A common trend I am seeing in these threads is the equating of "IT infrastructure policies to limit employee access" == "Treating employees like criminals".
Bank employees (at least the ones I know and talk to) definitely do not feel that they are treated like criminals, but most of them are not allowed into the vault at any time they like for any reason they would like. Similarly I would consider it a reasonable policy to specify IT polices to limit access to databases that contained confidential data.
Access policies are just one example of a reasonable IT policy for protecting corporate data and infrastructure. Really most acceptable use policies are also reasonable when you get down to it as well.
As recent as the 2005 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey roughly 50% of all network intrusion/unauthorized use was from inside jobs. This can have a substantial material impact on a company, it is only reasonable that they take steps to minimize this as well. Reasonable policies to protect corporate assets are not the same as treating you like a criminal, hence the word reasonable. From reading the article I do not see anyone saying that extreme steps should be taken either, just that this is an area that should not be ignored and deserves some thought.
Really the argument that IT policies intended to limit access or specify accepted use for equipment is tantamount to treating you like a criminal is just an overreaction by technologically sophisticated people that resent the idea of being told that they can't do anything they want.
Not quite... it comes from needing the same amount of mass above the center of gravity in geostationary orbit as below it in order for the cable to support its own weight. There are three ways to do this:
1) put something really really massive in geostationary orbit, massive enough that the mass of the cable is insignificant, then hang the cable from it.
2) just have a really long cable who's midpoint is in geostationary orbit... since geostationary orbits are at an altitude of 35,785 km this would be a cable twice as long... roughly 71,000 km.
3) a combination of the two... something with significant mass in geostationary that you hang a cable from both ends, one to get down to Earth, the other for balance. This is probably where the 62ish km number comes from.
Actually all the other geostationary orbits are fine since they do not move relative to a fixed point on the surface (hence geostationary). In addition all geostationary orbits are at the same altitude 35,785 km.
Other facts about geostationary orbits:
The orbit is geosynchronous
The orbit is a circle
The orbit lies in the plane of the Earth's equator
The height of a geostationary orbit: 35,785 km
The orbital velocity of a geostationary orbit: 3.07 km/sec (11,052 km/hr)
The circumference of the Earth: 40,075.16 km (equatorial) 40,008 km (though the poles)
Other geostationary orbits are not a problem... there are however many other obits that COULD intersect with the cable though.
That would only make a difference if all of the space debris held a fixed position. The math gets a bit more involved (hence why I refrained from doing it on a Friday afternoon) to determine the probablity of a collision you account for the fact that you have objects traveling on random vectors and need to figure out the chance that they will occupy the same space at the same time. You chose the volume of space that put all of the objects at an altitude band between 100 and 101km. While it does warrant attention it isn't nearly as dire as those concerned about it would like people to believe.
While I don't want to belittle the seriousness of a bolt traveling at 35,000 km/h striking a manned space vehicle, a little perspective is due. A conservative definition of low earth orbit is anything between 100km and 1500km in altitude, simplifying this as a spherical shell that is a volume of space equal to 1.41329782 × 10^19 m^3
Now even giving the NASA estimates of hundreds of thousands of objects (including those under the 4in size for tracking) a fudge factor of 100 giving on the order 50,000,000 objects in LEO that gives a debris density of 3.53782475 × 10^-12 m^-3... or 1 object in every 2.82659564 × 10^11 m^3 or 1 object per 282.659564 km^3.
Even if we assumed that every piece of junk was concentrated in the lowest kilometer of LEO (100 to 101 km in altitude) that still gives us a volume of space equal to 1.26924532 × 10^14 m^3
With the same fudge factor of 50,000,000 pieces of deride we have an object density of 3.93934878 × 10^-7 m^-3 or 1 object per 2538490.64 m^3 to put this in perspective, the Empire State Building has a volume of just over 1000000 m^3.
That is pretty much on target. SELinux only provides really only provides MAC (Mandatory Access Control). This is a big first piece but isn't enough to completely secure a system, there are still other considerations, such as system auditing, needed to have a fully trusted system.
For the most part SELinux provides binary compatibility for user space applications and ever since it was integrated into the 2.6 kernel provides binary compatibility with most modules... there are some modules that don't behave well with SELinux, some can be fixed with fine grained SELinux policies the rest need patches to their source to interact with the kernel correctly.
Applications don't really have anything to do with SELinux really, what SELinux (or really, what any MAC system does) is compartmentalize the system so that if any given application is compromised the break is limited to that one application and can not be capitalized on to compromise the system at large. SELinux and all other MAC systems rely on correctness of the policy configuration to provide system level security. Extra steps are still needed to protect each independent app though to make sure it is hardened against break-in. While it is important that a cracker is not able to take control of your box you still want to keep him from crashing your application server or web pages and such.
In addition to SELinux (NSA SELinux there are other MAC systems such as: GrSecurity and RSBAC (RSBAC seems to be down though).
Other very interesting thing to look at are hardened tool chains (gcc with PIE, position independent execution and SSP, stack smashing protection) as well as PaX which is a kernel patch that provides extended security options such as ALSR (Address space layout randomization), non-executable memory. PaX provides some very strong kernel level features that harden all applications from attack. It does come at a slight cost though; some of the features have a minor performance hit, notably nx memory on x86 machines because they do not provide a true NX bit for pages, it has a fairly steep learning curve and some applications plain don't work with it... XOrg and Java VMs for example, because the way they are written they need executable pages for dynamic code generation. PaX security options can be set at a per file or per role (in a MAC system) level so it is still possible to run these apps, they just will not make use of the protection provided by PaX and will need to be tightened down in other ways. The really big gotcha with PaX is that elfloader doesn't support global offset tables or procedure linkage tables. These are required for ALSR in particular so to use PaX libraries need to be statically linked or loaded with dlopen... none of the current binary graphics card drivers for NVidia or ATI work with PaX so if you can't get 3D acceleration from DRI et al. you don't get 3D acceleration.
