You can publish all the pictures of someone all you want without their permission, as long as they are taken in a public place. Besides, with the X10 the people that are being taken "pictures" of are the ones doing the publishing, although possibly unknowingly. If anything at all the most restrictive law that should be passed is a simple disclosure on the X10 video packaging stating that it may be possible to pick up the video broadcast of these devices by other people and that they are inherently insecure...
What amazes me is that non of the experts have posted on SlashDot (except for hardaker from NET-SNMP.org). Where's Dougie? Where's Jim from AOL? Where's Norm from HP? Where's Wojcik? For the critically OpenSource croud, what about Shane.O from OpenNMS. How about Wodisch? And you can't forget Bubba SNMP. Then there's Peckar from Fognet, and Imhoff, and Croft from VoiceStream, and Sorrel from T.RowePrice. Last but not least is Waldbusser. (appologies for those that I've missed. No, I didn't include all those that have authored SNMP RFC's, rather those that work with the protocol every day and have practical experience with various implementations, and whom I have personal experience).
If you don't know these names you can always check out the OVForum and join the fun. I've been "working with" these guys for quite a few years and if you want to tap some of the most experienced network engineers that deal with SNMP for the largest companies in the world then you're welcome to stop by. Yes, it's HP OpenView centric, but unless it's really off-topic then general questions are, generally, tolerated.
So that this is not taken as a totally self-serving reply here are some suggestions that I use that generally mirror the recommendations from CERT:
Create a separate VLAN or management network for your LAN infrastucture.
Protect this management network from the rest of the network via a firewall or at a minimum access-list.
Use access-list or similar technology to limit SNMP access to your WAN infrastructure from your management network, or better yet specific network management servers.
Use SNMPv3 if at all possible.
Just like any other security matter, make sure that you are running the appropriate version of code and or patches on your systems.
As someone who travels a lot I welcome all the "draconian" rules. It's a pain in the ass to board a plane because clueless idiots who don't fly a lot, or simply don't think, don't follow the rules, which are clearly posted everywhere, and clog up the system. Idiots trying to leave their laptops in their bags, when it clearly says that you have to take them out and put them through the X-ray machine separately. Idiots who waste time by complaining for tens of seconds instead of taking the 5 seconds is should take at a maximum to take their laptop out -- those tens of seconds add up quickly and if someone can't get their laptop out of their bag in 5 seconds they shouldn't have one.
Plus, most of the people I work with fly a heck of a lot also, have been doing so for the last 10-20 years, and have the same opinion as I do when it comes to the new "stricter" rules. Most frequent flyers wish that the rules would get much more stricter, because we know from experience how lax they really are.
Yea, and it's a pain in the ass to buckle your seatbelt when driving a car, those turn signals are just a pain in the ass, and screw those pesky pedestrians crossing the road. Both driving a car and taking a flight have rules of the road. If you don't like them then don't drive, and/or don't fly. You sound like the idiots who think everything is so troublesome that they may as well break the rules and go down the up escalator, or try to get past security, or some other stupid prank. THOSE idiots are who make your 3-hour wait on the tarmac unbearable.
To most people on/. the "aggrivation [and] work" are worth $400 in and of itself. Most people LIKE spending time putting their systems together. Most people would prefer getting their systems in parts and being forced to put it all together. The only time that's a liability is if it doesn't work when you are done, and most people on/. have enough experience to accomplish this without making any novice mistakes.
Of course I speak of a/. from quite a while ago. I have no idea of the demographics of/.'s current userbase.
$50 for long distance? At a reasonable 5 cents per minute that would be 1000 minutes, or 16 hours 45 minutes per month on long distance calls. That's not 16 3/4 hours of calls, that's 16 3/4 of long distance calls. Considering that any work-related long distance calls are likely 800 numbers or called using you cell phone (which should be paid by you work if you're taking work calls "off-hours" or travel as I do) and most other calls will be local, I don't know where you come up with this number from. Considering there are on average 4 weekends per month that would mean slightly more than 4 hours per weekend talking on the phone long distance. Wow! That's a little bit too much time on the phone for me.
Yes, with minimizing you have to keep moving your mouse down to the bottom of the screen, or transferring between using the mouse and using the keyboard. Plus, it looks cooler. Besides, when was the initial code on the new GNOME/KDE apps/controls that you say look like XP started? Was this before or after Windows XP was first released to testers? Kind of makes you wonder who is copying who, right? Just because Microsoft comes out with a "finished" product before GNOME and/or KDE does not necessarily they started working on said product before GNOME/KDE...
Depending on where you are located it's possible you shouldn't be using your cell phone in the car anyway, let alone working on some DPA. Perhaps it would be beneficial to use the scheduling features of PDA's so that you are not pressed into making appointments and holding meetings while driving a car. If you're that important, then hire a driver so that you can really do your job while travelling.
I'm a little confused, because I'm not an Apple user at all, but I thought that the base OS was similar to Linux as to it's kernel module capabilities. If so, then there shouldn't be any reason to require the modification of "system" directories. You should be able to load a driver for various CD's from any directory. The module loader program may require root privelages, but there shouldn't be any reason that the modules themselves need to be in a particular directory. Or, is OS X not capable of doing this?
There are situations where retokenizing is a desired behavior. I'd rather classify it as inexperience by the programmers who wrote the script with the scripting language. Anyone who has experience with shells knows that this is the way they behave and program accordingly. Blaming the programming language instead of the programmer is like blaming the end-user instead of Apple...
