The UK Bank clearing service BACS also process bulk direct debit and direct credit transactions over the internet. Transactions are encrypted then tramsitted over the interweb. Users each get a smartcard and a PIN. If you aheva direct debit set up with any big company in the UK it was probably sent over the web to bacs.
It's possible to take someone's bank account and sort code over a web page, set up a direct debit mandate on their account and start collecting monthly subscription payments without any paper being involved and everything being transmitted by the internet. The system is called BACSTEL-IP
Application 1: Super Date thingy down beside the clock
Application 2: Superduper pop up blocker that feeds you adverts all day
Application 3: w32.netsky.A
It doesn't really surpise me. Y2k is long gone and, frankly, there's been no huge advances in desktop IT in the entire period.
Most computers are being used in offices and in homes. These are folk who, three years ago could get a PIII 700 running Win2k and Office. What reason do thy have to upgrade? What new features are on offer?
Hardware may be moving with leaps and bound, but at the desktop application level we aren't seeing that sort of progress. Nonetheless, things like 64bit computing with faster processors and obscene quantities of RAM will open up real-time desktop video editing to the masses - that might see a whole wave of upgrades. VOIP might see some big changes to POTS, but only if it can offer something new to encourage folk to upgrade. And, of course, we still haven't seen reliable speech processing, possibly the killer app but is there really a huge improvement from ViaVoice of 1999 to the software on the market today.
Frankly there's no reason to upgrade, and unless there is there's going to be a dwindling source of jobs in a consolidated market.
Well one question - what about folk that want to work from home? Roadwarrior and executive types with a laptop who might work fro home in the evening or at the weekend? Does this work over DSL or is that way to slow? Is there any way for an exec to sync their files to a laptop when leaving the building and resync when getting back in the morning?
When the share price falls can we get the folk suing RedHat to start a class action suit against Google too? After all, these tech sahres are only supposed to go upwards are they not?
If the solution lets you choose the drives, you're probably going to pick desktop IDE drives. If you do that you really want to look at Seagate who will give you a five year warranty. You'll need to check warranty terms if you're buying OEM drives though. When other manufacturers are only willing to offer a 12 month warranty and you're looking at 10 drives... well I'll do the maths, you could be replacing a drive every five weeks! And if the drives wait a year until they start failing you could be looking at an expensive maintenance contract.
If the Democrats have any sense, any non trusted computers are going to live on a different subnet to their trusted systems, with no routing between the two networks. The trusted systems should be using a VPN to make sure any network traffic they're emitting is encrypted.
That way, sure someone can hijack a laptop, but all they get to do is piggy back on the Democrat's internet connection or target other machines on the untrusted network.
Sure it's possible they haven't thought of this, but it's such a basic precaution I find it hard to believe. If they're letting any untrusted computers on to their network they have to treat the physical network like the internet - untrusted jsut like the guest PCs.
I can see police cars equipted with this kinda stuff in places where Yack and Drive is illegal.
I don't drive, though I'm often a passenger in cars. I'm often a passenger on buses too, strange as this may sound to some North Americans. In both situations I'll frequently use my mobile phone - are the police really going to start tracking vehicles and trying to establish if there's more than one occupant? What about single occupant cars with a proper hands free kit installed? What about sensible folk who when driving ignore the fact their phone was ringing and let it divert to voicemail? I really can't see the police wasting much time with this.
You have geforce 4 cards in your work desktops? What are folk doing in your office that they need 3D accellaration? Most office desktops I see have Intel 810 chipsets or similar, and why the heck not... these are for running Excel, not playing Doom III. A quick trip over to Dell.com shows their Office desktops - the Optiplex range all come with ether Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900) or
Embedded Intel Extreme Graphics 2. I suspect neither of those would be up to running Doom III
I'm still looking for the skip intro button.
It's supposed to be a website. If ID want to relase a movie trailer they could give us a.torrent to an MPEG. The website on the other hand should - quickly and concisely - let us know where we can buy it, when we can buy it, how much for and what we need to play it.
