodgy ethically or morally, society would not have most of what it has today. I'd image a good 70% of technology would not exist.
Being a programmer suggests skills like:
Software design and architecture
Coding in various languages
Understanding scripting
Understanding hardware to the extent you need to interface with it an design well (which, if you work in UI for instance, isn't a whole heck of a lot)
Knowing a lot of toolsets related to programming: languages, deployment tools, code debuggers, maybe a bit about debugging IP if you do networked apps, IDEs, compilers, IDLs, maybe ability to read a core, etc.
This is not exactly the IP network manager's issues nor the manager of productivity and enterprise software and backup solutions set of skills.
Those would linclude:
a) Understanding repositories (email alone is its own huge beast software wise with lots of idioscyncratic stuff) - this could include administering your companies source repositories and recovering ones that crash, something devs don't often have to deal with
b) Understanding RAIDs, Clouds, and other backup hardware and software (again, its own beast)
c) Understanding scripting (okay, one commonality)
d) Understanding all sorts of admin tools for users, accounts, security policy, etc. across multiple OSes and platforms (not something the average developer has to know, certainly not from the perspective of a manager)
e) Understanding network capacity planning, troubleshooting, network monitoring and troubleshooting toolsets, and everything there is to know about wired and wireless LANs, WAN access tech, routers, hubs, switches, firewalls, gateways, and so on
f) Understanding all the office and productivity software your users use or might need to plan for future needs
g) Understanding all of the legal and internal policy limitations which affect anything to do with data retention, employee dismissal, privacy, etc. as it pertains to IT activity
h) Help desk ops - knowing everything about all of your customers diverse platforms and OSes from an operational point of view and to support all development operations and enterprise activities
The skill sets can overlap in places (more if your programmer has to work on multiple platforms, works closer to hardware or the network, or the like) but it is distinct. No IT manager I know can ever keep up with the full width and breadth of deployed environments. They all play to black gods that when they have to patch a SAN or rebuild an email store, that it comes up okay. They all have higher stress, in any busy environment, than most developers. (I say that as a developer with two decades of experience in military, large corporation, multi-tiered, networked, sometimes massively multi-user systems for possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of users or 7 million as the last 3G/LTE policy software I worked on was supporting....)
I wouldn't trade my job, no matter how bad the day (like the day, 6 months out of school, I was in an RCMP command center when the dispatch system and mobile computing systems crashed, and the dispatchers were trying to figure out where everyone was and if it was possible to land ERT in a school parking lot due to autofire in a public park.... and I had to get the entire system back up ASAP), for the average job of an IT manager.
IT managers are always treated as overhead. Thus nobody wants to pay for them or give the support to ensure a robust infrastructure.
Two questions I'd propose for execs:
A) What is your cost if key industrial data is lost and irrecoverable because the IT budget isn't sufficient to protect it?
B) What is your cost per day if key manufacturing ops are suspended due to an IT system failure again due to insufficient investment?
These can be catastrophic. I've seen companies who've lost datastores (hardware failure, corruption, backups that had never been tested because nobody every wants to buy a system to unpack bacukups on or to spend the time and money to verify them) of code actually have to rewrite multi-month projects. That can be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention contractual
They refer to it most of the time as 'the legal system' versus the 'justice system'.
Justice system is most often a misnomer. We can rarely provide any worthwhile justice. We can, however, enforce a code of laws.
I think the penalty here is vastly disproportionate. On the other hand, I do think the guy knowingly broke the law and should have suffered a penalty. Probation for two years seems reasonable. The fine should have been more in the $5-10K range as a 'hurts but won't kill you' fine. It has to be bad enough to deter reoccurence, but dropping a nuke($183K) seems overblown and not sensible.
I wonder if the severity of the penalty will help with any appeal?
I noted at one point that BC Tel Mobility (now Telus) had two COs located on different fault planes and hardened up with bunker-like security and power systems. They do think of earthquakes.
I worked on 3G/4G networks auth and policy enforcement software. It is hideously complicated. I'm surprised that anytime you make a call it goes through without any disasters.