The junkyards are full of disposable cars and airplanes. Like the disposable razor, they last for a while then stop being useful. At that point, they're no longer economically repairable. It's just the time frame that's different.
B-52's don't fit the mould, however. I think they'll be around for the heat-death of the universe, or they run out of ECNs, whichever comes first.
... The most important statement is that while SCADA used to be based on other OSes, it is now primarily based on Windows though there is a Linux based SCADA vendor out there...
The RTUs (Remote Terminal Units) that form the sensor/control layer of a SCADA network are individual programmable units, which generally have their own minimalist platform and programming language for their specific embedded systems. A control network of these may be infectable, but the individual end-terminal units - the ones that do the actual control - are a wee bit esoteric for your average (or not so average) script kiddie. It would be like connecting your PC across the network to a strange device, and discovering it was written in ICL or CDC3150 assembler. Your only meaningful dialogue would consist of "WTF?". And these FPU's can be set to ignore re-flashing from the net. "Change the shutdown temperature by +100 degrees? Piss off!"
Not necessarily. A good number of SCADA RTUs (I'm thinking of the Logica units) have built in parameterised overrides -- you can set a safe range of settings for an RTU (e.g. "close this valve if sensor A gets above 150, no matter what") that can't be overridden, or re-flashed, via the network. This can severely limit any attempts at outside fiddling by muckabouts. At the same time, you can read them across a network for operational situation displays. You just have to engineer the limits into the deployment project.
Tell me about it, I installed an update to a program and (without any indications I saw) I somehow ended up with Google Chrome (which I dont want, I use SeaMonkey)
Local jobber here in Oz - Scorptec - builds a lot of pc's for people, and you can build your system from components off their web page, and they'll match components and build it for you without charging an arm and a leg. They put a nice fast games machine together for me. I said "No crapware please" and all I got was a nod and -- no crapware. Zero trouble from the build.
The old BYTE magazines from the 1970's and 1980's were wonderful reading.
The first issue of BYTE magazine was corner-stapled, on blue (to bollix the Xerox 660 copiers that were common then - early copy protect!).
I think that's where I read the Carl Helmers quote "You can make things happen, watch things happening, or wonder what happened." in response to the question "should I buy now or wait the couple of weeks when it's improved?"
That original Byte Shop had a very nice coffee seller just inside the quadrangle, where you could buy medium roast Jamaica Blue Mountain in half-pound cans. I sort of miss those days...
Didn't encyclopedia and dictionary authors in days gone by add spurious entries to ensure they could back up any copyright violation claims? Google maps. Hmm...
Not to mention that the original AQ leadership is mostly dead (and in some cases, All Dead, only thing you can do is sort through their pockets for loose change). Israel is doing just fine with scanner-free profiling (I suppose that requires some form of proper Cop Radar to work though, or a minimum IQ standard). So really, TSA has left the fair shores of bureaucratic annoyance to explore the fresh new horizons of totalitarian repression, for no net value to anyone but themselves.
My solution is pretty straightforward -- I won't fly.
And if some clever person wants to do horrible things to people in bulk, as before, do you think they'll go through the already-hardened option, or find some other piece of critical civil infrastructure to infect?
I'd feel much more secure if water treatment plants had updated security, that there was a solid path for SCADA security, than that the SCF that the TSA has now become re-arranges yet another set of radioactive deck chairs on their bureaucratic Titanic.
i think that was his point, ie is not the target market.
In our case, it certainly is. Our target market is fixed workstations on office affiliates. They're independent of us (we're a national hub) and control their own LAN infrastructure, but the use a lot of services that we deliver via limited-access web portal. Basically they can do whatever they want with their LAN, including upgrade their IE to whatever version, or use Chrome, or any browser that supports a working PDF plug-in. They all, as far as I know, use Windows XP and W7 with Adobe readers. But they could move to IE10, and if it's slower to load content, that will become a real problem for us. I have no performance data yet, but we will be watching with abated breath.
And you don't need to damage old books in order to use modern tracking methods. Print a paper bookmark with a bar code and the title/author in text and slip it in the book. If it falls out, put it back in.
If you don't mind sticking something to an inside cover permanently, like many people do with "Ex Libris" bookplates, print your own - something sufficiently artistic with a discrete little bar code to read. Doesn't have to be Dewey or ISBN or a title hash, just has to be unique within your database.
