After reading the thread, I am actually kind of surprised that nobody has mentioned Delphi --- I had them for internet access until a local BBS started offering it --- Also had prodigy, but that was a family thing (they also had horrible user names (BMTF00A), and I never used Prodigy when they actually had internet, it was just Prodigy and that was it.
I, being in IT, have been strong handed into keeping IE6 running due to the fact that I still have THREE! 3rd party vendors that we depend on which have not updated their crap to work in anything else --- I upgrade and my users can't do their job, simple as that. My job is to ensure that my users can do their job, so therefore we use IE 6 and that will not change until I can perform that upgrade without breaking shit. I don't consider myself "useless" or "fucking lazy", just someone who lives in the real world of business and how shit really works.
The idea is that critical equipment should be on a trusted network, nothing should be on that network except for what is absolutely required to be on that network, and anything accessing something inside that network from the outside should be A) Avoided completely if possible and B) Controlled by every means possible if it absolutely must talk to something inside of that network... We have many separate networks running for this very reason, security at the border is critical when you are dealing with this type of equipment, especially if patching / updating is not possible, which is true for much medical equipment. .
Maybe "simple" is not the right word for it, but it is definitely possible if the proper effort is put forward to make it happen.
No, it's just reality when you work in Healthcare IT, and for patient safety reasons, it's better this way...
Your comment leads me to believe that you don't know anything about Health Care IT and should maybe move on to another topic.
The issue in this story is not the fact that the equipment is unpatched, the issue is that some idiot allowed a threat to reach the equipment in the first place.
It doesnt matter, equipment is certified, and applying patches and new versions to this equipment would require very expensive recertifications, the costs of which get passed to the facilities running this equipment --- It's not going to get upgraded regardless of whether that capibility exists... Healthcare is largely "If it isnt broken, don't fix it"... The correct action is: don't put the critical equipment on a network that isnt 100% secure, it's really quite simple.
It is when doing such updates could break very costly certification processes that medical equipment must have... which is kind of important in the healthcare industry... The correct action is PROTECT the equipment from external threats --- there is no reason for a heart monitor to get on google.
Just decomissioned two OS/2 systems last month --- This is perfectly normal in the Healthcare environment...
A hospital needs IT staff that are not dumb enough to allow these old machines to be exposed to a public network --- It's really quite simple --- ACLs are your friend. Any equipment manufacture will tell you what type of interfacing is absolutly required, and any healthcare systems admin worth his pay will already know most of these requirements since most systems operate on known protocols (DICOM, etc)- seperate the equipment from everything else and keep it secured!
Bottom line is that probably 80% of us don't have a choice in the matter. He did create the OS that drives business today, as stated in other articles one of the many reasons for that is business's do move slowly, they don't like to upgrade their business applications when they just work. The backwords compatibility that MS has maintained (until Vista, which they appear to be bringing back in Windows 7) has been a huge feather in their hat. Others in this post have knocked them for locking us into their systems with things like office and exchange, well, it worked for them didn't it... Pretty smart move from the business side of things.
I would love to move away from M$, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Open source is great, but face it, the applications available on open source for most business's are sub par at best.
You know, the one thing that cracks me up is the number of times that the "big players", GE mentioned a few times, are brought up as having all this input into CCHIT, when GE themselves has not certified with CCHIT since the 2006 standards. Not sure about the other ones, nor do I have the time to look them up... However, there are plenty of smaller vendors on the CCHIT 2008 certified list...
Exactly right, and anyone who works in Medical IT, deals with Medical Records, has had to deal with all of the interfacing between medical applications, and in the future will be dealing with new standards which include sharing of medical record information across organizations, knows that $35k had better not be a big deal for any vendor you work with, shit we pay more than that a year in support contracts for some applications! If you have developed an EMR application and you can't afford this, don't count on me recommending you to any facility that I work with. Medical applications cost a lot of money, if you are a facility that decides to try and save some money on the front end and go with the cheap option, don't be surprised when you find yourself in a hole because suddenly you don't meet some federal or state standard. When this happens the cost to change over to something that is compliant is going to cost you more than just spending a couple dollars more and getting one from a company that realizes the value of being certified in the first place. The cost of maintaining these systems to these standards is very expensive.
