I'll add to this...
My sister lives in a small town in Northern Texas. Half of that town was burned to the ground in the summer of 2007 because someone carelessly tossed a cigarette out a window during drought season and it caught dry grass on fire and spread to homes.
>The number of survey respondents who actually befriended an adult online and then met the adult in person for sexual purposes,was zero.
Too small a survey group then. I work at a high school and I have colleagues who have told me about past students of theirs who were found to be in sexual relationships with adults...some as young as 13 year olds. This stuff does happen and while maybe not at the rate commonly quoted, you're kidding yourself if you think the number is 0.
While you make a great point about how closed the software is on Diebold systems and therefore unreliable by definition..Of the 3 states you mention, 2 were won by the Democratic candidate in the 2004 presidential election. If so many democratic votes weren't being tallied, pray-tell how the democrats still managed to win those 2 states?
By the way, You should know that not everyone who has a problem with Diebold votes Democrat. I am an independent conservative w/ Libertarian leanings, for example.
Also, for all your obvious issues with President Bush, there isn't much evidence that he is an alcoholic as you claim(Bush isn't perfect by a long shot, stick to real problems rather than name calling)...and I have it on the word of a 30+ year experienced medical doctor who has run 2 drug and alcohol rehab clinics that there is evidence that your favorite Democrat William Jefferson Clinton was an alcoholic, or was at least abusing alcohol for some time. This is from many observations of him in his many public appearances as a candidate and as President on television.
Fear of falling is not what I was replying to. I was replying to "fear of heights" I was never afraid to be in high places. I have my own memories of this as proof and that of my parents. Of course I wasn't going to drop out of the tree. I knew enough to know that it would hurt to fall from more than a small distance...but that is not fear of heights.
What has either this law or woman woman done or not done to engender this kind of hostility?
Quiet simple. All she did was get nominated by a Republican. This wouldn't have been news if a Democrat had nominated someone of the same background. It has become obvious to me that liberals are far more interested in contesting anything done by government simply for the sake of making that government look bad rather than for the sake of any real improvement (and I will be the first to admit that much improvement is needed in government).
"Bologna. Children fear heights from a very early age."
Bologna yourself!! I was climbing very high trees at the age of 3(Ceder tree w/ a low branch let me get started). This is from my mother. I had no fear of heights whatsoever. I distinctly remember being in that tree between the ages of 4-6 and getting chewed out by my mom and not understanding why she was so upset (imagine your young kid, 20-30 feet up in a tree..and no I am not exaggerating the height, I asked my mom and dad how high that tree was..they told me). I felt perfectly at home at those heights. Don't tell me all children are afraid of heights. Ironically enough, my mother had no fear of heights *until* she had children of her own.
I'm not quite old enough to remember the 1977 release...I was 3. That said, I am old enough to remember seeing it on TV before it was called Episode IV. It was simply "Star Wars". I remember seeing it on TV the first time episode IV showed up...I was confused. I asked my dad what happened to the first 3 episodes. He said there were no first 3 episodes.
"...The patent owner has to be able to walk away. And while he's walked away, it's not fair for the company to go to the patent office and say, "Hey, we offered him a nice shiny quarter, and he wouldn't sell. He's not using it so you should take the patent away."
...the company better watch out. If that shiny quarter was dated 1964 or earlier, it has silver in it...they could get sued!!
...because they are in effect saying "you did something wrong now fix it".
No. What they are actually saying is "You did something we don't like which may or may not be legal..Change it to something we do like or we'll sue you!"
I read the sentence as his classmates tried to stick up for him and the 2nd half was his response to the situation. If I have misinterpreted, I apologize. My initial reading was that he did the trashing, not his classmates.
I speak as a school sysadmin. I am not lazy, I am overwhelmed. The same goes for my district admins. I cannot possibly close every last security hole in the over 600 computers I am ultimately responsible for. The task is too large. Either way, the rules were written and most likely(as is the case in the school where I work) students signed off on a form or booklet that said they would agree to abide by these rules. These rules include appropriate network use. The fact that a security hole is not patched, does not negate the signed agreement by said student(s) who signed an agreement that they would not do it and said agreement lists punishments (at least at my school) that will be meted out in response to breaking of said rules. Therefore the fact that a security hole is there does not give a student the right to breach it or use it to their own advantage.
