If everyone breaks the same law, willingly, because the law is wrong, that brings the attention of the lawmakers that the law is wrong, because everyone would be their constituents and voters.
Traffic laws, particular speed limits, are broken pretty regular by people but you don't see them going away. Part of it's the argument for safety (truly some people cannot handle driving at 30, much less 80) but I'm quite sure the money brought in from tickets is given consideration by lawmakers as well.
these guys storm offices and houses, they pull you from your keyboard before you can lock it out, they have "agents" work the chat networks and so on, becoming "friends" and insiders of these "syndicates".
Sure...but how are they going to get a warrant to walk into your house if all your connections are encrypted? Reasonable suspicion won't get you a warrant these days, you need probable cause. Probable cause that you're not going to get from an encrypted connection.
Not to mention they can't do this because if they did the evidence on the hard drive would be tainted. I've dealt with computer forensics and the first and most important rule is you NEVER modify the original hard drive. You so bit-copies to another drive and do your work on it. That way if you screw something up you can start over plus you document your steps as you go, thuse allowing anyone to reproduce your results from another copy of the drive.
Sure they can pull you from your keyboard before you lock it out, but they'll never get to admit the evidence if they do anything beyond shutting it down. If the accused pirate has half a brain all this encryption will require master keys to start so forensics will be unable to open any encrypted files or establish encrypted VPN sessions. You can even get encryption software that will automatically encrypt your virtual memory with a random key on startup. It throws that key away on shutdown so even the software can't unencrypt the virtual memory. This pretty much ruins any slack-space finds from virtual memory. Combine that with delete with wiping features and virtual encrypted drives and you can get your computer to a state where forensics won't find anything you don't want found.
"We would do well to remember the lesson that separate is not equal. Going back to optical scan is tantamount to segregation," said Kathay Feng, an attorney at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles.
This really blew my mind. I realize she's talking about blind and minority-speaking voters losing some privacy on casting their ballot, but it's a real stretch to say that's "tantamount to segregation"! I also wonder how much privacy a minority-speaking voter would really lose. Couldn't the sections of the ballot be explained to them, then they be left alone to mark the candidates? The candidates' names would be the same since names don't generally translate.
In any case, even if I was a minority language speaker or blind I would prefer a voting method that would actually COUNT my vote in exchange for losing a little privacy. It's pretty useless to get privacy on casting your vote if it'll just end up lost and not used.
Nothing about apologizing for the problems with the product, or the fact that they didn't work. He appologizes for getting caught.
Which speaks volumes about Diebold as a company. Using the phrase "We were caught" implies they willfully put the bad machines out, etc. Having the head of the company say this makes it very hard for even the most forgiving of souls to trust them.
The bitter sarcasm in the link of organized crime to "piracy"/copyright infringement is that organized crime is behind some of the infringement. However, every infringement can (and it seems like it will) be treated as if organized crime was involved, no matter how stupid. That means: the link has been done, now one is interchangable with the other.
And the feds have shown great willingness to do just that. Remember the DEA raids of what were essentially nursing homes in California a while back? The places provided marijuana for medical use so the DEA busted in with a swat team with full weaponry and handcuffed and essentially harrassed and terrorized a bunch of very sick people. It's actually a step down from that atrocity for them to start raiding every measly little file-sharer, at least most of those aren't sick and frail.
Re:Just out of curiosity
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Gomez Peer is a legitimate company that'll pay you for your bandwidth and CPU time. Basically, it checks various websites for reachability/performance. Apparently it's hard to get in, unless you're on their "most wanted" location list.
Actually my experience with them is they're not totally legit. I ended up feeling they were a scam personally, let me tell you what happened so you can make your own judgement.
I signed up for them originally and knew from reading their info it would be about 10 working days before I found out if my pending install would be accepted for pay. Well that never happened. It never changed from pending, and after a month of waiting I decided I wanted my cpu cycles back and uninstalled.
Fast forward a few weeks and I get an E-mail from them saying they need a massive amount of new peers and ANYONE that installs in the next few days will be accepted. I decided to try again and installed their peer client yet again and waited... and waited... and waited.... After another month with no status change I decided that what they were really after was all those "pending" installs. It doesn't use much CPU, but it does use some, and it looks like they're using your computer to do work without accepting you into the program.
From my experience I'd recommend avoiding them like the plague, you can put your CPU cycles to better free use than them, and they don't seem very likely to accept you and pay you.
One final note, the uninstall wasn't a clean one, it's still listed under add/remove programs but as far as I can tell I got rid of it. I had to do a fair bit of manual deleting though.
