You are "right on target"! There is a point that you failed to bring up, though, that is important. The low interest rates and speculative real estate market has been the only major source of consumer "discretionary" capital. Lethargic job grown, the decline in real wages, and stratospheric growth in the cost of health care and energy are sucking the oxygen out of the economy. A really good indicator is the automotive industry -- the low interest loans and rebates used to appear only when they were in the process of clearing out last year's stock. January 2005 already saw the auto manufacturers offering these same inducements for their new model year autos.
I think that you are being far too optimistic in projecting a major recession within ten years. One major domestic terrorist attack with WMD, or a deteriorating trade relationship with the EU and/or Asia could be the tipping point. In fact, all it would take is for OPEC to switch their exchange standard from the USD (dollar) to the Euro (EU), which several OPEC members have already suggested. I think even a projection of five years before the USA's next "recession" is far too optimistic.
I see a LOT of litigation in the manufacturers' futures...
(me, in my 2007 BMW 777tii) me: WFT! BSOD! HAL: Dave, I've determined you installed a hacked Garmin GPS DVD in my system. me: Err. No, HAL, you're mistaken. HAL: Dave, I can't let you do this. me: Is this why you've crashed the ECS? HAL: Vehicle will self-destruct in 5,4,3,2,1...
As a rule, posters that pull bogus numbers out of their very own "black hole" don't know what they are taking about.
The HST (Hubble Space Telescope) is getting a bit old, technology-wise. It also seems that some of the replacement parts (gyroscopes come to mind) have not lasted as long as the originals. But, there is no scientific instrument either built or on the drawing boards that can entirely replace the Hubble. Period.
The politicos and BS artists would like for the public to believe that the Cobb Telescope IS the replacement. In truth, it is an IR telescopic array, not an IR to visible to UV telescope. If there are any problems with the Cobb scope deployment (solar panel deployment, array element alignment, proper LaGrange orbit), it will be out of reach of any manned SST (shuttle) mission and could be considered lost (barring technology-defying advancements in robotic repair missions).
All ground-based telescopes suffer from the very same environmental issues -- atmospheric distortion, atmospheric filtering (poor weather and/or air
pollution) that limits bandwidth, and light pollution. Recent advances in stereoscopic telescopes have partially ameliorated the issue of atmospheric distortion, only.
The Hubble WILL require some manner of servicing mission, if only to attach rockets for de-orbiting
(originally planned for 2008). But the replacement parts have been built & tested for the continued (and improved) functionality of HST. A robotic servicing mission to perform the repairs and upgrades is 5 years and $2B USD away from reality. OTOH, NASA scientists/astronauts have already been trained to perform this mission. All that is lacking is the political resolve to (1) spend the money to complete the mission, and (2) risk the potential loss of life and spacecraft.
Since any return of the SST (shuttle) into space already risks both spacecraft and human life, using such an argument against a manned HST mission is also an argument against any return of manned spaceflight. The current regime and NASA administrators need to "get a pair"...
As a convicted monopolist that has yet to be punished by the law, MSFT has used their bevy of lawyers and their deep pockets to steal whatever technology that they find useful. Why license IP from another company when you can steal it? The theft of that IP will boost market share, and help to preserve their monopoly status. MSFT has proven time and again that they don't mind eventually losing in court, just so long as the "pain" is less than the "gain".
Sometimes that "gain" cannot be quantified in purely monetary terms -- sometimes consolidation of their
monopolistic market share is gain enough. MSFT's
shield of lawyers will provide either (1) a favorable change in venue, (2) sufficient judicial delay to assure the destruction of competing technology, (3) favorably altering the political/legislative playing field, or (4) stealingcthe technology and fighting off the rightful owners for only as long as that technology is profitable.
This is not an emerging "MO". This is a well developed "SOP" that MSFT has finessed to near perfection over the last 15 years or so. The only "bump" in their roadmap has been the DoJ anti-trust lawsuit against them. MSFT lost the battle but won the war by dragging out the legal battle until there was a change in venue (that is, a regime change). MSFT got a pretty sweet deal -- they basically wrote their own penalty for their monopolistic behaviour.
Reverse-engineering to obtain interoperability is (and should be) a method of last resort. Unencumbered full documentation and sample API would be the preferred method, if not for those commercial entities that prefer to engage in monopolistic practices.
This is why the EU is "holding MSFT's feet to the fire" regarding restrictive file format licensing. It is also the reason why the conclusion can be drawn that the Dubya regime is pro-monopolistic. When the DoJ-MSFT anti-trust lawsuit is revisited in future years (post-Dubya), MSFT will be broken up just like AT&T (Ma Bell) was.
