Like in this case, it sounds really good on paper to have triple passwords.
Yes, indeed, because neither upper management nor the Arthur-Anderson hacks were required to use them, and both of those groups were well-enough paid that they should have had some inkling that this was a bad idea.
I guess hiring an accounting firm to perform a security audit wasn't all that bright either, now that I think of it.
I agree, but in any event there's a big practical difference between management of a hospital being upset with you for breaking a rule (however stupid) and having the FBI or DHS come after you for breaking a law (however stupid.) The GP is comparing apples to oranges.
might be dependent upon whether or not Google treated this outfit any differently than the hundreds of millions of other sites out there. If Google changed the rules but applied them to everyone, this is just a case of sour grapes. If Google deliberately shafted what I'm loosely terming "competition" I suppose it would be different, but it sounds like KinderStart just wants to get their rankings back to where they would like them to be and want the court to force Google to do it. I dunno... like somebody else mentioned the last time this story appeared on Slashdot, if your business model is entirely dependent upon Pagerank then you're putting all your eggs into one very capricious basket.
The reality is that other megacorps are largely immune to this because large deployments use Corporate Editions that can be distinguished from personal editions of Windows. Microsoft won't kill off a multi-billion-dollar company's Windows machines because that would result in enough lawsuits to dent even Microsoft's war chest... but they can and will disable millions of (ahem) "pirated" copies if they believe it will raise their bottom line. And, after all, that's all this is about: keeping their projected income levels in line with Wall Street's expectations. They've followed an unparalleled growth curve the past twenty years or so, and they really, really want to maintain it, at least for now. I don't really see that it is possible to continue in that way, given their level of market saturation, but they'll do what it takes in the short term. The only hope that Microsoft has, long-term, is to find some other cash cow they can bilk for billions, because the operating system / office suite market is simply not going to cut it indefinitely.
Consequently, I believe that all those who think that "Microsoft would never do such a thing" are off-base... they're perfectly capable of fucking people over by the millions (I mean, come on, they've been doing that since the company was founded) particularly given that this is nothing more than a stopgap effort.
No, the problem was ignorant, overpaid "consultants" who thought a bludgeon was a good replacement for actually analyzing the situation and solving the problem.. The idea was to make their own jobs easier so they could leave the site having "increased security" thereby justifying their rather hefty fees. Those consultants were paid serious money to come up with a solution that would balance the customer's stated security requirements with the need for workers to actually, well, work. The consultants failed, and management implicitly recognized this when they allowed the programmers' "solution" to stand. Remember, Arthur Anderson's recommendations were just that... recommendations. They were implemented, they didn't work, and they were eliminated in the most expeditious way possible. No need to escort anyone to the door. Last I heard they had gone back to their old password system.
If this kind of thing happens a lot it's not hard to see why hospitals are so expensive.
I had a similar experience many years ago. I did some consulting for a major hospital, and as it happened one contract I received was to reverse-engineer a multi-drop mainframe terminal protocol. The idea was to use regular PCs as terminals instead of the mainframe vendor's overpriced equipment. In any event, I was working with one of the hospital's programmers on the job, and I asked about getting a logon so I could start analyzing the protocol. He said, "Here, watch this." It turned out that Arthur-Anderson (yes, that AA) had performed a security audit on the hospital and discovered that, as you would expect, the hospital's security was woefully inadequate. So they required that a triple-password scheme be implemented (yes, typing in three successive passwords to log in to the mainframe) in order to improve security and pass the audit. Well, as it happens this was back when "smart terminals" were getting popular, and this was a floor full of programmers, so it took about eight seconds after the last auditor left for the coders to agree on "F12" as a common macro key to spit out the required three passwords and log in. Everybody programmed their passwords into their own terminals so anybody could log in any time. Pretty funny, really, but it does go to show that what you're saying is correct: if security interferes too much with productivity there will be problems. Prior to that audit, everybody had a private password and used it. Afterwards... productivity was unimpaired while security simply disappeared.