Don't anybody whine that they may lose overtime benefits. Nobody guaranteed you a job out of college, let alone one that paid $50k or more because of overtime. If you think you're working too hard for not enough pay, that's when you go to your employer, show the evidence of how much extra you've done for the company, and ask for a raise. If you're not inclined to do that, then you probably would LIKE more money, but realize you're not worth it. If you're scared you'll get fired, then you probably realize that you are expendable and are being paid what you are worth to the company. If you don't like, go somewhere else. Despite all the doom and gloom news, there are plenty of jobs. If you're not qualified, then you don't have anyone to blame but yourself.
Pardon me while I get a shovel to remove the big pile of shit you just dumped... Ahh, that's better...
Now, I'll assume you weren't just trying to be a troll here and respond to what you said. If you actually READ the posts you'd have seen that people aren't complaining about this because they want a job that pays "$50k or more because of overtime..." They're complaining because a LOT of business already abuse their employees as slave labor and this will make things worse. Sure you can complain or ask for a raise/etc. But let's see you try quitting your current job and finding another one with at least a living wage if not better quickly. Sorry it doesn't work that way. If there are plenty of jobs they're sure as hell hiding from many parts of the country. I spent nearly two years looking for an IT job in my area after my last one dissapeared, and moving from here was not an option due to family reasons. (And you can poo-poo family reasons as not being valid, but personally my family's important to me, perhaps yours isn't to you so you can move.)
Until you've been in the situations of having to work tons of overtime without compensation or lose a job and not be able to find another one because they're not nearly as common as you think you're just spouting off. I've been there, in both situations, and it simply is NOT as simple as you would have us believe.
Now to move back on the topic the issue here is that employers have another potential reason to deny extra pay to employees who are already treated very damn close to slaves. That is what people are concerned about, not losing overtime in general. No matter what you say about qualifications if your employer is insisting you work 60+ hour weeks without additional compensation and not firing you then you ARE qualified to do the position the company simply doesn't want to part with any of their precious profits to actually PAY the people who make the products that make them money.
We talk all high minded on slashdot thousands times a day every day 365 days a year. Is it all talk or do people here think that a Computer Professionals union is needed these days?
It's really a question of the lesser of two evils. Unions aren't exactly the great defenders of the workers they want you to believe they are. I read a very enlightening book a while back detailing (with documentation) what's happened with unions so that they've gotten out of control. I personally would rather avoid joining a union and take my chances as they stand now.
Most IT workers never got overtime, of course we have very flexible schedules so its a good tradeoff I suppose.
Is this the industry norm though? Where I'm at flexible schedules pretty much are non-existant in all fields, not just IT. I have a strict 8am - 4pm schedule myself. (Not complaining since I'm allowed an hour for lunch and I'm salary, just noting my schedule's not flexible.) I don't mean just my company but the whole region.
How about just keys? They're hard to give out, though it can be problematic if they are compromised. As long as it's easy to revoke them, though, that won't be an issue.
Of course, then you have to worry about key management, which non-geeks may not want to do.
Personally I like that option better, but you may still run afoul of the ADA. If someone's paralizes they wouldn't be able to turn the key for instance...
Yes I know this is sounding ridiculous, but these issues occur and have to be dealt with, and they CAN get ridiculous. While the ADA supposedly only requires a company to make a good effort to accomodate, lawsuits can force that to become a super-human effort.
AFAIK most schools have very formal and complete network (or general campus facilities) usage policies which detail the punishments for misusing them.
The problem from the *AA's perspective is that the schools don't always enforce those policies very well. I worked as a Sysadmin in an engineering dept. at a major university for a few years. As part of normal work I noticed one of the office student assistant's computers had illegal software on it. Before I could get the authorization (and this was just internal from the faculty computer resources committee head) to remove the computer for further investigation the student got wind somehow and tried to wipe the contents of the drive. Annoying for me, bad for him. I had to resort to forensics software and in the process discovered the guy'd been running a warez FTP server off the computer. Now keep in mind this computer was actually the university's property, not his, and he was using it as an employee of the university (and our dept.)
To protect ourselves we had to turn the whole matter over to student conduct. We had initially hoped to keep it within our department since they guy'd never been in any trouble before, we didn't want to see him potentially expelled for installing a few illegal programs. We shouldn't have worried though, nothing happened to him. At worst he got put on disciplinary probation, but he was not banned from computer resources and moved on to be an ADMIN for a research group on campus.
While I hate to see people's lifes ruined, when you have a system that barely slaps a kid's hands for distributing thousands of dollars worth of illegal software using an university computer and opening the university itself up to a slew of legal problems you have a system that just doesn't work. I can understand why the *AAs aren't too happy with the current situation.
That said, I still don't like the idea of this software, as others have noted it'll be easy to abuse and it's probably the first step in a larger salvo of trying to make software like it required by law. (Face it, that's how the *AAs like to work things.)