Yet another coat of shellac on the electro-gold- plated turd that is MSFT's OS. Time to pay another visit to MSFT's update website. It's a damn good thing that MSFT doesn't (yet) charge for these security updates, because they aren't getting another plugged nickel from me. (I'm saving my seat cushion change for a really secure OS I heard about, called "LINUSX".)
Slightly OT, but I wonder exactly which TCO study accounted for the constant "patch/clean/patch" cycle that is MSFT's "security" paradigm. My anti- virus software used to be updated weekly, but now it seems like 4 - 5 times per week. That, my friends, is a whole lot of scanning...
I will be waiting for Intel's dual core chips to drop sufficiently in price to use them for a home construction project I have in mind - sub-floor heating for the entryway.
For all other purposes, such as using the CPU(s)
for computers, I will wait for either dual core Intel Mobile chips, or go with the industry leader - AMD.
I suspect that by the time Intel does create a dual core Mobile processor, the Sony/IBM cell technology processors will be available for the desktop market, anyway.
What hurts even worse, is the realization that the money that corporate employees invest in their 401K plans (aka "International High Growth") has been used to start up many of these off-shore out-sourcing companies. Their own retirement funds have been used to strip away their employment.
This is exactly the situation I found myself in while working for an IT contracting firm based in Houston, TX. They had exactly two 401K invest- ment strategies set up -- a nearly zero growth bond fund and 3 (porportedly) different overseas stock growth funds. Each of the stock funds made investments in their Indian subsidiary start-up.
A large part of the whole inducement to companies to offer 401K plans is the leverage either (1) short term interest-free capital (from their employees), or (2) use the 401K as an investment vehicle for the corporation. Many smaller companies' only 401K investment is a strategy to purchase needed equipment, or their building. Often this is hidden as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Doctors' and dentists' corporations 401K investments are frequently exposed when malpractice suits force their companies to dissolve.
Another advantage of off-shore out-sourcing is the very favorable conditions established by the USA government to bring in lower cost labor as either (1) from their foreign subsidiary (L1-A visas) or from their foreign contractor (H1-B visas). In spite of the economic slowdown that started in 2000, the number of L1-A and H1-B visas issued have gone up dramatically since that time. It is no coincidence that, in spite of 9-11-2001, the influx of illegal aliens has nearly doubled.
Little enforcement of the law against employers, and even less enforcement of the law against illegal aliens, have had the broader impact of driving wages lower in the USA. The illegal aliens aren't just working in menial jobs Americans cannot afford at the wages offered, but also construction, IT, TSA screeners and baggage handlers, and even contracting work on US military bases and nuclear power plants. Fake ID's and identity theft doesn't stop with merely CC transactions.
In a few short years, there will be little left of the middle class in the USA, and unlike the 1930's-1940's, there will not be a social safety net left in existance, if the neo-cons have their way.
The NY Transit Authority may have other, longer term goals in mind. Once the train operators have been replaced with computerized control, it is only a matter of time before the job(s) of remotely monitoring the trains is out-sourced.
Before you mod me down, bear in mind that the multinational fast food comglomerate McDonalds is testing the out-sourcing of their take-out window order takers. Baltimore County, MD, is one such place this "improvement" is being tested. The actual voice on the other end of the speaker is currently in Wisconsin. I have no doubt that if this cost-saving method moves from "select regional trials" to widespread national adoption, your McDonalds order taker make be 8,000 miles away, and a vegetarian that considers cows to be holy.
There are a number of commercial enterprises out there (OnSight Data Recovery, for one) that can recover much data from a failed drive, for a price. The methods they use work equally well in cases of failed electronics (controllers) or failed media (delaminated platters).
AFAIK, the use of "dd/dev/random" does no more damage to the data on a drive than a malicious virus, which data recovery companies can work around. Symmantic (Norton Utilities) has a program that will overwrite all data on the drive a number of times. This procedure presumes that there is no physical or electrical damage to the drive that would prevent software access. It is my understanding that any software method used to delete or obscure data on a disk drive is not 100% secure -- it merely makes such data recovery more time (and money) consuming.
OTOH, if your organization uses good quality encryption (AES-256, RSA, or DDES as examples) on the "live" data, software designed to delete or obscure such data can be more effective. Any disk drive that has had a physical or electrical failure that prevents such software from working is a candidate for physical abuse (sledgehammer or belt sander applied to the media).
One of the methods used by data recovery companies is to disassemble the failed drive and move the platters to a known-good host controller/head(s). With some care, this does not even require the use of a clean room, since the data only needs to be recovered once. Any competent hacker would have little difficulty in duplicating such efforts, if the data were worth the time. Sensitive medical, financial, or personal data could be compromised.