I disagree, to a degree. Don't let anyone off the hook because you presume the results of their falsifications won't have far-reaching consequences. It's a damn rare piece of research that doesn't have some application, somewhere, and there's no way to predict how something will ultimately be used. Using your example, if that defective signal-processing algorithm happened to end up in a jet liner's avionics package the results could be catastrophic. When you get right down to it, medical treatments have to undergo far more rigorous testing procedures than most algorithms do. Like doctors and other medical personnel, software developers have to place their trust in the work of others, whether that be some unsung programmer at Microsoft or a computer scientist who comes up with a cool new algorithm.
Events of this nature do stress the importance of scientific method, peer-review and replication of results. There will always be bad apples... given a chance good science (and good scientists!) will weed them out.
So far as that three mil is concerned, I guess this just goes to show that bureaucrats don't make good watchdogs for scientists. Heck, I could have told them that. But I agree with you otherwise... the guy's a crook and deserved what he got.
I really don't know where to draw the line, but it certainly seems the pendulum has swung in the direction of treating all students as potential Columbinites.
Yes, it does seem that way... Administrators should realize that while the Columbine students took out their anger at (mostly) fellow students, other individuals with similar feelings may very well target members of said school administration. If the problem of student violence as really as grave as "they" would have us believe, they should also realize that by mistreating students who may already have a problem they are simply painting bullseyes upon their own backs, and are certainly not helping matters. That this kid drew a violent icon (geez, an icon, people) is perhaps less important as the thoughts and feelings that motivated it. Hell, some of the animations I came up with in class (usually in the margins of one of my school books) would probably have gotten me shot on the spot nowadays, if a single IM icon is considered so terrible. I drew one where a car zoomed along the margin, took the corner at high speed, and then ran over the teacher. Splat! You know, it's just great that the school administrators can go home each night and feel good about having saved the world once again, but I'd venture to guess that they've done this student more damage than a few hundred pixels were worth. Expulsion over an icon... what's next, electroconvulsive therapy for picking one's nose?
your operating system swallows the Blue Pill and it awakes inside the Matrix controlled by the ultra thin Blue Pill hypervisor. This all happens on-the-fly (i.e. without restarting the system)
Not that the average Windows user would find yet another spontaneous reboot any particular cause for concern, but I admit it would be cool.
Of course it was a bit one-sided, but then again, as an American all I hear about is the other side (in other words, all the countries that are making out like bandits in this global economy at our expense) so I didn't think it was out of line. Regardless, what China is doing is not competition, in the traditional Western sense, any more than the Japanese tactic of dumping vast quantities of electronic components at below manufacturing cost to eliminate domestic manufacturing was "competition". In both cases, these are destructive approaches to business that leave the victim utterly dependent upon the winner. That's not a good thing, if you happen to be the loser. In this case, we have a parasite that doesn't want to kill the host just yet, at least not until it's extracted the last bit of useable nutrient. Honestly, if you believe otherwise I suggest you take a good look at the sheer quantity of American manufacturers of all kinds that have essentially sold out to China by moving their production and engineering facilities to that country, leaving just management and marketing here. At some point, we're going to be so hollowed out (meaning: unable to provide for ourselves and without the financial or intellectual means to rebuild what we've dismantled in our quest for cheaper Chinese goods) that there will be an economic collapse. How severe it will be I have no idea, but I don't doubt that it is on the way.
Yeah, no kidding. I started out on an Apple ][ Standard in 1978 or so (Integer ROMs, no less) and coded a lot of real-time stuff on the Apple platform. Made a pretty decent buck consulting for corporations and research facilities. Then the Mac came along and the comments I received from Apple support were along the lines of "we recommend you upgrade to a Macintosh". I got that line when I called up asking for a replacement state-machine PROM for a floppy controller card. What the hell? I remember being pretty torqued off right then: I was trying to take care of a customer.
Apple accrued a lot of brand loyalty that they cheerfully discarded because of Job's fixation with the Mac. I gotta tell you, at that point I was pretty disillusioned with Apple Computer, Inc. Didn't matter in the long run, since the industrial/scientific world (where I had always made most of my income anyway) adopted the IBM PC and compatibles, so I dropped Apple and never looked back.
