The USMS is the enforcement arm of the federal courts, protecting federal courts and ensuring the effective operation of the judicial system.
and
The United States Marshals Service also executes all lawful writs, processes, and orders issued under the authority of the United States, and shall command all necessary assistance to execute its duties.
It is important to realize that these rule changes aren't just for schools - they apply to every company in the U.S..
So, for those of you who are the entire IT department where you work, or if you run your own business as a consultant, (or some similar situation), you might want to pay attention to what is required regarding email and IM retention under the new rules.
I find it funny that they are saying the material will be provided in a manner consistent with copyright law when the article also mentions there is a lawsuit pending regarding the appropriate use of copyrighted material.
I may think Google is using it in a legal manner. You may think it is a legal manner. Google may think it is a legal manner. The schools and libraries may think it is a legal manner. However, until the court rules in the pending copyright case, no one really knows what is legal.
Actually, if you look at the preliminary report, they seem to have done a pretty good job. For example, Google does not consider IP address as personal information. This is OK if you are conneccting from a local coffee shop, but sucks if you have a static IP, or even do DHCP over a small range of addresses. It also points out that they don't always consider privacy implications before releasing information such as Street-level view. With the amount of data that Google gathers, analyzes, utilizes and releases (both publicly and its corporate partners), these kind of actions are a bit disturbing.
I'm not trying to say this report is perfect, or that there is enough information provided to evaluate it independently. However, seeing a conspiracy targeted at Google because a group got upset about some of their practices, and decided to do a study (which included a lot more companies than just Google), is a bit premature.
I agree with you. I would think that painting a flag on every side, maybe the branch of service emblem, and some cool saying would be better. In a pain induced haze would you be more reassured by a big teddy bear, or a giant chromed-out machine with the stars and stripes on it and the saying "You'll get back!" (variation of the line from Terminator) on the side? You might be confused by the giant robot, but if it has the flag on it, you know it's on YOUR side. I just hope they don't become self-aware.
In today's corporate-controlled world does anyone take reviews without a hefty dose of skepticism?
I'm not trying to say that there aren't neutral reviewers but, with marketing budgets as they are, is anyone surprised that some "neutral" reviewers are actually paid enough to be biased?
Yes, that is a solution, but it isn't a good solution.
If we continue down that line of thought we end up at the point where we just go back to static pages with no scripting. Now, in general, I prefer static pages without all the extra "eye-candy", but I also understand the benefits of having scripting, (and even flash) running. By even having a preference for static pages, I think I am in the minority of people on the Internet. Let's face it, the average person likes all of the "extras" that come with scripting.
With this preference for synamic content, we also have to accept that there are going to be some security problems. We can blame Microsoft. We can blame the users. We can blame the Flying Spaghetti Monster for forsaking us. We can blame the hackers who produce the infectious content. However, what matters is that with new things on the web appearing so quickly, there hasn't been time to stop, take a deep breath and look for the security holes that exist. This means that the bad guys have the advantage and we have problems. If you don't like it, use Lynx and practice safe hex.
That's because you are assuming that the web is some sort of solid "rope". However, there are a lot of things on the market today that can expand to many times their original size. For example, there is expanding foam insulation that ends up many times larger than when it was applied. If the web was some sort of expanded "mesh", instead of a solid rope, you could get quite a bit of webbing inside the container.
If you are dealing with a single atom, carbon or otherwise, you wouldn't need much substrate to hold and isolate the single atom you are interested in. So it might be at the crystaline level, but it might involve only a few atoms in the crystal.
Well, if they are dealing on the quantum level, we are talking about single atoms which don't take up a lot of space, even on a speck of dust.
In addition, quantum computing isn't concerned with a large number of bits - although more is still better. I'm not sure if the info is still accurate, but the record number of qubits so far is 7, so even a few hundred qubits would be a huge breakthrough. I guess the question is: How many qubits can spin on the head of a pin (or a speck of diamond dust)?
I'm not sure if skin/nerve temperature is the answer either.
Frostbite, or even actual freezing of the extremities, can occur with only a "pins and needles" feeling beforehand, although in some cases there is throbbing and aching. (link)
Since the skin and nerves would have to drop through the 10C (50 f) temperature range before freezing, I don't really see what they are basing their "painful" temperature on. I would guess it is a sustained temperature in that range, but the article doesn't give enough information to really tell.