Competing missions to Mars may not be such a very bad thing. NASA has has spectacularly disasterous luck with its contractors (mixing up ISO & Imperial measurements cost a Mars probe), while the ESA nearly lost all data for their piggy-back probe to Ios (due to uncalculated doppler effects
on data baud rates).
Seems to me that combining efforts may more likely combine the worst failures of their perspective contractors, rather than cancelling them out.
I am waiting for the new dual core Opterons, so I can order some dual processor/quad core RM systems from SUN. At least "they" will ship systems with linux installed, and without the cursed MSFT "tax". Besides, there are still a few US-based SUN call centers, if I should run into any problems.
The vulnerabilities in MSFT's OS cannot be blamed on third-party software. MSFT themselves have "value-added" "ease-of-use" into their NT/2K/XP product to bring the OS down -- not just damaging the user's home directory.
Email malware, port scans w/service attacks, and
even dodgy bitmaps pulled into IE have all been
used to totally hose a Windows OS. Build a new computer from scratch, install MSFT OS on it, and put it on the internet without (1) a good firewall, and (2) all the required security patches, and the computer will be compromised within minutes, even if the only website you are connecting to is MSFT (for patches). By the time an admin has applied all the security patches, locked down ActiveX, DCOM, Java, IE, etc., tweeked the heck out of the firewall software used, and applied a strict security policy for the computer, it is no longer of very much utility to the enduser. And when 3rd party applications are finally added in, the situation only gets much worse, security-wise. It is with good reason that many corporate WinXP sites still haven't upgraded to SP2 -- too many apps they rely upon will immediately break.
The last time I built a Windows computer from the ground up, I used a secured BSD computer to D/L all the security patches from MSFT. Of course, it is always good policy to never build a system while connected to any network, especially the internet. This applies to Windows, UNIX, or any other platform. But MSFT is getting ready to unleash SP2 on an as-yet unprepared corporate audience when they make their announced changes to "Update" (, a utility I have never really trusted for over-the-wire patches).
This joker has been sentenced to 9 years in prison. Considering the number of SPAM emails that he sent out, this is like 5 minutes per email (maybe!). If you also factor in the theft of time from the recipients, as well as the theft of internet bandwidth, 9 years is not anywhere near enough time (unless it is "hard labor", like breaking big rocks into small gravel by hand). This is not, by any means, an issue of "free speech", any more that if I send you 100 letters per day, disguised as something else, trying to defraud you with phoney goods, and making you pay the COD charges on each letter, to top it off.
Actually, they used to summarily hang cattle rustlers and horse thieves back in the good old days -- that didn't cost taxpayers anything more than a length of rope.
Considering the vast volume of spam that this joker dumped out on the internet, the theft of available bandwidth was apparently left out of the sentencing equation -- IMHO, that should have been 9 years of hard labor.
The USA's Bush regime has determined that Canada has been taken over by "terrorists", and that invasion of Canada is both inevitable and emminent.
Quoted from unamed sources within the White House staff: "First, the Canadians started dumping their beef and lumber in the USA at below cost. Then they refused to help out in the Iraq war. They rejected joining Dubya's new Star Wars program. And now they are threatening our entertainers' IP property rights and profits. As soon as we get anough illegal Mexican immigrants to form a new Army brigade, we will be seeking a regime change in Canada".
MSFT did take core design features from VMS, but threw out all the security capabilities of VMS for the sake of "usability". The only threats that I have ever been aware of in the VMS environment has been when DECNet (NetBIOS) has been used without restrictive router tables and use of firewalls.
MSFT's adoption of UNIX-like permissions will not make Longhorn more secure, in and of itself. That is why MSFT is now counting on hardware-based DRM (aka Palladium) for their OS security. For MSFT, "ease of use" has always been more important than security, which is why we are in the situation we find ourselves in today. MSFT does own the bulk of the market share, built upon "usability" -- but that "usability" extends to the script-kiddies, trojan, worm, and virus writers that may be 12K miles away.
The $64 USD question is this: "Will MSFT's newest attempt at locking down their OS (Longhorn) by way of hardware-based DRM be considered a security tipping point for widespread adoption, when compared to the increasing restrictions placed upon the users?"
The increasing market share of Mac OS X, as well as the other BSDs and GNU/linux, would seem to indicate that MSFT's bumbling "Keystone Kops" security efforts have not been well received in the market place.
Those "natural monopolies" have been heavily regulated for good reasons.
