...and this is modified +5? I hope you've elected to avoid any form of surgery or medical attention in your country should you need it, to be even-handed.
I fail to see how making incubators cheaper/more prevalent can be seen as anything other than a good thing. Following your line of logic it'd seem the logical extreme would be bombing continents for the good of the "civilised" western world...
This idea is one of those that makes you feel guilty just thinking about it!
I'm picturing Bill Gates, in a black polo neck, with spectacles designed by Johnathan Ive.
It'd be worth it if only to see Steve Balmer's reaction, he'd probably swallow his tongue.
Disclaimer: I'm from a Pharma background, rather than a military one, but you have the same problem in any validated environment subject to regulatory inspection. Even if you have source, you still have to do your validation testing again when you change components. You can do it with Windows (I have, although not particularly through choice) and if you tie into their release cycles you can have a committed platform for say three years - pick a hardware vendor that'll commit to a specific model and config of PC being available for x years (and make sure if it's IBM that this includes them not doing dumb stuff like substituing realtek for broadcomm NICs mid run without telling you!), and pick a flavour of your OS that has a stated lifecycle of x years.
Someone's decided to hand out Macbooks to everyone. Presumably to get the funding to do this, they had to make out a business case for it, stating the cost, and giving an idea of the benefits. Was this reviewed by monkeys? Jesus, if you have to hand out kit like this, what's wrong with a cheap netbook?
The obvious answer is you ensure that a client computer can't hurt the network. Filtering etc is done at the proxy, not the client. People can do what the hell they like with the laptop at home so long as a) they know if they bring it to school with pr0n on it they're hosed, and b) if they break it by installing stuff and tinkering that there's a cost or a time penalty in getting it fixed - i.e. you go to the back of the IT support queue.
You presumably have the PD110 diesel 1.9L engine. The 1.9 Pumpe-Duse VAG engines come in a number of variants - the 105, 110 and 130 BHP models. Most of the difference is ECU-controlled, but there are also differences such as slightly larger turbos, bigger injectors etc. Your 03 plate PD110 will benefit significantly from a remap up to around 140BHP.
Current engine's the 2.0 TDI which is around 140BHP as standard.
If you have a google, you'll find that the PD130 engine is *ripe* for tuning. There's a whole load of tuners who specialise in it because the gains are so high. Mine dynoed at 193BHP (just shy of 200BHP) and 312FT/LBs torque - which is half as much again as, say, a Porsche boxster S!
I did use to have the before-and-after dyno plot up on the web but having just checked looks like the hosting's down right now, it was a couple of years ago.
The best VAG engine for bang for buck remapping is the post 2001 1.8T petrol engine, as fitted to Mk4 GTI etc. 150BHP as standard, simple remap and replacement panel filter gets you a verifiable 225BHP, and faster straight line speed than the 225BHP TT due to less weight and losses from 4WD. I've done a few hundred miles in one of these and they're *very* quick.
I don't know what US price comparisons between VW and BMW are (although both are *considerably* cheaper there than in Europe!) but here the pecking order is probably Merc/BMW/Audi, followed by VW, followed by SEAT and Skoda. Reliability? My Skoda's cost me a few sets of front tyres, a couple of services and not a lot else in the last 3 years, so I'm happy.
User is sent link, directed to website with malware payload, such as a 0-day IE exploit. User is running unpatched Windows, user is 0wned, PC is 0wned. Hilarities ensue. It's just a standard trojan with an unusual delivery method of using fake Facebook profiles run by trojan bots. I can't see how this is Facebook's problem any more than it's your email program's fault that you clicked on a dodgy link without checking it.
...not to mention power, water, gas and we should be able to beam our sewage back, as well. Kind of like most digital TV broadcasts, now I come to think of it.
God, no. That way you'd be responsible for everything up to the local substation/sewer outlet/phone exchange etc. Take ADSL broadband for example - any problems and you'd be negotiating with your municipality over digging up the road, paying for backhoe, trying to troubleshoot and diagnose a problem between multiple companies such as local council, ISP, phone provider - and it'd be your problem to persuade these groups that the problem was in their area and couldn't be palmed off on someone else. Much better that there's clear demarcation of what's YOUR problem and what's the supplier's problem: e.g. phone service - I can cheerfully say that everything on one side of the master phone socket coming into my house is British Telecom's problem: that includes the wiring from exchange to street cabinet, the wire up and along the telegraph pole in my street, the wiring from that pole into my house, and the short cable run that hooks that up to the master socket - any problems, they fix it, no fee. Anything on the other side like my phone extensions etc = my problem.
In the UK, it's more like 40% or so, although the rising prices and premium you pay at the pump when you buy fuel, and the premium on diesel engines (modern high pressure common rail diesels are complex) are starting to make it less attractive than it used to be. If you buy new, and do over, say 20,000 miles a year, it's a no-brainer. Less than that, maybe not.
