From there, educate yourself and others on free alternatives if cost is a factor. If it's a small enough company, you should have no problem going to the owner or manager or whoever the head person is and explaining the repricussions of getting caught pirating software. It often leads to loosing the company. However, make sure not to be threatening. You don't want to imply blackmail here.
I ran into a similar situation at my old job. The company had about 50 people and I was the head IT guy. I was sometimes even instructed (usually by sales-folk) to install software that I knew was illegal. I refused every time and stated my reasons. It didn't make me the most popular IT guy, and I know that there was at least one other that would install the illegal software, but it at least kept my conscience clear and my ass covered.
I think the biggest thing is to find free alternatives if possible. If not, make your displeasure well known. If instructed to break the law.... well, that's up to you but I'd probably start looking for another job if my current employer knowingly told me to break the law.
I've been having similar problems with the $1 coins. Usually the clerks just look at me all confused and say something like, "We can't take this kind of money." I haven't had any police involved (yet) though.
Mega Man 9 is awesome. I'm glad they stuck with the 8 bit graphics (and stayed 2D). I hate it when 2D games go 3D. It almost never works out well.
The castlevania games have stayed 2D (for the most part) and are pretty fun too. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is in my shortlist for best game ever.
I think too many games focus on the graphics these days and forget that better graphics does not equal more fun. Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Missile Command, Joust etc weren't fun because we could tell what the blobs were. They were fun because the game's mechanics were solid and simple enough for just about anyone to understand. They take 5 minutes to learn and lifetime to master.
Contra 4 came out for the DS a while back. It's very much like Contra 1 (which you can unlock). I thought they did a pretty good job with it. It's a little short, but there's a lot of mini games and mutliple difficulty levels.... and achievments......
Since I was asked a couple times, here are my references.
Brown, Julian - "Minds, Machines, and the Multivers: The Quest for the Quantum Computer"
Williams, Colin P. and Clearwater Scott H. - "Explorations in Quantum Computing"
Simon Singh, - "The Code Book"
I also have a computational physics degree and would reference the text books if I currently had access to them (so yes, I'm also referencing my ass that sat through 4 years of physics classes).
Quantum cryptography does not use cubits. The photon used to exchange keys are specifically polarized. They are not in a superposition of polarizations. The "quantum" part comes in because, when a polarized photon hits a polarization screen that is at a 45 degree angle to the photon's polarization, there is exactly a 50% chance that the photon will go through due to quantum mechanics.
It is possible to use a photon as a qubit but it is very limiting. You have to have qubits that will interact with eachother. That is difficult with photons. You also have to have some way of storing them. A photon is very difficult to trap.
Some other methods of qubits are Heteropolymer (plastic), Ion Trap, Cavity QED and NMR.
Heteropolymer uses a laser pulse at specific energies to excite the outer electrons in plastic atoms to either an excited state or superposition of excited and ground states. We have these. The problem again is getting them to interact as needed.
Ion Traps use electromagnetic fields to trap a single ionized atom. The ions can in a grounded state or excited state. Ion trap qubits provide a method for interaction but they can only interact with their neighboring qubit. This method has been used to create an 8 qubit quantum computer.
Cavity QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) uses the polarization of photons for the qubits. We've got an XOR gate for this, but, as stated before, it's hard to store a photon.
NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) uses a sample of some liquid. Each atom in the liquid ends up being a qubit by using the spin of nucleus of one of the atoms in the molecules. It uses current technology (similar to MRI) and just about any liquid can be used. However, it's not an isolated system so it decoheres extremely fast (it naturally exits it's state of superposition).
According to D-wave systems (a company that sells quantum computers), superconductors can also be used for qubits. Using supercooled aluminum and niobium to cause the electrons to form Cooper pairs (bosons) which can be used as qubits. I don't know a lot about that method but you can read about it at D-wave QC hardware and Wiki: Superconducting QC
Heisenberg was driving down the road and got pulled over. The cop asks him, "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replies, "No, but I know exactly where I am!"
That's what I was thinking as I read a bunch of these posts. The only thing quantum computing and quantum encryption have in common is the word "quantum."
Quantum computers use the superposition of states to form qubits used to do computations using multiple numbers at the same time.
Quantum encrypting uses polarization of light and different alignments of filters to communicate a shared key used to encrypt data. If someone's listening in, they will disturb the polarization causing red flags to go up during the communication of the key. That tells you it's not safe to transmit the message. Furthermore, even if you did, it would just be garbled anyway.
The downside to quantum encryption is that you have to have an uninterrupted fiber optic line from one point to the other. If, at any point, that line has to go through a switch of some sort, you now have a weak point in the encryption where someone can be listening in without you knowing.