AT&T (Ma Bell) would never have built the infrastructure to provide telephone service to most of rural America without the Federal government providing both carrot and stick for them to do so. AT&T owned (now the "baby Bells" own) the POTS infrastructure. Even with inducements from the states and the Federal government, the "baby Bells" have been reluctant to spend the capital to build a new "digital age" infrastructure. The "baby Bells" have not upgraded the POTS infrastructure in most of the country, so there are some urban areas that have DSL/ADSL service, while most of the country is out of range of the Central Office (POTS) structure. Care to place any bets on when FTTP (Fiber To The Premises) arrives in Smallville, USA?
It took a populist Democratic regime (FDR) to bring electricity into rural areas back in the 1930's. Such a program could not happen in today's "conservative" economic climate. This same coddling of big business at the expense of the larger pro-growth populism is at the heart of today's telco monopolies. What has happened in Texas, as well as in at least 15 other states, is the legislatures have been convinced that the telcos deserve monopoly protection for future markets (WiFi) that they have been reluctant to enter. The FCC's recent ruling regarding the telcos "bundling" of services is yet another step in that same direction. Freeze out the competition, including in emerging technology markets (like WiFi). The Bush regime has demonstrated time and again that they are the friends of BIG business, not of small regional start-ups.
The parent post provides some useful links, since the original story's link appears to have some (slashdot effect) communications problems.
We all know that MSFT's definition of OSS is far different that the IT community's at large, so it is probably safe to rule out a BSD license. And considering the MSFT platform requirements, it would be a good bet that it is some encumbered MSFT license.
Nice, though, to see that MSFT is providing some real benefit to RCMP law enforcement to go after one of the most disgusting and insideous uses put to the internet - child porn. The articles don't talk about the technology used, but facial recognition can probably be ruled out. My bet would be the use of steganography and digital watermarks on "seeded" child porn images. I hope the RCMP/MSFT team catches every last one of those sicko buggers.
I totally agree with your argument, but I would take it a couple of steps further. Since $1 USD goes so much further in India, instead of just off-shore out-sourcing the "worker-bee" jobs there, we really should be moving the corporate officers and board of directors jobs there.
Just think, instead of a "Bernie Ebbers" who cooks the books to the tune of $11 Billion USD in order to keep that quarterly profit/quarterly bonus pyramid scheme going at MCI/WorldCom, or a "Fiorina" that
has to be bribed $45 Million USD to leave HP, the major shareholders could be looking at an immediate 80% cut in pay and bonuses to their corporate leadership by moving those jobs off-shore.
It isn't as if these US corporations wouldn't directly benefit from hiring the top 1% of Indian corporate officers, instead of the ethically challenged USA-trained MBAs that we have now.
DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is already an oxymoron. They are in charge of the non- existent seaport security (w/ recent incursions by Chinese stowaways in container cargo), with nearly non-existent border security (w/ 1-1/2 million illegal aliens entering the USA each year, up by 50% from before 9-11-2001), and with nearly non-existent enforcement of immigration laws (28 million illegal aliens in the USA hired illegally by USA employers).
We have illegal aliens working for the TSA (Trans- potation Security Agency) as screeners and baggage handlers, and illegal aliens working construction on US military bases, and even illegal aliens working as maintenence contractors at our nuclear power plants.
But privacy and privacy laws are there to be circumvented, the Federal government has gotten (way big time) into the public propaganda "hearts and minds" battle, and former WH legal counsel, now our US AG, who proposed and promulgated the use of torture (and abandoning the Geneva Accords). The USA Patriot Act (I) does more to undermine and destroy the USA's Constitution and Bill of
Rights than any other legislation since the "Alien & Sedition Act" in the early 1800s. When they finally get around to renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of Peace, the conversion will have been complete.
Apparently, science fiction from the mid-20th century has become the playbook for the neo-cons currently in power. So I know that they do read something other than the KJ edition of the Bible, but only in the comic book versions (with plenty of pictures).
Slashdot Mirror
You are "right on target"! There is a point that you failed to bring up, though, that is important. The low interest rates and speculative real estate market has been the only major source of consumer "discretionary" capital. Lethargic job grown, the decline in real wages, and stratospheric growth in the cost of health care and energy are sucking the oxygen out of the economy. A really good indicator is the automotive industry -- the low interest loans and rebates used to appear only when they were in the process of clearing out last year's stock. January 2005 already saw the auto manufacturers offering these same inducements for their new model year autos.
I think that you are being far too optimistic in projecting a major recession within ten years. One major domestic terrorist attack with WMD, or a deteriorating trade relationship with the EU and/or Asia could be the tipping point. In fact, all it would take is for OPEC to switch their exchange standard from the USD (dollar) to the Euro (EU), which several OPEC members have already suggested. I think even a projection of five years before the USA's next "recession" is far too optimistic.
