I checked it out through the blocking software. I was able to view the whole site, the page critical of smartfilter(our blocking software), and the pages they censored in 1997 (at least the ones still in existence).
I certainly appreciate that there are orgainizations watching these lists, but the need for this software remains real.
I'm an admin in a school district, so I had to sign a CIPA part of my AUP. In my case, the state has a k-12 proxy server, and websites are filtered at this level.
In reality, the effects of this act are negligible. The only websites that I've never been able to access are sites that no kindergarten through high school student should ever be able to access.
I've accessed plenty of websites, though, that have profanity and controversial views by virtue of people posting to it (slashdot).
I've never seen one case of over-zealous blocking. If anything, our state has decided to err on the side of a leniant blocking policy.
Other parts of the CIPA basically say that folks in charge of children will make sure kids aren't doing inappropriate things. That's just common sense. This idea originated because teachers sometimes having a habit of turning kids loose on networked computers with no supervision.
I'm in support of the ACLU on so many other issues, but they're just on the wrong side of the issues and facts in this case. I'm sympathetic to the plight of librarians, though. They should never be asked as individuals to censor things. They should just be responsible to abide by this policy, and not be held personally accountable if one kid somewhere hits an unfiltered site.
Where I work, this skit has evolved into a tension-breaking drill we go through every time I go to someone's desk. I'll let a few seconds of silence pass after someone describes a problem, and then blurt out "mooooove". Gets em every time!
It's like we're each laughing at ourselves. Or maybe we're both laughing at me?
I agree. I wasn't a techie when these programs came out, but I eagerly adopted them...especially WP 5.1 and dbaseIII. I can remember saying something to myself like "gee, even with the enormous investment in training, I'm still saving myself loads of time"
It frustrates me when users ask me for help with an application I've never used, and I'm showing them all the features in under 10 minutes. I really don't consider myself any smarter. Maybe more inquisitive. I give some users a lot of credit for trying, but so many others just want their tasks to self-complete.
That might be one of the best reasons to get rid of them--especially on workstations.
Even with every computer networked, here's a well-established "sneakernet" where I work. People are always bitching that they've lost this or that, or the floppy drive is broke. Nobody can understand that floppies are the most unreliable form of media you can dream of, but folks will put anything on them.
Last summer some woman handed me a floppy fresh from her dashboard and asked me if I could "do anything" with it. It looked like the clock drooped over branch in that Dali painting. I thought I'd been dosed!
Me too. I'm not sure which I like better--caching or filtering. I'm on a modem connection, and still page views are pretty fast. My proxy's logs verify I'm bypassing loads of banners & previously cached objects, scripts, etc.
Supervisors need to impart an attitude that a job isn't done until the software works, and is secure.
Recently, I had some time on my hands and did a cursory check on some security issues on a few linux and MS boxes. Guess what? I found a few issues that needed to be addressed.
If everyone spent just a little time doing this type of thing, there would be a lot less security problems. Maybe supervisors should offer a case of beer as bounty for the biggest security hole found. They're overused sayings, but very true: Security really is everyone's job, and an ongoing process.
Also very true: people who think about security have a fraction of the security problems everyone else has.
I think most people are already too creeped out by "the internet" to do major purchasing there. It seems like every time I suggest to a friend/family/acquaintance that he might find a product more quickly and cheaply online, they wince at the idea.
The "uninformed masses" might not care about abstracts when it comes to privacy, but they can sense when it pertains directly to them.
This could have serious ramifications for the economy and how goods & services are trasacted.
When someone invents a gadget that resonates like or transmits zillions of random ID's, it will be declared illegal by the government. People's eyebrows will definitely go up
Some browsers are better for certain things, but I think Opera studied how people actually use their browsers. For instance, when you click the back button in Opera, your previous page is there *instantly*.
It renders pages waaaay faster than anything else, and it comes with a decent e-mail client.
Not that I don't have complaints, though. The toolbars & buttons waste screen real estate. Fortunately, you can download some nice skins and small buttons. Ultimately you have more control over what it looks like.
I like IE & Mozilla, but I realize how great Opera is when I use them.