No... perceived time (more accurately measured astronomical time) is tied to geography.
In 1967 a second was defined precisely as the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. This gives us a precisely defined absolute time.
This was a pretty close match to the original second which was defined, imprecisely as a fraction of the tropical year so the precisely defined absolute time pretty much matches perceived time. The wrinkle comes in with the fact that the Earth's rotation is decelerating very slowly, but the time for a caesium atom to change energy levels remains constant. Because of that perceived time is slowly falling behind defined time (at a rate of approximately 1 second every 18 months) hence leap seconds are used compensate for that.
The discussion they are having has nothing to do with time zones but with how to keep defined time in sync with observed astronomical time.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the USB key is a suplement to the original paper documents. Paper documents stack up fast and are not things that are conducive to picking up and running with in a hurry. Idealy they are properly and safely stored in a fire box at the least if not a floor safe or a safe deopsit box.
When the shit hits the fan they will have a fair chance of making it through but you might have to take off for a while until the situation calms down... or you may be away from home... or home may become a smoking pile of rubble...
In those cases the original documents may not be accessable or even in a safe location may end up destroyed. In that case copies are your friend. Highly portable copies are even better... that is what makes the USB or DVR idea attractive... once you collect the files there isn't anything that prevents you from putting a copy in the safe with the original documents... a copy in your bug-out bag and a copy in your normal commute bag.
Maybe it is because I was a boy scout... maybe it is just because I am a geek and we tend to get in to planning for things like this... but I have 3 kits.
A fairly extensive kit for sheltering in place at home that will keep me quite happy for about 14 days.
A bug-out bag that lives in the trunk of my car. If I have to go in a hurry I can just run. It is portable so if I had to leave the car I could still bring it with me with out being overly encumbered, it will keep me comfortable for about 5 days with out external support or a motel with room service.
A micro kit that lives in my daily commute bag. Nobody wants to have an 80lb backpack with them all the time, but it is still a good idea to have some minimum items with you... micro first aid kit... flash light... radio... leatherman charge... snacky kinda food / emergency food bars... It would be pretty spartan but with some water it would keep me going long enough to get home or to my car. I really should keep a bottle of water in my commute bag but I keep drinking it.
You can ask at a local hospital for information about state or local blood banks. In NJ I donate through the Blood Center of New Jersey http://www.bloodnj.org/
Blood products donated through a local center will most likely be used locally though. Although this does not directly help anyone in the disaster areas, the fact that there is a disaster there does not mean that there are no longer patients in need near you.
Save a life, donate blood.
While you are probably right about it not being strong because there is only one layer it is much stronger than you think. When you tear a piece of paper of an other fabric you are not breaking atomic bonds you are separating fibers that are mushed or spun together.
A better comparison would be thinking about tearing a piece of aluminum foil. It is very hard to cause it to separate under tension and you have to add sheering forces to get a fracture to start.
You are correct, commercial speech does not have the same extent of protection as free expression and as such laws and ordnances can be past that can greatly limit the venue of commercial speech while on the other hand it is much more difficult to pass a law that places limits on personal speech. This does not mean that you as an individual are allowed to tear down, block or prevent commercial speech that is not otherwise barred by law. Using the terms speech and expression interchangeably, In a free society all speech, commercial or private, should be afforded the greatest benefit of the doubt, in general errors should be committed on the grounds of being overly permissive, not as being overly oppressive. Thus, unless specifically barred all speech should be considered allowed. It is in the forming of the rules to allow or to bar specific forms of speech that the distinction between commercial and personal speech becomes important.
Further societies operate as a cooperation of individuals. As such it is not the place of any individual or group of individuals to make decisions on behalf of the whole unless selected in some form by the whole to operate on their behalf.
While you are correct in stating that the First Amendment specifically prohibits the governments suppression of free expression, it was included because the framers of the Constitution realized that in order for a society to be free its individuals must be able to openly express and discuss any idea.
Your idea of freedom is "The government can not suppress speech but, me, a private citizen can" is missing the whole point. For clarity of my argument though, you are correct, I should have kept the discussion generic as to infringing on the right of expression and shouldn't have evoked the First Amendment.
Further, freedoms are not always complete and absolute, in a free and civilized society many rights are contingent on there expression not infringing on the rights of others. This argument that it is my freedom and right of expression to emit a signal that just might happen to turn off a TV must not abridge my right to use a TV to express myself.
Having my TV on does not interfere with your right to transmit this signal, but irresponsible expression of your right to this signal can interfere with my right to use a TV to convey a particular message or provide a service to my customers. It would not place any undue burden on you to transmit your signal in a way that will not interfere with my rights to using a TV as a means to convey a message.
In reality the intention of emitting the signal is specifically to turn of the TV in question and the argument that TV owners/users are unjustly interfering with a right to emit the signal is just a lame excuse to gain some credibility for the argument.
No, it isn't quite the same as spam filtering. When you filter a spam server based on black list you are preventing it from sending you spam... you are not turning it off which would prevent it from sending anyone else spam. Your email in box is on your system, or it is on a system that someone is providing for your use, it is (or should be) your right to allow or block mail from any source you choose.
Obtrusive TV can come in one of 3 forms: A private TV in a private venue (a TV in a bar for example); A private TV in a public venue (a TV inside a store but pointed out the store window.) A public TV in a public venue (a bit more rare... an example would be TV monitors in subway stations/trains that show train schedule information and news.)