And if you don't want to mix your tech world with your library (I keep a rather large one, and I'm that way) just use something simple like a late model MS Access (which works just fine if you're not stupid with it). Bar code readers are cheap, and are just keyboard intercept nowadays, so there's really no system integration involved. It's what we've done with ours, a modest F&SF/tech/philosophy/medieval library of a few thousand books.
Or, "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana". "Time flies like an arrow, but Drosophilia Melanogastera like a banana".
Semantic substitution destroying the original meme will also trigger awareness at a more conscious level, despite logical consistency.
Linguistic memes replicate easily, complex or not, depending on their level of familiarity; mutations generally don't have the same commonality, and any variation that isn't itself a linguistic meme cannot be handled by the same rote behaviours.
It matters because we have to deliver content to several hundred sites via Web/Intranet, and we can't dictate the end user's infrastructure. They will invariably use IE as a standard. This is industry talking...
We have a major national network, and IE9 is the standard. It's not without problems, not all of Microsoft's making. I wonder how it will perform with add-ons like Adobe Reader XI (yes, we're required to use that too). With all that new functionality/compatibility, will IE10 take a performance it?
I think - and this is just speculation - that many years of diesel-electric research and refinement might be available in the public domain by looking at railroad engines. Because of the massive economies available by getting the equations right, I would suspect firms that made the locomotives might have a fair amount of knowledge available in their archives. Being pre-Internet, however, I wouldn't think this old stuff was all scanned in yet. You might need to talk to a librarian. Just bring a large spool of string and pack a lunch when you enter L-space, you'll be all right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_locomotive_builders
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The junkyards are full of disposable cars and airplanes. Like the disposable razor, they last for a while then stop being useful. At that point, they're no longer economically repairable. It's just the time frame that's different.
B-52's don't fit the mould, however. I think they'll be around for the heat-death of the universe, or they run out of ECNs, whichever comes first.
It has EVERYTHING to do with SCADA.
... The most important statement is that while SCADA used to be based on other OSes, it is now primarily based on Windows though there is a Linux based SCADA vendor out there...
The RTUs (Remote Terminal Units) that form the sensor/control layer of a SCADA network are individual programmable units, which generally have their own minimalist platform and programming language for their specific embedded systems. A control network of these may be infectable, but the individual end-terminal units - the ones that do the actual control - are a wee bit esoteric for your average (or not so average) script kiddie. It would be like connecting your PC across the network to a strange device, and discovering it was written in ICL or CDC3150 assembler. Your only meaningful dialogue would consist of "WTF?". And these FPU's can be set to ignore re-flashing from the net. "Change the shutdown temperature by +100 degrees? Piss off!"
...You probably even wear SCADA....
Wasn't there a movie about that? "The Devil Wears SCADA" ?
Not necessarily. A good number of SCADA RTUs (I'm thinking of the Logica units) have built in parameterised overrides -- you can set a safe range of settings for an RTU (e.g. "close this valve if sensor A gets above 150, no matter what") that can't be overridden, or re-flashed, via the network. This can severely limit any attempts at outside fiddling by muckabouts. At the same time, you can read them across a network for operational situation displays. You just have to engineer the limits into the deployment project.
Tell me about it, I installed an update to a program and (without any indications I saw) I somehow ended up with Google Chrome (which I dont want, I use SeaMonkey)
Adobe Reader does that.
Local jobber here in Oz - Scorptec - builds a lot of pc's for people, and you can build your system from components off their web page, and they'll match components and build it for you without charging an arm and a leg. They put a nice fast games machine together for me. I said "No crapware please" and all I got was a nod and -- no crapware. Zero trouble from the build.
It pays to know a good local outfit.
I think you'd need to ensure your sensitive documents were pulped, rather than simply shredded. Much harder to piece together paper machet'
Sarcastic self referential spelling nazi humor. Only on slashdot, ladies and gentlemen, only on slashdot :)
Thank Godwin for mentioning that. You have my thanks.
The old BYTE magazines from the 1970's and 1980's were wonderful reading.
The first issue of BYTE magazine was corner-stapled, on blue (to bollix the Xerox 660 copiers that were common then - early copy protect!).
I think that's where I read the Carl Helmers quote "You can make things happen, watch things happening, or wonder what happened." in response to the question "should I buy now or wait the couple of weeks when it's improved?"
That original Byte Shop had a very nice coffee seller just inside the quadrangle, where you could buy medium roast Jamaica Blue Mountain in half-pound cans. I sort of miss those days...
