One of the things that struck me about my transition from a large company to a small was the attention to some of the smaller details. At the large company (Sprint) they had policies in place to ensure the small issues like this were taken care of.
TO be specific, at Sprint all sensitive data was put in a "Shred Bin". This meant anything from customer address, phone numbers and info to detailed network drawings with server names, IP addresses and such. Going to a small company, we have invoices dating back a half dozen years with credit card numbers in an unlocked filing cabinet. How many small companies expose their customers' data through oversights like this? I would suspect the number is staggering. Most businesses really just don't think about it because they think, 'Well its been OK for years'. Kinda like leaving the front door unlocked. You may be OK for a dozen years but all it takes is one felon escapee jiggling your front door to change your world.
Now the small company I work for has policies in place. We shred sensitive data, lock up dead-tree with customer info, etc.
Just a different prespective I haven't seen someone post yet.
John
With new phones coming in a disposable form, then it was soon to follow with advertising phones. Kinda like the USB memory sticks you could get free at CES shows.
For the technical questions. I'm sure it's going to be similar to existing avenues of phone distribution. The phone is shipped with the battery seperated for safety and electrical reasons. You plug the battery in and the phone will register. The FCC and manufacturers have deemed that cell phones come on with GPS enabled. This ONLY sends the info within the cell phone's system, and if your municipality is equipped then it goes out to E911 when you place a 911 call. Even though the GPS feature is now FCC mandated, most cities can't afford the equipment. The enabling of sending GPS is a new development in the last few months. Carriers have been tossing the idea around of geographically located advertising. For example, Pizza Hut is closing and has two pizzas that someone ordered but never showed. The next two drivers who drive by get a short SMS message saying, "Pizza hut at 15th and Lincoln will sell you a Large pepperoni pizza if you stop in the next 10 minutes"
Good googolies....I think Stevie Wonder could find her in a room filled with women. But maybe Stevie is another artist they "couldn't find." I'm sure if they'd been downloading MP3s the RIAA could find them just fine, thank you...
Let's not forget the obligatory:
1. Charge people waaayyyyy too much for plastic, shiny disks
2. "Accidentally" lose track of famous artists, one of which lives in a huge amusement park that a 3 year old from Japan could locate
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!!!! YEAH baby, YEAH!!
*rinse* *lather* *repeat*
Heh, yep. I used to joke about chucking a handful of pennies into the BDFB. For the uninitiated, it's a huge power distribution unit with 00 gauge wiring going in and coming out...not high voltage, 48 VDC, but high amperage.
Thats why it sounds more maintenance related than malicious. With a few keystrokes, literally, and about 5 minutes of time, I know how to bring an entire state's PCS traffic down. So why would I fool with 3 DS3? If I have compromised physical security to gain access to the cards, finding a spare console into the switch isn't a stretch.
The other post is correct, growth can occur in the day. However, ops is highly discouraged, at least at Sprint, from doing any of it during the day for this very reason. I provided tech support for the DACS (digital cross connect for OC3 down to DS1/0), and even on protected, redundant cards I always instructed the techs to wait until the maintenance window to swap cards. Did they always listen? No. But that was the exception (which is possibly what happened here).
I guess it's possible these were DS3 cards from an ATM, which would be more money. Again, why? 3 cards? You risk a felony and career for one month's wages (for a switch tech)? You'd be better off going on a credit card spending spree and filing Chapter 13.:D
John
I worked as a switch tech at Nextel and later as second tier tech support at Sprint PCS.
The physical security is usually pretty good. About on par with a normal Fortune 500 company, where you scan into areas that you have a reason to be in. The switch room is usually a little harder to get in, especially since 9/11. At Nextel, they actually hired armed guards for a short while when we almost hired an alleged Felon. A competitors security guard recognized him and tipped off our security. Turns out he was supposedly part of a crew that carted off entire racks of telecom equipment.
Getting back on topic. The cards sound like they are the DS3 that pop into a larger fiber demark, like an OC12, 48 or 192. The cards are pretty small and just have coax-looking DS3 plugs on the front (in, out, and monitor). These aren't cards you could really ever use anywhere else. It almost sounds like someone accidentally yanked the wrong cards during maintenence. Although, most telecoms are very religious about not doing maint during the day (if the outage started at night, tho, I'd say it was a switch tech who screwed up).
The reason I'd assert this is the theft was too small to be of any other value. Three DS3 cards aren't going to fetch much, and they're tainted goods. If you're malicious, you're not going to just grab 3. If you're damaging a competitor, grabbing 3 cards is somewhat silly. We commonly have a backhaul path in preparation for things such as this. For example, when I worked at Nextel a fiber dig broke a couple DS3s we had going through PacBell. Within 4 or 5 hours, we swung the traffic over to other DS3s that bypassed the carrier and area with the break.
On a side note, it was also an eye opener that the "Protected, Redundant" Ring-topology that we were paying extra for was not being provided by the Telco. Let's just say there were some very colorful conversations going on between companies at the VP level.
This doesn't solve the problems," said Tab Iredale, a Diebold developer. "It just sets a tone of confrontation at a time when we should be working together to address issues with the certification process."
Next time I get pulled over by a cop or go to court, I'll just say, "You're just setting a tone of confrontation at a time we should be working together to address **insert issue here**." Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe my wife, Morgan Fairchild (whom I've slept with), will buy that, but I doubt anyone else will. I don't understand how you weasel out of compliance with a contract, by stating you need to address issues with it. There is no issue. You agreed and then didn't comply. It's so simple a child understands (sometimes with a smack to the butt).
For those who, like me, thought they would have a hard time replacing Outlook Express (*puke*), check out Mozilla Thunderbird.
I heard about it here on/. and installed it the same day. At first it marked ALL my mail as spam because I'm on a few list servers, but the adaptive learning function of it is getting much better. After I "unlearned" my list mails as spam, it'd still let about 60% of spam through. Now it gets about 40 out of the 42 spams I get a day. I don't mind deleting two (or hitting "j" for junk), and recent searches through the junk folder show no false positives.