In the following I will assume that in none of the cases you are the person that owns the TV, venue or is otherwise responsible for the TV or venue.
1) Private/private: I am sorry, as much as you may not like it, it is no more your right to turn off the TV a bar or restaurant owner has chosen to play than it is to decide who he or she is allowed to have as customers or what items they should have on their menus. It is your right to choose to eat/drink/seek entertainment someplace else though. Just because you do not like it does not mean the proprietor of an establishment must choose to accommodate you. You can ask for it to be turned off and they will choose between your business and the business of the people that enjoy having the TV on.
2) The Private/Public case is a little more consensus... but in my opinion should be considered in the same light as bills, billboards and placards. Taking it upon yourself to turn of any TV that bothers you is an unfair abridgment of the owners first amendment right. Just because you do not agree with the message or the media it is presented on does not give you the right to suppress it. Part of living in a free society is living with others that wish to enjoy their freedom as well and I am sorry but your "freedom from distracting television" is not as important as others freedom of expression.
3) The Public/Public case (assuming that it truly is a public/public case): Being a public TV in a public place I would assume that some body acting on behalf of the public interest choose to operate a TV running specific programming. Now, just how is it your right as an individual to override this decision on behalf of everyone else because you do not agree with the message or the media? It is your right to complain to the public body responsible for the set and it's programming so they can weigh the requests for with the complaints against and reach a compromise.
I just can not see how it can be your right to turn off a TV that you do not own, on property you do not own with out the owners/operators consent. I applaud the motivation, but the execution is flawed. People if it really bothers you make it known, let the manager of the bar or restaurant you are at know that you find TV a distraction and you will choose to go some place else if they insist on playing it... if there is a public TV in a public place you find objectionable submit a complaint to the governing body. Part of living in a society that cherishes freedom though is accepting that there are other views that must be considered and you just may have to live with a public TV in a public space because the majority wants it and unless we throw the right to freely express one's self out the window you will always have to live with the private TV projecting into a public space, live with it, it's part of being free.
Only nit I have with this, is that in many cases the first pilots were small entrepreneurs not the extraordinarily wealthy. In fact following World War 1 the US government was selling off surplus Jennys for as little as 200 dollars (adjusted based on CPI to 2003 dollars that is only $1840).
Granted this was possible because the US gov. was dumping surplus planes that cost $5,000 ($46,000 adjusted). It still allowed pilots returning from World War One that fell in love with flying the opportunity to perchance a plane for their own use.
As far as commercial air travel goes... I don't have the pricing data available but by the end of the 1950s it was considered that air travel was an average experience and 1958 was the first year that aircraft displaced ocean liners as the primary carrier across the Atlantic.
Read my post again and actually think about it this time. I made a distinction between stealing a token and forging a token. The reason this distinction is important is that you are aware of a theft (missing finger or token) but may not be aware of a forgery because you still have yours and the person attempting to crack your system is using an illicit copy.
The significance of this is that while it is hard/unlikely to physically take your fingerprint from you, while not trivial, it is not extremely difficult to forge a copy of your fingerprint. A cryptographically strong token is much harder to forge, but much easier to pick up and walk away with if not properly attended.
Which leads to the engineering decision... which system is better? Is it harder to protect my fingerprint from being copied or is it harder to protect a physical token from being stolen. In the closing of my post I even state that I favor keys over fingerprints for just this very reason, I do believe it is easier to protect a key from theft than it is to protect my fingerprint from forgery.
In your rush to post what you though was a witty comment must have missed all this. Try reading and understanding... then make a witty comment about the real issue, that I didn't make a point clearly. You won't come off as a big of a fool next time.
Oh, and we all know that EVERYTHING we see in TV crime drama's are accurate portrayals of real life.
Even if it can... it is not totally useless. Strong authentication theory basically says for an authentication method to really be strong it has to be comprised of two parts: something you have, and something you know.
Biometric measurements are attractive candidates for the "something you have" part because they are unique, in most cases easy to read and convenient... i.e. never left behind. On there own though they do not provide a strong authentication solution... but even then, a large bit-length key on a USB or serial device does not provide strong authentication on its own as the key can always be stolen or compromised.
A finger print tied to a password on the other hand renders the entire system much, much more secure. It is up for debate if this is more secure in general than a key/password solution though... the trade off is something that is easier to use, more convenient for the user in hopes that it is used and used correctly vs a solution that is inherently stronger but more cumbersome for the user and more likely to be abused (leaving the key plugged in all the time for instance).
Comparing fingerprints to a USB key as a solution to the "something you have" challenge in a security response:
Fingerprint:
+ Impractical to steal
+ Always with you
+ Standard format
- Relatively easy to forge for optical scanners
- May change over time
USB Key:
+ Hard to forge
+ Stable format
- Not always on hand, could be left behind, lost, forgotten
- Can be stolen
- More difficult to provide a standard interface
One of the reasons I personally favor keys, while they can be stolen the effort required to secure a key based token is much easier than the effort required to prevent leaving fingerprints around (unless you want to start wearing gloves all the time). Also if your key based token is stolen (or lost) you know it is gone, until you detect a break-in after the fact you will not know if a print has been forged... you would probably be aware if someone stole a print by removing a finger though;)
In my own (non-expert opinion) I would rank various authentication techniques as follows from most secure to least:
Not going even bother including weak passwords and not counting improper use/storage of tokens and devices (I consider weak passwords improper use btw). Weak Biometric measurements would be something like optical scanning, strong measurements are stuff like eye prints and thermal scanning/imaging.