At my school, we encourage students to report such breaches to us that they discover (and they are guaranteed not to get in trouble for the discovery) so we can improve our security. We like to try and keep the kids who are good at this stuff on our side in this way but if any student should use such a breach to their advantage in the way this article describes and they get caught, there will be consequences...not 1 month suspensions generally but still a message needs to be sent.
As an earlier poster in this thread said, part of being in school is teaching students how to respect boundaries. Same poster also said correctly that similar actions as an adult lead to far more serious consequences such as loss of job or worse.
You had me on your side until you stated that you trashed the network in retribution. That's immature and self-serving. You may have been right about being unfairly punished but that gives you no right to mess things up for everyone else. You had the right to be upset about your situation based on what you say but what you did about it made things worse for everyone.
(IANAL...)When are people going to realize there is a difference between "file-sharing" and "illegal file sharing". The burden of proof is on the owner of a copyright to show it has been violated. While I am sure that many many illegal files have been shared at this university, stopping all file sharing goes above and beyond what is allowable.
My understanding in theory is that under the US Constitution, freedom means we should be allowed to do something unless prohibited by law. We seem to be precariously close to making it law but so far, my understanding is that if a file is not copyrighted, anyone should be free to use it, see it or copy it. That said, the university's network is a private network and I suppose they are allowed to make their own rules for its use.
Not accurate.
"In God We Trust" was on many US coins well back into the 1800s. What happened in the 1950s was that it became mandatory on all US coins. In case you don't believe me, go look at old 1800s coins in any coin shop. You will see it. I have several in my collection.
If you are going to butcher history, do it elsewhere. McCarthyism and this phrase are just a coincidence. The movement for "In God We Trust" on coins was around much longer and only happened to be passed into law in the 1950s.
story 1:
Bought a p3-600 Dell Dimension XPST in 1999. It had windows 98 on it from Dell. It crashed within 10 minutes of first boot up. I figured it was windows being windoze;-p. The system continued to crash a couple times a week for about a year (I had a 4 year extended warranty) and got worse over time. It finally got to the point where it crashed constantly..I called Dell tech support. After they figured out who I was and what system I had, I told them what was happening and that it was CPU failure that was causing it..I am a CS grad and IT specialist who does all sorts of hardware and software support for a living. After testing just about every other component in the system and not getting anywhere, they had me backup stuff to CD-R (DVD-R was not affordable 7 years ago), wipe the system and re-install win98. The system would freeze while booting off the CD. I called back, they ran a pile more tests taking a few more hours and finally after all that, sent out a tech (I had onsite support as well) who did a 2 minute CPU replacement. The system now never crashes...ever. I was right the whole time...they made me go through tons of grief before giving me the 2 minute repair job that I really needed. I currently use the very same machine as a server (debian linux) and it is rock solid. I swore to myself from that point on, I'd never buy another pre-built computer. I've hand built my last 2.
story 2)
My dad calls and says his video display is all mucked up..being 2000 miles away from his PC, I can't be sure but after asking a bunch of questions, I am 90% sure his video card is fried...I tell him to call a friend and borrow a monitor to make sure his monitor isn't the problem. He does this and the friend's monitor doesn't make a difference on his PC..monitor is out as the source. I told him to call Dell and tell them all this and ask for a new video card...Dell proceeds to use the method in story #1 to have him try a bazillion things, none of which work, including backing up everything, wiping system and rebuilding it. Still doesn't work...He finally got pissed at them and demanded a new video card, which promptly fixed the problem. He was able to restore critical software from his backups but a lot of "almost critical" or "semi-important" stuff wasn't backed up right. I had to spend hours on the phone w/ him using remote control to help him clean up the mess Dell made.
