Current cosmological theory holds that the universe is shaped like a 4 dimensional hyperbola. At T=0, the structure is continuous.
Think about being 1 klick north of the South pole. Let the north/south axis be time, and the east/west axis be space. Now, move 1 klick south. Is there an abrupt discontinuity? No, things are still smooth. What is south of you? Mu ("unask the question") - the concept of "south" is undefined at that point.
Now, the "south end" of the hyperbolic universe has the same sort of property - while continuous, it does not extent past the T=0 point.
(yes, there is the "other half" of a hyperbola that exists beyond the T=0 point, but that half is not contiguous with the first half.)
Actually I have many words for you, but that is the most important.
You must understand why server rooms use halon rather than water. Remember the fire triad: fuel, oxygen, heat. Rob the fire of any of those and it goes out.
Halon robs the fire of oxygen. Water robs the fire of heat (and to a lesser extent oxygen).
Halon is used in server rooms because you don't want the water damage to the servers. Otherwise water is MUCH better at putting a fire out, because you can use LOTS of it.
Now, if you are building a new house, and you want to reduce the risk of a fire burning it down, put in sprinklers everywhere in the house - it will be a LOT cheaper to set up and maintain than Halon, and it will do a better job.
Now, if you are going to build a dedicated server room in the house, then maybe you put a halon bottle in it, but not for the whole house.
Look at it from the boss's perspective - you just had to bribe an employee to stay. Now, how far do you trust that employee?
Just as I recommended to the employee to have a backup plan, I would recommend to the boss to have a backup plan - namely, start de-emphasising that employee - get them off critical path, get a second employee to be able to cover for them, start looking at how to replace them.
You are correct in that looking for another job might cause one to mentally commit to leaving, creating a self-forefilling prophecy. So would the boss's logical reaction: he is going to become able to replace the employee, and may very well do so.
If you have to threaten to quit in order to get your raise, you don't want to be working there.
Most bosses are clueful enough to realize that if an employee is asking about their salary, failure to meet the employee's request will result in the employee leaving - you'd have to be pretty stupid to say "Oh, you won't pay me what I'm worth. OK, well, back to my cube I go, dohp-dee-doh." And if your boss IS truly so stupid that he doesn't realise that, then do you want to be working for him?
If you can somehow place a large enough CO2 generator nearby that will attact the mosquitos to it (and drown/kill them within) instead of you, then you'll have a winner.
Yes, by all means - ask for a raise. Document the items you asserted in your posting here, then go see your boss and ask him to explain why you are not compensated.
But has others have said, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you say anything like "or else I walk". NEVER.
HOWEVER, you should begin preparing a backup strategy - update your resumee and start looking at other jobs in the area. Begin asking yourself if you are willing to relocate. In short, start looking for another job.
This is for the following reasons:
First, if you have to ASK to be paid what you are worth this time, are you willing to KEEP asking? If they are screwing you now, what makes you think they won't start again later?
You may find that you are misreading your position, and aren't really worth what you think you are (you may be misreading your job title, for example). This would be a bitter pill to swallow, but you should at least grant the possiblility until you can disprove it.
You may find a better job.
It is far better to start looking NOW, while you are relatively cool about it, than to get so pissed off that one day your mouth acts before your brain. I have a friend who did that - told them "Take this job and shove it" and walked out. He damn near lost his car and home before getting another job, and that was during better times than now!
Re:virtual array for pulse detection does make sen
on
Worlds Largest Telescope?
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· Score: 1, Informative
And had you READ my POST, you would have seen that I was not addressing the article, but rather the poster's wild-assed and incorrect statement about making a VLA from all those amateur scopes.
The concept wouldn't be much different from New Mexico's VLA Radio Telescope.
Actually, it would be. The VLA works because all the signals are brought together and correlated - they are carefully time synced (to the nanosecond) and then combined.
The same trick in the optical domain is called interferometry, and requires that the actual LIGHT from each 'scope be brought together - you need not only the brightness (which a CCD would record), but the phase and polarization of the signal (which a CCD won't record).
So you cannot use an array of 'scopes world-wide to create a virtual array.
What you can do, and what optical SETI is all about, is to have each scope looking at a different star (or star field) at each time.