(Just my rapidly depreciating $00.02 worth...)
I see a LOT of litigation in the manufacturers' futures...
(me, in my 2007 BMW 777tii)
me: WFT! BSOD!
HAL: Dave, I've determined you installed a hacked Garmin GPS DVD in my system.
me: Err. No, HAL, you're mistaken.
HAL: Dave, I can't let you do this.
me: Is this why you've crashed the ECS?
HAL: Vehicle will self-destruct in 5,4,3,2,1...
Netcraft confirms that this is an "extinct" unix
system... (alas, poor SGI).
in only two words: paintball guns!
Fsck Big Brother, and the "1984" he rode in on.
As a rule, posters that pull bogus numbers out of
their very own "black hole" don't know what they
are taking about.
The HST (Hubble Space Telescope) is getting a bit
old, technology-wise. It also seems that some of
the replacement parts (gyroscopes come to mind)
have not lasted as long as the originals. But,
there is no scientific instrument either built
or on the drawing boards that can entirely replace
the Hubble. Period.
The politicos and BS artists would like for the
public to believe that the Cobb Telescope IS the
replacement. In truth, it is an IR telescopic
array, not an IR to visible to UV telescope.
If there are any problems with the Cobb scope
deployment (solar panel deployment, array element
alignment, proper LaGrange orbit), it will be out
of reach of any manned SST (shuttle) mission and
could be considered lost (barring technology-defying
advancements in robotic repair missions).
All ground-based telescopes suffer from the very
same environmental issues -- atmospheric distortion,
atmospheric filtering (poor weather and/or air
pollution) that limits bandwidth, and light
pollution. Recent advances in stereoscopic
telescopes have partially ameliorated the issue
of atmospheric distortion, only.
The Hubble WILL require some manner of servicing
mission, if only to attach rockets for de-orbiting
(originally planned for 2008).
But the replacement parts have been built & tested
for the continued (and improved) functionality of
HST. A robotic servicing mission to perform the
repairs and upgrades is 5 years and $2B USD away
from reality. OTOH, NASA scientists/astronauts
have already been trained to perform this mission.
All that is lacking is the political resolve to
(1) spend the money to complete the mission, and
(2) risk the potential loss of life and spacecraft.
Since any return of the SST (shuttle) into space
already risks both spacecraft and human life,
using such an argument against a manned HST
mission is also an argument against any return
of manned spaceflight. The current regime and
NASA administrators need to "get a pair"...
Exactly so!
As a convicted monopolist that has yet to be
punished by the law, MSFT has used their bevy
of lawyers and their deep pockets to steal whatever
technology that they find useful. Why license
IP from another company when you can steal it?
The theft of that IP will boost market share, and
help to preserve their monopoly status. MSFT has
proven time and again that they don't mind eventually
losing in court, just so long as the "pain" is
less than the "gain".
Sometimes that "gain" cannot be quantified in purely
monetary terms -- sometimes consolidation of their
monopolistic market share is gain enough. MSFT's
shield of lawyers will provide either (1) a
favorable change in venue, (2) sufficient judicial
delay to assure the destruction of competing technology,
(3) favorably altering the political/legislative playing field,
or (4) stealingcthe technology and fighting off the rightful
owners for only as long as that technology is profitable.
This is not an emerging "MO". This is a well
developed "SOP" that MSFT has finessed to near
perfection over the last 15 years or so. The only
"bump" in their roadmap has been the DoJ anti-trust
lawsuit against them. MSFT lost the battle but
won the war by dragging out the legal battle until
there was a change in venue (that is, a regime change).
MSFT got a pretty sweet deal -- they basically
wrote their own penalty for their monopolistic
behaviour.
Reverse-engineering to obtain interoperability
is (and should be) a method of last resort.
Unencumbered full documentation and sample API
would be the preferred method, if not for those
commercial entities that prefer to engage in
monopolistic practices.
This is why the EU is "holding MSFT's feet to the
fire" regarding restrictive file format licensing.
It is also the reason why the conclusion can be
drawn that the Dubya regime is pro-monopolistic.
When the DoJ-MSFT anti-trust lawsuit is revisited
in future years (post-Dubya), MSFT will be broken
up just like AT&T (Ma Bell) was.
Yet another coat of shellac on the electro-gold-
plated turd that is MSFT's OS. Time to pay another
visit to MSFT's update website. It's a damn good
thing that MSFT doesn't (yet) charge for these
security updates, because they aren't getting
another plugged nickel from me. (I'm saving my
seat cushion change for a really secure OS I heard
about, called "LINUSX".)