I'm not trying to pick on dell...God knows I have a ton of them donated to the school where I run IT and they're usually rock solid...I know other companies do this the same way. I've talked to people to work front line phone support and they tell me similar horror stories. (Comcast, for example, threatens to bill the customer if they send out a worker to fix a problem that turns out to not be their problem but user-end so most users get scared and back off in the hopes the problem will resolve itself (oddly enough, they do resolve themselves sometimes with no interaction from the user...)). All I'm saying is that the phone tech people need to be able to use their brains along with the flow-chart or wizard or whatever.
Oh...3rd story: My dad's PC again...his older one from 1998. He had MSN dialup at the time (I know, mistake #1). He managed to hose his MSN software and couldn't get online. I was down visiting (he lived closer back then) and was trying to fix it. I called MSN tech support with the goal of simply getting the phone number, username and password for his account so I could set up a generic windows dialer to get him online so that I could download a new MSN installer for him...Took til 3rd or 4th level of escalation before I could get someone on the line who could understand that. I explained the same damn thing 3x to lower levels and heard crickets chirping on the other end...to top that off, the website the higher level got me to had a bug in it that I had to make my own work around for to download the file I needed...what should have been a 5-10 minute call turned into 2 hours of elevator music and frustration...
There seems to be this prevailing opinion among schools that the information on wikipedia is of such poor quality as to be considered outright lies...
Not true. What schools usually say (I work for one in IT) is that wikipedia, while quick and efficient, is not a RELIABLE source of academic research information.
Wikipedia, like any source should be cross-referenced with other sources, but it also serves as an excellent initial source of information, and is often one of the most up to date sources you can find. In reference to modern events, both political, and scientific, it represents the best resource short of dedicated peer journals (which are often hard to find, and even harder to search).
Well said..but (read on)
Finally, censorship of any kind on the internet, particularly in schools which are usually understaffed and poorly designed in terms of IT is a joke that can be easily circumvented by students with basic computer skills and motivation to do so.
Not so well said. Censorship of things like pornography in a school setting is absolutely necessary. The funding for our having a network at all where I am is given with the stipulation that said network will be used for educational purposes. Drooling over porn doesn't count. Reading through journals on how to hack into the school's network is also against that mandate. When students go and look at such "non-educational" content, it has shown in my school to be extremely disruptive and distracting to nearby students who then proceed to disrupt the rest of the class or area.
That said, most schools do have very lax security and are a joke to penetrate the filters. I actually recruit trustworthy students to test my security in my presence and try to break it..I've found and fixed lots of loopholes that way.
My school district does not block wikipedia but the teachers do not allow it as a legitimate source on research papers.
why WOULDN'T the courts allow "investigators" working for the MAFIAA to hack into computers to determine if they were "pirating" music or movies?
they Wouldn't because the target computers of the RIAA/MPAA would be largely in private homes, not in public places. Different rules apply (as has been said multiple times above)
They might be allowed this tactic on a university campus such as U of Wisc for similar legal reasons that the U of Wisc. Sysadmin was allowed.
I used to play Axis and Allies in High School back in the early 90s and my group of friends could set up the entire board in under 5 minutes. Maybe we were into it too much...;-p
"Powerpoint bad for learning"....Not true! It is bad in the specific circumstance mentioned in the article...that of repeating the exact words seen on the screen.
That said, I work in a high school and even though most students don't seem to absorb it, Powerpoint is taught as a tool to reinforce the points of your presentation (diagrams, images, graphics, etc) not to show your speech on the screen. It has been known for a long time that visual aids to a speech should not be including large written portions of your presentation.
The article does a fair job of making this point. The Slashdot editors are heavily biasing this in the article title by blatantly calling powerpoint bad for learning...
Our current primary access to email is IMAP based and the main provided interface is a webmail client (we currently use squirrelmail but are in the market for a better one). We also allow Outlook (not Outlook Express) in IMAP mode on PC clients and Mail for Macintosh in IMAP mode on macs as an alternative...
disclaimer: I work IT at a school district so our needs are probably quite different than the average company)
That said, We allow our students to access gmail, hotmail and yahoo mail to send assignments in from home or to home from school and some teachers allow students to mail them assignments. We don't have an in-house email system that covers all students so we feel it is necessary to allow access to those webmail sites. I use GPOs on Windoze boxes to keep the inrush of attachments minimized and can easily re-image a machine if it gets hosed to the point of no repair.