However, I believe it's worth it overall -- a country as big as China is never going to be raised from poverty through our charity. It needs industry. This will be accompanied, as it was in the West, by pollution, and also by job losses. But everyone reading this has reaped the benefits of industrialisation (computers don't grow on trees), now it's their turn.
You may believe that. I'm sure you do. But all I know is that I'm earning a lot more than I was when I entered the work force twenty-six years ago, yet have less buying power than I've ever had, and frankly don't perceive a future that's anywhere near as bright as you seem to make it. Sure, globalization may not be a zero-sum game... but the net effect, at this point in time, is a massive transfer of wealth from the West to the East. That's just the way it is. And if you were to ask me if I'm happy about the ongoing decline in the United States' standard-of-living due to the destruction of our domestic industries by Chinese imports... well no, I'm not, particularly. Japan started the process with our consumer electronics manufacturing, and now China seems poised to finish it with everything else. The article said it quite clearly: they'll do anything if it takes the business away from us. About the only thing in that article with which I agree, frankly. And your overweening concern for the plight of the Chinese worker is almost endearing but the reality is that China and the United States are locked a brutal economic struggle. China, for a number of reasons (first and foremost the remarkable ethical lapses exhibited by our various Captains of Industry and their paid government officials) is winning, and the outcome for the U.S. population will be serious.
I've heard too many people carry on about the supposed benefits of what is variously termed "globalization" or the "global economy". I have yet to see any of these mythical benefits, in fact, so far as I'm concerned all that is happening is just an example of involuntary foreign aid from the United States to China. So be it. But don't try to sugar-coat what is really going on. China is not interested in economic competition with the United States. It wants to eliminate the U.S. from the world scene as a viable competitor.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, then ... you'll have to let your fingertips do the walking.
For those of you that remember that particular line of Ma Bell ads.
Like in this case, it sounds really good on paper to have triple passwords.
Yes, indeed, because neither upper management nor the Arthur-Anderson hacks were required to use them, and both of those groups were well-enough paid that they should have had some inkling that this was a bad idea.
I guess hiring an accounting firm to perform a security audit wasn't all that bright either, now that I think of it.
I agree, but in any event there's a big practical difference between management of a hospital being upset with you for breaking a rule (however stupid) and having the FBI or DHS come after you for breaking a law (however stupid.) The GP is comparing apples to oranges.
might be dependent upon whether or not Google treated this outfit any differently than the hundreds of millions of other sites out there. If Google changed the rules but applied them to everyone, this is just a case of sour grapes. If Google deliberately shafted what I'm loosely terming "competition" I suppose it would be different, but it sounds like KinderStart just wants to get their rankings back to where they would like them to be and want the court to force Google to do it. I dunno ... like somebody else mentioned the last time this story appeared on Slashdot, if your business model is entirely dependent upon Pagerank then you're putting all your eggs into one very capricious basket.
I get the same way over "interger" and "rediculous".
Nope. It's all the pretty, multi-colored boxes it all comes in. Makes it feel like Christmas.
The reality is that other megacorps are largely immune to this because large deployments use Corporate Editions that can be distinguished from personal editions of Windows. Microsoft won't kill off a multi-billion-dollar company's Windows machines because that would result in enough lawsuits to dent even Microsoft's war chest ... but they can and will disable millions of (ahem) "pirated" copies if they believe it will raise their bottom line. And, after all, that's all this is about: keeping their projected income levels in line with Wall Street's expectations. They've followed an unparalleled growth curve the past twenty years or so, and they really, really want to maintain it, at least for now. I don't really see that it is possible to continue in that way, given their level of market saturation, but they'll do what it takes in the short term. The only hope that Microsoft has, long-term, is to find some other cash cow they can bilk for billions, because the operating system / office suite market is simply not going to cut it indefinitely.
... they're perfectly capable of fucking people over by the millions (I mean, come on, they've been doing that since the company was founded) particularly given that this is nothing more than a stopgap effort.