Check it out...
Re:Your office is not defending the USA
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 1
Wrong. We already know the defense budget for the past two years has been greatly expanded. Going earlier you can see how the Clinton administration began a long upward path of pork.
#1 hit for "National Defense spending versus GDP" leads to a page with this chart. You'll note the steady decline past the Clinton days. Bush did ask for a 3.8 in 2003 (which would be a.8% increase....still not close to record highs, or even a real significant increase compared to the previous 5/10/or 20 years).
They will level Tokyo and Seoul before they consider San Diego, you know that
No...no ones know for certain who will attack whom. I'm sure in the mid-80s, as we handed weapons to Osama Bin Laden and helped them fight the Soviets, no one in their wildest dreams thought he would fund/manage/administer the group(s) that would bring down the Trade Towers. I'm certain as the Japanese ambassador was handing the medal (of friendship) to our government, no one had an inkling of the mass formation of aircraft carriers and their intended target.
You've made your point of terrorists being a threat, however, you've repeatedly been unable to give a convincing reason to discount the need to defend against missiles. Maybe you question the method, maybe you just don't trust "old generals in a room in the Pentagon"...I don't know your motives. I do, however, know war and am a trained professional in the profession of arms. Such training leads you to make calculated decisions based on varying levels of risk and the task at hand. The Department of Defense has one focus: To extend the foreign policy of the US, at a moments notice, anywhere across the Earth. The fulfillment of that mission is to break the others guys toys, kill them and save US lives (civilian or military). This is why the DoD will continue to watch both the large, and small scale bad guys. I very seriously doubt Hussein is the very last person to consider invading and annexing another country. (so before you say it...we're not the same...there will not be a 51st state). North Korea has been very blunt in threatening the US, as well as South Korea. An attack from them would not be in a vacuum, so they understand very well that an attack on anyone would prompt a US reaction. So, again, going to my earlier point, premptive strikes are best, and more effective when strong (e.g. shock and awe). So N.K. would be stupid to not give serious consideration to hit us at the same time. We would be even dumber to not be defensively ready for it....
As far as what's effective and what's not. I'm not going to touch it because I'm not jeopardizing my clearance by disclosing weapon capabilities. Let's just say...don't read everything you read, and some things you read are more true than you'd imagine...
ok...now can we get back on topic?
Re:Your office is not defending the USA
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 1
Since this is becoming a tit for tat, and not even really on topic, this will be my last reply.
In regards to "more annoying than effective," and, "Three hours in line," you made my point. You're annoyed, rather than dead (this is assuming you're a US citizen).
Actually, again, history and current practices do not support your assertion. National Defense as a function of overall spending, and GDP, is still at an all time low. We do far more, with far less resources than ever in the past. The hikes you mention are Homeland Defense, which is NOT a DoD funded group. To be honest, they're doing EXACTLY what you're calling for...they're the ones preparing for a terrorist (on our soil or elsewhere).
So you'd ignore North Korea's unveiled threats and their efforts to get a fully functional intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear payload?? One that now has the range to reach the West Coast?
"Hey, all of San Diego is radioactive...but we're ready for them terrorists with shoe bombs!!!"
:-p
Re:Your office is not defending the USA
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I understand your point, but it isn't the topic we're discussing. We're talking about space based weapons for ICBMs and SLBMs. We have Marines and other Special Ops for the terrorists. Using your logic, we should disband the Navy because terrorists don't use boats (except to target Navy...but that's a redundant arguement). There aren't many "malls in the sea" for them to bomb.
Cold Relic or no, I'm still more worried about North Korea or some other hostile country with a Nuke and capability to put it on target (read: US or allies). If nukes weren't a future threat, why would they continue to pursue them and test their weapon's capability. We're geeks on here, so layering your security should be intuitive. You have muliple defenses for each plausible type of attack. You don't solely rely on SSH for network security, and hence, you don't base your whole defensive posture on terrorists. I'm assuming you're genuine in your discussion, since you preceeded your comments with the comment "no offense...". So I'm trying to entertain your argument...but honestly...we're talking apples and oranges. And, "you're not defending USA" assumes this is ALL I (or USAF) is doing...IMHO.
Terrorists are like flies. More annoying than effective. They're in a lose/lose situation. One question: With all the women bombers lately, do they still get the 100 virgin women too??:) j/k
From A US Space Command officer
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I will comment on a few things I've seen posted here.
Weapons in space have been in existence for some time. If you call a duck a duck, then a satellite with a sole response of killing another satellite is a weapon. The Soviets demonstrated their capabilities quite some time ago to perform this maneuver. To be honest, Star Wars scared the beejeesus out of the Soviets and they tried every measure possible to stop us from developing it. When we "won" the cold war, there wasn't a reason to keep the measure alive since no other country was so capable of putting a nuke on our doorstep in minutes.
This is why Cuba was such a huge issue for us. No time to counter a first strike. If you'll note, we always strike with a heavy first blow, because it's strategically important to do so.
Getting back on-topic. Given the facts above, I really question the credility or motives of the "Expert" cited in the article. Anyone involved in Space, and most certainly any Air Force related personnel, would know about the previous weapons. I've got a copy of the USAF Space Handbook (issued to AF Officers in Space Command), dated over 10 years ago, which outline the Soviet's program in good detail.
The rest of the posts on here seem to really stray off topic, but I'll entertain a few. The problem the US has had is that we see things differently than a good number out there. Conversely, they each see things differently than every one else as well. So there's two foreign policies you can follow:
1. Isolationism
2. Work with the other governments to further your agenda
I'd say anyone even remotely familiar with history would agree that option 1 is no option at all. We tried ignoring Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese and German agression in WWIII and others, yet we eventually get sucked in anyway. We can engage in the "chicken and egg", or cause and effect conversation until we're each sleepy or bored, yet neither of us will ever have the definitive correct answer. The key to courage is to make the best of what you have today and move forward.
