I couldn't agree more. The person who write the summary obviously has zero concept of being an academic in the current millennia. Ego? Oh please. The modern academic is expected to undertake usually four or five roles at the same time (teaching, research, professional engagement, administration *shudder*). Every one of these categories has a "metric" and if an activity doesn't fall into one of these categories then why the hell are you doing it? If it isn't part of your job, you've just wasted time that should have been spent doing your job(s)! And as others have repeatedly stated, one day later the several hours of effort you put in to create a wp entry gets wiped by someone who has a chip on their shoulder and the knowledge off a cornflakes box. Ok - maybe that was a little jab also, but try walking a mile in the shoes of an academic before you start the "ivory tower", "ego" and other name calling.
I am an Australian, suffer from Chrohns, and I have been on Humira for the past 14 months, and have almost no symptoms now: 18 months ago I was in hospital facing major surgery. You have to jump through a few hoops to get it (google for CDAI), but Medicare will pay for it. It costs the government $1800 a month, but I pay more than that in tax, and if I didn't get this drug, I wouldn't be working (or paying tax), which would cost the govt more in the long run.
In Australian Universities (at least the one I work for anyway), students retain all IP rights to any research they conduct. As staff though, we get no rights for anything we come up with. Well, it used to be that way until one professor who developed a new way to treat liver cancer challenged the University he worked for. The judege ruled in his favour stating that there is no contractual 'duty to invent'. Here's the story if anyone is interested...
At the Australian University I work for, and I believe it is the same for all, the students retain the IP for any creative work they produce. This applies to both undergrad and postgrad students, but interestingly, does NOT apply to staff. However, a recent law suit saw an Academic sue the Univeristy he worked for over a patent realting to a drug he created. The court found in his favour stating that acedmics are empoyed to conduct research, and not to invent. From the judgment "...a duty to research does not carry with it a duty to invent". http://www.managingip.com/Article/1922287/Australian-court-highlights-university-patent-dangers.html/
Your two home computers are called 'orac' and 'zen':)
I remember that one of the very few occassions as a youngster that I was allowed to stay up 'late' was to watch Blakes 7 on the TV. Fortunately my Mum was into Sci-Fi so she used to let me stay up past my bed-time to watch it. It was usually on an hour or so after Doctor Who had finished, so it used to be a double dose of Sci-fi goodness. Watched the first episode of Blakes again a year or so ago and my god has it aged! I am not really sure a re-make is a good idea - I think it may just ruin the memory.
The post states that "Information thieves, it seems, are just one step ahead of IT security.". I disagree with this, but it all depends on your definition of IT security, mine being more on the tech side in relation to protection, countermeasures and network forensics. The article really does not make any claim that IT security is at fault, but rather that counter measures to known threats are not being empyloyed. In relation to the quoted statement above, I would say that information theives are five steps ahead of those of don't take measures to protect against threats, rather than being ahead of IT security. I guess it could be argued that IT security is indirectly responsible, or failing, as user education and policy are major parts of protecting corporate networks and data. The failure in these cases seems to be more related to a lack of user knowledge or failure to adhere to policy / weak policy, rather than a complete inability of IT security to protect information. Everyone knows that the internet is a dangerous place (TM), even my grandma. For those in government, schools etc to have data stolen and claim that they didn't know about the risks posed of using online data systems is just plain stupid. According to TFA, the biggest theft of information occurred due to the use of a wireless network. "What! Wireless isn't secure? I had no idea!" Only if you had your head firmly wedged up your own back passage could you as a security professional, or even semi professional;) claim that you had no idea of the many vulnerabilities of wireless networks...
Was fairly unpleasant wasn't it? Bit harsh to get modded "off-topic" because the original got wiped I thought. Probably should have seen that coming though...
Evanescent lasers - Goths with Fricken Laser beams atached to their heads? Or lasers which cause the targets to dress in black and mope around the place...
Your experience of the use of encryption probably stems from the fact that you work with local police on small scale criminals rathern than for the CIA on big inernational operations. Sorry, but you are incorrect in terms of my experience, but I would be happy to know what your experience is (your website appears to be offline BTW) that lead you to make your post. I believe that the title was 'encryption use is low', not 'its only used by small time crims'. The (sad) fact of the matter is that the vast quantity of computer related crimes IS small time, or corporate related. The CP example I gave was just one: there are others which I can't talk about. As to terrorism, if you would like to give me some actual examples of terrorists using sophisticated technology (I don't mean webmail or IM) for their info warfare operations, I would be happy to see them. Do you really believe that the CIA is going to be anything more than just delayed in getting a password to read an encrypted volume / file? I'm not just talking about brute force cracking either - there are other ways...