I started this post attempting to be sarcastic, but every terrifying example of surveillance I could come up with has already been implemented.
Kinda proves the old rag "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." That and truth is stranger (and scarier) than fiction. Orwell's 1984 is looking more like fact than fiction everyday now.
How long before the *AA starts suing ISP/Unis which don't implement this for lack of due diligence?
Just as long as it takes them to get a law (or laws) passed in congress that ammend the DMCA so that not using this software, or something similar, will take away ISPs/Universities' safe harbor (or whatever it's called) that they currently have as long as they respond to takedown notices.
This is an election year, so the politicians the *AA's have bought might not be willing to try pushing such legislation through this year, but once the election's over watch for it.
Isn't this why we need a replacement for passwords? I'm sure we've discussed before using a series of images that users can click on in sequence - that's easier for users to remember and also much more difficult to write down or even tell someone.
Yes we need a replacement, but that's probably not a viable one. You'd run afoul of the ADA since those that are vision-impaired and blind would be unable to use this.
Unfortunately I can't think of a replacement scheme that wouldn't run afoul of the ADA, perhaps some kind of biometrics, but then again I'm sure someone would have a disability that would prevent it from working for them. I point this out because the US is certainly lawsuit-happy and I don't think it's much of a stretch to see an employee suing under the ADA because of a password scheme that they couldn't use. (Yes, without asking to see if an alternative could be provided for them.)
But if users don't like using password, why force them.
Because of all the extra vulnerabilities it exposes. If a malicious attacker gains access to their account the number of ways they can try to get root privledges grows. There are quite a few root exploits you have to have an account on the system to use. Besides, the passwords are for their protection too, from things such as the E-mail to the user's boss you mention to losing personal information. (I've seen users who stored their credit card account numbers in a plain text file for "convenience".) Basically sysadmins aren't just trying to protect the systems, but the users as well -- even if that means protecting them from their own idiocy.
I know that a lot of places make a big deal out of expiring passwords and forcing the user to change it once every 30 days (or more or less depending on the place). Most places that do this also use a system that remembers the last few passwords (one I worked at remembered the last 6) so you had to ostensibly pick something entirely new. You've probably already guessed what happened instead, users would pick a word then just add numbers to it. No security there!
When I've been in admin positions and responsible for password policy I prefer forcing the user to create a strong password in the first place (by using a modified passwd to check for easily guessed ones, and enforcing things such as not all lower or upper case, etc.), but then I don't expire them! I've found most users are fairly happy with the process since they don't have to constantly try to remember a new, random, password and after a while they don't even write it down anymore, greatly increasing security.
Face it, most people just want things to be easy, and having to type in a password's a pain to them. They have no concept of how insecure it is to give out their password, or leave it written on a sticky note on their monitor. As admins we have to find a way to make the process palatable for them and relatively secure.
Personally though I've never had a problem remember passwords, I still remember passwords I'll never need again, and we're talking some of the 30+ character pseudo-random string ones. I have no clue why I can remember passwords so easily, but it definitely comes in handy. I tend to have a different root password on every server I deal with and all of them would take an eternity to try to guess through brute-force.
I would discard it as destined to fail if I didn't know the tremendous attraction that card trading games have for kids (see Magic The Gathering, Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon).
Actually considering that Nintendo is once again failing to promote a cool idea (the e-Reader) you might as well discard it. Currently there's little to no marketing to push the e-Reader, and it's dying a slow lonely death (at least by mass-market standards). Nintendo's let this happen before with other addons in the past, and only they know what logic there is to spending money to develop something cool then letting it languish in marketing hell.
Seriously, both literally and emotionally, there's so much utter crap on TV, and it seems to continue to only get worse. Hell, even Sci-Fi's gotten into the craptastic reality TV stuff now with their Mad, Mad, House. I happenned to see the first part of one episode (I was at the ER and the TV was set to Sci-Fi). I think they actually managed to set a record for most stupid, disgusting, pathetic reality-tv program.
In any case I tend to play video games more than I watch TV on my TV. I also watch a lot of anime DVDs. When I do watch TV I generally watch channels like Discovery, TLC, HGTV, History Channel, Animal Planet & Discovery Health. There's just not enough stuff worth watching on TV to justify being a couch potato, at least IMHO.
Understood, my point is that the "will have to work temporarily in another field" is a poorly understood part of the equation. What will she/ he / it make ( pay ) during this period? Will they be able to climb back out of this hole?
You hit on the crux of the matter. I lost my job in September of 2002 without warning. At that time I got a job at Wal-mart to try to pay the bills while I looked for another job. While I had HOPED to be out of there in a few months, the reality is I didn't find a new job in my field (or even out of it paying a decent rate) until March of 2004 (yep, last month). I wasn't making enough at Wal-mart to pay all my bills, let alone for training. I did good to manage not to lose my car and health insurance (I have a chronic condition, so losing it wasn't an option). Also where I live is mostly rural, so public transportation wasn't an option, thus keeping the car was also a must.
