In the end, these sorts of egregious breaches can be blamed on IT and/or management. The latter mostly in cases where they unduly restrict IT from doing their jobs properly. In other (most) cases, it is because IT wasn't on the ball with security.
These stories come out again and again and again, and yet we still see people being allowed to do the wow-stupidest things you can imagine.
A few simple rules for people who haven't learned from these countless news stories:
1. Company computers should only be allowed to perform company functions, and only company computers should be allowed to access company assets.
2. Computer users should never have more access to their own computer or to company assets than they need. And always be conservative at first, and bump up their privs later if it becomes necessary.
3. In situations where users might have access to assets that could potentially put other people's information at risk, those users should be required to undergo some basic security training.
I'm just typing off the top of my head (I'm sure/. can add a few more), and already I've delineated more than I see done in most operations I've seen. It is rather amazing.
And it is extremely infuriating. These people are in charge of my assets. Increasingly all of us have to (if we want to participate in modern society) put more and more of our data into the hands of others. And again and again they prove that they don't deserve the trust we're putting in them.
That is precisely the point of the original question.
We trust politicians with our governance, and over and over and over again, they violate that trust.
Collaborative governance is a way to remove the need for politicians. But it is pointless if we just shift the trust over to sysadmins. They are just as susceptible to corruption as politicians.
We are looking for a way to remove the need for trust in governance: of governments (and any other kind of administration) and of the systems that run them.
Thats why you leave changes to the 24x7 onsite operations team not one lone admin doin' his thing in the cube. They're the ones monitoring the systems, seems most sensible if they "push the buttons" on the things they watch. Ideally you have one team that does nothing but watch and one team that does nothing but do, and theoretically they cooperate.
The concept of DAN was conceived for situations where there is no centralized server installation, nor the possibility of trusted admins (specifically, the case of collaborative governance systems, where there is no centralized authority). Yes, there can be an admin team that is then watched by, well, everyone else. But we're still hoping there might be a more elegant way to do it. if the admin team goes rogue, then a new admin team has to be emplaced and empowered. PitA.
DAN appears to be a poor reinvention of flight control software for aerospace from the 70s/80s. Those whom don't know their history are doomed to poorly repeating their past.
I don't know that history, and would (sincerely) love to have you elaborate. Again, the concept is for the enablement of collaborative governance systems, and the idea of having singular users in privileged positions is contrary to the basic concept. Whatever you may think of collaborative governance itself, we're making a go of it and eventually will need to release the software in a way that it is not at the mercy of a few individuals. (Or at least eventually that has to be the case: early instances are expected to be small enough that it won't really matter.) The DAN is our first notion in this regard. The point of this slashdot post is to fish for something better... if perhaps there is something better. Or for refinements that would make it more feasible or enduring. Such as, I suppose, a watchdog timer.
Actually we are. This question arises out of the Metagovernment project, which is looking to get rid of, well not CEOs per se, but empowered political leaders.
Because much of this IT is stuff that affects individuals who have no influence over it.
When a company puts off investing in security, for example, and when they also collect and store my credit card info / medical info / personal demographics / shopping history / etc., they are putting me at risk.
I have to trust that their IT department is on the ball. Something I am beginning to think is never a good idea. But it's impossible to not give companies some info on me and still be a normal modern human, and thus I am forced to trust them all the time.
So if they're further neglecting their IT, it means my data is more vulnerable. Not that's there's a damn thing I can do about it.
Hey! I hear Zune is really nice (and at least one people will reply to this confirming it). And heck, at last count, Zune was coming in with 1% of the market share.
I had to check to be sure, but yeah, apparently Zunes still exist. I think Microsoft just thinks it would be too embarrassing to discontinue their, ahem, iPod-killer.
In IT security, there is always a trade-off between usability and security. The key is the efficiency of the security. Really inefficient security will greatly decrease usability without enhancing security much (ala Microsoft's idea of perpetual dialog boxes in Vista). Really efficient security will have relatively much less impact on security (e.g., having the primary user of a computer not be its admin).
There is no reason we shouldn't take the same attitude with airport (etc.) security trading off with liberty. Turning all citizens into suspects is simply bad efficiency (and a serious betrayal of the "innocent until proven guilty" principle that is crucial to American democracy).
If you want 100% computer security, you unplug and wipe the computer (or better, disintegrate it). If we want 100% security from terrorists, we should incarcerate everyone in the world including ourselves (or better, disintegrate the planet).
