OK folks, time to check our bias level here. If Sony installed a script that logged into their website and downloaded a list commands to execute on your system to "collect usage data" would we be impressed? I didn't think so. We were very much up in arms about the Sony Rootkit, and should be about this too.
So if an OSS project does the same why should be any less outraged? Its still a violation of any sort of professional ethics. It doesn't matter that the script is in clear text on the system, who here has the time to go through every script on a new installation of their favorite distribution?
We trust the package suppliers to disclose anything we need to know about. If that trust is breached we call them to task on it.
Well the trust has been breached in this case and the community needs to call the developer to task on it so that it's clear that this sort of behavior is unacceptable. I've read some comments that you're getting it for free. So it would be acceptable for Linus to start including arbitrary command execution backdoors into the kernel?
Remember the Trojan Horse didn't have a price tag attached either!
Gotta love it, behind door number 1: Leave the reactor closed, definitely kill people.
Behind door number 2: Violate safety regs on a reactor, possibly kill people.
Politics is definitely a game more fun to play from the bleachers. For what it's worth, I live in the country and I agree this is the best of a bad situation.
There will be no changes to our games, our websites, our personnel, or our day-to-day operations as a result of the deal. if this is true, how can:
... combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content Also be true? Either nothing is changing or something is, you can't have it both ways. The reason for mergers and aquisitions is generally that the companies involved believe that through the merger some gains can be made. The way that history proves works is through reductions is redundancy. (call these layoffs, retrenchments, rightsizing, as your personal tastes dictate) The other not-so-successful-historically model is the "merge two companies with no redundancies, run them together and lose money" model (ref: AOL-Time-Warner among others)
Strangely enough I made the same decision in about 93, so I'd say 15 years ago is when it went downhill (I remember +channels, before #channels!). I'm not sure if there's not a formula related to number of years out of college you are as to when 'IRC went downhill':)
My wife went home to the states a couple of weeks ago (she ran away to Canada) for a visit. While down there she got sick. Just a sniffle, so ran down to the local pharmacy for something to unstuff her system.
"Could I see some ID please?"
"Um, sure..." *hands over her Canadian photo ID*
"I'm sorry, it needs to be US ID."
Her brother had to buy her decongestant for her using his ID.
Moral of the story: Don't get sick while visiting the states. It's against policy.
Sorry this is a huge OT, but since you don't have your email listed, I can't send this out of band.
Judging by your name and your language I'm going to assume you're working for YTG Education. In which case, congrats, you're doing the position I did in 2000. If Jay or Vivian are still there (or if you're one of them!) say 'Hi' from Dale. Feel free to drop me a line at my listed email if you feel like it.
> What can or can't be done within the borders of a particular > jurisdiction is up to that jurisdiction to decide.
Yep, and the WTO agrees with you. If you follow through the whole chain of this episode, the WTO ruling was that the US basically needed to treat outside trading partners the same as it treated local businesses. So if it was legal for a local business (in Nevada for instance) to operate a casino, it should be legal for foreign entities to operate one and sell the services to US citizens.
This is, as I understand it (and the US govt tacitly agrees with me by withdrawing gambling services from the treaty) legit under the legal and binding treaty that the US agreed with.
The fines that the US are now facing are the natural concequences of the action of withdrawing from a portion of the treaty. The US has historically screamed for open trade, it is ironic that in this case the US is against the same principle. I have to agree with the OP, gambling is immoral? Fine, then ban it. Lotteries, Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City. Do it and be done with it. Just don't be hypocritical about it. That's basically what the WTO says too. You can ban it, but you can't be hypocrites about it.
Thats part of the mandate of PCI compliance. Problem is, encryption is easy, key managment is hard. Where do you store the keys, who gets access to them? How do you know they're going to do the right thing with them? Who audits these processes? How do you know the encryption process is secure? How do you make sure it stays that way after deployment?