In a way, comparing the two is like comparing a 64-way NUMA cluster to a Beowulf cluster - one will work well with one big program of many threads sharing data (NUMA/interferometry), and one will work well with many small independent programs (Beowulf/optical SETI).
No, there was no way he thought this was cut and pasted - I specifically emailed him the instructions. I am the software lead on the project - not just some flunky.
And I told him that the firmware had just been released, so he knew he was not current (or would have known, had he read the email).
It was just "ohhh, here's a file - I will put it into the unit right now."
The thing about Mosix is the costs of process migration.
First, you have to understand process migration. In a mosix cluster, a running process can be moved, lock stock and barrel, from one CPU to another. All that is left behind is a "stub" process that forwards all file I/O across the network to the new location. So, if the program was a 3D raytracer that had the source description file and the output file open, after migration all file accesses to those files would be forwarded over the network to the stub (since you cannot guarantee that the remote machine can access those files in the same way.)
Now, this is great for programs that do little file I/O but lots of computing (for example the ray tracer I just described.)
However, the process must be set up on the local node first, then migrated. If the process has a 3 G core image (is taking up 3G of memory), then 3G of stuff has to be shoved across the wire, while the program is frozen. Thus, migrating a process is expensive.
Now, if you have a bunch of long-running compute bound processes this is a net win (for example, rendering a movie might benefit). But something like building the Linux kernel won't benefit, since what you have is a bunch of short running, high I/O jobs.
We have a Mosix cluster at work. I tried using it as a compile farm, and the results were disappointing. Not surprising - I was NOT using it for what it was designed for.
However, if we can ever get the FPGA synthesis tools running natively under Linux, the hardware types are going to be quite happy....
It has been my experience that the public is confused by words - anything more complicated than "push here" is going to be trouble.
I design fairly complicated equipement to be used by (supposedly) trained radio technicians. I recently sent out a replacement file to a specific customer to see if we had a problem he had reported fixed.
Mind you, this customer was working to integrate our equipment into an automated test station - one would expect this person to have at least a cluon or two.
In the instructions for the replacement file, I stated most clearly: Step 1: update the unit to the latest firmware. Step 2: after you have done the update, apply the attached replacement file.
Pretty simple, huh? Guess what: the customer did NOT do the update first, and wedged the equipment.
Now, had this been a true production update, I would have added check code to verify that the patch would not apply unless the firmware version matched, then I would have spent the hours validating that the check code actually would catch version mismatches, then released the patch. During all those hours I would NOT have been getting the other features ready.
But this was one customer, and one that should have been more technically adept than most. So I felt that spending thirty seconds explaining the process would be a better use of my time than spending the hours to make it idiot-proof - after all, I was not dealing with an idiot, was I?
The general public runs at just over the level of a caveman (no offense intended OOG if you are still listening...) - anything more complicated than "push here" will elude them (and given that I have seen footage of bank robbers foiled by a "PULL" rather than "PUSH" door, I have my doubts about that) It would seem the average person's reaction to any printed matter is "WORDS! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE WORDS! OHH, MY HEAD'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE!"
Granted, much of the terminology used in selling computers to the lay public is too complicated for them to understand, but trust me - trying to dumb it down won't work, unless you can determine how to describe a computer in grunts and pointing.
What if I prefer to buy my music in a more lasting form?
What if I prefer my music to be compressed with FLAC?
What if I prefer to compress my music with MY parameters, to meet MY standards of audio fidelity?
While I am all for Apple being able to distribute this electronicly, while I can accept Apple being given sole electronic distribution rights to this music, I don't like that this won't be available as a plain ol' CD.
...and b) Lodge formal complaints with the CEO of the company's using their services.
Been there. Done that. Doesn't work.
I received what I consider to one of the worst forms of snail-mail marketing from Super8 motels - one of the fake "checks" for a couple of bucks - the ones that say in microprint at the bottom "Cashing this check means signing up for this service". By cashing the check you sign up for a service that will cost you far more than the check is for.
I used to be a regular Super8 customer - I had the Super8 VIP card, and preferentially stayed at Super8 when travelling. So, I did a little digging, located the name of the CEO, and sent him a nice letter saying (politely) that I did not feel that this form of advertising was approprate, that if Super8 had contracted a third party to send this they needed to examine this, and that if Super8 themselves had done this I would have to rethink my policy of doing business with them.
