The employers in question failed to notify the potential employees that they would be checking credit reports. However if a company DID inform ahead of time the interviewee of such a procedure, I don't see how it would necessitate a violation of privacy. I think the issue is the "sneakiness" of a company that doesn't disclose they do this.
Getting any sort of level of government security clearance (for example) requires a background check, in which you sign a form that requires a credit check, as well. Thing is, it's all disclosed, and you sign sheets informing the employer that you're willing to submit to such checks. Further, there's a qualification on receiving the job that the government has the right to let you go if you can't obtain clearance for any sort of technicality.
I could envision a number of jobs where trust was required in the handling of money or sensitive information where this type of check would be part of the procedure. I agree with comments about how a credit report isn't always the best barometer as to whether someone is trustworthy in using money. My wife has a better credit score than I do, because she's borrowed more money than I have and has actually had to make interest payments. Whereas I've avoided most forms of debt by managing my money ahead of time, and just going without, and paying things off before interest payments are accrued.
That's one big Gantt Chart. Some people just have to have a schedule for everything. Hopefully the sun is as good at keeping its deadlines as anyone... Wouldn't mind a couple extra billion years of schedule slip...
Yep. My wife uses this feature regularly. They have controls on the system, like you can't deposit more than a certain amount or number of checks per day, but it works great, and is a nice feature. Well... assuming that it isn't scammed by some evil hackerish type person.
Interesting to read that the majority of responses here seem to be in sympathy of china because it apparently happened here. Makes me wonder how many slashdot readers are dupes for some chinese propaganda machine... I know that sounds paranoid, but the fact that these stories about china continue to surface, and the "anonymous" internet response is a collective yawn... The fact remains that one cannot know anything of any country that engages in such invasive propaganda management. It may all be true, but I don't believe it. I can't. Not until the chinese people get a chance to express for themselves their condition, no matter how unflattering it may be to "One China".
So please, continue to reply to this message with 'But you do this in your country' or 'your press is just as bad' or 'you're just a stooge of western media'...
And yet by publishing some rather intimate details about remote locations, like some small town in Texas, it underscores the very notion these pranksters banked upon, which was anonymity. Clearly The pranksters repeatedly relied upon the idea they could not be discovered and that they would never be caught--thanks to the internet. If there's a lesson in this story, it's that the internet only provides the illusion of anonymity. And its interesting what that illusion brings out in those repressed few who can't seem to contain their baser natures.
Kudos to TSG, this article is quite remarkable. Talk about in depth reporting. And all the details they uncovered, they've had to have had some very dedicated folks rooting out this sort of stuff... and here I thought true reporting was no longer a reality... Well done!
Surfing the web with my toaster is all the closer! Can't wait til the microwave gets a virus and starts spamming government sites. Soon the meat compartment in my fridge will hold spam and will spam me with ads that it thinks I'll want... The future's so bright...
I'm just saying that if I were one of a million in Russia, where they already live in extreme weather conditions (cold), I would probably not care so much about such causes. Also, It's ironic that the countries that have the potential to contribute most to "carbon emissions" (India and China) both will be hammered by increased global warming.
It's to my credit then that I choose not to partake of videogames that glorify criminality. I'm glad I live in a country that has no such wholesale banning of such material, and would hope that people would--of their own free will--avoid such influences on their own. It is a weak mind that has to depend on brutality for entertainment, but I'd rather that the weak minds have that option than to have it mandated otherwise. In a way by banning it, the people themselves never get to build the character to avoid such indulgent and gratuitous diversions.
Of course with that said, it's a sad thing to note just how popular some of these titles are in our "free world". While I don't think such should be banned, I do wish a few more conscientious adults would stand up and say, "This stuff is garbage" and set an example of avoiding them. If such games were not nearly as popular as they are, perhaps the issue would never even be necessary. I've often wondered why choosing activities that uplift and edify seems to be less thrilling (when we all know it's right) than the alternatives.
If I lived in a country like Russia (or Canada, Norway, Finland, etc, for that matter), I'd be an enthusiastic supporter of anything that might even possibly tip the balance of the climate towards Global Warming for exactly these sorts of reasons. I mean, if you owned the largest frozen mass of land anywhere, why even care about such a cause?