Consequently, I believe that all those who think that "Microsoft would never do such a thing" are off-base
No, the problem was ignorant, overpaid "consultants" who thought a bludgeon was a good replacement for actually analyzing the situation and solving the problem.. The idea was to make their own jobs easier so they could leave the site having "increased security" thereby justifying their rather hefty fees. Those consultants were paid serious money to come up with a solution that would balance the customer's stated security requirements with the need for workers to actually, well, work. The consultants failed, and management implicitly recognized this when they allowed the programmers' "solution" to stand. Remember, Arthur Anderson's recommendations were just that ... recommendations. They were implemented, they didn't work, and they were eliminated in the most expeditious way possible. No need to escort anyone to the door. Last I heard they had gone back to their old password system.
If this kind of thing happens a lot it's not hard to see why hospitals are so expensive.
I had a similar experience many years ago. I did some consulting for a major hospital, and as it happened one contract I received was to reverse-engineer a multi-drop mainframe terminal protocol. The idea was to use regular PCs as terminals instead of the mainframe vendor's overpriced equipment. In any event, I was working with one of the hospital's programmers on the job, and I asked about getting a logon so I could start analyzing the protocol. He said, "Here, watch this." It turned out that Arthur-Anderson (yes, that AA) had performed a security audit on the hospital and discovered that, as you would expect, the hospital's security was woefully inadequate. So they required that a triple-password scheme be implemented (yes, typing in three successive passwords to log in to the mainframe) in order to improve security and pass the audit. Well, as it happens this was back when "smart terminals" were getting popular, and this was a floor full of programmers, so it took about eight seconds after the last auditor left for the coders to agree on "F12" as a common macro key to spit out the required three passwords and log in. Everybody programmed their passwords into their own terminals so anybody could log in any time. Pretty funny, really, but it does go to show that what you're saying is correct: if security interferes too much with productivity there will be problems. Prior to that audit, everybody had a private password and used it. Afterwards ... productivity was unimpaired while security simply disappeared.
I disagree, to a degree. Don't let anyone off the hook because you presume the results of their falsifications won't have far-reaching consequences. It's a damn rare piece of research that doesn't have some application, somewhere, and there's no way to predict how something will ultimately be used. Using your example, if that defective signal-processing algorithm happened to end up in a jet liner's avionics package the results could be catastrophic. When you get right down to it, medical treatments have to undergo far more rigorous testing procedures than most algorithms do. Like doctors and other medical personnel, software developers have to place their trust in the work of others, whether that be some unsung programmer at Microsoft or a computer scientist who comes up with a cool new algorithm.
... given a chance good science (and good scientists!) will weed them out.
... the guy's a crook and deserved what he got.
Events of this nature do stress the importance of scientific method, peer-review and replication of results. There will always be bad apples
So far as that three mil is concerned, I guess this just goes to show that bureaucrats don't make good watchdogs for scientists. Heck, I could have told them that. But I agree with you otherwise
Dammit! You beat me to it.
I really don't know where to draw the line, but it certainly seems the pendulum has swung in the direction of treating all students as potential Columbinites.
... Administrators should realize that while the Columbine students took out their anger at (mostly) fellow students, other individuals with similar feelings may very well target members of said school administration. If the problem of student violence as really as grave as "they" would have us believe, they should also realize that by mistreating students who may already have a problem they are simply painting bullseyes upon their own backs, and are certainly not helping matters. That this kid drew a violent icon (geez, an icon, people) is perhaps less important as the thoughts and feelings that motivated it. Hell, some of the animations I came up with in class (usually in the margins of one of my school books) would probably have gotten me shot on the spot nowadays, if a single IM icon is considered so terrible. I drew one where a car zoomed along the margin, took the corner at high speed, and then ran over the teacher. Splat! You know, it's just great that the school administrators can go home each night and feel good about having saved the world once again, but I'd venture to guess that they've done this student more damage than a few hundred pixels were worth. Expulsion over an icon ... what's next, electroconvulsive therapy for picking one's nose?
Yes, it does seem that way
Yeah, really. Nothing like building a relationship with your employer that is built on a solid foundation of trust.
and they do get losr abd run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Or like ants with their legs cut off.
No, it depends upon who they want to have been surfing the kiddie porn sites.
your operating system swallows the Blue Pill and it awakes inside the Matrix controlled by the ultra thin Blue Pill hypervisor. This all happens on-the-fly (i.e. without restarting the system)
Not that the average Windows user would find yet another spontaneous reboot any particular cause for concern, but I admit it would be cool.
