Agreed - working around browser differences is nothing new. It's more complicated when you try to get cute but maybe that's a sign that you're making things too complicated. Make your pages comply with WCAG and chances are they'll work pretty well in IE / FireFox and the rest of the browser world. Give up on exact control of the appearance and instead focus on making the page function and look good in a variety of client configurations. I'm rambling - but whatever - it's nothing new and seems like a group of people with an agenda took advantage of the MS post to spread their message to others. Mission accomplished.
Are you stating that a dedicated device performs a given function better than a multi-purpose device? I think most of us would agree that this is generally true, but there are those in the world who aren't comfortable accessorizing themselves with four or five electronic gadgets.
It also requires all 245 million license and state ID holders to visit their local departments of motor vehicles and apply for a Real ID by 2013. Applicants must bring a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security number and proof of residence, and states must maintain and protect massive databases housing the information.
I don't think I've ever seen a target more tempting for hackers...
I think it's highly obvious. Let's say you break no laws at all... ever. You go the speed limit, you pay your taxes, you buy all of your music / movies, and you never jaywalk. So you have no problem if a governing authority has complete knowledge of everything you do. Some may argue that you might pick your nose and someone would know, but the obvious retort is that there is so much data that no individual would know unless you did something wrong. Everythings's fine and dandy.
Fast forward 10 years later. The government has full access to your life - cameras everywhere, you have a tracking mechanism embedded in your arm, all your actions are logged, etc.. It has been this way for years. Now the government starts to limit your freedoms further to ensure your safety/wellbeing and the safety/wellbeing of your fellow citizens. You MUST brush your teeth three times a day. You can't consume salt, suger, alcohol, or red meat. You can't have more than one child. You and your family MUST attend government mandated education sessions from 6:00pm to 7:00pm every night - after you work your government mandated 9 hour shift doing what the government deems you are best at. The government has made so many laws that you are guaranteed to be breaking some law - and the government knows and they arrest you for it at their convenience.
This is an illustration of why we need to protect our privacy. You might have nothing to fear now, but if you give the government too much power you might not be able to stop them once you have something to fear. Or something like that...
Similar to the problem Google faces with people using the word "google" as another way to say "search", the phrase "open source" is widely accepted as meaning "source code available for use". The only difference is that "Google" is widely known as a company while "open source" has no meaning beyond the concept described above. This "open source initiative" looks like a way for somebody to make a quick buck - there should be no license necessary to categorize your software as open source. Sure some may try to abuse the phrase by releasing only portions of their code (if that) but it's the same way companies abuse other phrases like "standard" and "secure".
In corporate IT, every project should have justification (i.e. cost reduction, revenue enhancement, legal compliance, etc.). Comparing Exchange/Blackberry to POP3/iPhone for a new organization is one thing and it could be argued that some organizations would choose the one that fits their needs best. However, what is the benefit for SWITCHING to POP3/iPhone for an organization that is already using Exchange? With Exchange/Blackberry they have centralized email/contacts/calendars that are accessible from any number of devices without needing to synchronize anything. It could be argued that the iPhone is cooler/sleeker but how could that possibly justify the cost of changing along with the lost calendar functionality? It's like saying they should dump those ugly econo vans for a fleet of Ferrari's because they're more fun to drive.
The iPhone is not targetted at corporate IT. It's targetted at the individual who wants to look cool. Just like the Ferrari (no insult to the iPhone - the Ferrari is a nice car).
Remove the code that was likely supplied by the RIAA/MPAA and maybe I'll consider Vista. I have two machines that will run it with flying colors but right now XP certainly exceeds my needs and I don't want to lose functionality (or video/audio quality) by going to Vista. Of course, I would still wait until SP1 to help ensure that most of the bad bugs are detected/removed by the time I switch.