Encrypt it is an easy answer, but it spawns a lot of harder to answer questions, especially for a smaller company without a security devision, compliance division, etc.
You're writing project management software, so we're probably talking 150-200+ employees. Companies of this size are going to have some sort of security policy in this day and age, and potentially (depending on your market segments) may be on closed (meaning no or extremely limited external internet access) networks.
There's a good chance at the low end of your customer base that they will have some variety of managed software push in place where IT pushes down software and licenses to the workstation users, and it's almost a certainty at the high end of project management using companies (my primary contract fits into this category, and uses centrally managed software).
I'd therefore recommend a model that allows for central licensing, preferably with no need for IT management to install a license server (lower barrier to entry for your application) and does not need to phone home. I'd suggest a license key mechanism with an optional ability for volume licensees to share a single license database via a network connection.
Will it be hacked? Yep, naturally (but you sound like you're clued enough to have worked that out without my help) but you're trying to keep honest people honest here. Let's face it, do you really care if you have one or two users install it for free at home to hone their skills if you just sold 500 licenses to the multinational who employs them?
Large organizations have busy IT depts who appreciate it when software developers make their lives easier. Having an IT dept pushing your software over your competitors can only be perceived as a good thing, so take advantage of it! IT can put up very effective roadblocks if they perceive you as making their life more difficult and impeding things such as system imaging. The last thing you want to be is branded "incompatible with our environment" by your customer's IT dept.
According to the article the IT Director issued a "Press Release". In every company I've ever worked for this implies that the release went through the PR dept. I've worked in a lot of companies at different levels and I honestly wouldn't know how to send out a press release. I've always left that to the PR dept.
Did a bit of poking around and can't seem to find something. Looking for an app that will integrate as a Mythtv plug in that will download RSS feeds so that I can watch my video podcasts on the sofa.
Closest thing I can find is torrentocracy but it's more bittorrent geared (not totally a bad thing mind) and (worse) isn't compatible with any vaguely modern mythtv version.
Nah, just book onto a flight that won't be full and be the last person on the plane. If challenged by another passenger in spite of this, just say "oops, I thought this was 12F, not 13F." Sit in 12F and you're set.
Airline staff never makes sure you actually sit in your assigned seat. I've moved around for a bunch of reasons, ranging from comfort to wanting to sit beside someone specific. Never been a problem.
I misread the post title, so I had images of Picard tapping his comms badge... "Picard to Data: Start upgrading the MacOS workstations" "Data: process completed in.005 seconds. We are fully functional sir"
Then I realized it was "in the enterprise" not "on the Enterprise"... oops.:)
Is your employer also responsible for expenses related to relocating your spouse and children, if any? Or are such contracts designed exclusively for single people?
No, they were responsible for moving my wife too, and even paid for her immigration costs.
Probably a contract thing. My current contract reads that should the company choose to relocate me, they are responsible for all expenses, but I am compelled to do the reloc.
Not a biggie for me, as I read the contract fully and understood the implications. Also the one move so far has been for the better for me. e.g. not to india:)
People in africa don't need laptops to use for playing quake. They do however need them to learn how to design modern water distribution and cleaning systems.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish...
While I agree there's a need to feed the man today, we also need to learn how to teach him to be self suffient in the future. Unless we have hero complexs, and want to come to people's rescue all the time.
I know how my users would react if I told them "Yes we know your account is locked out, we're working on fighting the worm." it'd be "Can't you just unlock my account" for every single user in the building.
If I was running your hyptothetical IT dept, I'd probably turn off account locking for the day while we were writing the new IDS rules, firewall rules etc to stem the spread of the worm.
Of course I'd remember to turn em back on again after the day was done:)
Anyone remember the stories about M$ buying into internet satellite schemes in about 2000?
OK, now keeping that in mind, I pay 20$/mo for my VOIP system, another 100USD/mo (I'm overseas atm) for my broadband connection, and probably about 50USD/mo for my cell plan (Company picks that up).