I don't know if the author is counting servers or only workstations but the school district I work for buys servers OS less all the time. We can get windows cheaper than even the discount rate from say Dell or Gateway through an educators discount if we want it and this lets us scratch install and configure the OS to our desire.
I would imagine the big name vendors make a huge haul selling "default" space to anti-virus, web-page, ISP and other providers with pre-installed M$-windows on desktop systems. I also imagine microshaft is leaning on them some to keep windows installed...they used to use a racket where they'd tell vendors to either install windows on every system or pay a jacked up price to allow competition...something like that anyway.
my $.02 (why doesn't the cent sign, alt+0162, work on/. anymore?)
Given that ISP's assign IP's dynamically, there would be very little to no chance that Ms Lindor would still be assigned this IP. IT infrastructure and equipment also changes, given that almost 2 years have passed in the interim.
Stick with very little chance to change. I tend to leave my cable modem and router on constantly so unless my ISP makes a change in their network (rare) or forces a release (rarer), I have the same dhcp address for a very long time. I had one address last nearly 2 years before my ISP reconfigured their addressing and forced a new one on me. My current address is pushing a year I think now...
Anyone that claims to be a security expert, yet does not participate in any of the security related mailing lists, does not attend security conferences, (does not attend hacker conferences), is not a security expert.
That's a dangerous generalization to make....simply that if someone is not publicly participating in discussion about their field that they aren't an expert in their field.
I'm not implying anything about this particular case. I'm trying to show that your statement is way too broad.
I posted this story to/. a couple days back and now I see it appearing as submitted by cmdrtaco. Is this common? This is the 2nd time I have submitted a story only to see it show up as being submitted by one of/.'s staffers. The last time, it took over a month before the story made it onto slashdot..this time was much quicker.
You're working way too hard. Most printers or copier/printers will happily spew their MAC on request. Simply run a config page from the test menu or network config menu. Yeah yeah, you can lock down the menus...most companies don't...Even then, simply putting a static IP on a printer doesn't stop you from using the ethernet cable connected to it, to your heart's desire. You could program the switch on the other end to not accept any connection on that port other than the printer but fat chance most companies would think to go to that much trouble or even care to.
I found out a new trick, recently, on an HP LaserJet to defeat control panel security w/o wiping the network config. Pull the NIC, do a Cold Reset and reinsert the nic. Then tell the printer to spew config page complete w/ IP address (gives you a valid range, subnet, gateway and sometimes MAC of printer depending on model) and re-insert NIC. Someone will eventually notice the missing lockdown on the control panel but not til it's too late...Now you have an IP range to toy with so even if you can't get DHCP, you can start plugging in statics til something works. Hell, you can even use the static assigned to the printer until you plug it back in..It takes a very sophisticated switch/WAN setup to keep this type of thing out.
Basically the trade-off is and always has been convenience vs security. Too convenient and it isn't secure. Not convenient enough and your employees can't use the product (network, PC, printer, whatever). Applied to the previous example, you have to ramp up the inconvenience level to secure against the aboves example. Maybe that level isn't too high for some but most won't bother.
I'll leave you all with similar advice to what many have said...if you see someone at your company you don't recognize, you should ask who they are and why they are there and get ID. Check it out if you don't feel right.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll add to this... My sister lives in a small town in Northern Texas. Half of that town was burned to the ground in the summer of 2007 because someone carelessly tossed a cigarette out a window during drought season and it caught dry grass on fire and spread to homes.
>The number of survey respondents who actually befriended an adult online and then met the adult in person for sexual purposes,was zero.
Too small a survey group then. I work at a high school and I have colleagues who have told me about past students of theirs who were found to be in sexual relationships with adults...some as young as 13 year olds. This stuff does happen and while maybe not at the rate commonly quoted, you're kidding yourself if you think the number is 0.