Amen! You are absolutely correct. I do the same thing and run into the exact same problems. It's hard to present case studies and new, innovative ideas when these same people forget how to use e-mail, forget where they saved documents, etc.
I once e-mailed such a proposal to a principal, only to get a phone call saying he had forgotten how to open an attachment.
I learned how to program in BASIC on an apple IIc during my second year of high school. A couple of observations. Early Eighties.
1. The math teacher who is the high school computer guy might not be Steven Hawking or RMS, nor does he have to be. He has to teach the course to you.
2. The software or hardware you're using might be inadequate now, and change even more before you enter the workforce. That's not a problem. Basic & apple IIc's aren't used anymore but I still use skills I learned there.
3. My high school, and the whole school district could have best been described as "mediocre", but this class changed my life.
So, good things do happen in public schools sometimes. I'm having a "Wonder Years" moment. I have to go cry now. goodbye.
I saw a few Delta launches during the late 80's at Vandenberg AFB in California.
Some were classified launches due to the payloads.
I'd highly recommend seeing one if you get the chance. You can feel the rumble in your chest! I really didn't think it would be such a big deal, but when I actually saw one, my first response was "holy shit!"
Automatic updates are a great idea. However, Microsoft has abused a great concept by changing the EULA and Windows Media Player functionality under the guise of 'updates'. I think this makes people leery about accepting updates. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I have a XP box I'll never update because it actually does what I want it do do. Am I paranoid because I think accepting automatic updates will decrease its functionality? Trustworthy computing indeed.
These great ideas are hindered by one thing. Reality. It would be great if cars didn'pollute, roads and bridges didn't deteriorate, and everything we wanted could just appear in front of us.
This article is almost insulting to all the programmers and developers who have been trying to do just this thing for decades. Many of the issues he'd like resolved are actually being worked on by real people right now as we speak.
I've got good ideas too on lots of things, but I always thought I'd have to actually demonstrate how they'd be done to be considered an authority.
I recently borrowed one of these "enhanced" or whatever cd's from a friend. Although it was in pretty good shape, it was a little skippy on my 1 year old aiwa CD player in my car. Even when it didn't skip, audio quality just didn't sound right, although IANAA (audiophile).
I have older (8-9 year old) scratched up CD's that play fine, though. What gives?
He's right. a p100 with 16-32 megs of ram will run windows 95 with word 97 nicely. If you have to have linux solution, LTSP is outstanding, but dialup clients couldn't use this option.
Yes, people from Japan and Europe SMS with their phones, constantly. I'm american, though, and when I tell my american friends they can e-mail my phone, they give me blank stares. Saying that "the cell phone systems in the rest of the world are so much more advanced" only partly explains that phenomena. It seems that Americans just want to use cell phones as....well, phones.
CNN (and akamai?) really were really caught off guard for 9/11.
If this sort of thing happened agian, I'm sure the big websites have planned out exactly what to do, like immediately switching to low-graphics small pages.
ISP's and big carriers probably have better procedures for proxying/caching.
I hope we never have to find out, though.
I understand this virus might pop up on corporate networks and become a minor annoyance, but doesen't it require an awful lot of things going wrong?
1. it got past your firewall
2. It got past the AV software that should be running on your mail server
3. it got past your AV product on the workstation.
4. Your IE version hasn't been updated in 18+ months.
Just poking around on the internet, I saw people talking about the potential for this to be a problem a week ago.
When I have a user tell me "I think I have a virus" I check it out, but know that either the user doesen't want do his/her work, is confused, or saw a pop-up from the AV software that said a virus was quarrantined/deleted, and got really scared. Those calls are much, much more common.
Will the AOL commercials on CNN change significantly? Old commercial: grandma type says "it's like having a verbal chat [twiddles fingers]...electronically!"
New commercial: father type says something like: "AOL uses ipchains/procmail filter/ext2 file system/gecko rendering engine....and that's important to me"
Absolutely. I think they might be afraid of a simple, easy to use, "good enough" technology that they can't control.
Imagine if ubiquitous connectivity came from ingenuity, and smart people, rather than expensive, overly complex solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
I checked it out through the blocking software. I was able to view the whole site, the page critical of smartfilter(our blocking software), and the pages they censored in 1997 (at least the ones still in existence).