Slightly OT, but I wonder exactly which TCO study
accounted for the constant "patch/clean/patch"
cycle that is MSFT's "security" paradigm. My anti-
virus software used to be updated weekly, but now
it seems like 4 - 5 times per week. That, my friends,
is a whole lot of scanning...
I will be waiting for Intel's dual core chips to
drop sufficiently in price to use them for a home
construction project I have in mind - sub-floor
heating for the entryway.
For all other purposes, such as using the CPU(s)
for computers, I will wait for either dual core Intel
Mobile chips, or go with the industry leader - AMD.
I suspect that by the time Intel does create a
dual core Mobile processor, the Sony/IBM cell
technology processors will be available for the
desktop market, anyway.
What hurts even worse, is the realization that
the money that corporate employees invest in
their 401K plans (aka "International High Growth")
has been used to start up many of these off-shore
out-sourcing companies. Their own retirement funds
have been used to strip away their employment.
This is exactly the situation I found myself in
while working for an IT contracting firm based
in Houston, TX. They had exactly two 401K invest-
ment strategies set up -- a nearly zero growth
bond fund and 3 (porportedly) different overseas
stock growth funds. Each of the stock funds made
investments in their Indian subsidiary start-up.
A large part of the whole inducement to companies
to offer 401K plans is the leverage either (1)
short term interest-free capital (from their
employees), or (2) use the 401K as an investment
vehicle for the corporation. Many smaller companies'
only 401K investment is a strategy to purchase
needed equipment, or their building. Often this
is hidden as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Doctors'
and dentists' corporations 401K investments are
frequently exposed when malpractice suits force
their companies to dissolve.
Another advantage of off-shore out-sourcing is
the very favorable conditions established by
the USA government to bring in lower cost labor
as either (1) from their foreign subsidiary (L1-A
visas) or from their foreign contractor (H1-B visas).
In spite of the economic slowdown that started in
2000, the number of L1-A and H1-B visas issued
have gone up dramatically since that time. It is
no coincidence that, in spite of 9-11-2001, the
influx of illegal aliens has nearly doubled.
Little enforcement of the law against employers,
and even less enforcement of the law against illegal
aliens, have had the broader impact of driving
wages lower in the USA. The illegal aliens aren't
just working in menial jobs Americans cannot afford
at the wages offered, but also construction, IT,
TSA screeners and baggage handlers, and even
contracting work on US military bases and nuclear
power plants. Fake ID's and identity theft doesn't
stop with merely CC transactions.
In a few short years, there will be little left
of the middle class in the USA, and unlike the
1930's-1940's, there will not be a social safety
net left in existance, if the neo-cons have their
way.
The NY Transit Authority may have other, longer
term goals in mind. Once the train operators
have been replaced with computerized control,
it is only a matter of time before the job(s)
of remotely monitoring the trains is out-sourced.
Before you mod me down, bear in mind that the
multinational fast food comglomerate McDonalds
is testing the out-sourcing of their take-out
window order takers. Baltimore County, MD, is
one such place this "improvement" is being tested.
The actual voice on the other end of the speaker
is currently in Wisconsin. I have no doubt that
if this cost-saving method moves from "select
regional trials" to widespread national adoption,
your McDonalds order taker make be 8,000 miles
away, and a vegetarian that considers cows to be
holy.
There are a number of commercial enterprises
/dev/random" does no more
out there (OnSight Data Recovery, for one) that
can recover much data from a failed drive, for a
price. The methods they use work equally well
in cases of failed electronics (controllers) or
failed media (delaminated platters).
AFAIK, the use of "dd
damage to the data on a drive than a malicious
virus, which data recovery companies can work
around. Symmantic (Norton Utilities) has a
program that will overwrite all data on the drive
a number of times. This procedure presumes that
there is no physical or electrical damage to the
drive that would prevent software access. It is
my understanding that any software method used to
delete or obscure data on a disk drive is not
100% secure -- it merely makes such data recovery
more time (and money) consuming.
OTOH, if your organization uses good quality
encryption (AES-256, RSA, or DDES as examples)
on the "live" data, software designed to delete
or obscure such data can be more effective. Any
disk drive that has had a physical or electrical
failure that prevents such software from working
is a candidate for physical abuse (sledgehammer
or belt sander applied to the media).
One of the methods used by data recovery companies
is to disassemble the failed drive and move the
platters to a known-good host controller/head(s).
With some care, this does not even require the use
of a clean room, since the data only needs to be
recovered once. Any competent hacker would have
little difficulty in duplicating such efforts, if
the data were worth the time. Sensitive medical,
financial, or personal data could be compromised.