38 sub-audible squelch codes per transmission channel for semi-private radio communications
Electronic compass displays accurate heading while standing still
Barometric sensor with automatic pressure trend recording
Detects up to 7 NOAA weather channels with weather alert tones
External voice activation (VOX)
Waterproof to IPX-7 standards (immersible in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes)
Ergonomic design for one-handed operation, with Call and Press-To-Talk (PTT) and Page mode buttons on the side,
Power/Backlighting button on top, Volume and Zoom buttons on front, and center Thumb Stick
Unique Thumb Stick for channel selection and volume adjustment in FRS/GMRS mode, and quick map panning, enter and selection functions in GPS mode
Sends and receives GPS location using FRS channels and shows them on the map
Stores up to 500 way points, with graphic identification and 20 reversible routes
Robust track log: 10,000 track points and up to 20 saved tracks to retrace user's path or companion's path via location-reporting feature
Trip computer with speed tracking, sunrise/sunset read out, trip time, and trip distance
Includes a polling feature which allows a user to manually request GPS location information from other Rino units
Sends and receives short text notes for quiet communication
Built-in base map for North and South America
24-MB internal memory for loading MapSource detail, including U.S. Topo 24K, U.S. Topo, Recreational Lakes, BlueChart®, and MetroGuide®.
Battery life of 14 hours (typical use) on three AA alkaline batteries
Backlit display
More than 10 position formats and over 100 map datums
Multiple grid formats including MGRS and Loran TD
Rino 130 for a geek that loves the outdoors Node Explorer for a geek that needs to be distracted from the outdoors.
Oh... anyone that has uses GMRS/FRS/HAM radio knows that local topology and vegetation can have a huge impact on the range of.5 and 1 watt units (in some cases cutting down miles to hundreds of yards). Bluetooth, even WiFi, will not do a whole lot to keep you in touch if you are separated... those protocols will stop working about the same time you lose site of your buddy if not sooner.
A geosynchronous orbit is any orbit with an orbital period that matches the sidereal day, which is 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds in length, and represents the time taken for the Earth to rotate once about its polar axis relative to a distant fixed point.
A geostationary orbit is a special case of a geosynchronous orbit where a satellite appears stationary from the point of view of an observer on the Earth's surface. The conditions for geostationary orbits are:
The orbit is geosynchronous
The orbit is a circle
The orbit lies in the plane of the Earth's equator
The terms are incorrectly used interchangeably...
A couple of other handy facts:
The hight of a geostationary orbit: 35,785 km
The orbital velocity of a geostationary orbit: 3.07 km/sec (11,052 km/hr)
The circumference of the Earth: 40,075.16 km (equatorial) 40,008 km (though the poles)
I just wanted to make one small correction, while I had the pressure of Challenger deep correct its depth is only 35838 feet. Thus that line should read:
... or park a submersible on the bottom of challenger deep, under close to 7 miles (10923 m) of water at a pressure exceeding 16000 pounds per square inch (1125 kg/cm^2)
Yeah, a rocket engine is complex but you are trying to make it seem like it is harder than any other numerous engineering challenges that have already been surmounted by human kind with trial, error, many times loss of life, but most of all with time until we have finally reached the day when the feat to be accomplished is routine.
I think you vastly underestimate the challenge needed to build a tower hundreds of feet tall that will not topple in the first storm or park a submersible on the bottom of challenger deep, under 11 miles (17700 m) of water at a pressure exceeding 16000 pounds per square inch (1125 kg/cm^2).
To you they are trivial because they have already been bested by engineering. Space is the new challenge and it will still prove to be a hard master for many years to come but we will eventually, given the willingness to challenge it, advance in engineering powers to the point where it too is a routine endeavor.
On thing that I find odd, is that in the context of space exploration loss, and the resulting death is viewed as such a horrible risk that the attempt should not be made. Of course I do not want to see people lose their lives... but I would risk mine to try if I was given the opportunity. Yet still, compare this reaction to the loss in the context of other human endeavors... If we made a roll of all those lost at sea in the name of exploration it would read on for pages, no for volumns upon volumns. Heck it was not that long ago when the building of a skyscraper was considered well managed if fewer than 15 workers died during its construction, but in the exploration of space, any risks seems to great to those of us that would rather we just stay here, at home.
Yes we should acknowledge the danger and we should not take undue risk... but we should not let the fear of loss paralyze us into inaction.
No, you haven't won... you are just ignoring the issue.
Even though you do not rely on Big Media for your news and entertainment does not mean that Big Media does not impact your life. I am assuming that you will also claim that you do not read newspapers, magazines or listen to the radio but even this is still not enough. The US, contrary to what some would argue, is still a representative democracy and as such the decisions made by our government at the local, state and federal levels are strongly influenced by public opinion.
The fact that you do not rely on Big Media means that they do not shape your opinion but the reason that they are "big" is that they are listened to, viewed by, or read by a large percentage of the population. As such they are in the position to have an extremely large impact on the shaping of public opinion. In effect even though you do not watch TV, you are still being ruled by big media.
In order for democracy to remain strong it is essential to have free and competing sources of news and entertainment. You choosing not to watch TV is a step in that direction but by itself is not winning the fight against big media. Civic involvement and campaigning to restructure media regulations along with the development of additional sources of alternate news and entertainment is still needed.
Don't stop fighting yet.
Owning a cell phone != being reachable 24/7. For a long time I felt the same way you did and avoided purchasing a cell phone, eventually we changed on call procedures at work which required having a company provided phone while you were on your on-call shift. The upside of this is that we were allowed to use the phones for personal use as well since they had a generous number of minutes on them. I realized a couple of things after having the phone for a while...