Having lived in Washington State, one can pretty much garantee that state legislators are beholden to certain construction entities... and port authorities... and environmental impact study contracting firms... and caterers... you name it. "Monorail! Monorail! Monorail" (obligatory chant to all Washingtonians) They have some company that bids and consistently wins those bids. Olympia likes to spend a lot of money that stays entirely in Olympia... And most of the state can do nothing about this, it's been a source of frustration for most everyone else... But what can you do?
Blue will shift to white... until white shifts back to blue. And all jobs will eventually be outsourced or replaced by scripts... About the time you decide to get a mortgage in a house you can't afford...
OS updates is a problem with all OS's. The worst is getting updates to the latest hardware without relying upon an online source. OS and tool updates suck too... which results in endless hours of tedium, to be sure. Virus scans are just a race to which can detect which quicker, the virus program or the virus. Then there's the matter of media and ease of data transfers. We have to use CD-RW... which is slow and new tool/data transfers are deliberate. I would imagine if their networks are anything like the style we use, one can't even plug in a USB memory device here, without signaling some kind of alarm.
With an Air-gap, sure its possible to download a virus, but what's it going to do if it can't signal anyone, or talk outside of the network? It might destroy the machine, but that's not gonna accidentally launch a nuke. It would have to be specifically written to penetrate whatever device or locking mechanism did that, which would require a LOT of inside information bout the system, and at that point, if that level of detail were achieved, wouldn't you say the system was already compromised by whomever obtained and passed on that information? Might as well just have them push a button.
Not to mention there are dozens of networks at military installations, each of them seperated by an air-gap (meaning they're not connected to any others). IMO this report is mostly a scaretactic to try to make the US system look more vulnerable than it is. Most likely because there's an agenda to dismantle the whole she-bang.
Game companies invest in a game not to get a game they want, but for a return on investment... that's called making money. Sometimes game makers get into this mindset that they're doing the world a favor by creating the perfect game, when their objective (if they're a business rather than a hobby) is to make money. Usually those two goals coincide and you get a great offering, but the idea of having your everday gamer invest in an idea ignores reality. The only way this sort of thing could work would be if an extremely popular game series was cut loose by a major studio. This would also mean the studio would have to be willing to release all rights to the franchise (ain't gonna happen) and that once it started to sell, that it didn't come back in and try to take over. With the proposed model, what's being proposed is that rather than the game company foot the bill for a fancy game demo, you're getting people to do it... but what's more likely to happen is that you (as a fan) would spend money investing in your favorite idea, which would then build a really interesting demo/prototype, which would then, after enough folks jumped onboard, be picked up by a stinking expensive game publisher, which would then change the product to fit their marketing models. Thus in the end perpetuating the status quo, only now even the game prototypes would be expensive and overly complex. --Ray
"Graphics on computers is a passing fad. Who wants to view pretty pictures over a network?" (Actual quote from a networking professor at my university, when a bunch of motivated students spent hours working to develop this thing called the World Wide Web, and stupidly at the time I didn't have the brains to tell the professor he was an arrogant ignoramus...)
I would think folks who don't own a cat "immune" to cat influence. Not a cat owner.:) (Always wanted a cat, but had a mean mommy. Then married a woman with allergies, and so the dream of being manipulated by small four-legged mammals will have to come via my kids...)
What is clear from reading the report is that ANYWHERE that money is required, especially in terms of a CONSTANT FLOW of money (subscription or annual fees, etc), Teens don't partake. Teens don't have a steady income, and therefore don't pay any form of utility. The point about having features on their phones like email was interesting, but again it's a matter of money and the fact that teens don't communicate with the people that are most important to them via email. They have no corporate structure mandating teenage protocols, like you do in the workforce.
The exception is console gaming, but I believe this is because console games are often gifts from parents, or an item that requires a single payment up front, but then not much further investment. Also console games can be easily shared between other teens. One gets the game, plays it, and then hands it off to a friend. Again keeping expenses to a minimum. Consoles with internet access are probably gaining popularity because parents are generally still unaware of them, and even if they know of it, it keeps the teen in a known location. Additionally, they don't pay for the internet, since it is on the family network.
I enjoyed the honesty of the report. Though I do think he avoided discussion of a use of the internet that teens probably don't talk about but what cause most parents a lot of wariness: namely, pornography.
Slashdot Mirror
I hear ya... Four years to stinkin' rich... Wish my road was that long... :(
It was never compulsory, just required, mandatory, obligatory...
Just because I know someone's credit card number doesn't give me authorization to use it. That's fraud and is illegal.