I certainly appreciate that there are orgainizations watching these lists, but the need for this software remains real.
I'm an admin in a school district, so I had to sign a CIPA part of my AUP. In my case, the state has a k-12 proxy server, and websites are filtered at this level.
In reality, the effects of this act are negligible. The only websites that I've never been able to access are sites that no kindergarten through high school student should ever be able to access.
I've accessed plenty of websites, though, that have profanity and controversial views by virtue of people posting to it (slashdot).
I've never seen one case of over-zealous blocking. If anything, our state has decided to err on the side of a leniant blocking policy.
Other parts of the CIPA basically say that folks in charge of children will make sure kids aren't doing inappropriate things. That's just common sense. This idea originated because teachers sometimes having a habit of turning kids loose on networked computers with no supervision.
I'm in support of the ACLU on so many other issues, but they're just on the wrong side of the issues and facts in this case. I'm sympathetic to the plight of librarians, though. They should never be asked as individuals to censor things. They should just be responsible to abide by this policy, and not be held personally accountable if one kid somewhere hits an unfiltered site.
Where I work, this skit has evolved into a tension-breaking drill we go through every time I go to someone's desk. I'll let a few seconds of silence pass after someone describes a problem, and then blurt out "mooooove". Gets em every time!
It's like we're each laughing at ourselves. Or maybe we're both laughing at me?
I agree. I wasn't a techie when these programs came out, but I eagerly adopted them...especially WP 5.1 and dbaseIII. I can remember saying something to myself like "gee, even with the enormous investment in training, I'm still saving myself loads of time"
It frustrates me when users ask me for help with an application I've never used, and I'm showing them all the features in under 10 minutes. I really don't consider myself any smarter. Maybe more inquisitive. I give some users a lot of credit for trying, but so many others just want their tasks to self-complete.
That might be one of the best reasons to get rid of them--especially on workstations.
Even with every computer networked, here's a well-established "sneakernet" where I work. People are always bitching that they've lost this or that, or the floppy drive is broke. Nobody can understand that floppies are the most unreliable form of media you can dream of, but folks will put anything on them.
Last summer some woman handed me a floppy fresh from her dashboard and asked me if I could "do anything" with it. It looked like the clock drooped over branch in that Dali painting. I thought I'd been dosed!
Me too. I'm not sure which I like better--caching or filtering. I'm on a modem connection, and still page views are pretty fast. My proxy's logs verify I'm bypassing loads of banners & previously cached objects, scripts, etc.
This does my ISP a favor, right?
Supervisors need to impart an attitude that a job isn't done until the software works, and is secure.
Recently, I had some time on my hands and did a cursory check on some security issues on a few linux and MS boxes. Guess what? I found a few issues that needed to be addressed.
If everyone spent just a little time doing this type of thing, there would be a lot less security problems. Maybe supervisors should offer a case of beer as bounty for the biggest security hole found. They're overused sayings, but very true: Security really is everyone's job, and an ongoing process.
Also very true: people who think about security have a fraction of the security problems everyone else has.
2. Invent electromagnetic ship docking system 3. Call it a tractor beam! 4. Profit!!!!
I think most people are already too creeped out by "the internet" to do major purchasing there. It seems like every time I suggest to a friend/family/acquaintance that he might find a product more quickly and cheaply online, they wince at the idea.
The "uninformed masses" might not care about abstracts when it comes to privacy, but they can sense when it pertains directly to them.
This could have serious ramifications for the economy and how goods & services are trasacted.
When someone invents a gadget that resonates like or transmits zillions of random ID's, it will be declared illegal by the government. People's eyebrows will definitely go up
I think Opera is the best overall browser.
Some browsers are better for certain things, but I think Opera studied how people actually use their browsers. For instance, when you click the back button in Opera, your previous page is there *instantly*.
It renders pages waaaay faster than anything else, and it comes with a decent e-mail client.
Not that I don't have complaints, though. The toolbars & buttons waste screen real estate. Fortunately, you can download some nice skins and small buttons. Ultimately you have more control over what it looks like.
I like IE & Mozilla, but I realize how great Opera is when I use them.
yeah, what's the deal with that? Is it a technical limitation of the box, or something else?
