features are nice to theorize about in class, but application and the real world will hit you hard. When you have a budget and you have to choose between running your precious conduit so the next owner wont have to spend an extra day installing, or having that theater room or (insert amenity here) I am sure I know what you will pick.
Sigh, I miss the purist days of my BS in CS program where everything I would work with was up to IEEE spec, co-workers were seasoned professionals, and users weren't issues with security. Cherish those moments good sir....cherish them.
C:Get of your lazy asses and realize back in our day when we were wiring all your High Schools, we used fiberglass insulation for toilet paper and we liked it!
Depends on the wireless device. One could argue that if you could not put a VPN client on the device or have up to date wireless, it is not worth getting out to the internet. I could be wrong though. But a quick google search pulled up VPN clients for Windows CE and Palm devices. That would cut out quite a few WEP only items. Some people are not aware there is a Hotfix for windows XP SP 2 that allows use of WPA2.
Then you have a good argument of; if you data is really that important, why don't you upgrade? I work with a lot of clients and hundreds of wireless setups (just started working with draft-n). Off the top of my head I cannot think of any scenario where I would be forced to use WEP. In my mind WEP only tells people you don't want them joining your network. It doesn't protect you. Anyone who would be capable of doing malicious things would not be deterred by WEP.
Technically you are never forced. There are wonderful tools that can keep you safe even if you are on a wide open network. OpenVPN comes to mind, or for the less technically minded there are many many many, easy to set up vpn clients out there for free use.
OK now that was just a bad typo....should read a M$ worm and a Linux worm. I will stop trying to sound smart and work on getting this foot out of my mouth.
wow, one person who actually knows what they are talking about. My post was trollbait for the linux kiddies out there who cant tell the difference between a M$ worm and a Blaster worm. All they know are the catchphrases....note that out of the 3 replies to my post you (the AC) are the only one who actually caught the blantant error. The great thing about these topics is, it is a bunch of kiddies who have only configured boxes in their parents basement bitching about who is better.
It doesnt matter who you are but seriously if you do an install of an OS without a firewall you are an idiot, if you are any kind of geek. Ignorant users can be excused, but any self proclaimed geek with ANY experience with linux or M$ boxes should know better than to "feel safe reaching for the dropped soap" so to speak. It is interesting to see that Lunix geeks are so willing to forget code red and then whip out the blaster. Shit happens, learn and live.
Linux geeks will pound the boards about foul play and all the vulerabilities they would exploit if they werent to busy checking dependencies.
Mac fanboys will make fun of both citing how Symantec didnt like them in the first place, because Mac people dont buy Symantec products.
Windows geeks will state how this has always been the case, but because they are the more popular OS they are a bigger target.
And finally the old unix guys will flame about how none of these vulnerabilites would have happened if we would have stayed away from GUIs.
So now that we have got that out of the way we can bypass all the leg humping and mindless dribble and get down to the real discussion...can Microsoft keep it up? Personally as a network admin I have not been too nervous the last 6 months. Since the year of the blaster MS has done a pretty good job of making up for exploits and covering their asses. All is quiet on the homefront.
Ummm if my CIO decided to turn his machine into a fish tank you better believe I will be in there fixing the leaks before the next slashdot post hits your computer. Then when I am your boss and you are still a self absorbed tech earning $13 bucks an hour I can take great joy in firing your ass for being an arrogant AC:)
Ahhh one of THOSE techs. remember all the win98 4ever geeks....sigh good times.
I installed it (Vista) here at work just yesterday, sure enough some things broke, but on my machine (only a year old) I have only had to install one driver. My AD management tools were fixed with a quick script, Trillian was fixed after I adjusted the quicktime settings, couple printer issues (print server only had NT4 &2K drivers). I am up and running now, only took me one working day roughly. I had a little experience with beta testing but I am working well now and am enjoying many of the features. I use outlook 2007 and love that as well (new office is heads and feet above the 2003 version). Still like my Fedora box at home. XP 2K and NT4 are my forte Desktop environments by far windows wise but vista doesnt have that tough of a learning curve and the features are definately worth it! I have scooted through Windows secrets (halfway through the book in a couple hours) but winXP and vista are not that far apart.
So in answer to your post, it takes some tweaking, not as much as my fedora box, but a little patience and everything works fantastic. Is it worth upgrading a working winXP box? Depends on what you are doing, if I had $200 sitting at home for ultimate I would upgrade in a heartbeat. The added functions, security, (awe heck it I will say it) the prettyness is great.
