To be REALLY fair to nortel, while the web was young seven years ago, (the net was old, even then) that has absolutely nothing to do with this crack job.
The DMS-100s were broken the good old fashioned way -- use a war dialer to find the dialup number, then call the switch directly. Once connected, try the obvious passwords first (either admin/admin or admin/NORTEL_DEFAULT_PASSWORD, which Mitnick had learned from Nortel docs)
Deander2 got it right -- Nortel designed an absurdly complex product, and was unmotivated to clean house because they were able to rake in the consulting bucks. WHEN (not if) this comes back to bite a client in the butt (like it did with Sprint) Nortel takes no heat for it, and in fact most likely gets even MORE consulting dollars for a hasty clean-up effort.
"Failing Fast" is management buzzword from a few years back. The reasoning goes like this:
If you're an innovation culture, then you've got to take risks. If you are unwilling to admit failure, then your wrong-turn paths have to go a LONG way before you have to admit failure. If you're willing to admit failure, then you can identify the wrong-turn paths quickly and try something else
You say that like it's a bad thing! Really, if my computer could figure out that X10 popunders don't work on me, that I neither need larger breasts or a longer penis, and that I don't need to MAKE MONEY FAST, that might be worth something!
I too remember those Medeco jobbers in the IBM cases. I pulled the core (and matching keys!) from a PS/2 286 box that was on its way to the dumpster a while back. They had a medeco core in a plastic barrel, with a plastic lock arm inside.
Pick-proof yes (even the three-tumbler version) but hardly secure.
A few jobs ago, my wife worked for NOAA in the passive microwave radiometry group, which is fancy words for a bunch of folks who listened to clouds.
90Ghz is one of the harmonics of H2O molecular vibration, so it's one of the key discriminators to tell between ice, liquid and vapor forms of water.
This area of the spectrum has a few frequencies which are easy for H2O to absorb, but assuming that the FCC has half a clue to avoid those specific frequencies, the band as a whole should be able to penetrate humidity just fine.
Screw the actual article (or the CNN spin, or the/. re-spin) -- now I've got the mental image of John Belushi from the 1970's SNL set, dressed in his killer bee costume and working the espresso bar.
You have a classic parenting problem here. The employees (kids) have a behaviour choice to make. That choice has a logical consequence associated with it. If they choose poorly, there will be a consequence to their choice, and it is their problem, not yours.
Your job as an admin (parent) is to help them make an informed choice, provide sympathetic support when someone learns the hard way about a bad choice, and let them have the learning experience.
That said, the conventional approach is to:
Provide a networked fileserver which is backed up nightly (and actually DO the backups!)
Facilitate desktop access to this server, and educate users on how to make use of it for both fixed installation and laptops
Make sure that your training is part of the new-hire education
Hope that someone blows it and loses data
WHEN someone loses everything ('cause it's not "if") get as much press as you can. Make sure everyone has the chance to learn from one goofball's mistake, but remember: It's not your problem, it's their problem if they choose to ignore your advice!
Hey, I'll admit it, I D/L lots o stuff from new games to new cd's. THAT'S WHY I GOT CABLE. If they decide to penalize me for using my cable for what I got it for then I'll drop it and go back to my $10/month dial up.
I'll play the devil's advocate here for a moment, and speak from the perspective of a Cable Company (MSO):
Good fscking riddance!
Right or wrong, the cable company's business model was that folks would download a bit more data (1 to 2 order of magnitude increase) but would do so in "bursts" thanks to the faster download speeds. The infrastructure, interconnection agreements, and pricing were all designed around that model.
What they've found is that the model is true for the vast majority of subscribers (95-97% by some studies) but there are a few ubergeeks who are making use of the higher speeds to use the net in novel ways. Some of them (like, say, YOU) are so skewing the model that they are forced to spend more in infrastructure and interconnections to even remotely keep quality of service acceptable for the rest. They lose money on you every month that you're subscribing. They'd be happy to see you go
I'm not trying to play holier-than-thou, but you didn't really think the gravy train would last forever did you? "Corporate greed" is a naive oxymoron. If you want an altruistic organization, join a co-op. For-profit corporations exist to make a profit; everything else is subservient.
Hmmmmm.... We could build on 30+ years of research from the respective space agencies of France, the (then) Soviet Union, the United States and maybe a few others, then try to collect first-hand data via a transmitting device placed in some actual orbital craft which are performing uncontrolled re-entry. We could capture and track these data to see if we could correllate certain behaviours with re-entry breakup or lack thereof.
