Europe doesn't need to shoot down any satellite. We have the awesome power of our commission and they will stop any GPS signal dead in its tracks. See how effective US missiles will be when their coordinates are a week in customs trying to clear all required documents and permissions.
And for a ground war. Thanks to our import taxes, over 30% of all your forces will have to fight for us. Your tanks will not meet our EURO5 norm so they will be prohibited on our soil.
They should do this more often. It is not that they will get sued for copyright infringement or revealing trade secrets...
If all malware were put freely on the internet, wouldn't that dry up some of the revenue streams for the authors? Sure, you will briefly see a spike in derivatives, but I believe the way to combat covert actions is not by covert counter-actions, but by bringing it all in the open.
When you consider this to be a battle, there are a number of things which would make sense:
1) Choose your battleground where you have a tactical advantage. Draw them in the open as "we" are more numerous and have more firepower.
2) Disrupt their supply lines by removing incentives to start writing malware. When they are selling their malware, buy one copy and provide it for free. This will remove a lot of their demand as they will have to start charging more and increase their exposure (larger money transactions will stand out more) or drive them deeper underground which makes them harder to find and buy from.
3) Increase your defences by making genuine software more secure and harder to exploit. "We" are making progress in this area.
4) Decrease their firepower by implementing more control on the ISP level. This may be dangerous as there might be "civilian casualties" but spam zombies are easily identified. Remove zombie hosts from the network. Remove ISPs who do not take action on the zombies from the network. Reduce bandwidth from countries who do not take action on the ISPs. This will have an added bonus that it will also disrupt some of their revenue streams. What is the point of raising a botnet army when you cannot do anything with it?
5) Demoralise their troops by taking legal action. Seize their spoils of war (assets) and their freedom (PoW).
6) Moralise your own troops by increasing incentives to write good code and identify problems. Have them rated like their financial health and increase/decrease tax rates accordingly as would interest rates. This will give incentives to write secure code rather than rush something out the door. When problems arise, security holes are patched as quickly as they are discovered and it allows companies to pay security researchers for their effort. It may even convince some of the black hatters (mercenaries) to switch sides as it becomes more profitable.
well actually, if that happen I would know what to be mostly suprised about - a 20km tsunami wave or a falling GPS satellite.
The whole island was shifted 7 meters to the west. How will that impact the GPS time keeping? Will everything keep on working as advertised or will software (coordinates) need to be updated?
As for the speed of light: 300.000 km/s = 300 m/s or 23.3 ns difference
Speaking as a sysadmin: STOP SENDING EMAILS WITH SO FSCKING BIG ATTACHMENTS. Setup an FTP/HTTP server and send the link in the email. (Preferably public FTP and put me in CC)
At least you will always find a parking spot.
Another plus is that nobody can step on your toes so it definitely makes you stronger mentally.
On a more serious note: There are currently prostheses which allow you to run faster without legs.
"Yo mama's so poor she has to -cut- her cheap lasers to get two"?
C'mon. You can do better than that:
Yo mama is so fat she needs a laser cutter to clip her nails.
Yo mama is so ugly the laser light tries to bend around her.
Yo mama is so poor she needs a laser to cut the last slice of bread.
Yo mama is so stupid she uses a laser to light the house.
Always remember the warning that is on the first page of the manual.
"DO NOT LOOK INTO LASER WITH REMAINING EYE"
It's also bad engineering. If the system is so fragile that you're the only one who can work on it, then you're doing a bad job.
That would not be bad engineering, but bad management. I agree that you are not doing a good job, but it is up to his manager to identify and correct it before it becomes an issue.
Managers have responsibilities too and need to foresee these types of problems and make sure the work is being carried out with sufficient human and material redundancy. Also, HR should hire only qualified people who are actually capable of working in a team. Good people cost money, bad people cost even more in the long run. However most managers only care about numbers now and lower the expenses as far as possible to get the maximum amount of bonuses or make them look good for their managers.
IT guys are often seen as disposable lower than blue collar hired help. However when something goes wrong, it is always the lower IT guy that gets the blame as they were supposed to be all knowledgeable and should have foreseen and prevented the issue.
Back on topic. This person went out of line by changing the passwords and then later not disclosing them to others. There are ways to securely disclose them if that was an issue, or as soon as he left/was fired, the keys did not belong to him anymore. That being said he should not be facing up to 4 years of jail time if he did not do this with malicious intent or to enrich himself. Mostly one can quickly distinguish a good sysadmin from a bad one. Look at his/her documentation, see how much information and knowledge (s)he shares with colleagues. If they score bad on both even after you (as manager) asked them to improve, you know you have a time bomb on your hands.