I took the mention of "state senators" to be exactly that - senators for your state. Not, as you construed, "Senators representing your state in the Federal Senate." I've never heard of anyone referring to federal senators as "state senators" rather just plain "senators." "State senators" has the connotation that they are the senators representing you in your state's legislative body, rather than the federal government.
Now, what would be the purpose of lobying your state senators, rather than your federal senators? Well, as you mentioned, because your federal senators can't do much if anything about it for one. A reason for writing your state senators rather than your governor is simple demographics -- you have a much better chance of getting you state senator's attention than your governor's, due to the vastly larger number of constituents a governor has as opposed to a state senator. Plus, your governor is more likely to take seriously the combined pressure from all your state senators than from a bunch of individual voters. Now the whole purpose of this is to get the states to continue on with the effort for structural relief even if the federal government does not. Why someone can't see that was the meaning of the suggestion to write your state senators is beyond me.
You're kidding right? "registered only MAC addresses" security is a joke. It's such a management nightmare when you're talking about a significant number of users on a wireless network, think quite a few hundred to thousands of docs and nurses on a hospital network, that it's practically unmanageable. The only real solution is to use VPN technology. And what does VLAN software have to do with security? When you say that MAC address lists and VLAN software (whatever that's supposed to give you) makes an RF network as secure as most people *really* need to be you obviously are only thinking about breaking in and not just covert observation and data gathering. Think about HIIPA. If someone is able to gather packets on an RF network (which is relatively easy to do) then restricting which MAC addresses can get INTO the network is next to useless. The concern is people seeing confidential medical information going across the RF network, and limiting MACs does nothing to secure that information. I don't know how VLANs would help in this either. Sounds like you just through that word in there without knowing what you're talking about. And no, I don't think the 802.11b protocol can be "fixed" from a security perspective without making it an essentially new protocol that will not be compatible with all the existing equipment. Sure, it could be "backwards compatible" but then only new equipment would benefit from the enhanced security.
if, for some reason, the alimentation of the palm is defective, and sent to the serial port, perhaps it could damage some cheap serial port controller.
Is burning a chip on the motherboard damaging the motherboard?
One entry found for alimentation.
Main Entry: alimentation
Pronunciation: "a-l&-m&n-'tA-sh&n, -"men-
Function: noun
Date: circa 1656
: the act or process of affording nutriment or nourishment
WTF? Either you know another definition of alimentation that Merriam-Webster doesn't or you F'd up trying to impress us by using seldom used words, but incorrectly. If think you probably meant something like:
If, for some reason, the serial port on the Palm is defective and it sent an electrical signal to the motherboard serial port that was way out of spec, perhaps if could damage some cheap serial port connroller.
Yeah, my Palm is feeding nutrition to my motherboards... alimentation my ass!
I'm not so sure about that. I'm not sure what the "British usage" is, but I can think of another example where it's not so cut and dry. That example would be "data." Most people like to think of data as a plural noun, while I almost always think of it in the singular sense. It really drives me crazy when people say that "the data are" when it should quite clearly be "the data is." One can look at the context to really see whether it should be thought of as singular or plural -- most of the time, but there are cases where it's ambiguous. It's those cases that most irritate me. The cases where it's clear that it's plural don't irritate me as much, although they still do because it's also clear that it would be easy to rephrase the statement to make it singluar instead. And yes, I know all about datum, but who the heck uses that anymore?
Think about it. Do you say:
"The data show that you're broke."
or
"The data shows that you're broke."
Throw in some fluff and you might have
"The data in the spreadsheet show that you're broke."
or
"The data in the spreadsheet shows that you're broke."
It's still unclear, because you don't know if you're referring to one piece of data in the spreadsheet or a bunch of individual pieces of data in the spreadsheet, or all those individual pieces of data in the spreadsheet taken as a whole, representing a superset of "data."
But, turn it around a little and it makes it a little clearer:
"The spreadsheet, which contains data, show that you're broke."
or
"The spreadsheet, which contains data, shows that you're broke."
Now get rid of the extraneous fluff and you have:
"The spreadsheet show you're broke."
or
"The spreadsheet shows you're broke."
Now it's clear that the second form is correct, as a spreadsheet is clearly a singular noun. It's also clear that the data, when referred to earlier without the fluff, was referring to a single piece of data that happens the refer to many smaller pieces of data (just like a node in a binary tree is a single entity although it actually refers to several other items within the node).
Either that or I simply don't understand how the plurality of nouns applies to words that can be either singular or plural, in which case I don't care much.
what concerns me is that i'm currently re-reading the issac asimov foundation series and this type of view sounds an awful lot like what caused the fall of the galactic empire. stagnation. sure there was always continuing research, but it was only to fix the problem of the day. never to explore new fundamental science and discover/create something new, only to maintain the status quo or fix a perceived problem with the status quo. fact was that the empire was in decay for hundreds of years before anyome even realized it, which if asimov was using a fundamental social problem of stagnation as a basis for his fiction, would mean that just like in his books those that 'favor' stagnation would call us quacks or crazy or wasting resources on non-essential research rather than fixing a 'real' problem. the similarities are frighteningly similar. it almost makes one wonder if this was part of the cause, if not the cause, of the fall of the roman empire, and if history will repeat itself in our current times.
luckily there are those of us that still manage to convince those with the purse strings of public funds that fundamental research is still required, and will always be to avoid stagnation.
note; windows sucks. i had a vmware session open and my windows 2000 guest os crashed taking vmware with it. this resulted in x11 getting screwed up so that i can't use the shift key until i logout and restart x, and i haven't had time to do that yet. so, i appologize for the all-lower case post, but blame microsoft and their pos software...