Slashdot Mirror
To be REALLY fair to nortel, while the web was young seven years ago, (the net was old, even then) that has absolutely nothing to do with this crack job.
The DMS-100s were broken the good old fashioned way -- use a war dialer to find the dialup number, then call the switch directly. Once connected, try the obvious passwords first (either admin/admin or admin/NORTEL_DEFAULT_PASSWORD, which Mitnick had learned from Nortel docs)
Deander2 got it right -- Nortel designed an absurdly complex product, and was unmotivated to clean house because they were able to rake in the consulting bucks. WHEN (not if) this comes back to bite a client in the butt (like it did with Sprint) Nortel takes no heat for it, and in fact most likely gets even MORE consulting dollars for a hasty clean-up effort.
"Failing Fast" is management buzzword from a few years back. The reasoning goes like this:
If you're an innovation culture, then you've got to take risks. If you are unwilling to admit failure, then your wrong-turn paths have to go a LONG way before you have to admit failure. If you're willing to admit failure, then you can identify the wrong-turn paths quickly and try something else
You say that like it's a bad thing! Really, if my computer could figure out that X10 popunders don't work on me, that I neither need larger breasts or a longer penis, and that I don't need to MAKE MONEY FAST, that might be worth something!
Run screaming from the computer!
Or just don't take the fskcing "upgrade" path anymore
What's the weather like there? It's sunny here, but cold, over.
I too remember those Medeco jobbers in the IBM cases. I pulled the core (and matching keys!) from a PS/2 286 box that was on its way to the dumpster a while back. They had a medeco core in a plastic barrel, with a plastic lock arm inside. Pick-proof yes (even the three-tumbler version) but hardly secure.
A few jobs ago, my wife worked for NOAA in the passive microwave radiometry group, which is fancy words for a bunch of folks who listened to clouds.
90Ghz is one of the harmonics of H2O molecular vibration, so it's one of the key discriminators to tell between ice, liquid and vapor forms of water.
This area of the spectrum has a few frequencies which are easy for H2O to absorb, but assuming that the FCC has half a clue to avoid those specific frequencies, the band as a whole should be able to penetrate humidity just fine.
IANAEE, but I'm married to one.
Screw the actual article (or the CNN spin, or the /. re-spin) -- now I've got the mental image of John Belushi from the 1970's SNL set, dressed in his killer bee costume and working the espresso bar.
Thanks! It's good to smile on Fridays!
RTFArticle already
Just pissing in the wind, I guess
Your job as an admin (parent) is to help them make an informed choice, provide sympathetic support when someone learns the hard way about a bad choice, and let them have the learning experience.
That said, the conventional approach is to:
- Provide a networked fileserver which is backed up nightly (and actually DO the backups!)
- Facilitate desktop access to this server, and educate users on how to make use of it for both fixed installation and laptops
- Make sure that your training is part of the new-hire education
- Hope that someone blows it and loses data
WHEN someone loses everything ('cause it's not "if") get as much press as you can. Make sure everyone has the chance to learn from one goofball's mistake, but remember: It's not your problem, it's their problem if they choose to ignore your advice!I'll play the devil's advocate here for a moment, and speak from the perspective of a Cable Company (MSO):
Good fscking riddance!
Right or wrong, the cable company's business model was that folks would download a bit more data (1 to 2 order of magnitude increase) but would do so in "bursts" thanks to the faster download speeds. The infrastructure, interconnection agreements, and pricing were all designed around that model.
What they've found is that the model is true for the vast majority of subscribers (95-97% by some studies) but there are a few ubergeeks who are making use of the higher speeds to use the net in novel ways. Some of them (like, say, YOU) are so skewing the model that they are forced to spend more in infrastructure and interconnections to even remotely keep quality of service acceptable for the rest.
They lose money on you every month that you're subscribing. They'd be happy to see you go
I'm not trying to play holier-than-thou, but you didn't really think the gravy train would last forever did you? "Corporate greed" is a naive oxymoron. If you want an altruistic organization, join a co-op. For-profit corporations exist to make a profit; everything else is subservient.
Yes, you do.
'Standards' is a one-word oxymoron. If there's more than one covering the same domain, then each is:
It's not that hard, really.
I can picture a boardroom at NASA
Hmmmmm.... We could build on 30+ years of research from the respective space agencies of France, the (then) Soviet Union, the United States and maybe a few others, then try to collect first-hand data via a transmitting device placed in some actual orbital craft which are performing uncontrolled re-entry. We could capture and track these data to see if we could correllate certain behaviours with re-entry breakup or lack thereof.
Or we could listen to a guy who throws sticks.