The convenience of a cell phone is amazing. Cell phones can be very, very handy when you are meeting people on the go or want to do something spontaneously. They are great to have with you on long drives in case of emergencies, and for staying in touch while traveling.
There is no rule that you always have to keep your phone with you, that you always have to keep it on, or that you always have to answer it. It is really no different than your normal phone except now you have the OPTION to take it with you. I have not once encountered someone that expected me to answer just because I have a cell phone. That is, after all, what voice mail is for.
Not wanting a cell phone is fine, land lines in most areas are still preferable for some uses (if you have the line for DSL already, if your area does not have enhanced 911... etc.) and if you do not talk to others often then it may not be worth the cost to pay for two phone services. But honestly the argument "I do not want to be connected 24/7" is rather silly when you think about it.
Slashdot Mirror
For more information on the fingerprint reader see: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Integrated_Fingerpri nt_Reader. As mentioned already it works great as a PAM element and isn't all that hard to get running.
Also in general ThinkTWiki is a very good site for information about Thinkpads and LINUX.
A common trend I am seeing in these threads is the equating of "IT infrastructure policies to limit employee access" == "Treating employees like criminals".
Bank employees (at least the ones I know and talk to) definitely do not feel that they are treated like criminals, but most of them are not allowed into the vault at any time they like for any reason they would like. Similarly I would consider it a reasonable policy to specify IT polices to limit access to databases that contained confidential data.
Access policies are just one example of a reasonable IT policy for protecting corporate data and infrastructure. Really most acceptable use policies are also reasonable when you get down to it as well.
As recent as the 2005 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey roughly 50% of all network intrusion/unauthorized use was from inside jobs. This can have a substantial material impact on a company, it is only reasonable that they take steps to minimize this as well. Reasonable policies to protect corporate assets are not the same as treating you like a criminal, hence the word reasonable. From reading the article I do not see anyone saying that extreme steps should be taken either, just that this is an area that should not be ignored and deserves some thought.
Really the argument that IT policies intended to limit access or specify accepted use for equipment is tantamount to treating you like a criminal is just an overreaction by technologically sophisticated people that resent the idea of being told that they can't do anything they want.
Not quite... it comes from needing the same amount of mass above the center of gravity in geostationary orbit as below it in order for the cable to support its own weight. There are three ways to do this:
1) put something really really massive in geostationary orbit, massive enough that the mass of the cable is insignificant, then hang the cable from it.
2) just have a really long cable who's midpoint is in geostationary orbit... since geostationary orbits are at an altitude of 35,785 km this would be a cable twice as long... roughly 71,000 km.
3) a combination of the two... something with significant mass in geostationary that you hang a cable from both ends, one to get down to Earth, the other for balance. This is probably where the 62ish km number comes from.
Other facts about geostationary orbits:
Other geostationary orbits are not a problem... there are however many other obits that COULD intersect with the cable though.
That would only make a difference if all of the space debris held a fixed position. The math gets a bit more involved (hence why I refrained from doing it on a Friday afternoon) to determine the probablity of a collision you account for the fact that you have objects traveling on random vectors and need to figure out the chance that they will occupy the same space at the same time. You chose the volume of space that put all of the objects at an altitude band between 100 and 101km. While it does warrant attention it isn't nearly as dire as those concerned about it would like people to believe.
While I don't want to belittle the seriousness of a bolt traveling at 35,000 km/h striking a manned space vehicle, a little perspective is due. A conservative definition of low earth orbit is anything between 100km and 1500km in altitude, simplifying this as a spherical shell that is a volume of space equal to 1.41329782 × 10^19 m^3
Now even giving the NASA estimates of hundreds of thousands of objects (including those under the 4in size for tracking) a fudge factor of 100 giving on the order 50,000,000 objects in LEO that gives a debris density of 3.53782475 × 10^-12 m^-3... or 1 object in every 2.82659564 × 10^11 m^3 or 1 object per 282.659564 km^3.
Even if we assumed that every piece of junk was concentrated in the lowest kilometer of LEO (100 to 101 km in altitude) that still gives us a volume of space equal to 1.26924532 × 10^14 m^3
With the same fudge factor of 50,000,000 pieces of deride we have an object density of 3.93934878 × 10^-7 m^-3 or 1 object per 2538490.64 m^3 to put this in perspective, the Empire State Building has a volume of just over 1000000 m^3.
That is pretty much on target. SELinux only provides really only provides MAC (Mandatory Access Control). This is a big first piece but isn't enough to completely secure a system, there are still other considerations, such as system auditing, needed to have a fully trusted system.
For the most part SELinux provides binary compatibility for user space applications and ever since it was integrated into the 2.6 kernel provides binary compatibility with most modules... there are some modules that don't behave well with SELinux, some can be fixed with fine grained SELinux policies the rest need patches to their source to interact with the kernel correctly.
Applications don't really have anything to do with SELinux really, what SELinux (or really, what any MAC system does) is compartmentalize the system so that if any given application is compromised the break is limited to that one application and can not be capitalized on to compromise the system at large. SELinux and all other MAC systems rely on correctness of the policy configuration to provide system level security. Extra steps are still needed to protect each independent app though to make sure it is hardened against break-in. While it is important that a cracker is not able to take control of your box you still want to keep him from crashing your application server or web pages and such.
In addition to SELinux (NSA SELinux there are other MAC systems such as:
GrSecurity and RSBAC (RSBAC seems to be down though).