Off topic, but I have the world's most disrespectful kids as neighbors. Their entire family took a field trip into my fenced-in back yard to retrieve a tennis ball one day. They knocked over another section of my fence although I have no proof (other than their exclaiming "look! he's fixing it" as I set in new fence posts - seriously who breaks a fence post??). They plow through my front yard daily on foot, by bicycle, and once with a go cart (I asked them not to do that again). They climbed my trees and killed a limb on one (again - asked them not to do that). They throw rocks which often wind up in my yard. They step on my wife's flowers in the flower beds. I've seen them shooting air soft pellets at a neighbor's car (I keep mine in the garage). They leave bicycles and scooters all over their yard and sometimes on my own yard.
Where is the police officer to fine them $400 for trashing my property? I could call the police and the best result I could get is the officer warning the kids, more likely he would tell me to stop wasting his time.
As a solution I keep the gate locked and we're building a decorative fence between our yards.
But where were the no tresspassing signs? Taking this analogy one step further, can someone get in trouble for crossing through a private (yet clearly unsecured) field if it isn't marked as "private" / "no tresspassing"? It should be up to the owners to secure their property or at least mark it such that others know it is restricted/private.
If streets could be made safer we wouldn't need police...
Seriously, if someone is determined they can get in no matter how secure a system (or physical location) is. All security mechanisms are merely deterrents whether it be a car alarm, a home security system, or a firewall. The more layers of security you have the more likely it is to deter breaches. You can improve security on individual products but you will always need someone to provide expertise on the integration of those products as well as monitor them for potential breaches. You can suggest that security is not cost effective for your organization but there are real-life cases where the systems/data being secured are too valuable to assume that the default security is sufficient.
Case in point, auto manufacturers have theft protection built into the cars. It has a manufacturer's alarm and the doors are locked. You can park it in a garage that has cameras and secure entries/exits. Good security, right? Would you feel comfortable leaving a case of hundred dollar bills along with the keys sitting in the front seat?
I read this while researching captchas - hacker speak developed as a method of communicating in a manner that could not easily be detected by computers. For example, in the 80's someone could say h4x0r and an automated program that scanned for hacker wouldn't pick it up.
Purchased a TI-85 back in 93 I think and it has been to hell and back in terms of physical abuse (I probably dropped it over 200 times, it's been crammed in bags with textbooks and dropped on the floor and now it rides with me in my laptop case when I go to/from work). One of the best things I've ever purchased as it does everything I need (although it may not be as automated as the newer ones), battery life is not a problem, I could use it in all my school tests, and it is quite rugged/reliable. I still use it at least once a week when I need to do calculations at work.
While not perfect the graphics are the best I've seen for a racing game thus far. The trees and grass could use alot of work and the cars themselves, while fantastic relative to other games, still show signs of being rendered. The graphics are still impressive and it is enough to make most gamers (including myself) want to try the game out.
And if the gameplay is good (I wouldn't know) then all those gamers trying it out will likely shell out some cash to own it.
That may be true for low-tech jobs, but certainly not for high-tech jobs like software engineering, because one good high-tech worker is worth an infinite number of mediocre high-tech workers. You either have the skills and desire to do a high-tech job competently, or else you are a liability. It is really that simple.
Are you suggesting that jobs in India won't be outsourced to China/Vietnam due to a lack of quality workers? The same thing has been said of workers in India over the last 5-7 years although it is not necessarily true. What is true is that despite how the American population felt about the abilities of those in lower-wage countries like India, the outsourcing still happened because the cheaper workers had the same degree of potential and a much higher degree of willingness to do the same thing at a reduced price.
Kinda funny... corporations have a surplus of talent but don't want to pay for it so they choose to outsource to India. IT professionals, talented or not, began bailing out of the industry because competition was way to high. Students who may have leaned towards a career in IT backtracked for fear that jobs would be scarce and wages would be low.
To the managers hoping to save a buck by using cheaper labor at the expense of your fellow citizens - look what you've done to yourselves. You effectively made the problem worse for yourselves and for countless workers who became so desperate that they had to bail out of the industry.
The winners? India (obviously) and what remains of the IT workforce in areas hit hard by outsourcing. Yay nerds.
Don't be too quick to downgrade the parent. His message may seem trollish but his point is valid. They claim that their security measures are the best in the world but they also make other claims that are done purely to make their industry look more appealing to potential customers - not necessarily with any basis in reality(whether that is sales abilities, communciation skills, work ethic etc.). So if one claim is pure marketing then who is to say that the claim regarding security is anything other than an attempt to ease the fears of potential customers?