I've had more than one IT Manager specify to me that their email address is 'lower case', so I stand by my original post.
Seems quite reasonable. RFC 821 says:
For some hosts the user name is case sensitive, and SMTP implementations must take case to preserve the case of user names as they appear in mailbox arguments.
The only email address required to be case insensitive is postmaster.
No, I'm not confused at all. My very point is that the World Wide Web is not the internet. It does not in itself discriminate thus every (routable) IP address and domain name on the web is indeed equal.
In other words if you have an ip address you can have a web presence just like HP or Microsoft. Had the web been created by commercial interests that would have been a lot harder. Indeed today it is becoming more difficult thanks to the commercial interests, but that wasn't TBL's plan nor was it of his making.
Isn't it a little strange that someone who pioneered the web - free of class distinctions, where every IP address and domain name ranks equal - would choose to take an honour from the monarch and with it endorse the class system?
It's entirely reasonable that the creator of the web should be recognised by society, but the British Honours system is recognition by the establishment, not by society. Further to that, holding the second highest rank in the Order of the British Empire seems a lot less noble when we consider the persecution under which many countries within the empire existed.
Just my 2p worth. Others may wish to stand up for the system. Personally I think it sucks.
Evidence? When I say "Red Hat" what do you think of first? When I say "Novell" what do you think of first?
Eh? what does this have to do with the price of cheese? Novell Inc has been around since 1979 - Linus was still running around in shorts then.
Most folk probably think of Novell as a rather large company specialising in networking software - that's exactly what they are. They like linux because it's an alternative to Microsoft, and over in the Microsoft world there's a bigger company trying to sell copycat versions of many of Novell's programs. In the linux world there's a lot of demand for enterprise grade networking and groupware software.
When you think of IBM, does Jo Bloggs think of a Linux company? I wouldn't expect so - they too like linux because it fits in with their core products and strategies.
Novell are a major Linux company now because they own SuSE and Ximian. Now they are Linux companies, they just happen to be subsidiaries of Novell Inc.
I think you're wrong. It's been a year or two since the big linux distros would take some getting used to for Joe Bloggs switching from a PC. The reason they're not switching is he same reason they're not patching their PC - it takes time effort and a bit of skill. These folk want a PC that just works. If their PC had come with Linux instead of Windows, preconfigured so their Digi Camera works, their modem works, and their printer just works then they'd all be happily sitting with a distro that'd be equally unpatched. The only advantage then is that it's a bit more difficult for a virus to spread under the linux security model than the run everything as Admin security model adopted on most home installations of Windows.
Here in the UK we have Wi-Fi deployment now operating on the East Coast rail line. Rather than caching data in tunnels, the train switches to GPRS and is supposed to maintain its connection to the net using the mobile phone networks which have had the foresight to start providing coverage through tunnels on main railway lines.
As banks produce better and better online banking systems, is there still a place for Money / Quicken?
Sure there are folks who have disperate accounts and complex fincial arrangements where that might make sense, and they're the 1% actually using these products. For everyone else, a decade ago there was a demand because people wanted to keep track of their finances between bank statements. Today you just click online and your bank shows you exactly where your finances are.
As banks try to differentiate themselves in the online marketplace, you can bet they'll expand their offerings until they compete with the offerings from Intuit and Microsoft. Perhaps those firms should stop trying to sell millions of copies to customers and instead try and sell server based software to the banks to produce a customer interface, or are they already doing thatas well?
This strikes me as a smart move. How many here discovered Linux while looking for a development platform as a student?
Microsoft are attempting to lock students in, probably even before they hit tertiary education.
Most of the big distros come with good development tools these days. Still I bet Microsoft's tight integration is going to present a new challenge to the open source community.
The problem here is open source is usually written by volunteers (a few notable exceptions of course). People tend to devote their time to solving problems that affect them. As they're not bothered by viruses there's little inclination to write anti-virus software.