Still, look at the numbers. VW have BlueMotion versions of most of their cars which are nothing more than standard diesels with slightly higher gearing, improvements to aero and rolling resistance and not a lot else. The Polo (slightly smaller than a Honda Civic) can do 75 (UK) MPG.
I drive an 03-plate Skoda Superb. This is more-or-less a VW Passat with an extra foot of wheelbase. It's got a 1.9L VW "pumpe-duse" diesel engine. I can get 50MPG *easily* out of it, and 44MPG in the city, and (after a laptop-powered ECU remap) I've still got nearly 200BHP and 312FT/LBs torque. Power, economy, size, safety - in a 5 year old car.
Do you really think they'd be dumb enough to implement a system that you can disable with a switch? Presumably if they've half thought about this the failback when it doesn't detect a valid, working hardware module is going to be to LOCK and await the passcode.
Presumably as standard you boot to a passcode, probably with the option to sync to Active Directory like Pointsec does, so if there's no GSM coverage you still need a password.
It's going to be controlled via security at BIOS level, *just like any other decent manufacturer-supplied protection*. I mean, think about it. You'll be using BIOS-keyed FDE built into the drive, so it's certainly not as simple as popping the drive out to read it.
You're not the target audience though. This tech's aimed squarely at big business, which is sick of the sh1tstorm lost laptops cause. Something like 30-40% of all laptops get stolen during their lifetime, and you haev to come up with a secure solution that takes account of this, and also takes into account corporate users a) not really caring, and b) losing keys. You need a mechanism that applies this *by default* with the corp user not being able to easily turn it off. You need a mechanism that your user can phone the helpdesk and say either "i've lost it", in which case they can kill it remotely, or "i've forgotten my password" in which case they have a mechanism for recovery.
Any big business that relies on users never forgetting passwords or having a single point of irrecoverable failure on a USB pendrive's asking for trouble.
Because it'd lead to Google OS, and deprecate the traditional operating system. You wouldn't care whether you were running Windows, OS X, Linux, etc - you'd just need a compliant browser. Take it a stage further and you'd just need a stub OS that boots the machine, recognises the hardware and gives you a browser - everythign else could be done via this method. Voila, Google OS.
Not that uncommon.
All VAG group (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda) have an option to replace the CD autochanger with a USB socket mounted in car for music playback.
Fiat have "Blue and Me" (in partnership with Microsoft!) which features a USB socket that'll play media, and also allow you to download information about your driving and economy, as fitted to the new Fiat 500, and others.
I've seen something that looks like an identical product mentioned in the US, as well.
let alone the "pre-N" stuff like my Netgear DG834GT, which as far as I can tell is "pre-N" in that it will only talk at those speeds to other Netgear "pre-N" devices, and nothing else.
C'mon people, this and the "right-click in a file open/file save dialogue box to get access to explorer" is known to anyone who's ever wanted to open their MySpace profile from a school PC. Very, very shoddy on the Bank's behalf and probably opens them up to stiff penalties under local financial regulatory laws
Conjecture: you have information on 21M bank accounts. Presumably this includes account number, sort code and possibly other more sensitive information such as date of birth.
You then arrange the stealing/pickpocketing of cards. More likely, you request freshly stolen cards from a specialist. Some of those cards are going to marry up with the information you already hold, and may be enough to leverage funds.
Don't believe criminals are this organised? An example from personal experience. Turns out a machine at my other half's work was compromomised with a keystroke/screenshot recorder infection. First we haerd of it was when all our accounts were cleared out - someone had been organised enough to patiently continue recording "please enter X and Y character of your password" long enough to piece together the full password.
They'd then used this on a saturday before a bank holiday to transfer all of our funds into another account at the same bank - this clears instantly and has less restrictions. They had then coordinated with someone in the UK who could provide them with a stolen debit card issued by the same bank, transferred our money into that account, and got a stooge to go into the bank just before it shut on saturday and take all that money out in cash - within hours of initial transfer.
End result? We were cleaned out, some innocent who had their card nicked had their bank account abused, and the criminals got our money in cash, untraceably.
6-8 weeks later, we were refunded but it was a long and unpleasant experience that taught me several things:
1) Don't assume your bank has a coherent identity theft/fraud department. Expect to get bounced around outsourced call centers that don't communicate with each other or the police. Don't expect them to be interested in IP logs or anything else you think might help them catch the hackers, either
2) "Organised crime" isn't just a phrase. They're quite advanced now, even outsourcing the donkeywork on the ground to other organisations
3) Two-factor authentication is a Good Thing with online banking
4) Don't do online banking on someone elses' computer
Slashdot Mirror
Why doesn't anyone use .co.us for US businesses?