I know it's unlikely, but perhaps we should discontinue gambling activities and send a clear message that we won't stand for lobbyists controlling our state and federal leaders. Then again, maybe we should just surrender to our lobbyist overlords now and hope that they don't take away our freedom to stay home on the weekend instead of going out and giving them our money.
I recall configuring Procomm Plus to continually dial a set of 10-12 BBS numbers, sometimes it would connect on the first, othertimes it would cycle through all of them for nearly an hour. On those BBS systems you'd find chat, games, and other interactive features that I seldom used. I instead used them as a source for shareware (games, utilities, apps), digital art, and ascii art. You'd have BBS systems bragging about the number of CD-ROMs they had available (or perhaps they'd say they had over 2GB of downloads). Downloads took forever and I don't remember if you could actually continue downloads that were broken by something like a relative calling in. Sometimes I'd browse through jokes, quotes, and other trivial content. There was a time I scoured some systems for Pascal programs that I could compile and run. One time, I read that I could hit for the meaning of life and I fell for it.
You may be right that the buyer's actions were illegal, but just look at the other case briefly mentioned in the article. Some woman purchased an ipod and never received it. She obviously took the legal approach and look where she is, the police are investigating it and she probably won't see a dime even if a court rules in her favor. The law isn't working in this particular case.
This guy's solution has obviously punished a fraudulent seller who would otherwise continue scamming people. In fact, the seller might rement payment just to get the embarrassing content taken down (but it's probably going to be mirrored somewhere so why bother).
Not sure which exploit it was, but I've been using Firefox 100% of the time and I keep my system fully patched. NAV and MS Anti-spyware were also installed / updated. Monday MS Antispyware caught two instances of really nasty add-ins including PWS-Pinch. I traced it back to "trojan-downloader-ruin" but I had to download 6 different applications to even find that (I figured there was something putting these other apps in my system). Adaware didn't catch it either.
Anyway, after lots of digging I figured it was best to reformat and turn myself into a LUA user (Least User Admin) in addition to having the other safeguards I had in place. I'm still not sure if it's safe so I'm avoiding visiting sites that I don't regularly visit.
Now I'm wondering how much of my data got retrieved by a malicious hacker...:(
I have downloaded legally and found DRM a pain in the ass, and continue to get my shite from P2P and allofmp3.com.
I've been thinking about going to a legal downloading service but I hang back because I fear that the restrictions and proprietary formats will prevent me from...
1.) Burning unlimited audio CDs for the car
2.) Burning unlimited mp3 CDs for work
3.) Buying any third party hardware player for the files I get from the service
That's basically it... I want to be able to listen to a song I buy from home, in the car, and at work without requiring a specific player or proprietary software (I use a zero footprint mp3 player on my work pc).
Is that possible with any of the legal services? I'd pay $1 per song...
What if we treat it like licensing... if I buy a tune in the proprietary format and then download that same tune in mp3 format, is that really wrong/illegal? Would they really sue me if I could document that I owned each song I downloaded? I rationalized downloading Pearl Jam's Ten a few months back because my CD (bought in 92 I think) is so scratched up that I can't get a digital rip anymore.
Actually, it's the business unit that owns the database, the DBAs just ensure that the database is available and that clowns like you and me don't end up corrupting/modifying the data in a way that the business unit wouldn't appreciate. Sure the business unit suffers a loss in flexibility in that they can't just arbitrarily go in an change a name here, add a digit there, etc., but they can now have a set of data that can only be changed in certain ways and that can have auditing.
I never proposed a solution, I just said the current process is flawed and examining other sources of labor is not the solution.
And yes, I have done it. I had to create a posting for my own job a few years back and reapply for it. While the fact that I had to do it stunk, I at least had the priviledge of targetting the position at my own skillset and closing the posting after 5 business days. We also presented the low end of the salary range to discourage applicants. Within 5 days we had over 300 resumes, nearly all of which were the same.