Fair enough point, and I need to be a bit careful about what I say, but the guys I work with don't normally just grab people at random. If they show up at your door, then they usually already know what they are going to find. The seizure is so that a case can be made and put before a judge / court. They have more than enough work than they can handle now without doing random PC seizures.
Part of my job entails working with law enforcement officials in the field of digital forensics. They have told me that the use of any encryption system by criminals is very low, to the point of non-existent. This is fortunate for the Police, as it makes it easier for them to keep these scumbags off the streets (unfortunately a lot of the crime they deal with is child pornography). There are so many barriers to Bitlockers use (TPM, correct version of Vista, off by default etc etc), that its widespread use just doesn't seem likely. If the bad guys aren't using EFS and other encryption systems now, and these are easy to implement, why would they bother of going through the hassle to use Bitlocker? There are also laws being enacted in certain countries to force the bad guy to give up passwords/ keys etc (ie we are going to lock you up until you give it to use so you may as well do it now...).
I would just like to preface my comments by saying that I am a lecturer at an Australian university, and I also hold a postgraduate educational qualification.
It is disappointing to see posts in here referring to students who do not attend lectures as being "bad". Students have a lot to deal with now: many have to work at least part, if not full time, to support themselves. It is unfortunate, but a reality that some of them are going to have to miss classes due to work commitments. And surely, would not these students make better potential employees when they have finished? By forcing them to attend a class, how are you helping them? Seems to me that this is a form of punishment, not incentive.
There are other reasons as to why students don't attend lectures: one-way delivery of information is not an appropriate form of communication for a lot of students, and mostly doesn't provide anythying that you can't get from reading the text book. I personally do not hold a traditional "lecture" as such anymore, but rather a short presentation from myself about the key points for this weeks material, followed by class discussion topics or some other form of interactive exercise. And yes, the students do all participate, and they also do very well when it comes assessment time.
But, I hear you ask, what about those students who cannot make it to lectures? How do they benefit from your lecture "style"? Directly, they don't. However, for those people, we have lecture notes, quizes, and other material available on-line. Mostly, the people who do not come to class do so because of other commitments (work), and not because they are "bad". These students who work are very well aware of the consequences of failing due to the fact that they are in the "real" world. For them, failure really isn't an option, so they find the time to do the work. They may not always do brilliantly, but they rarely fail. In my experience, maybe 1 out of 100 students fails to do any work and subsequently fail the unit. But there are usually other issues in play, such as they are from another country, or they currently lack maturity (some students are only 17 years old for their entire first year of university). Does this make them bad? I would say not.
Bad students? I would say the problem is bad lecturers. The make-up of the student population is changing, and lecturers / professors need to change the way they operate if we are going to maintain the quality of higher education. Technology can help in education, but needs to be used to support a better style of teaching, not to supplement an outdated model.
Thats funny, I just want a three assed monkey, but I don't think that's likely to happen either:(
But seriously, the current federal government is so out of touch it isn't funny. These idiots actually think that it is possible to simply "filter the internet". Maybe I will suggest to them that the best solution is to download the entire internet, edit out the bits they don't want and then have ISPs link to it. Then again maybe not. Given that they think filtering is possible, who knows where that suggestion may lead...
I think it is quite ironic that the company who run auctions (where I am sure people are artificially bidding to inflate the price) end up buying something which has an artificially inflated price...
The Pentium 4 performs much less work per cycle than other CPUs (such as the various Athlon or older Pentium III architectures) but the original design objective - to sacrifice instructions per clock cycle in order to achieve a greater number of cycles per second (i.e. greater frequency or clockspeed) - has been fulfilled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4
And in case you aren't satisfied with that:
As early as 2000, THG observed that the Pentium 4's performance was clearly inferior to that of its predecessor, the Pentium III, on a clock-for-clock basis.http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/
There are a ton of other sources, just try googling...
I am one of the prof geeks you refer to, who works at a University and we do have the equipment to test this (ie 7GHz Spectrum Analyser), and we did exactly that when the first P4 2.4 GHz CPUs appeared a few years ago. We built an antenna tuned to the correct frequency, hooked it up to the Spec An, turned it on, pulled the case off, put the antenna in and we got... nothing. Not a peep. Zip. Buck all. This was as we expected, but we thought we'd do it anyway. So you can all put your conspiracy theories away!;)
Sorry mate, but clock speed (Hz) doesn't actually directly relate to operations per second. Case in point: the first Intel P4s were clocked higher than PIIIs but performed less opertions per cycle, and were in fact slower than the PIIIs!!! Also the reason why Athlon went to the "Performance Rating (PR)" instead of using raw clock speed.