So unless he deceived his direct and hiring managers, they should be facing the music together with him. Leading positions should be again about responsibilities and not just perks.
the vast, vast majority of code is developed to be used in-house. A tiny, miniscule fraction of code "is written with the intent of releasing an application to the general population."
Where do you get your numbers from?
Let us assume we are only talking about useful code. So not including learning/pet projects or other non-
Most people and organizations use a multitude of general purpose software and only a fraction of custom code. The amount of code used to write the OS and tools with which the "custom code" is usually a multitude of code which is actually produced. Then also take into account the code to run said custom code (frameworks, libraries,...) and I would say the balance is not so clear cut.
Now also take into account all the code that goes into appliances from digital thermometer to MRI machine.
The bulk of the industry is using general purpose software with only a fraction of custom code. You would be amazed at how little actual code goes into factory automation and even those programs are usually written by the manufacturers which then would not qualify as code for "in-house" use. Custom code is mainly used by IT shops, financial institutions and governments and a lot of these tasks are outsourced and performed by consultants or software houses rather than actual "in-house" developers.
Is your conclusion based on actual information or more personal experience?
Yes, we should decrease the amount of power we use. I totally agree, yet, the chances of getting the average consumer to actually do so, keep dreaming. As long as people keep coming up with power hungry devices that people want (read: air conditioners, plasma TVs, faster PCs and just about every other imaginable device), people will in fact keep buying them. Will they pay vastly larger sums for them if they are power efficient? Unlikely, some might, most won't. Will they put up with lower/smaller/decreased functionality? Again, some might, most won't.
I disagree. If you look fuel consumption in cars, you will notice that in the last 20 years, they consume LESS fuel, have MORE power, safety and luxury. Are they so much more expensive than they were 20 years ago? I don't think so.
LCD screens consume less power, are more space efficient and have less negative health effects than their CRT equivalents. (though some purist may say there is loss of quality as well). CRT TVs the size of the average TV sold nowadays would be vastly more expensive not to say the electricity bill which would make you think twice
When people start to better insulate their houses, they will consume less power for heating/cooling while getting more comfort. This investment is payed back within 1-2 years.
With regards to faster PCs, I beg to differ. If you didn't notice already, current generation CPUs are consuming LESS energy than their predecessors while still getting more work done and this is where we need to evolve to.
People need to start understanding that power efficiency is SAVING money without a need to compromise on features or comfort.
Getting back on topic. Even though power consumption for each device needs to go down, we will need more power as there will be more devices and more people using them. The biggest challenge in this century will be to get India and China up to Western standards. Both countries combined have about 3 billion people. Just providing them with the same amount of meat would require massive amounts of power, and then I'm not even talking about gadgets. So whatever we do, there will be a massive need for power no matter how much more power efficient we will become. Efficiency is key to preserve our way of life but clean and cheap new energy sources will be our only salvation.
Probably too late to get read by anyone, but here goes anyways.
It is no coincidence they bought Suse and not another distro and here is why.
First they bought Ximian. What is Ximian good at? Right, Evolution, the Outlook clone.
Then they buy Suse. What are they good at? Server software? Yes that too... but more importantly OpenExchange, the Exchange clone.
If I was in the position of the Novell executives, I would do the same thing.
The reason why most businesses use Microsoft products is because executives like the Outlook Calendar and they "need" Word/Excell.
Novell now has everything inhouse to provide a viable alternative to Microsoft. Suse Servers with OpenExchange, Suse workstations with Evolution and OpenOffice. They will also port their Novell management tools so Active Directory can be replaced.
Another good thing for Novell is that OpenExchange is compatible with Outlook, and Evolution with Exchange. This way they can guarantee an easy migration.
This will be a good thing for a more rapid Linux adoption, but this is not a good thing for free software (free as beer and Free as speech).
I'm not sure, but I believe OpenExchange is not Free. You have to pay for the software, but I can't seem to find a license to check if the software is Free.
The Management tools will be proprietary. So they have an edge over other distributions. Let's just hope they keep Evolution Free. They own the majority of the IP of Evolution now so they are able to change the license for the parts written by Ximian.
Good for Novell, good for faster Linux adoption by companies. Bad for Free Software and Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
Europe doesn't need to shoot down any satellite. We have the awesome power of our commission and they will stop any GPS signal dead in its tracks.