However if you are one of those "Why can't we go back to windows 98 or 2000 where I felt all warm and fuzzy" well you are just absolutely going to hate this, hate hate hate it.
must be a hundred posts exactly like yours a day. Let me simplify the argument so you don't start one again.
I don't know why people use (insert distro here) I use (insert distro here) and it works great for anyone because (insert distro here) is so easy to use why would anyone use anything else?
To which you will get flaming littleman replies and people will hurl insults left and right as if you insulted their mom.
This argument is carried on with Chevy vs Ford, Catholics vs Protestant, Athiest vs Gnostic, Crunchy vs smooth peanut butter and on and on.
People have opinions, they like to stick to them like a religion, get used to it.
I have, but your statement is spot on. Whereas we may use an up to date version of veritas with good labels. I have seen other agencies and shivers run down my spine....thats what you get when you hire and promote whoever is available for the lowest dollar.
Our agency is looking into a hotsite (luckily have fiber run to a remote site). The dream is to be running a monster VMware ESX box for when the building blows up, a heck of a lot cheaper than an offsite tape backup, but right now it is just a pipe dream:)
Most people who have more than a couple gigs to back up use tape. The reliability and mass storage capability of tape cannot be beat. Not to mention the ease of use, standardization, and if you have a library, the accessability.
using multiple hard drives and DVD burning is for non-enterprise backups. It works pretty well (buffallo terrastation) for small business who dont store mass amounts of information. But find a DVD burner or hard drive solution that allows me to backup 17 remote sites and about 10 Terrabytes of information in a reasonable amount of time that isnt tape, let me know.
First a clarification via a quote: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
Next, it doesn't matter what field you are in, Computers or agriculture. There are different kinds of people, some are creative, some are good at following orders, some just float along. A degree doesnt change your personality, a degree simply informs you. A good person can be creative with the knowledge in a BS Computer Science. Others can be book smart and simply regurgitate the taylor series and algorithms. Hopefully you went to a college where those people are weeded out quickly.
Truth be told though, there are an extrordinary amount of people in IT who were put in there because they knew how to type. I dont think IT will be the world you envisioned until the workforce leftover from pre 2002 retires. Sure we will lose a couple giants, but until we get refined with people who have degrees and are creative, rather than this current workforce of paycheck hunters, we will remain under the thumb of idiocy.
Between private consulting and working for Law Enforcement IT, I have seen a number of them. Big networks or small ones, there is always that guy/girl. The one who firmly believes they "should" be IT, and in control of everything. Just once, I would like to grant their wish, just once when my neck isnt on the line...and watch them get smacked by reality. I like to think it would be like a large truck hitting them at high speed while they explain of how it should be done.
From experience of a few different departments it's usually only one or two who have the knowledge to begin with and another five or six who are all talk
Most insightful thing I have read all day. I work in a department where, while good intentioned, the majority of the staff are just hoping no one catches on to the fact that they dont know what they are talking about. One or two are arrogant enough to think they actually belong where they are. and the remaining 3 who are actually good at what they do are made up of 1 non technical background, 1 associates, and one BS in Computer Science. It seems the dilbert principle works rather well in most IT departments. If you cant keep up technically then they figure you must be better at management. So on a network of 800 people you have all the support calls going to 2-3 people at any given time out of 14. And from what I hear, this is not an uncommon scenario.
Id take you up on that bet. Even though I am married to her, I bet my wife would beat your numbers. But we will say that I am the 1 exception, that would mean that out of a million slashdotters 9,999,999 of them would have to have less attractive SOs. But of course that also depends on what you consider good looking. My wife is more of a Scarlett Johansson than a Angelina.
I get your jest,/.ers carry more of the stigma of autoerotica than being able to attract, let alone marry, a hot wife. I for one am glad to be in the.00001% percent:)
Anyone using one that ties back to you will make life suck for you.
Already done, anybody with the will to do it can steal your ID. My sister had her Identity stolen 7 years ago or so. Took her YEARS to get back out of the paperwork hole.
Nah, Passports last 10 years, don't give your address (because why does France care what town I live in?), and are voluntary.
