A voting machine is just a counter, so it shouldn't be hard to actually create agnostic voting machines.
With that I mean that the voting machine itself never contains any information about the candidates or issues involved in the voting. It will be some extra work matching the vote count with the candidates, but not much if you make sure that you use a hash code for each candidate instead.
This way it's at least harder to have some kind of hard-coded tweak that changes number of votes to improve the chances for a certain candidate.
Now - this actually presents us with the reality that the filtering that occurs on the web is flawed.
If they only could filter junk like spam emails and annoying commercials the filtering would be better.
It's also worth to realize that "illegal" content is available in so many places that it's like filtering water with a colander. ("illegal" because not everything filtered is illegal - or only illegal in one country but not another).
Another impact this has is that whole domains/sites can be filtered out just because there is one single section that may have questionable content or that the site has been hacked.
Now - they actually admit that we are running beta software, but look at all releases Microsoft does. Do they admit that it may take a SP or two before the beta stage is over?
It's still something of a virtual problem, and the biggest problem is usually that there are a few companies that has allocated large number of addresses for internal use - and they should be able to use NAT gateways (which I suspect they already do for security reasons).
It will of course be a big job for those companies to migrate addresses, but it will be worth it. A few companies that allocated those large series aren't even large enough to really be able to use them.
Humans are insignificant for the terms of the universe, but we at least strive to understand it.
We haven't yet fully understood the universe, and even if we do it's so large that it's hard to fathom the span of it.
And did the universe really exist before the big bang or was it created by the big bang? How can one prove something that is hypothetical if we don't have something to measure it against?
Anyway - it is possible that what attracts matter is nothing more than an inert part of matter - or more specific a black hole that currently is invisible because it has consumed all matter near itself a long time ago.
The Big Bang wasn't a "perfect" explosion, and if it had been we wouldn't have had the distribution of galaxies that we have - it would have been a cloud of gas. And since we haven't had a perfect explosion it is possible that the black hole was created at a very early stage of our universe.
The biggest problem with Cobol is all the Cobolists that thinks that everyone else has to adapt to their way of doing things and not necessarily accept that there are more reliable ways of doing things.
Still Cobol systems relies mostly on the exchange of fixed-record files without any real reliability built in and transferred via FTP or tape. Any field not correctly formatted is considered zero or empty and is passed right through causing havoc on invoices etc.
So even though there are a few systems running Web Services and other technology they are still a minority.
Many Cobol programmers are also unwilling to touch more than necessary of the code because it may cause unexpected side-effects. So don't rely on getting the bug fixed in a Cobol system, you may have to make a workaround on the client side.
So there is no wonder that there are funny invoices and things popping up now and then.
Just consider that everything on the internet is going public sooner or later.
Using stupid weak passwords is not a good idea today. Brute force attack on password-protected mailboxes is probably an effective way to go. Sniffing is possible, but since most network traffic today is switched it's not that effective.
But it may of course be a hoax. It's a lot easier to create a hoax than to make a real intrusion. But it will still be a good attack on the target.
It is possible to do a brain scan to detect that a statement is untrue or unsettling in some way, but that doesn't mean that the person is guilty of a specific crime.
It takes a long time of interrogation to be able to measure what's normal and what's not. And even if you get an abnormal reading it may not be caused by guilt - it may be because the subject is unsettling.
The primary objective that the US government has had the last years have been to divert the attention of the US citizens to imagined and potential threats while failing to take care of the necessities at home. This was evident when Katrina struck.
And it's worth to notice that there are more people in the US killed in traffic accidents each month than it was at the 9/11 attacks.
So improved traffic safety measures would have more effective than the hunt for terrorists. But that's not a sexy action.
Taking a test during a job interview means that they are serious about the situation.
The worst thing isn't tests at job interviews it's the work climate at the site where you are going to be located. Is it micro managed or is it goal managed? And job satisfaction is very important for IT workers.
The question is rather why other types of workers aren't tested as much. Why not test lawyers, accountants and administrators?
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 1
And even more important - A manager must understand and admit that he doesn't fully understand what IT work is about and not being too afraid to ask when he doesn't understand.
Even if the answer may be in simplified form, it will get an understanding of how much resources and ho high the cost is for certain actions.
It is possible to track down devices on a network, but you have to have some patience. Most advanced network switches allows you to see which port a certain MAC address is connected to.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a printer or just a box that was used as a hub because it wasn't possible to get a long enough cable somewhere.
But if you have worked in a *NIX environment you have already found out that it's easy to fork a new process and the advantage with processes is that most of the data is local to that process and that you have to explicitly handle interprocess communication. This is what was done before the age of threads.
Threads are easy to create, but they are also dangerous since they can trip eachother heavily by minor programming mistakes. And malicious software often use the weakness of threads in applications.
Slashdot Mirror
How many jobs has been lost due to alleged copyright and patent infringements that may not even have been true?
A voting machine is just a counter, so it shouldn't be hard to actually create agnostic voting machines.
With that I mean that the voting machine itself never contains any information about the candidates or issues involved in the voting. It will be some extra work matching the vote count with the candidates, but not much if you make sure that you use a hash code for each candidate instead.
This way it's at least harder to have some kind of hard-coded tweak that changes number of votes to improve the chances for a certain candidate.
Are you sure that they aren't using quantum computing when counting the votes?
Looks like it's a case of leftovers and discontinued hardware that left the premises.
Even though a device isn't commercially useful anymore it may be useful as spare parts for a hobbyist.
It may also be useful to check who actually did set the value of the items.