There is also vast help from our friend technology.
As just a singular example of a technology, look at this article from four years ago, which is about a commercial facial recognition application which can scan 100,000 faces per second. I haven't been following this tech, but... damn.
Again, that's commercial, 4-year-old technology. Extrapolating that sort of capability outward, it is easy to imagine that a small team of humans can oversee the processing of absolutely tremendous amounts of information about individuals.
(My head is bare, but gee... a little tin foil might feel nice up there.;)
This is an interesting (if not really new) phenomenon that seems to be on the rise.
The threat of censorship in liberal democracies isn't as much from governments as it is from corporations which have a monopoly on their market. In addition to Amazon, look to Apple, Google, Walmart, Comcast, Facebook and... I'm sure y'all can think of some others. These companies have a kind of power we haven't seen since the days when there were only three TV networks. Probably even more.
The one really, really bright star in all of this? I'd say: Wikipedia. It can be manipulated by these megacorps to some extent, but such manipulations usually can be rectified by singular individuals.
Well, that is until net neutrality goes away and then perhaps opens the door for traffic shaping... Then perhaps Comcast, bizarrely, will bring on the new totalitarianism.
Comparing current sales to future markets is a bit disingenious.
But it is not a comparison of sales: it is a comparison of what IT buyers say they will buy. These are people who are aware of the other products that are or will be available and are still saying that they will buy iPads. Even though these other products' OSes might be more in-line with their installed technologies.
Having been an IT buyer myself, there have been many times when I have planned to buy an as-yet-unreleased product over an existing one; often specifically because I expected it would provide a better fit with installed technologies. And other times when I planned on buying an existing product despite forthcoming products, because I saw the existing product as a better offering. I expect that these survey respondents are making similar, informed decisions; and 78% of them say that they are planning on buying their tablets from Apple next quarter.
Well, it's right there in TFA: Dell Streak, HP Slate, RIM Playbook, and others. At least those first two can be purchased now. It's not Apple's fault that the others aren't ready yet. (Well, it is Apple's fault that they created the market and thus got to it first: before iPad, everyone thought tablets were a stupid micro-niche.)
But more to the point, the survey isn't about what businesses are buying right now (except for the satisfaction index), the referenced question is precisely: "Who is the manufacturer of the Tablets your company is planning on buying?" and references next quarter.
Here is the relevant paragraph: "Despite the flood of new Tablets hitting the market, the Apple iPad remains the overwhelming choice of business buyers going forward - with nearly four-in-five (78%) corporate respondents saying their company plans to purchase Apple iPads."
The remaining chat logs can contain details deemed to be national secrets. Releasing them publicly could get them in legal trouble.
They could also contain information about their other informants/sources, which journalists typically try to protect. Withholding that info would actually be the height of journalistic integrity.
...which is precisely what makes a meta-news-organization like wikileaks so different. They're not trying to protect anyone: they reveal everything and let the consequences be responsible for themselves.
Just FYI, a recent business IT survey shows interest in iPads stomping all other tablets: about four fifths of companies planning to buy tablets next quarter plan on buying iPads. And it shows satisfaction with iPads vastly outstripping other companies' offerings. (It's also extremely interesting to note that 38% of IT respondants using iPads say they are using them for laptop replacement.)
In other relevant iPad news, holiday sales numbers seem to show iPads squashing competitors in the consumer channel.
More generally, scientists should not confuse cause and effect. Or even more generally: correlation for causation. That's just bad science.
And yet, it seems to be rather prevalent. Especially in the questionable science of nutrition, where any slightly new idea can lead to a fortune in book sales, diet plans, drug development, etc.
There was a/. story a few months ago about a burglar who got busted because he used the victim's PC to check his FB status. But it is a new level of stupidity (arrogance? weirdness?) to go ahead and post a pic of yourself.
What's next, posting to the victim's wall before you break in? Maybe to the police's wall too?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there is MetaCrawler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaCrawler
http://www.metacrawler.com/
Did you know Excite is still around? I had no idea.
This list is pretty amazing for some nostalgic perusal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines
(Now as for that VAX... No! Bad!)
In the end, these sorts of egregious breaches can be blamed on IT and/or management. The latter mostly in cases where they unduly restrict IT from doing their jobs properly. In other (most) cases, it is because IT wasn't on the ball with security.
These stories come out again and again and again, and yet we still see people being allowed to do the wow-stupidest things you can imagine.