I got a letter back from the office of the CEO, saying basically "We have done nothing wrong. Our mailing was not misleading. We will continue to do this. If you don't like it, we will be glad to remove your name from our lists." There was no effort to be diplomatic, no "your concerns are important to us" - the letter stopped just short of saying STFU ESAD.
Moreover, now not only does Super8 send out spam, they also telemarket (I received a call AT WORK for them) as well as spamming.
Motel6 is much cheaper than Super8, and I've found a website (TravelHero) that allows me to book rooms in privately owned little motels.
So, while you can stop buying from these companies, don't count upon contacting the CEO to have any meaningful effect - these guys have bought into the idea that we are all "consumers" - gullets with mouths that consume products and anuses that crap cash. We are "eyeballs", "seats", anything but "people".
The terms "sniffer loop", "sniffer probe", and "sniffer coil" have been in long use in the radio service industry - they all refer to a probe used to sample the H field near a coil in an RF circuit without affecting the circuit (much...).
A slashtroll ventured away from his keyboard under the bridge, and went to the beach, perhaps in search of a mate. It was caught by the sunlight (which it was completely unprepared for) and killed.
So, all we need is for some sick^Wstupid^Wbrave person to volunteer to visit the depths of -1 and see what trolls have stopped posting.
There are limits to what problems can be solved - if lusers are so stupid as to unzip attachements they are not expecting there is nothing that can be done to protect them.
However, you CAN catch the more self-propagating viruses, and reduce the number of viruses out there.
" they will almost certainly end up mandating use of some (commercial, windows only) antivirus package."
No, that is exactly why I phrased it as I did - "require the user to keep his machine virus free."
If a machine is sending virus laden emails, then it is not virus free. Otherwise, innocent until proven guilty.
As for the attachements - I am sorry, but your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins, your right to play your stereo ends where it enters my house. Society can quite legitimately ask its members to curtail dangerous behaviors. I can think of no circumstance in which sending an executable program as-is is needed or even wise. Not only will zipping the program reduce the size of the program (and thus the load on the mail server) it will add CRC protection to the program so that an error in transmission has a higher chance of being detected and corrected.
"my company already does such checks on internal mail, and it drives me mad, but it's their network so they can do as they please." Guess what - Your ISP's networks is THEIR network, so by your own arguement THEY can do as THEY please.
Folks who work for ISPs will be angered by this post, but before you hit reply, take a deep breath, step outside yourself for a bit, and think about what I am about to type.
While ISPs are not to blame for this problem, ISPs are in the position to correct this problem. This is not about fixing blame, it is about fixing the problem. Keep that in mind.
Now, as I've said in previous posts about this sort of thing, it all boils down to preventing the spread of infection - mathematically, if the expected value of the number of hosts infected by any given host is greater than one, then the infection will be much like a supercritical mass of fissionable material. So the trick is to reduce the expected value to less than one.
Now, there are plenty of ways to do this, most of which involve the ISP taking some action.
Require users to keep their machines virus free, and disconnect them QUICKLY when they fail to do so.
Scan outbound email, and drop all mails that have attachments with extensions that do not match the Mimetype (e.g. an attachment with an extension of type.scr but a Mimetype of audio/midi). (Yes, this would not matter had Microsoft correctly implemented Mimetype checking in IE, but they didn't - the OS looks at the file extender, not the Mimetype.)
In the same vein, block all outbound mails that contain directly executable attachements. Friends don't send friends programs, and if they must do so, they zip them first.
Limit the average user's ability to bypass such filtering - do not allow users to directly send to SMTP, SMB, and NFS ports unless the user have explicitly asked for such access and taken responsiblity for doing so.
Upon getting complaints about violations, QUICKLY move to resolve the problem - as in, within 24 hours. If the customer will not or cannot solve the problem within that time, shut them down until they can.
In short, take responsiblity for FIXING the problem, and force your downstream customers to do the same.
I have been receiving a steady stream of virus laden emails from udw.ac.za (a university in South Africa). I have repeatedly contacted them as well as their up stream provider (saix.com). All SAIX does is send a nastygram to UDW. All UDW does is experiment in topological auto-proctology. Were SAIX to say "Alright - we've had five complaints this past week. You obviously are not doing anything to solve the problem, so until you do, we are blocking port 25 outbound from you" then UDW would be HIGHLY motivated to correct the problem.
