But Microsoft doesn't provide that free version--rather, it required the community to reverse engineer the DOC format to provide it, and still thus had a cost. The use of a vendor-specific document format is unnecessary and should not be allowed for public government documents.
Fair enough--in any case, though, government documents should be readable without proprietary software or even "free" software required to work around proprietary formats.
I wasn't protesting anything, just pointing out that the Word Viewer isn't free, as it requires having paid for Windows. Now you've tried to change your statement by waving your hands about "free alternatives," which are only free in the sense of being without cost, as opposed to being free as in open, as public documents must be to be truly public.
You still have to have an MS operating system to run the viewer, so it still requires paying MS for a license to participate in government.
Re:No songs, videos & games
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 1
Yours is a case in point: "eye-tee security people" don't see using vague unspecified threats to accumulate power and build an empire within their organization as unethical. Unfortunately, business for these people who've sold their souls (if indeed they ever had any) will only continue to increase as we continue along the post-9/11, post-Virginia Tech road to Big Brother.
Re:It's a people thing, not an IT thing
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Particularly with the advent of outsourcing, those who work in IT are selling trust more than skill. That's why abuse of power by IT folks should be dealt with harshly and swiftly when detected.
Point taken--but a default installation of TrueCrypt is pretty obviously an encryption tool. The picture I have is that Joe the TSA guy sees the blue key icon and calls over another TSA guy that "knows computers" who uses TC to hide his porno collection from his wife. I wouldn't bring a Linux machine that didn't at least boot into Windows by default as I figure anything with scrolling text on boot looks too much like computers from the movies for their comfort level.
I wonder what procedures they have in place for people travelling with computers running alternative operating systems or simply in a language the officer cannot understand.
Seizure of the suspicious foreign-looking laptop and possible detainment of the passenger.
IMO, the apparent use of any encryption at all is going to make them suspicious. Here's what I'd recommend in this climate of electronic fishing expeditions: Make sure the machine boots straight into a mostly clean XP / Vista / MacOS (not Linux--it'll confuse and scare them) with no GRUB menu, no obvious encryption tools, and some innocent business documents with recent timestamps on the desktop. Keep the encrypted stuff on CDs in your checked bad and have it available over the network when you arrive. Don't even have the encryption tools installed--download those when you arrive. Sad? Yes, but this nation of sheep has allowed it to get this far, and being a goat amongst the sheep isn't going to go well for the individual goat these days.
Think they haven't heard about hidden volumes? If they know you're using TrueCrypt, they'll say, oh, that's nice, thank you, then they'll detain you until you give up the hidden volume password, whether it exists or not. You might be able to sort it out in front of a judge and jury (if they believe you) later, but you'll still miss your flight.
Jackson County, Missouri as well. A stalker's dream, perhaps, but public records are public records, and it's about time they are available to other than lawyers, investigators, and people with the luxury of 9-5 M-F idle time to visit the courthouse. There was an attempt in Missouri pass a law to let "special" (i.e. cops and politicians) people opt-out, which was fortunately defeated. If there is indeed a privacy concern, then perhaps what is public record needs to be redefined for *everyone* rather than letting the powerful opt out (and it's not as if they can't hide their ownership through shell corporations and nominees, anyway).
Yes, but to do that, you need access to another connection running the proxy that itself has enough bandwidth to accommodate the seeding--and if you have that, why would you even bother with Comcast to begin with?
Thanks, but the packages are not available to download from SourceForge. "IMPORTANT: Official TrueCrypt distribution packages can be downloaded only from www.truecrypt.org (above, select 'Project' > 'Web Site') Notes"
I couldn't believe they'd be that audacious (I know, I know) and did an experiment with unrjdjtlasd.com -- sure enough, available from NS but not from register.com or godaddy.com.
That's exactly what I said, although in more flowery language--security theater is easier to sell than security, and thus, there's more money in it. So add some theater to to the non-snake-oil security, and . . . PROFIT!!!
An outside expert, i.e. a consultant. That will surely freak out the staff. The good news is that there are a couple of guys named Bob available for a reasonable rate.
Agreed, but there are a number of innocent people who happened to be reading the blog who would be caught up in this dragnet of suspects. And in this post-9/11, post-Virginia Tech nascent police state we live in, to be tainted with suspicion is as good as being guilty for an unfortunate number of people with power.
Not too often, but I could find it if need be. The filtered results themselves are suppressed, but the domain name is visible and would make it obvious whether or not one of the very few legitimate sites (e.g. gnuplot.info, regularexpressions.info, datacompression.info) on the Internet whose operators decided for whatever reason to use the.info TLD. I can tolerate those false positives to avoid my searches picking up "results" from the vast horde of garbage on 99.99% of the sites using it.
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I'm not so sure about that--I think Democrats qualify, too.
The point will be made when they throw the sender in GTMO for mailing a "suspicious electronic device" to the White House.