Since I was applying I wasn't allowed to filter out the resumes, but I know what happened. The typos, 2+ page resumes, stupid resumes (colored, photos, pointless quotes, unlegible), etc. were weeded out first. Then they went through looking for keywords that I had previously told them to search for. At this point they had a set of 100+ resumes that all looked the same. It's a problem, I can't think of a solution that will get the truly qualified people the position over the exaggeraters/liars.
You fail to understand the application process for most jobs in the U.S. The job is posted. applications/resumes start FLOODING in. The job is closed a week or two later.
The 500-2000 resumes are examined VERY quickly. I've heard stories about the piles being arbitrarily halved with the other half being discarded. Stupid mistakes are often weeded out first (typos, bad appearance, spelling, etc.). Keywords are often sought after by people / computers who are incapable of interpreting... job requirement might be SQL Server 7 and the applicant put SQL Server 2000, or "Active Server Pages" instead of ASP, etc..
A more manageable set of resumes is now available. Managers/Leads poor over them (dividing up the work of course), standards are not set. Desirable resumes are kept over less desirable ones. Note that there is a HUGE problem with liars, those who are honest on their resumes are at a huge disadvantage as they are typically weeded out unless they have 15 years of experience and know every nuance of SQL/ASP/C#/Exchange like the other 80% of the resumes (99% of those are likely exagerating).
Managers will narrow down resumes and end up picking a few for interviews. At this point the game is likely lost, as the managers probably picked a set that consists of liars/exageraters. If someone does know what they're talking about, they have a good chance of being hired.
Now, companies say the pool stinks. They can't ever find qualified people to interview. It's much easier to pick cheap/qualified people from $FOREIGN_COUNTRY than it is to try and find a good one through the hiring process.
The fact that companies are complaining is NOT indicative of a lack of qualified people to fill the slots. It's indicative of a problem in the hiring process. The fact that some get to bypass the process does not mean that they are somehow better qualified (although they may or may not be, that's not the question).
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Agreed - working around browser differences is nothing new. It's more complicated when you try to get cute but maybe that's a sign that you're making things too complicated. Make your pages comply with WCAG and chances are they'll work pretty well in IE / FireFox and the rest of the browser world. Give up on exact control of the appearance and instead focus on making the page function and look good in a variety of client configurations. I'm rambling - but whatever - it's nothing new and seems like a group of people with an agenda took advantage of the MS post to spread their message to others. Mission accomplished.
Are you stating that a dedicated device performs a given function better than a multi-purpose device? I think most of us would agree that this is generally true, but there are those in the world who aren't comfortable accessorizing themselves with four or five electronic gadgets.
It also requires all 245 million license and state ID holders to visit their local departments of motor vehicles and apply for a Real ID by 2013. Applicants must bring a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security number and proof of residence, and states must maintain and protect massive databases housing the information.
I don't think I've ever seen a target more tempting for hackers...
I think it's highly obvious. Let's say you break no laws at all... ever. You go the speed limit, you pay your taxes, you buy all of your music / movies, and you never jaywalk. So you have no problem if a governing authority has complete knowledge of everything you do. Some may argue that you might pick your nose and someone would know, but the obvious retort is that there is so much data that no individual would know unless you did something wrong. Everythings's fine and dandy.
Fast forward 10 years later. The government has full access to your life - cameras everywhere, you have a tracking mechanism embedded in your arm, all your actions are logged, etc.. It has been this way for years. Now the government starts to limit your freedoms further to ensure your safety/wellbeing and the safety/wellbeing of your fellow citizens. You MUST brush your teeth three times a day. You can't consume salt, suger, alcohol, or red meat. You can't have more than one child. You and your family MUST attend government mandated education sessions from 6:00pm to 7:00pm every night - after you work your government mandated 9 hour shift doing what the government deems you are best at. The government has made so many laws that you are guaranteed to be breaking some law - and the government knows and they arrest you for it at their convenience.
This is an illustration of why we need to protect our privacy. You might have nothing to fear now, but if you give the government too much power you might not be able to stop them once you have something to fear. Or something like that...