This is why we've changed our posture. Is it aggressive? Sure. But so have our enemies...
A number of years ago, my roommate had a part Beagle/Bassett Hound that would pee every chance it had in the living room, on the coffee table. He'd beat the living daylights out of the dog, telling it to not pee there. But....sure enough...few hours later, there he is peeing in the living room again.
Microsoft is that Basset Hound. You hit them with fines, tell them to stop force feeding bundling....and 6 minutes/weeks/months later, there they are doing it again.
"Would you like to buy a brand new car??!!" "Sure" "GREAT!!! OK, but you have to promise to get your financing and insurance from GMAC, and you can never take it to a 3rd party mechanic. Oh!!! And you have to buy our gas to refill it." "what if you stop selling that type of gas" "Oh, well, we wont support your vehicle anymore and you'll have to buy a new one. Oh, and no $$ for your trade in...ok, maybe a few dollars". Gee thanks...
I cringe with every new market they enter and hope like hell they pull out. Stick to crappy OS'.
Awesome. I never knew that feature was there. I can stop emailing myself links, small cpp files for class homework,etc.
This thread is a good wake up call though. I have primarily stuck with Yahoo because I can check it from class, work, home, library, or with a 3G phone. I always relied on their security. I'm not to the point I can go !M$, especially now that I bought Visual C++ for homework.
Checklist 1-8 Step 3 (SSO) if I remember right. contact svnxx,ascng,XXXXa011,a,act hee hee, I'll never forget it. HQ'd every eval (except the special eval after getting DQ'd for falling asleep. You can't HQ on a special.)
Tell Steve (Hutsell) that former SrA (now 2nd LT) John Schubert says "Hi!!!". I'm in the 148th now, however I might not be....seems things have changed with my civilian employer and I really can't afford to leave work for 4 monhts to go through USMT, Milstar school, and then upgrade training. I formerly worked for Sprint, who would have paid for my entire time gone, however my new employer won't.
Good luck on after-military. If you're staying in the 'Springs I'm sure there's plnety of jobs.
So you're at the 2 SOPS at Shreiver? I was the SSO instructor at the now defunct 534th Training Squadron, Vandyland. I stayed in touch, but most of the people I trained are long gone. We had just started training IIF when I left. I occasionally see old names from Nav officers (now Payload Officers), such as Steve Hutsell and others, writing technical papers on GPS.
I'm hoping the 148 SOPS (ANG squadron at Vandy's remote antennae) pick up the GPS back up, but I heard it might be like the 1 SOPS with local reservists. It's been over 6 years since I ran a checklist, but I still remember the pre-pass, and contact checklists by heart. I know it's changed since, but it wouldn't be hard to pick up again.
John
They generally avoid areas known to have a good deal of debris. There are known "windows" you can put a launch through that have no debris and provide the orbital trajectory for that particular mission.
The manned spaceflights, however, get much greater scrutiny. If there's debris within a safety corrodor, the flight is changed or not made. I was in Alaska for a year, taking part in the Air Force network that tracked the objects.
And to the other post....yes, unannounced foreign launches created excitement and had the highest priority. Most nation's announce it, but a few of our adversaries didn't for obvious reasons.
Are you involved with GPS now? I flew them for the AF for awhile, but your info is obviously newer than mine. I am surprised, though, that the L5 DOT payload made it on. I remember being told in 97 that DoD was fighting it, for good reason since this is a DoD asset.
You're right that the signal has not been degraded for a region. However, it is possible that we could do it if we REALLY wanted to. It would be a PITA for the crew working when they implemented it, but possible with scheduled SA/AS. The crew working would get a great write up for Crew of the Quarter (Year) and Performance Reports....:-)
We did purposly make the signal BETTER during the first Gulf War. We only had a dozen or so satellites up, with sparse coverage over the Middle East. So we took a bird that wasn't really usable, because it couldn't maintain 3-axis stabilization, and adjusted it's Z-axis to point to the Middle East, relative to it's Nadir point when intersecting with the Earth in it's orbit. This got a couple of officers (I used to remember their names) a nice write up after the war for coming up with the idea, planning it and making it happen.
I was on the floor working back in '92. There's a 1 in 5 chance I was really there when you came through (if you remember the name of the officer, I can probably tell you) as there were (and still are) 5 crews that rotate shifts.
There is still somewhat of a push to get EU and others with their own birds up. It's funny to hear these conspiracy theorists about why we tried to block it. Using their own logic, we are trying to keep Iran from developing their own nukes because we want everyone else to buy ours....WTF? Yeah...thats it...
No, it's because the DoD has one objective: implement the president's foreign policy and domestic defense in the most efficient means possible. If other's launch their own satellites it creates interference (EMI, RF, etc) and increases the capabilities of our enemies. You can pant and whine about our military's economic agenda, but you'll USUALLY see this from people who've never actually put on a uniform. Does it mean it never happens. Of course not. But if it does it's usually rooted out....because, again... our #1 objectives are to make the other guy die for his country, save US lives, and break the other guys toys of death.
Did they show you the little model with the satellite rotating around the earth, keeping the Z-Axis nadir pointing, and the arrays tracking the spot-light (pseudo sun)?? I always thought that was really cool with working, tracking arrays.
John
PS. No, there's not 50 operational birds. There's a min of 24 and sometimes there's 26 or so, for planned End of Life. The satellites are spun up for stability reasons, and then boosted out of the orbital plane.
GPS was originally enabled with encryption, frequency hopping, and degraded signals for unauthorized users.
However, back in the 80's when Russia shot down that civilian airliner that strayed off course, President Reagan made the decision to make GPS publicly available.