Slashdot Mirror
So if recycled people is Soylent Green, recycled waste must be Soylent Brown?
+10 for you sir!
I couldn't agree more. The person who write the summary obviously has zero concept of being an academic in the current millennia. Ego? Oh please. The modern academic is expected to undertake usually four or five roles at the same time (teaching, research, professional engagement, administration *shudder*). Every one of these categories has a "metric" and if an activity doesn't fall into one of these categories then why the hell are you doing it? If it isn't part of your job, you've just wasted time that should have been spent doing your job(s)! And as others have repeatedly stated, one day later the several hours of effort you put in to create a wp entry gets wiped by someone who has a chip on their shoulder and the knowledge off a cornflakes box. Ok - maybe that was a little jab also, but try walking a mile in the shoes of an academic before you start the "ivory tower", "ego" and other name calling.
+1 for you sir.
I thought exactly the same thing as I read the post you are referring to. For the record I hold a PhD in plant physiology ;)
I am an Australian, suffer from Chrohns, and I have been on Humira for the past 14 months, and have almost no symptoms now: 18 months ago I was in hospital facing major surgery. You have to jump through a few hoops to get it (google for CDAI), but Medicare will pay for it. It costs the government $1800 a month, but I pay more than that in tax, and if I didn't get this drug, I wouldn't be working (or paying tax), which would cost the govt more in the long run.
"...research which showed people still use COBOL at least 10 times throughout the course of an average working day in Australia."
Given that the average Australian works about 2 hours a day, that's a lot of COBOL...
http://http//www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=404351§ioncode=26
At the Australian University I work for, and I believe it is the same for all, the students retain the IP for any creative work they produce. This applies to both undergrad and postgrad students, but interestingly, does NOT apply to staff. However, a recent law suit saw an Academic sue the Univeristy he worked for over a patent realting to a drug he created. The court found in his favour stating that acedmics are empoyed to conduct research, and not to invent. From the judgment "...a duty to research does not carry with it a duty to invent". http://www.managingip.com/Article/1922287/Australian-court-highlights-university-patent-dangers.html/
Your two home computers are called 'orac' and 'zen' :)
I remember that one of the very few occassions as a youngster that I was allowed to stay up 'late' was to watch Blakes 7 on the TV. Fortunately my Mum was into Sci-Fi so she used to let me stay up past my bed-time to watch it. It was usually on an hour or so after Doctor Who had finished, so it used to be a double dose of Sci-fi goodness. Watched the first episode of Blakes again a year or so ago and my god has it aged! I am not really sure a re-make is a good idea - I think it may just ruin the memory.The post states that "Information thieves, it seems, are just one step ahead of IT security.". I disagree with this, but it all depends on your definition of IT security, mine being more on the tech side in relation to protection, countermeasures and network forensics. The article really does not make any claim that IT security is at fault, but rather that counter measures to known threats are not being empyloyed. In relation to the quoted statement above, I would say that information theives are five steps ahead of those of don't take measures to protect against threats, rather than being ahead of IT security. I guess it could be argued that IT security is indirectly responsible, or failing, as user education and policy are major parts of protecting corporate networks and data. The failure in these cases seems to be more related to a lack of user knowledge or failure to adhere to policy / weak policy, rather than a complete inability of IT security to protect information. Everyone knows that the internet is a dangerous place (TM), even my grandma. For those in government, schools etc to have data stolen and claim that they didn't know about the risks posed of using online data systems is just plain stupid. According to TFA, the biggest theft of information occurred due to the use of a wireless network. "What! Wireless isn't secure? I had no idea!" Only if you had your head firmly wedged up your own back passage could you as a security professional, or even semi professional ;) claim that you had no idea of the many vulnerabilities of wireless networks...
Was fairly unpleasant wasn't it? Bit harsh to get modded "off-topic" because the original got wiped I thought. Probably should have seen that coming though...
Wow! I suspected that the RIAA read /. but I didn't think they posted here too..
Evanescent lasers - Goths with Fricken Laser beams atached to their heads? Or lasers which cause the targets to dress in black and mope around the place...
Fair enough point, and I need to be a bit careful about what I say, but the guys I work with don't normally just grab people at random. If they show up at your door, then they usually already know what they are going to find. The seizure is so that a case can be made and put before a judge / court. They have more than enough work than they can handle now without doing random PC seizures.