...and this is modified +5? I hope you've elected to avoid any form of surgery or medical attention in your country should you need it, to be even-handed.
I fail to see how making incubators cheaper/more prevalent can be seen as anything other than a good thing. Following your line of logic it'd seem the logical extreme would be bombing continents for the good of the "civilised" western world...
Verbing weirds language.
Dave Null,
127, Loopback Lane
Alaska
I sell screwdrivers, you insensitive clod!
This idea is one of those that makes you feel guilty just thinking about it!
I'm picturing Bill Gates, in a black polo neck, with spectacles designed by Johnathan Ive.
It'd be worth it if only to see Steve Balmer's reaction, he'd probably swallow his tongue.
Disclaimer: I'm from a Pharma background, rather than a military one, but you have the same problem in any validated environment subject to regulatory inspection. Even if you have source, you still have to do your validation testing again when you change components. You can do it with Windows (I have, although not particularly through choice) and if you tie into their release cycles you can have a committed platform for say three years - pick a hardware vendor that'll commit to a specific model and config of PC being available for x years (and make sure if it's IBM that this includes them not doing dumb stuff like substituing realtek for broadcomm NICs mid run without telling you!), and pick a flavour of your OS that has a stated lifecycle of x years.
Someone's decided to hand out Macbooks to everyone. Presumably to get the funding to do this, they had to make out a business case for it, stating the cost, and giving an idea of the benefits. Was this reviewed by monkeys?
Jesus, if you have to hand out kit like this, what's wrong with a cheap netbook?
The obvious answer is you ensure that a client computer can't hurt the network. Filtering etc is done at the proxy, not the client. People can do what the hell they like with the laptop at home so long as a) they know if they bring it to school with pr0n on it they're hosed, and b) if they break it by installing stuff and tinkering that there's a cost or a time penalty in getting it fixed - i.e. you go to the back of the IT support queue.
Current engine's the 2.0 TDI which is around 140BHP as standard. If you have a google, you'll find that the PD130 engine is *ripe* for tuning. There's a whole load of tuners who specialise in it because the gains are so high. Mine dynoed at 193BHP (just shy of 200BHP) and 312FT/LBs torque - which is half as much again as, say, a Porsche boxster S!
I did use to have the before-and-after dyno plot up on the web but having just checked looks like the hosting's down right now, it was a couple of years ago.
In the UK, my favourite tuner is http://www.jabbasport.co.uk/ but there are a great deal of other ones.
The best VAG engine for bang for buck remapping is the post 2001 1.8T petrol engine, as fitted to Mk4 GTI etc. 150BHP as standard, simple remap and replacement panel filter gets you a verifiable 225BHP, and faster straight line speed than the 225BHP TT due to less weight and losses from 4WD. I've done a few hundred miles in one of these and they're *very* quick.
I don't know what US price comparisons between VW and BMW are (although both are *considerably* cheaper there than in Europe!) but here the pecking order is probably Merc/BMW/Audi, followed by VW, followed by SEAT and Skoda. Reliability? My Skoda's cost me a few sets of front tyres, a couple of services and not a lot else in the last 3 years, so I'm happy.
User is sent link, directed to website with malware payload, such as a 0-day IE exploit. User is running unpatched Windows, user is 0wned, PC is 0wned. Hilarities ensue.
It's just a standard trojan with an unusual delivery method of using fake Facebook profiles run by trojan bots. I can't see how this is Facebook's problem any more than it's your email program's fault that you clicked on a dodgy link without checking it.
What's the bandwidth of a pneumatic tube full of SD cards? Of course, the latency might be a problem...
...not to mention power, water, gas and we should be able to beam our sewage back, as well. Kind of like most digital TV broadcasts, now I come to think of it.
God, no. That way you'd be responsible for everything up to the local substation/sewer outlet/phone exchange etc. Take ADSL broadband for example - any problems and you'd be negotiating with your municipality over digging up the road, paying for backhoe, trying to troubleshoot and diagnose a problem between multiple companies such as local council, ISP, phone provider - and it'd be your problem to persuade these groups that the problem was in their area and couldn't be palmed off on someone else.
Much better that there's clear demarcation of what's YOUR problem and what's the supplier's problem: e.g. phone service - I can cheerfully say that everything on one side of the master phone socket coming into my house is British Telecom's problem: that includes the wiring from exchange to street cabinet, the wire up and along the telegraph pole in my street, the wiring from that pole into my house, and the short cable run that hooks that up to the master socket - any problems, they fix it, no fee. Anything on the other side like my phone extensions etc = my problem.
In the UK, it's more like 40% or so, although the rising prices and premium you pay at the pump when you buy fuel, and the premium on diesel engines (modern high pressure common rail diesels are complex) are starting to make it less attractive than it used to be. If you buy new, and do over, say 20,000 miles a year, it's a no-brainer. Less than that, maybe not.