If I could call up my fiance dept and say "Hey, what you say we go halfers on that cell phone, but instead we'll use this sat link" do you think Finace would go along with it?
Add to that the fact that I'm technical architech for the company I'm in. I KNOW that if I told them we could do away with all our cell phones in exchange for a flat monthly, even realively high monthly, cost, and I could link it into the company's VOIP PBX, that I could sell that plan.
If that's what M$ is thinking, I hope they think more like that. If there's one company I like less then M$ it's our local telcos.
Having worked (and currently working) in the IT side of this equation, I can tell you why you're getting resistance. Your IT dept is measured against the 99.999% uptime stick.
That means they have 5 minutes, 15 seconds of downtime they can have during a year.
That's why IT managers are so nervous about changes in a data center. If you go over that 5:15 of downtime it's their bonuses that get endangered because they're not meeting their KPIs.
To borrow a concept from my software engineering brethern, it's about scope.
Inside the scope of technology, Bill is a power hungry evil person.
Outside that scope, he can be a decent person who has (I'll admit it) done a lot of good for the world (although there is the question of how much of that is Bill and howmuch is his wife, although it should be noted that his mother was a philanderist).
There's lots of people with money/time to spare that haven't done their perportional share to help the world. I'll admit it, while not wealthy, I could have probably found time to volenteer a night in a soup kitchen this year. Therefore I have to when I look into my hearts of hearts, tip a reluctant nod to Bill. Ask yourselves the same question. If you can honestly say you did what you could in the last year, then I'll tip my hat to you too.
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
With the complete revamp of the game will there be a returning player incentive program? Something so that those of us who left earlier can come back with a minimum of pain and check out the rework and see if it's something that is compatible with our particular playstyles?
Slashdot Mirror
OK folks, time to check our bias level here. If Sony installed a script that logged into their website and downloaded a list commands to execute on your system to "collect usage data" would we be impressed? I didn't think so. We were very much up in arms about the Sony Rootkit, and should be about this too.
So if an OSS project does the same why should be any less outraged? Its still a violation of any sort of professional ethics. It doesn't matter that the script is in clear text on the system, who here has the time to go through every script on a new installation of their favorite distribution?
We trust the package suppliers to disclose anything we need to know about. If that trust is breached we call them to task on it.
Well the trust has been breached in this case and the community needs to call the developer to task on it so that it's clear that this sort of behavior is unacceptable. I've read some comments that you're getting it for free. So it would be acceptable for Linus to start including arbitrary command execution backdoors into the kernel?
Remember the Trojan Horse didn't have a price tag attached either!
Min
Gotta love it, behind door number 1:
Leave the reactor closed, definitely kill people.
Behind door number 2: Violate safety regs on a reactor, possibly kill people.
Politics is definitely a game more fun to play from the bleachers. For what it's worth, I live in the country and I agree this is the best of a bad situation.
Min
... combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content Also be true? Either nothing is changing or something is, you can't have it both ways. The reason for mergers and aquisitions is generally that the companies involved believe that through the merger some gains can be made. The way that history proves works is through reductions is redundancy. (call these layoffs, retrenchments, rightsizing, as your personal tastes dictate) The other not-so-successful-historically model is the "merge two companies with no redundancies, run them together and lose money" model (ref: AOL-Time-Warner among others)Strangely enough I made the same decision in about 93, so I'd say 15 years ago is when it went downhill (I remember +channels, before #channels!). I'm not sure if there's not a formula related to number of years out of college you are as to when 'IRC went downhill' :)
Min
My wife went home to the states a couple of weeks ago (she ran away to Canada) for a visit. While down there she got sick. Just a sniffle, so ran down to the local pharmacy for something to unstuff her system.
"Could I see some ID please?"
"Um, sure..." *hands over her Canadian photo ID*
"I'm sorry, it needs to be US ID."
Her brother had to buy her decongestant for her using his ID.
