If that's what it takes. Remember the FBI under Hoover? Did all kinds of abusive stuff, until it finally reached the point where Congress had to rein them in and enact strict controls on their behavior, mainly because Congress itself was threatened by Hoover's activities. Hell, the bastard had dirt on all of them. However, many of those restrictions on law enforcement were undone with the Patriot Act, CALEA and other poorly-designed laws designed to strip civil liberties from us. I have the feeling that we're going to have to suffer through yet another cycle of government abuse (worse this time) until the pendulum swings back and some controls get put back in place.
If we're that lucky. I have my doubts about this go 'round... we may be in for the long haul.
Why do we keep penalizing those individuals who have the fortitude to stand up and point out security issues, and then let those responsible for said flaws get away clean? Sounds like a decidedly bass-ackward approach to me, designed more to prevent public awareness of corporate and governmental malfeasance than anything else.
Nobody wants their dirty laundry aired, I understand, but attacking people that expose such egregious errors does nothing to improve matters. I mean, if I say publicly that "your Web site has x security flaws in it" and it turns out I'm lying, fine, sue me for libel or slander or whatever else. Or better yet, just ignore me. But if I make you aware of a serious problem and you do nothing but try to intimidate me into silence, you're obviously trying to cover your ass, and should be fired for incompetence.
Well, I'm not talking about people who are ignoring problems, I'm talking about people that focus solely on those problems to the exclusion of the good things their nation represents. Whatever country that may be. If you really hate where you are, move somewhere else. If you can't find any place you like better, stop bitching so much about where you are.
Well, as a matter of principle, whenever anyone tells me "you don't need a lawyer" I call my lawyer. Adversarial or otherwise, matters go much more smoothly when the other side is on notice that they'll get bitchslapped for any shenanigans.
I'll give you a similar example. A big computer store not too far from where I live (I don't know if they're still in business, like you this happened about twenty years ago) sold hundreds of thousands of blank diskettes that came pre-infected from the factory with a boot-sector virus. Apparently, a lot of these were bulk corporate sales, so it hit a lot of machines. This was brilliant if it was deliberate: I mean, who would think to virus-scan a blank disk?
cassetes and 8-tracks didn't make very good copies but a 7-inch open reel deck at 7.5 in/sec could make a copy hard to tell from the original
Well, grampaw I'm not, but I still have my old reel-to-reel. Haven't used it much since the late seventies, I admit. At the time, when I bought an album, the very first play went onto tape, and the album went back on the shelf. I would listen to the tape, and only re-record it from the source if and when it began to wear noticeably.
They buy a USB-enabled device of some kind (flash drive, electronic picture frame, MP3 player, cell phone, you name it) and plug it in. If their Windows box has auto-run enabled (and all do by default) then any malware on the device just got executed. Remember, many such products simply map in as a disk drive: any malware on the computer can recognize that and infect it, so the next time it gets plugged in it can infect another computer. Typical viral spread, the only difference being that now it's high-tech electronics being used as the vector, not simple media.
It's funny, but I still don't understand the people that want to continually lambaste their own country, even when they have to lie (or swallow someone else's lies) in order to do it. Honestly, the next person that says, "I'm pretty sure that..." should simply be shot dead on the spot, because ignorance is not bliss.
In any event, self-loathing is rarely a healthy phenomenon.
Trying to (infect a product) all the way back at the factory - getting it through all the checks and balances
Apparently this guy has never worked in a production firmware environment before: there are fewer checks and balances than you might think, especially because embedded-system guys generally don't have much awareness of Windows malware issues. Unfortunately, more and more embedded devices are being plugged into desktop machines, and with auto-run enabled... well. This whole scenario is hardly surprising.
Ubuntu is getting there, but the moment something goes wrong you are HOSED if you don't know how to mess about in the Terminal.
That's not an argument for or against open source at this point. I could say just as legitimately that "Windows is getting there, but the moment something goes wrong you are HOSED if you don't know how to mess about in Regedit." Your ordinary user is hosed no matter what OS he is running, because he'll have no idea how to fix it. What's more important is how often something gets that badly screwed up.