Just my $00.02 worth.
If you think the work environment is unpleasant
here, think about the atmosphere when your first
zero-G barfly pukes his/her guts out.
I think I'll pass on any such job offer until we
develop artificial gravity.
Competing missions to Mars may not be such a
very bad thing. NASA has has spectacularly
disasterous luck with its contractors (mixing
up ISO & Imperial measurements cost a Mars probe),
while the ESA nearly lost all data for their piggy-back
probe to Ios (due to uncalculated doppler effects
on data baud rates).
Seems to me that combining efforts may more likely
combine the worst failures of their perspective
contractors, rather than cancelling them out.
But..., I don't want a Dell Opteron system.
I am waiting for the new dual core Opterons, so
I can order some dual processor/quad core RM
systems from SUN. At least "they" will ship
systems with linux installed, and without the
cursed MSFT "tax". Besides, there are still a
few US-based SUN call centers, if I should run
into any problems.
The vulnerabilities in MSFT's OS cannot be blamed
on third-party software. MSFT themselves have
"value-added" "ease-of-use" into their NT/2K/XP
product to bring the OS down -- not just damaging
the user's home directory.
Email malware, port scans w/service attacks, and
even dodgy bitmaps pulled into IE have all been
used to totally hose a Windows OS. Build a new
computer from scratch, install MSFT OS on it, and
put it on the internet without (1) a good firewall,
and (2) all the required security patches, and the
computer will be compromised within minutes, even
if the only website you are connecting to is MSFT
(for patches). By the time an admin has applied
all the security patches, locked down ActiveX,
DCOM, Java, IE, etc., tweeked the heck out of the
firewall software used, and applied a strict
security policy for the computer, it is no longer
of very much utility to the enduser. And when 3rd
party applications are finally added in, the situation
only gets much worse, security-wise. It is with
good reason that many corporate WinXP sites still
haven't upgraded to SP2 -- too many apps they
rely upon will immediately break.
The last time I built a Windows computer from the
ground up, I used a secured BSD computer to D/L
all the security patches from MSFT. Of course,
it is always good policy to never build a system
while connected to any network, especially the
internet. This applies to Windows, UNIX, or any
other platform. But MSFT is getting ready to
unleash SP2 on an as-yet unprepared corporate
audience when they make their announced changes
to "Update" (, a utility I have never really
trusted for over-the-wire patches).
This joker has been sentenced to 9 years in prison. Considering the number of SPAM emails that he sent out, this is like 5 minutes per email (maybe!). If you also factor in the theft of time from the recipients, as well as the theft of internet bandwidth, 9 years is not anywhere near enough time (unless it is "hard labor", like breaking big rocks into small gravel by hand). This is not, by any means, an issue of "free speech", any more that if I send you 100 letters per day, disguised as something else, trying to defraud you with phoney goods, and making you pay the COD charges on each letter, to top it off.
Actually, they used to summarily hang cattle rustlers and horse thieves back in the good old days -- that didn't cost taxpayers anything more than a length of rope.
Considering the vast volume of spam that this
joker dumped out on the internet, the theft of
available bandwidth was apparently left out of
the sentencing equation -- IMHO, that should have
been 9 years of hard labor.
The USA's Bush regime has determined that Canada
has been taken over by "terrorists", and that
invasion of Canada is both inevitable and emminent.
Quoted from unamed sources within the White House
staff: "First, the Canadians started dumping their
beef and lumber in the USA at below cost. Then
they refused to help out in the Iraq war. They
rejected joining Dubya's new Star Wars program.
And now they are threatening our entertainers'
IP property rights and profits. As soon as we
get anough illegal Mexican immigrants to form a
new Army brigade, we will be seeking a regime
change in Canada".
Stay tuned for news as it becomes available...
MSFT did take core design features from VMS, but
threw out all the security capabilities of VMS
for the sake of "usability". The only threats
that I have ever been aware of in the VMS environment
has been when DECNet (NetBIOS) has been used without
restrictive router tables and use of firewalls.
MSFT's adoption of UNIX-like permissions will not
make Longhorn more secure, in and of itself. That
is why MSFT is now counting on hardware-based DRM
(aka Palladium) for their OS security. For MSFT,
"ease of use" has always been more important than
security, which is why we are in the situation we
find ourselves in today. MSFT does own the bulk
of the market share, built upon "usability" -- but
that "usability" extends to the script-kiddies,
trojan, worm, and virus writers that may be 12K
miles away.
The $64 USD question is this: "Will MSFT's newest
attempt at locking down their OS (Longhorn) by way
of hardware-based DRM be considered a security
tipping point for widespread adoption, when compared
to the increasing restrictions placed upon the
users?"