Other very interesting thing to look at are hardened tool chains (gcc with PIE, position independent execution and SSP, stack smashing protection) as well as PaX which is a kernel patch that provides extended security options such as ALSR (Address space layout randomization), non-executable memory. PaX provides some very strong kernel level features that harden all applications from attack. It does come at a slight cost though; some of the features have a minor performance hit, notably nx memory on x86 machines because they do not provide a true NX bit for pages, it has a fairly steep learning curve and some applications plain don't work with it... XOrg and Java VMs for example, because the way they are written they need executable pages for dynamic code generation. PaX security options can be set at a per file or per role (in a MAC system) level so it is still possible to run these apps, they just will not make use of the protection provided by PaX and will need to be tightened down in other ways. The really big gotcha with PaX is that elfloader doesn't support global offset tables or procedure linkage tables. These are required for ALSR in particular so to use PaX libraries need to be statically linked or loaded with dlopen... none of the current binary graphics card drivers for NVidia or ATI work with PaX so if you can't get 3D acceleration from DRI et al. you don't get 3D acceleration.
No... perceived time (more accurately measured astronomical time) is tied to geography.
In 1967 a second was defined precisely as the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. This gives us a precisely defined absolute time.
This was a pretty close match to the original second which was defined, imprecisely as a fraction of the tropical year so the precisely defined absolute time pretty much matches perceived time. The wrinkle comes in with the fact that the Earth's rotation is decelerating very slowly, but the time for a caesium atom to change energy levels remains constant. Because of that perceived time is slowly falling behind defined time (at a rate of approximately 1 second every 18 months) hence leap seconds are used compensate for that.
The discussion they are having has nothing to do with time zones but with how to keep defined time in sync with observed astronomical time.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the USB key is a suplement to the original paper documents. Paper documents stack up fast and are not things that are conducive to picking up and running with in a hurry. Idealy they are properly and safely stored in a fire box at the least if not a floor safe or a safe deopsit box.
When the shit hits the fan they will have a fair chance of making it through but you might have to take off for a while until the situation calms down... or you may be away from home... or home may become a smoking pile of rubble...
In those cases the original documents may not be accessable or even in a safe location may end up destroyed. In that case copies are your friend. Highly portable copies are even better... that is what makes the USB or DVR idea attractive... once you collect the files there isn't anything that prevents you from putting a copy in the safe with the original documents... a copy in your bug-out bag and a copy in your normal commute bag.
Maybe it is because I was a boy scout... maybe it is just because I am a geek and we tend to get in to planning for things like this... but I have 3 kits.
A fairly extensive kit for sheltering in place at home that will keep me quite happy for about 14 days.
A bug-out bag that lives in the trunk of my car. If I have to go in a hurry I can just run. It is portable so if I had to leave the car I could still bring it with me with out being overly encumbered, it will keep me comfortable for about 5 days with out external support or a motel with room service.
A micro kit that lives in my daily commute bag. Nobody wants to have an 80lb backpack with them all the time, but it is still a good idea to have some minimum items with you... micro first aid kit... flash light... radio... leatherman charge... snacky kinda food / emergency food bars... It would be pretty spartan but with some water it would keep me going long enough to get home or to my car. I really should keep a bottle of water in my commute bag but I keep drinking it.
You can ask at a local hospital for information about state or local blood banks. In NJ I donate through the Blood Center of New Jersey http://www.bloodnj.org/ Blood products donated through a local center will most likely be used locally though. Although this does not directly help anyone in the disaster areas, the fact that there is a disaster there does not mean that there are no longer patients in need near you. Save a life, donate blood.
While you are probably right about it not being strong because there is only one layer it is much stronger than you think. When you tear a piece of paper of an other fabric you are not breaking atomic bonds you are separating fibers that are mushed or spun together.
A better comparison would be thinking about tearing a piece of aluminum foil. It is very hard to cause it to separate under tension and you have to add sheering forces to get a fracture to start.
You are correct, commercial speech does not have the same extent of protection as free expression and as such laws and ordnances can be past that can greatly limit the venue of commercial speech while on the other hand it is much more difficult to pass a law that places limits on personal speech. This does not mean that you as an individual are allowed to tear down, block or prevent commercial speech that is not otherwise barred by law. Using the terms speech and expression interchangeably, In a free society all speech, commercial or private, should be afforded the greatest benefit of the doubt, in general errors should be committed on the grounds of being overly permissive, not as being overly oppressive. Thus, unless specifically barred all speech should be considered allowed. It is in the forming of the rules to allow or to bar specific forms of speech that the distinction between commercial and personal speech becomes important.
Further societies operate as a cooperation of individuals. As such it is not the place of any individual or group of individuals to make decisions on behalf of the whole unless selected in some form by the whole to operate on their behalf.
While you are correct in stating that the First Amendment specifically prohibits the governments suppression of free expression, it was included because the framers of the Constitution realized that in order for a society to be free its individuals must be able to openly express and discuss any idea.
Your idea of freedom is "The government can not suppress speech but, me, a private citizen can" is missing the whole point. For clarity of my argument though, you are correct, I should have kept the discussion generic as to infringing on the right of expression and shouldn't have evoked the First Amendment.
Further, freedoms are not always complete and absolute, in a free and civilized society many rights are contingent on there expression not infringing on the rights of others. This argument that it is my freedom and right of expression to emit a signal that just might happen to turn off a TV must not abridge my right to use a TV to express myself.
Having my TV on does not interfere with your right to transmit this signal, but irresponsible expression of your right to this signal can interfere with my right to use a TV to convey a particular message or provide a service to my customers. It would not place any undue burden on you to transmit your signal in a way that will not interfere with my rights to using a TV as a means to convey a message.