When I talked to one of the sales reps at the Mac Store in Des Moines, IA, he said he got better performance for his games using Parallels as compared to Boot Camp. Now, I don't know why this happened, but I am assuming some sort of driver issue. However, it doesn't really matter as what truly matters in this situation is overall performance - making Parallels the better choice.
Actually, the Army can apply the UCMJ to civilians, which includes a charge for not following orders. The laws used to state that it could be applied, in times of war, to civilians serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field. If the contractors are operating out of a U.S. base, or are getting some of their security from the U.S. military, then this may apply. For the family at home, they might not be chargable under the UCMJ, but their serving family member is. They get a headline in the local paper and their family member gets docked pay, reduced in rank and spends some time confined or locked up. Or, they could just get a bad fitness report which effectively ends their career.
Recently, there has been a change of the wording to include when a "contingency operation" is going on. Details of the wording change can be found here.
This makes perfect sense as a civilian working with the military could be in a position of causing harm to military personnel. For example, if the on-scene commander tells everyone to be quiet, and a civilian starts talking/arguing/making noise with them, they may be placing everyone at risk. After knocking them out to keep them quiet, they will bring them up on charges when, or if, they get back to base. You aren't in your cubicle farm back home - in the field the stakes are a bit higher.
We have had 2 incidents in the past 30 years that lead to widespread contamination: Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Actually, this is incorrect. While Three Mile Island did have an accident, it didn't lead to wide-spread contamination. The average exposure to the people nearby was only 8 millirem (about a chest x-ray worth) and the maximum exposure to anyone was 100 millirem (about a third of the yearly exposure from background sources). Hardly widespread contamination.
Also the chance of a disaster are pretty big.
This is true, but misleading as it only applies to older models of reactors. Modern reactor designs prevent any kind of meltdown from occuring. From the Wikipedia article on pebble bed reactors:
A pebble-bed reactor thus can have all of its supporting machinery fail, and the reactor will not crack, melt, explode or spew hazardous wastes. It simply goes up to a designed "idle" temperature, and stays there. In that state, the reactor vessel radiates heat, but the vessel and fuel spheres remain intact and undamaged. The machinery can be repaired or the fuel can be removed.
Here in Iowa, red light cameras have been shut down because the courts ruled they were illegal. The story can be found here. There is even a proposal to ban all camera-based ticketing in the state.
Actually, that isn't quite right either. Now if you had used "less than or equal to" it would have worked. Of course, if you are going to insult the intelligence of half of a country you shouldn't make silly errors like that.
Also, you are making a pretty big leap from people who kill others (actual terrorists) and people who assault and harm the weak and trusting (paedophiles), to science teachers. Do you know of any science teachers who were killed, sent to prison camps, beaten or otherwise mistreated like terrorists or paedophiles? Sure, some might get fired for some things which are bogus, but the same thing goes for a lot of people with bad managers.
With the ability to boot into Windows, or run Windows in Parallels, Apple has eliminated the biggest barrier for people to try a Mac. If someone doesn't like it, or a vital app won't run, they aren't stuck with an expensive brick - they can switch to running Windows. Less risk means a lower barrier to entry which means more people buying a Mac.
This gives Apple a chance to compete on the merits of its OS instead of being hampered by the number of applications that don't support it. Users can easily switch to Windows, run their apps, and switch back; and switching isn't even needed if you use Parallels. I claim that after a few weeks on a Mac, users will get annoyed when they have to deal with a Windows machine, and somewhere in Cupertino a bell will ring as another Mac user is born.
Regardless of what tool you select, you will have to decide what rules you want to apply and what you are trying to get out of using the tool. If management doesn't understand the purpose of the tools, they may make inappropriate decisions on how to use them. As an example, I worked on a large project, (hundreds of developers), and management decided that we needed to use a static analysis tool and that code had to be "clean" before it could be checked in. It was phased in, so we had a month to eliminate errors, and another month to eliminate warnings from our entire code base, but management wanted to use the entire ruleset and not allow the comments in the code that told the tool to ignore certain rules for certain lines.
Fortunately, we had a commmittee that was responsible for testing the tool and integrating it into our software engineering process, with a few people that management really listened to. After a few meetings, the committee was allowed to determine the ruleset that would be used and updated the rules for code inspections so the "ignore" comments were allowed, but had to be included as part of an inspection.
If we hadn't had a strong committee that got management to relax the rules life would have been a living hell trying to alter the code to make the tool happy. If 4 people can agree that the best thing to do is break a rule, you should trust them. If you can't trust them, then you shouldn't have them working for you. Remember, tools are dumb and don't understand the "why" behind the code. Yes, tools will find a lot of things that should be fixed, but they aren't always right.