It's probably important, too, to point out that we have both quantum computers and quantum encryption. However, the current quantum computers don't have nearly enough qubits to be a threat to public key encryption and the single fiber optic line constraint of quantum encryption is holding it back.
Until quantum computers have thousands of qubits and are easily obtainable, we don't have much to worry about anyway.
In my defense, it wasn't a policy when I started there. And like I said, I found a different job, quickly I'd like to add. And the new job's security procedures did come into play in my decision making.
You seem to have missed the point though. The point is that in order to get people to comply with security policies, they need to be a) enforced, and b) reasonable. I'm going to add that they should also be c) explained. Tell people WHY they're not supposed to set up a wireless access point at their desk. Don't just tell them they can't.
Don't warn someone that they'll be fired for doing something just to let it slide the next time too. But also, make sure that this punishment is reasonable considering the action.
Let's say the rule is "no usb devices." If their action was bringing an infected thumb-drive from home that ends up infecting your office network, disciplinary action is fully warranted. If the action was plugging in a usb powered plasma ball, disciplinary action is completely unreasonable.
However, as has been said many times in other posts, there needs to be a method for people to legitimately bypass a security measure. For example, if someone wants to connect their home laptop to the office network, make the owner demonstrate that the computer is infection free before allowing the device on the network. During this process, make sure the owner is aware of the rules and the consequences of violating them.
Also, be uniform in enforcement. Don't enforce the rules for one person and not another.
As the parent so nicely pointed out, no one is above security policies. All employees are responsible for the security and well-being of the office network.
"Pick your battles wisely" is a nice way to put that.
I quit my last job partly because of their "security" polices and their fierce but lame attempts to enforce them. One was, "If you're in this area you have to have a red T-shirt on or your shirt tucked in. First violation is a warning, Second is termination." In my opinion that was a poorly fought battle and should have been left alone. They ended up never really enforcing it. All it did was lower moral and damage trust of management.
My company had a security meeting a while back. During the meeting (unknown to us) someone scattered some thumb drives around the parking lot. Two days later we had a follow up meeting. More than 50 people had picked up the thumb-drives and plugged them into their work computers. The security team knew this because they put a "virus" on the thumb-drives that sent them some info about each computer it was plugged into. Each person even got specifically called out at the follow-up meeting too.
That's how they taught us about unsafe outside devices. Seemed to work pretty well too.
On that note too, if your company maintains their own images, it's probably best to disable autorun. antivirus.about.com has some good instructions on doing that.
In my opinion, that should be just as standard as showing file extensions.
The more you educate your staff about the "whys" of security, the more likely they are to follow your security protocols. You can't just tell someone not to do something. You need to tell them WHY they shouldn't do it too. You can't learn from other peoples' mistakes if you don't know why it was a mistake. For example, say you walked into a room and someone said, "Don't touch this shiny cool looking thing." You'd be more much more likely to try to pick it up than if he or she said, "Don't touch this shiny cool looking thing because it's really hot."
For anyone that believes the all caps = no taxes bit, I'm Nigerian royalty and have some money for you.
Also, if a stop sign has a white border around it you only have to slow down for it.
I can butter jam the concoction with
an amoeba while the doormat sings
root at the frog legs. Will you dance
in the morning under dark boulders?
Wow, correct usage of the word "Ironically." These days, that, in itself, is ironic.
Re:This makes me want to send a rude email.
on
Slashdot's Disagree Mail
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I enjoy getting it on the front page. Besides, as a user pointed out in the first installment, there's an option in your user controls to not show them on the front page.
From the top of this page click on "Preferences." Then click on "Help & Preferences." Now find the "Index" section under "Your Preferences" and click on the link for "Sections." Find "Idle" in the list and select the radio button in the column headed by a red circle with a line through it. Click the "save" button and you're all set.
Yeah! I fail to see the problem here. So, due to design flaws the terrorist watch list is difficult to do searches on. Maybe they can just get the California Cobol programmers to fix it.
I fail to see how the terrorist watch list is ANY different from the communist black list of the 60s. All it takes to get put on there is a neighbor that doesn't like you. In order to get taken off, an agent has to be assigned to your case and you have to be investigated so that they are sure you're not a terrorist. With the current size of the list, good luck with that.