At this point in time, the sad fact (from the open source world's perspective) is that Windows XP is pretty damn stable and doesn't break all that often. Fortunately, Microsoft addressed this very important issue by releasing Vista, so I guess Linux and the BSDs are looking better at that.
given that the respective governments of the United States, England, Russia, China and the other major powers would never think of using implanted RFID in a way that would negatively impact the rights and quality of life of their average citizens, I'm all for it.
You're confusing long-range surface-to-surface missiles with orbital craft, and weapons capable of taking them down. The two are very different, and Iran and North Korea, so far as I'm aware, aren't in the business of launching satellites or anti-satellite weapons yet. That's much more complicated, and of less benefit to either one of them than being able to drop nukes on ground targets.
Regardless, we are talking about a shared resource, low-Earth orbit. We got there first, made our mistake, and so far as I know haven't repeated it, and in the thirty years since have taken steps to alleviate further damage. China was, presumably, aware of this and yet chose to do much the same thing, with predictable results. An extra 20% added to the orbiting junk load... that's substantial and they're going to pay for this as much as the rest of us. So yes, I do call it stupid and I can't excuse it just because we made a similar stupid move years before.
LEO is a valuable piece of space real-estate, being gradually contaminated by world militaries. My complaint is not that China is attempting to make use of near-space, but that they're doing it in a way the negatively impacts everyone.
The US is also partly to blame for the mistake China made, we could have shared the data and technology we developed.
What? That's so far out in left field I don't know where to begin. You're talking about some of the most advanced military technology we have, and you are blaming us for not sharing it with the world's largest totalitarian regime? A nation that is threatening the United States on every level? Are you serious? China failed to learn from our mistake which makes this their mistake, period. They knew what the consequences would be and they did it anyway without regard for anyone else.
Who's castigating who? And 1985 was a long time ago and since then we've taken steps to reduce the quantity of space junk we release. Furthermore, the fact that we did this a couple decades ago should have served as a warning to the Chinese that it's a bad idea. They failed to learn from our experience and repeated the mistake. Why shouldn't we complain about that? They had a perfectly good negative example.
Besides, we're just pointing out that the Chinese did a bad thing, just as other people take high delight in noting when we do bad things, and we're under no obligation to comment upon our own misdeeds. I might add that if a serious nuclear confrontation ever does develop and those antimissile systems prove their worth, you'll not be complaining much about space junk. Get over your dislike for your own country already.
Well, I have the funny feeling that if it ever does get legalized on a large scale, at the State or even Federal levels, somebody somewhere while come up with a variety of Cannabis that doesn't smell so bad. At that point, there will be a huge marketplace and a lot of R&D dollars will get poured into it.
Well, I don't know about. Sure, there are people that would never think of buying anything if they don't have to, but I don't believe that is necessarily the bulk of Internet users. Netflix still makes big money even though movies are online for free: I have an account with them though I'm perfectly capable of going to mininova or ThePirateBay and grabbing a movie with Azureus. Furthermore, downloading songs via Gnutella or Bit Torrent isn't very convenient for most people and the quality is uneven at best. There's a huge untapped marketplace of people that can barely use a computer who still like music, and have disposable income available to spend on it. IF there was a well-designed service that could give me all the DRM-free MP3 downloads I wanted for twenty or thirty bucks a month I'd cheerfully hand over my Visa number. But there isn't, and don't bother mentioning iTunes. See, it's not just a matter of free vs. not-free... it's that not free is outrageously expensive for what you get and the whole P2P phenomenon is a reaction to that.
Why? There is no reason. I have a cron job which mounts a external USB harddisk and which backup up every night. Results are sent to email. It isn't that hard, and not that costly.
Regardless, the GP is right... most people that set up a system at home are skimpy on backups, if they ever back up at all. It's just not a priority until it breaks.
Slashdot Mirror
So the entire US government and all of it's agencies are fired, what exactly is that going to fix :P
... there'll be no-one left to take them.
Well, at least we won't have to worry about the encroaching loss of civil liberties
Of course, it would be a good idea for everyone to have a few guns and plenty of ammo: anarchy can be unpleasant.
All Americans suck because their sigs aren't funny.
Keep trying, Anonymous Karma Whore.
Real ID is going to be a nightmare.
... we may be in for the long haul.