I thought there was a rule that no living person could be on a stamp, so how can there be characters on the stamps when the actors are still alive? I found this site that seems to agree with the "no living person" rule, but it isn't an official USPS site. Has this rule been changed or is it OK since they are fictional characters?
1. It may have a self-destruct. A common tactic is to wipe/overwrite the drive after an attack. So, if it loses communication, it might assume it was discovered and kill your data.
So, which is more important: Blowing a presentation or leaking private company information? Depends on what the presentation means and what the information is. The presentation may be backed-up but what if the server has special hardware or software on it? How do you have backups of that? If you have a single license for something, you can't have a backup. For a lot of things, you get one shot - an hour with senior executives to make your case. If you can't deliver a flawless presentation, you can kiss that client good-bye. Sometimes, that is worth a LOT of money. If the presentation starts in 2 hours do you take the chance that you can rebuild everything or accept your business plans for the Zune-killer get leaked? Maybe you lose the source code to Super Application 2010. If the market for that is a few million, maybe you don't care and you let the presentation go on.
This isn't a black and white situation. If it was medical or financial records, fine. What if it your outgoing mail server? A PC in a conference room? The fact is, there is no answer that is always right. That's why you want the company "experts" to get together to make a decision. If the system has been compromised for hours, then you can assume that the data is already leaked. Is the next best thing to track the attacker? Maybe. It depends on the situation.
Another note, the courts aren't always flexible. If there is a timeline in the law, you are out of luck. For example, if you must register objections or complaints 30 days before $FOO, It doesn't matter what your personal problems are - the timeline is set and you missed the deadline.
My whole point is that there is no RIGHT THING that you always do. That's what the article was trying to get across - you need input from your area experts when things go wrong. Sometimes the right thing to do is pull the plug. Sometimes it isn't. Making calls like that is why the CEO gets paid a lot of money. If they blow the call, they have to deal with the consequences. (Or at least hope the company is big enough to pay a few million in fines to avoid any prosecution.) What's really needed is a policy, created by those experts that can be applied in "generic" cases such as website defacement or a PC acting as a spam relay. For more important items, you get those experts together and handle the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that responsibility would then rest with the U.S. Marshals.
From Wikipedia:
andIt is important to realize that these rule changes aren't just for schools - they apply to every company in the U.S..
So, for those of you who are the entire IT department where you work, or if you run your own business as a consultant, (or some similar situation), you might want to pay attention to what is required regarding email and IM retention under the new rules.
I find it funny that they are saying the material will be provided in a manner consistent with copyright law when the article also mentions there is a lawsuit pending regarding the appropriate use of copyrighted material.
I may think Google is using it in a legal manner. You may think it is a legal manner. Google may think it is a legal manner. The schools and libraries may think it is a legal manner. However, until the court rules in the pending copyright case, no one really knows what is legal.
Actually, if you look at the preliminary report, they seem to have done a pretty good job. For example, Google does not consider IP address as personal information. This is OK if you are conneccting from a local coffee shop, but sucks if you have a static IP, or even do DHCP over a small range of addresses. It also points out that they don't always consider privacy implications before releasing information such as Street-level view. With the amount of data that Google gathers, analyzes, utilizes and releases (both publicly and its corporate partners), these kind of actions are a bit disturbing.
I'm not trying to say this report is perfect, or that there is enough information provided to evaluate it independently. However, seeing a conspiracy targeted at Google because a group got upset about some of their practices, and decided to do a study (which included a lot more companies than just Google), is a bit premature.
I agree with you. I would think that painting a flag on every side, maybe the branch of service emblem, and some cool saying would be better. In a pain induced haze would you be more reassured by a big teddy bear, or a giant chromed-out machine with the stars and stripes on it and the saying "You'll get back!" (variation of the line from Terminator) on the side? You might be confused by the giant robot, but if it has the flag on it, you know it's on YOUR side. I just hope they don't become self-aware.
In today's corporate-controlled world does anyone take reviews without a hefty dose of skepticism?
I'm not trying to say that there aren't neutral reviewers but, with marketing budgets as they are, is anyone surprised that some "neutral" reviewers are actually paid enough to be biased?
Yes, that is a solution, but it isn't a good solution.
If we continue down that line of thought we end up at the point where we just go back to static pages with no scripting. Now, in general, I prefer static pages without all the extra "eye-candy", but I also understand the benefits of having scripting, (and even flash) running. By even having a preference for static pages, I think I am in the minority of people on the Internet. Let's face it, the average person likes all of the "extras" that come with scripting.