Less product, great... Everytime I go into one of these stores needing something I usually end up walking out empty handed because they already don't carry anything worth a crap.
I figured something as simple as a decent laptop hard drive would be available locally about a month ago, they proved me wrong, I ended up just waiting for one to get shipped, my laptop broke until it showed up.
I was one of 2 (that I know of) MTs that went to fast attacks --- we had to skip shore duty to do it . but the idea was to then send us to a SSGN -- the other fast boat MT was one of my buddies, and he did go to a SSGN immediately after leaving his fast attack, putting him on his 3rd sea tour in a row. -- I got out before they could do that to me:) There was also some talk of putting one MT on the VLS boats in the future, but don't think that that will happen. Glad I did it, had some good times, but also just got tired of the BS involved with submarine life, dealing with officers that have 6 months in telling me how to do my job, etc... The stuff you can't escape on either type of boat:)
A few missiles launched in error?!? You know nothing of what you speak. Trust me when I say to launch these missiles in error would not be in error at all.
But a much nicer living area:) --- BTW, I think my SSBN was much nicer than my SSN, didnt have all the same cool toys but had some stuff that IMO was better than what the SSN could carry.
MT2(SS) (past life, out of that shit now)
USS Nevada (SSBN-733)
USS Helena (SSN-725)
Nice post, really... I agree with everything you just said. It is unfortunate that most people AND software companies choose to use Microsoft --- It does cause some lock in --- My biggest point is that I think Microsoft is where they are at because although they suck at many things, their business decisions are really good, for them, leaving the end user as the looser... Any company as successful as Microsoft I guess will be subject to haters and people who scream "it's not fair", but that's life, there are always winners and loosers.. Natural selection, the stronger one wins, in this case the one that just does what people need it to do without getting as much of a headache wins... It took too long for anyone to step up to them and out-play them at their own game. Seriously, we just recently started discussing an alternative to exchange?!? Exchange functionality is a basic concept of what computers should be able to do, in many businesses not having the ability to run shared calendars / contacts / email through one package that's easy to use and maintain is just unreasonable, they filled a niche that nobody else can do as well as them, even today! Guess what, they win! Open Software is making good progress in these areas, as is Apple, and Microsoft's days of being #1 are numbered, it's just a matter of time... But regardless of what the Govt's say, I don't think they are a monopoly -- I tend not to take what my government says at face value --- agree with me or not, I get my opinion. Microsoft just provides what people need better than the other options, as much as that sucks it's true. On my network, I recently tried to move some file sharing functions over to alternate systems, guess what, I had to put them back on a windows server because the performance loss I saw on Linux and the time taken to manage security on these systems (as related to user permissions) was just too much, I was shocked how poorly it performed, but guess what, I needed what worked BEST and that turned out to be Microsoft, it's not that I didnt have options, I just chose the option that worked best and provided me with less work in my already overworked department in the end. May the best man win, and hopefully some day that will be open source, but today OSS still plays catch up.
From what I've seen and understand here in TX, they are not "turning roads into toll roads" they are making some new roads into toll roads... There are policies in place that if a toll road is being built, the existing route must exist in same capacity in addition to the toll road. IE there is 2 lanes of traffic in each direction prior to the road, the toll road can be built, but there still must be two lanes of traffic in each direction around the toll road and you can choose to use the "express route" if you want to...
I have no problem with toll roads, if you don't like them, don't use them. I personally welcome them because if they were not getting the funding that they do get from tolls, the road would not exist, it would take the state much longer to build these. I personally am willing to pay to cut my commute time down and spend more time doing the things I want to do, not driving.
In TX, or at least the Austin area, toll roads are an option that you can elect to use, it's up to you to decide how much your time is worth.
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Well, the X-BOX is kind of cool...
After reading the thread, I am actually kind of surprised that nobody has mentioned Delphi --- I had them for internet access until a local BBS started offering it --- Also had prodigy, but that was a family thing (they also had horrible user names (BMTF00A), and I never used Prodigy when they actually had internet, it was just Prodigy and that was it.