Part of my job entails working with law enforcement officials in the field of digital forensics. They have told me that the use of any encryption system by criminals is very low, to the point of non-existent. This is fortunate for the Police, as it makes it easier for them to keep these scumbags off the streets (unfortunately a lot of the crime they deal with is child pornography). There are so many barriers to Bitlockers use (TPM, correct version of Vista, off by default etc etc), that its widespread use just doesn't seem likely. If the bad guys aren't using EFS and other encryption systems now, and these are easy to implement, why would they bother of going through the hassle to use Bitlocker? There are also laws being enacted in certain countries to force the bad guy to give up passwords/ keys etc (ie we are going to lock you up until you give it to use so you may as well do it now...).
It is disappointing to see posts in here referring to students who do not attend lectures as being "bad". Students have a lot to deal with now: many have to work at least part, if not full time, to support themselves. It is unfortunate, but a reality that some of them are going to have to miss classes due to work commitments. And surely, would not these students make better potential employees when they have finished? By forcing them to attend a class, how are you helping them? Seems to me that this is a form of punishment, not incentive.
There are other reasons as to why students don't attend lectures: one-way delivery of information is not an appropriate form of communication for a lot of students, and mostly doesn't provide anythying that you can't get from reading the text book. I personally do not hold a traditional "lecture" as such anymore, but rather a short presentation from myself about the key points for this weeks material, followed by class discussion topics or some other form of interactive exercise. And yes, the students do all participate, and they also do very well when it comes assessment time.
But, I hear you ask, what about those students who cannot make it to lectures? How do they benefit from your lecture "style"? Directly, they don't. However, for those people, we have lecture notes, quizes, and other material available on-line. Mostly, the people who do not come to class do so because of other commitments (work), and not because they are "bad". These students who work are very well aware of the consequences of failing due to the fact that they are in the "real" world. For them, failure really isn't an option, so they find the time to do the work. They may not always do brilliantly, but they rarely fail. In my experience, maybe 1 out of 100 students fails to do any work and subsequently fail the unit. But there are usually other issues in play, such as they are from another country, or they currently lack maturity (some students are only 17 years old for their entire first year of university). Does this make them bad? I would say not.
Bad students? I would say the problem is bad lecturers. The make-up of the student population is changing, and lecturers / professors need to change the way they operate if we are going to maintain the quality of higher education. Technology can help in education, but needs to be used to support a better style of teaching, not to supplement an outdated model.
But seriously, the current federal government is so out of touch it isn't funny. These idiots actually think that it is possible to simply "filter the internet". Maybe I will suggest to them that the best solution is to download the entire internet, edit out the bits they don't want and then have ISPs link to it. Then again maybe not. Given that they think filtering is possible, who knows where that suggestion may lead...
I think it is quite ironic that the company who run auctions (where I am sure people are artificially bidding to inflate the price) end up buying something which has an artificially inflated price...
Dammit! I only just learnt "don't whizz on the electric fence" (the hard way). Now they want us to piss on electric stuff? I'm confused!
The Pentium 4 performs much less work per cycle than other CPUs (such as the various Athlon or older Pentium III architectures) but the original design objective - to sacrifice instructions per clock cycle in order to achieve a greater number of cycles per second (i.e. greater frequency or clockspeed) - has been fulfilled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_4
And in case you aren't satisfied with that:
As early as 2000, THG observed that the Pentium 4's performance was clearly inferior to that of its predecessor, the Pentium III, on a clock-for-clock basis. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/
There are a ton of other sources, just try googling...
I am one of the prof geeks you refer to, who works at a University and we do have the equipment to test this (ie 7GHz Spectrum Analyser), and we did exactly that when the first P4 2.4 GHz CPUs appeared a few years ago. We built an antenna tuned to the correct frequency, hooked it up to the Spec An, turned it on, pulled the case off, put the antenna in and we got... nothing. Not a peep. Zip. Buck all. This was as we expected, but we thought we'd do it anyway. So you can all put your conspiracy theories away! ;)
Sorry mate, but clock speed (Hz) doesn't actually directly relate to operations per second. Case in point: the first Intel P4s were clocked higher than PIIIs but performed less opertions per cycle, and were in fact slower than the PIIIs!!! Also the reason why Athlon went to the "Performance Rating (PR)" instead of using raw clock speed.
The early SDRAM based P4 CPUs were absolutely low end. Ran like a dog and high end PIII outperformed them. Low end then, lower now...
You're just being greedy. Three's enough for me! ;)
Never mind that, where's my three-assed monkey!