With this preference for synamic content, we also have to accept that there are going to be some security problems. We can blame Microsoft. We can blame the users. We can blame the Flying Spaghetti Monster for forsaking us. We can blame the hackers who produce the infectious content. However, what matters is that with new things on the web appearing so quickly, there hasn't been time to stop, take a deep breath and look for the security holes that exist. This means that the bad guys have the advantage and we have problems. If you don't like it, use Lynx and practice safe hex.
That's because you are assuming that the web is some sort of solid "rope". However, there are a lot of things on the market today that can expand to many times their original size. For example, there is expanding foam insulation that ends up many times larger than when it was applied. If the web was some sort of expanded "mesh", instead of a solid rope, you could get quite a bit of webbing inside the container.
Don't underestimate the importance of being able to suddenly swing into different places.
If you are dealing with a single atom, carbon or otherwise, you wouldn't need much substrate to hold and isolate the single atom you are interested in. So it might be at the crystaline level, but it might involve only a few atoms in the crystal.
We also can't forget Rosalind Franklin - the "Dark Lady" of DNA, who first pohotographed the DNA molecule.
Well, if they are dealing on the quantum level, we are talking about single atoms which don't take up a lot of space, even on a speck of dust.
In addition, quantum computing isn't concerned with a large number of bits - although more is still better. I'm not sure if the info is still accurate, but the record number of qubits so far is 7, so even a few hundred qubits would be a huge breakthrough. I guess the question is: How many qubits can spin on the head of a pin (or a speck of diamond dust)?
I'm not sure if skin/nerve temperature is the answer either.
Frostbite, or even actual freezing of the extremities, can occur with only a "pins and needles" feeling beforehand, although in some cases there is throbbing and aching. (link)
Since the skin and nerves would have to drop through the 10C (50 f) temperature range before freezing, I don't really see what they are basing their "painful" temperature on. I would guess it is a sustained temperature in that range, but the article doesn't give enough information to really tell.
Disclaimer: Anecdotal Evidence
When I talked to one of the sales reps at the Mac Store in Des Moines, IA, he said he got better performance for his games using Parallels as compared to Boot Camp. Now, I don't know why this happened, but I am assuming some sort of driver issue. However, it doesn't really matter as what truly matters in this situation is overall performance - making Parallels the better choice.
Actually, the Army can apply the UCMJ to civilians, which includes a charge for not following orders. The laws used to state that it could be applied, in times of war, to civilians serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field. If the contractors are operating out of a U.S. base, or are getting some of their security from the U.S. military, then this may apply. For the family at home, they might not be chargable under the UCMJ, but their serving family member is. They get a headline in the local paper and their family member gets docked pay, reduced in rank and spends some time confined or locked up. Or, they could just get a bad fitness report which effectively ends their career.
Recently, there has been a change of the wording to include when a "contingency operation" is going on. Details of the wording change can be found here.
This makes perfect sense as a civilian working with the military could be in a position of causing harm to military personnel. For example, if the on-scene commander tells everyone to be quiet, and a civilian starts talking/arguing/making noise with them, they may be placing everyone at risk. After knocking them out to keep them quiet, they will bring them up on charges when, or if, they get back to base. You aren't in your cubicle farm back home - in the field the stakes are a bit higher.
because trees should still be standing upright underground.
I'm assuming the the 30 foot high wave of water, mud and debris that rushed in to fill the area would have knocked over and snapped most of the trees.
We have had 2 incidents in the past 30 years that lead to widespread contamination: Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Actually, this is incorrect. While Three Mile Island did have an accident, it didn't lead to wide-spread contamination. The average exposure to the people nearby was only 8 millirem (about a chest x-ray worth) and the maximum exposure to anyone was 100 millirem (about a third of the yearly exposure from background sources). Hardly widespread contamination.
Also the chance of a disaster are pretty big.
This is true, but misleading as it only applies to older models of reactors. Modern reactor designs prevent any kind of meltdown from occuring. From the Wikipedia article on pebble bed reactors:
Better late than buggy.
Unlike Vista which was late AND buggy.
Here in Iowa, red light cameras have been shut down because the courts ruled they were illegal. The story can be found here. There is even a proposal to ban all camera-based ticketing in the state.
That's why I like to use Keynote. I use the default settings for font size and use that to limit my verbosity.
Half of the US population has IQ's below 100.