Those who think it's a breeze to get retrained either forget or conveniently ignore that once you've LOST a job, you often don't have any money to spare for training/etc. The necessities have to come first.
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That $1/hour assumes that you would only work for one spammer at a time.
Actually it's $1 per CPU hour, so you can only work for one spammer per CPU hour. Seeings as spammers spam nonstop, I doubt your CPU cycles would ever be free to sign up with another spammer.
The first one I hope they're planning on asking the appropriate person(s) already.
What effect has losing a job to out-sourcing had on you personally, including all aspects -- mental, physical, financially, etc. (This one obviously needs to be asked to someone (or many someones) who have lost a job because it got outsourced.
Who is supposed to pay for tech workers retraining themselves in new fields? I see so many companies/organizations saying that US tech workers even enjoy retraining for new fields, but they never mention how a newly unemployed (thanks to outsourcing) person is supposed to PAY for that retraining.
Personally I would LOVE to see the people who go on about US tech workers just need to retrain for a new field asked #2. I doubt you'll find many (if any) that will answer on the record though.
The anti-RIAA propoganda around this place is so annoying. Look at the headline--raising the price of downloads by a dollar is suddenly a "nasty easter egg." Slashdotters think their niche opinions represent the majority. You guys need to get off this site and see the rest of the world. ADMIT THE TRUTH--those millions of traders aren't using Kazaa to "sample" albums, they're not using it because they have some sort of righteous opposition to something called the "RIAA"--they're using Kazaa to download music without paying for it. People have yet to offer a valid legal or moral justification for ripping artists off.
How this got modded up so high I'll never know. To use your own arguments against you, you need to stop thinking your niche opinion represents the majority. Have you even been reading the posts? Many people have said things along the lines of they have stuck with listening to their used CDs, or they only buy music from indie labels and groups that sell for a reasonable amount. There are a LOT of people, and not just on/., they really want to be able to buy the songs they like at a reasonable price.
Seeing as you aren't going to take that as face value, I'll give you a real-world example. I worked at Wal-mart in my hometown for nearly 2 years recently until I was able to find another tech job around here. Most of that time I was in Electronics so I got to see the average consumer's attitude about this whole fine mess the RIAA has created for themselves. Remember the duet that Kid Rock did with Sheryl Crow (IIRC, might have my names wrong)? A LOT of people came in wanting a single of that song. They didn't like Kid Rock in general, but they liked that song. What did they find when they came in TRYING to be legit and buy it? They had two choices, buy the whole album at $15 or so, or they could buy a single of Kid Rock singing the song with Allison Moorer. That wasn't the version they wanted, so most, unsuprisingly, wouldn't buy the single. They also were unwilling to buy the whole album for one song. I can't even tell you how many people that asked me about this ended up with "oh well, guess I'll go home and download it." I should note I live in a largely rural area, and the Wal-mart I worked at gets less than a quarter the customers at one in a mid-sized city.
That's the real world, the recording companies have greedily ran off their own customers! People are TRYING to do the right thing, but the record companies are so blinded by greed they can't be bothered to provide what their customers want. No, they will only be happy if the customers buy the more expensive (and more profitable) full CD. Hell, I'm surprised they put out ANY single, the singles market has been killed off by the recording companies -- intentionally.
Yeah maybe people are using Kazaa/etal to get music without paying for it, but many of them are using it as a last resort to get what they tried to pay for. Given all that, how you can possibly think that the RIAA wanting to RAISE the price on downloaded singles is anything but sheer greed, then perhaps you need to spend some time in the real world.
One final note, while the $12.99 for a CD at your store does indeed pay for a lot more than just the CD, be sure to ask the artist how much they ever see of it. If they're lucky perhaps a few pennies, but standard recording contracts generally will leave an artist OWING the recording company money after advertising, etc. is factored in. Most artists only make money from their concerts and the stuff they sell at them. This is common knowledge, and in large part resonsible for why people react so strongly to the price of CDs. If the artist was getting a decent chunk of that money, people wouldn't mind paying it as much. People do resent lining the pockets of the recording company executives at the expense of the artists though, as they should. Recording contracts run pretty close to putting artists into indentured servitude to the recording company.
Bet it won't even take long. They'll claim the audible/visual warnings triggered without cause (cause they were asleep and didn't realize it...) and the alarms confused them so much they drove head-on into a tree.
It's interesting that the government looks for market-based solutions to behavior that actually kills people like dumping mercury into the air, serving arsenic-laden water to towns, or creating vehicular death-traps but when you offend their puritan sensibilities they go for the jugular--even when the market clearly says that a HUGE chunk of the electorate is all for a little obscenity.