But right now, most ISPs have the attitude of Mind Over Matter - "We don't mind, so it don't matter. Over and out." As such, the problem persists and grows. ISPs mail servers handle a steadily increasing stream of viruses and spam, for which they complain bitterly about having to buy new equipment (while raising their fees), but they don't actually try to SOLVE the problem.
If ISPs were to say, "The line must be drawn here. Here, and no further." - if they were to start blocking viruses and spam, disconnecting users that spread them, and requiring their downstream to do the same, then the expected value of the number of hosts any one host can infect would drop to a tiny fraction of 1, and the reaction would damp out. Viruses would not longer spread like wildfire, the news would no longer report upon them, and the virus writers would no longer get egobo from writing them.
However, as long as ISPs continue to do their best Sgt. Schultz of Stalag 13 ("I SEE NOTHING! NOTHING!") impersonation, as long as ISPs say "It's not our fault - we are not to blame, why should we do anything about it!" then the problem will only grow.
(/me sits back and waits for the inevitable flames from ISPs wishing to do exactly that...)
OK, fair enough - I'll be interested in hearing your results.
If at all possible, make the scanning process smart enough not to worry about text/plain and text/html sections, and don't bother scanning sections IFF they aren't either a) tagged as an executable type or b) have an executable file extension.
That will save you a great deal of processing time.
Also, if you can, do the first pass on the inbound data stream (to soak it up into the disk I/O overhead). What I would recommend is that you do a trivial accept/reject based on Mimetype and extension (IF mimetype isn't an executable type AND IF extension isn't an executable type, then pass.), and then queue any mails that have a section that is either an executable mimetype OR an executable file extension for more detailed processing.
If you are able to do that, then I would venture to say that 90% of your mails will be trivially accepted, and then you can pay the price on the remaining mails.
I never asserted this would eliminate all viruses - just that it would reduce the spread of email viruses to a point where they would no longer be "fun" for the trolls^Wvirus writers to create.
I think an even better analogy would be, if I decide to pull a prank and place an order for pornographic (or something else you'd find offensive, say a free sample of Viagra) and have it delivered to your house, are you gonna blame the courier dropping it at your doorstep?
Actually, in cases where that happens enough, the delivery company WILL stop the shipments to the user - just look at Ralsky.
Again, this is not about BLAME, it is about who can solve the problem. In your counter-example, while the shipper is not to BLAME, they are the best able to stop the delivery of the crap.
I don't believe the problem can be stopped on the on-ramp to the 'net, as spammers are getting more and more difficult to trace, thanks to the ever-growing presence of open relays....
And how do we solve the open relay problem? If the users won't fix their machines you have the ISP disconnect them.
What is so wrong about placing the burden on the end user, anyway? If they are stupid enough, they deserve to feel the pain.
And if ONLY the stupid user felt the pain I would be right there with you. However, wHen I get multi-megabytes of virus laden emails per day from infected users then I am feeling the pain, as is everybody on that ISP who has to pay for bandwidth and cycles to deliver that crap.
And lastly:
No. Like I said, for a large user base this is not a trivial amount of CPU time.
You made that point in your first message. I countered, showing that the overall increase in cycles is small compared to the disk I/O time per message. You haven't shown a counter-example to disprove my point.
1) Yes, it does cost CPU cycles. Especially if you multiply that by the amount of users you have on your system (say, oh, a few million)
Yes, I am sure that most ISPs with a million mail users have only one system doing all the work. Get real - the incremental cost of scanning an email for viruses is quite small, esp. compared to the hard disk latency. Only non-text emails need be scanned, and for those all you need concern yourself with are sections that are not text/plain or text/html. Furthurmore, your point 3 contradicts this point - if an ISP can offer scanning as as service then they have the cycles to do it.
Some providers are constantly/frequently/sometimes accused of being too intrusive in monitoring their users' activity...
You cannot please all the people all the time. Furthurmore, there is a great difference between my mail being scanned for viruses by a machine (and either sent onward or dumped) and my mail activities being monitored. Moreover with the existance of Carnivore and other systems anybody who is worried about their mail being scanned and who is not using encryption has only themselves to blame.
Some providers give the option of virus-scanning as a value-added service.
