The answer depends entirely upon where the intercept is taking place, as well as how interesting the information might be. Traffic analysis can be just as important as the message conveyed, encrypted or otherwise. While some encryption schemes are expensive to reverse, people with power and money might simply move from man in the middle to a bit of door kicking and some force.
It'd be excellent if staff would just use it to check up with friends and family, though what about when the disgruntled HR whore starts pumping out company documents through 3rd party email providers in hopes of taking down the corporate empire? I'd much rather spend my days dealing with viruses, spyware and all the other crud that worker drones get up to. How do you monitor the use of any 3rd party communication services, or better yet, what applications exist that allow the IT drone to reconstruct their non work related activities in a simple visual way - I know there are a hundred network sniffers, proxies, and logs, but who wants to sift through gigabytes of protocol stacks or text. Back when I was working for 'them' we had a nice little black box that would suck down the packet switchers and spit out reconstructed web pages, email, video, etc., I've yet to find any equivalents in the open source world.
You talk about video a lot. I have an IBM thinkpad R40 something with 1 gigabyte of RAM. Using windows XP with the default media player I can play any video I like, full screen, no skipping, good stereo, perfect. The same video in Vista using it's built in media player stutters, has crappy sound, and the player just does everything far more slowly. (The laptop does have 3d acceleration) If I install a 3rd party application in vista like VLC, the video plays almost as well as in XP. My conclusion, vista, for what ever reason, is not worth my money. I'd rather have the CPU cycles used more productively.
The same laptop can handle compiz just fine. I know you said you don't recommend vista, but what I don't understand is the hand waving about some future hardware needed to catch up to the requirements of that OS. Given that a couple of existing operating systems and applications can do everything vista does with much more eye candy and responsiveness, all on older hardware, remind me why it is that anyone needs to be waiting for better hardware? Why should we waste more grunt to run less? I don't care at all for things beneath the skin, I care completely about the skin.
Nobody actually cares which acronym is working for which other than marketing drones and Microsoft employees, the simple solution is just not to penalize network traffic at all, then have that solution out the door yesterday. Don't you think the user should have a bit of a say on where and when throttling occurs rather than just hard code the numbers?
I don't know much about Brazil, though I do know that in the Philippines a 2 gigabyte ipod nano costs pretty close to Php17,500 from the Apple store in Megamall (one of the biggest shopping centers in the country) In USD this is $394.882 as of today. That said, the price isn't that high because of government taxation, it's more to do with the cost of rent, electricity, staff wages, but most of all it simply reflects what people are actually willing to pay for an 'uncommon' item. I guess that's why the Philippines is not on the list you linked to though.
The odd thing is that literally all around the Apple store are vendors selling far cheaper and often much better portable media devices. (Including the fake ipods) These start at about Php2000.
GSM calls are, as a rule, encrypted. It is very unusual to see otherwise. In places where the telco has it switched off, your GSM phone will pop a message on screen letting you know. Once your call hits the cell site, it is decrypted, multiplexed with a bunch of other calls, and sent off to the exchange in the clear. The cell sites are usually linked via radio to other cell sites, or directly to the exchange. Any 3 letter agency worth a damn is going to intercept the unencrypted part of the link, or even better, just stick a box in every major exchange.
I don't class GSM as 'not really confidential' at all given the expense and effort one need go to in order to get voice from a speaker. Your average radio-shack scanner is not going to cut it. Also the signaling system is one complex and time consuming beast if you're just a simple man in the middle.
If you manage to crack the GSM encryption before the call is dropped (not likely), you aren't going to know very much other than what you pick up in conversation. The alternative in this situation is to record the chunks of the radio spectrum you *think* might have an interesting target, then replay through your capture systems with appropriate keys - time consuming and a waste of effort. Logically the best place to go is direct to the telco or some place where the encryption no longer exists.