You talking to me? Your reply, if it was one, wasn't indented from mine so it looks like you replied to yourself. In any case it appears that you're replying to me so here's my properly submitted reply.
First, why do all environmentalist (and I can only assume you are one given your statements) seem like raving lunatics? Why call me an idiot just because you happen to disagree with my opinions and statements? Why take things to a personal level? I didn't think my statements were personally offensive. Sure I said that your statement comparing modern nuclear power plants to Chernobyl was "bullshit" and gave specific examples of why I thought so, but this wasn't a personal attack. Clam down a little and take a deep breath.
Now for a point by point, if that's how you want to handle it.
I do not put much emphasis on spelling correctness or grammar. I've corrected people in the past for obvious errors, but I refrain from doing so now because it's too easy to make errors myself. I wouldn't want to be a hipocrite now (and I can almost garentee that's misspelled but I'm not going to look it up:-P). As far as your quote, I wasn't trying to make you look like a moron. I quoted the whole paragraph for crying out loud. You can't get much more fair that that! I was simply pointing out that Chernobyl is nothing like any modern power plant that would be designed today and that making comparisons about it's saftey as compared to a modern plan is dishonest and, well, bullshit.
Chernobyl is not a great example of the worst case scenario because no plant of that type would ever be allowed to be built today. It's a great example for the whole history of nuclear power, but not something to use as measuring stick for making future decisions. It would be like taking the risks and exposure rates people received when they were first experimenting with X-rays and floroscopes and using that as a reason for never, ever, getting a moderm X-ray in your life. No teeth X-rays, no arm X-rays when you break your arm. No chest X-rays when you get shot and the bullet is logged in your chest but they don't know it it's too close to a vital organ to operate. Not only that, but being against ANYONE getting X-rays because they are harmful to the radiologist, doctors, and micro-organisms that are in the X-ray rooms. See how rediculous it sounds? I'm not saying that new nuclear plants now would be completely safe. I am saying that it's wrong to compare them to Chernobyl.
So you're saying that the energy companies know how to produce cheap solar panels and that they are just holding back because they want to protect their natural monopoly? I think they would be much smarter than that. How about leasing or renting the solar panels instead of selling them? That way the can still charge people a monthly fee for their technology and still maintain their profits. After all, if they didn't actually sell their solar panels it's not likely you'd be able to cook one up in your back yard.
That's what risk assessment is all about. I see no other way of making an intelligent choice than listing out all possible scenarios and grading each one to come up with a grand total that, to me says nuclear power is "safe enough."
Oh come now. You really think greenpeace and the other groups out there would let the NRC become some fluffy play tiger just because natural gas cost too much to be used for electricity production? I give them more credit than that. Besides, there is new technology out there that makes nuclear power more safe and efficient than even the latest plants built in the USA. The tough NRC regulations are actually now much easier to comply with than they were in the past, so there's little incentive to bend or break rules.
Well, I really don't care what you think you TOLD me to think or not! My last paragraph stated that in my opinion you SHOULD be more in support of nuclear power than coal power instead of disfavoring them equally. Or, to put it in possibly more acceptable terms, you should really hate nuclear power, but you should really really hate coal plants.
And finally, you didn't have to call me an idiot again just because you disagree with my opinions. Heck, if you can't take the criticism then you shouldn't post on/. It's not like my post was a flame or anything, I was just commenting and offering constructive criticism about your post. If you want to see a response with flame by all means send me a personal email and I'd be glad to respond off/., but I won't be enticed into one on-line.
Oh, This is really really the last comment (and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism). If you want people to understand your comments better you should quote people. I didn't quote anything of yours in my reply and see how confusing it is? Quite a bit different than my original reply, which quoted a large part of your original message. I don't know if you didn't respond to my message because you didn't want me to notice you replied to me, because you didn't want me to get additional karma (which I don't give a diddly about anyhow), or you don't know how to properly reply. If you had replied it would have been much more simpler to cut and paste my message into the comment box thereby making this whole discussion easier to follow.
"I think the numbers are something like $3 per killowatt whereas natural gas is over $300 dollars per killowatt. That's right, over 100 times the cost of nuclear power"
This is so patently absurd that I don't know why I am bothering to answer it. The last time I looked at the stats nuclear power was four or five times more expensive to produce than gas or coal. These stats are from the UK. Obviously it depends on the local factors. But not that much.
Well, as far as I can tell we were both wrong. I was quoting numbers I recently heard on a news program. Obviously there were wrong, as the report here shows that they are in fact about the same. It was only a quick search on google, so you may want to check more. Point being that nuclear power is not hugely more expensive that coal or gas, and much safter and environmentally friendly. I'll chalk the error up to not checking numbers I hear off the TV before I use them.
Ah. Argument by higher authority. Usually used in the absence of knowledge.
ad hominem? I fully divulge that I have no formal training, but rather cite my sources of knowledge in a free and open manner. Why the connotation that I have a lack of knowledge?
Nuclear power has its uses. My argument is simple. Nuclear power has with it an associated risk of catastrophic failure. The results of this failure are greater than that which I think it is reasonable for society to bear. Okay?