That's why there's been so little progress with Open anti virus but you can bet your life that if/when viruses do start to strike, people will be willing to dedicate their time and a FOSS anti virus solution will be available.
Even with the sysadmin being in India. A grunt will still be required to walk up to the box and reboot it
Why? If I want to reboot our server I ssh in and tell it to reboot - if I can't ssh in because networking on the box has died then I log i through the serial console.
If power needs cycled you log in to the UPS - most big UPS boxes have a network connection for that - and power cycle the machine. Networking to the office is dead? Then you call your supplier and ask them to restore networking within 4 hours or whatever your SLA demands. Still need access to the box, the use a modem and dial in using POTS.
Physical access to a box cna be convenient, but other than for replacing hardware it's rarely necessary. Replacing ahrdware is something that's easy to outsource to other local companies too - now that's a market
Yes, you make a good point - I was mistaken, thinking it was Linksys not Netgear. A hard coded backdoor is a much bigger problem than the Linksys Router faces.
Instead of spending time consulting lawyers, why don't the lusers instead spend time reading the accompanying manual which tells them to select their own password.
Why do people want to blame, sue and hold responsible a company for the actions of users who have chosen either not to read or not to follow the doccumentation.
I'm not trolling here, I agree that these things should be shipped so they won't fnction until a password is chosen by the user. Nonetheless, the users were told to set a password and ignored that advice, now the company that provided the hardware is supposed to be responsible for their ignorance?
Nonetheless, their decision was a business one and a legitimate decision at that. Linux and Open Source in general have a development model of release early, release often. If a bug is spotted, it's generaly corrected by a new release, not a bug fix to an existing release.
If you don't like that model companies, RedHat included, are willing to backport patches to earlier releases. You can subscribe to such services for $$$.
Basically, Linux comes in two flavours, one for early adopters, happy to patch adn upgrade as necessary, the other is for those who want long term stability. The first one can be free as in beer, the second can too, but much more rarely. If you need the kind of support and stability offered by option two, you're probably willing to pay for it, and quite possibly willing to pay redhat for it.
Ah, great solution, "sue". Guess you must be American.
As soon as folk start suing, FOSS goes out the window - remember the kernel this Linksys box runs is GPL'd and it's for that reason folk have been doing so many great things with it.
Now you want every programmer, every kid who wants to release an application to take out public indemnity insurance. Why, because a user couldn't be bothered to RTFM and set a password. The user is at fault by not following the supplied instructions, but for some reason the programmer should be sued?
One day someone will be killed because of such complacency.
If anyone is running a life critical system using a linksys wireless gateway then the system designer is certainly at fault. They're using a product in a situation it's not designed for. If, on the other hand, you're suggesting that every piece of software should be designed to the standards of life-critical appliances then I think you've been skipping your medication.
Slashdot Mirror
It's possible to take someone's bank account and sort code over a web page, set up a direct debit mandate on their account and start collecting monthly subscription payments without any paper being involved and everything being transmitted by the internet. The system is called BACSTEL-IP
Application 1: Super Date thingy down beside the clock
Application 2: Superduper pop up blocker that feeds you adverts all day
Application 3: w32.netsky.A
Most computers are being used in offices and in homes. These are folk who, three years ago could get a PIII 700 running Win2k and Office. What reason do thy have to upgrade? What new features are on offer?
Hardware may be moving with leaps and bound, but at the desktop application level we aren't seeing that sort of progress. Nonetheless, things like 64bit computing with faster processors and obscene quantities of RAM will open up real-time desktop video editing to the masses - that might see a whole wave of upgrades. VOIP might see some big changes to POTS, but only if it can offer something new to encourage folk to upgrade. And, of course, we still haven't seen reliable speech processing, possibly the killer app but is there really a huge improvement from ViaVoice of 1999 to the software on the market today.