And here's some more food for thought, since this industry is $10billion a year, and they're targeting companies just for the porn, not tax fraud, how will they still cut taxes when they're trying to destroy a rather large industry and the taxes they pay?
Boy I'd love to see the look on Ashcroft's (or better Dubya's) face when some reporter asks them that. That's assuming anyone has the guts to ask it of course.
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If everyone breaks the same law, willingly, because the law is wrong, that brings the attention of the lawmakers that the law is wrong, because everyone would be their constituents and voters.
Traffic laws, particular speed limits, are broken pretty regular by people but you don't see them going away. Part of it's the argument for safety (truly some people cannot handle driving at 30, much less 80) but I'm quite sure the money brought in from tickets is given consideration by lawmakers as well.-
these guys storm offices and houses, they pull you from your keyboard before you can lock it out, they have "agents" work the chat networks and so on, becoming "friends" and insiders of these "syndicates".
Not to mention they can't do this because if they did the evidence on the hard drive would be tainted. I've dealt with computer forensics and the first and most important rule is you NEVER modify the original hard drive. You so bit-copies to another drive and do your work on it. That way if you screw something up you can start over plus you document your steps as you go, thuse allowing anyone to reproduce your results from another copy of the drive.Sure...but how are they going to get a warrant to walk into your house if all your connections are encrypted? Reasonable suspicion won't get you a warrant these days, you need probable cause. Probable cause that you're not going to get from an encrypted connection.
Sure they can pull you from your keyboard before you lock it out, but they'll never get to admit the evidence if they do anything beyond shutting it down. If the accused pirate has half a brain all this encryption will require master keys to start so forensics will be unable to open any encrypted files or establish encrypted VPN sessions. You can even get encryption software that will automatically encrypt your virtual memory with a random key on startup. It throws that key away on shutdown so even the software can't unencrypt the virtual memory. This pretty much ruins any slack-space finds from virtual memory. Combine that with delete with wiping features and virtual encrypted drives and you can get your computer to a state where forensics won't find anything you don't want found.
This really blew my mind. I realize she's talking about blind and minority-speaking voters losing some privacy on casting their ballot, but it's a real stretch to say that's "tantamount to segregation"! I also wonder how much privacy a minority-speaking voter would really lose. Couldn't the sections of the ballot be explained to them, then they be left alone to mark the candidates? The candidates' names would be the same since names don't generally translate.
In any case, even if I was a minority language speaker or blind I would prefer a voting method that would actually COUNT my vote in exchange for losing a little privacy. It's pretty useless to get privacy on casting your vote if it'll just end up lost and not used.
But if we let the /. people do it, we'll have everyone trying to get first vote! :)
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Nothing about apologizing for the problems with the product, or the fact that they didn't work. He appologizes for getting caught.
Which speaks volumes about Diebold as a company. Using the phrase "We were caught" implies they willfully put the bad machines out, etc. Having the head of the company say this makes it very hard for even the most forgiving of souls to trust them.-
The bitter sarcasm in the link of organized crime to "piracy"/copyright infringement is that organized crime is behind some of the infringement. However, every infringement can (and it seems like it will) be treated as if organized crime was involved, no matter how stupid. That means: the link has been done, now one is interchangable with the other.
And the feds have shown great willingness to do just that. Remember the DEA raids of what were essentially nursing homes in California a while back? The places provided marijuana for medical use so the DEA busted in with a swat team with full weaponry and handcuffed and essentially harrassed and terrorized a bunch of very sick people. It's actually a step down from that atrocity for them to start raiding every measly little file-sharer, at least most of those aren't sick and frail.-
Gomez Peer is a legitimate company that'll pay you for your bandwidth and CPU time. Basically, it checks various websites for reachability/performance. Apparently it's hard to get in, unless you're on their "most wanted" location list.
Actually my experience with them is they're not totally legit. I ended up feeling they were a scam personally, let me tell you what happened so you can make your own judgement.I signed up for them originally and knew from reading their info it would be about 10 working days before I found out if my pending install would be accepted for pay. Well that never happened. It never changed from pending, and after a month of waiting I decided I wanted my cpu cycles back and uninstalled.
Fast forward a few weeks and I get an E-mail from them saying they need a massive amount of new peers and ANYONE that installs in the next few days will be accepted. I decided to try again and installed their peer client yet again and waited... and waited... and waited.... After another month with no status change I decided that what they were really after was all those "pending" installs. It doesn't use much CPU, but it does use some, and it looks like they're using your computer to do work without accepting you into the program.
From my experience I'd recommend avoiding them like the plague, you can put your CPU cycles to better free use than them, and they don't seem very likely to accept you and pay you.