Usually this is offered on INBOUND mail - as in "we will insure you RECEIVE no infected mails." I am talking about OUTBOUND mail - as in "We will insure you SEND no infected mails".
Just like the OS is not at fault here, neither are the ISPs.
This is not about blame - this is about solving the problem. The ISPs are in the best position to solve the problem. An analogy: if I come to your house and dump a large pile of stinking garbage on your front lawn (and you don't catch me), are you at fault for this problem? No. However, who is going to have to solve the problem? You are.
What's next, you're gonna blame SPAM on the ISPs instead of on the spammers?
Yes, ISPs do in part share blame for the current SPAM problem in that ISPs don't shut down known spammers.
Blame shooting deaths on gun manufacturers instead of on the cowboy mentality and/or lack of common sense?
At least do try to get your analogies correct. Blaming the manufactures would be like blaming computer makers for viruses. The correct analogy would be blaming a gun dealer who sells guns without checking the person's background first - and if you do that and you get caught you get to spend some quality time in prison.
Slashdot Mirror
Current cosmological theory holds that the universe is shaped like a 4 dimensional hyperbola. At T=0, the structure is continuous.
Think about being 1 klick north of the South pole. Let the north/south axis be time, and the east/west axis be space. Now, move 1 klick south. Is there an abrupt discontinuity? No, things are still smooth. What is south of you? Mu ("unask the question") - the concept of "south" is undefined at that point.
Now, the "south end" of the hyperbolic universe has the same sort of property - while continuous, it does not extent past the T=0 point.
(yes, there is the "other half" of a hyperbola that exists beyond the T=0 point, but that half is not contiguous with the first half.)
I have one word for you:
Sprinklers.
Actually I have many words for you, but that is the most important.
You must understand why server rooms use halon rather than water. Remember the fire triad: fuel, oxygen, heat. Rob the fire of any of those and it goes out.
Halon robs the fire of oxygen. Water robs the fire of heat (and to a lesser extent oxygen).
Halon is used in server rooms because you don't want the water damage to the servers. Otherwise water is MUCH better at putting a fire out, because you can use LOTS of it.
Now, if you are building a new house, and you want to reduce the risk of a fire burning it down, put in sprinklers everywhere in the house - it will be a LOT cheaper to set up and maintain than Halon, and it will do a better job.
Now, if you are going to build a dedicated server room in the house, then maybe you put a halon bottle in it, but not for the whole house.
Threatening to walk is NEVER the right answer.
Look at it from the boss's perspective - you just had to bribe an employee to stay. Now, how far do you trust that employee?
Just as I recommended to the employee to have a backup plan, I would recommend to the boss to have a backup plan - namely, start de-emphasising that employee - get them off critical path, get a second employee to be able to cover for them, start looking at how to replace them.
You are correct in that looking for another job might cause one to mentally commit to leaving, creating a self-forefilling prophecy. So would the boss's logical reaction: he is going to become able to replace the employee, and may very well do so.
If you have to threaten to quit in order to get your raise, you don't want to be working there.
Most bosses are clueful enough to realize that if an employee is asking about their salary, failure to meet the employee's request will result in the employee leaving - you'd have to be pretty stupid to say "Oh, you won't pay me what I'm worth. OK, well, back to my cube I go, dohp-dee-doh." And if your boss IS truly so stupid that he doesn't realise that, then do you want to be working for him?
You mean, like this?
But has others have said, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you say anything like "or else I walk". NEVER.
HOWEVER, you should begin preparing a backup strategy - update your resumee and start looking at other jobs in the area. Begin asking yourself if you are willing to relocate. In short, start looking for another job.
This is for the following reasons:
It is far better to start looking NOW, while you are relatively cool about it, than to get so pissed off that one day your mouth acts before your brain. I have a friend who did that - told them "Take this job and shove it" and walked out. He damn near lost his car and home before getting another job, and that was during better times than now!
Computerized ball game with great violence, injuries to players. Hmmm.
Sounds familiar.
And had you READ my POST, you would have seen that I was not addressing the article, but rather the poster's wild-assed and incorrect statement about making a VLA from all those amateur scopes.
Actually, it would be. The VLA works because all the signals are brought together and correlated - they are carefully time synced (to the nanosecond) and then combined.
The same trick in the optical domain is called interferometry, and requires that the actual LIGHT from each 'scope be brought together - you need not only the brightness (which a CCD would record), but the phase and polarization of the signal (which a CCD won't record).