In reality the intention of emitting the signal is specifically to turn of the TV in question and the argument that TV owners/users are unjustly interfering with a right to emit the signal is just a lame excuse to gain some credibility for the argument.
bah I hate my lack of spelling skills and evil spell checkers... paragraph 5
2) The Private/Public case is a little more consensus
should read
2) The Private/Public case is a little more contentious
No, it isn't quite the same as spam filtering. When you filter a spam server based on black list you are preventing it from sending you spam... you are not turning it off which would prevent it from sending anyone else spam. Your email in box is on your system, or it is on a system that someone is providing for your use, it is (or should be) your right to allow or block mail from any source you choose.
Obtrusive TV can come in one of 3 forms: A private TV in a private venue (a TV in a bar for example); A private TV in a public venue (a TV inside a store but pointed out the store window.) A public TV in a public venue (a bit more rare... an example would be TV monitors in subway stations/trains that show train schedule information and news.)
In the following I will assume that in none of the cases you are the person that owns the TV, venue or is otherwise responsible for the TV or venue.
1) Private/private: I am sorry, as much as you may not like it, it is no more your right to turn off the TV a bar or restaurant owner has chosen to play than it is to decide who he or she is allowed to have as customers or what items they should have on their menus. It is your right to choose to eat/drink/seek entertainment someplace else though. Just because you do not like it does not mean the proprietor of an establishment must choose to accommodate you. You can ask for it to be turned off and they will choose between your business and the business of the people that enjoy having the TV on.
2) The Private/Public case is a little more consensus... but in my opinion should be considered in the same light as bills, billboards and placards. Taking it upon yourself to turn of any TV that bothers you is an unfair abridgment of the owners first amendment right. Just because you do not agree with the message or the media it is presented on does not give you the right to suppress it. Part of living in a free society is living with others that wish to enjoy their freedom as well and I am sorry but your "freedom from distracting television" is not as important as others freedom of expression.
3) The Public/Public case (assuming that it truly is a public/public case): Being a public TV in a public place I would assume that some body acting on behalf of the public interest choose to operate a TV running specific programming. Now, just how is it your right as an individual to override this decision on behalf of everyone else because you do not agree with the message or the media? It is your right to complain to the public body responsible for the set and it's programming so they can weigh the requests for with the complaints against and reach a compromise.
I just can not see how it can be your right to turn off a TV that you do not own, on property you do not own with out the owners/operators consent. I applaud the motivation, but the execution is flawed. People if it really bothers you make it known, let the manager of the bar or restaurant you are at know that you find TV a distraction and you will choose to go some place else if they insist on playing it... if there is a public TV in a public place you find objectionable submit a complaint to the governing body. Part of living in a society that cherishes freedom though is accepting that there are other views that must be considered and you just may have to live with a public TV in a public space because the majority wants it and unless we throw the right to freely express one's self out the window you will always have to live with the private TV projecting into a public space, live with it, it's part of being free.
Only nit I have with this, is that in many cases the first pilots were small entrepreneurs not the extraordinarily wealthy. In fact following World War 1 the US government was selling off surplus Jennys for as little as 200 dollars (adjusted based on CPI to 2003 dollars that is only $1840).
Granted this was possible because the US gov. was dumping surplus planes that cost $5,000 ($46,000 adjusted). It still allowed pilots returning from World War One that fell in love with flying the opportunity to perchance a plane for their own use.
As far as commercial air travel goes... I don't have the pricing data available but by the end of the 1950s it was considered that air travel was an average experience and 1958 was the first year that aircraft displaced ocean liners as the primary carrier across the Atlantic.
Read my post again and actually think about it this time. I made a distinction between stealing a token and forging a token. The reason this distinction is important is that you are aware of a theft (missing finger or token) but may not be aware of a forgery because you still have yours and the person attempting to crack your system is using an illicit copy.
The significance of this is that while it is hard/unlikely to physically take your fingerprint from you, while not trivial, it is not extremely difficult to forge a copy of your fingerprint. A cryptographically strong token is much harder to forge, but much easier to pick up and walk away with if not properly attended.
Which leads to the engineering decision... which system is better? Is it harder to protect my fingerprint from being copied or is it harder to protect a physical token from being stolen. In the closing of my post I even state that I favor keys over fingerprints for just this very reason, I do believe it is easier to protect a key from theft than it is to protect my fingerprint from forgery.
In your rush to post what you though was a witty comment must have missed all this. Try reading and understanding... then make a witty comment about the real issue, that I didn't make a point clearly. You won't come off as a big of a fool next time.
Oh, and we all know that EVERYTHING we see in TV crime drama's are accurate portrayals of real life.
Even if it can... it is not totally useless. Strong authentication theory basically says for an authentication method to really be strong it has to be comprised of two parts: something you have, and something you know.
;)
Biometric measurements are attractive candidates for the "something you have" part because they are unique, in most cases easy to read and convenient... i.e. never left behind. On there own though they do not provide a strong authentication solution... but even then, a large bit-length key on a USB or serial device does not provide strong authentication on its own as the key can always be stolen or compromised.
A finger print tied to a password on the other hand renders the entire system much, much more secure. It is up for debate if this is more secure in general than a key/password solution though... the trade off is something that is easier to use, more convenient for the user in hopes that it is used and used correctly vs a solution that is inherently stronger but more cumbersome for the user and more likely to be abused (leaving the key plugged in all the time for instance).