CNN has had several articles in the last few weeks dealing with the terrorist watch list. My favorite was about three people named "James Robinson". The article mentions that one of the Jameses would just get tickets using the first name "Jim" and he wouldn't be hassled. Another would just run his first and middle name together and it wouldn't get flagged. Of note from that article, "The TSA has said the problem lies with the airlines and threatened to fine airlines that tell passengers they are on the watch list." Yeah. Wow. They're trying to make it illegal to tell someone why they're being held and discomforted. If you don't want the information to get out, don't share it. Keep it to yourself.
Article V says, "[you can't be] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." This list deprives liberty (and sometimes property) and is missing a key element.
Article XI says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others by the people." Isn't that EXACTLY what's happening?
On a more serious note, at a family reunion last month I heard one of my Cousin's 6 year old kids ask another Cousin's 8 year old kid, "My dad and I like playing Atari. Do you have an Atari? Do you know what Atari is?"
It made me happy that there's at least one 6 year old that knows and enjoys Atari. I know that the kid also has an XBOX 360 and a Wii and a Nintendo DS. The kid likes the Atari best.
Does that mean I can belittle people for making fun of my obsession with eating other people's cooking?
1) I'm fat. 2) I eat buffets all the time. 3) Buffets contain mostly cooked food. 4) Eating cooked food makes you smarter. Therefore, I'm smarter than you.
And if that doesn't work, how about this.
I'm kind of smart. I'm also fat from eating cooked foods. If I marry a fat woman that's good at cooking food and we have kids. That kid should be a little smarter than me. Then we can make my kid fat by feeding him/her lots of cooked foods. As long as he/she doesn't marry a twig, my grandchildren will be brilliant!!!
I wonder if you can get into trouble for physically carrying encryption software across the US border like you can for "exporting" it by placing it on the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree completely.
Step 1: CYA
From there, educate yourself and others on free alternatives if cost is a factor. If it's a small enough company, you should have no problem going to the owner or manager or whoever the head person is and explaining the repricussions of getting caught pirating software. It often leads to loosing the company. However, make sure not to be threatening. You don't want to imply blackmail here.
I ran into a similar situation at my old job. The company had about 50 people and I was the head IT guy. I was sometimes even instructed (usually by sales-folk) to install software that I knew was illegal. I refused every time and stated my reasons. It didn't make me the most popular IT guy, and I know that there was at least one other that would install the illegal software, but it at least kept my conscience clear and my ass covered.
I think the biggest thing is to find free alternatives if possible. If not, make your displeasure well known. If instructed to break the law.... well, that's up to you but I'd probably start looking for another job if my current employer knowingly told me to break the law.
Hulu has a forum area with a section on devices. A "Boxee" thread has already been started for the purpose of asking Hulu to not block Boxee.
Hulu > Discussions > Device Support Request
If you're as upset about this as I am, it wouldn't hurt to let Hulu know.
Great.... now I'll need line of site to my router?
Didn't we learn our lesson here already?
I know I didn't!!!
Those IR remote control cars are sooooo much more fun than the stupid radio control cars.
I've been having similar problems with the $1 coins. Usually the clerks just look at me all confused and say something like, "We can't take this kind of money." I haven't had any police involved (yet) though.
Mega Man 9 is awesome. I'm glad they stuck with the 8 bit graphics (and stayed 2D). I hate it when 2D games go 3D. It almost never works out well.
The castlevania games have stayed 2D (for the most part) and are pretty fun too. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is in my shortlist for best game ever.
I think too many games focus on the graphics these days and forget that better graphics does not equal more fun. Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Missile Command, Joust etc weren't fun because we could tell what the blobs were. They were fun because the game's mechanics were solid and simple enough for just about anyone to understand. They take 5 minutes to learn and lifetime to master.
Contra 4 came out for the DS a while back. It's very much like Contra 1 (which you can unlock). I thought they did a pretty good job with it. It's a little short, but there's a lot of mini games and mutliple difficulty levels.... and achievments......
Here's a link to the wiki page on it: Contra 4
Since I was asked a couple times, here are my references.
Brown, Julian - "Minds, Machines, and the Multivers: The Quest for the Quantum Computer"
Williams, Colin P. and Clearwater Scott H. - "Explorations in Quantum Computing"
Simon Singh, - "The Code Book"
I also have a computational physics degree and would reference the text books if I currently had access to them (so yes, I'm also referencing my ass that sat through 4 years of physics classes).
There's also the obligatory wiki references.
Quantum Cryptography
Quantum Computer
Quantum cryptography does not use cubits. The photon used to exchange keys are specifically polarized. They are not in a superposition of polarizations. The "quantum" part comes in because, when a polarized photon hits a polarization screen that is at a 45 degree angle to the photon's polarization, there is exactly a 50% chance that the photon will go through due to quantum mechanics.