That's fine, but it's only your opinion. Having the experience I do I don't believe there is an associated risk of a "catastrophic failure." Perhaps if people who thought there was would suggest some examples of a catastrophic failure then people who know about nuclear power plant construction can tell you whether it's possible or not. I'm quite certain myself that a Chernobyl type event is not possible in the USA. People can either choose to believe me or not. If we are not talking about a Chernobyl type event, and only the remote possibility of releasing small amounts of low-level radioactive material into the environment then I think it is a reasonable risk for society to bear. Even if it did happen it wouldn't endanger people or the environment in the way that Chernobyl continues to do.
What has all this have to do with modern nuclear power plants? A "meltdown" in a modern nuclear power plant wouldn't even allow any radioactive material to escape the containment building. You're talking about Chernobyl, which wasn't modern in any sense of the word.
If done properly. . .
Nuclear power can be done safely, but you need to take extreme measures to ensure that incidents like chernobyl NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER happen. Of course, we're only human, and there's really no way to guarantee that. There are things like natural disasters, terrorism, and simple human error.
Well, this is bullshit, because Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen. They didn't even have a containment building for crying out loud. The equivalent would be someone building a nuclear reactor in their backyard swimming pool and then constructing a barn over it so that no one could see what you were doing. There's no need to take "extream measures" depending on what your definition of extream is. A terrorist could hijack a 747 and fly it into one of our containment buildings and not even crack it. I don't consider protecting against such things as extream.
So if you enter into the "nuclear game", you must acknowledge at some point that there is a risk you are taking that a disaster can possibly occur. Accepting that it will not ever possible occur is a leap of misguided blind faith in "human ingenuity".
No, more like realizing the sheer stupidity of the old USSR in continuing to operate a reactor like Chernobyl. It isn't physically or logically possible for a Chernobyl to happen in the USA. It's just not possible, because of the "extream measures" that have been taken in designing our plants.
So it's a balance: risk to the public that these accidents could occur, versus money in the CEO's golden-parachute fund. Hmmmmmm - which will it be?
Public safety?
New Lexus?
Oh my! If this is the tact that environementalist are going to take then they are just going to get laughed out of the discussion. Ever hear of the government? Ever hear of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)? There are so many safety and security regulations that CEO's don't have the choice to choose between the new Lexus and public safety. Even suggesting such a thing is laughable.
This is why I am opposed to the use of nuclear power. The immediate effects of a disaster, and the unforseen future effects. These risks are not very patalable, no matter how much the engineers say it's safe. No matter what nifty new design they come up with. Virtually no risk, is still a risk. And this kind of risk is just plain unacceptable.
Well then you better just up and commit suicide then, because you get more radiation and are subjected to more risk just sitting at your computer than by a nuclear reactor in your neighborhood. It's this kind of risk assessment, or lack thereof, that sets environmentalist apart from everyone else.
And before you go off telling me I'm a fan of coal-fired plants, I'm not. I don't think that we currently have a good answer for that one.
I'm not sure what the solution is to our growing power needs. Even Solar, Even Wind, have their drawbacks making them unpalatable. But ever more palatable than nuclear fission.
You should be more in favor of nuclear plants than coal plants, as coal plants put off more radiation than nuclear plants and a host of other dangerous and toxic chemicals. Again, risk assessment.
No, it IS informative because it lets people know that apparently Al Gore personally saw to it that these two programs were halted. I certainly didn't know about these two programs, or that they were halted at Gore's behest, so it was certainly informative for me. If you already knew about these programs and that Gore was apparently involved in their dismantling then they would not be informative to you, but don't talk for the rest of us.
A nuclear plant CAN'T explode. At least not a nuclear explosion. That would require supercritical mass, which nuclear power plants don't have. It could "explode" by producing vast amounts of superheated steam, but all that would happen would be that it would explode within the containment building. It wouldn't explode out into the atomosphere. This is at least the case for all new nuclear power plants in the west, quite unlike Chernobyl since they didn't even have a containment building.
You should know what you are talking about before you make such statements. Chernobyl was basically a reactor in a swimming pool with a warehouse shell built around it. It had no containment building like all western reactors do. It had no failsafes or any of the other safety measures that all western reactors have to have. It's amazing that it didn't go critical sooner than it did, and it's completely the old USSR's fault that the "accident" happened. It's an accident that just could not have happened in the USA, France, Germany, or any other modern nation utilizing nuclear power. Most environmentalist and wacos (and no, not all environmentalists are wacos) point to TMI (Three Mile Island) as a horrendous example of how dangerous nuclear power can be. However, TMI only released a small amount of radioactive gas into the air and did not have a large leak. It simply could not have had the huge explosion and contamination like Chernobyl.
As far as waste, most reactors now store their waste locally. There's nothing wrong with that and it is completely safe. As far as the containment buildings on modern nuclear plants, you could actually fly a Boeing 747 into one and it would not crack the containment seal. Quite a bit different than Chernobyl, no? And as far as cost your wrong. Nuclear power is one of the cheapest sources of power available, if not the cheapest. I think the numbers are something like $3 per killowatt whereas natural gas is over $300 dollars per killowatt. That's right, over 100 times the cost of nuclear power. And unfortunately a heck of a lot of electricity is generated via natural gas in the USA. How barbaric! Burning gas to heat water to create steam to turn a turbine. Natural gas should be used to heat homes and cook nice fresh red meat, not create electricity.