Now - this actually presents us with the reality that the filtering that occurs on the web is flawed.
If they only could filter junk like spam emails and annoying commercials the filtering would be better.
It's also worth to realize that "illegal" content is available in so many places that it's like filtering water with a colander. ("illegal" because not everything filtered is illegal - or only illegal in one country but not another).
Another impact this has is that whole domains/sites can be filtered out just because there is one single section that may have questionable content or that the site has been hacked.
Ten? I saw things like that back in the 70's and there have been far too many of them all through history.
You will get better effect if you place a block of wood under the gas pedal.
Now - they actually admit that we are running beta software, but look at all releases Microsoft does. Do they admit that it may take a SP or two before the beta stage is over?
Considering the illogical thing to gang up people on a street with traffic this seems to be a photochop.
But at least it's a good joke!
It's still something of a virtual problem, and the biggest problem is usually that there are a few companies that has allocated large number of addresses for internal use - and they should be able to use NAT gateways (which I suspect they already do for security reasons).
It will of course be a big job for those companies to migrate addresses, but it will be worth it. A few companies that allocated those large series aren't even large enough to really be able to use them.
And many A address series aren't even used today:
IPv4 Global Unicast Address Assignments
So it's not really a critical problem yet.
Humans are insignificant for the terms of the universe, but we at least strive to understand it.
We haven't yet fully understood the universe, and even if we do it's so large that it's hard to fathom the span of it.
And did the universe really exist before the big bang or was it created by the big bang? How can one prove something that is hypothetical if we don't have something to measure it against?
Anyway - it is possible that what attracts matter is nothing more than an inert part of matter - or more specific a black hole that currently is invisible because it has consumed all matter near itself a long time ago.
The Big Bang wasn't a "perfect" explosion, and if it had been we wouldn't have had the distribution of galaxies that we have - it would have been a cloud of gas. And since we haven't had a perfect explosion it is possible that the black hole was created at a very early stage of our universe.
But who knows in reality?
Yes - the Unicode support at Slashdot is really not right.
I'd rather have a rÃksmÃrgÃ¥s (shrimp sandwich)...
The biggest problem with Cobol is all the Cobolists that thinks that everyone else has to adapt to their way of doing things and not necessarily accept that there are more reliable ways of doing things.
Still Cobol systems relies mostly on the exchange of fixed-record files without any real reliability built in and transferred via FTP or tape. Any field not correctly formatted is considered zero or empty and is passed right through causing havoc on invoices etc.
So even though there are a few systems running Web Services and other technology they are still a minority.
Many Cobol programmers are also unwilling to touch more than necessary of the code because it may cause unexpected side-effects. So don't rely on getting the bug fixed in a Cobol system, you may have to make a workaround on the client side.
So there is no wonder that there are funny invoices and things popping up now and then.
Just consider that everything on the internet is going public sooner or later.
Using stupid weak passwords is not a good idea today. Brute force attack on password-protected mailboxes is probably an effective way to go. Sniffing is possible, but since most network traffic today is switched it's not that effective.
But it may of course be a hoax. It's a lot easier to create a hoax than to make a real intrusion. But it will still be a good attack on the target.
Nah! - It was someone with a mirror playing games!
It is possible to do a brain scan to detect that a statement is untrue or unsettling in some way, but that doesn't mean that the person is guilty of a specific crime.
It takes a long time of interrogation to be able to measure what's normal and what's not. And even if you get an abnormal reading it may not be caused by guilt - it may be because the subject is unsettling.
The primary objective that the US government has had the last years have been to divert the attention of the US citizens to imagined and potential threats while failing to take care of the necessities at home. This was evident when Katrina struck.
And it's worth to notice that there are more people in the US killed in traffic accidents each month than it was at the 9/11 attacks.
So improved traffic safety measures would have more effective than the hunt for terrorists. But that's not a sexy action.
Taking a test during a job interview means that they are serious about the situation.
The worst thing isn't tests at job interviews it's the work climate at the site where you are going to be located. Is it micro managed or is it goal managed? And job satisfaction is very important for IT workers.
The question is rather why other types of workers aren't tested as much. Why not test lawyers, accountants and administrators?
And even more important - A manager must understand and admit that he doesn't fully understand what IT work is about and not being too afraid to ask when he doesn't understand.
Even if the answer may be in simplified form, it will get an understanding of how much resources and ho high the cost is for certain actions.
Anyone into America's Army?
I haven't seen any DRM there.
As if anyone really could make out anything useful from YouTube videos. At least useful enough to be dangerous.
But maybe they will have to ban most of the videos then that are showing how people does blow things up.
It is possible to track down devices on a network, but you have to have some patience. Most advanced network switches allows you to see which port a certain MAC address is connected to.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a printer or just a box that was used as a hub because it wasn't possible to get a long enough cable somewhere.
No - fork bomb!
But if you have worked in a *NIX environment you have already found out that it's easy to fork a new process and the advantage with processes is that most of the data is local to that process and that you have to explicitly handle interprocess communication. This is what was done before the age of threads.
Threads are easy to create, but they are also dangerous since they can trip eachother heavily by minor programming mistakes. And malicious software often use the weakness of threads in applications.
Don't forget that there are other kinds of interruptions too - like IM clients that has the same effect.
Just consider that everything that is transmitted in electronic form can be automatically monitored.
I you want to avoid being listened to then you should meet at the shore on a windy day and talk. Bring suitable equipment depending on the season.
I'm still into the opinion that you can have either religion or copyright but not both.