The problems then become matching up the signaling system info (which is not only out of band, but often completely not even in the same trunk) with the caller and receiver. I guess this is where companies like AT&T have been ~really~ helpful.
Glad I don't live in the US, but then again, where I do live now, most of the systems are installed by foreign companies, so I'm sure there are more than one or two little mystery boxes in place.
If you can point me to a site or information that shows how it is 'trivially easy' to unlock a Nokia N80 (bb5) for 'free', I'll give you any brand new phone you want, for free, and pay all shipping and handling fees for overnight delivery. Yes, I am serious.
The most effective solution I've found to cure co-workers of their spam ranting is to simply switch off all the anti-spam stuff for a few days. Another option is to re-route every bit of spam to the individual(s) making all the noise.
I've had people whine about not receiving email for extended periods, though most often this is because the individual they were expecting to receive it from, simply hasn't sent it. The other times are because I screwed up a setting or two (hundred) on the mail server. Some of those have been expensive mistakes.
I guess they could only afford to send up one of their fancy 3G dual camera phones - Probably forgot to tape it on the right way around and ended up with the vga cam all arse about instead of the 5mega-pixel jibber at the back.
Serious question, what do you actually measure their market share against? How does one define what an OS competitor actually is? Would the few hundred Linux based distributions have a voice, or would it be limited to the few players that are listed on the stock exchange? How would the voice of a thousand Microsoft lawyers and accountants portray their market presence to the decision makers?
The sciences have some fairly comprehensive theories on your questions, no need for an atheist to step up. The last one is rather loaded though, the only person with the right answer is you.
Then call me 'non-human' - I did read the article, I find the conclusions very boxed up and simplistic in their assumptions of religious outcome. Other studies have shown that similar devices can induce states of fear just as well as any feeling of euphoria or having other entities in the same room where none exist.
Then all the observer need do is watch your actions in situations where it would be highly probable, or almost certain, you are not aware of the presence of an external observer.
The definition of love is even harder to pin down than the word 'god' - is anything really ever done unconditionally? There is very probably a much bigger picture that encompasses an explanation or reason.
Your analogy is completely broken. What people have done is simply modify their firmware along with the addition of a few new 3rd party applications. Keeping this in mind, why is it so hard for Apple to release an update that clears all memory first, then installs itself fresh. No bricked phones. Certainly everything may be reset to factory defaults, but that is a good deal more preferable than the situation people find themselves in now.
Nokia updates work this way - Sony Ericsson is very similar.
Yes, really. The 6670 is an old (ancient in Asian terms) model phone based on an old version of Symbian. Since Nokia started their fluff piece on openness, it is only fair to discuss this in light of their current operating system of the day - which is far from open.
It depends upon how you define 'open' - does open also mean you need to request an 'All Files' cert from Nokia just to get access to the file system? (A certificate they don't give out by the way, ever)
Nokia is full of shit, symbian might allow 3rd party apps, though as long as they force the use of their certificate based crap for ALL applications and themes, then the platform is not open at all. They can and have blocked access to new users at symbian signed. Hypocrites is all I have to say.
And sadly simplistic in the extreme to counter for any spammer that has at their disposal thousands upon thousands of throw away domain names. Access logs would show in short order which IP's are visiting those sites. Unless google has a huge IP block that nobody knows about, it's not going to work for more than 5 minutes or so.
Somewhere along the way someone probably said the same thing about the cathode ray tube and LCD panels. Doesn't matter, if it looks better, uses less power, and runs cooler, I'll buy at least one. I don't think the average person cares much at all about 'intended use', it's more simple than that - if it can be done, people will do it.
Slashdot Mirror
I call it 'the shitter' and you call it the 'Throne Room' :-)
The answer depends entirely upon where the intercept is taking place, as well as how interesting the information might be. Traffic analysis can be just as important as the message conveyed, encrypted or otherwise. While some encryption schemes are expensive to reverse, people with power and money might simply move from man in the middle to a bit of door kicking and some force.