And where do I get my information from? Why do I believe I know just a bit more than you do about nuclear power? Because my father served in the Navy for 23 years and towards the end worked as a special assistant to President Johnson doing things he can't tell us about;-) although we do know they were nuclear in nature. Then he worked for Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland as their head of dosimetry as a nuclear physician. He also designed the emergency plan for the surrounding areas in case of a problem. It's on the back of every phone book in the southern Maryland area. One of my brothers worked refueling nuclear power plants across the USA. One of my other brothers works in the Virginia shipyards as their certified nuclear physician. He was invited, but didn't go, to Chernobyl for a post clean-up visit. So I guess you can say that nuclear power is in my family. No, I have no formal training in nuclear physics or their effects on the human body, but I would hazard to guess that the lectures I received all throughout my childhood from my father and brothers are a match for any college professor's. I was interested in the subject and actually asked for these long lectures, if you can imagine a kid asking his father "Dad, tell me the difference between Alpha, Beta, and Gamma radiation again and how each radioactive isotope either usually passes through or gets integrated into the human body in specific places when ingested." So while you may have quite large experience in biology in general, I don't think you know that much about nuclear power plants in specific. Scare tactics don't work for people properly informed with knowledge.
The people in the Chernobyl area INGESTED radioactive material where it became deposited in various parts of their body (radioactive Iodine usually builds up in the thyroid for example). Unless Research scientists, radiotherapy professionals, and airline staff are ingesting radioactive materials on a regular basis I don't think they have anything to worry about...
People in 1776 were not forced to drink tea either. You fail to understand the meaning of "force" and the fact that an option does not necessarily need to be the only option to be forced on someone.
Hmm, liberal? I think you have your terms confused because I consider myself a "damn conservative" and have the same view. AFAIK liberal and conservative can refer to two different things. First is one's interpretation of the consitituation, and laws in general. If you have a "strict" interpretation of the laws then you are generally refered to as a conservative, while a liberal would tend to bend the meaning of the law to get more "acceptable" results. The other situation is when talking about financial matters, and conservatives are usually known for their "conservative" nature by not over-spending while liberals are usually painted as those who would overspend to create some government program to help out particular individuals even though there is nothing in the constitution that says those individuals should get special help (i.e., a "bleeding heart liberal").
So, you actually may be a conservative if you have a strict interpretation of the constitution and believe that everyone has the freedom of speach regardless of their views. On the other hand, if you support "hate speach" laws then you are most certainly a liberal as there is nothing in the constitution that protects one's feelings. Now don't take this the wrong way and turn it around like most liberals would and say that I support hate speach! I most certainly don't, but I don't necessarily think there should be specific laws for speach that can be considered to be hateful. My personal view is that in today's world these problems will get taken care of on their own and with existing laws. Call someone an ethnically offensive term in the wrong place and time and you're likely to get your head bashed in -- and a jury of your peers would not likely convict the person who bashed you of any crime either. Go off and kill someone because of who they are, their beliefs, or other "hateful" attribute and you're likely to get the death penalty anyway (or at least you should -- if not life in prison with no chance of parole) so adding a few years onto the sentence is meaningless. And on and on and on...
Slashdot Mirror
You can publish all the pictures of someone all you want without their permission, as long as they are taken in a public place. Besides, with the X10 the people that are being taken "pictures" of are the ones doing the publishing, although possibly unknowingly. If anything at all the most restrictive law that should be passed is a simple disclosure on the X10 video packaging stating that it may be possible to pick up the video broadcast of these devices by other people and that they are inherently insecure...
If you don't know these names you can always check out the OVForum and join the fun. I've been "working with" these guys for quite a few years and if you want to tap some of the most experienced network engineers that deal with SNMP for the largest companies in the world then you're welcome to stop by. Yes, it's HP OpenView centric, but unless it's really off-topic then general questions are, generally, tolerated.
So that this is not taken as a totally self-serving reply here are some suggestions that I use that generally mirror the recommendations from CERT:
Create a separate VLAN or management network for your LAN infrastucture.
Protect this management network from the rest of the network via a firewall or at a minimum access-list.
Use access-list or similar technology to limit SNMP access to your WAN infrastructure from your management network, or better yet specific network management servers.
Use SNMPv3 if at all possible.
Just like any other security matter, make sure that you are running the appropriate version of code and or patches on your systems.
Hope this was helpful!
Fred Reimer
As someone who travels a lot I welcome all the "draconian" rules. It's a pain in the ass to board a plane because clueless idiots who don't fly a lot, or simply don't think, don't follow the rules, which are clearly posted everywhere, and clog up the system. Idiots trying to leave their laptops in their bags, when it clearly says that you have to take them out and put them through the X-ray machine separately. Idiots who waste time by complaining for tens of seconds instead of taking the 5 seconds is should take at a maximum to take their laptop out -- those tens of seconds add up quickly and if someone can't get their laptop out of their bag in 5 seconds they shouldn't have one.
Plus, most of the people I work with fly a heck of a lot also, have been doing so for the last 10-20 years, and have the same opinion as I do when it comes to the new "stricter" rules. Most frequent flyers wish that the rules would get much more stricter, because we know from experience how lax they really are.
Yea, and it's a pain in the ass to buckle your seatbelt when driving a car, those turn signals are just a pain in the ass, and screw those pesky pedestrians crossing the road. Both driving a car and taking a flight have rules of the road. If you don't like them then don't drive, and/or don't fly. You sound like the idiots who think everything is so troublesome that they may as well break the rules and go down the up escalator, or try to get past security, or some other stupid prank. THOSE idiots are who make your 3-hour wait on the tarmac unbearable.
Yes, and Lindows also shares the first three letters with Linux.
Your point was great, but entirely wrong.
To most people on /. the "aggrivation [and] work" are worth $400 in and of itself. Most people LIKE spending time putting their systems together. Most people would prefer getting their systems in parts and being forced to put it all together. The only time that's a liability is if it doesn't work when you are done, and most people on /. have enough experience to accomplish this without making any novice mistakes.