So you cannot use an array of 'scopes world-wide to create a virtual array.
What you can do, and what optical SETI is all about, is to have each scope looking at a different star (or star field) at each time.
In a way, comparing the two is like comparing a 64-way NUMA cluster to a Beowulf cluster - one will work well with one big program of many threads sharing data (NUMA/interferometry), and one will work well with many small independent programs (Beowulf/optical SETI).
No, there was no way he thought this was cut and pasted - I specifically emailed him the instructions. I am the software lead on the project - not just some flunky.
And I told him that the firmware had just been released, so he knew he was not current (or would have known, had he read the email).
It was just "ohhh, here's a file - I will put it into the unit right now."
He even admitted as much when he called in.
The thing about Mosix is the costs of process migration.
First, you have to understand process migration. In a mosix cluster, a running process can be moved, lock stock and barrel, from one CPU to another. All that is left behind is a "stub" process that forwards all file I/O across the network to the new location. So, if the program was a 3D raytracer that had the source description file and the output file open, after migration all file accesses to those files would be forwarded over the network to the stub (since you cannot guarantee that the remote machine can access those files in the same way.)
Now, this is great for programs that do little file I/O but lots of computing (for example the ray tracer I just described.)
However, the process must be set up on the local node first, then migrated. If the process has a 3 G core image (is taking up 3G of memory), then 3G of stuff has to be shoved across the wire, while the program is frozen. Thus, migrating a process is expensive.
Now, if you have a bunch of long-running compute bound processes this is a net win (for example, rendering a movie might benefit). But something like building the Linux kernel won't benefit, since what you have is a bunch of short running, high I/O jobs.
We have a Mosix cluster at work. I tried using it as a compile farm, and the results were disappointing. Not surprising - I was NOT using it for what it was designed for.
However, if we can ever get the FPGA synthesis tools running natively under Linux, the hardware types are going to be quite happy....
It has been my experience that the public is confused by words - anything more complicated than "push here" is going to be trouble.
I design fairly complicated equipement to be used by (supposedly) trained radio technicians. I recently sent out a replacement file to a specific customer to see if we had a problem he had reported fixed.
Mind you, this customer was working to integrate our equipment into an automated test station - one would expect this person to have at least a cluon or two.
In the instructions for the replacement file, I stated most clearly:
Step 1: update the unit to the latest firmware.
Step 2: after you have done the update, apply the attached replacement file.
Pretty simple, huh? Guess what: the customer did NOT do the update first, and wedged the equipment.
Now, had this been a true production update, I would have added check code to verify that the patch would not apply unless the firmware version matched, then I would have spent the hours validating that the check code actually would catch version mismatches, then released the patch. During all those hours I would NOT have been getting the other features ready.
But this was one customer, and one that should have been more technically adept than most. So I felt that spending thirty seconds explaining the process would be a better use of my time than spending the hours to make it idiot-proof - after all, I was not dealing with an idiot, was I?
The general public runs at just over the level of a caveman (no offense intended OOG if you are still listening...) - anything more complicated than "push here" will elude them (and given that I have seen footage of bank robbers foiled by a "PULL" rather than "PUSH" door, I have my doubts about that) It would seem the average person's reaction to any printed matter is "WORDS! WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE WORDS! OHH, MY HEAD'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE!"
Granted, much of the terminology used in selling computers to the lay public is too complicated for them to understand, but trust me - trying to dumb it down won't work, unless you can determine how to describe a computer in grunts and pointing.
What if I prefer to buy my music in a more lasting form?
What if I prefer my music to be compressed with FLAC?
What if I prefer to compress my music with MY parameters, to meet MY standards of audio fidelity?
While I am all for Apple being able to distribute this electronicly, while I can accept Apple being given sole electronic distribution rights to this music, I don't like that this won't be available as a plain ol' CD.
Been there. Done that. Doesn't work.
I received what I consider to one of the worst forms of snail-mail marketing from Super8 motels - one of the fake "checks" for a couple of bucks - the ones that say in microprint at the bottom "Cashing this check means signing up for this service". By cashing the check you sign up for a service that will cost you far more than the check is for.