Still, look at the numbers. VW have BlueMotion versions of most of their cars which are nothing more than standard diesels with slightly higher gearing, improvements to aero and rolling resistance and not a lot else. The Polo (slightly smaller than a Honda Civic) can do 75 (UK) MPG.
I drive an 03-plate Skoda Superb. This is more-or-less a VW Passat with an extra foot of wheelbase. It's got a 1.9L VW "pumpe-duse" diesel engine. I can get 50MPG *easily* out of it, and 44MPG in the city, and (after a laptop-powered ECU remap) I've still got nearly 200BHP and 312FT/LBs torque. Power, economy, size, safety - in a 5 year old car.
Do you really think they'd be dumb enough to implement a system that you can disable with a switch? Presumably if they've half thought about this the failback when it doesn't detect a valid, working hardware module is going to be to LOCK and await the passcode.
Presumably as standard you boot to a passcode, probably with the option to sync to Active Directory like Pointsec does, so if there's no GSM coverage you still need a password.
It's going to be controlled via security at BIOS level, *just like any other decent manufacturer-supplied protection*. I mean, think about it. You'll be using BIOS-keyed FDE built into the drive, so it's certainly not as simple as popping the drive out to read it.
You're not the target audience though. This tech's aimed squarely at big business, which is sick of the sh1tstorm lost laptops cause. Something like 30-40% of all laptops get stolen during their lifetime, and you haev to come up with a secure solution that takes account of this, and also takes into account corporate users a) not really caring, and b) losing keys. You need a mechanism that applies this *by default* with the corp user not being able to easily turn it off. You need a mechanism that your user can phone the helpdesk and say either "i've lost it", in which case they can kill it remotely, or "i've forgotten my password" in which case they have a mechanism for recovery.
Any big business that relies on users never forgetting passwords or having a single point of irrecoverable failure on a USB pendrive's asking for trouble.
Perhaps we could throw in something like "who do you not want to not win?" as well, just to spice things up a bit
* Hopefully this isn't a "less space than a Nomad" comment
What, like elect Dubya twice?
Because it'd lead to Google OS, and deprecate the traditional operating system. You wouldn't care whether you were running Windows, OS X, Linux, etc - you'd just need a compliant browser. Take it a stage further and you'd just need a stub OS that boots the machine, recognises the hardware and gives you a browser - everythign else could be done via this method. Voila, Google OS.
Not that uncommon.
All VAG group (VW, Audi, Seat, Skoda) have an option to replace the CD autochanger with a USB socket mounted in car for music playback.
Fiat have "Blue and Me" (in partnership with Microsoft!) which features a USB socket that'll play media, and also allow you to download information about your driving and economy, as fitted to the new Fiat 500, and others.
I've seen something that looks like an identical product mentioned in the US, as well.
let alone the "pre-N" stuff like my Netgear DG834GT, which as far as I can tell is "pre-N" in that it will only talk at those speeds to other Netgear "pre-N" devices, and nothing else.
C'mon people, this and the "right-click in a file open/file save dialogue box to get access to explorer" is known to anyone who's ever wanted to open their MySpace profile from a school PC. Very, very shoddy on the Bank's behalf and probably opens them up to stiff penalties under local financial regulatory laws
You then arrange the stealing/pickpocketing of cards. More likely, you request freshly stolen cards from a specialist. Some of those cards are going to marry up with the information you already hold, and may be enough to leverage funds.
Don't believe criminals are this organised? An example from personal experience. Turns out a machine at my other half's work was compromomised with a keystroke/screenshot recorder infection. First we haerd of it was when all our accounts were cleared out - someone had been organised enough to patiently continue recording "please enter X and Y character of your password" long enough to piece together the full password. They'd then used this on a saturday before a bank holiday to transfer all of our funds into another account at the same bank - this clears instantly and has less restrictions. They had then coordinated with someone in the UK who could provide them with a stolen debit card issued by the same bank, transferred our money into that account, and got a stooge to go into the bank just before it shut on saturday and take all that money out in cash - within hours of initial transfer.
End result? We were cleaned out, some innocent who had their card nicked had their bank account abused, and the criminals got our money in cash, untraceably. 6-8 weeks later, we were refunded but it was a long and unpleasant experience that taught me several things:
1) Don't assume your bank has a coherent identity theft/fraud department. Expect to get bounced around outsourced call centers that don't communicate with each other or the police. Don't expect them to be interested in IP logs or anything else you think might help them catch the hackers, either
2) "Organised crime" isn't just a phrase. They're quite advanced now, even outsourcing the donkeywork on the ground to other organisations
3) Two-factor authentication is a Good Thing with online banking
4) Don't do online banking on someone elses' computer