But Microsoft doesn't provide that free version--rather, it required the community to reverse engineer the DOC format to provide it, and still thus had a cost. The use of a vendor-specific document format is unnecessary and should not be allowed for public government documents.
Fair enough--in any case, though, government documents should be readable without proprietary software or even "free" software required to work around proprietary formats.
I wasn't protesting anything, just pointing out that the Word Viewer isn't free, as it requires having paid for Windows. Now you've tried to change your statement by waving your hands about "free alternatives," which are only free in the sense of being without cost, as opposed to being free as in open, as public documents must be to be truly public.
You still have to have an MS operating system to run the viewer, so it still requires paying MS for a license to participate in government.
Yours is a case in point: "eye-tee security people" don't see using vague unspecified threats to accumulate power and build an empire within their organization as unethical. Unfortunately, business for these people who've sold their souls (if indeed they ever had any) will only continue to increase as we continue along the post-9/11, post-Virginia Tech road to Big Brother.
Particularly with the advent of outsourcing, those who work in IT are selling trust more than skill. That's why abuse of power by IT folks should be dealt with harshly and swiftly when detected.
is a euphemism for "don't get caught doing what we all know everyone does, or you'll be the sacrificial lamb."
Point taken--but a default installation of TrueCrypt is pretty obviously an encryption tool. The picture I have is that Joe the TSA guy sees the blue key icon and calls over another TSA guy that "knows computers" who uses TC to hide his porno collection from his wife. I wouldn't bring a Linux machine that didn't at least boot into Windows by default as I figure anything with scrolling text on boot looks too much like computers from the movies for their comfort level.
IMO, the apparent use of any encryption at all is going to make them suspicious. Here's what I'd recommend in this climate of electronic fishing expeditions: Make sure the machine boots straight into a mostly clean XP / Vista / MacOS (not Linux--it'll confuse and scare them) with no GRUB menu, no obvious encryption tools, and some innocent business documents with recent timestamps on the desktop. Keep the encrypted stuff on CDs in your checked bad and have it available over the network when you arrive. Don't even have the encryption tools installed--download those when you arrive. Sad? Yes, but this nation of sheep has allowed it to get this far, and being a goat amongst the sheep isn't going to go well for the individual goat these days.
Think they haven't heard about hidden volumes? If they know you're using TrueCrypt, they'll say, oh, that's nice, thank you, then they'll detain you until you give up the hidden volume password, whether it exists or not. You might be able to sort it out in front of a judge and jury (if they believe you) later, but you'll still miss your flight.
Jackson County, Missouri as well. A stalker's dream, perhaps, but public records are public records, and it's about time they are available to other than lawyers, investigators, and people with the luxury of 9-5 M-F idle time to visit the courthouse. There was an attempt in Missouri pass a law to let "special" (i.e. cops and politicians) people opt-out, which was fortunately defeated. If there is indeed a privacy concern, then perhaps what is public record needs to be redefined for *everyone* rather than letting the powerful opt out (and it's not as if they can't hide their ownership through shell corporations and nominees, anyway).
. . . and seed via ssh socks proxy
Yes, but to do that, you need access to another connection running the proxy that itself has enough bandwidth to accommodate the seeding--and if you have that, why would you even bother with Comcast to begin with?
Perhaps the Streisand effect will become known as the Mohammed effect. The Moslems crying about this need to get a little perspective.
Which was of what use when truecrypt.org was down?
You can't get the distribution from SourceForge. The download page only contains text directing the would-be downloader to truecrypt.org.
Thanks, but the packages are not available to download from SourceForge. "IMPORTANT: Official TrueCrypt distribution packages can be downloaded only from www.truecrypt.org (above, select 'Project' > 'Web Site') Notes"
I couldn't believe they'd be that audacious (I know, I know) and did an experiment with unrjdjtlasd.com -- sure enough, available from NS but not from register.com or godaddy.com.
That's exactly what I said, although in more flowery language--security theater is easier to sell than security, and thus, there's more money in it. So add some theater to to the non-snake-oil security, and . . . PROFIT!!!
An outside expert, i.e. a consultant. That will surely freak out the staff. The good news is that there are a couple of guys named Bob available for a reasonable rate.
. . . Bruce has figured out the real money's in security theater, not in security, and he wants a piece of that action.
Agreed, but there are a number of innocent people who happened to be reading the blog who would be caught up in this dragnet of suspects. And in this post-9/11, post-Virginia Tech nascent police state we live in, to be tainted with suspicion is as good as being guilty for an unfortunate number of people with power.
Not too often, but I could find it if need be. The filtered results themselves are suppressed, but the domain name is visible and would make it obvious whether or not one of the very few legitimate sites (e.g. gnuplot.info, regularexpressions.info, datacompression.info) on the Internet whose operators decided for whatever reason to use the .info TLD. I can tolerate those false positives to avoid my searches picking up "results" from the vast horde of garbage on 99.99% of the sites using it.