It'd be excellent if staff would just use it to check up with friends and family, though what about when the disgruntled HR whore starts pumping out company documents through 3rd party email providers in hopes of taking down the corporate empire? I'd much rather spend my days dealing with viruses, spyware and all the other crud that worker drones get up to. How do you monitor the use of any 3rd party communication services, or better yet, what applications exist that allow the IT drone to reconstruct their non work related activities in a simple visual way - I know there are a hundred network sniffers, proxies, and logs, but who wants to sift through gigabytes of protocol stacks or text. Back when I was working for 'them' we had a nice little black box that would suck down the packet switchers and spit out reconstructed web pages, email, video, etc., I've yet to find any equivalents in the open source world.
You talk about video a lot. I have an IBM thinkpad R40 something with 1 gigabyte of RAM. Using windows XP with the default media player I can play any video I like, full screen, no skipping, good stereo, perfect. The same video in Vista using it's built in media player stutters, has crappy sound, and the player just does everything far more slowly. (The laptop does have 3d acceleration) If I install a 3rd party application in vista like VLC, the video plays almost as well as in XP. My conclusion, vista, for what ever reason, is not worth my money. I'd rather have the CPU cycles used more productively.
The same laptop can handle compiz just fine. I know you said you don't recommend vista, but what I don't understand is the hand waving about some future hardware needed to catch up to the requirements of that OS. Given that a couple of existing operating systems and applications can do everything vista does with much more eye candy and responsiveness, all on older hardware, remind me why it is that anyone needs to be waiting for better hardware? Why should we waste more grunt to run less? I don't care at all for things beneath the skin, I care completely about the skin.
Nobody actually cares which acronym is working for which other than marketing drones and Microsoft employees, the simple solution is just not to penalize network traffic at all, then have that solution out the door yesterday. Don't you think the user should have a bit of a say on where and when throttling occurs rather than just hard code the numbers?
I don't know much about Brazil, though I do know that in the Philippines a 2 gigabyte ipod nano costs pretty close to Php17,500 from the Apple store in Megamall (one of the biggest shopping centers in the country) In USD this is $394.882 as of today. That said, the price isn't that high because of government taxation, it's more to do with the cost of rent, electricity, staff wages, but most of all it simply reflects what people are actually willing to pay for an 'uncommon' item. I guess that's why the Philippines is not on the list you linked to though.
The odd thing is that literally all around the Apple store are vendors selling far cheaper and often much better portable media devices. (Including the fake ipods) These start at about Php2000.
GSM calls are, as a rule, encrypted. It is very unusual to see otherwise. In places where the telco has it switched off, your GSM phone will pop a message on screen letting you know. Once your call hits the cell site, it is decrypted, multiplexed with a bunch of other calls, and sent off to the exchange in the clear. The cell sites are usually linked via radio to other cell sites, or directly to the exchange. Any 3 letter agency worth a damn is going to intercept the unencrypted part of the link, or even better, just stick a box in every major exchange.
I don't class GSM as 'not really confidential' at all given the expense and effort one need go to in order to get voice from a speaker. Your average radio-shack scanner is not going to cut it. Also the signaling system is one complex and time consuming beast if you're just a simple man in the middle.
If you manage to crack the GSM encryption before the call is dropped (not likely), you aren't going to know very much other than what you pick up in conversation. The alternative in this situation is to record the chunks of the radio spectrum you *think* might have an interesting target, then replay through your capture systems with appropriate keys - time consuming and a waste of effort. Logically the best place to go is direct to the telco or some place where the encryption no longer exists.
The problems then become matching up the signaling system info (which is not only out of band, but often completely not even in the same trunk) with the caller and receiver. I guess this is where companies like AT&T have been ~really~ helpful.
Glad I don't live in the US, but then again, where I do live now, most of the systems are installed by foreign companies, so I'm sure there are more than one or two little mystery boxes in place.