Similar to the problem Google faces with people using the word "google" as another way to say "search", the phrase "open source" is widely accepted as meaning "source code available for use". The only difference is that "Google" is widely known as a company while "open source" has no meaning beyond the concept described above. This "open source initiative" looks like a way for somebody to make a quick buck - there should be no license necessary to categorize your software as open source. Sure some may try to abuse the phrase by releasing only portions of their code (if that) but it's the same way companies abuse other phrases like "standard" and "secure".
In corporate IT, every project should have justification (i.e. cost reduction, revenue enhancement, legal compliance, etc.). Comparing Exchange/Blackberry to POP3/iPhone for a new organization is one thing and it could be argued that some organizations would choose the one that fits their needs best. However, what is the benefit for SWITCHING to POP3/iPhone for an organization that is already using Exchange? With Exchange/Blackberry they have centralized email/contacts/calendars that are accessible from any number of devices without needing to synchronize anything. It could be argued that the iPhone is cooler/sleeker but how could that possibly justify the cost of changing along with the lost calendar functionality? It's like saying they should dump those ugly econo vans for a fleet of Ferrari's because they're more fun to drive.
The iPhone is not targetted at corporate IT. It's targetted at the individual who wants to look cool. Just like the Ferrari (no insult to the iPhone - the Ferrari is a nice car).
Remove the code that was likely supplied by the RIAA/MPAA and maybe I'll consider Vista. I have two machines that will run it with flying colors but right now XP certainly exceeds my needs and I don't want to lose functionality (or video/audio quality) by going to Vista. Of course, I would still wait until SP1 to help ensure that most of the bad bugs are detected/removed by the time I switch.
Off topic, but I have the world's most disrespectful kids as neighbors. Their entire family took a field trip into my fenced-in back yard to retrieve a tennis ball one day. They knocked over another section of my fence although I have no proof (other than their exclaiming "look! he's fixing it" as I set in new fence posts - seriously who breaks a fence post??). They plow through my front yard daily on foot, by bicycle, and once with a go cart (I asked them not to do that again). They climbed my trees and killed a limb on one (again - asked them not to do that). They throw rocks which often wind up in my yard. They step on my wife's flowers in the flower beds. I've seen them shooting air soft pellets at a neighbor's car (I keep mine in the garage). They leave bicycles and scooters all over their yard and sometimes on my own yard. Where is the police officer to fine them $400 for trashing my property? I could call the police and the best result I could get is the officer warning the kids, more likely he would tell me to stop wasting his time. As a solution I keep the gate locked and we're building a decorative fence between our yards.
But where were the no tresspassing signs? Taking this analogy one step further, can someone get in trouble for crossing through a private (yet clearly unsecured) field if it isn't marked as "private" / "no tresspassing"? It should be up to the owners to secure their property or at least mark it such that others know it is restricted/private.
If streets could be made safer we wouldn't need police... Seriously, if someone is determined they can get in no matter how secure a system (or physical location) is. All security mechanisms are merely deterrents whether it be a car alarm, a home security system, or a firewall. The more layers of security you have the more likely it is to deter breaches. You can improve security on individual products but you will always need someone to provide expertise on the integration of those products as well as monitor them for potential breaches. You can suggest that security is not cost effective for your organization but there are real-life cases where the systems/data being secured are too valuable to assume that the default security is sufficient. Case in point, auto manufacturers have theft protection built into the cars. It has a manufacturer's alarm and the doors are locked. You can park it in a garage that has cameras and secure entries/exits. Good security, right? Would you feel comfortable leaving a case of hundred dollar bills along with the keys sitting in the front seat?
I read this while researching captchas - hacker speak developed as a method of communicating in a manner that could not easily be detected by computers. For example, in the 80's someone could say h4x0r and an automated program that scanned for hacker wouldn't pick it up.
Purchased a TI-85 back in 93 I think and it has been to hell and back in terms of physical abuse (I probably dropped it over 200 times, it's been crammed in bags with textbooks and dropped on the floor and now it rides with me in my laptop case when I go to/from work). One of the best things I've ever purchased as it does everything I need (although it may not be as automated as the newer ones), battery life is not a problem, I could use it in all my school tests, and it is quite rugged/reliable. I still use it at least once a week when I need to do calculations at work.