It is possible to use a photon as a qubit but it is very limiting. You have to have qubits that will interact with eachother. That is difficult with photons. You also have to have some way of storing them. A photon is very difficult to trap.
Some other methods of qubits are Heteropolymer (plastic), Ion Trap, Cavity QED and NMR.
Heteropolymer uses a laser pulse at specific energies to excite the outer electrons in plastic atoms to either an excited state or superposition of excited and ground states. We have these. The problem again is getting them to interact as needed.
Ion Traps use electromagnetic fields to trap a single ionized atom. The ions can in a grounded state or excited state. Ion trap qubits provide a method for interaction but they can only interact with their neighboring qubit. This method has been used to create an 8 qubit quantum computer.
Cavity QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) uses the polarization of photons for the qubits. We've got an XOR gate for this, but, as stated before, it's hard to store a photon.
NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) uses a sample of some liquid. Each atom in the liquid ends up being a qubit by using the spin of nucleus of one of the atoms in the molecules. It uses current technology (similar to MRI) and just about any liquid can be used. However, it's not an isolated system so it decoheres extremely fast (it naturally exits it's state of superposition).
According to D-wave systems (a company that sells quantum computers), superconductors can also be used for qubits. Using supercooled aluminum and niobium to cause the electrons to form Cooper pairs (bosons) which can be used as qubits. I don't know a lot about that method but you can read about it at D-wave QC hardware and Wiki: Superconducting QC
Heisenberg was driving down the road and got pulled over. The cop asks him, "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replies, "No, but I know exactly where I am!"
That's what I was thinking as I read a bunch of these posts. The only thing quantum computing and quantum encryption have in common is the word "quantum."
Quantum computers use the superposition of states to form qubits used to do computations using multiple numbers at the same time.
Quantum encrypting uses polarization of light and different alignments of filters to communicate a shared key used to encrypt data. If someone's listening in, they will disturb the polarization causing red flags to go up during the communication of the key. That tells you it's not safe to transmit the message. Furthermore, even if you did, it would just be garbled anyway.
The downside to quantum encryption is that you have to have an uninterrupted fiber optic line from one point to the other. If, at any point, that line has to go through a switch of some sort, you now have a weak point in the encryption where someone can be listening in without you knowing.
It's probably important, too, to point out that we have both quantum computers and quantum encryption. However, the current quantum computers don't have nearly enough qubits to be a threat to public key encryption and the single fiber optic line constraint of quantum encryption is holding it back.
Until quantum computers have thousands of qubits and are easily obtainable, we don't have much to worry about anyway.
In my defense, it wasn't a policy when I started there. And like I said, I found a different job, quickly I'd like to add. And the new job's security procedures did come into play in my decision making.
You seem to have missed the point though. The point is that in order to get people to comply with security policies, they need to be a) enforced, and b) reasonable. I'm going to add that they should also be c) explained. Tell people WHY they're not supposed to set up a wireless access point at their desk. Don't just tell them they can't.
Don't warn someone that they'll be fired for doing something just to let it slide the next time too. But also, make sure that this punishment is reasonable considering the action.
Let's say the rule is "no usb devices." If their action was bringing an infected thumb-drive from home that ends up infecting your office network, disciplinary action is fully warranted. If the action was plugging in a usb powered plasma ball, disciplinary action is completely unreasonable.
However, as has been said many times in other posts, there needs to be a method for people to legitimately bypass a security measure. For example, if someone wants to connect their home laptop to the office network, make the owner demonstrate that the computer is infection free before allowing the device on the network. During this process, make sure the owner is aware of the rules and the consequences of violating them.
Also, be uniform in enforcement. Don't enforce the rules for one person and not another. As the parent so nicely pointed out, no one is above security policies. All employees are responsible for the security and well-being of the office network.
"Pick your battles wisely" is a nice way to put that.
I quit my last job partly because of their "security" polices and their fierce but lame attempts to enforce them. One was, "If you're in this area you have to have a red T-shirt on or your shirt tucked in. First violation is a warning, Second is termination." In my opinion that was a poorly fought battle and should have been left alone. They ended up never really enforcing it. All it did was lower moral and damage trust of management.
My company had a security meeting a while back. During the meeting (unknown to us) someone scattered some thumb drives around the parking lot. Two days later we had a follow up meeting. More than 50 people had picked up the thumb-drives and plugged them into their work computers. The security team knew this because they put a "virus" on the thumb-drives that sent them some info about each computer it was plugged into. Each person even got specifically called out at the follow-up meeting too.
That's how they taught us about unsafe outside devices. Seemed to work pretty well too.
