Oh, I'm not for killing people over this stuff. But while the punishments of these crimes are far too harsh in china, the punishments here are a bit too... adaptive for similar crimes, when you see what actually happens to the perpetrator.
If a middle class man in china had broken into a bank in the middle of the night, and stolen 500,000 dollars (whatever that comes out to in chinese money), the chinese government would most likely kill the guy. And if someone steals 500,000 from a bank (or company, what have you) by embezzling it via some book cooking gets the same punishment, for stealing the same sum, and killing the same number of people in the process, with the main differences being the m.o. and (probably) the suspects social status.
Now let's get on a plane and cross the ocean. A middle class man robs a bank in the middle of the night, and steals $500,000. Noone is killed. he goes to prison for (depending on the state) 20 to life. A man embezzles from a corporation $500,000. Noone is killed. Something tells me he won't be spending twenty years in a state pen. If he goes to jail at all, it'll most likely be medium/minimum security, and not a very long stay.
If I had a good lawyer, I'd probably feel alright about embezzling 500 grand from a company. If I had a public defender, or even the kind of attorney one could get by mortgaging the house and selling the kids organs, I wouldn't stand a chance. At least china's punishments are consistent and don't get lighter (one should not be able to spend money to get a lighter sentence, which is how the whole lawyer thing tends to work) as the tax bracket gets bigger. I'm not saying that China is a shining example to follow, but at the same time our system needs enough work that I tend to hold of the "Gee, that's awful!" style statements. Stealing half a million dollars is stealing half a million dollars. If noone gets hurt, then I don't much care whether you used a computer or a drill and stethoscope... just that a half a million dollars was stolen, and that a half a million dollars worth of punishment should be doled out.
Our system tends to have problems with that train of thought.
Agreed. But on the other hand, maybe people would, you know, not do it if they thought that if they got arrested, at least/something/ bad would happen to them.
Dude. Most of the 'temporary solutions' involved in an MS vulnerability are along the lines of "don't run this service" and don't do this" and "catch that mime-type ahead of time". Seriously. If a certain malformed MIME header will run foriegn code on a workstation running Outlook Express 6, then I want to know so I can have procmail make messages that have that particular MIME header go bye bye.
When the best solution is to take care of the problem yourself, then I want to know what needs to be done, so I can do it, and the sooner I know, the sooner it'll get worked around. If som nasty bug appears that uses an exploit that I wasn't informed about because the hundreds of dollars we spent per machine weren't enough to warrant telling me when something is broke in a timely fashion, then I'd be pissed when those machines got exploited, and so would you.
If evil requires only that good people do nothing, is MS not good or doing nothing?
Keep in mind that those specs are for windspeed, not 'things flying through the air at this windspeed'. A building can be rated to withstand 100 mph winds all it wants, but I'm pretty sure that a satellite dish, or a toolshed, or a streetsign or whatever flies through the air in a hurricane would do quite a bit more damage than the wind alone. Indeed, it's not that the wind is blowing, it's what the wind is blowing.
Nextel isn't really getting that great a deal. But it's not a bad deal, either.
They're spending close to $5B in spectrum and cash for a solid 10MHz block in the 1.9GHz band. The spectrum that they're trading in (non-contiguous chunks in the 600-700MHz bands) is woth about 1.6Billion, sure. But the cost of retuning all those other license holders is gonna run close to $3.2B. And if Nextel doesn't spend that much while doing this switch, then they have to pay the diff. to the treasury in an anti-windfall payment.
Did Nextel (and the FCC) way undervalue a solid 10MHz block in the 1.9GHz band? Yes. But Nextel isn't walking away with this spectrum, either. It's gonna cost them $4.8B to do this, any way you look at it. That's not chump change.
Won't Nextel incur significant costs to facilitate this switch anyway, partially offsetting what other companies see as a "giveaway"?
Yes, actually. The FCC is making Nextel acquire a 2.5 Billion Dollar letter of credit, to facilitate switching all the existing sytems. $2.5B liquid dollars isn't anything to laugh about.
Also, per RCRNews.com: "If the relocation costs, including Nextel's own costs plus the value of the spectrum it relinquishes, is less than $4.8 billion, Nextel will pay an anti-windfall payment to the U.S. Treasury."
Basically, it's going to cost Nextel close to 5 Billion dollars to do this whole thing, one way or another.