While not perfect the graphics are the best I've seen for a racing game thus far. The trees and grass could use alot of work and the cars themselves, while fantastic relative to other games, still show signs of being rendered. The graphics are still impressive and it is enough to make most gamers (including myself) want to try the game out. And if the gameplay is good (I wouldn't know) then all those gamers trying it out will likely shell out some cash to own it.
That may be true for low-tech jobs, but certainly not for high-tech jobs like software engineering, because one good high-tech worker is worth an infinite number of mediocre high-tech workers. You either have the skills and desire to do a high-tech job competently, or else you are a liability. It is really that simple.
Are you suggesting that jobs in India won't be outsourced to China/Vietnam due to a lack of quality workers? The same thing has been said of workers in India over the last 5-7 years although it is not necessarily true. What is true is that despite how the American population felt about the abilities of those in lower-wage countries like India, the outsourcing still happened because the cheaper workers had the same degree of potential and a much higher degree of willingness to do the same thing at a reduced price.
Kinda funny... corporations have a surplus of talent but don't want to pay for it so they choose to outsource to India. IT professionals, talented or not, began bailing out of the industry because competition was way to high. Students who may have leaned towards a career in IT backtracked for fear that jobs would be scarce and wages would be low.
To the managers hoping to save a buck by using cheaper labor at the expense of your fellow citizens - look what you've done to yourselves. You effectively made the problem worse for yourselves and for countless workers who became so desperate that they had to bail out of the industry.
The winners? India (obviously) and what remains of the IT workforce in areas hit hard by outsourcing. Yay nerds.
Don't be too quick to downgrade the parent. His message may seem trollish but his point is valid. They claim that their security measures are the best in the world but they also make other claims that are done purely to make their industry look more appealing to potential customers - not necessarily with any basis in reality(whether that is sales abilities, communciation skills, work ethic etc.). So if one claim is pure marketing then who is to say that the claim regarding security is anything other than an attempt to ease the fears of potential customers?
I know it's unlikely, but perhaps we should discontinue gambling activities and send a clear message that we won't stand for lobbyists controlling our state and federal leaders. Then again, maybe we should just surrender to our lobbyist overlords now and hope that they don't take away our freedom to stay home on the weekend instead of going out and giving them our money.
I recall configuring Procomm Plus to continually dial a set of 10-12 BBS numbers, sometimes it would connect on the first, othertimes it would cycle through all of them for nearly an hour. On those BBS systems you'd find chat, games, and other interactive features that I seldom used. I instead used them as a source for shareware (games, utilities, apps), digital art, and ascii art. You'd have BBS systems bragging about the number of CD-ROMs they had available (or perhaps they'd say they had over 2GB of downloads). Downloads took forever and I don't remember if you could actually continue downloads that were broken by something like a relative calling in. Sometimes I'd browse through jokes, quotes, and other trivial content. There was a time I scoured some systems for Pascal programs that I could compile and run. One time, I read that I could hit for the meaning of life and I fell for it.
That's about all I remember...
You may be right that the buyer's actions were illegal, but just look at the other case briefly mentioned in the article. Some woman purchased an ipod and never received it. She obviously took the legal approach and look where she is, the police are investigating it and she probably won't see a dime even if a court rules in her favor. The law isn't working in this particular case.
This guy's solution has obviously punished a fraudulent seller who would otherwise continue scamming people. In fact, the seller might rement payment just to get the embarrassing content taken down (but it's probably going to be mirrored somewhere so why bother).