One final note, the uninstall wasn't a clean one, it's still listed under add/remove programs but as far as I can tell I got rid of it. I had to do a fair bit of manual deleting though.
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Don't anybody whine that they may lose overtime benefits. Nobody guaranteed you a job out of college, let alone one that paid $50k or more because of overtime. If you think you're working too hard for not enough pay, that's when you go to your employer, show the evidence of how much extra you've done for the company, and ask for a raise. If you're not inclined to do that, then you probably would LIKE more money, but realize you're not worth it. If you're scared you'll get fired, then you probably realize that you are expendable and are being paid what you are worth to the company. If you don't like, go somewhere else. Despite all the doom and gloom news, there are plenty of jobs. If you're not qualified, then you don't have anyone to blame but yourself.
Pardon me while I get a shovel to remove the big pile of shit you just dumped... Ahh, that's better...Now, I'll assume you weren't just trying to be a troll here and respond to what you said. If you actually READ the posts you'd have seen that people aren't complaining about this because they want a job that pays "$50k or more because of overtime..." They're complaining because a LOT of business already abuse their employees as slave labor and this will make things worse. Sure you can complain or ask for a raise/etc. But let's see you try quitting your current job and finding another one with at least a living wage if not better quickly. Sorry it doesn't work that way. If there are plenty of jobs they're sure as hell hiding from many parts of the country. I spent nearly two years looking for an IT job in my area after my last one dissapeared, and moving from here was not an option due to family reasons. (And you can poo-poo family reasons as not being valid, but personally my family's important to me, perhaps yours isn't to you so you can move.)
Until you've been in the situations of having to work tons of overtime without compensation or lose a job and not be able to find another one because they're not nearly as common as you think you're just spouting off. I've been there, in both situations, and it simply is NOT as simple as you would have us believe.
Now to move back on the topic the issue here is that employers have another potential reason to deny extra pay to employees who are already treated very damn close to slaves. That is what people are concerned about, not losing overtime in general. No matter what you say about qualifications if your employer is insisting you work 60+ hour weeks without additional compensation and not firing you then you ARE qualified to do the position the company simply doesn't want to part with any of their precious profits to actually PAY the people who make the products that make them money.
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We talk all high minded on slashdot thousands times a day every day 365 days a year. Is it all talk or do people here think that a Computer Professionals union is needed these days?
It's really a question of the lesser of two evils. Unions aren't exactly the great defenders of the workers they want you to believe they are. I read a very enlightening book a while back detailing (with documentation) what's happened with unions so that they've gotten out of control. I personally would rather avoid joining a union and take my chances as they stand now.-
Most IT workers never got overtime, of course we have very flexible schedules so its a good tradeoff I suppose.
Is this the industry norm though? Where I'm at flexible schedules pretty much are non-existant in all fields, not just IT. I have a strict 8am - 4pm schedule myself. (Not complaining since I'm allowed an hour for lunch and I'm salary, just noting my schedule's not flexible.) I don't mean just my company but the whole region.-
How about just keys? They're hard to give out, though it can be problematic if they are compromised. As long as it's easy to revoke them, though, that won't be an issue.
Personally I like that option better, but you may still run afoul of the ADA. If someone's paralizes they wouldn't be able to turn the key for instance...Of course, then you have to worry about key management, which non-geeks may not want to do.
Yes I know this is sounding ridiculous, but these issues occur and have to be dealt with, and they CAN get ridiculous. While the ADA supposedly only requires a company to make a good effort to accomodate, lawsuits can force that to become a super-human effort.
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AFAIK most schools have very formal and complete network (or general campus facilities) usage policies which detail the punishments for misusing them.
The problem from the *AA's perspective is that the schools don't always enforce those policies very well. I worked as a Sysadmin in an engineering dept. at a major university for a few years. As part of normal work I noticed one of the office student assistant's computers had illegal software on it. Before I could get the authorization (and this was just internal from the faculty computer resources committee head) to remove the computer for further investigation the student got wind somehow and tried to wipe the contents of the drive. Annoying for me, bad for him. I had to resort to forensics software and in the process discovered the guy'd been running a warez FTP server off the computer. Now keep in mind this computer was actually the university's property, not his, and he was using it as an employee of the university (and our dept.)To protect ourselves we had to turn the whole matter over to student conduct. We had initially hoped to keep it within our department since they guy'd never been in any trouble before, we didn't want to see him potentially expelled for installing a few illegal programs. We shouldn't have worried though, nothing happened to him. At worst he got put on disciplinary probation, but he was not banned from computer resources and moved on to be an ADMIN for a research group on campus.
