Well, not to defend the government's actions in this, but how does one uncover a security hole unless one goes looking for it? 8/
I suppose one could argue that he only found trouble because he went hunting it down.
I can just see the "blow-by-blow" for the first launch:
It is a beautiful day for a moon launch! The countdown had finally reached the critical moment... 4... 3... 2... 1... we have lift-off!
Ah... what a beautiful sight... seeing the Indian Mark 1 rocket streaking towards the sky!
Wait! There seems to be a problem with the engine! The rocket is slowly nosing down towards Earth! OH MY GOODNESS, IT IS GOING TO CRASH!
[Earth Shattering Kaboom is Heard]
It appears as though the rocket has crashed into Pakistan and the Nuclear Engine has exploded, leaving a crater the size of Bombay where the Pakistani Capital used to be!
Indian Officials were reported as saying they were glad that the rocket was un-manned, so nobody important got seriously hurt, and they're committed to more trials in the near-ish future until they, quote, "get it right." ;)
I can just see the business plan around this thing... if it had happened pre-year 2000:
Business-Guy: "See... we can pick up a bunch of these Z80's from the local electronics store for about $3 a pop, slap them together into a cluster config, and advertise that our webservers are not only CLUSTERED, but have a failure rate MUCH less than IIS and Apache combined! Here's how we make that claim: if on average (pulls number out of fanny) 1 in every 50K pages fails to display, it'll literally take us 2.8 years before we have a single failure!"
Venture-Capitalist: "GENIUS! Here's $50mil in money from blue collar workers... we expect brochures by next year!"
Shoot for tongue-in-cheek, and what do you get?!?;)
You're right... talking over an airport isn't as big a deal in today's networking environment as it was back when it first came out (and from the time my story originates).
Second, what I left out of the story was that in order to do the Samba Mounting, we also had to help him figure out how to do it over an SSH tunnel... that has nothing to do with the complexities on getting the standards to work, except he was still running Max OS9. If you've tried to do most things cross-platform with the pre OSX stuff, I think you'd agree is can be a pain in some instances. In this instance, it was a *major* pain.
Last, our standards for OS support was Windows/Linux and *not* Mac, as this was the *only* person in the organization with a Mac.
MAN... make one slight against the old Apple Networking standards, and incur some wrath!;)
And before more of you get ticked because "an IT professional is actively not supporting Mac," I'm a software developer who, as part of helping a business grow, had to take on some IT support functions.
Personally, I like the new Mac OSX... but, that's mostly because of its base in BSD.;)
You don't know networking fear until you've seen:
A Mac talking over an AirPort, connecting through an OpenBSD firewall to a samba mount on a linux server, then having your boss (who's doing all this) ask, "Why aren't the permissions set properly when I save this document? Can you fix that?"
Computer: ALERT! You usually type "loose" when you intend to use the word "lose" while posting to your favorite Yahoo Stock Message board. Shall I auto-correct that back to your usual misspelling...?
Great point!
Now the enemy wouldn't have to bother with building such devices, they can just pick them up off the battlefield, "ship" them back into the US, and voila!
Instant "Paralyze the Infidels' Communication Networks!"
Great... really... I'm glad I get to *pay* for it, too. 8P
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Well, not to defend the government's actions in this, but how does one uncover a security hole unless one goes looking for it? 8/
I suppose one could argue that he only found trouble because he went hunting it down.
I can just see the "blow-by-blow" for the first launch:
It is a beautiful day for a moon launch! The countdown had finally reached the critical moment... 4... 3... 2... 1... we have lift-off!
Ah... what a beautiful sight... seeing the Indian Mark 1 rocket streaking towards the sky!
Wait! There seems to be a problem with the engine! The rocket is slowly nosing down towards Earth! OH MY GOODNESS, IT IS GOING TO CRASH!
[Earth Shattering Kaboom is Heard]
It appears as though the rocket has crashed into Pakistan and the Nuclear Engine has exploded, leaving a crater the size of Bombay where the Pakistani Capital used to be!
Indian Officials were reported as saying they were glad that the rocket was un-manned, so nobody important got seriously hurt, and they're committed to more trials in the near-ish future until they, quote, "get it right."
;)
Does that thing look strikingly similar to the "Martian Attack Machines" from the 1953 version of War of the Worlds?
;)
I can just see the business plan around this thing...
if it had happened pre-year 2000:
Business-Guy: "See... we can pick up a bunch of these Z80's from the local electronics store for about $3 a pop, slap them together into a cluster config, and advertise that our webservers are not only CLUSTERED, but have a failure rate MUCH less than IIS and Apache combined! Here's how we make that claim: if on average (pulls number out of fanny) 1 in every 50K pages fails to display, it'll literally take us 2.8 years before we have a single failure!"
Venture-Capitalist: "GENIUS! Here's $50mil in money from blue collar workers... we expect brochures by next year!"
;)
SHEESH!
;)
;)
;)
Shoot for tongue-in-cheek, and what do you get?!?
You're right... talking over an airport isn't as big a deal in today's networking environment as it was back when it first came out (and from the time my story originates).
Second, what I left out of the story was that in order to do the Samba Mounting, we also had to help him figure out how to do it over an SSH tunnel... that has nothing to do with the complexities on getting the standards to work, except he was still running Max OS9. If you've tried to do most things cross-platform with the pre OSX stuff, I think you'd agree is can be a pain in some instances. In this instance, it was a *major* pain.
Last, our standards for OS support was Windows/Linux and *not* Mac, as this was the *only* person in the organization with a Mac.
MAN... make one slight against the old Apple Networking standards, and incur some wrath!
And before more of you get ticked because "an IT professional is actively not supporting Mac," I'm a software developer who, as part of helping a business grow, had to take on some IT support functions.
Personally, I like the new Mac OSX... but, that's mostly because of its base in BSD.
One word: AppleTalk ;)
;)
You don't know networking fear until you've seen: A Mac talking over an AirPort, connecting through an OpenBSD firewall to a samba mount on a linux server, then having your boss (who's doing all this) ask, "Why aren't the permissions set properly when I save this document? Can you fix that?"
TRUE story...
*shudder!*
Right... imagine how confusing that would be:
Computer: ALERT! You usually type "loose" when you intend to use the word "lose" while posting to your favorite Yahoo Stock Message board.
Shall I auto-correct that back to your usual misspelling...?
Great point! Now the enemy wouldn't have to bother with building such devices, they can just pick them up off the battlefield, "ship" them back into the US, and voila!
Instant "Paralyze the Infidels' Communication Networks!"
Great... really... I'm glad I get to *pay* for it, too. 8P
This could bring whole new meaning to "game rewards." ;)
Voice Over: You've just saved the princess, Mario!
Princess: You're my hero!!!
Oh, baby!