why is it that security always lags behind technology? From wireless phones and baby monitors that can be listened to with scanners, to wireless networking that has nothing preventing access, these things seem to happen ad nauseum.
My uneducated guess would be that security is ignored in the rush to market, and also is seen as 'paranoid nonsense' until it is prevalent. Things like this are the reason I urged a ban on wireless networking at my company until the technology matures more (thankfully it is now prohibited).
its true; many IT people do forget that this field is really all about protecting and working with information; computers are mearly the too for doing that.
In fact, today there was a high profile F-Up by someone in my department; they wanted to be in charge of upgrading our mainframe, even tho they have no experience whatsoever working on such equipment, and know nothing about Unix. Thousands of dollars an many consultant hours later they got it 'Live', and now it routinely drops printer support, and was down for three hours this morning.
Funny, somewhere they forgot that the information on that machine was very important, and that hundreds of users need that machine to function so they can work. Oh well.
I hate HP Servers, but Compaq is very reliable. I simply like the Dell servers better; they are easier to work on, and seem to be more reliable. You may knock that, but I happen to like those things.
Also, you seem to really have a lot against Dell servers for somebody who has never used them. How do you know Dell has no R&D dept? I dont know for sure, but when a company builds as many computers as Dell I would bet everything I own that they do, and probably a big one at that.
Also, if you run such a huge network, you are telling me that you support all these Frankenservers? I dont think that can be true. Either its a really hard network to support, or nobody has ever heard of standardizing. Every server we have bought in the last year has been the same make and model; slight differences in processors, and one of two hard drive configurations; I put together those choices, because if something breaks I dont want to go hunting and praying for replacement parts. When I fix things, I limit the downtime; I just dont see there is any other way.
And Im not flaming at you, honestly. I just think you have preconceived notions about something that are very wrong.
I do build machines, every PC I have owned has been built by me, and the all will in the future. But I keep that kind of stuff at home; work is for tried and true, ultra reliable. Its not play time, its major league, and I take it very seriously.
Also, we have a Sun server, but there are idiots in charge of the Unix group. I run the LAN, WAN, email, and the NT servers; for the NT servers we need, Dell is great.
And we arent being forced to use Dell equipment, but it does make things easier (we are nudged into using it thus). But as I said, we have no complaints, and quite the opposite. We all have nothing but good things to say about it; so since you DONT use Dell equipment, I dont see how you can have such a huge bug up your ass about them (or even anything germane to this discussion).
Your "Free Beer" mentality is really going to drive WotC out of business. Not that you care.
Every company has one purpose- make money. You can throw all the BS you want at it, but money is what fuels the machine. Somebody has to pay for the staff members to write the rules, to test them out, to balance things. They also need to create the modules, expansion books, blah blah. Adults arent going to do this full-time for free; they have bills to pay, families to feed, kids to send to college, etc. This stuff takes money, and free beer for you isnt going to pay for that.
1. Ive used Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM, Gateway, and a whole lot of crappy ones that I dont remember. Just because I like something, and you dont, doesnt mean that I dont know anything. As surprising as it may seem, your position will occasionally be the incorrect one.
2. No, I wouldnt replace the mobo with a standard ATX board. This is a server, not a glorified PC. I wouldnt replace the mobo in ANY server with other than the part from that particular vendor. This isnt "Last Chance Garage", its corporate IT; we dont cobble together servers like some college kid.
I have no problem with them using non-standard parts. If you used any servers, you would know that all of them dont use "standard" ATX boards. Compaq also makes the mobo's for their servers, and I think they all do (its been a few years on anything but Dell and Cpq), unless you buy a thrown together server.
Your statement about not innovating servers really strikes me as silly, no offense. Servers are supposed to be reliable machines. You dont innovate on reliable equipment. It is engineered for stability. The fact that it works very well is testament to how well that was done.
If you want innovation, go buy some toshiba mini-pc. The most innovative things are also the buggiest, IMO. I dont need bells and whistles, its a fricken server.
3. We have had to call Dell about a few PCs that were shipped bad. Oh well, thats manufacturing for you- nobody is perfect. However, its not like the world is going to end because Susie in Marketting has to wait a few more days to get her computer upgraded. What I liked was that Dell was very quick to respond to us and get it fixed. In fact, I remember one of the Desktop Support guys had a problem; I told him it was either the RAM or the PSU. They ended up shipping (overnight) him new RAM, a new PSU, and a new mobo. They offered to install it as well, but he did it himself. This only took about two days; good customer service isnt a technical innovation, but we like it.