I, being in IT, have been strong handed into keeping IE6 running due to the fact that I still have THREE! 3rd party vendors that we depend on which have not updated their crap to work in anything else --- I upgrade and my users can't do their job, simple as that. My job is to ensure that my users can do their job, so therefore we use IE 6 and that will not change until I can perform that upgrade without breaking shit. I don't consider myself "useless" or "fucking lazy", just someone who lives in the real world of business and how shit really works.
The idea is that critical equipment should be on a trusted network, nothing should be on that network except for what is absolutely required to be on that network, and anything accessing something inside that network from the outside should be A) Avoided completely if possible and B) Controlled by every means possible if it absolutely must talk to something inside of that network ... We have many separate networks running for this very reason, security at the border is critical when you are dealing with this type of equipment, especially if patching / updating is not possible, which is true for much medical equipment. .
Maybe "simple" is not the right word for it, but it is definitely possible if the proper effort is put forward to make it happen.
No, it's just reality when you work in Healthcare IT, and for patient safety reasons, it's better this way...
Your comment leads me to believe that you don't know anything about Health Care IT and should maybe move on to another topic.
The issue in this story is not the fact that the equipment is unpatched, the issue is that some idiot allowed a threat to reach the equipment in the first place.
It doesnt matter, equipment is certified, and applying patches and new versions to this equipment would require very expensive recertifications, the costs of which get passed to the facilities running this equipment --- It's not going to get upgraded regardless of whether that capibility exists... Healthcare is largely "If it isnt broken, don't fix it" ... The correct action is: don't put the critical equipment on a network that isnt 100% secure, it's really quite simple.
Many of them do, and they work great, in their isolated networks kept away from threats like the internet.
It is when doing such updates could break very costly certification processes that medical equipment must have... which is kind of important in the healthcare industry... The correct action is PROTECT the equipment from external threats --- there is no reason for a heart monitor to get on google.
Just decomissioned two OS/2 systems last month --- This is perfectly normal in the Healthcare environment...
A hospital needs IT staff that are not dumb enough to allow these old machines to be exposed to a public network --- It's really quite simple --- ACLs are your friend. Any equipment manufacture will tell you what type of interfacing is absolutly required, and any healthcare systems admin worth his pay will already know most of these requirements since most systems operate on known protocols (DICOM, etc)- seperate the equipment from everything else and keep it secured!
damn you!
Bottom line is that probably 80% of us don't have a choice in the matter. He did create the OS that drives business today, as stated in other articles one of the many reasons for that is business's do move slowly, they don't like to upgrade their business applications when they just work. The backwords compatibility that MS has maintained (until Vista, which they appear to be bringing back in Windows 7) has been a huge feather in their hat. Others in this post have knocked them for locking us into their systems with things like office and exchange, well, it worked for them didn't it... Pretty smart move from the business side of things.
I would love to move away from M$, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Open source is great, but face it, the applications available on open source for most business's are sub par at best.
You can't post stuff like this, I just lost a good couple hours of my life on that damn site!
I stand corrected, it does look like they did get around to 2007, around the time that others were working on 2008...
You know, the one thing that cracks me up is the number of times that the "big players", GE mentioned a few times, are brought up as having all this input into CCHIT, when GE themselves has not certified with CCHIT since the 2006 standards. Not sure about the other ones, nor do I have the time to look them up... However, there are plenty of smaller vendors on the CCHIT 2008 certified list...
That's odd, because I've seen some pretty sweet medical records systems in the past year...
Exactly right, and anyone who works in Medical IT, deals with Medical Records, has had to deal with all of the interfacing between medical applications, and in the future will be dealing with new standards which include sharing of medical record information across organizations, knows that $35k had better not be a big deal for any vendor you work with, shit we pay more than that a year in support contracts for some applications! If you have developed an EMR application and you can't afford this, don't count on me recommending you to any facility that I work with. Medical applications cost a lot of money, if you are a facility that decides to try and save some money on the front end and go with the cheap option, don't be surprised when you find yourself in a hole because suddenly you don't meet some federal or state standard. When this happens the cost to change over to something that is compliant is going to cost you more than just spending a couple dollars more and getting one from a company that realizes the value of being certified in the first place. The cost of maintaining these systems to these standards is very expensive.