/. from quite a while ago. I have no idea of the demographics of /.'s current userbase.
Of course I speak of a
$50 for long distance? At a reasonable 5 cents per minute that would be 1000 minutes, or 16 hours 45 minutes per month on long distance calls. That's not 16 3/4 hours of calls, that's 16 3/4 of long distance calls. Considering that any work-related long distance calls are likely 800 numbers or called using you cell phone (which should be paid by you work if you're taking work calls "off-hours" or travel as I do) and most other calls will be local, I don't know where you come up with this number from. Considering there are on average 4 weekends per month that would mean slightly more than 4 hours per weekend talking on the phone long distance. Wow! That's a little bit too much time on the phone for me.
Yes, with minimizing you have to keep moving your mouse down to the bottom of the screen, or transferring between using the mouse and using the keyboard. Plus, it looks cooler. Besides, when was the initial code on the new GNOME/KDE apps/controls that you say look like XP started? Was this before or after Windows XP was first released to testers? Kind of makes you wonder who is copying who, right? Just because Microsoft comes out with a "finished" product before GNOME and/or KDE does not necessarily they started working on said product before GNOME/KDE...
Depending on where you are located it's possible you shouldn't be using your cell phone in the car anyway, let alone working on some DPA. Perhaps it would be beneficial to use the scheduling features of PDA's so that you are not pressed into making appointments and holding meetings while driving a car. If you're that important, then hire a driver so that you can really do your job while travelling.
I'm a little confused, because I'm not an Apple user at all, but I thought that the base OS was similar to Linux as to it's kernel module capabilities. If so, then there shouldn't be any reason to require the modification of "system" directories. You should be able to load a driver for various CD's from any directory. The module loader program may require root privelages, but there shouldn't be any reason that the modules themselves need to be in a particular directory. Or, is OS X not capable of doing this?
There are situations where retokenizing is a desired behavior. I'd rather classify it as inexperience by the programmers who wrote the script with the scripting language. Anyone who has experience with shells knows that this is the way they behave and program accordingly. Blaming the programming language instead of the programmer is like blaming the end-user instead of Apple...
I took the mention of "state senators" to be exactly that - senators for your state. Not, as you construed, "Senators representing your state in the Federal Senate." I've never heard of anyone referring to federal senators as "state senators" rather just plain "senators." "State senators" has the connotation that they are the senators representing you in your state's legislative body, rather than the federal government.
Now, what would be the purpose of lobying your state senators, rather than your federal senators? Well, as you mentioned, because your federal senators can't do much if anything about it for one. A reason for writing your state senators rather than your governor is simple demographics -- you have a much better chance of getting you state senator's attention than your governor's, due to the vastly larger number of constituents a governor has as opposed to a state senator. Plus, your governor is more likely to take seriously the combined pressure from all your state senators than from a bunch of individual voters. Now the whole purpose of this is to get the states to continue on with the effort for structural relief even if the federal government does not. Why someone can't see that was the meaning of the suggestion to write your state senators is beyond me.
You're kidding right? "registered only MAC addresses" security is a joke. It's such a management nightmare when you're talking about a significant number of users on a wireless network, think quite a few hundred to thousands of docs and nurses on a hospital network, that it's practically unmanageable. The only real solution is to use VPN technology. And what does VLAN software have to do with security? When you say that MAC address lists and VLAN software (whatever that's supposed to give you) makes an RF network as secure as most people *really* need to be you obviously are only thinking about breaking in and not just covert observation and data gathering. Think about HIIPA. If someone is able to gather packets on an RF network (which is relatively easy to do) then restricting which MAC addresses can get INTO the network is next to useless. The concern is people seeing confidential medical information going across the RF network, and limiting MACs does nothing to secure that information. I don't know how VLANs would help in this either. Sounds like you just through that word in there without knowing what you're talking about. And no, I don't think the 802.11b protocol can be "fixed" from a security perspective without making it an essentially new protocol that will not be compatible with all the existing equipment. Sure, it could be "backwards compatible" but then only new equipment would benefit from the enhanced security.
I'm not so sure about that. I'm not sure what the "British usage" is, but I can think of another example where it's not so cut and dry. That example would be "data." Most people like to think of data as a plural noun, while I almost always think of it in the singular sense. It really drives me crazy when people say that "the data are" when it should quite clearly be "the data is." One can look at the context to really see whether it should be thought of as singular or plural -- most of the time, but there are cases where it's ambiguous. It's those cases that most irritate me. The cases where it's clear that it's plural don't irritate me as much, although they still do because it's also clear that it would be easy to rephrase the statement to make it singluar instead. And yes, I know all about datum, but who the heck uses that anymore?
Think about it. Do you say:
"The data show that you're broke."
or
"The data shows that you're broke."
Throw in some fluff and you might have
"The data in the spreadsheet show that you're broke."
or
"The data in the spreadsheet shows that you're broke."
It's still unclear, because you don't know if you're referring to one piece of data in the spreadsheet or a bunch of individual pieces of data in the spreadsheet, or all those individual pieces of data in the spreadsheet taken as a whole, representing a superset of "data."
But, turn it around a little and it makes it a little clearer:
"The spreadsheet, which contains data, show that you're broke."
or
"The spreadsheet, which contains data, shows that you're broke."
Now get rid of the extraneous fluff and you have:
"The spreadsheet show you're broke."
or
"The spreadsheet shows you're broke."