If that's what it takes. Remember the FBI under Hoover? Did all kinds of abusive stuff, until it finally reached the point where Congress had to rein them in and enact strict controls on their behavior, mainly because Congress itself was threatened by Hoover's activities. Hell, the bastard had dirt on all of them. However, many of those restrictions on law enforcement were undone with the Patriot Act, CALEA and other poorly-designed laws designed to strip civil liberties from us. I have the feeling that we're going to have to suffer through yet another cycle of government abuse (worse this time) until the pendulum swings back and some controls get put back in place.
If we're that lucky. I have my doubts about this go 'round
Did they mean "lax" as in "Loose and not easily retained or controlled." or LAX as in the airport?
Well, I've been through Los Angeles Airport a couple of times recently. I'd say either appellation is apt.
Why do we keep penalizing those individuals who have the fortitude to stand up and point out security issues, and then let those responsible for said flaws get away clean? Sounds like a decidedly bass-ackward approach to me, designed more to prevent public awareness of corporate and governmental malfeasance than anything else.
Nobody wants their dirty laundry aired, I understand, but attacking people that expose such egregious errors does nothing to improve matters. I mean, if I say publicly that "your Web site has x security flaws in it" and it turns out I'm lying, fine, sue me for libel or slander or whatever else. Or better yet, just ignore me. But if I make you aware of a serious problem and you do nothing but try to intimidate me into silence, you're obviously trying to cover your ass, and should be fired for incompetence.
Lax TSA Website Exposed Travelers' Information
"Lax" describes it pretty well.
Well, I'm not talking about people who are ignoring problems, I'm talking about people that focus solely on those problems to the exclusion of the good things their nation represents. Whatever country that may be. If you really hate where you are, move somewhere else. If you can't find any place you like better, stop bitching so much about where you are.
Excellent advice all the way around.
Well, as a matter of principle, whenever anyone tells me "you don't need a lawyer" I call my lawyer. Adversarial or otherwise, matters go much more smoothly when the other side is on notice that they'll get bitchslapped for any shenanigans.
I'll give you a similar example. A big computer store not too far from where I live (I don't know if they're still in business, like you this happened about twenty years ago) sold hundreds of thousands of blank diskettes that came pre-infected from the factory with a boot-sector virus. Apparently, a lot of these were bulk corporate sales, so it hit a lot of machines. This was brilliant if it was deliberate: I mean, who would think to virus-scan a blank disk?
cassetes and 8-tracks didn't make very good copies but a 7-inch open reel deck at 7.5 in/sec could make a copy hard to tell from the original
Well, grampaw I'm not, but I still have my old reel-to-reel. Haven't used it much since the late seventies, I admit. At the time, when I bought an album, the very first play went onto tape, and the album went back on the shelf. I would listen to the tape, and only re-record it from the source if and when it began to wear noticeably.
I have a similar file myself ... centralized all the best hacks.
They buy a USB-enabled device of some kind (flash drive, electronic picture frame, MP3 player, cell phone, you name it) and plug it in. If their Windows box has auto-run enabled (and all do by default) then any malware on the device just got executed. Remember, many such products simply map in as a disk drive: any malware on the computer can recognize that and infect it, so the next time it gets plugged in it can infect another computer. Typical viral spread, the only difference being that now it's high-tech electronics being used as the vector, not simple media.
It's funny, but I still don't understand the people that want to continually lambaste their own country, even when they have to lie (or swallow someone else's lies) in order to do it. Honestly, the next person that says, "I'm pretty sure that ..." should simply be shot dead on the spot, because ignorance is not bliss.
In any event, self-loathing is rarely a healthy phenomenon.
Trying to (infect a product) all the way back at the factory - getting it through all the checks and balances
... well. This whole scenario is hardly surprising.
Apparently this guy has never worked in a production firmware environment before: there are fewer checks and balances than you might think, especially because embedded-system guys generally don't have much awareness of Windows malware issues. Unfortunately, more and more embedded devices are being plugged into desktop machines, and with auto-run enabled
Ubuntu is getting there, but the moment something goes wrong you are HOSED if you don't know how to mess about in the Terminal.