Amen! You are absolutely correct. I do the same thing and run into the exact same problems. It's hard to present case studies and new, innovative ideas when these same people forget how to use e-mail, forget where they saved documents, etc.
I once e-mailed such a proposal to a principal, only to get a phone call saying he had forgotten how to open an attachment.
I learned how to program in BASIC on an apple IIc during my second year of high school. A couple of observations. Early Eighties.
1. The math teacher who is the high school computer guy might not be Steven Hawking or RMS, nor does he have to be. He has to teach the course to you.
2. The software or hardware you're using might be inadequate now, and change even more before you enter the workforce. That's not a problem. Basic & apple IIc's aren't used anymore but I still use skills I learned there.
3. My high school, and the whole school district could have best been described as "mediocre", but this class changed my life.
So, good things do happen in public schools sometimes. I'm having a "Wonder Years" moment. I have to go cry now. goodbye.
I saw a few Delta launches during the late 80's at Vandenberg AFB in California. Some were classified launches due to the payloads. I'd highly recommend seeing one if you get the chance. You can feel the rumble in your chest! I really didn't think it would be such a big deal, but when I actually saw one, my first response was "holy shit!"
Automatic updates are a great idea. However, Microsoft has abused a great concept by changing the EULA and Windows Media Player functionality under the guise of 'updates'. I think this makes people leery about accepting updates. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I have a XP box I'll never update because it actually does what I want it do do. Am I paranoid because I think accepting automatic updates will decrease its functionality? Trustworthy computing indeed.
These great ideas are hindered by one thing. Reality. It would be great if cars didn'pollute, roads and bridges didn't deteriorate, and everything we wanted could just appear in front of us.
This article is almost insulting to all the programmers and developers who have been trying to do just this thing for decades. Many of the issues he'd like resolved are actually being worked on by real people right now as we speak.
I've got good ideas too on lots of things, but I always thought I'd have to actually demonstrate how they'd be done to be considered an authority.
I recently borrowed one of these "enhanced" or whatever cd's from a friend. Although it was in pretty good shape, it was a little skippy on my 1 year old aiwa CD player in my car. Even when it didn't skip, audio quality just didn't sound right, although IANAA (audiophile). I have older (8-9 year old) scratched up CD's that play fine, though. What gives?
Will WOPR be upgraded? What's the newest version?
He's right. a p100 with 16-32 megs of ram will run windows 95 with word 97 nicely. If you have to have linux solution, LTSP is outstanding, but dialup clients couldn't use this option.
Yes, people from Japan and Europe SMS with their phones, constantly. I'm american, though, and when I tell my american friends they can e-mail my phone, they give me blank stares. Saying that "the cell phone systems in the rest of the world are so much more advanced" only partly explains that phenomena. It seems that Americans just want to use cell phones as....well, phones.
CNN (and akamai?) really were really caught off guard for 9/11. If this sort of thing happened agian, I'm sure the big websites have planned out exactly what to do, like immediately switching to low-graphics small pages. ISP's and big carriers probably have better procedures for proxying/caching. I hope we never have to find out, though.
I understand this virus might pop up on corporate networks and become a minor annoyance, but doesen't it require an awful lot of things going wrong?
1. it got past your firewall
2. It got past the AV software that should be running on your mail server
3. it got past your AV product on the workstation.
4. Your IE version hasn't been updated in 18+ months.
Just poking around on the internet, I saw people talking about the potential for this to be a problem a week ago.
When I have a user tell me "I think I have a virus" I check it out, but know that either the user doesen't want do his/her work, is confused, or saw a pop-up from the AV software that said a virus was quarrantined/deleted, and got really scared. Those calls are much, much more common.
The streets will run red with blood. Seriously...The black hat community will unite around a single target
Will the AOL commercials on CNN change significantly? Old commercial: grandma type says "it's like having a verbal chat [twiddles fingers]...electronically!" New commercial: father type says something like: "AOL uses ipchains/procmail filter/ext2 file system/gecko rendering engine....and that's important to me"
Absolutely. I think they might be afraid of a simple, easy to use, "good enough" technology that they can't control. Imagine if ubiquitous connectivity came from ingenuity, and smart people, rather than expensive, overly complex solutions.