Moral of the story: Don't get sick while visiting the states. It's against policy.
Min
Sorry this is a huge OT, but since you don't have your email listed, I can't send this out of band.
Judging by your name and your language I'm going to assume you're working for YTG Education. In which case, congrats, you're doing the position I did in 2000. If Jay or Vivian are still there (or if you're one of them!) say 'Hi' from Dale. Feel free to drop me a line at my listed email if you feel like it.
Dale
> What can or can't be done within the borders of a particular
> jurisdiction is up to that jurisdiction to decide.
Yep, and the WTO agrees with you. If you follow through the whole chain of this episode, the WTO ruling was that the US basically needed to treat outside trading partners the same as it treated local businesses. So if it was legal for a local business (in Nevada for instance) to operate a casino, it should be legal for foreign entities to operate one and sell the services to US citizens.
This is, as I understand it (and the US govt tacitly agrees with me by withdrawing gambling services from the treaty) legit under the legal and binding treaty that the US agreed with.
The fines that the US are now facing are the natural concequences of the action of withdrawing from a portion of the treaty. The US has historically screamed for open trade, it is ironic that in this case the US is against the same principle. I have to agree with the OP, gambling is immoral? Fine, then ban it. Lotteries, Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City. Do it and be done with it. Just don't be hypocritical about it. That's basically what the WTO says too. You can ban it, but you can't be hypocrites about it.
Um, Ultima Online? :)
They actually interviewed me to be a NOC manager there once.
Min
Thats part of the mandate of PCI compliance. Problem is, encryption is easy, key managment is hard. Where do you store the keys, who gets access to them? How do you know they're going to do the right thing with them? Who audits these processes? How do you know the encryption process is secure? How do you make sure it stays that way after deployment?
Encrypt it is an easy answer, but it spawns a lot of harder to answer questions, especially for a smaller company without a security devision, compliance division, etc.
Min
Consider your potential customer:
You're writing project management software, so we're probably talking 150-200+ employees. Companies of this size are going to have some sort of security policy in this day and age, and potentially (depending on your market segments) may be on closed (meaning no or extremely limited external internet access) networks.
There's a good chance at the low end of your customer base that they will have some variety of managed software push in place where IT pushes down software and licenses to the workstation users, and it's almost a certainty at the high end of project management using companies (my primary contract fits into this category, and uses centrally managed software).
I'd therefore recommend a model that allows for central licensing, preferably with no need for IT management to install a license server (lower barrier to entry for your application) and does not need to phone home. I'd suggest a license key mechanism with an optional ability for volume licensees to share a single license database via a network connection.
Will it be hacked? Yep, naturally (but you sound like you're clued enough to have worked that out without my help) but you're trying to keep honest people honest here. Let's face it, do you really care if you have one or two users install it for free at home to hone their skills if you just sold 500 licenses to the multinational who employs them?
Large organizations have busy IT depts who appreciate it when software developers make their lives easier. Having an IT dept pushing your software over your competitors can only be perceived as a good thing, so take advantage of it! IT can put up very effective roadblocks if they perceive you as making their life more difficult and impeding things such as system imaging. The last thing you want to be is branded "incompatible with our environment" by your customer's IT dept.
Cheers,
Minupla
According to the article the IT Director issued a "Press Release". In every company I've ever worked for this implies that the release went through the PR dept. I've worked in a lot of companies at different levels and I honestly wouldn't know how to send out a press release. I've always left that to the PR dept.
Min
Already have them, although the iris isn't terribly natural.
http://www.9mmsfx.com/lenses.html
Did a bit of poking around and can't seem to find something. Looking for an app that will integrate as a Mythtv plug in that will download RSS feeds so that I can watch my video podcasts on the sofa.
Closest thing I can find is torrentocracy but it's more bittorrent geared (not totally a bad thing mind) and (worse) isn't compatible with any vaguely modern mythtv version.
Thoughts?