I used to be a regular Super8 customer - I had the Super8 VIP card, and preferentially stayed at Super8 when travelling. So, I did a little digging, located the name of the CEO, and sent him a nice letter saying (politely) that I did not feel that this form of advertising was approprate, that if Super8 had contracted a third party to send this they needed to examine this, and that if Super8 themselves had done this I would have to rethink my policy of doing business with them.
I got a letter back from the office of the CEO, saying basically "We have done nothing wrong. Our mailing was not misleading. We will continue to do this. If you don't like it, we will be glad to remove your name from our lists." There was no effort to be diplomatic, no "your concerns are important to us" - the letter stopped just short of saying STFU ESAD.
Moreover, now not only does Super8 send out spam, they also telemarket (I received a call AT WORK for them) as well as spamming.
Motel6 is much cheaper than Super8, and I've found a website (TravelHero) that allows me to book rooms in privately owned little motels.
So, while you can stop buying from these companies, don't count upon contacting the CEO to have any meaningful effect - these guys have bought into the idea that we are all "consumers" - gullets with mouths that consume products and anuses that crap cash. We are "eyeballs", "seats", anything but "people".
The terms "sniffer loop", "sniffer probe", and "sniffer coil" have been in long use in the radio service industry - they all refer to a probe used to sample the H field near a coil in an RF circuit without affecting the circuit (much...).
Google search
No, Hormel is not suing Spamarrest over their name.
/. editors did not read the article, just the submission, which was TOTALLY WRONG!
Hormel is opposing Spamarrest's attempt to TRADEMARK "Spamarrest".
It is clearly stated in the article. The
Hormel has been pretty damn cool about the whole "spam as email/SPAM as meat" thing - go look at their web page about it.
Obviously, this is the remains of a slashtroll.
Consider: Large. Smelly. Spineless. Gray.
A slashtroll ventured away from his keyboard under the bridge, and went to the beach, perhaps in search of a mate. It was caught by the sunlight (which it was completely unprepared for) and killed.
So, all we need is for some sick^Wstupid^Wbrave person to volunteer to visit the depths of -1 and see what trolls have stopped posting.
I'd volunteer, but I just don't care.
There are limits to what problems can be solved - if lusers are so stupid as to unzip attachements they are not expecting there is nothing that can be done to protect them.
However, you CAN catch the more self-propagating viruses, and reduce the number of viruses out there.
Funny, in the FAQ they say they supply binary drivers for accelerated 3D.
They no longer have them on the web site.
The FAQ is old, and has not been updated.
" they will almost certainly end up mandating use of some (commercial, windows only) antivirus package."
No, that is exactly why I phrased it as I did - "require the user to keep his machine virus free."
If a machine is sending virus laden emails, then it is not virus free. Otherwise, innocent until proven guilty.
As for the attachements - I am sorry, but your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins, your right to play your stereo ends where it enters my house. Society can quite legitimately ask its members to curtail dangerous behaviors. I can think of no circumstance in which sending an executable program as-is is needed or even wise. Not only will zipping the program reduce the size of the program (and thus the load on the mail server) it will add CRC protection to the program so that an error in transmission has a higher chance of being detected and corrected.
"my company already does such checks on internal mail, and it drives me mad, but it's their network so they can do as they please."
Guess what - Your ISP's networks is THEIR network, so by your own arguement THEY can do as THEY please.
While ISPs are not to blame for this problem, ISPs are in the position to correct this problem. This is not about fixing blame, it is about fixing the problem. Keep that in mind.
Now, as I've said in previous posts about this sort of thing, it all boils down to preventing the spread of infection - mathematically, if the expected value of the number of hosts infected by any given host is greater than one, then the infection will be much like a supercritical mass of fissionable material. So the trick is to reduce the expected value to less than one.
Now, there are plenty of ways to do this, most of which involve the ISP taking some action.
In short, take responsiblity for FIXING the problem, and force your downstream customers to do the same.
I have been receiving a steady stream of virus laden emails from udw.ac.za (a university in South Africa). I have repeatedly contacted them as well as their up stream provider (saix.com). All SAIX does is send a nastygram to UDW. All UDW does is experiment in topological auto-proctology. Were SAIX to say "Alright - we've had five complaints this past week. You obviously are not doing anything to solve the problem, so until you do, we are blocking port 25 outbound from you" then UDW would be HIGHLY motivated to correct the problem.