Frankly there's no reason to upgrade, and unless there is there's going to be a dwindling source of jobs in a consolidated market.
Well one question - what about folk that want to work from home? Roadwarrior and executive types with a laptop who might work fro home in the evening or at the weekend? Does this work over DSL or is that way to slow? Is there any way for an exec to sync their files to a laptop when leaving the building and resync when getting back in the morning?
When the share price falls can we get the folk suing RedHat to start a class action suit against Google too? After all, these tech sahres are only supposed to go upwards are they not?
If the solution lets you choose the drives, you're probably going to pick desktop IDE drives. If you do that you really want to look at Seagate who will give you a five year warranty. You'll need to check warranty terms if you're buying OEM drives though. When other manufacturers are only willing to offer a 12 month warranty and you're looking at 10 drives... well I'll do the maths, you could be replacing a drive every five weeks! And if the drives wait a year until they start failing you could be looking at an expensive maintenance contract.
That way, sure someone can hijack a laptop, but all they get to do is piggy back on the Democrat's internet connection or target other machines on the untrusted network.
Sure it's possible they haven't thought of this, but it's such a basic precaution I find it hard to believe. If they're letting any untrusted computers on to their network they have to treat the physical network like the internet - untrusted jsut like the guest PCs.
Now those really are strange shadows in those pictures. And that flag... well where's the wind coming from? :)
I don't drive, though I'm often a passenger in cars. I'm often a passenger on buses too, strange as this may sound to some North Americans. In both situations I'll frequently use my mobile phone - are the police really going to start tracking vehicles and trying to establish if there's more than one occupant? What about single occupant cars with a proper hands free kit installed? What about sensible folk who when driving ignore the fact their phone was ringing and let it divert to voicemail? I really can't see the police wasting much time with this.
You have geforce 4 cards in your work desktops? What are folk doing in your office that they need 3D accellaration? Most office desktops I see have Intel 810 chipsets or similar, and why the heck not... these are for running Excel, not playing Doom III. A quick trip over to Dell.com shows their Office desktops - the Optiplex range all come with ether Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900) or Embedded Intel Extreme Graphics 2. I suspect neither of those would be up to running Doom III
I'm still looking for the skip intro button. It's supposed to be a website. If ID want to relase a movie trailer they could give us a .torrent to an MPEG. The website on the other hand should - quickly and concisely - let us know where we can buy it, when we can buy it, how much for and what we need to play it.
Seems quite reasonable. RFC 821 says:
The only email address required to be case insensitive is postmaster.
In other words if you have an ip address you can have a web presence just like HP or Microsoft. Had the web been created by commercial interests that would have been a lot harder. Indeed today it is becoming more difficult thanks to the commercial interests, but that wasn't TBL's plan nor was it of his making.
It's entirely reasonable that the creator of the web should be recognised by society, but the British Honours system is recognition by the establishment, not by society. Further to that, holding the second highest rank in the Order of the British Empire seems a lot less noble when we consider the persecution under which many countries within the empire existed.
Just my 2p worth. Others may wish to stand up for the system. Personally I think it sucks.
Eh? what does this have to do with the price of cheese? Novell Inc has been around since 1979 - Linus was still running around in shorts then.
Most folk probably think of Novell as a rather large company specialising in networking software - that's exactly what they are. They like linux because it's an alternative to Microsoft, and over in the Microsoft world there's a bigger company trying to sell copycat versions of many of Novell's programs. In the linux world there's a lot of demand for enterprise grade networking and groupware software.
When you think of IBM, does Jo Bloggs think of a Linux company? I wouldn't expect so - they too like linux because it fits in with their core products and strategies.
Novell are a major Linux company now because they own SuSE and Ximian. Now they are Linux companies, they just happen to be subsidiaries of Novell Inc.