Less product, great... Everytime I go into one of these stores needing something I usually end up walking out empty handed because they already don't carry anything worth a crap.
I figured something as simple as a decent laptop hard drive would be available locally about a month ago, they proved me wrong, I ended up just waiting for one to get shipped, my laptop broke until it showed up.
Of course if your mail server is worth a shit it will only keep one copy of the video and link it to everyone inside the company...
...
Now, if this was sent to everyone OUTSIDE the office,
I was one of 2 (that I know of) MTs that went to fast attacks --- we had to skip shore duty to do it . but the idea was to then send us to a SSGN -- the other fast boat MT was one of my buddies, and he did go to a SSGN immediately after leaving his fast attack, putting him on his 3rd sea tour in a row. -- I got out before they could do that to me :) There was also some talk of putting one MT on the VLS boats in the future, but don't think that that will happen. Glad I did it, had some good times, but also just got tired of the BS involved with submarine life, dealing with officers that have 6 months in telling me how to do my job, etc... The stuff you can't escape on either type of boat :)
A few missiles launched in error?!? You know nothing of what you speak. Trust me when I say to launch these missiles in error would not be in error at all.
But a much nicer living area :) --- BTW, I think my SSBN was much nicer than my SSN, didnt have all the same cool toys but had some stuff that IMO was better than what the SSN could carry.
MT2(SS) (past life, out of that shit now)
USS Nevada (SSBN-733)
USS Helena (SSN-725)
Amen.
And Gov't is always right, right? Do you trust everything your gov't does?
Nice post, really... I agree with everything you just said. It is unfortunate that most people AND software companies choose to use Microsoft --- It does cause some lock in --- My biggest point is that I think Microsoft is where they are at because although they suck at many things, their business decisions are really good, for them, leaving the end user as the looser... Any company as successful as Microsoft I guess will be subject to haters and people who scream "it's not fair", but that's life, there are always winners and loosers.. Natural selection, the stronger one wins, in this case the one that just does what people need it to do without getting as much of a headache wins ... It took too long for anyone to step up to them and out-play them at their own game. Seriously, we just recently started discussing an alternative to exchange?!? Exchange functionality is a basic concept of what computers should be able to do, in many businesses not having the ability to run shared calendars / contacts / email through one package that's easy to use and maintain is just unreasonable, they filled a niche that nobody else can do as well as them, even today! Guess what, they win! Open Software is making good progress in these areas, as is Apple, and Microsoft's days of being #1 are numbered, it's just a matter of time... But regardless of what the Govt's say, I don't think they are a monopoly -- I tend not to take what my government says at face value --- agree with me or not, I get my opinion. Microsoft just provides what people need better than the other options, as much as that sucks it's true. On my network, I recently tried to move some file sharing functions over to alternate systems, guess what, I had to put them back on a windows server because the performance loss I saw on Linux and the time taken to manage security on these systems (as related to user permissions) was just too much, I was shocked how poorly it performed, but guess what, I needed what worked BEST and that turned out to be Microsoft, it's not that I didnt have options, I just chose the option that worked best and provided me with less work in my already overworked department in the end. May the best man win, and hopefully some day that will be open source, but today OSS still plays catch up.
From what I've seen and understand here in TX, they are not "turning roads into toll roads" they are making some new roads into toll roads... There are policies in place that if a toll road is being built, the existing route must exist in same capacity in addition to the toll road. IE there is 2 lanes of traffic in each direction prior to the road, the toll road can be built, but there still must be two lanes of traffic in each direction around the toll road and you can choose to use the "express route" if you want to ...
I have no problem with toll roads, if you don't like them, don't use them. I personally welcome them because if they were not getting the funding that they do get from tolls, the road would not exist, it would take the state much longer to build these. I personally am willing to pay to cut my commute time down and spend more time doing the things I want to do, not driving.
In TX, or at least the Austin area, toll roads are an option that you can elect to use, it's up to you to decide how much your time is worth.