4. Im glad you enjoy your cobbled together PC/Server. I looked on that site, and I dont see any servers; I only see branded PCs. I did a search for "server" and only came up with 5 entries for various flavors of NT Server.
5. I stopped looking at the cost a long time ago. I just tell them what I want, and other people figure out how to pay for it. I dont do computing on the cheap, I use what is the best. Also, what are you talking about with a "Hot spare" mobo? A hot spare is something you can replace while the PC is running. You cant replace a mobo while the computer is on!
Also, I said you can replace the mobo in 5 min. You do need the mobo from Dell, which I dont care about, because I only use the manufacturers part. However, what are you talking about, that I need a great support deal? Hand me a screw driver and the motherboard, and five minutes later you can hit the power button.
And, as I said, I could care less that I cant upgrade the server's mobo myself. We refer to that as 'end of life'; at that point it, which is 3-5 years after the purchase, we migrate to a new server, and the old server becomes an infrastructure server. Isnt real IT great?
Last time I tried to install Linux, I needed well over a gigabyte on the HD. Are you trying to tell me that Windows is the only one that installs things you dont necessarily need?
This guy just throws around semi-technical sounding jargon and lines it into one ranting, contrarian-to-Microsoft post.
xchine is one of the Linux users that give Linux users a bad name. And if you happen to like MS products, you are evil and stupid in his so-important-to-himself worldview.
1. I have been an MCSE for years, I passed it in two months w.o even studying hard. My experience was all that was necessary.
2. I am not going to become an expert on this shat unless I need to use it. I happen to work for a living, and have many other things that I need to be an expert on right now.
3. You use all the right buzz words. You must be a consultant or a tinkerer. Go back to reading your subscription to Linux User and PC World magazines. Maybe you can learn more buzz words to throw around.
I use Dell Servers. They are extremely good servers, the best I have worked with.
Everything in them can be swapped out in a few seconds. The mobo could be replaced in under five minutes. It is also extremely cool-running, its 4u, and I can fit tons of them in a single rack.
The Dell PCs we use at work also seem really good; I dont do PC support, but the guys who do have no complaints.
Laptops, I have a Dell, and its the best laptop I ever had (had about 6 or 7). Its not the lightest thing in the world, but Im more interested in if it can survive a fall off a desk (not that Ive tested it).
I think he could have fit all the prequel references in if he had planned it out better. If you look at Episode One this way, the only thing he did regarding fitting it all in was introduce Obi Wan and Aniken Skywalker.
Everything else was filler and kiddie nonsense. I mean, where in Star Wars and the next two movies did they refer to what a great racer Darth Vader was?
I dont know how many people read the books for Episodes 3-5, but I did. There was actually not that much he had to put in there. In order (from memory...) was this-
1. Aniken becomes Obi Wan's student
2. Aniken becomes uber-powerful, is wooed by Senator Palpitine
3. Aniken give birth to the twins, Luke and Leia. Their mother, who has started to fear Aniken, goes into hiding, and leaves Luke with his uncle.
4. Obi-Wan and Aniken have a falling out (possibly over the twins, but they dont say), then a fight which Aniken loses. He falls in lava, becoming critically wounded (and presumed dead by Obi Wan); only his strength in the force keeps him alive. Palpitine finds him, gets him cyborged up.
5. The Clone Wars- the Jedi are fighting clones, and Palpatine uses this distraction to kill off all the Jedi (except himself and Vader), and then take over the Republic.
6. Birth of the Rebelion.
And thats pretty much it! If he had paced it out, and actually done some planning, it would have been pretty good. But making it in this crappy ad-hoc way is what is making it so bad. Oh well, its obvious that Speilberg was the genius in that duo.
Well, there was a recent study of a cloned cat. The 'new' cat was very different behavior-wise, and even had different spotting. To see the two cats together, you would never guess they were from the exact same genetic material.
In fact, this correlates with one twin study I read a long time ago- the two brothers were separated at birth, one was somewhat well off, the other grew up poor (and was raised in an orphanage). The poor one was an introvert, while the other was an extrovert. Of note, however, was that both smoked the same brand of cigarettes, and used the same obscure, imported toothpaste.
Well, the stuff I work with isnt in the Top Secret category, its more in the confidential info category; its on par with credit information. Nothing that will jepardize the free world, but things you dont want places like insurance companies, creditors, etc knowing without the person's authorization.