I think you're wrong. It's been a year or two since the big linux distros would take some getting used to for Joe Bloggs switching from a PC. The reason they're not switching is he same reason they're not patching their PC - it takes time effort and a bit of skill. These folk want a PC that just works. If their PC had come with Linux instead of Windows, preconfigured so their Digi Camera works, their modem works, and their printer just works then they'd all be happily sitting with a distro that'd be equally unpatched. The only advantage then is that it's a bit more difficult for a virus to spread under the linux security model than the run everything as Admin security model adopted on most home installations of Windows.
Here in the UK we have Wi-Fi deployment now operating on the East Coast rail line. Rather than caching data in tunnels, the train switches to GPRS and is supposed to maintain its connection to the net using the mobile phone networks which have had the foresight to start providing coverage through tunnels on main railway lines.
Sure there are folks who have disperate accounts and complex fincial arrangements where that might make sense, and they're the 1% actually using these products. For everyone else, a decade ago there was a demand because people wanted to keep track of their finances between bank statements. Today you just click online and your bank shows you exactly where your finances are.
As banks try to differentiate themselves in the online marketplace, you can bet they'll expand their offerings until they compete with the offerings from Intuit and Microsoft. Perhaps those firms should stop trying to sell millions of copies to customers and instead try and sell server based software to the banks to produce a customer interface, or are they already doing thatas well?
Microsoft are attempting to lock students in, probably even before they hit tertiary education.
Most of the big distros come with good development tools these days. Still I bet Microsoft's tight integration is going to present a new challenge to the open source community.
That's why there's been so little progress with Open anti virus but you can bet your life that if/when viruses do start to strike, people will be willing to dedicate their time and a FOSS anti virus solution will be available.
Why? If I want to reboot our server I ssh in and tell it to reboot - if I can't ssh in because networking on the box has died then I log i through the serial console. If power needs cycled you log in to the UPS - most big UPS boxes have a network connection for that - and power cycle the machine. Networking to the office is dead? Then you call your supplier and ask them to restore networking within 4 hours or whatever your SLA demands. Still need access to the box, the use a modem and dial in using POTS.
Physical access to a box cna be convenient, but other than for replacing hardware it's rarely necessary. Replacing ahrdware is something that's easy to outsource to other local companies too - now that's a market
Yes, you make a good point - I was mistaken, thinking it was Linksys not Netgear. A hard coded backdoor is a much bigger problem than the Linksys Router faces.
Why do people want to blame, sue and hold responsible a company for the actions of users who have chosen either not to read or not to follow the doccumentation.
I'm not trolling here, I agree that these things should be shipped so they won't fnction until a password is chosen by the user. Nonetheless, the users were told to set a password and ignored that advice, now the company that provided the hardware is supposed to be responsible for their ignorance?
Nonetheless, their decision was a business one and a legitimate decision at that. Linux and Open Source in general have a development model of release early, release often. If a bug is spotted, it's generaly corrected by a new release, not a bug fix to an existing release.
If you don't like that model companies, RedHat included, are willing to backport patches to earlier releases. You can subscribe to such services for $$$.
Basically, Linux comes in two flavours, one for early adopters, happy to patch adn upgrade as necessary, the other is for those who want long term stability. The first one can be free as in beer, the second can too, but much more rarely. If you need the kind of support and stability offered by option two, you're probably willing to pay for it, and quite possibly willing to pay redhat for it.
Ah, great solution, "sue". Guess you must be American.
As soon as folk start suing, FOSS goes out the window - remember the kernel this Linksys box runs is GPL'd and it's for that reason folk have been doing so many great things with it.
Now you want every programmer, every kid who wants to release an application to take out public indemnity insurance. Why, because a user couldn't be bothered to RTFM and set a password. The user is at fault by not following the supplied instructions, but for some reason the programmer should be sued?
One day someone will be killed because of such complacency.
If anyone is running a life critical system using a linksys wireless gateway then the system designer is certainly at fault. They're using a product in a situation it's not designed for. If, on the other hand, you're suggesting that every piece of software should be designed to the standards of life-critical appliances then I think you've been skipping your medication.