That's not an argument for or against open source at this point. I could say just as legitimately that "Windows is getting there, but the moment something goes wrong you are HOSED if you don't know how to mess about in Regedit." Your ordinary user is hosed no matter what OS he is running, because he'll have no idea how to fix it. What's more important is how often something gets that badly screwed up.
At this point in time, the sad fact (from the open source world's perspective) is that Windows XP is pretty damn stable and doesn't break all that often. Fortunately, Microsoft addressed this very important issue by releasing Vista, so I guess Linux and the BSDs are looking better at that.
My advice ... keep this person as far away from your server as you possibly can.
given that the respective governments of the United States, England, Russia, China and the other major powers would never think of using implanted RFID in a way that would negatively impact the rights and quality of life of their average citizens, I'm all for it.
You're confusing long-range surface-to-surface missiles with orbital craft, and weapons capable of taking them down. The two are very different, and Iran and North Korea, so far as I'm aware, aren't in the business of launching satellites or anti-satellite weapons yet. That's much more complicated, and of less benefit to either one of them than being able to drop nukes on ground targets.
... that's substantial and they're going to pay for this as much as the rest of us. So yes, I do call it stupid and I can't excuse it just because we made a similar stupid move years before.
Regardless, we are talking about a shared resource, low-Earth orbit. We got there first, made our mistake, and so far as I know haven't repeated it, and in the thirty years since have taken steps to alleviate further damage. China was, presumably, aware of this and yet chose to do much the same thing, with predictable results. An extra 20% added to the orbiting junk load
LEO is a valuable piece of space real-estate, being gradually contaminated by world militaries. My complaint is not that China is attempting to make use of near-space, but that they're doing it in a way the negatively impacts everyone.
The US is also partly to blame for the mistake China made, we could have shared the data and technology we developed.
What? That's so far out in left field I don't know where to begin. You're talking about some of the most advanced military technology we have, and you are blaming us for not sharing it with the world's largest totalitarian regime? A nation that is threatening the United States on every level? Are you serious? China failed to learn from our mistake which makes this their mistake, period. They knew what the consequences would be and they did it anyway without regard for anyone else.
Who's castigating who? And 1985 was a long time ago and since then we've taken steps to reduce the quantity of space junk we release. Furthermore, the fact that we did this a couple decades ago should have served as a warning to the Chinese that it's a bad idea. They failed to learn from our experience and repeated the mistake. Why shouldn't we complain about that? They had a perfectly good negative example.
Besides, we're just pointing out that the Chinese did a bad thing, just as other people take high delight in noting when we do bad things, and we're under no obligation to comment upon our own misdeeds. I might add that if a serious nuclear confrontation ever does develop and those antimissile systems prove their worth, you'll not be complaining much about space junk. Get over your dislike for your own country already.
Well, I have the funny feeling that if it ever does get legalized on a large scale, at the State or even Federal levels, somebody somewhere while come up with a variety of Cannabis that doesn't smell so bad. At that point, there will be a huge marketplace and a lot of R&D dollars will get poured into it.
Well, I don't know about. Sure, there are people that would never think of buying anything if they don't have to, but I don't believe that is necessarily the bulk of Internet users. Netflix still makes big money even though movies are online for free: I have an account with them though I'm perfectly capable of going to mininova or ThePirateBay and grabbing a movie with Azureus. Furthermore, downloading songs via Gnutella or Bit Torrent isn't very convenient for most people and the quality is uneven at best. There's a huge untapped marketplace of people that can barely use a computer who still like music, and have disposable income available to spend on it. IF there was a well-designed service that could give me all the DRM-free MP3 downloads I wanted for twenty or thirty bucks a month I'd cheerfully hand over my Visa number. But there isn't, and don't bother mentioning iTunes. See, it's not just a matter of free vs. not-free ... it's that not free is outrageously expensive for what you get and the whole P2P phenomenon is a reaction to that.
For those guys? It's hard to be too paranoid.
How to Say Goodbye to Old Hard Drives?
An ounce or two should be sufficient.
Why? There is no reason. I have a cron job which mounts a external USB harddisk and which backup up every night. Results are sent to email. It isn't that hard, and not that costly.
... most people that set up a system at home are skimpy on backups, if they ever back up at all. It's just not a priority until it breaks.
Regardless, the GP is right