On that note too, if your company maintains their own images, it's probably best to disable autorun. antivirus.about.com has some good instructions on doing that.
In my opinion, that should be just as standard as showing file extensions.
The more you educate your staff about the "whys" of security, the more likely they are to follow your security protocols. You can't just tell someone not to do something. You need to tell them WHY they shouldn't do it too. You can't learn from other peoples' mistakes if you don't know why it was a mistake. For example, say you walked into a room and someone said, "Don't touch this shiny cool looking thing." You'd be more much more likely to try to pick it up than if he or she said, "Don't touch this shiny cool looking thing because it's really hot."
For anyone that believes the all caps = no taxes bit, I'm Nigerian royalty and have some money for you.
Also, if a stop sign has a white border around it you only have to slow down for it.
I can butter jam the concoction with
an amoeba while the doormat sings
root at the frog legs. Will you dance
in the morning under dark boulders?
hehe
It's not just "some sort of" laser cannon. It's the BFG 9000 baby!! grr!!
Maybe they'll use Jabber as the communication protocol. Then you'll get calls like this:
"My pen's broken"
"What's wrong with it."
"It's not letting me answer the triviabot."
Wow, correct usage of the word "Ironically." These days, that, in itself, is ironic.
I enjoy getting it on the front page. Besides, as a user pointed out in the first installment, there's an option in your user controls to not show them on the front page.
From the top of this page click on "Preferences." Then click on "Help & Preferences." Now find the "Index" section under "Your Preferences" and click on the link for "Sections." Find "Idle" in the list and select the radio button in the column headed by a red circle with a line through it. Click the "save" button and you're all set.
Yeah! I fail to see the problem here. So, due to design flaws the terrorist watch list is difficult to do searches on. Maybe they can just get the California Cobol programmers to fix it.
I fail to see how the terrorist watch list is ANY different from the communist black list of the 60s. All it takes to get put on there is a neighbor that doesn't like you. In order to get taken off, an agent has to be assigned to your case and you have to be investigated so that they are sure you're not a terrorist. With the current size of the list, good luck with that.
CNN has had several articles in the last few weeks dealing with the terrorist watch list. My favorite was about three people named "James Robinson". The article mentions that one of the Jameses would just get tickets using the first name "Jim" and he wouldn't be hassled. Another would just run his first and middle name together and it wouldn't get flagged. Of note from that article, "The TSA has said the problem lies with the airlines and threatened to fine airlines that tell passengers they are on the watch list." Yeah. Wow. They're trying to make it illegal to tell someone why they're being held and discomforted. If you don't want the information to get out, don't share it. Keep it to yourself.
Article V says, "[you can't be] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." This list deprives liberty (and sometimes property) and is missing a key element.
Article XI says, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others by the people." Isn't that EXACTLY what's happening?
Yeah I mean what could be possibly amusing about firing someone who's been the richest man in the world for a decade straight.
Only the squirrel knows
On a more serious note, at a family reunion last month I heard one of my Cousin's 6 year old kids ask another Cousin's 8 year old kid, "My dad and I like playing Atari. Do you have an Atari? Do you know what Atari is?"
It made me happy that there's at least one 6 year old that knows and enjoys Atari. I know that the kid also has an XBOX 360 and a Wii and a Nintendo DS. The kid likes the Atari best.
"unsigned, signed (tagging beta)"
He's here already! I just know it!
There is no animal art.
I've seen an elephant painting. I've even seen a painting of an elephant painted by an elephant. I don't think it was a self portrait though.
then America would be choke full of obese geniuses.
Not yet. We're only now starting to really get fat. Just wait a few generations and we'll be golden!
Does that mean I can belittle people for making fun of my obsession with eating other people's cooking?
1) I'm fat.
2) I eat buffets all the time.
3) Buffets contain mostly cooked food.
4) Eating cooked food makes you smarter.
Therefore, I'm smarter than you.
And if that doesn't work, how about this.
I'm kind of smart. I'm also fat from eating cooked foods. If I marry a fat woman that's good at cooking food and we have kids. That kid should be a little smarter than me. Then we can make my kid fat by feeding him/her lots of cooked foods. As long as he/she doesn't marry a twig, my grandchildren will be brilliant!!!
I have just justified my overeating.
Thank you again /.
I wonder if you can get into trouble for physically carrying encryption software across the US border like you can for "exporting" it by placing it on the internet.
Queue Admiral Ackbar,
It's a trap!
bah... I just lost the game too.
I'm a looser.
http://www.youfail.org/
It's a (It's a recursive meme...) meme...