But right now, most ISPs have the attitude of Mind Over Matter - "We don't mind, so it don't matter. Over and out." As such, the problem persists and grows. ISPs mail servers handle a steadily increasing stream of viruses and spam, for which they complain bitterly about having to buy new equipment (while raising their fees), but they don't actually try to SOLVE the problem.
If ISPs were to say, "The line must be drawn here. Here, and no further." - if they were to start blocking viruses and spam, disconnecting users that spread them, and requiring their downstream to do the same, then the expected value of the number of hosts any one host can infect would drop to a tiny fraction of 1, and the reaction would damp out. Viruses would not longer spread like wildfire, the news would no longer report upon them, and the virus writers would no longer get egobo from writing them.
However, as long as ISPs continue to do their best Sgt. Schultz of Stalag 13 ("I SEE NOTHING! NOTHING!") impersonation, as long as ISPs say "It's not our fault - we are not to blame, why should we do anything about it!" then the problem will only grow.
(/me sits back and waits for the inevitable flames from ISPs wishing to do exactly that...)
I find that somewhat hypocritical, given that I've had a fair amount of spam with domains forged in 3m.com.
This IS the problem with some blacklists - you get people jumping the gun.
OK, fair enough - I'll be interested in hearing your results.
If at all possible, make the scanning process smart enough not to worry about text/plain and text/html sections, and don't bother scanning sections IFF they aren't either a) tagged as an executable type or b) have an executable file extension.
That will save you a great deal of processing time.
Also, if you can, do the first pass on the inbound data stream (to soak it up into the disk I/O overhead). What I would recommend is that you do a trivial accept/reject based on Mimetype and extension (IF mimetype isn't an executable type AND IF extension isn't an executable type, then pass.), and then queue any mails that have a section that is either an executable mimetype OR an executable file extension for more detailed processing.
If you are able to do that, then I would venture to say that 90% of your mails will be trivially accepted, and then you can pay the price on the remaining mails.
I never asserted this would eliminate all viruses - just that it would reduce the spread of email viruses to a point where they would no longer be "fun" for the trolls^Wvirus writers to create.
Actually, in cases where that happens enough, the delivery company WILL stop the shipments to the user - just look at Ralsky.
Again, this is not about BLAME, it is about who can solve the problem. In your counter-example, while the shipper is not to BLAME, they are the best able to stop the delivery of the crap.
And how do we solve the open relay problem? If the users won't fix their machines you have the ISP disconnect them.
And if ONLY the stupid user felt the pain I would be right there with you. However, wHen I get multi-megabytes of virus laden emails per day from infected users then I am feeling the pain, as is everybody on that ISP who has to pay for bandwidth and cycles to deliver that crap.
And lastly:
You made that point in your first message. I countered, showing that the overall increase in cycles is small compared to the disk I/O time per message. You haven't shown a counter-example to disprove my point.
Yes, I am sure that most ISPs with a million mail users have only one system doing all the work. Get real - the incremental cost of scanning an email for viruses is quite small, esp. compared to the hard disk latency. Only non-text emails need be scanned, and for those all you need concern yourself with are sections that are not text/plain or text/html. Furthurmore, your point 3 contradicts this point - if an ISP can offer scanning as as service then they have the cycles to do it.
You cannot please all the people all the time. Furthurmore, there is a great difference between my mail being scanned for viruses by a machine (and either sent onward or dumped) and my mail activities being monitored. Moreover with the existance of Carnivore and other systems anybody who is worried about their mail being scanned and who is not using encryption has only themselves to blame.
Usually this is offered on INBOUND mail - as in "we will insure you RECEIVE no infected mails." I am talking about OUTBOUND mail - as in "We will insure you SEND no infected mails".
This is not about blame - this is about solving the problem. The ISPs are in the best position to solve the problem. An analogy: if I come to your house and dump a large pile of stinking garbage on your front lawn (and you don't catch me), are you at fault for this problem? No. However, who is going to have to solve the problem? You are.
Yes, ISPs do in part share blame for the current SPAM problem in that ISPs don't shut down known spammers.
At least do try to get your analogies correct. Blaming the manufactures would be like blaming computer makers for viruses. The correct analogy would be blaming a gun dealer who sells guns without checking the person's background first - and if you do that and you get caught you get to spend some quality time in prison.