I get 7 points. I've only seen 2 eppy's of hereoes...I've seen scores of all the others..ouch.
While you make a great point about how closed the software is on Diebold systems and therefore unreliable by definition..Of the 3 states you mention, 2 were won by the Democratic candidate in the 2004 presidential election. If so many democratic votes weren't being tallied, pray-tell how the democrats still managed to win those 2 states? By the way, You should know that not everyone who has a problem with Diebold votes Democrat. I am an independent conservative w/ Libertarian leanings, for example.
Also, for all your obvious issues with President Bush, there isn't much evidence that he is an alcoholic as you claim(Bush isn't perfect by a long shot, stick to real problems rather than name calling)...and I have it on the word of a 30+ year experienced medical doctor who has run 2 drug and alcohol rehab clinics that there is evidence that your favorite Democrat William Jefferson Clinton was an alcoholic, or was at least abusing alcohol for some time. This is from many observations of him in his many public appearances as a candidate and as President on television.
Just my $.02
Fear of falling is not what I was replying to. I was replying to "fear of heights" I was never afraid to be in high places. I have my own memories of this as proof and that of my parents. Of course I wasn't going to drop out of the tree. I knew enough to know that it would hurt to fall from more than a small distance...but that is not fear of heights.
"Bologna. Children fear heights from a very early age."
Bologna yourself!! I was climbing very high trees at the age of 3(Ceder tree w/ a low branch let me get started). This is from my mother. I had no fear of heights whatsoever. I distinctly remember being in that tree between the ages of 4-6 and getting chewed out by my mom and not understanding why she was so upset (imagine your young kid, 20-30 feet up in a tree..and no I am not exaggerating the height, I asked my mom and dad how high that tree was..they told me). I felt perfectly at home at those heights. Don't tell me all children are afraid of heights. Ironically enough, my mother had no fear of heights *until* she had children of her own.
-rilian
I'm not quite old enough to remember the 1977 release...I was 3. That said, I am old enough to remember seeing it on TV before it was called Episode IV. It was simply "Star Wars". I remember seeing it on TV the first time episode IV showed up...I was confused. I asked my dad what happened to the first 3 episodes. He said there were no first 3 episodes.
I read the sentence as his classmates tried to stick up for him and the 2nd half was his response to the situation. If I have misinterpreted, I apologize. My initial reading was that he did the trashing, not his classmates.
I speak as a school sysadmin. I am not lazy, I am overwhelmed. The same goes for my district admins. I cannot possibly close every last security hole in the over 600 computers I am ultimately responsible for. The task is too large. Either way, the rules were written and most likely(as is the case in the school where I work) students signed off on a form or booklet that said they would agree to abide by these rules. These rules include appropriate network use. The fact that a security hole is not patched, does not negate the signed agreement by said student(s) who signed an agreement that they would not do it and said agreement lists punishments (at least at my school) that will be meted out in response to breaking of said rules. Therefore the fact that a security hole is there does not give a student the right to breach it or use it to their own advantage.
At my school, we encourage students to report such breaches to us that they discover (and they are guaranteed not to get in trouble for the discovery) so we can improve our security. We like to try and keep the kids who are good at this stuff on our side in this way but if any student should use such a breach to their advantage in the way this article describes and they get caught, there will be consequences...not 1 month suspensions generally but still a message needs to be sent.
As an earlier poster in this thread said, part of being in school is teaching students how to respect boundaries. Same poster also said correctly that similar actions as an adult lead to far more serious consequences such as loss of job or worse.
You had me on your side until you stated that you trashed the network in retribution. That's immature and self-serving. You may have been right about being unfairly punished but that gives you no right to mess things up for everyone else. You had the right to be upset about your situation based on what you say but what you did about it made things worse for everyone.
(IANAL...)When are people going to realize there is a difference between "file-sharing" and "illegal file sharing". The burden of proof is on the owner of a copyright to show it has been violated. While I am sure that many many illegal files have been shared at this university, stopping all file sharing goes above and beyond what is allowable.