The employers in question failed to notify the potential employees that they would be checking credit reports. However if a company DID inform ahead of time the interviewee of such a procedure, I don't see how it would necessitate a violation of privacy. I think the issue is the "sneakiness" of a company that doesn't disclose they do this.
Getting any sort of level of government security clearance (for example) requires a background check, in which you sign a form that requires a credit check, as well. Thing is, it's all disclosed, and you sign sheets informing the employer that you're willing to submit to such checks. Further, there's a qualification on receiving the job that the government has the right to let you go if you can't obtain clearance for any sort of technicality.
I could envision a number of jobs where trust was required in the handling of money or sensitive information where this type of check would be part of the procedure. I agree with comments about how a credit report isn't always the best barometer as to whether someone is trustworthy in using money. My wife has a better credit score than I do, because she's borrowed more money than I have and has actually had to make interest payments. Whereas I've avoided most forms of debt by managing my money ahead of time, and just going without, and paying things off before interest payments are accrued.
Anyhow it's an interesting point of discussion...
That's one big Gantt Chart. Some people just have to have a schedule for everything. Hopefully the sun is as good at keeping its deadlines as anyone... Wouldn't mind a couple extra billion years of schedule slip...
Yep. My wife uses this feature regularly. They have controls on the system, like you can't deposit more than a certain amount or number of checks per day, but it works great, and is a nice feature. Well... assuming that it isn't scammed by some evil hackerish type person.
Interesting to read that the majority of responses here seem to be in sympathy of china because it apparently happened here. Makes me wonder how many slashdot readers are dupes for some chinese propaganda machine... I know that sounds paranoid, but the fact that these stories about china continue to surface, and the "anonymous" internet response is a collective yawn... The fact remains that one cannot know anything of any country that engages in such invasive propaganda management. It may all be true, but I don't believe it. I can't. Not until the chinese people get a chance to express for themselves their condition, no matter how unflattering it may be to "One China".
So please, continue to reply to this message with 'But you do this in your country' or 'your press is just as bad' or 'you're just a stooge of western media'...
And yet by publishing some rather intimate details about remote locations, like some small town in Texas, it underscores the very notion these pranksters banked upon, which was anonymity. Clearly The pranksters repeatedly relied upon the idea they could not be discovered and that they would never be caught--thanks to the internet. If there's a lesson in this story, it's that the internet only provides the illusion of anonymity. And its interesting what that illusion brings out in those repressed few who can't seem to contain their baser natures.
Kudos to TSG, this article is quite remarkable. Talk about in depth reporting. And all the details they uncovered, they've had to have had some very dedicated folks rooting out this sort of stuff... and here I thought true reporting was no longer a reality... Well done!
Surfing the web with my toaster is all the closer! Can't wait til the microwave gets a virus and starts spamming government sites. Soon the meat compartment in my fridge will hold spam and will spam me with ads that it thinks I'll want... The future's so bright...
I'm just saying that if I were one of a million in Russia, where they already live in extreme weather conditions (cold), I would probably not care so much about such causes. Also, It's ironic that the countries that have the potential to contribute most to "carbon emissions" (India and China) both will be hammered by increased global warming.
It's to my credit then that I choose not to partake of videogames that glorify criminality. I'm glad I live in a country that has no such wholesale banning of such material, and would hope that people would--of their own free will--avoid such influences on their own. It is a weak mind that has to depend on brutality for entertainment, but I'd rather that the weak minds have that option than to have it mandated otherwise. In a way by banning it, the people themselves never get to build the character to avoid such indulgent and gratuitous diversions. Of course with that said, it's a sad thing to note just how popular some of these titles are in our "free world". While I don't think such should be banned, I do wish a few more conscientious adults would stand up and say, "This stuff is garbage" and set an example of avoiding them. If such games were not nearly as popular as they are, perhaps the issue would never even be necessary. I've often wondered why choosing activities that uplift and edify seems to be less thrilling (when we all know it's right) than the alternatives.
If I lived in a country like Russia (or Canada, Norway, Finland, etc, for that matter), I'd be an enthusiastic supporter of anything that might even possibly tip the balance of the climate towards Global Warming for exactly these sorts of reasons. I mean, if you owned the largest frozen mass of land anywhere, why even care about such a cause?