Actually, that isn't quite right either. Now if you had used "less than or equal to" it would have worked. Of course, if you are going to insult the intelligence of half of a country you shouldn't make silly errors like that.
Also, you are making a pretty big leap from people who kill others (actual terrorists) and people who assault and harm the weak and trusting (paedophiles), to science teachers. Do you know of any science teachers who were killed, sent to prison camps, beaten or otherwise mistreated like terrorists or paedophiles? Sure, some might get fired for some things which are bogus, but the same thing goes for a lot of people with bad managers.
With the ability to boot into Windows, or run Windows in Parallels, Apple has eliminated the biggest barrier for people to try a Mac. If someone doesn't like it, or a vital app won't run, they aren't stuck with an expensive brick - they can switch to running Windows. Less risk means a lower barrier to entry which means more people buying a Mac.
This gives Apple a chance to compete on the merits of its OS instead of being hampered by the number of applications that don't support it. Users can easily switch to Windows, run their apps, and switch back; and switching isn't even needed if you use Parallels. I claim that after a few weeks on a Mac, users will get annoyed when they have to deal with a Windows machine, and somewhere in Cupertino a bell will ring as another Mac user is born.
Regardless of what tool you select, you will have to decide what rules you want to apply and what you are trying to get out of using the tool. If management doesn't understand the purpose of the tools, they may make inappropriate decisions on how to use them. As an example, I worked on a large project, (hundreds of developers), and management decided that we needed to use a static analysis tool and that code had to be "clean" before it could be checked in. It was phased in, so we had a month to eliminate errors, and another month to eliminate warnings from our entire code base, but management wanted to use the entire ruleset and not allow the comments in the code that told the tool to ignore certain rules for certain lines.
Fortunately, we had a commmittee that was responsible for testing the tool and integrating it into our software engineering process, with a few people that management really listened to. After a few meetings, the committee was allowed to determine the ruleset that would be used and updated the rules for code inspections so the "ignore" comments were allowed, but had to be included as part of an inspection.
If we hadn't had a strong committee that got management to relax the rules life would have been a living hell trying to alter the code to make the tool happy. If 4 people can agree that the best thing to do is break a rule, you should trust them. If you can't trust them, then you shouldn't have them working for you. Remember, tools are dumb and don't understand the "why" behind the code. Yes, tools will find a lot of things that should be fixed, but they aren't always right.
I thought there was a rule that no living person could be on a stamp, so how can there be characters on the stamps when the actors are still alive? I found this site that seems to agree with the "no living person" rule, but it isn't an official USPS site. Has this rule been changed or is it OK since they are fictional characters?
1. It may have a self-destruct. A common tactic is to wipe/overwrite the drive after an attack. So, if it loses communication, it might assume it was discovered and kill your data.
So, which is more important: Blowing a presentation or leaking private company information? Depends on what the presentation means and what the information is. The presentation may be backed-up but what if the server has special hardware or software on it? How do you have backups of that? If you have a single license for something, you can't have a backup. For a lot of things, you get one shot - an hour with senior executives to make your case. If you can't deliver a flawless presentation, you can kiss that client good-bye. Sometimes, that is worth a LOT of money. If the presentation starts in 2 hours do you take the chance that you can rebuild everything or accept your business plans for the Zune-killer get leaked? Maybe you lose the source code to Super Application 2010. If the market for that is a few million, maybe you don't care and you let the presentation go on.
This isn't a black and white situation. If it was medical or financial records, fine. What if it your outgoing mail server? A PC in a conference room? The fact is, there is no answer that is always right. That's why you want the company "experts" to get together to make a decision. If the system has been compromised for hours, then you can assume that the data is already leaked. Is the next best thing to track the attacker? Maybe. It depends on the situation.
Another note, the courts aren't always flexible. If there is a timeline in the law, you are out of luck. For example, if you must register objections or complaints 30 days before $FOO, It doesn't matter what your personal problems are - the timeline is set and you missed the deadline.
My whole point is that there is no RIGHT THING that you always do. That's what the article was trying to get across - you need input from your area experts when things go wrong. Sometimes the right thing to do is pull the plug. Sometimes it isn't. Making calls like that is why the CEO gets paid a lot of money. If they blow the call, they have to deal with the consequences. (Or at least hope the company is big enough to pay a few million in fines to avoid any prosecution.) What's really needed is a policy, created by those experts that can be applied in "generic" cases such as website defacement or a PC acting as a spam relay. For more important items, you get those experts together and handle the situation.