My understanding in theory is that under the US Constitution, freedom means we should be allowed to do something unless prohibited by law. We seem to be precariously close to making it law but so far, my understanding is that if a file is not copyrighted, anyone should be free to use it, see it or copy it. That said, the university's network is a private network and I suppose they are allowed to make their own rules for its use.
Not accurate. "In God We Trust" was on many US coins well back into the 1800s. What happened in the 1950s was that it became mandatory on all US coins. In case you don't believe me, go look at old 1800s coins in any coin shop. You will see it. I have several in my collection.
If you are going to butcher history, do it elsewhere. McCarthyism and this phrase are just a coincidence. The movement for "In God We Trust" on coins was around much longer and only happened to be passed into law in the 1950s.
-rilian
story 1: ;-p. The system continued to crash a couple times a week for about a year (I had a 4 year extended warranty) and got worse over time. It finally got to the point where it crashed constantly..I called Dell tech support. After they figured out who I was and what system I had, I told them what was happening and that it was CPU failure that was causing it..I am a CS grad and IT specialist who does all sorts of hardware and software support for a living. After testing just about every other component in the system and not getting anywhere, they had me backup stuff to CD-R (DVD-R was not affordable 7 years ago), wipe the system and re-install win98. The system would freeze while booting off the CD. I called back, they ran a pile more tests taking a few more hours and finally after all that, sent out a tech (I had onsite support as well) who did a 2 minute CPU replacement. The system now never crashes...ever. I was right the whole time...they made me go through tons of grief before giving me the 2 minute repair job that I really needed. I currently use the very same machine as a server (debian linux) and it is rock solid. I swore to myself from that point on, I'd never buy another pre-built computer. I've hand built my last 2.
Bought a p3-600 Dell Dimension XPST in 1999. It had windows 98 on it from Dell. It crashed within 10 minutes of first boot up. I figured it was windows being windoze
story 2)
My dad calls and says his video display is all mucked up..being 2000 miles away from his PC, I can't be sure but after asking a bunch of questions, I am 90% sure his video card is fried...I tell him to call a friend and borrow a monitor to make sure his monitor isn't the problem. He does this and the friend's monitor doesn't make a difference on his PC..monitor is out as the source. I told him to call Dell and tell them all this and ask for a new video card...Dell proceeds to use the method in story #1 to have him try a bazillion things, none of which work, including backing up everything, wiping system and rebuilding it. Still doesn't work...He finally got pissed at them and demanded a new video card, which promptly fixed the problem. He was able to restore critical software from his backups but a lot of "almost critical" or "semi-important" stuff wasn't backed up right. I had to spend hours on the phone w/ him using remote control to help him clean up the mess Dell made.
I'm not trying to pick on dell...God knows I have a ton of them donated to the school where I run IT and they're usually rock solid...I know other companies do this the same way. I've talked to people to work front line phone support and they tell me similar horror stories. (Comcast, for example, threatens to bill the customer if they send out a worker to fix a problem that turns out to not be their problem but user-end so most users get scared and back off in the hopes the problem will resolve itself (oddly enough, they do resolve themselves sometimes with no interaction from the user...)). All I'm saying is that the phone tech people need to be able to use their brains along with the flow-chart or wizard or whatever.
Oh...3rd story: My dad's PC again...his older one from 1998. He had MSN dialup at the time (I know, mistake #1). He managed to hose his MSN software and couldn't get online. I was down visiting (he lived closer back then) and was trying to fix it. I called MSN tech support with the goal of simply getting the phone number, username and password for his account so I could set up a generic windows dialer to get him online so that I could download a new MSN installer for him...Took til 3rd or 4th level of escalation before I could get someone on the line who could understand that. I explained the same damn thing 3x to lower levels and heard crickets chirping on the other end...to top that off, the website the higher level got me to had a bug in it that I had to make my own work around for to download the file I needed...what should have been a 5-10 minute call turned into 2 hours of elevator music and frustration...
Ok..enough from me...I'm out!
That said, most schools do have very lax security and are a joke to penetrate the filters. I actually recruit trustworthy students to test my security in my presence and try to break it..I've found and fixed lots of loopholes that way.
