The other problem with NASA is the fact that it is micromanaged by congress. Management by committee is bad enough. Micromanagement by congress is unbearable.
Yes, everyone dreams of working for NASA when they get older...
Not me! I worked for NASA for six years and got out because everything is stacked against success. I really hope the X-prize experience will pry space out of the hands of NASA.
The WIZ function was installed by the author of sendmail to allow him to gain root access on all the systems at Berkeley that were running sendmail... after the administrators of those systems had denied him access.
All the unix system vendors, like Sun, included sendmail in their distributions, without knowing the WIZ feature existed. Morris discovered it while doing a security code audit for ATT and neglected to tell them about it. The author of sendmail claimed, after the Morris worm incident, that he had forgotten that it was there....
I would consider an unknown account that gave you root access to a system, via a port that was not intended for anything except receiving e-mail, a backdoor.
Ken Thompson, one of the coauthors of C, said it best in his Turing Award lecture; Reflections on Trusting Trust.
The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect.
chkconfig is one of my favorite system administration tools. Being able to list and quickly change what is started at every boot level is wonderfull. I really miss it on those brain dead systems, such as Solaris:) and OpenBSD.
There are two sides to every story. Let's/. another site: nac-case
Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti
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Reverse Graffiti
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When I think of taggers, I am reminded of feral animals who use urine to mark their turf. Instead of urine, taggers use paint, but it is the same type of activity, namely using paint to "mark their turf". The property they are tagging does not belong to them. If it did, there would not be an issue.
I also suspect there may be licensing issues with some of the exhibits... Just a suspicion mind you... no one would actually do such a thing... Would they?
[grin, duck, run like h...]
Anyone who's done any software development at all will tell you about the 90/90 rule. A can assume from the response that you haven't?
I think you missed the point of his joke, according to the original poster the development time takes 180%. The first 90% of the code takes 10% of the development time, not 90% of the development time as stated.
Yeap. It normally takes about 180% of the originally scheduled time to get a project done correctly. The last 10% normally taking as long to accomplish as the first 90%...
As someone who has been the only sysadm in small development environments for the last eight years, I know exactly where you are coming from. My rule is that I give the developer enough rope to show their level of competence -- and treat them with as much respect as they earn.
Some developers become "members of the admin team". Other developers demonstrate their high cost of maintenance and get everything locked down.
I would not survive without the support of the good developers and I would die if I tried to give full support to the useless ones.
What about the other two myths the parent mentions? What happened with those?
The breast implants did not respond to any changes in preassure, including extremes that would kill anyone.
The CD's exploded quite spectacularly at high RPMS.
(The show was repeated last night on our local station.)
I agreed that clock speed is not the only measure of performance, however, I do not believe that the SPARC architecture is so much better than that of the x86 that it will perform equivalently while running at 25% of the x86's clock rate!
Be that as it may, given today's chip production technologies, it seems to me that a simple 'shrink' could account for the moderate SPARC clock rate improvements that we have seen.
I have not seen a roadmap for the SPARC chip in years. However, I have not been impressed with the fact that it took until now just to raise it up to one gig! Given the massive clock speed increases in the x86 world, I cannot understand why they aren't at least at 50% the clock rate - instead of 1/4th.
I agree fully. I've also got a couple of SPARC systems at home, running OpenBSD. They just don't die! And, some of the newer systems, such as the V210 are simply sweet! I can't think of a better server for the price. (Think reliability and stability.)
That said, it makes me sick to think that they let the SPARC die. It would not have cost that much to bring it up to date. Sigh....
I agree 100%! In many of the larger companies, the HR department will place promotional caps, based on college degrees, on various positions. If your really want to "[move] Up the IT Ladder", then a college degree is a must have for those types of companies or organizations. [read NASA as an example]
I got an MBA many years ago, to backup my military technical education. (An MBA was quicker and cheaper to get at night school than an equivalent science degree.) That MBA has been key to getting my resume past the screeners on my last four positions.
If Linux distros had everyone running with root perms, then yes, they will be screwed too.
That is the key. I cringe everytime I have to give someone "administrator" access to their windows desktop because some stupid application, that they are required to use, will not run unless they have those priviledges.
Until Windows clearly separates "root" from "user", there will be problems. If I run an trojan horse application on my Linux box, I am at risk of screwing up my account and my files. If I run a trojan horse on a Windows box, I am at risk of screwing up my account, my files, my workstation, my officemate's workstation and every windows system on the network.
The problem is not the GUI, the problem is the OS.
He states that the patches are not done, that they don't have a firewall, that the users are too important (stuck up?) to follow his lead --- and does not tell us how he deals with those issues! The interviewer really failed to ask the correct questions.
I want to know how they are dealing with those issues! How can you "protect" a wide open environment with a large number of unpatched systems? What tools does he use? Or, has he simply written off the whole thing?