Security is really just a comfort blanket anyway. If someone wants it bad enough, given time and resources they can get it. This stuff is really just due diligence on our part.
its usually silly to start a sentence (or a post) with the phrase "I dont believe"; once you realize that approximately 99.99999999999999999% of the world doesnt care what you believe, you get the idea of why that is silly. Im not being mean, thats how people are.
Anyway, whether you agree with black box security or not really doesnt matter. All security is just an illusion anyway, its all just becomes a matter of how long you can get people to buy that illusion. Think of it as speed bumps.
If Open Source was so ultra-unhackably secure, I could see your point. But its not, nor will it ever be. What MS does is have tons of programmers, all focused in a certain direction. Personally, I dont see it as being that much different than Open Source, except with MS some script kiddie who knows enough to be dangerous cant probe you code for flaws his latest virus can latch on to.
Also, if you look at the number of people making valuable 'core' contributions to Linux, BSD, etc, its really a very small group of people; its not like every slashdot reader has helped make the kernel.
Also, since I work with MS products, and you dont, its pretty silly for you to think you can tell me 'how it is'. I am no more an authority on Linux than you are on Windows.
Also, you cant sue a security consultant unless they are negligent or caused you damages. Since, as I said, all security has holes, its impossible to claim otherwise. Thats why you will never be in a position to make those decisions, because you dont know this stuff.
hey goof, show me an OS that puts a level of encryption that makes it impossible to transfer the files. Thats what they are doing. Win2k has Encrypted File System, but that only protects the data on the hard drive and the back-up. If you copy it to a local drive, or a zip disk, or a floppy, all the server side encryption in the world wont help
So get your computer-expert-wanna-bee posting ass away from the keyboard. You may have grandma convinced that you know about computers, but anyone that knows what they are talking about can see right thru you.
Go to school, get a good job, work hard, and maybe someday you can buy a clue
Wow, talk about someone reading a posting with their moron glasses on. Not only did you not read the slashdot breif, but you didnt read the article.
Go read the article before you try and pick apart what I write, moron. I never said that putting security into the OS was new, I said what they were doing, in terms of security, was new.
Just so you know, reading comprehension is very important once you get out of high school and into the real world.
I do. I work on computer security, and use MS products. They are very easy to work with, as a company; they hire very competant people.
Also, I think all the MS bashing here is not only unfair (comparing NT4 to the latest version of Linux), but you are ignoring the fact that they have yet to release anything since "Trusted Computing" was started. You are prejudging their products.
things like this are really essential, especially for companies and organizations that have concerns about confidential information.
For example, where I work, we are required by law to have a level of security on certain information; this info should never be reaching people who do not fall under the same laws.
With a technology in place to protect that data, our jobs as the IT staff becomes much easier.
MS is, in my view, breaking new ground with this; some people may not like what they are doing, but you have to admit that nobody else is putting this stuff into their OS (when there is clearly a need for it).
Slashdot Mirror
My uneducated guess would be that security is ignored in the rush to market, and also is seen as 'paranoid nonsense' until it is prevalent. Things like this are the reason I urged a ban on wireless networking at my company until the technology matures more (thankfully it is now prohibited).
In fact, today there was a high profile F-Up by someone in my department; they wanted to be in charge of upgrading our mainframe, even tho they have no experience whatsoever working on such equipment, and know nothing about Unix. Thousands of dollars an many consultant hours later they got it 'Live', and now it routinely drops printer support, and was down for three hours this morning.
Funny, somewhere they forgot that the information on that machine was very important, and that hundreds of users need that machine to function so they can work. Oh well.
Also, you seem to really have a lot against Dell servers for somebody who has never used them. How do you know Dell has no R&D dept? I dont know for sure, but when a company builds as many computers as Dell I would bet everything I own that they do, and probably a big one at that.
Also, if you run such a huge network, you are telling me that you support all these Frankenservers? I dont think that can be true. Either its a really hard network to support, or nobody has ever heard of standardizing. Every server we have bought in the last year has been the same make and model; slight differences in processors, and one of two hard drive configurations; I put together those choices, because if something breaks I dont want to go hunting and praying for replacement parts. When I fix things, I limit the downtime; I just dont see there is any other way.
And Im not flaming at you, honestly. I just think you have preconceived notions about something that are very wrong.
I do build machines, every PC I have owned has been built by me, and the all will in the future. But I keep that kind of stuff at home; work is for tried and true, ultra reliable. Its not play time, its major league, and I take it very seriously.
Also, we have a Sun server, but there are idiots in charge of the Unix group. I run the LAN, WAN, email, and the NT servers; for the NT servers we need, Dell is great.