And the kicker is that they just had to shell out to do this very thing not a year ago, when they started moving people around in the 800MHZ band. We had to retune about 22 repeaters(at Nextel's expense, but it was still a pain). I have no sympathy for Nextel in this matter. They still interfere with some of our channels and it's a bitch to track down. That whole system has been nothing but a pain in our ass. 2 out of 3 of the interference problems we have are usually nextel related, and those phones make damn near everything in my office flicker or go tick tick tick tick...
I'm done, I promise.:)
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If a middle class man in china had broken into a bank in the middle of the night, and stolen 500,000 dollars (whatever that comes out to in chinese money), the chinese government would most likely kill the guy. And if someone steals 500,000 from a bank (or company, what have you) by embezzling it via some book cooking gets the same punishment, for stealing the same sum, and killing the same number of people in the process, with the main differences being the m.o. and (probably) the suspects social status.
Now let's get on a plane and cross the ocean. A middle class man robs a bank in the middle of the night, and steals $500,000. Noone is killed. he goes to prison for (depending on the state) 20 to life. A man embezzles from a corporation $500,000. Noone is killed. Something tells me he won't be spending twenty years in a state pen. If he goes to jail at all, it'll most likely be medium/minimum security, and not a very long stay.
If I had a good lawyer, I'd probably feel alright about embezzling 500 grand from a company. If I had a public defender, or even the kind of attorney one could get by mortgaging the house and selling the kids organs, I wouldn't stand a chance. At least china's punishments are consistent and don't get lighter (one should not be able to spend money to get a lighter sentence, which is how the whole lawyer thing tends to work) as the tax bracket gets bigger. I'm not saying that China is a shining example to follow, but at the same time our system needs enough work that I tend to hold of the "Gee, that's awful!" style statements. Stealing half a million dollars is stealing half a million dollars. If noone gets hurt, then I don't much care whether you used a computer or a drill and stethoscope... just that a half a million dollars was stolen, and that a half a million dollars worth of punishment should be doled out.
Our system tends to have problems with that train of thought.
When the best solution is to take care of the problem yourself, then I want to know what needs to be done, so I can do it, and the sooner I know, the sooner it'll get worked around. If som nasty bug appears that uses an exploit that I wasn't informed about because the hundreds of dollars we spent per machine weren't enough to warrant telling me when something is broke in a timely fashion, then I'd be pissed when those machines got exploited, and so would you.
If evil requires only that good people do nothing, is MS not good or doing nothing?
That kind of thinking brought us the v6 Mustang and 'fitness water'. Just because you can...
You have it pretty much on the ball. We're all just geeks in the bed.
The problem is REAL, folks! :)
Come to think of it, that's pretty much still true. Let's not blame the boobs.
They're spending close to $5B in spectrum and cash for a solid 10MHz block in the 1.9GHz band. The spectrum that they're trading in (non-contiguous chunks in the 600-700MHz bands) is woth about 1.6Billion, sure. But the cost of retuning all those other license holders is gonna run close to $3.2B. And if Nextel doesn't spend that much while doing this switch, then they have to pay the diff. to the treasury in an anti-windfall payment.
Did Nextel (and the FCC) way undervalue a solid 10MHz block in the 1.9GHz band? Yes. But Nextel isn't walking away with this spectrum, either. It's gonna cost them $4.8B to do this, any way you look at it. That's not chump change.
Won't Nextel incur significant costs to facilitate this switch anyway, partially offsetting what other companies see as a "giveaway"? Yes, actually. The FCC is making Nextel acquire a 2.5 Billion Dollar letter of credit, to facilitate switching all the existing sytems. $2.5B liquid dollars isn't anything to laugh about. Also, per RCRNews.com: "If the relocation costs, including Nextel's own costs plus the value of the spectrum it relinquishes, is less than $4.8 billion, Nextel will pay an anti-windfall payment to the U.S. Treasury." Basically, it's going to cost Nextel close to 5 Billion dollars to do this whole thing, one way or another. And the kicker is that they just had to shell out to do this very thing not a year ago, when they started moving people around in the 800MHZ band. We had to retune about 22 repeaters(at Nextel's expense, but it was still a pain). I have no sympathy for Nextel in this matter. They still interfere with some of our channels and it's a bitch to track down. That whole system has been nothing but a pain in our ass. 2 out of 3 of the interference problems we have are usually nextel related, and those phones make damn near everything in my office flicker or go tick tick tick tick... I'm done, I promise. :)