A few simple rules for people who haven't learned from these countless news stories:
1. Company computers should only be allowed to perform company functions, and only company computers should be allowed to access company assets.
2. Computer users should never have more access to their own computer or to company assets than they need. And always be conservative at first, and bump up their privs later if it becomes necessary.
3. In situations where users might have access to assets that could potentially put other people's information at risk, those users should be required to undergo some basic security training.
I'm just typing off the top of my head (I'm sure /. can add a few more), and already I've delineated more than I see done in most operations I've seen. It is rather amazing.
And it is extremely infuriating. These people are in charge of my assets. Increasingly all of us have to (if we want to participate in modern society) put more and more of our data into the hands of others. And again and again they prove that they don't deserve the trust we're putting in them.
That is precisely the point of the original question.
We trust politicians with our governance, and over and over and over again, they violate that trust.
Collaborative governance is a way to remove the need for politicians. But it is pointless if we just shift the trust over to sysadmins. They are just as susceptible to corruption as politicians.
We are looking for a way to remove the need for trust in governance: of governments (and any other kind of administration) and of the systems that run them.
Thats why you leave changes to the 24x7 onsite operations team not one lone admin doin' his thing in the cube. They're the ones monitoring the systems, seems most sensible if they "push the buttons" on the things they watch. Ideally you have one team that does nothing but watch and one team that does nothing but do, and theoretically they cooperate.
The concept of DAN was conceived for situations where there is no centralized server installation, nor the possibility of trusted admins (specifically, the case of collaborative governance systems, where there is no centralized authority). Yes, there can be an admin team that is then watched by, well, everyone else. But we're still hoping there might be a more elegant way to do it. if the admin team goes rogue, then a new admin team has to be emplaced and empowered. PitA.
DAN appears to be a poor reinvention of flight control software for aerospace from the 70s/80s. Those whom don't know their history are doomed to poorly repeating their past.
I don't know that history, and would (sincerely) love to have you elaborate. Again, the concept is for the enablement of collaborative governance systems, and the idea of having singular users in privileged positions is contrary to the basic concept. Whatever you may think of collaborative governance itself, we're making a go of it and eventually will need to release the software in a way that it is not at the mercy of a few individuals. (Or at least eventually that has to be the case: early instances are expected to be small enough that it won't really matter.) The DAN is our first notion in this regard. The point of this slashdot post is to fish for something better... if perhaps there is something better. Or for refinements that would make it more feasible or enduring. Such as, I suppose, a watchdog timer.
Actually we are. This question arises out of the Metagovernment project, which is looking to get rid of, well not CEOs per se, but empowered political leaders.
Did the poster read the article?
What website do you think you're on? :)
Apparently everyone missed the boat. The op is a South Park reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go
Because much of this IT is stuff that affects individuals who have no influence over it.
When a company puts off investing in security, for example, and when they also collect and store my credit card info / medical info / personal demographics / shopping history / etc., they are putting me at risk.
I have to trust that their IT department is on the ball. Something I am beginning to think is never a good idea. But it's impossible to not give companies some info on me and still be a normal modern human, and thus I am forced to trust them all the time.
So if they're further neglecting their IT, it means my data is more vulnerable. Not that's there's a damn thing I can do about it.
Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I got a bad case of lovin'... who?
To retrieve card just click on this totally legitimate official White House e-mail address: elvis.com.au/(something)
Yeah, that address actually appears in the card, according to TFA.
Like... seriously?
Hey! I hear Zune is really nice (and at least one people will reply to this confirming it). And heck, at last count, Zune was coming in with 1% of the market share.
I had to check to be sure, but yeah, apparently Zunes still exist. I think Microsoft just thinks it would be too embarrassing to discontinue their, ahem, iPod-killer.
Are any TV solutions relevant now that Netflix is streaming? Granted, they don't stream everything, but that library seems to be growing.
Many new TVs have Netflix interfaces built right in. What's the point of these other solutions?
(And doesn't Microsoft make a set top box... Um, the Xbox??)
In IT security, there is always a trade-off between usability and security. The key is the efficiency of the security. Really inefficient security will greatly decrease usability without enhancing security much (ala Microsoft's idea of perpetual dialog boxes in Vista). Really efficient security will have relatively much less impact on security (e.g., having the primary user of a computer not be its admin).
There is no reason we shouldn't take the same attitude with airport (etc.) security trading off with liberty. Turning all citizens into suspects is simply bad efficiency (and a serious betrayal of the "innocent until proven guilty" principle that is crucial to American democracy).