Now it's clear that the second form is correct, as a spreadsheet is clearly a singular noun. It's also clear that the data, when referred to earlier without the fluff, was referring to a single piece of data that happens the refer to many smaller pieces of data (just like a node in a binary tree is a single entity although it actually refers to several other items within the node).
Either that or I simply don't understand how the plurality of nouns applies to words that can be either singular or plural, in which case I don't care much.
what concerns me is that i'm currently re-reading the issac asimov foundation series and this type of view sounds an awful lot like what caused the fall of the galactic empire. stagnation. sure there was always continuing research, but it was only to fix the problem of the day. never to explore new fundamental science and discover/create something new, only to maintain the status quo or fix a perceived problem with the status quo. fact was that the empire was in decay for hundreds of years before anyome even realized it, which if asimov was using a fundamental social problem of stagnation as a basis for his fiction, would mean that just like in his books those that 'favor' stagnation would call us quacks or crazy or wasting resources on non-essential research rather than fixing a 'real' problem. the similarities are frighteningly similar. it almost makes one wonder if this was part of the cause, if not the cause, of the fall of the roman empire, and if history will repeat itself in our current times.
luckily there are those of us that still manage to convince those with the purse strings of public funds that fundamental research is still required, and will always be to avoid stagnation.
note; windows sucks. i had a vmware session open and my windows 2000 guest os crashed taking vmware with it. this resulted in x11 getting screwed up so that i can't use the shift key until i logout and restart x, and i haven't had time to do that yet. so, i appologize for the all-lower case post, but blame microsoft and their pos software...
You talking to me? Your reply, if it was one, wasn't indented from mine so it looks like you replied to yourself. In any case it appears that you're replying to me so here's my properly submitted reply.
:-P). As far as your quote, I wasn't trying to make you look like a moron. I quoted the whole paragraph for crying out loud. You can't get much more fair that that! I was simply pointing out that Chernobyl is nothing like any modern power plant that would be designed today and that making comparisons about it's saftey as compared to a modern plan is dishonest and, well, bullshit.
/. It's not like my post was a flame or anything, I was just commenting and offering constructive criticism about your post. If you want to see a response with flame by all means send me a personal email and I'd be glad to respond off /., but I won't be enticed into one on-line.
First, why do all environmentalist (and I can only assume you are one given your statements) seem like raving lunatics? Why call me an idiot just because you happen to disagree with my opinions and statements? Why take things to a personal level? I didn't think my statements were personally offensive. Sure I said that your statement comparing modern nuclear power plants to Chernobyl was "bullshit" and gave specific examples of why I thought so, but this wasn't a personal attack. Clam down a little and take a deep breath.
Now for a point by point, if that's how you want to handle it.
I do not put much emphasis on spelling correctness or grammar. I've corrected people in the past for obvious errors, but I refrain from doing so now because it's too easy to make errors myself. I wouldn't want to be a hipocrite now (and I can almost garentee that's misspelled but I'm not going to look it up
Chernobyl is not a great example of the worst case scenario because no plant of that type would ever be allowed to be built today. It's a great example for the whole history of nuclear power, but not something to use as measuring stick for making future decisions. It would be like taking the risks and exposure rates people received when they were first experimenting with X-rays and floroscopes and using that as a reason for never, ever, getting a moderm X-ray in your life. No teeth X-rays, no arm X-rays when you break your arm. No chest X-rays when you get shot and the bullet is logged in your chest but they don't know it it's too close to a vital organ to operate. Not only that, but being against ANYONE getting X-rays because they are harmful to the radiologist, doctors, and micro-organisms that are in the X-ray rooms. See how rediculous it sounds? I'm not saying that new nuclear plants now would be completely safe. I am saying that it's wrong to compare them to Chernobyl.
So you're saying that the energy companies know how to produce cheap solar panels and that they are just holding back because they want to protect their natural monopoly? I think they would be much smarter than that. How about leasing or renting the solar panels instead of selling them? That way the can still charge people a monthly fee for their technology and still maintain their profits. After all, if they didn't actually sell their solar panels it's not likely you'd be able to cook one up in your back yard.
That's what risk assessment is all about. I see no other way of making an intelligent choice than listing out all possible scenarios and grading each one to come up with a grand total that, to me says nuclear power is "safe enough."
Oh come now. You really think greenpeace and the other groups out there would let the NRC become some fluffy play tiger just because natural gas cost too much to be used for electricity production? I give them more credit than that. Besides, there is new technology out there that makes nuclear power more safe and efficient than even the latest plants built in the USA. The tough NRC regulations are actually now much easier to comply with than they were in the past, so there's little incentive to bend or break rules.
Well, I really don't care what you think you TOLD me to think or not! My last paragraph stated that in my opinion you SHOULD be more in support of nuclear power than coal power instead of disfavoring them equally. Or, to put it in possibly more acceptable terms, you should really hate nuclear power, but you should really really hate coal plants.
And finally, you didn't have to call me an idiot again just because you disagree with my opinions. Heck, if you can't take the criticism then you shouldn't post on
Oh, This is really really the last comment (and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism). If you want people to understand your comments better you should quote people. I didn't quote anything of yours in my reply and see how confusing it is? Quite a bit different than my original reply, which quoted a large part of your original message. I don't know if you didn't respond to my message because you didn't want me to notice you replied to me, because you didn't want me to get additional karma (which I don't give a diddly about anyhow), or you don't know how to properly reply. If you had replied it would have been much more simpler to cut and paste my message into the comment box thereby making this whole discussion easier to follow.