And we arent being forced to use Dell equipment, but it does make things easier (we are nudged into using it thus). But as I said, we have no complaints, and quite the opposite. We all have nothing but good things to say about it; so since you DONT use Dell equipment, I dont see how you can have such a huge bug up your ass about them (or even anything germane to this discussion).
Every company has one purpose- make money. You can throw all the BS you want at it, but money is what fuels the machine. Somebody has to pay for the staff members to write the rules, to test them out, to balance things. They also need to create the modules, expansion books, blah blah. Adults arent going to do this full-time for free; they have bills to pay, families to feed, kids to send to college, etc. This stuff takes money, and free beer for you isnt going to pay for that.
Grow up
2. No, I wouldnt replace the mobo with a standard ATX board. This is a server, not a glorified PC. I wouldnt replace the mobo in ANY server with other than the part from that particular vendor. This isnt "Last Chance Garage", its corporate IT; we dont cobble together servers like some college kid.
I have no problem with them using non-standard parts. If you used any servers, you would know that all of them dont use "standard" ATX boards. Compaq also makes the mobo's for their servers, and I think they all do (its been a few years on anything but Dell and Cpq), unless you buy a thrown together server.
Your statement about not innovating servers really strikes me as silly, no offense. Servers are supposed to be reliable machines. You dont innovate on reliable equipment. It is engineered for stability. The fact that it works very well is testament to how well that was done.
If you want innovation, go buy some toshiba mini-pc. The most innovative things are also the buggiest, IMO. I dont need bells and whistles, its a fricken server.
3. We have had to call Dell about a few PCs that were shipped bad. Oh well, thats manufacturing for you- nobody is perfect. However, its not like the world is going to end because Susie in Marketting has to wait a few more days to get her computer upgraded. What I liked was that Dell was very quick to respond to us and get it fixed. In fact, I remember one of the Desktop Support guys had a problem; I told him it was either the RAM or the PSU. They ended up shipping (overnight) him new RAM, a new PSU, and a new mobo. They offered to install it as well, but he did it himself. This only took about two days; good customer service isnt a technical innovation, but we like it.
4. Im glad you enjoy your cobbled together PC/Server. I looked on that site, and I dont see any servers; I only see branded PCs. I did a search for "server" and only came up with 5 entries for various flavors of NT Server.
5. I stopped looking at the cost a long time ago. I just tell them what I want, and other people figure out how to pay for it. I dont do computing on the cheap, I use what is the best. Also, what are you talking about with a "Hot spare" mobo? A hot spare is something you can replace while the PC is running. You cant replace a mobo while the computer is on!
Also, I said you can replace the mobo in 5 min. You do need the mobo from Dell, which I dont care about, because I only use the manufacturers part. However, what are you talking about, that I need a great support deal? Hand me a screw driver and the motherboard, and five minutes later you can hit the power button.
And, as I said, I could care less that I cant upgrade the server's mobo myself. We refer to that as 'end of life'; at that point it, which is 3-5 years after the purchase, we migrate to a new server, and the old server becomes an infrastructure server. Isnt real IT great?
Last time I tried to install Linux, I needed well over a gigabyte on the HD. Are you trying to tell me that Windows is the only one that installs things you dont necessarily need?
Public Key Encryption: depending on the key length, can be brute forced. Key length just makes it longer.
Kerebos: some implimentations were bugged. Do a search.
PGP: 0wN3d.
All your examples have had flaws revealed in them recently. Care to try again explaining the security of your "wide-open" source?
This guy just throws around semi-technical sounding jargon and lines it into one ranting, contrarian-to-Microsoft post.
xchine is one of the Linux users that give Linux users a bad name. And if you happen to like MS products, you are evil and stupid in his so-important-to-himself worldview.
So like I said. It esentially turns broadcast communication into warez.
2. I am not going to become an expert on this shat unless I need to use it. I happen to work for a living, and have many other things that I need to be an expert on right now.
3. You use all the right buzz words. You must be a consultant or a tinkerer. Go back to reading your subscription to Linux User and PC World magazines. Maybe you can learn more buzz words to throw around.
prep. & adv. & adj. Informal
Through.
Learn to use a f'ing dictionary, cocksmooch.
And Im sure I know what encryption does better than you do. Go back answering those help desk phones, little man.
Everything in them can be swapped out in a few seconds. The mobo could be replaced in under five minutes. It is also extremely cool-running, its 4u, and I can fit tons of them in a single rack.