DoD fought off turning off the system all together because we didn't want our enemies to use the system against us. However, with the EU wanting to launch their own and the spreading use of DPGS (differential GPS), it eventually became moot. So DoD turned it off in the mid-90s (I think it was 94...I was still a GPS operator and I remember helping doing it....just can't remember what year that was). They do, however, reserve the right to turn it back on. FWIW, DOT (Department of Transportation) wanted to add their own signal (L5), but I don't know if that got anywhere.
OK....trivia time for those who care:
GPS comes with Selective Ability/Anti-Spoofing (SA/AS), which allow the signal to be jam-proof, encrypted and for only authorized users. The frequency can hop, and the signal's accuracy be purposely degraded. It was a security breach to speculate who High Accuracy Users were, but we joked it was a guy on a camel in the middle of the desert. I won't go into detail about how the above works, since I'm waiting for my Top Secret clearance for my new job flying Milstar Satellites (Air National Guard).
The satellites are basicly beacons, transmitting their current position and time to accuracy of a nanosecond. This is why the satellites are launched with 4 frequency standards, although the latest generation (Block IIF, I believe) was slated to only have 3. I haven't been involved with GPS lately, so my info is about 3 years old. There is a chance the Guard may become a backup for GPS, but I'm told its unlikely. Back to the topic. The frequency standards for the Cesium and Rubidium clocks are very precise, with the Rubidium clocks being a little better, however they were also more temperature sensitive. You can appreciate the difficulty keeping a clock +/-.1 degree celcius in space, where temperatures swing greatly from full-sun to being in the Earth or moon's shadow.
The signal leaves the satellite and travels to your GPS unit at the speed of light. The ionosphere and other atmospheric conditions will refract or delay the signal, but that can be corrected. SO if the satellites saying, "I'm HERE at this TIME," and you know the speed it traveled, you can determine the distance (roughly) from you to the satellite. 3 satellites give you 2-D position, and the 4th adds altitude. You actually triangulate to two (2) points. One on the earth, and the other about 22,000 miles in outer space. That outerspace point is thrown away. Today even the cheapest GPS units can track multiple satellites at the same time (early units tracked one at a time) and throw away some for reasons of GDOP. To get the most precise measurement, you want the Geometric Dilution of Precision (GDOP) to be the least by having the greatest angles between yourself and the satellites. If you have two satellites right next to each other (relative to your overhead view...not physically), you throw out the one that creates the narrowest angle with respect to the other satellites.
The other post is correct, 50 is the number of satellites launched (so it would be referred to as SVN50...SVN being Satellite Vehicle Number). The operational constellation only needs 24 satellites, however we'll put additional units up in anticipation of a satellite nearing its End of Life.
Remember....these are DoD assets...we don't give a rat's ass about businesses. Our job is to break the other guy's toys, save US lives and let the other guy die for his country.
I can answer the question you pose. It's been partly answered already, but I'll add a little trivia for anyone who cares. I flew GPS satellites as enlisted active-duty Air Force for about 3 years, from 91-94, and then taught it at the schoolhouse (Falcon AFB, now called Shreiver, and then Vandenberg AFB) from 95-98.
The constellation has 4 slots per orbit, with six orbital planes. Since the satellites are at a semi-sync orbit around 12,000 Nm (nautical miles), there is no way to deorbit or send the shuttle up to fix. The shuttle only goes up around 50-100 miles, from what I've read.
Early GPS satellites, commonly referred to as Block I, were experimental and only expected to last around 5 years. These babies turned out to be over achievers and a few lasted 13 years (SVN 3, if my memory serves correct). It usually came down to degradation of the solar arrays. The Cesium and Rubidium clocks will still have one or two operational (they launched with 4), but the solar arrays couldn't generate enough electricity to last through Solar Season (a point in orbital mechanics, where the satellite spends a good amount of time in the sun or moon's shadow). On a few, they made the mistake ( or didn't anticipate) of not insulating one of the batteries well enough, and it failed faster.
Anyway, with technology, they started packing more and more extra crap on the satellites and it didn't seem to make the birds any better. I used to give the Rockwell engineers a hard time by saying, "Strap on a Block IIa solar array on a Block I bird and it'll last 20 years".
The launch schedule is planned around these predicted end of life time periods. We collect State of Health (SOH) data on every pass, since we go up on each satellite at least once or twice a day. This data helps with long term trending and will alert the engineers if it looks like a bird is going to die early.
When the bird gets to the point it can't maintain its attitude (Z-Axis pointing +/- 2 degrees, at the center of the Earth), or the electrical system is failing (either due to batteries and/or solar arrays), then a end of life burn is scheduled. The satellite is spun up, so that eletricity and hyrodzine is no longer needed to keep the satellite stabilzed, and then it's boosted as far out as it's feasible as to make it's operational slot in the orbit reusable.
In case anyone is curious about the stabilization, the satellites use 4 reactor wheels mounted on a pyramid shaped structure. Basicly, picture 4 flywheels spinning on the Egyptian Pyramids (but smaller, course!). One wheel can fail, and the other three can still keep the satellite 3-axis stabilized. GPS satellites keep the "bottom" of the satellite always pointing to Earth, as that's where the primary L-Band (what you use to get your GPS positioning) and S-band (what the AF uses to perform command and control, etc) antennas. There are electro-magnets that use computer modeling of the magnetic fields around the earth to dissipate stored energy in the reaction wheels. Otherwise, the wheels would eventually spin up to their max and no longer be correcting. Thruster firings are not an option, as it's too drastic a manueuver to maintain a precise positioning signal. A thruster firing will cause the satellite to flag it's data as not usable (almanac data).
Lets only talk about the financially motivated spammers, and assume the spam with virus/trojans is outside the scope here.
What if someone (I?) wrote a file scrape function that tested as != to a whitelist of people I know (or even == a blacklist), and then I launch as many requests as my CPU could handle for the file included in the spam. The file would be immediately dumped in/dev/null and a new request for the same file would kick off the next time the CPU was idle (this way I can still look at my p0rn unaffected). It's not really a DOS, because I'm in effect doing exactly what they wanted: Downloading the file they tagged in their HTML mail. If I shared this code with a few thousand of my closest friends:) wouldn't this negate the business model of.5% responding? Because a number approaching 99.95% might start eating bandwidth.