What has all this have to do with modern nuclear power plants? A "meltdown" in a modern nuclear power plant wouldn't even allow any radioactive material to escape the containment building. You're talking about Chernobyl, which wasn't modern in any sense of the word.
No, it IS informative because it lets people know that apparently Al Gore personally saw to it that these two programs were halted. I certainly didn't know about these two programs, or that they were halted at Gore's behest, so it was certainly informative for me. If you already knew about these programs and that Gore was apparently involved in their dismantling then they would not be informative to you, but don't talk for the rest of us.
A nuclear plant CAN'T explode. At least not a nuclear explosion. That would require supercritical mass, which nuclear power plants don't have. It could "explode" by producing vast amounts of superheated steam, but all that would happen would be that it would explode within the containment building. It wouldn't explode out into the atomosphere. This is at least the case for all new nuclear power plants in the west, quite unlike Chernobyl since they didn't even have a containment building.
You should know what you are talking about before you make such statements. Chernobyl was basically a reactor in a swimming pool with a warehouse shell built around it. It had no containment building like all western reactors do. It had no failsafes or any of the other safety measures that all western reactors have to have. It's amazing that it didn't go critical sooner than it did, and it's completely the old USSR's fault that the "accident" happened. It's an accident that just could not have happened in the USA, France, Germany, or any other modern nation utilizing nuclear power. Most environmentalist and wacos (and no, not all environmentalists are wacos) point to TMI (Three Mile Island) as a horrendous example of how dangerous nuclear power can be. However, TMI only released a small amount of radioactive gas into the air and did not have a large leak. It simply could not have had the huge explosion and contamination like Chernobyl.
;-) although we do know they were nuclear in nature. Then he worked for Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland as their head of dosimetry as a nuclear physician. He also designed the emergency plan for the surrounding areas in case of a problem. It's on the back of every phone book in the southern Maryland area. One of my brothers worked refueling nuclear power plants across the USA. One of my other brothers works in the Virginia shipyards as their certified nuclear physician. He was invited, but didn't go, to Chernobyl for a post clean-up visit. So I guess you can say that nuclear power is in my family. No, I have no formal training in nuclear physics or their effects on the human body, but I would hazard to guess that the lectures I received all throughout my childhood from my father and brothers are a match for any college professor's. I was interested in the subject and actually asked for these long lectures, if you can imagine a kid asking his father "Dad, tell me the difference between Alpha, Beta, and Gamma radiation again and how each radioactive isotope either usually passes through or gets integrated into the human body in specific places when ingested." So while you may have quite large experience in biology in general, I don't think you know that much about nuclear power plants in specific. Scare tactics don't work for people properly informed with knowledge.
As far as waste, most reactors now store their waste locally. There's nothing wrong with that and it is completely safe. As far as the containment buildings on modern nuclear plants, you could actually fly a Boeing 747 into one and it would not crack the containment seal. Quite a bit different than Chernobyl, no? And as far as cost your wrong. Nuclear power is one of the cheapest sources of power available, if not the cheapest. I think the numbers are something like $3 per killowatt whereas natural gas is over $300 dollars per killowatt. That's right, over 100 times the cost of nuclear power. And unfortunately a heck of a lot of electricity is generated via natural gas in the USA. How barbaric! Burning gas to heat water to create steam to turn a turbine. Natural gas should be used to heat homes and cook nice fresh red meat, not create electricity.
And where do I get my information from? Why do I believe I know just a bit more than you do about nuclear power? Because my father served in the Navy for 23 years and towards the end worked as a special assistant to President Johnson doing things he can't tell us about
The people in the Chernobyl area INGESTED radioactive material where it became deposited in various parts of their body (radioactive Iodine usually builds up in the thyroid for example). Unless Research scientists, radiotherapy professionals, and airline staff are ingesting radioactive materials on a regular basis I don't think they have anything to worry about...
People in 1776 were not forced to drink tea either. You fail to understand the meaning of "force" and the fact that an option does not necessarily need to be the only option to be forced on someone.
Hmm, liberal? I think you have your terms confused because I consider myself a "damn conservative" and have the same view. AFAIK liberal and conservative can refer to two different things. First is one's interpretation of the consitituation, and laws in general. If you have a "strict" interpretation of the laws then you are generally refered to as a conservative, while a liberal would tend to bend the meaning of the law to get more "acceptable" results. The other situation is when talking about financial matters, and conservatives are usually known for their "conservative" nature by not over-spending while liberals are usually painted as those who would overspend to create some government program to help out particular individuals even though there is nothing in the constitution that says those individuals should get special help (i.e., a "bleeding heart liberal").
So, you actually may be a conservative if you have a strict interpretation of the constitution and believe that everyone has the freedom of speach regardless of their views. On the other hand, if you support "hate speach" laws then you are most certainly a liberal as there is nothing in the constitution that protects one's feelings. Now don't take this the wrong way and turn it around like most liberals would and say that I support hate speach! I most certainly don't, but I don't necessarily think there should be specific laws for speach that can be considered to be hateful. My personal view is that in today's world these problems will get taken care of on their own and with existing laws. Call someone an ethnically offensive term in the wrong place and time and you're likely to get your head bashed in -- and a jury of your peers would not likely convict the person who bashed you of any crime either. Go off and kill someone because of who they are, their beliefs, or other "hateful" attribute and you're likely to get the death penalty anyway (or at least you should -- if not life in prison with no chance of parole) so adding a few years onto the sentence is meaningless. And on and on and on...