Comparing fingerprints to a USB key as a solution to the "something you have" challenge in a security response:
Fingerprint:
+ Impractical to steal
+ Always with you
+ Standard format
- Relatively easy to forge for optical scanners
- May change over time
USB Key:
+ Hard to forge
+ Stable format
- Not always on hand, could be left behind, lost, forgotten
- Can be stolen
- More difficult to provide a standard interface
One of the reasons I personally favor keys, while they can be stolen the effort required to secure a key based token is much easier than the effort required to prevent leaving fingerprints around (unless you want to start wearing gloves all the time). Also if your key based token is stolen (or lost) you know it is gone, until you detect a break-in after the fact you will not know if a print has been forged... you would probably be aware if someone stole a print by removing a finger though
In my own (non-expert opinion) I would rank various authentication techniques as follows from most secure to least:
Long bit-length token + Strong Password
Strong Biometric measurement + Strong Password
Weak Biometric measurement + Strong Password
Long bit-length token
Strong Biometric measurement
Strong Password
Weak Biometric measurement
Not going even bother including weak passwords and not counting improper use/storage of tokens and devices (I consider weak passwords improper use btw). Weak Biometric measurements would be something like optical scanning, strong measurements are stuff like eye prints and thermal scanning/imaging.
Rino 130 for a geek that loves the outdoors
Node Explorer for a geek that needs to be distracted from the outdoors.
Oh... anyone that has uses GMRS/FRS/HAM radio knows that local topology and vegetation can have a huge impact on the range of
A geosynchronous orbit is any orbit with an orbital period that matches the sidereal day, which is 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds in length, and represents the time taken for the Earth to rotate once about its polar axis relative to a distant fixed point.
A geostationary orbit is a special case of a geosynchronous orbit where a satellite appears stationary from the point of view of an observer on the Earth's surface. The conditions for geostationary orbits are:
- The orbit is geosynchronous
- The orbit is a circle
- The orbit lies in the plane of the Earth's equator
The terms are incorrectly used interchangeably...A couple of other handy facts:
Unless any flying car technology scales up very well and economically then roads will remain extremely important to support heavy trucking.
I just wanted to make one small correction, while I had the pressure of Challenger deep correct its depth is only 35838 feet. Thus that line should read:
... or park a submersible on the bottom of challenger deep, under close to 7 miles (10923 m) of water at a pressure exceeding 16000 pounds per square inch (1125 kg/cm^2)
My bad.
Yeah, a rocket engine is complex but you are trying to make it seem like it is harder than any other numerous engineering challenges that have already been surmounted by human kind with trial, error, many times loss of life, but most of all with time until we have finally reached the day when the feat to be accomplished is routine.
I think you vastly underestimate the challenge needed to build a tower hundreds of feet tall that will not topple in the first storm or park a submersible on the bottom of challenger deep, under 11 miles (17700 m) of water at a pressure exceeding 16000 pounds per square inch (1125 kg/cm^2).
To you they are trivial because they have already been bested by engineering. Space is the new challenge and it will still prove to be a hard master for many years to come but we will eventually, given the willingness to challenge it, advance in engineering powers to the point where it too is a routine endeavor.
On thing that I find odd, is that in the context of space exploration loss, and the resulting death is viewed as such a horrible risk that the attempt should not be made. Of course I do not want to see people lose their lives... but I would risk mine to try if I was given the opportunity. Yet still, compare this reaction to the loss in the context of other human endeavors... If we made a roll of all those lost at sea in the name of exploration it would read on for pages, no for volumns upon volumns. Heck it was not that long ago when the building of a skyscraper was considered well managed if fewer than 15 workers died during its construction, but in the exploration of space, any risks seems to great to those of us that would rather we just stay here, at home.
Yes we should acknowledge the danger and we should not take undue risk... but we should not let the fear of loss paralyze us into inaction.
No, you haven't won... you are just ignoring the issue. Even though you do not rely on Big Media for your news and entertainment does not mean that Big Media does not impact your life. I am assuming that you will also claim that you do not read newspapers, magazines or listen to the radio but even this is still not enough. The US, contrary to what some would argue, is still a representative democracy and as such the decisions made by our government at the local, state and federal levels are strongly influenced by public opinion. The fact that you do not rely on Big Media means that they do not shape your opinion but the reason that they are "big" is that they are listened to, viewed by, or read by a large percentage of the population. As such they are in the position to have an extremely large impact on the shaping of public opinion. In effect even though you do not watch TV, you are still being ruled by big media. In order for democracy to remain strong it is essential to have free and competing sources of news and entertainment. You choosing not to watch TV is a step in that direction but by itself is not winning the fight against big media. Civic involvement and campaigning to restructure media regulations along with the development of additional sources of alternate news and entertainment is still needed. Don't stop fighting yet.
Owning a cell phone != being reachable 24/7. For a long time I felt the same way you did and avoided purchasing a cell phone, eventually we changed on call procedures at work which required having a company provided phone while you were on your on-call shift. The upside of this is that we were allowed to use the phones for personal use as well since they had a generous number of minutes on them. I realized a couple of things after having the phone for a while...
The convenience of a cell phone is amazing. Cell phones can be very, very handy when you are meeting people on the go or want to do something spontaneously. They are great to have with you on long drives in case of emergencies, and for staying in touch while traveling.
There is no rule that you always have to keep your phone with you, that you always have to keep it on, or that you always have to answer it. It is really no different than your normal phone except now you have the OPTION to take it with you. I have not once encountered someone that expected me to answer just because I have a cell phone. That is, after all, what voice mail is for.
Not wanting a cell phone is fine, land lines in most areas are still preferable for some uses (if you have the line for DSL already, if your area does not have enhanced 911... etc.) and if you do not talk to others often then it may not be worth the cost to pay for two phone services. But honestly the argument "I do not want to be connected 24/7" is rather silly when you think about it.