My school district does not block wikipedia but the teachers do not allow it as a legitimate source on research papers.
I used to play Axis and Allies in High School back in the early 90s and my group of friends could set up the entire board in under 5 minutes. Maybe we were into it too much...;-p
"Powerpoint bad for learning"....Not true! It is bad in the specific circumstance mentioned in the article...that of repeating the exact words seen on the screen.
That said, I work in a high school and even though most students don't seem to absorb it, Powerpoint is taught as a tool to reinforce the points of your presentation (diagrams, images, graphics, etc) not to show your speech on the screen. It has been known for a long time that visual aids to a speech should not be including large written portions of your presentation.
The article does a fair job of making this point. The Slashdot editors are heavily biasing this in the article title by blatantly calling powerpoint bad for learning...
my 2 cents
Our current primary access to email is IMAP based and the main provided interface is a webmail client (we currently use squirrelmail but are in the market for a better one). We also allow Outlook (not Outlook Express) in IMAP mode on PC clients and Mail for Macintosh in IMAP mode on macs as an alternative...
disclaimer: I work IT at a school district so our needs are probably quite different than the average company)
That said, We allow our students to access gmail, hotmail and yahoo mail to send assignments in from home or to home from school and some teachers allow students to mail them assignments. We don't have an in-house email system that covers all students so we feel it is necessary to allow access to those webmail sites. I use GPOs on Windoze boxes to keep the inrush of attachments minimized and can easily re-image a machine if it gets hosed to the point of no repair.
I don't know if the author is counting servers or only workstations but the school district I work for buys servers OS less all the time. We can get windows cheaper than even the discount rate from say Dell or Gateway through an educators discount if we want it and this lets us scratch install and configure the OS to our desire.
/. anymore?)
I would imagine the big name vendors make a huge haul selling "default" space to anti-virus, web-page, ISP and other providers with pre-installed M$-windows on desktop systems. I also imagine microshaft is leaning on them some to keep windows installed...they used to use a racket where they'd tell vendors to either install windows on every system or pay a jacked up price to allow competition...something like that anyway.
my $.02 (why doesn't the cent sign, alt+0162, work on
I'm not implying anything about this particular case. I'm trying to show that your statement is way too broad.
I posted this story to /. a couple days back and now I see it appearing as submitted by cmdrtaco. Is this common? This is the 2nd time I have submitted a story only to see it show up as being submitted by one of /.'s staffers. The last time, it took over a month before the story made it onto slashdot..this time was much quicker.
You're working way too hard. Most printers or copier/printers will happily spew their MAC on request. Simply run a config page from the test menu or network config menu. Yeah yeah, you can lock down the menus...most companies don't...Even then, simply putting a static IP on a printer doesn't stop you from using the ethernet cable connected to it, to your heart's desire. You could program the switch on the other end to not accept any connection on that port other than the printer but fat chance most companies would think to go to that much trouble or even care to.
I found out a new trick, recently, on an HP LaserJet to defeat control panel security w/o wiping the network config. Pull the NIC, do a Cold Reset and reinsert the nic. Then tell the printer to spew config page complete w/ IP address (gives you a valid range, subnet, gateway and sometimes MAC of printer depending on model) and re-insert NIC. Someone will eventually notice the missing lockdown on the control panel but not til it's too late...Now you have an IP range to toy with so even if you can't get DHCP, you can start plugging in statics til something works. Hell, you can even use the static assigned to the printer until you plug it back in..It takes a very sophisticated switch/WAN setup to keep this type of thing out.
Basically the trade-off is and always has been convenience vs security. Too convenient and it isn't secure. Not convenient enough and your employees can't use the product (network, PC, printer, whatever). Applied to the previous example, you have to ramp up the inconvenience level to secure against the aboves example. Maybe that level isn't too high for some but most won't bother.
I'll leave you all with similar advice to what many have said...if you see someone at your company you don't recognize, you should ask who they are and why they are there and get ID. Check it out if you don't feel right.