Not sure which exploit it was, but I've been using Firefox 100% of the time and I keep my system fully patched. NAV and MS Anti-spyware were also installed / updated. Monday MS Antispyware caught two instances of really nasty add-ins including PWS-Pinch. I traced it back to "trojan-downloader-ruin" but I had to download 6 different applications to even find that (I figured there was something putting these other apps in my system). Adaware didn't catch it either. Anyway, after lots of digging I figured it was best to reformat and turn myself into a LUA user (Least User Admin) in addition to having the other safeguards I had in place. I'm still not sure if it's safe so I'm avoiding visiting sites that I don't regularly visit. Now I'm wondering how much of my data got retrieved by a malicious hacker... :(
I have downloaded legally and found DRM a pain in the ass, and continue to get my shite from P2P and allofmp3.com.
I've been thinking about going to a legal downloading service but I hang back because I fear that the restrictions and proprietary formats will prevent me from...
1.) Burning unlimited audio CDs for the car
2.) Burning unlimited mp3 CDs for work
3.) Buying any third party hardware player for the files I get from the service
That's basically it... I want to be able to listen to a song I buy from home, in the car, and at work without requiring a specific player or proprietary software (I use a zero footprint mp3 player on my work pc).
Is that possible with any of the legal services? I'd pay $1 per song...
What if we treat it like licensing... if I buy a tune in the proprietary format and then download that same tune in mp3 format, is that really wrong/illegal? Would they really sue me if I could document that I owned each song I downloaded? I rationalized downloading Pearl Jam's Ten a few months back because my CD (bought in 92 I think) is so scratched up that I can't get a digital rip anymore.
Thoughts?
Actually, it's the business unit that owns the database, the DBAs just ensure that the database is available and that clowns like you and me don't end up corrupting/modifying the data in a way that the business unit wouldn't appreciate. Sure the business unit suffers a loss in flexibility in that they can't just arbitrarily go in an change a name here, add a digit there, etc., but they can now have a set of data that can only be changed in certain ways and that can have auditing.
A simple idea with definite results, bravo to the law enforcement personnel who decided to utilize this technique.
I never proposed a solution, I just said the current process is flawed and examining other sources of labor is not the solution.
And yes, I have done it. I had to create a posting for my own job a few years back and reapply for it. While the fact that I had to do it stunk, I at least had the priviledge of targetting the position at my own skillset and closing the posting after 5 business days. We also presented the low end of the salary range to discourage applicants. Within 5 days we had over 300 resumes, nearly all of which were the same.
Since I was applying I wasn't allowed to filter out the resumes, but I know what happened. The typos, 2+ page resumes, stupid resumes (colored, photos, pointless quotes, unlegible), etc. were weeded out first. Then they went through looking for keywords that I had previously told them to search for. At this point they had a set of 100+ resumes that all looked the same. It's a problem, I can't think of a solution that will get the truly qualified people the position over the exaggeraters/liars.
You fail to understand the application process for most jobs in the U.S. The job is posted. applications/resumes start FLOODING in. The job is closed a week or two later.
The 500-2000 resumes are examined VERY quickly. I've heard stories about the piles being arbitrarily halved with the other half being discarded. Stupid mistakes are often weeded out first (typos, bad appearance, spelling, etc.). Keywords are often sought after by people / computers who are incapable of interpreting... job requirement might be SQL Server 7 and the applicant put SQL Server 2000, or "Active Server Pages" instead of ASP, etc..
A more manageable set of resumes is now available. Managers/Leads poor over them (dividing up the work of course), standards are not set. Desirable resumes are kept over less desirable ones. Note that there is a HUGE problem with liars, those who are honest on their resumes are at a huge disadvantage as they are typically weeded out unless they have 15 years of experience and know every nuance of SQL/ASP/C#/Exchange like the other 80% of the resumes (99% of those are likely exagerating).
Managers will narrow down resumes and end up picking a few for interviews. At this point the game is likely lost, as the managers probably picked a set that consists of liars/exageraters. If someone does know what they're talking about, they have a good chance of being hired.
Now, companies say the pool stinks. They can't ever find qualified people to interview. It's much easier to pick cheap/qualified people from $FOREIGN_COUNTRY than it is to try and find a good one through the hiring process.
The fact that companies are complaining is NOT indicative of a lack of qualified people to fill the slots. It's indicative of a problem in the hiring process. The fact that some get to bypass the process does not mean that they are somehow better qualified (although they may or may not be, that's not the question).