While I hate to see people's lifes ruined, when you have a system that barely slaps a kid's hands for distributing thousands of dollars worth of illegal software using an university computer and opening the university itself up to a slew of legal problems you have a system that just doesn't work. I can understand why the *AAs aren't too happy with the current situation.
That said, I still don't like the idea of this software, as others have noted it'll be easy to abuse and it's probably the first step in a larger salvo of trying to make software like it required by law. (Face it, that's how the *AAs like to work things.)
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I started this post attempting to be sarcastic, but every terrifying example of surveillance I could come up with has already been implemented.
Kinda proves the old rag "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." That and truth is stranger (and scarier) than fiction. Orwell's 1984 is looking more like fact than fiction everyday now.-
How long before the *AA starts suing ISP/Unis which don't implement this for lack of due diligence?
Just as long as it takes them to get a law (or laws) passed in congress that ammend the DMCA so that not using this software, or something similar, will take away ISPs/Universities' safe harbor (or whatever it's called) that they currently have as long as they respond to takedown notices.This is an election year, so the politicians the *AA's have bought might not be willing to try pushing such legislation through this year, but once the election's over watch for it.
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Isn't this why we need a replacement for passwords? I'm sure we've discussed before using a series of images that users can click on in sequence - that's easier for users to remember and also much more difficult to write down or even tell someone.
Yes we need a replacement, but that's probably not a viable one. You'd run afoul of the ADA since those that are vision-impaired and blind would be unable to use this.Unfortunately I can't think of a replacement scheme that wouldn't run afoul of the ADA, perhaps some kind of biometrics, but then again I'm sure someone would have a disability that would prevent it from working for them. I point this out because the US is certainly lawsuit-happy and I don't think it's much of a stretch to see an employee suing under the ADA because of a password scheme that they couldn't use. (Yes, without asking to see if an alternative could be provided for them.)
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But if users don't like using password, why force them.
Because of all the extra vulnerabilities it exposes. If a malicious attacker gains access to their account the number of ways they can try to get root privledges grows. There are quite a few root exploits you have to have an account on the system to use. Besides, the passwords are for their protection too, from things such as the E-mail to the user's boss you mention to losing personal information. (I've seen users who stored their credit card account numbers in a plain text file for "convenience".) Basically sysadmins aren't just trying to protect the systems, but the users as well -- even if that means protecting them from their own idiocy.When I've been in admin positions and responsible for password policy I prefer forcing the user to create a strong password in the first place (by using a modified passwd to check for easily guessed ones, and enforcing things such as not all lower or upper case, etc.), but then I don't expire them! I've found most users are fairly happy with the process since they don't have to constantly try to remember a new, random, password and after a while they don't even write it down anymore, greatly increasing security.
Face it, most people just want things to be easy, and having to type in a password's a pain to them. They have no concept of how insecure it is to give out their password, or leave it written on a sticky note on their monitor. As admins we have to find a way to make the process palatable for them and relatively secure.
Personally though I've never had a problem remember passwords, I still remember passwords I'll never need again, and we're talking some of the 30+ character pseudo-random string ones. I have no clue why I can remember passwords so easily, but it definitely comes in handy. I tend to have a different root password on every server I deal with and all of them would take an eternity to try to guess through brute-force.
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I would discard it as destined to fail if I didn't know the tremendous attraction that card trading games have for kids (see Magic The Gathering, Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon).
Actually considering that Nintendo is once again failing to promote a cool idea (the e-Reader) you might as well discard it. Currently there's little to no marketing to push the e-Reader, and it's dying a slow lonely death (at least by mass-market standards). Nintendo's let this happen before with other addons in the past, and only they know what logic there is to spending money to develop something cool then letting it languish in marketing hell.In any case I tend to play video games more than I watch TV on my TV. I also watch a lot of anime DVDs. When I do watch TV I generally watch channels like Discovery, TLC, HGTV, History Channel, Animal Planet & Discovery Health. There's just not enough stuff worth watching on TV to justify being a couch potato, at least IMHO.
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Understood, my point is that the "will have to work temporarily in another field" is a poorly understood part of the equation. What will she/ he / it make ( pay ) during this period? Will they be able to climb back out of this hole?
You hit on the crux of the matter. I lost my job in September of 2002 without warning. At that time I got a job at Wal-mart to try to pay the bills while I looked for another job. While I had HOPED to be out of there in a few months, the reality is I didn't find a new job in my field (or even out of it paying a decent rate) until March of 2004 (yep, last month). I wasn't making enough at Wal-mart to pay all my bills, let alone for training. I did good to manage not to lose my car and health insurance (I have a chronic condition, so losing it wasn't an option). Also where I live is mostly rural, so public transportation wasn't an option, thus keeping the car was also a must.Those who think it's a breeze to get retrained either forget or conveniently ignore that once you've LOST a job, you often don't have any money to spare for training/etc. The necessities have to come first.