This same program would drop files as they reached a high percentage of 404 responses.
I'm learning C++ and know a little PHP/Perl, so this would be a good project between classes. I'm curious though, what the arguments would be against this.
John
I would think the EU would also be a roadblock
on
Microsoft Eyeing AOL?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Even if they bought...err I mean negotiated their way through the SEC, and other federal government hurdles, they would still run into the EU.
When I formerly worked with Sprint, and MCI was trying to buy them, it was a God-send that it got blocked. It may prove to be the case here as well. We've already read stories on here about the EU not being Microsoft friendly.
In the end, would it benefit the consumer? I'd be inclined to say, "Maybe, but probably not". The only benefit to M$ shareholders is rolling in the monthly subscriber fees. However, they are from a fickle market: consumers. M$ gets their monthly royalties from a reliable, steady source: businesses. This is part of the reason Nextel kicks everyone's ass in terms of revenue per user (because they identified this marketing trend early and targeted it).
Triumph the wonder dog. Man, he's the only funny thing on late night anymore (out of the BIG 3, NBC/CBS/ABC). That and the parodies, where Conan puts the face of some celeb/former dictator and animates the mouth in a mock interview.
But they hardly show Triumph on anymore. Maybe my moods/maturity have changed....but Conan, Letterman, and Leno just seem overdone. If you've seen a dozen, you've seen them all. I watched Johnny Carson for my entire childhood/teenage years and never got tired of him. Now I prefer the Daily Show on Comedy Central ( as well as Dave Chappel and Snoop Dog's Televizzle (sp?)).
I think Conan, the Daily Show, and Letterman would take exception to the comment, "all of those take place in LA.":-)
Slashdot Mirror
TO be specific, at Sprint all sensitive data was put in a "Shred Bin". This meant anything from customer address, phone numbers and info to detailed network drawings with server names, IP addresses and such. Going to a small company, we have invoices dating back a half dozen years with credit card numbers in an unlocked filing cabinet. How many small companies expose their customers' data through oversights like this? I would suspect the number is staggering. Most businesses really just don't think about it because they think, 'Well its been OK for years'. Kinda like leaving the front door unlocked. You may be OK for a dozen years but all it takes is one felon escapee jiggling your front door to change your world.
Now the small company I work for has policies in place. We shred sensitive data, lock up dead-tree with customer info, etc.
Just a different prespective I haven't seen someone post yet.
John
For the technical questions. I'm sure it's going to be similar to existing avenues of phone distribution. The phone is shipped with the battery seperated for safety and electrical reasons. You plug the battery in and the phone will register. The FCC and manufacturers have deemed that cell phones come on with GPS enabled. This ONLY sends the info within the cell phone's system, and if your municipality is equipped then it goes out to E911 when you place a 911 call. Even though the GPS feature is now FCC mandated, most cities can't afford the equipment. The enabling of sending GPS is a new development in the last few months. Carriers have been tossing the idea around of geographically located advertising. For example, Pizza Hut is closing and has two pizzas that someone ordered but never showed. The next two drivers who drive by get a short SMS message saying, "Pizza hut at 15th and Lincoln will sell you a Large pepperoni pizza if you stop in the next 10 minutes"
John
Let's not forget the obligatory:
1. Charge people waaayyyyy too much for plastic, shiny disks
2. "Accidentally" lose track of famous artists, one of which lives in a huge amusement park that a 3 year old from Japan could locate
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!!!! YEAH baby, YEAH!!
*rinse* *lather* *repeat*
John "Dripping with Irony"
Thats why it sounds more maintenance related than malicious. With a few keystrokes, literally, and about 5 minutes of time, I know how to bring an entire state's PCS traffic down. So why would I fool with 3 DS3? If I have compromised physical security to gain access to the cards, finding a spare console into the switch isn't a stretch.
The other post is correct, growth can occur in the day. However, ops is highly discouraged, at least at Sprint, from doing any of it during the day for this very reason. I provided tech support for the DACS (digital cross connect for OC3 down to DS1/0), and even on protected, redundant cards I always instructed the techs to wait until the maintenance window to swap cards. Did they always listen? No. But that was the exception (which is possibly what happened here).
I guess it's possible these were DS3 cards from an ATM, which would be more money. Again, why? 3 cards? You risk a felony and career for one month's wages (for a switch tech)? You'd be better off going on a credit card spending spree and filing Chapter 13. :D
John
The physical security is usually pretty good. About on par with a normal Fortune 500 company, where you scan into areas that you have a reason to be in. The switch room is usually a little harder to get in, especially since 9/11. At Nextel, they actually hired armed guards for a short while when we almost hired an alleged Felon. A competitors security guard recognized him and tipped off our security. Turns out he was supposedly part of a crew that carted off entire racks of telecom equipment.
Getting back on topic. The cards sound like they are the DS3 that pop into a larger fiber demark, like an OC12, 48 or 192. The cards are pretty small and just have coax-looking DS3 plugs on the front (in, out, and monitor). These aren't cards you could really ever use anywhere else. It almost sounds like someone accidentally yanked the wrong cards during maintenence. Although, most telecoms are very religious about not doing maint during the day (if the outage started at night, tho, I'd say it was a switch tech who screwed up).
The reason I'd assert this is the theft was too small to be of any other value. Three DS3 cards aren't going to fetch much, and they're tainted goods. If you're malicious, you're not going to just grab 3. If you're damaging a competitor, grabbing 3 cards is somewhat silly. We commonly have a backhaul path in preparation for things such as this. For example, when I worked at Nextel a fiber dig broke a couple DS3s we had going through PacBell. Within 4 or 5 hours, we swung the traffic over to other DS3s that bypassed the carrier and area with the break.