The increasing market share of Mac OS X, as well
as the other BSDs and GNU/linux, would seem to
indicate that MSFT's bumbling "Keystone Kops"
security efforts have not been well received in
the market place.
Those "natural monopolies" have been heavily
regulated for good reasons.
AT&T (Ma Bell) would never have built the infrastructure
to provide telephone service to most of rural America
without the Federal government providing both carrot
and stick for them to do so. AT&T owned (now the
"baby Bells" own) the POTS infrastructure. Even with
inducements from the states and the Federal government,
the "baby Bells" have been reluctant to spend the
capital to build a new "digital age" infrastructure.
The "baby Bells" have not upgraded the POTS infrastructure
in most of the country, so there are some urban
areas that have DSL/ADSL service, while most of
the country is out of range of the Central Office
(POTS) structure. Care to place any bets on when
FTTP (Fiber To The Premises) arrives in Smallville, USA?
It took a populist Democratic regime (FDR) to bring
electricity into rural areas back in the 1930's.
Such a program could not happen in today's "conservative"
economic climate. This same coddling of big business
at the expense of the larger pro-growth populism
is at the heart of today's telco monopolies.
What has happened in Texas, as well as in at least
15 other states, is the legislatures have been
convinced that the telcos deserve monopoly protection
for future markets (WiFi) that they have been reluctant
to enter. The FCC's recent ruling regarding the
telcos "bundling" of services is yet another step
in that same direction. Freeze out the competition,
including in emerging technology markets (like WiFi).
The Bush regime has demonstrated time and
again that they are the friends of BIG business,
not of small regional start-ups.
The parent post provides some useful links, since
the original story's link appears to have some
(slashdot effect) communications problems.
We all know that MSFT's definition of OSS is far
different that the IT community's at large, so
it is probably safe to rule out a BSD license.
And considering the MSFT platform requirements,
it would be a good bet that it is some encumbered
MSFT license.
Nice, though, to see that MSFT is providing some
real benefit to RCMP law enforcement to go after
one of the most disgusting and insideous uses put
to the internet - child porn. The articles don't
talk about the technology used, but facial recognition
can probably be ruled out. My bet would be the use
of steganography and digital watermarks on "seeded"
child porn images. I hope the RCMP/MSFT team catches
every last one of those sicko buggers.
As another ardent fan of Angelina Jolie, I have to point out that that laptop had a "P6 processor"
and a "PCI bus".
I totally agree with your argument, but I would
take it a couple of steps further. Since $1 USD
goes so much further in India, instead of just
off-shore out-sourcing the "worker-bee" jobs there,
we really should be moving the corporate officers
and board of directors jobs there.
Just think, instead of a "Bernie Ebbers" who cooks
the books to the tune of $11 Billion USD in order
to keep that quarterly profit/quarterly bonus pyramid
scheme going at MCI/WorldCom, or a "Fiorina" that
has to be bribed $45 Million USD to leave HP,
the major shareholders could be looking at an
immediate 80% cut in pay and bonuses to their
corporate leadership by moving those jobs off-shore.
It isn't as if these US corporations wouldn't
directly benefit from hiring the top 1% of
Indian corporate officers, instead of the ethically
challenged USA-trained MBAs that we have now.
DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is already
an oxymoron. They are in charge of the non-
existent seaport security (w/ recent incursions
by Chinese stowaways in container cargo), with
nearly non-existent border security (w/ 1-1/2
million illegal aliens entering the USA each year,
up by 50% from before 9-11-2001), and with nearly
non-existent enforcement of immigration laws (28
million illegal aliens in the USA hired illegally
by USA employers).
We have illegal aliens working for the TSA (Trans-
potation Security Agency) as screeners and baggage
handlers, and illegal aliens working construction
on US military bases, and even illegal aliens
working as maintenence contractors at our nuclear
power plants.
But privacy and privacy laws are there to be
circumvented, the Federal government has gotten
(way big time) into the public propaganda "hearts
and minds" battle, and former WH legal counsel,
now our US AG, who proposed and promulgated the
use of torture (and abandoning the Geneva Accords).
The USA Patriot Act (I) does more to undermine
and destroy the USA's Constitution and Bill of
Rights than any other legislation since
the "Alien & Sedition Act" in the early 1800s.
When they finally get around to renaming the
Department of Defense as the Department of Peace,
the conversion will have been complete.
Apparently, science fiction from the mid-20th
century has become the playbook for the neo-cons
currently in power. So I know that they do read
something other than the KJ edition of the Bible,
but only in the comic book versions (with plenty
of pictures).