"We're going to jack you around, but we aren't going to tell you how much we're going to jack you around."
Of course it was a bit one-sided, but then again, as an American all I hear about is the other side (in other words, all the countries that are making out like bandits in this global economy at our expense) so I didn't think it was out of line. Regardless, what China is doing is not competition, in the traditional Western sense, any more than the Japanese tactic of dumping vast quantities of electronic components at below manufacturing cost to eliminate domestic manufacturing was "competition". In both cases, these are destructive approaches to business that leave the victim utterly dependent upon the winner. That's not a good thing, if you happen to be the loser. In this case, we have a parasite that doesn't want to kill the host just yet, at least not until it's extracted the last bit of useable nutrient. Honestly, if you believe otherwise I suggest you take a good look at the sheer quantity of American manufacturers of all kinds that have essentially sold out to China by moving their production and engineering facilities to that country, leaving just management and marketing here. At some point, we're going to be so hollowed out (meaning: unable to provide for ourselves and without the financial or intellectual means to rebuild what we've dismantled in our quest for cheaper Chinese goods) that there will be an economic collapse. How severe it will be I have no idea, but I don't doubt that it is on the way.
Air at STP between flat plates breaks down at about 75 kV per inch, if I'm remembering physics class correctly.
Yeah, no kidding. I started out on an Apple ][ Standard in 1978 or so (Integer ROMs, no less) and coded a lot of real-time stuff on the Apple platform. Made a pretty decent buck consulting for corporations and research facilities. Then the Mac came along and the comments I received from Apple support were along the lines of "we recommend you upgrade to a Macintosh". I got that line when I called up asking for a replacement state-machine PROM for a floppy controller card. What the hell? I remember being pretty torqued off right then: I was trying to take care of a customer.
Apple accrued a lot of brand loyalty that they cheerfully discarded because of Job's fixation with the Mac. I gotta tell you, at that point I was pretty disillusioned with Apple Computer, Inc. Didn't matter in the long run, since the industrial/scientific world (where I had always made most of my income anyway) adopted the IBM PC and compatibles, so I dropped Apple and never looked back.
Yeah well ... that didn't work for Sun either.
The only person that cares about the bully is his mother, and frankly I don't want to know what Microsoft's mother is like.
However, I believe it's worth it overall -- a country as big as China is never going to be raised from poverty through our charity. It needs industry. This will be accompanied, as it was in the West, by pollution, and also by job losses. But everyone reading this has reaped the benefits of industrialisation (computers don't grow on trees), now it's their turn.
... but the net effect, at this point in time, is a massive transfer of wealth from the West to the East. That's just the way it is. And if you were to ask me if I'm happy about the ongoing decline in the United States' standard-of-living due to the destruction of our domestic industries by Chinese imports ... well no, I'm not, particularly. Japan started the process with our consumer electronics manufacturing, and now China seems poised to finish it with everything else. The article said it quite clearly: they'll do anything if it takes the business away from us. About the only thing in that article with which I agree, frankly. And your overweening concern for the plight of the Chinese worker is almost endearing but the reality is that China and the United States are locked a brutal economic struggle. China, for a number of reasons (first and foremost the remarkable ethical lapses exhibited by our various Captains of Industry and their paid government officials) is winning, and the outcome for the U.S. population will be serious.
You may believe that. I'm sure you do. But all I know is that I'm earning a lot more than I was when I entered the work force twenty-six years ago, yet have less buying power than I've ever had, and frankly don't perceive a future that's anywhere near as bright as you seem to make it. Sure, globalization may not be a zero-sum game
I've heard too many people carry on about the supposed benefits of what is variously termed "globalization" or the "global economy". I have yet to see any of these mythical benefits, in fact, so far as I'm concerned all that is happening is just an example of involuntary foreign aid from the United States to China. So be it. But don't try to sugar-coat what is really going on. China is not interested in economic competition with the United States. It wants to eliminate the U.S. from the world scene as a viable competitor.
It happens. Sometimes the filters don't work and one of them slips by.
True ... my solution to the problem of a "single dedicated computer" is to have multiple non-dedicated computers.