On a side note, it was also an eye opener that the "Protected, Redundant" Ring-topology that we were paying extra for was not being provided by the Telco. Let's just say there were some very colorful conversations going on between companies at the VP level.
Next time I get pulled over by a cop or go to court, I'll just say, "You're just setting a tone of confrontation at a time we should be working together to address **insert issue here** ." Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe my wife, Morgan Fairchild (whom I've slept with), will buy that, but I doubt anyone else will. I don't understand how you weasel out of compliance with a contract, by stating you need to address issues with it. There is no issue. You agreed and then didn't comply. It's so simple a child understands (sometimes with a smack to the butt).
I heard about it here on /. and installed it the same day. At first it marked ALL my mail as spam because I'm on a few list servers, but the adaptive learning function of it is getting much better. After I "unlearned" my list mails as spam, it'd still let about 60% of spam through. Now it gets about 40 out of the 42 spams I get a day. I don't mind deleting two (or hitting "j" for junk), and recent searches through the junk folder show no false positives.
Check it out...
#1 hit for "National Defense spending versus GDP" leads to a page with this chart. You'll note the steady decline past the Clinton days. Bush did ask for a 3.8 in 2003 (which would be a .8% increase....still not close to record highs, or even a real significant increase compared to the previous 5/10/or 20 years).
They will level Tokyo and Seoul before they consider San Diego, you know that
No...no ones know for certain who will attack whom. I'm sure in the mid-80s, as we handed weapons to Osama Bin Laden and helped them fight the Soviets, no one in their wildest dreams thought he would fund/manage/administer the group(s) that would bring down the Trade Towers. I'm certain as the Japanese ambassador was handing the medal (of friendship) to our government, no one had an inkling of the mass formation of aircraft carriers and their intended target.
You've made your point of terrorists being a threat, however, you've repeatedly been unable to give a convincing reason to discount the need to defend against missiles. Maybe you question the method, maybe you just don't trust "old generals in a room in the Pentagon"...I don't know your motives. I do, however, know war and am a trained professional in the profession of arms. Such training leads you to make calculated decisions based on varying levels of risk and the task at hand. The Department of Defense has one focus: To extend the foreign policy of the US, at a moments notice, anywhere across the Earth. The fulfillment of that mission is to break the others guys toys, kill them and save US lives (civilian or military). This is why the DoD will continue to watch both the large, and small scale bad guys. I very seriously doubt Hussein is the very last person to consider invading and annexing another country. (so before you say it...we're not the same...there will not be a 51st state). North Korea has been very blunt in threatening the US, as well as South Korea. An attack from them would not be in a vacuum, so they understand very well that an attack on anyone would prompt a US reaction. So, again, going to my earlier point, premptive strikes are best, and more effective when strong (e.g. shock and awe). So N.K. would be stupid to not give serious consideration to hit us at the same time. We would be even dumber to not be defensively ready for it....
As far as what's effective and what's not. I'm not going to touch it because I'm not jeopardizing my clearance by disclosing weapon capabilities. Let's just say...don't read everything you read, and some things you read are more true than you'd imagine...
ok...now can we get back on topic?
In regards to "more annoying than effective," and, "Three hours in line," you made my point. You're annoyed, rather than dead (this is assuming you're a US citizen).
Actually, again, history and current practices do not support your assertion. National Defense as a function of overall spending, and GDP, is still at an all time low. We do far more, with far less resources than ever in the past. The hikes you mention are Homeland Defense, which is NOT a DoD funded group. To be honest, they're doing EXACTLY what you're calling for...they're the ones preparing for a terrorist (on our soil or elsewhere).
So you'd ignore North Korea's unveiled threats and their efforts to get a fully functional intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear payload?? One that now has the range to reach the West Coast?
"Hey, all of San Diego is radioactive...but we're ready for them terrorists with shoe bombs!!!"
Cold Relic or no, I'm still more worried about North Korea or some other hostile country with a Nuke and capability to put it on target (read: US or allies). If nukes weren't a future threat, why would they continue to pursue them and test their weapon's capability. We're geeks on here, so layering your security should be intuitive. You have muliple defenses for each plausible type of attack. You don't solely rely on SSH for network security, and hence, you don't base your whole defensive posture on terrorists. I'm assuming you're genuine in your discussion, since you preceeded your comments with the comment "no offense...". So I'm trying to entertain your argument...but honestly...we're talking apples and oranges. And, "you're not defending USA" assumes this is ALL I (or USAF) is doing...IMHO.
Terrorists are like flies. More annoying than effective. They're in a lose/lose situation. One question: With all the women bombers lately, do they still get the 100 virgin women too?? :) j/k
Weapons in space have been in existence for some time. If you call a duck a duck, then a satellite with a sole response of killing another satellite is a weapon. The Soviets demonstrated their capabilities quite some time ago to perform this maneuver. To be honest, Star Wars scared the beejeesus out of the Soviets and they tried every measure possible to stop us from developing it. When we "won" the cold war, there wasn't a reason to keep the measure alive since no other country was so capable of putting a nuke on our doorstep in minutes.
This is why Cuba was such a huge issue for us. No time to counter a first strike. If you'll note, we always strike with a heavy first blow, because it's strategically important to do so.
Getting back on-topic. Given the facts above, I really question the credility or motives of the "Expert" cited in the article. Anyone involved in Space, and most certainly any Air Force related personnel, would know about the previous weapons. I've got a copy of the USAF Space Handbook (issued to AF Officers in Space Command), dated over 10 years ago, which outline the Soviet's program in good detail.
The rest of the posts on here seem to really stray off topic, but I'll entertain a few. The problem the US has had is that we see things differently than a good number out there. Conversely, they each see things differently than every one else as well. So there's two foreign policies you can follow:
1. Isolationism
2. Work with the other governments to further your agenda
I'd say anyone even remotely familiar with history would agree that option 1 is no option at all. We tried ignoring Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese and German agression in WWIII and others, yet we eventually get sucked in anyway. We can engage in the "chicken and egg", or cause and effect conversation until we're each sleepy or bored, yet neither of us will ever have the definitive correct answer. The key to courage is to make the best of what you have today and move forward.
