Gun's are designed to kill. Computers are not designed for cracking/spaming/etc. If you leave a chain saw out in your back yard, knowing that the kid down the block is (1) a bit whacked, (2) could be a potential danger, and (3) should not be on your property, are you partially responcible for when he kills some one with that chain saw? Now, what if it is the kid on the next block that could be the danger? Or the next city, county state of country? At what point is it no longer reasonable to expect that the public to know something is a threat?
First, point: Yes, computers are designed to Spam, crack etc... these are all within normal parameters of what a computer can do. I believe what you meant is that they are not built with the intentions of facilitating spammers etc... Guns also are not "intended" to rob grocers.
Next point: How far does the liability go? Well, first the internet is globally connected. A server in singapore is only about 300 ms further than one in LA, so distance is irrelevant. What is relevant is the knowledge of the person leaving the device out in the open. An emergency room surgeon probably has a different opinion of people who leave chainsaws in the open than your neighbor would (unless he is an ER surgeon:-) The same goes for the PC in the open. As a responsible Sysadmin, you KNOW what an infected and hijacked PC can do so it is more irresponsible than the local plumber plugging his PC straight into his unfiltered DSL.
The above post is my "moral" take on the issue. I have no idea what the law says on this and do not want people to think I am giving legal advice.
If their customer list is so insecure that a untrustworthy 3rd party has it now, then their customers really need the services of a security company.:)
I disagree, many times small companies give security companies all the keys so to speak. Outside consultants may maintain such a relationship where they have near employee status. This is quite a wake up call for this one. Plus, what do you do if a former employee gave the list? Finally, the customer list would be easy to gain if you knew their IP range (and how could a security monitoring firm not) no matter how they got it, they lack ethics and should thusly lack clients.
Monitoring your servers is a security function. A security company should strive to appear beyond reproach. Wether they got your customer list by looking through your ip logs or from a former employee, that is unsuitable behavior. I would contact my customers tell them that a security firm you do business with has "acquired" a customer list of yours and you are unsure of their intentions but you are sure that they acquired it dishonestly. None of your customers will hire them. The down side is, be careful not to tell your customers in a way that makes you look stupid, because you might look it.
Interesting reasoning. Many of my friends went to school for many years as undergrads, grads etc... and got degrees which referred to as Phd. They rarely refer to themselves as doctor because in their opinion that word is only meaningful to nondoctors. Instead they describe the work they do and the experiences they have which are far more meaningful and I am sure that you will agree you can not dilute their experience wether I dilute their titles or not.
I think this gets to my point, which is that people put far too much importance on a word. I say that I am a network engineer simply because most people know what one is. I could care less about the fine distinction of "am I an engineer" "what is an engineer". The fact is I don't even think about blueprint reading engineers when I say the E word, I actually think along the lines of "Once upon a time there was an engineer...." You know railroads;-) You think the guy driving a train designed it as well? Glad you got over your anger and explained your point, I understand it. Don't agree with it, but that's not important really.
.to call yourself an Engineer then the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'
Aww, does unemployment got you down?
Seriously, give up the bitterness. I posted one sentence about me. You have no more right to judge me then "the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'."
I have 4 years learning at "an institution of higher learning" Plus, that is where I got my first admin job. When I finished my third year as a sysadmin (mostly working with win 3.1 for WGs and Win 95 with a smattering of NT)I took my MCSE (I didn't attend a boot camp) Of course that was 5 years ago, now I am an MCSE 2000 (look ma, no bootcamp )
As an MCSE with a future father in law who works as an aerospace engineer, I debated this with him once. I conceded (in that case you have to) that I am not an engineer and am not worthy lacking all his skills etc... A couple months later his home network went down and I helped him get it back up. Later, at a family reunion he was heard explaining that I am a network "engineer"
NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Administrations are made up of administrators primarily. Nasa functions as a project manager and gateway for Americans to get to space. Nasa has regulations etc...that its equipment must meet. Companies wishing to get to space must do so through Nasa and thus must meets those regulations as well. Nasa is largely an organization of very talented (hopefully) project managers.
THAT being said, don't hold your breath for this bill even being taken up at the subcommittee level, let alone signed into law, since the sponsor is a fairly junior member of the committee, and a minority (i.e. Democratic) party Representative to boot.
