The company I work for is considering it because many of our internal apps were developed specifically for IE. We've got a pretty good firefox population and they are savvy enough to switch to IE when going to these poorly written apps, but the rest of our less technical users would be better served by an app that defaults to firefox rendering but switches to IE for the ill behaved apps.
I've been leading a move away from Solaris and to Linux for the last several years at a very large company. I've used 'Solaris' and 'Linux' only because these are the terms in the article. Truth be told I have been leading a move from UltraSPARC* to x86. While I am an ardent Linux supporter the biggest business reason to move to Linux is to be able to make use of a solid Unix-like OS on the much faster/cheaper/fill-in-you-favorite-er x86 platform. Sun has done a good job of reducing the initial purchase of many of their models, but there support costs are still astronomically high.
I'd welcome the opensourcing of Solaris only because it would mean that Linux could incorporate the parts of the operating system that allow Sun to succeed in the high end market.
Fixed defenses are of limited use in a modern war. It is unlikely that a foreign power will use non-conventional weapons in a first strike manner. The notion of Mutually Assured Destruction guarantees the need for a suicidal maniac to be in power in one of the opposing nations for first strike attack to be considered. A nuclear strike is a death rattle, not an opening volley.
It is therefore likely that a battle between developed nations would engage with conventional missiles, airpower and support from the sea. It is likely that most fixed installations would be destroyed in the first round of the attack (this is also most likely true in the case of a non-conventional attack).
Just as the above poster pointed out, the US kept an upper hand in the cold war through the used of mobile deterents in the form of nuclear submarines and stealth bombers.
This airborne missile defense system is the mobile deterent of the new war. The Bush doctrine has us taking it to the terrorists. It also has us attacking and undermining the powerbase. 5-10 years from now, when Iraq and Afghanistan are stabilized (at tremendous cost to the United States - both in dollars and lives) America is going to be looking to combine the democratized Middle East, and Iran is the next domino. Iran has significant missile technology and while they may not be able to hit the US, they can certainly hit 10-15 US allies, including Turkey, Kuwait, and Qatar, the other 'stabilizing forces' in the region, not to mention Israel. A fleet of planes like this could be used in combination with Patriot Missile systems to protect our allies (and our bases in their territories).
Take the war to the terrorists. Take it to them in their training camps. Take it to them in their mosques and Whadist enclaves. Take it to them wherever they use religion as a guise for hate speak, its a new goddamned millenium and its time for the end of theocracies and dictatorships. America didn't ask for a war of idealologies, but if streets of the middle east want to have one, then we're right here, standing behind the tanks, missiles and other 'implements of destruction', as Arlo Gutherie would have put it. However, if anyone's interested in an open dialogue, a good place to start would be to stop burning our flags in your streets and stop applauding deluded children for massacring others.
No, you fool, upgrading to something because its new is the worst reason to upgrade. We didn't upgrade because the version we were using was stable, bug free and exploit free. The new version, while having more bells and whistles, didn't appreciably improve our ability to protect our laptops. Upgrades for no reason is bad business, its consumerism at its worst, and businesses fail when they act as consumers.
Most of the systems that we have running this tool are those that regularly leave our facility. In this global age it is not unusual for a company of 1300 people to have 200-300 systems outside their network at any given time. A mixture of traveling employees, demonstration products and a variety of rogue systems demands the personal firewall be a part of the concentric rings of security.
Most studies show that a pretty good percent of 'systems intrusion' happens from within a network. The firewall between the intranet and internet is not enough. Personal or server-level firewalls can be considered a supplement to hardening and patch management as ways to keep them secure. Unfortunately this does introduce yet another service running on a box, and the security of a system is a function relative to the number if distinct and unique processes running on it.
This is indeed a particularly nasty worm. Several other divisions of my company are battling infections. The master boot record on an infected host is almost certainly destroyed by this little dandy and any host which might have been rebooted before an infection is detected is inoperable.
Thankfully it is only the relatively recent versions of the software packages that are effected. The divine combination of wisdom and laziness has found this systems administrator blessedly behind the times. The decision to stop upgrading out ISS tools in favor of a push towards OSS now seems all the more prescient.
For those in the community who expect big businesses to flop over to OSS immediately, don't hold your breath. Nothing happens over night because big business is slow, no matter how fast the company's advert department declares them to be. We've been actively switching systems over to Linux and OSS for two years now, but the average depreciation cycle means that it takes a minimum of 5 years to switch over an environment, and that only if you put a stake in the ground. Realistically it takes 7 to 10 years to switch over and IT environment in a company which judges IT investment solely on Cost Benefit Analysis.
With your back ground in medicine and a degree in computer science, you'd be perfectly aligned to join a burgeoning research field. One of the biggest areas that might be applicable is molecular medicine and bioinformatics.
Here comes the troll part... The problem with most whiny slashdotters is that they think CS knowledge is both necessary and sufficient for a technology job. The industry is moved on, and knowledge of business process, ability to interface with customers or niche specialties are going to compose the jobs the survive. Bad news = lots of out of work programmers. Good news = remaining jobs will be high paying and more interesting.