This is why we've changed our posture. Is it aggressive? Sure. But so have our enemies...
Microsoft is that Basset Hound. You hit them with fines, tell them to stop force feeding bundling....and 6 minutes/weeks/months later, there they are doing it again.
"Would you like to buy a brand new car??!!" "Sure" "GREAT!!! OK, but you have to promise to get your financing and insurance from GMAC, and you can never take it to a 3rd party mechanic. Oh!!! And you have to buy our gas to refill it." "what if you stop selling that type of gas" "Oh, well, we wont support your vehicle anymore and you'll have to buy a new one. Oh, and no $$ for your trade in...ok, maybe a few dollars". Gee thanks...
I cringe with every new market they enter and hope like hell they pull out. Stick to crappy OS'.
This thread is a good wake up call though. I have primarily stuck with Yahoo because I can check it from class, work, home, library, or with a 3G phone. I always relied on their security. I'm not to the point I can go !M$, especially now that I bought Visual C++ for homework.
John
Tell Steve (Hutsell) that former SrA (now 2nd LT) John Schubert says "Hi!!!". I'm in the 148th now, however I might not be....seems things have changed with my civilian employer and I really can't afford to leave work for 4 monhts to go through USMT, Milstar school, and then upgrade training. I formerly worked for Sprint, who would have paid for my entire time gone, however my new employer won't.
Good luck on after-military. If you're staying in the 'Springs I'm sure there's plnety of jobs.
I'm hoping the 148 SOPS (ANG squadron at Vandy's remote antennae) pick up the GPS back up, but I heard it might be like the 1 SOPS with local reservists. It's been over 6 years since I ran a checklist, but I still remember the pre-pass, and contact checklists by heart. I know it's changed since, but it wouldn't be hard to pick up again. John
The manned spaceflights, however, get much greater scrutiny. If there's debris within a safety corrodor, the flight is changed or not made. I was in Alaska for a year, taking part in the Air Force network that tracked the objects.
And to the other post....yes, unannounced foreign launches created excitement and had the highest priority. Most nation's announce it, but a few of our adversaries didn't for obvious reasons.
You're right that the signal has not been degraded for a region. However, it is possible that we could do it if we REALLY wanted to. It would be a PITA for the crew working when they implemented it, but possible with scheduled SA/AS. The crew working would get a great write up for Crew of the Quarter (Year) and Performance Reports.... :-)
We did purposly make the signal BETTER during the first Gulf War. We only had a dozen or so satellites up, with sparse coverage over the Middle East. So we took a bird that wasn't really usable, because it couldn't maintain 3-axis stabilization, and adjusted it's Z-axis to point to the Middle East, relative to it's Nadir point when intersecting with the Earth in it's orbit. This got a couple of officers (I used to remember their names) a nice write up after the war for coming up with the idea, planning it and making it happen.
There is still somewhat of a push to get EU and others with their own birds up. It's funny to hear these conspiracy theorists about why we tried to block it. Using their own logic, we are trying to keep Iran from developing their own nukes because we want everyone else to buy ours....WTF? Yeah...thats it...
No, it's because the DoD has one objective: implement the president's foreign policy and domestic defense in the most efficient means possible. If other's launch their own satellites it creates interference (EMI, RF, etc) and increases the capabilities of our enemies. You can pant and whine about our military's economic agenda, but you'll USUALLY see this from people who've never actually put on a uniform. Does it mean it never happens. Of course not. But if it does it's usually rooted out....because, again... our #1 objectives are to make the other guy die for his country, save US lives, and break the other guys toys of death.
Did they show you the little model with the satellite rotating around the earth, keeping the Z-Axis nadir pointing, and the arrays tracking the spot-light (pseudo sun)?? I always thought that was really cool with working, tracking arrays. John
PS. No, there's not 50 operational birds. There's a min of 24 and sometimes there's 26 or so, for planned End of Life. The satellites are spun up for stability reasons, and then boosted out of the orbital plane.
However, back in the 80's when Russia shot down that civilian airliner that strayed off course, President Reagan made the decision to make GPS publicly available.
DoD fought off turning off the system all together because we didn't want our enemies to use the system against us. However, with the EU wanting to launch their own and the spreading use of DPGS (differential GPS), it eventually became moot. So DoD turned it off in the mid-90s (I think it was 94...I was still a GPS operator and I remember helping doing it....just can't remember what year that was). They do, however, reserve the right to turn it back on. FWIW, DOT (Department of Transportation) wanted to add their own signal (L5), but I don't know if that got anywhere.
OK....trivia time for those who care: GPS comes with Selective Ability/Anti-Spoofing (SA/AS), which allow the signal to be jam-proof, encrypted and for only authorized users. The frequency can hop, and the signal's accuracy be purposely degraded. It was a security breach to speculate who High Accuracy Users were, but we joked it was a guy on a camel in the middle of the desert. I won't go into detail about how the above works, since I'm waiting for my Top Secret clearance for my new job flying Milstar Satellites (Air National Guard).
The satellites are basicly beacons, transmitting their current position and time to accuracy of a nanosecond. This is why the satellites are launched with 4 frequency standards, although the latest generation (Block IIF, I believe) was slated to only have 3. I haven't been involved with GPS lately, so my info is about 3 years old. There is a chance the Guard may become a backup for GPS, but I'm told its unlikely. Back to the topic. The frequency standards for the Cesium and Rubidium clocks are very precise, with the Rubidium clocks being a little better, however they were also more temperature sensitive. You can appreciate the difficulty keeping a clock +/- .1 degree celcius in space, where temperatures swing greatly from full-sun to being in the Earth or moon's shadow.