See how effective US missiles will be when their coordinates are a week in customs trying to clear all required documents and permissions.
And for a ground war. Thanks to our import taxes, over 30% of all your forces will have to fight for us. Your tanks will not meet our EURO5 norm so they will be prohibited on our soil.
HAH. In your face.
They should do this more often. ...
It is not that they will get sued for copyright infringement or revealing trade secrets
If all malware were put freely on the internet, wouldn't that dry up some of the revenue streams for the authors? Sure, you will briefly see a spike in derivatives, but I believe the way to combat covert actions is not by covert counter-actions, but by bringing it all in the open.
When you consider this to be a battle, there are a number of things which would make sense:
1) Choose your battleground where you have a tactical advantage. Draw them in the open as "we" are more numerous and have more firepower.
2) Disrupt their supply lines by removing incentives to start writing malware. When they are selling their malware, buy one copy and provide it for free. This will remove a lot of their demand as they will have to start charging more and increase their exposure (larger money transactions will stand out more) or drive them deeper underground which makes them harder to find and buy from.
3) Increase your defences by making genuine software more secure and harder to exploit. "We" are making progress in this area.
4) Decrease their firepower by implementing more control on the ISP level. This may be dangerous as there might be "civilian casualties" but spam zombies are easily identified. Remove zombie hosts from the network. Remove ISPs who do not take action on the zombies from the network. Reduce bandwidth from countries who do not take action on the ISPs. This will have an added bonus that it will also disrupt some of their revenue streams. What is the point of raising a botnet army when you cannot do anything with it?
5) Demoralise their troops by taking legal action. Seize their spoils of war (assets) and their freedom (PoW).
6) Moralise your own troops by increasing incentives to write good code and identify problems. Have them rated like their financial health and increase/decrease tax rates accordingly as would interest rates. This will give incentives to write secure code rather than rush something out the door. When problems arise, security holes are patched as quickly as they are discovered and it allows companies to pay security researchers for their effort. It may even convince some of the black hatters (mercenaries) to switch sides as it becomes more profitable.
well actually, if that happen I would know what to be mostly suprised about - a 20km tsunami wave or a falling GPS satellite.
The whole island was shifted 7 meters to the west. How will that impact the GPS time keeping? Will everything keep on working as advertised or will software (coordinates) need to be updated?
As for the speed of light: 300.000 km/s = 300 m/s or 23.3 ns difference
Speaking as a sysadmin: STOP SENDING EMAILS WITH SO FSCKING BIG ATTACHMENTS. Setup an FTP/HTTP server and send the link in the email. (Preferably public FTP and put me in CC)
At least you will always find a parking spot.
Another plus is that nobody can step on your toes so it definitely makes you stronger mentally.
On a more serious note: There are currently prostheses which allow you to run faster without legs.
"Yo mama's so poor she has to -cut- her cheap lasers to get two"?
C'mon. You can do better than that:
Yo mama is so fat she needs a laser cutter to clip her nails.
Yo mama is so ugly the laser light tries to bend around her.
Yo mama is so poor she needs a laser to cut the last slice of bread.
Yo mama is so stupid she uses a laser to light the house.
Always remember the warning that is on the first page of the manual.
"DO NOT LOOK INTO LASER WITH REMAINING EYE"
It's also bad engineering. If the system is so fragile that you're the only one who can work on it, then you're doing a bad job.
That would not be bad engineering, but bad management. I agree that you are not doing a good job, but it is up to his manager to identify and correct it before it becomes an issue.
Managers have responsibilities too and need to foresee these types of problems and make sure the work is being carried out with sufficient human and material redundancy. Also, HR should hire only qualified people who are actually capable of working in a team. Good people cost money, bad people cost even more in the long run. However most managers only care about numbers now and lower the expenses as far as possible to get the maximum amount of bonuses or make them look good for their managers.
IT guys are often seen as disposable lower than blue collar hired help. However when something goes wrong, it is always the lower IT guy that gets the blame as they were supposed to be all knowledgeable and should have foreseen and prevented the issue.
Back on topic. This person went out of line by changing the passwords and then later not disclosing them to others. There are ways to securely disclose them if that was an issue, or as soon as he left/was fired, the keys did not belong to him anymore. That being said he should not be facing up to 4 years of jail time if he did not do this with malicious intent or to enrich himself. Mostly one can quickly distinguish a good sysadmin from a bad one. Look at his/her documentation, see how much information and knowledge (s)he shares with colleagues. If they score bad on both even after you (as manager) asked them to improve, you know you have a time bomb on your hands.