Though I only quoted part of your reply, the whole thing was nicely explained. Thanks for writing it:-)
It is sad that you posted that anonymously. I hope that you look for replies as this was a well written post which merits discussion.
Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein are what happens when too much religion is mixed with big government. The govt. can watch you for "terrorist" activity, then eventually for illegal activity and eventually for immoral activity. Then people in that environment become even holier than thou. When they are used to flexing their authority on and repressing those around them they move onto other countries etc... John Ashcroft is step one in creating an American Bin Laden. He is the greatest enemy to our way of life ever encountered.
It is a nice vision, but without adequate funding it is only so much posturing from congress, and frankly, I'm quite sick of windbags who have no intention of following through on their flowery rhetoric with concrete action.
The bill addresses the first two years funding. Though I fail to see it as adequate. I say if we can spend 87 billion dollars to force our democratic ideas on another country militarily, then we should be able to get a billion or so a year for space exploration.
Most antivirus software is configurable as to what to do with the virus. I set mine to delete the attachment, the email and send no message (that is tight, but during worm activity that is the way to go). So, if he had problems with too much mail when filters engaged he should RTFM
The copyright rules that underlie SCO's case are not disputable. They provide a solid foundation for any software development model, including Open Source. Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws, Open Source developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today.
If the grounds for SCOs case were indisputable would there not simply be some penalty leveled against IBM by the courts. If I remember right if you indisputably broke a law, the states prosecuting attorney should initiate suit. The very fact that this is going to trial says that Darls complaints ARE disputable. IBM respects the laws enough to continue actions confidently.
I seem to remember reading more about the Morasco link somewhere, but it was so long ago I cant remember where.
But, for 100 points can you link morasco to Kevin Bacon in less than six degrees of seperation. If so, link the tiles to KB and look at any crosslinked data and you have your link.
My comment was sarcasm. I understand what the court order was for. It was for making unsubstantiated claims and basing threats and FUD on it. For some reason in Germany, you can not simply make up wild claims and send out bills. You have to have adequate proof and documentation.
Sidenote to legislators...is the above a bad thing or a good thing? Please tell me your opinon before the next major election;-)
SCO GmbH in Germany was only fined because they did not fully comply with a preliminary injunction which told them not to repeat certain statements.
Yes, this does not mean that they see that they are lying. Only that they did not comply with a court order to quit lying;-)
Seriously, I think this will be viewed as a major setback by SCO. They are trying to coerce people into buying licenses and now they can point to a country which has effectively gagged them. People will become wary of $cos dubious claims.
a virtual computer distributed over millions of physical nodes, so the storage will might be each of these nodes' memory... Like Freenet but also aimed at distributing workload.
We need a sweepstake on when he's going to (illegally) dump his stock [yahoo.com] and head to Brazil for a face change. I'm guessing it'll be the day before they actually hit a court with this farce.
I will place my bet on when he goes to Brazil. POST-BUSH Administration. Since Neil Bush (Yes A GW Brother)is now on the lecture circuit in the US instead of hiding in Brazil (remember the S&L scandal) I would say that until an opponent can win by a landslide (only way the supreme court will cede victory) Darl is fine. Heck he might even get a talk show with some Enron execs.
people don't do their patches! blaster is all over the news yet a casual poll of my non-geek friends (the windows ones at least) showed that only one had done the patch!
To know one non-geek who patched his system I would guess you must have a thousand friends
I believe in holding people (and companies responsible for the damage their systems cause) I would propose this:
Auto updates have an opt out feature, if you opt out you agree to responsibility for any damage caused by your PC for which their was a known fix.
Microsoft agrees that if you do not opt out they are responsible for any damage caused by poorly coded patches.
In both those cases liability would probably be limited to something like what MS accepts now. IE these statements:
USER: sorry my PC ddos'd your hospital network causing countless deaths. If MS would write better patches I would allow auto updates
or
MS: Sorry our patch broke your hospital network. Perhaps you should consider more standard equipment
Okay, sorry I started out constructive then broke cynical.
Slashdot Mirror
Gun's are designed to kill. Computers are not designed for cracking/spaming/etc. If you leave a chain saw out in your back yard, knowing that the kid down the block is (1) a bit whacked, (2) could be a potential danger, and (3) should not be on your property, are you partially responcible for when he kills some one with that chain saw? Now, what if it is the kid on the next block that could be the danger? Or the next city, county state of country? At what point is it no longer reasonable to expect that the public to know something is a threat?