Dolphons are toothed cetaceans and thus, do not consume plankton.
It's as if the phrase "so long, and thanks for all the fish" was never penned.
You're thinking of Dolphins.
Dolphons are elementary sound particles invented by Mattel.
No. Actually, it was an enormous turtle, with a species of large, alcoholic martial-arts pandas living in elegant splendor on its back.
Whose plans?
Didn't encyclopedia and dictionary authors in days gone by add spurious entries to ensure they could back up any copyright violation claims?
Google maps. Hmm...
Or perhaps it's the Island of San Seriffe...
"I didn't say you could sit down!"
-- Insane alpha monkey on stage, after chanting "Developers!"
If they found The Winslow, it would forever change our political and religious landscape. Ask Professors Foglio.
Yes, you should.
Time flies like an arrow, but Drosophilia Melanogastera like a banana.
Time is what keeps everything from happening at once; Space is what keeps everything from happening to you.
There are other suitable aphorisms I trust.
It's a comedy pinata.
Not to mention that the original AQ leadership is mostly dead (and in some cases, All Dead, only thing you can do is sort through their pockets for loose change). Israel is doing just fine with scanner-free profiling (I suppose that requires some form of proper Cop Radar to work though, or a minimum IQ standard). So really, TSA has left the fair shores of bureaucratic annoyance to explore the fresh new horizons of totalitarian repression, for no net value to anyone but themselves.
My solution is pretty straightforward -- I won't fly.
And if some clever person wants to do horrible things to people in bulk, as before, do you think they'll go through the already-hardened option, or find some other piece of critical civil infrastructure to infect?
I'd feel much more secure if water treatment plants had updated security, that there was a solid path for SCADA security, than that the SCF that the TSA has now become re-arranges yet another set of radioactive deck chairs on their bureaucratic Titanic.
i think that was his point, ie is not the target market.
In our case, it certainly is. Our target market is fixed workstations on office affiliates. They're independent of us (we're a national hub) and control their own LAN infrastructure, but the use a lot of services that we deliver via limited-access web portal. Basically they can do whatever they want with their LAN, including upgrade their IE to whatever version, or use Chrome, or any browser that supports a working PDF plug-in. They all, as far as I know, use Windows XP and W7 with Adobe readers. But they could move to IE10, and if it's slower to load content, that will become a real problem for us. I have no performance data yet, but we will be watching with abated breath.
And you don't need to damage old books in order to use modern tracking methods. Print a paper bookmark with a bar code and the title/author in text and slip it in the book. If it falls out, put it back in.
If you don't mind sticking something to an inside cover permanently, like many people do with "Ex Libris" bookplates, print your own - something sufficiently artistic with a discrete little bar code to read. Doesn't have to be Dewey or ISBN or a title hash, just has to be unique within your database.
And if you don't want to mix your tech world with your library (I keep a rather large one, and I'm that way) just use something simple like a late model MS Access (which works just fine if you're not stupid with it). Bar code readers are cheap, and are just keyboard intercept nowadays, so there's really no system integration involved. It's what we've done with ours, a modest F&SF/tech/philosophy/medieval library of a few thousand books.
Or, "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".
"Time flies like an arrow, but Drosophilia Melanogastera like a banana".
Semantic substitution destroying the original meme will also trigger awareness at a more conscious level, despite logical consistency.
Linguistic memes replicate easily, complex or not, depending on their level of familiarity; mutations generally don't have the same commonality, and any variation that isn't itself a linguistic meme cannot be handled by the same rote behaviours.
It matters because we have to deliver content to several hundred sites via Web/Intranet, and we can't dictate the end user's infrastructure. They will invariably use IE as a standard. This is industry talking...
We have a major national network, and IE9 is the standard. It's not without problems, not all of Microsoft's making. I wonder how it will perform with add-ons like Adobe Reader XI (yes, we're required to use that too). With all that new functionality/compatibility, will IE10 take a performance it?
No. It's already there, you just didn't see it.
I think - and this is just speculation - that many years of diesel-electric research and refinement might be available in the public domain by looking at railroad engines. Because of the massive economies available by getting the equations right, I would suspect firms that made the locomotives might have a fair amount of knowledge available in their archives. Being pre-Internet, however, I wouldn't think this old stuff was all scanned in yet. You might need to talk to a librarian. Just bring a large spool of string and pack a lunch when you enter L-space, you'll be all right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_locomotive_builders