Min
Apparently Alienware took back the servers that ran the website too :)
Nah, just book onto a flight that won't be full and be the last person on the plane. If challenged by another passenger in spite of this, just say "oops, I thought this was 12F, not 13F." Sit in 12F and you're set.
Airline staff never makes sure you actually sit in your assigned seat. I've moved around for a bunch of reasons, ranging from comfort to wanting to sit beside someone specific. Never been a problem.
Min
I misread the post title, so I had images of Picard tapping his comms badge... .005 seconds. We are fully functional sir"
:)
"Picard to Data: Start upgrading the MacOS workstations"
"Data: process completed in
Then I realized it was "in the enterprise" not "on the Enterprise"... oops.
Min
Is your employer also responsible for expenses related to relocating your spouse and children, if any? Or are such contracts designed exclusively for single people?
No, they were responsible for moving my wife too, and even paid for her immigration costs.
Min
Probably a contract thing. My current contract reads that should the company choose to relocate me, they are responsible for all expenses, but I am compelled to do the reloc.
:)
Not a biggie for me, as I read the contract fully and understood the implications. Also the one move so far has been for the better for me. e.g. not to india
Min
People in africa don't need laptops to use for playing quake. They do however need them to learn how to design modern water distribution and cleaning systems.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish...
While I agree there's a need to feed the man today, we also need to learn how to teach him to be self suffient in the future. Unless we have hero complexs, and want to come to people's rescue all the time.
Min
I know how my users would react if I told them "Yes we know your account is locked out, we're working on fighting the worm." it'd be "Can't you just unlock my account" for every single user in the building.
:)
If I was running your hyptothetical IT dept, I'd probably turn off account locking for the day while we were writing the new IDS rules, firewall rules etc to stem the spread of the worm.
Of course I'd remember to turn em back on again after the day was done
Min
Anyone remember the stories about M$ buying into internet satellite schemes in about 2000?
OK, now keeping that in mind, I pay 20$/mo for my VOIP system, another 100USD/mo (I'm overseas atm) for my broadband connection, and probably about 50USD/mo for my cell plan (Company picks that up).
If I could call up my fiance dept and say "Hey, what you say we go halfers on that cell phone, but instead we'll use this sat link" do you think Finace would go along with it?
Add to that the fact that I'm technical architech for the company I'm in. I KNOW that if I told them we could do away with all our cell phones in exchange for a flat monthly, even realively high monthly, cost, and I could link it into the company's VOIP PBX, that I could sell that plan.
If that's what M$ is thinking, I hope they think more like that. If there's one company I like less then M$ it's our local telcos.
Min
Having worked (and currently working) in the IT side of this equation, I can tell you why you're getting resistance. Your IT dept is measured against the 99.999% uptime stick.
That means they have 5 minutes, 15 seconds of downtime they can have during a year.
That's why IT managers are so nervous about changes in a data center. If you go over that 5:15 of downtime it's their bonuses that get endangered because they're not meeting their KPIs.
I know our dev department complains about it.
Min
To borrow a concept from my software engineering brethern, it's about scope.
Inside the scope of technology, Bill is a power hungry evil person.
Outside that scope, he can be a decent person who has (I'll admit it) done a lot of good for the world (although there is the question of how much of that is Bill and howmuch is his wife, although it should be noted that his mother was a philanderist).
There's lots of people with money/time to spare that haven't done their perportional share to help the world. I'll admit it, while not wealthy, I could have probably found time to volenteer a night in a soup kitchen this year. Therefore I have to when I look into my hearts of hearts, tip a reluctant nod to Bill. Ask yourselves the same question. If you can honestly say you did what you could in the last year, then I'll tip my hat to you too.
Min
From the FA:
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.
With the complete revamp of the game will there be a returning player incentive program? Something so that those of us who left earlier can come back with a minimum of pain and check out the rework and see if it's something that is compatible with our particular playstyles?
:) )
Thanks,
Min (ex master doctor