If you can point me to a site or information that shows how it is 'trivially easy' to unlock a Nokia N80 (bb5) for 'free', I'll give you any brand new phone you want, for free, and pay all shipping and handling fees for overnight delivery. Yes, I am serious.
The most effective solution I've found to cure co-workers of their spam ranting is to simply switch off all the anti-spam stuff for a few days. Another option is to re-route every bit of spam to the individual(s) making all the noise.
I've had people whine about not receiving email for extended periods, though most often this is because the individual they were expecting to receive it from, simply hasn't sent it. The other times are because I screwed up a setting or two (hundred) on the mail server. Some of those have been expensive mistakes.
I guess they could only afford to send up one of their fancy 3G dual camera phones - Probably forgot to tape it on the right way around and ended up with the vga cam all arse about instead of the 5mega-pixel jibber at the back.
Stealing or copyright infringement? It makes a difference!
Serious question, what do you actually measure their market share against? How does one define what an OS competitor actually is? Would the few hundred Linux based distributions have a voice, or would it be limited to the few players that are listed on the stock exchange? How would the voice of a thousand Microsoft lawyers and accountants portray their market presence to the decision makers?
Your checking doesn't explain why they are a fortune 500 company - other than fast food, what product do they sell again?
If their food is so bad, why do several hundred million people around the world eat it every day?
The sciences have some fairly comprehensive theories on your questions, no need for an atheist to step up. The last one is rather loaded though, the only person with the right answer is you.
Then call me 'non-human' - I did read the article, I find the conclusions very boxed up and simplistic in their assumptions of religious outcome. Other studies have shown that similar devices can induce states of fear just as well as any feeling of euphoria or having other entities in the same room where none exist.
I'm not aware of any questions or situations that would require an atheist to provide an answer. Enlighten me.
Then all the observer need do is watch your actions in situations where it would be highly probable, or almost certain, you are not aware of the presence of an external observer.
The definition of love is even harder to pin down than the word 'god' - is anything really ever done unconditionally? There is very probably a much bigger picture that encompasses an explanation or reason.
What happens if you wrap this thing around the head of an Atheist? What do they feel?
Your analogy is completely broken. What people have done is simply modify their firmware along with the addition of a few new 3rd party applications. Keeping this in mind, why is it so hard for Apple to release an update that clears all memory first, then installs itself fresh. No bricked phones. Certainly everything may be reset to factory defaults, but that is a good deal more preferable than the situation people find themselves in now.
Nokia updates work this way - Sony Ericsson is very similar.
I really hope this class action thing succeeds.
Smoke, sometimes quite a surprising amount of smoke!
Yes, really. The 6670 is an old (ancient in Asian terms) model phone based on an old version of Symbian. Since Nokia started their fluff piece on openness, it is only fair to discuss this in light of their current operating system of the day - which is far from open.
It depends upon how you define 'open' - does open also mean you need to request an 'All Files' cert from Nokia just to get access to the file system? (A certificate they don't give out by the way, ever)
Nokia is full of shit, symbian might allow 3rd party apps, though as long as they force the use of their certificate based crap for ALL applications and themes, then the platform is not open at all. They can and have blocked access to new users at symbian signed. Hypocrites is all I have to say.
And sadly simplistic in the extreme to counter for any spammer that has at their disposal thousands upon thousands of throw away domain names. Access logs would show in short order which IP's are visiting those sites. Unless google has a huge IP block that nobody knows about, it's not going to work for more than 5 minutes or so.
Somewhere along the way someone probably said the same thing about the cathode ray tube and LCD panels. Doesn't matter, if it looks better, uses less power, and runs cooler, I'll buy at least one. I don't think the average person cares much at all about 'intended use', it's more simple than that - if it can be done, people will do it.
Thanks, all crystal clear now, wish I could retract my previous post a little :-) Teach me to spout off before properly understanding the method.