The Dell PCs we use at work also seem really good; I dont do PC support, but the guys who do have no complaints.
Laptops, I have a Dell, and its the best laptop I ever had (had about 6 or 7). Its not the lightest thing in the world, but Im more interested in if it can survive a fall off a desk (not that Ive tested it).
More of an advertising spot than a review; I was hoping for comparisons and criticisms on the different models.
Which one will play Quake 3?
I know, thats why I mentioned it. I never contradicted what the study said =)
Everything else was filler and kiddie nonsense. I mean, where in Star Wars and the next two movies did they refer to what a great racer Darth Vader was?
I dont know how many people read the books for Episodes 3-5, but I did. There was actually not that much he had to put in there. In order (from memory...) was this-
1. Aniken becomes Obi Wan's student
2. Aniken becomes uber-powerful, is wooed by Senator Palpitine
3. Aniken give birth to the twins, Luke and Leia. Their mother, who has started to fear Aniken, goes into hiding, and leaves Luke with his uncle.
4. Obi-Wan and Aniken have a falling out (possibly over the twins, but they dont say), then a fight which Aniken loses. He falls in lava, becoming critically wounded (and presumed dead by Obi Wan); only his strength in the force keeps him alive. Palpitine finds him, gets him cyborged up.
5. The Clone Wars- the Jedi are fighting clones, and Palpatine uses this distraction to kill off all the Jedi (except himself and Vader), and then take over the Republic.
6. Birth of the Rebelion.
And thats pretty much it! If he had paced it out, and actually done some planning, it would have been pretty good. But making it in this crappy ad-hoc way is what is making it so bad. Oh well, its obvious that Speilberg was the genius in that duo.
I guess its time for Steve Jobs to go begging Bill Gates for another handout.
In fact, this correlates with one twin study I read a long time ago- the two brothers were separated at birth, one was somewhat well off, the other grew up poor (and was raised in an orphanage). The poor one was an introvert, while the other was an extrovert. Of note, however, was that both smoked the same brand of cigarettes, and used the same obscure, imported toothpaste.
Well, the stuff I work with isnt in the Top Secret category, its more in the confidential info category; its on par with credit information. Nothing that will jepardize the free world, but things you dont want places like insurance companies, creditors, etc knowing without the person's authorization. Security is really just a comfort blanket anyway. If someone wants it bad enough, given time and resources they can get it. This stuff is really just due diligence on our part.
Anyway, whether you agree with black box security or not really doesnt matter. All security is just an illusion anyway, its all just becomes a matter of how long you can get people to buy that illusion. Think of it as speed bumps.
If Open Source was so ultra-unhackably secure, I could see your point. But its not, nor will it ever be. What MS does is have tons of programmers, all focused in a certain direction. Personally, I dont see it as being that much different than Open Source, except with MS some script kiddie who knows enough to be dangerous cant probe you code for flaws his latest virus can latch on to.
Also, if you look at the number of people making valuable 'core' contributions to Linux, BSD, etc, its really a very small group of people; its not like every slashdot reader has helped make the kernel.
Also, since I work with MS products, and you dont, its pretty silly for you to think you can tell me 'how it is'. I am no more an authority on Linux than you are on Windows.
Also, you cant sue a security consultant unless they are negligent or caused you damages. Since, as I said, all security has holes, its impossible to claim otherwise. Thats why you will never be in a position to make those decisions, because you dont know this stuff.
So get your computer-expert-wanna-bee posting ass away from the keyboard. You may have grandma convinced that you know about computers, but anyone that knows what they are talking about can see right thru you.
Go to school, get a good job, work hard, and maybe someday you can buy a clue
Think TiVo, except its easier to get at the saved programming
Go read the article before you try and pick apart what I write, moron. I never said that putting security into the OS was new, I said what they were doing, in terms of security, was new.
Just so you know, reading comprehension is very important once you get out of high school and into the real world.
Also, I think all the MS bashing here is not only unfair (comparing NT4 to the latest version of Linux), but you are ignoring the fact that they have yet to release anything since "Trusted Computing" was started. You are prejudging their products.
Of note, is the absence of DRM discussion.
For example, where I work, we are required by law to have a level of security on certain information; this info should never be reaching people who do not fall under the same laws.
With a technology in place to protect that data, our jobs as the IT staff becomes much easier.
MS is, in my view, breaking new ground with this; some people may not like what they are doing, but you have to admit that nobody else is putting this stuff into their OS (when there is clearly a need for it).