:-) The same goes for the PC in the open. As a responsible Sysadmin, you KNOW what an infected and hijacked PC can do so it is more irresponsible than the local plumber plugging his PC straight into his unfiltered DSL.
First, point: Yes, computers are designed to Spam, crack etc... these are all within normal parameters of what a computer can do. I believe what you meant is that they are not built with the intentions of facilitating spammers etc... Guns also are not "intended" to rob grocers.
Next point: How far does the liability go? Well, first the internet is globally connected. A server in singapore is only about 300 ms further than one in LA, so distance is irrelevant. What is relevant is the knowledge of the person leaving the device out in the open. An emergency room surgeon probably has a different opinion of people who leave chainsaws in the open than your neighbor would (unless he is an ER surgeon
The above post is my "moral" take on the issue. I have no idea what the law says on this and do not want people to think I am giving legal advice.
If their customer list is so insecure that a untrustworthy 3rd party has it now, then their customers really need the services of a security company. :)
I disagree, many times small companies give security companies all the keys so to speak. Outside consultants may maintain such a relationship where they have near employee status. This is quite a wake up call for this one. Plus, what do you do if a former employee gave the list? Finally, the customer list would be easy to gain if you knew their IP range (and how could a security monitoring firm not) no matter how they got it, they lack ethics and should thusly lack clients.
Monitoring your servers is a security function. A security company should strive to appear beyond reproach. Wether they got your customer list by looking through your ip logs or from a former employee, that is unsuitable behavior. I would contact my customers tell them that a security firm you do business with has "acquired" a customer list of yours and you are unsure of their intentions but you are sure that they acquired it dishonestly. None of your customers will hire them. The down side is, be careful not to tell your customers in a way that makes you look stupid, because you might look it.
I would like to apologize for the horrible run on sentence in the previous post. I am aghast with embarassment
Interesting reasoning. Many of my friends went to school for many years as undergrads, grads etc... and got degrees which referred to as Phd. They rarely refer to themselves as doctor because in their opinion that word is only meaningful to nondoctors. Instead they describe the work they do and the experiences they have which are far more meaningful and I am sure that you will agree you can not dilute their experience wether I dilute their titles or not.
Your friend Z, Dr. of network topology
I think this gets to my point, which is that people put far too much importance on a word. I say that I am a network engineer simply because most people know what one is. I could care less about the fine distinction of "am I an engineer" "what is an engineer". The fact is I don't even think about blueprint reading engineers when I say the E word, I actually think along the lines of "Once upon a time there was an engineer...." You know railroads ;-) You think the guy driving a train designed it as well? Glad you got over your anger and explained your point, I understand it. Don't agree with it, but that's not important really.
Glad you got a job. You bash microsofts certs yet you would pay for a CompTIA certification? Nice talking to you.
.to call yourself an Engineer then the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'
Aww, does unemployment got you down?
Seriously, give up the bitterness. I posted one sentence about me. You have no more right to judge me then "the local homeless crazy bum has of calling himself 'The Emperor of All Known Space'."
I have 4 years learning at "an institution of higher learning" Plus, that is where I got my first admin job. When I finished my third year as a sysadmin (mostly working with win 3.1 for WGs and Win 95 with a smattering of NT)I took my MCSE (I didn't attend a boot camp) Of course that was 5 years ago, now I am an MCSE 2000 (look ma, no bootcamp )
And YOU just admitted to being afraid to admit that your an MCSE ;-)
As an MCSE with a future father in law who works as an aerospace engineer, I debated this with him once. I conceded (in that case you have to) that I am not an engineer and am not worthy lacking all his skills etc... A couple months later his home network went down and I helped him get it back up. Later, at a family reunion he was heard explaining that I am a network "engineer"
NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Administrations are made up of administrators primarily. Nasa functions as a project manager and gateway for Americans to get to space. Nasa has regulations etc...that its equipment must meet. Companies wishing to get to space must do so through Nasa and thus must meets those regulations as well. Nasa is largely an organization of very talented (hopefully) project managers.
THAT being said, don't hold your breath for this bill even being taken up at the subcommittee level, let alone signed into law, since the sponsor is a fairly junior member of the committee, and a minority (i.e. Democratic) party Representative to boot.
:-)
Though I only quoted part of your reply, the whole thing was nicely explained. Thanks for writing it
It is sad that you posted that anonymously. I hope that you look for replies as this was a well written post which merits discussion.
Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein are what happens when too much religion is mixed with big government. The govt. can watch you for "terrorist" activity, then eventually for illegal activity and eventually for immoral activity. Then people in that environment become even holier than thou. When they are used to flexing their authority on and repressing those around them they move onto other countries etc... John Ashcroft is step one in creating an American Bin Laden. He is the greatest enemy to our way of life ever encountered.
It is a nice vision, but without adequate funding it is only so much posturing from congress, and frankly, I'm quite sick of windbags who have no intention of following through on their flowery rhetoric with concrete action.
The bill addresses the first two years funding. Though I fail to see it as adequate. I say if we can spend 87 billion dollars to force our democratic ideas on another country militarily, then we should be able to get a billion or so a year for space exploration.
Most antivirus software is configurable as to what to do with the virus. I set mine to delete the attachment, the email and send no message (that is tight, but during worm activity that is the way to go). So, if he had problems with too much mail when filters engaged he should RTFM
Replace user, press any key
The copyright rules that underlie SCO's case are not disputable. They provide a solid foundation for any software development model, including Open Source. Rather than ignore or challenge copyright laws, Open Source developers will advance their cause by respecting the rules of law that built our society into what it is today.
If the grounds for SCOs case were indisputable would there not simply be some penalty leveled against IBM by the courts. If I remember right if you indisputably broke a law, the states prosecuting attorney should initiate suit. The very fact that this is going to trial says that Darls complaints ARE disputable. IBM respects the laws enough to continue actions confidently.
I seem to remember reading more about the Morasco link somewhere, but it was so long ago I cant remember where.
But, for 100 points can you link morasco to Kevin Bacon in less than six degrees of seperation. If so, link the tiles to KB and look at any crosslinked data and you have your link.
My comment was sarcasm. I understand what the court order was for. It was for making unsubstantiated claims and basing threats and FUD on it. For some reason in Germany, you can not simply make up wild claims and send out bills. You have to have adequate proof and documentation.
;-)
Sidenote to legislators...is the above a bad thing or a good thing? Please tell me your opinon before the next major election
SCO GmbH in Germany was only fined because they did not fully comply with a preliminary injunction which told them not to repeat certain statements.
;-)
Yes, this does not mean that they see that they are lying. Only that they did not comply with a court order to quit lying
Seriously, I think this will be viewed as a major setback by SCO. They are trying to coerce people into buying licenses and now they can point to a country which has effectively gagged them. People will become wary of $cos dubious claims.
a virtual computer distributed over millions of physical nodes, so the storage will might be each of these nodes' memory... Like Freenet but also aimed at distributing workload.
More like Skynet
We need a sweepstake on when he's going to (illegally) dump his stock [yahoo.com] and head to Brazil for a face change. I'm guessing it'll be the day before they actually hit a court with this farce.
I will place my bet on when he goes to Brazil. POST-BUSH Administration. Since Neil Bush (Yes A GW Brother)is now on the lecture circuit in the US instead of hiding in Brazil (remember the S&L scandal) I would say that until an opponent can win by a landslide (only way the supreme court will cede victory) Darl is fine. Heck he might even get a talk show with some Enron execs.
You are right, that would be quite the site.
Are you kidding at 175 lbs. this is the portable as/400 (I know not Unix) but the image just strikes me funny, imagine circuit city having that!
Or when NT SP4 broke the filesystem. If that's not a critical system I do not have any critical systems.
The bottom line is test patches, but is that relevant to a home user. How many home users have a 'lab' PC?
people don't do their patches! blaster is all over the news yet a casual poll of my non-geek friends (the windows ones at least) showed that only one had done the patch!
To know one non-geek who patched his system I would guess you must have a thousand friends
I believe in holding people (and companies responsible for the damage their systems cause) I would propose this:
Auto updates have an opt out feature, if you opt out you agree to responsibility for any damage caused by your PC for which their was a known fix.
Microsoft agrees that if you do not opt out they are responsible for any damage caused by poorly coded patches.
In both those cases liability would probably be limited to something like what MS accepts now. IE these statements:
USER: sorry my PC ddos'd your hospital network causing countless deaths. If MS would write better patches I would allow auto updates
or
MS: Sorry our patch broke your hospital network. Perhaps you should consider more standard equipment
Okay, sorry I started out constructive then broke cynical.