If you want 100% computer security, you unplug and wipe the computer (or better, disintegrate it). If we want 100% security from terrorists, we should incarcerate everyone in the world including ourselves (or better, disintegrate the planet).
There is also vast help from our friend technology.
As just a singular example of a technology, look at this article from four years ago, which is about a commercial facial recognition application which can scan 100,000 faces per second. I haven't been following this tech, but... damn.
Again, that's commercial, 4-year-old technology. Extrapolating that sort of capability outward, it is easy to imagine that a small team of humans can oversee the processing of absolutely tremendous amounts of information about individuals.
(My head is bare, but gee... a little tin foil might feel nice up there. ;)
This is an interesting (if not really new) phenomenon that seems to be on the rise.
The threat of censorship in liberal democracies isn't as much from governments as it is from corporations which have a monopoly on their market. In addition to Amazon, look to Apple, Google, Walmart, Comcast, Facebook and... I'm sure y'all can think of some others. These companies have a kind of power we haven't seen since the days when there were only three TV networks. Probably even more.
The one really, really bright star in all of this? I'd say: Wikipedia. It can be manipulated by these megacorps to some extent, but such manipulations usually can be rectified by singular individuals.
Well, that is until net neutrality goes away and then perhaps opens the door for traffic shaping... Then perhaps Comcast, bizarrely, will bring on the new totalitarianism.
...and the bottom line of government is to make money for business.
Democracy is for everyone who can afford it.
Comparing current sales to future markets is a bit disingenious.
But it is not a comparison of sales: it is a comparison of what IT buyers say they will buy. These are people who are aware of the other products that are or will be available and are still saying that they will buy iPads. Even though these other products' OSes might be more in-line with their installed technologies.
Having been an IT buyer myself, there have been many times when I have planned to buy an as-yet-unreleased product over an existing one; often specifically because I expected it would provide a better fit with installed technologies. And other times when I planned on buying an existing product despite forthcoming products, because I saw the existing product as a better offering. I expect that these survey respondents are making similar, informed decisions; and 78% of them say that they are planning on buying their tablets from Apple next quarter.
Well, it's right there in TFA: Dell Streak, HP Slate, RIM Playbook, and others. At least those first two can be purchased now. It's not Apple's fault that the others aren't ready yet. (Well, it is Apple's fault that they created the market and thus got to it first: before iPad, everyone thought tablets were a stupid micro-niche.)
But more to the point, the survey isn't about what businesses are buying right now (except for the satisfaction index), the referenced question is precisely: "Who is the manufacturer of the Tablets your company is planning on buying?" and references next quarter.
Here is the relevant paragraph:
"Despite the flood of new Tablets hitting the market, the Apple iPad remains the overwhelming choice of business buyers going forward - with nearly four-in-five (78%) corporate respondents saying their company plans to purchase Apple iPads."
The remaining chat logs can contain details deemed to be national secrets. Releasing them publicly could get them in legal trouble.
They could also contain information about their other informants/sources, which journalists typically try to protect. Withholding that info would actually be the height of journalistic integrity.
...which is precisely what makes a meta-news-organization like wikileaks so different. They're not trying to protect anyone: they reveal everything and let the consequences be responsible for themselves.
Just FYI, a recent business IT survey shows interest in iPads stomping all other tablets: about four fifths of companies planning to buy tablets next quarter plan on buying iPads. And it shows satisfaction with iPads vastly outstripping other companies' offerings. (It's also extremely interesting to note that 38% of IT respondants using iPads say they are using them for laptop replacement.)
In other relevant iPad news, holiday sales numbers seem to show iPads squashing competitors in the consumer channel.
Mmmmm, "consensual sexual relationships with two Swedish women." I mean, damn... Slashdot isn't usually that provocative. :P
Here's Google's wikileaks-like test. The database is posted on Google Code. Will they remove it?
More generally, scientists should not confuse cause and effect. Or even more generally: correlation for causation. That's just bad science.
And yet, it seems to be rather prevalent. Especially in the questionable science of nutrition, where any slightly new idea can lead to a fortune in book sales, diet plans, drug development, etc.
There was a /. story a few months ago about a burglar who got busted because he used the victim's PC to check his FB status. But it is a new level of stupidity (arrogance? weirdness?) to go ahead and post a pic of yourself.
What's next, posting to the victim's wall before you break in? Maybe to the police's wall too?