Having lived in Washington State, one can pretty much garantee that state legislators are beholden to certain construction entities... and port authorities... and environmental impact study contracting firms... and caterers... you name it. "Monorail! Monorail! Monorail" (obligatory chant to all Washingtonians) They have some company that bids and consistently wins those bids. Olympia likes to spend a lot of money that stays entirely in Olympia... And most of the state can do nothing about this, it's been a source of frustration for most everyone else... But what can you do?
trouble is: all jobs can be replaced by a script. :)
Blue will shift to white... until white shifts back to blue. And all jobs will eventually be outsourced or replaced by scripts... About the time you decide to get a mortgage in a house you can't afford...
OS updates is a problem with all OS's. The worst is getting updates to the latest hardware without relying upon an online source. OS and tool updates suck too... which results in endless hours of tedium, to be sure. Virus scans are just a race to which can detect which quicker, the virus program or the virus. Then there's the matter of media and ease of data transfers. We have to use CD-RW... which is slow and new tool/data transfers are deliberate. I would imagine if their networks are anything like the style we use, one can't even plug in a USB memory device here, without signaling some kind of alarm.
With an Air-gap, sure its possible to download a virus, but what's it going to do if it can't signal anyone, or talk outside of the network? It might destroy the machine, but that's not gonna accidentally launch a nuke. It would have to be specifically written to penetrate whatever device or locking mechanism did that, which would require a LOT of inside information bout the system, and at that point, if that level of detail were achieved, wouldn't you say the system was already compromised by whomever obtained and passed on that information? Might as well just have them push a button.
Not to mention there are dozens of networks at military installations, each of them seperated by an air-gap (meaning they're not connected to any others). IMO this report is mostly a scaretactic to try to make the US system look more vulnerable than it is. Most likely because there's an agenda to dismantle the whole she-bang.
Yay! More Lobbyists! Only they won't have any money... cuz they're all free... :) I bet they'll have a lot of success...
The ski slopes are already crowded enough without adding robots. Sheesh... Soon they'll be taking over the Winter Olympics...
Game companies invest in a game not to get a game they want, but for a return on investment... that's called making money. Sometimes game makers get into this mindset that they're doing the world a favor by creating the perfect game, when their objective (if they're a business rather than a hobby) is to make money. Usually those two goals coincide and you get a great offering, but the idea of having your everday gamer invest in an idea ignores reality. The only way this sort of thing could work would be if an extremely popular game series was cut loose by a major studio. This would also mean the studio would have to be willing to release all rights to the franchise (ain't gonna happen) and that once it started to sell, that it didn't come back in and try to take over. With the proposed model, what's being proposed is that rather than the game company foot the bill for a fancy game demo, you're getting people to do it... but what's more likely to happen is that you (as a fan) would spend money investing in your favorite idea, which would then build a really interesting demo/prototype, which would then, after enough folks jumped onboard, be picked up by a stinking expensive game publisher, which would then change the product to fit their marketing models. Thus in the end perpetuating the status quo, only now even the game prototypes would be expensive and overly complex. --Ray
Imagine if the EU mandated that Google remove its browser from its new OS. The whole point of that OS is web accelleration. Meh.
"Graphics on computers is a passing fad. Who wants to view pretty pictures over a network?" (Actual quote from a networking professor at my university, when a bunch of motivated students spent hours working to develop this thing called the World Wide Web, and stupidly at the time I didn't have the brains to tell the professor he was an arrogant ignoramus...)
I would think folks who don't own a cat "immune" to cat influence. Not a cat owner. :) (Always wanted a cat, but had a mean mommy. Then married a woman with allergies, and so the dream of being manipulated by small four-legged mammals will have to come via my kids...)
What is clear from reading the report is that ANYWHERE that money is required, especially in terms of a CONSTANT FLOW of money (subscription or annual fees, etc), Teens don't partake. Teens don't have a steady income, and therefore don't pay any form of utility. The point about having features on their phones like email was interesting, but again it's a matter of money and the fact that teens don't communicate with the people that are most important to them via email. They have no corporate structure mandating teenage protocols, like you do in the workforce. The exception is console gaming, but I believe this is because console games are often gifts from parents, or an item that requires a single payment up front, but then not much further investment. Also console games can be easily shared between other teens. One gets the game, plays it, and then hands it off to a friend. Again keeping expenses to a minimum. Consoles with internet access are probably gaining popularity because parents are generally still unaware of them, and even if they know of it, it keeps the teen in a known location. Additionally, they don't pay for the internet, since it is on the family network. I enjoyed the honesty of the report. Though I do think he avoided discussion of a use of the internet that teens probably don't talk about but what cause most parents a lot of wariness: namely, pornography.