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The company I work for is considering it because many of our internal apps were developed specifically for IE. We've got a pretty good firefox population and they are savvy enough to switch to IE when going to these poorly written apps, but the rest of our less technical users would be better served by an app that defaults to firefox rendering but switches to IE for the ill behaved apps.
I've been leading a move away from Solaris and to Linux for the last several years at a very large company. I've used 'Solaris' and 'Linux' only because these are the terms in the article. Truth be told I have been leading a move from UltraSPARC* to x86. While I am an ardent Linux supporter the biggest business reason to move to Linux is to be able to make use of a solid Unix-like OS on the much faster/cheaper/fill-in-you-favorite-er x86 platform. Sun has done a good job of reducing the initial purchase of many of their models, but there support costs are still astronomically high. I'd welcome the opensourcing of Solaris only because it would mean that Linux could incorporate the parts of the operating system that allow Sun to succeed in the high end market.
Fixed defenses are of limited use in a modern war. It is unlikely that a foreign power will use non-conventional weapons in a first strike manner. The notion of Mutually Assured Destruction guarantees the need for a suicidal maniac to be in power in one of the opposing nations for first strike attack to be considered. A nuclear strike is a death rattle, not an opening volley. It is therefore likely that a battle between developed nations would engage with conventional missiles, airpower and support from the sea. It is likely that most fixed installations would be destroyed in the first round of the attack (this is also most likely true in the case of a non-conventional attack). Just as the above poster pointed out, the US kept an upper hand in the cold war through the used of mobile deterents in the form of nuclear submarines and stealth bombers. This airborne missile defense system is the mobile deterent of the new war. The Bush doctrine has us taking it to the terrorists. It also has us attacking and undermining the powerbase. 5-10 years from now, when Iraq and Afghanistan are stabilized (at tremendous cost to the United States - both in dollars and lives) America is going to be looking to combine the democratized Middle East, and Iran is the next domino. Iran has significant missile technology and while they may not be able to hit the US, they can certainly hit 10-15 US allies, including Turkey, Kuwait, and Qatar, the other 'stabilizing forces' in the region, not to mention Israel. A fleet of planes like this could be used in combination with Patriot Missile systems to protect our allies (and our bases in their territories). Take the war to the terrorists. Take it to them in their training camps. Take it to them in their mosques and Whadist enclaves. Take it to them wherever they use religion as a guise for hate speak, its a new goddamned millenium and its time for the end of theocracies and dictatorships. America didn't ask for a war of idealologies, but if streets of the middle east want to have one, then we're right here, standing behind the tanks, missiles and other 'implements of destruction', as Arlo Gutherie would have put it. However, if anyone's interested in an open dialogue, a good place to start would be to stop burning our flags in your streets and stop applauding deluded children for massacring others.
No, you fool, upgrading to something because its new is the worst reason to upgrade. We didn't upgrade because the version we were using was stable, bug free and exploit free. The new version, while having more bells and whistles, didn't appreciably improve our ability to protect our laptops. Upgrades for no reason is bad business, its consumerism at its worst, and businesses fail when they act as consumers.
Most of the systems that we have running this tool are those that regularly leave our facility. In this global age it is not unusual for a company of 1300 people to have 200-300 systems outside their network at any given time. A mixture of traveling employees, demonstration products and a variety of rogue systems demands the personal firewall be a part of the concentric rings of security.
Most studies show that a pretty good percent of 'systems intrusion' happens from within a network. The firewall between the intranet and internet is not enough. Personal or server-level firewalls can be considered a supplement to hardening and patch management as ways to keep them secure. Unfortunately this does introduce yet another service running on a box, and the security of a system is a function relative to the number if distinct and unique processes running on it.
This is indeed a particularly nasty worm. Several other divisions of my company are battling infections. The master boot record on an infected host is almost certainly destroyed by this little dandy and any host which might have been rebooted before an infection is detected is inoperable. Thankfully it is only the relatively recent versions of the software packages that are effected. The divine combination of wisdom and laziness has found this systems administrator blessedly behind the times. The decision to stop upgrading out ISS tools in favor of a push towards OSS now seems all the more prescient. For those in the community who expect big businesses to flop over to OSS immediately, don't hold your breath. Nothing happens over night because big business is slow, no matter how fast the company's advert department declares them to be. We've been actively switching systems over to Linux and OSS for two years now, but the average depreciation cycle means that it takes a minimum of 5 years to switch over an environment, and that only if you put a stake in the ground. Realistically it takes 7 to 10 years to switch over and IT environment in a company which judges IT investment solely on Cost Benefit Analysis.
And I quote: "...conjures up fears of super-clever robots, the likes of Frankenstein..." Umm yeah.
With your back ground in medicine and a degree in computer science, you'd be perfectly aligned to join a burgeoning research field. One of the biggest areas that might be applicable is molecular medicine and bioinformatics. Here comes the troll part ... The problem with most whiny slashdotters is that they think CS knowledge is both necessary and sufficient for a technology job. The industry is moved on, and knowledge of business process, ability to interface with customers or niche specialties are going to compose the jobs the survive. Bad news = lots of out of work programmers. Good news = remaining jobs will be high paying and more interesting.