Most people seem to miss the fact that the R in DARPA stands for Research. Research is not done by accepting the status quo. If ARPA had not invested in the original network research, who knows were we would be today!
TCP/IP is not perfect for every use. If DARPA can find a better set of protocols to slide into layers three and four of the OSI model, more power to them.
Slashdot Mirror
The other problem with NASA is the fact that it is micromanaged by congress. Management by committee is bad enough. Micromanagement by congress is unbearable.
Not me! I worked for NASA for six years and got out because everything is stacked against success. I really hope the X-prize experience will pry space out of the hands of NASA.
The WIZ function was installed by the author of sendmail to allow him to gain root access on all the systems at Berkeley that were running sendmail ... after the administrators of those systems had denied him access.
All the unix system vendors, like Sun, included sendmail in their distributions, without knowing the WIZ feature existed. Morris discovered it while doing a security code audit for ATT and neglected to tell them about it. The author of sendmail claimed, after the Morris worm incident, that he had forgotten that it was there....
I would consider an unknown account that gave you root access to a system, via a port that was not intended for anything except receiving e-mail, a backdoor.
chkconfig is one of my favorite system administration tools. Being able to list and quickly change what is started at every boot level is wonderfull. I really miss it on those brain dead systems, such as Solaris :) and OpenBSD.
There are two sides to every story. Let's /. another site: nac-case
When I think of taggers, I am reminded of feral animals who use urine to mark their turf. Instead of urine, taggers use paint, but it is the same type of activity, namely using paint to "mark their turf". The property they are tagging does not belong to them. If it did, there would not be an issue.
I stand corrected. It was the '...sell postcards, books, etc in their giftshops." that I was thinking about.
I also suspect there may be licensing issues with some of the exhibits... Just a suspicion mind you... no one would actually do such a thing... Would they? [grin, duck, run like h...]
As someone who has been the only sysadm in small development environments for the last eight years, I know exactly where you are coming from. My rule is that I give the developer enough rope to show their level of competence -- and treat them with as much respect as they earn.
Some developers become "members of the admin team". Other developers demonstrate their high cost of maintenance and get everything locked down.
I would not survive without the support of the good developers and I would die if I tried to give full support to the useless ones.
Sakshale
I use a Lexar JumpDrive. It is a USB drive with an encryption package that allows me to carry my passwords with me.
I comes with Machintosh and Windows software. No linux support (rats).
I agreed that clock speed is not the only measure of performance, however, I do not believe that the SPARC architecture is so much better than that of the x86 that it will perform equivalently while running at 25% of the x86's clock rate!
Be that as it may, given today's chip production technologies, it seems to me that a simple 'shrink' could account for the moderate SPARC clock rate improvements that we have seen.
I have not seen a roadmap for the SPARC chip in years. However, I have not been impressed with the fact that it took until now just to raise it up to one gig! Given the massive clock speed increases in the x86 world, I cannot understand why they aren't at least at 50% the clock rate - instead of 1/4th.
I agree fully. I've also got a couple of SPARC systems at home, running OpenBSD. They just don't die! And, some of the newer systems, such as the V210 are simply sweet! I can't think of a better server for the price. (Think reliability and stability.)
That said, it makes me sick to think that they let the SPARC die. It would not have cost that much to bring it up to date. Sigh....
The joys of allowing fools to access a Wikki site.
I agree 100%! In many of the larger companies, the HR department will place promotional caps, based on college degrees, on various positions. If your really want to "[move] Up the IT Ladder", then a college degree is a must have for those types of companies or organizations. [read NASA as an example]
I got an MBA many years ago, to backup my military technical education. (An MBA was quicker and cheaper to get at night school than an equivalent science degree.) That MBA has been key to getting my resume past the screeners on my last four positions.
Simple, we read the article. He stated, multiple times, that it worked with Win95, Win98, Win2K, WinXP Home and WinXP Pro....
Until Windows clearly separates "root" from "user", there will be problems. If I run an trojan horse application on my Linux box, I am at risk of screwing up my account and my files. If I run a trojan horse on a Windows box, I am at risk of screwing up my account, my files, my workstation, my officemate's workstation and every windows system on the network.
The problem is not the GUI, the problem is the OS.
He states that the patches are not done, that they don't have a firewall, that the users are too important (stuck up?) to follow his lead --- and does not tell us how he deals with those issues! The interviewer really failed to ask the correct questions.
I want to know how they are dealing with those issues! How can you "protect" a wide open environment with a large number of unpatched systems? What tools does he use? Or, has he simply written off the whole thing?
Sigh... Yet another protocol blocked by our corporate firewall.
Most people seem to miss the fact that the R in DARPA stands for Research. Research is not done by accepting the status quo. If ARPA had not invested in the original network research, who knows were we would be today!
TCP/IP is not perfect for every use. If DARPA can find a better set of protocols to slide into layers three and four of the OSI model, more power to them.
Internet protocol suite