So unless he deceived his direct and hiring managers, they should be facing the music together with him. Leading positions should be again about responsibilities and not just perks.
the vast, vast majority of code is developed to be used in-house. A tiny, miniscule fraction of code "is written with the intent of releasing an application to the general population."
Where do you get your numbers from?
Let us assume we are only talking about useful code. So not including learning/pet projects or other non- Most people and organizations use a multitude of general purpose software and only a fraction of custom code. The amount of code used to write the OS and tools with which the "custom code" is usually a multitude of code which is actually produced. Then also take into account the code to run said custom code (frameworks, libraries, ...) and I would say the balance is not so clear cut.
Now also take into account all the code that goes into appliances from digital thermometer to MRI machine.
The bulk of the industry is using general purpose software with only a fraction of custom code. You would be amazed at how little actual code goes into factory automation and even those programs are usually written by the manufacturers which then would not qualify as code for "in-house" use. Custom code is mainly used by IT shops, financial institutions and governments and a lot of these tasks are outsourced and performed by consultants or software houses rather than actual "in-house" developers.
Is your conclusion based on actual information or more personal experience?
In Soviet Russia, you shoot the revolver ???
Yes, we should decrease the amount of power we use. I totally agree, yet, the chances of getting the average consumer to actually do so, keep dreaming. As long as people keep coming up with power hungry devices that people want (read: air conditioners, plasma TVs, faster PCs and just about every other imaginable device), people will in fact keep buying them. Will they pay vastly larger sums for them if they are power efficient? Unlikely, some might, most won't. Will they put up with lower/smaller/decreased functionality? Again, some might, most won't.
I disagree. If you look fuel consumption in cars, you will notice that in the last 20 years, they consume LESS fuel, have MORE power, safety and luxury. Are they so much more expensive than they were 20 years ago? I don't think so.
LCD screens consume less power, are more space efficient and have less negative health effects than their CRT equivalents. (though some purist may say there is loss of quality as well). CRT TVs the size of the average TV sold nowadays would be vastly more expensive not to say the electricity bill which would make you think twice
When people start to better insulate their houses, they will consume less power for heating/cooling while getting more comfort. This investment is payed back within 1-2 years.
With regards to faster PCs, I beg to differ. If you didn't notice already, current generation CPUs are consuming LESS energy than their predecessors while still getting more work done and this is where we need to evolve to.
People need to start understanding that power efficiency is SAVING money without a need to compromise on features or comfort.
Getting back on topic. Even though power consumption for each device needs to go down, we will need more power as there will be more devices and more people using them. The biggest challenge in this century will be to get India and China up to Western standards. Both countries combined have about 3 billion people. Just providing them with the same amount of meat would require massive amounts of power, and then I'm not even talking about gadgets. So whatever we do, there will be a massive need for power no matter how much more power efficient we will become. Efficiency is key to preserve our way of life but clean and cheap new energy sources will be our only salvation.
It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to piracy.
Does this mean we'll start to see bootleg hard drives with pre-ripped movies soon?
How cool would it be to just plug in the new movies into the NAS?
Probably too late to get read by anyone, but here goes anyways.
... but more importantly OpenExchange, the Exchange clone.
It is no coincidence they bought Suse and not another distro and here is why.
First they bought Ximian. What is Ximian good at? Right, Evolution, the Outlook clone.
Then they buy Suse. What are they good at? Server software? Yes that too
If I was in the position of the Novell executives, I would do the same thing.
The reason why most businesses use Microsoft products is because executives like the Outlook Calendar and they "need" Word/Excell.
Novell now has everything inhouse to provide a viable alternative to Microsoft. Suse Servers with OpenExchange, Suse workstations with Evolution and OpenOffice. They will also port their Novell management tools so Active Directory can be replaced.
Another good thing for Novell is that OpenExchange is compatible with Outlook, and Evolution with Exchange. This way they can guarantee an easy migration.
This will be a good thing for a more rapid Linux adoption, but this is not a good thing for free software (free as beer and Free as speech). I'm not sure, but I believe OpenExchange is not Free. You have to pay for the software, but I can't seem to find a license to check if the software is Free.
The Management tools will be proprietary. So they have an edge over other distributions. Let's just hope they keep Evolution Free. They own the majority of the IP of Evolution now so they are able to change the license for the parts written by Ximian.
Good for Novell, good for faster Linux adoption by companies. Bad for Free Software and Microsoft.
Candyban