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That $1/hour assumes that you would only work for one spammer at a time.
Actually it's $1 per CPU hour, so you can only work for one spammer per CPU hour. Seeings as spammers spam nonstop, I doubt your CPU cycles would ever be free to sign up with another spammer.- What effect has losing a job to out-sourcing had on you personally, including all aspects -- mental, physical, financially, etc. (This one obviously needs to be asked to someone (or many someones) who have lost a job because it got outsourced.
- Who is supposed to pay for tech workers retraining themselves in new fields? I see so many companies/organizations saying that US tech workers even enjoy retraining for new fields, but they never mention how a newly unemployed (thanks to outsourcing) person is supposed to PAY for that retraining.
Personally I would LOVE to see the people who go on about US tech workers just need to retrain for a new field asked #2. I doubt you'll find many (if any) that will answer on the record though.-
The anti-RIAA propoganda around this place is so annoying. Look at the headline--raising the price of downloads by a dollar is suddenly a "nasty easter egg." Slashdotters think their niche opinions represent the majority. You guys need to get off this site and see the rest of the world. ADMIT THE TRUTH--those millions of traders aren't using Kazaa to "sample" albums, they're not using it because they have some sort of righteous opposition to something called the "RIAA"--they're using Kazaa to download music without paying for it. People have yet to offer a valid legal or moral justification for ripping artists off.
How this got modded up so high I'll never know. To use your own arguments against you, you need to stop thinking your niche opinion represents the majority. Have you even been reading the posts? Many people have said things along the lines of they have stuck with listening to their used CDs, or they only buy music from indie labels and groups that sell for a reasonable amount. There are a LOT of people, and not just onSeeing as you aren't going to take that as face value, I'll give you a real-world example. I worked at Wal-mart in my hometown for nearly 2 years recently until I was able to find another tech job around here. Most of that time I was in Electronics so I got to see the average consumer's attitude about this whole fine mess the RIAA has created for themselves. Remember the duet that Kid Rock did with Sheryl Crow (IIRC, might have my names wrong)? A LOT of people came in wanting a single of that song. They didn't like Kid Rock in general, but they liked that song. What did they find when they came in TRYING to be legit and buy it? They had two choices, buy the whole album at $15 or so, or they could buy a single of Kid Rock singing the song with Allison Moorer. That wasn't the version they wanted, so most, unsuprisingly, wouldn't buy the single. They also were unwilling to buy the whole album for one song. I can't even tell you how many people that asked me about this ended up with "oh well, guess I'll go home and download it." I should note I live in a largely rural area, and the Wal-mart I worked at gets less than a quarter the customers at one in a mid-sized city.
That's the real world, the recording companies have greedily ran off their own customers! People are TRYING to do the right thing, but the record companies are so blinded by greed they can't be bothered to provide what their customers want. No, they will only be happy if the customers buy the more expensive (and more profitable) full CD. Hell, I'm surprised they put out ANY single, the singles market has been killed off by the recording companies -- intentionally.
Yeah maybe people are using Kazaa/etal to get music without paying for it, but many of them are using it as a last resort to get what they tried to pay for. Given all that, how you can possibly think that the RIAA wanting to RAISE the price on downloaded singles is anything but sheer greed, then perhaps you need to spend some time in the real world.
One final note, while the $12.99 for a CD at your store does indeed pay for a lot more than just the CD, be sure to ask the artist how much they ever see of it. If they're lucky perhaps a few pennies, but standard recording contracts generally will leave an artist OWING the recording company money after advertising, etc. is factored in. Most artists only make money from their concerts and the stuff they sell at them. This is common knowledge, and in large part resonsible for why people react so strongly to the price of CDs. If the artist was getting a decent chunk of that money, people wouldn't mind paying it as much. People do resent lining the pockets of the recording company executives at the expense of the artists though, as they should. Recording contracts run pretty close to putting artists into indentured servitude to the recording company.
Bet it won't even take long. They'll claim the audible/visual warnings triggered without cause (cause they were asleep and didn't realize it...) and the alarms confused them so much they drove head-on into a tree.
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It's interesting that the government looks for market-based solutions to behavior that actually kills people like dumping mercury into the air, serving arsenic-laden water to towns, or creating vehicular death-traps but when you offend their puritan sensibilities they go for the jugular--even when the market clearly says that a HUGE chunk of the electorate is all for a little obscenity.
And here's some more food for thought, since this industry is $10billion a year, and they're targeting companies just for the porn, not tax fraud, how will they still cut taxes when they're trying to destroy a rather large industry and the taxes they pay?Boy I'd love to see the look on Ashcroft's (or better Dubya's) face when some reporter asks them that. That's assuming anyone has the guts to ask it of course.