The signal leaves the satellite and travels to your GPS unit at the speed of light. The ionosphere and other atmospheric conditions will refract or delay the signal, but that can be corrected. SO if the satellites saying, "I'm HERE at this TIME," and you know the speed it traveled, you can determine the distance (roughly) from you to the satellite. 3 satellites give you 2-D position, and the 4th adds altitude. You actually triangulate to two (2) points. One on the earth, and the other about 22,000 miles in outer space. That outerspace point is thrown away. Today even the cheapest GPS units can track multiple satellites at the same time (early units tracked one at a time) and throw away some for reasons of GDOP. To get the most precise measurement, you want the Geometric Dilution of Precision (GDOP) to be the least by having the greatest angles between yourself and the satellites. If you have two satellites right next to each other (relative to your overhead view...not physically), you throw out the one that creates the narrowest angle with respect to the other satellites.
The other post is correct, 50 is the number of satellites launched (so it would be referred to as SVN50...SVN being Satellite Vehicle Number). The operational constellation only needs 24 satellites, however we'll put additional units up in anticipation of a satellite nearing its End of Life.
Remember....these are DoD assets...we don't give a rat's ass about businesses. Our job is to break the other guy's toys, save US lives and let the other guy die for his country.
John
It should have said, "Earth or moon's shadow", and it should have been, "during Solar Eclipse Season." (vice Solar Season....)
I did preview the post, but it was 2am and I just missed it.
John
The constellation has 4 slots per orbit, with six orbital planes. Since the satellites are at a semi-sync orbit around 12,000 Nm (nautical miles), there is no way to deorbit or send the shuttle up to fix. The shuttle only goes up around 50-100 miles, from what I've read.
Early GPS satellites, commonly referred to as Block I, were experimental and only expected to last around 5 years. These babies turned out to be over achievers and a few lasted 13 years (SVN 3, if my memory serves correct). It usually came down to degradation of the solar arrays. The Cesium and Rubidium clocks will still have one or two operational (they launched with 4), but the solar arrays couldn't generate enough electricity to last through Solar Season (a point in orbital mechanics, where the satellite spends a good amount of time in the sun or moon's shadow). On a few, they made the mistake ( or didn't anticipate) of not insulating one of the batteries well enough, and it failed faster.
Anyway, with technology, they started packing more and more extra crap on the satellites and it didn't seem to make the birds any better. I used to give the Rockwell engineers a hard time by saying, "Strap on a Block IIa solar array on a Block I bird and it'll last 20 years".
The launch schedule is planned around these predicted end of life time periods. We collect State of Health (SOH) data on every pass, since we go up on each satellite at least once or twice a day. This data helps with long term trending and will alert the engineers if it looks like a bird is going to die early.
When the bird gets to the point it can't maintain its attitude (Z-Axis pointing +/- 2 degrees, at the center of the Earth), or the electrical system is failing (either due to batteries and/or solar arrays), then a end of life burn is scheduled. The satellite is spun up, so that eletricity and hyrodzine is no longer needed to keep the satellite stabilzed, and then it's boosted as far out as it's feasible as to make it's operational slot in the orbit reusable.
In case anyone is curious about the stabilization, the satellites use 4 reactor wheels mounted on a pyramid shaped structure. Basicly, picture 4 flywheels spinning on the Egyptian Pyramids (but smaller, course!). One wheel can fail, and the other three can still keep the satellite 3-axis stabilized. GPS satellites keep the "bottom" of the satellite always pointing to Earth, as that's where the primary L-Band (what you use to get your GPS positioning) and S-band (what the AF uses to perform command and control, etc) antennas. There are electro-magnets that use computer modeling of the magnetic fields around the earth to dissipate stored energy in the reaction wheels. Otherwise, the wheels would eventually spin up to their max and no longer be correcting. Thruster firings are not an option, as it's too drastic a manueuver to maintain a precise positioning signal. A thruster firing will cause the satellite to flag it's data as not usable (almanac data).
Hope this was interesting....
John
Lets only talk about the financially motivated spammers, and assume the spam with virus/trojans is outside the scope here.
What if someone (I?) wrote a file scrape function that tested as != to a whitelist of people I know (or even == a blacklist), and then I launch as many requests as my CPU could handle for the file included in the spam. The file would be immediately dumped in /dev/null and a new request for the same file would kick off the next time the CPU was idle (this way I can still look at my p0rn unaffected). It's not really a DOS, because I'm in effect doing exactly what they wanted: Downloading the file they tagged in their HTML mail. If I shared this code with a few thousand of my closest friends :) wouldn't this negate the business model of .5% responding? Because a number approaching 99.95% might start eating bandwidth.
This same program would drop files as they reached a high percentage of 404 responses.
I'm learning C++ and know a little PHP/Perl, so this would be a good project between classes. I'm curious though, what the arguments would be against this.
John
When I formerly worked with Sprint, and MCI was trying to buy them, it was a God-send that it got blocked. It may prove to be the case here as well. We've already read stories on here about the EU not being Microsoft friendly.
In the end, would it benefit the consumer? I'd be inclined to say, "Maybe, but probably not". The only benefit to M$ shareholders is rolling in the monthly subscriber fees. However, they are from a fickle market: consumers. M$ gets their monthly royalties from a reliable, steady source: businesses. This is part of the reason Nextel kicks everyone's ass in terms of revenue per user (because they identified this marketing trend early and targeted it).
John
But they hardly show Triumph on anymore. Maybe my moods/maturity have changed....but Conan, Letterman, and Leno just seem overdone. If you've seen a dozen, you've seen them all. I watched Johnny Carson for my entire childhood/teenage years and never got tired of him. Now I prefer the Daily Show on Comedy Central ( as well as Dave Chappel and Snoop Dog's Televizzle (sp?)).
I think Conan, the Daily Show, and Letterman would take exception to the comment, "all of those take place in LA." :-)
I was kinda surprised too, myself. Must be locals supporting me.