Ahhhh so now we are just arguing on implementation not on principle. The way I see it, from the Law enforcement side, ID would be as voluntary as a passport. Now traveling is a bitch without a passport but can be done just fine. Many of my friends back in college didn't have a drivers license but still had a photo ID so they could go to the bar. Now I can see a day in the not to far future where in order to get into a bar you will need a fingerprint ID to get in. IT is quick, easy, and reasonably hard to spoof. The database is already there. I personally work with mobile stations that can identify you anywhere if you have been fingerprinted. We currently can import DMV, CID, and AFIS information from other states to identify people. It would be much easier if we could use one device to read info rather than paying billions for multiple readers in each state, RFID, Magnetic tape, Fingerprint. It would be trivial to make a device that required a fingerprint and RFID tag. Or something that would be adequately difficult to spoof yet not cause a large inconvenience to the carrier. In the meantime, the paranoid could still go about using the archaic system but be subject to the inconvenience of it, by choice. Heck at the rate that Gov't moves it would take at least 40 years to implement. All I want is a standard, information sharing is another beast that we have to fight regardless of what ID we are using.
in the end it all comes down to beer, how quick can I get to it. I had one friend get rejected from a bar by a stupid bouncer who thought his CA license was fake.
There's no reason the police need to, or even should detain someone because they don't present a national ID and happen to be near a crime scene.
Hey I am not saying I like the law the way it is, just laying out what can be done. We are discussing the points of the usefulness of a national ID system, not our judicial system. Currently in my state if you are suspect and cannot prove ID, Law enforcement has a right to detain you until they get a positive ID or your lawyer bails you out.
They demand my ID to protect me? In case you forgot, this is illegal, and I can do without the protection, thank you.
Once again circumstantial, no officer can come up to you randomly and check your ID without cause.
I'm fine with a government system. I just don't want a national one, as that's far too easy to abuse. Preaching to the choir here, however even in the case of every state being on its own it would be very convenient to have a standardized ID even if the info was not shared state to state. One kind of media reader, less training, businesses could give employees the option of using their ID rather than having a series of Keys. I currently own 4 IDs.
Now who's the moron?
Hey I never claimed to be smart:)
I prefer the mess, mainly because efficiency in working of people who can exercise force on you is hazardous to my health.
Good we need the paranoid people, of course it could be that the South Park episode I was forced to watch the other night is correct...what was the title, something about a dookie in a urinal. Anyway the short of it is the national gov't is so inept as it is that they create these paranoia events to make people think that the gov't is unified.
Personally I am a civilian in law enforcement IT at the state level. Right now the system is abused incredibly, raising your taxes, decreasing the security of your kids, and keeping SS from getting to your parents. The national ID system is a 9 digit system,a fingerprint, or a face. There already is a system in place, we are not arguing about law here, we are arguing about the convenience of showing a unified front, we can lobby for different laws if we want and I am guessing that is what you are really worried about, but that does not have anything to do with a national ID.
BTW, you wouldn't happen to enjoy the benefits of a passport would you?...if so I call hypocrite.
Why would criminals use their real name and ID when evading police?
If a criminal cannot prove identity the police can detain them in many states. Making a nationally recognized ID system would keep the average Joe from being detained, and if the ID system were set at secure enough standards we could reduce the number of counterfit IDs in use.
What business do the police have demanding my ID in the first place?To protect you, are you really this stupid? If someone is hiding their identity there is probably a reason.
Why would I want a national level database in the first place - have you learned nothing from Hoover?You obviously are young or know little of Hoover and why things went so bad.
Study your knowledge of law a bit more before it bites you in the ass. Couple things you may and probably do not know. AFIS techs are working on a national system. Do you want this to be the national ID for you? One way or another you will need to be identified if you want to be part of a governmental system. If you dont want to be part of a gov't system, good luck with that and no one had better catch you bitching about elections, medicare, Social security, or any other issue that depends on Identification. The fact of the matter is, everyone is identified in one way or another, better an agreed upon standard than this messsy piece of crap we have now. When we are standardized we can then work on who gets control of that data.
Even more reason for an improved national ID system. SSN is broken, easily spoofed, and typo'd. Now no National ID system is going to be a fix all. But this Social Security number stuff is crap the way it is. It would be much harder to mess a 256-512 bit number that is stored electronically only with redundancy checks constantly run on it. If you worked in Child Support your would have seen how reliant SS, welfare, and medicare are dependent on SS#s and how the system constantly fails because data cant get from point A to point B.
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Sigh, I miss the purist days of my BS in CS program where everything I would work with was up to IEEE spec, co-workers were seasoned professionals, and users weren't issues with security. Cherish those moments good sir....cherish them.
Or you could run http://rapidrun.com/ and be ok until you push too much juice down the line.
A: Friggin hilarious
B:He is right
C:Get of your lazy asses and realize back in our day when we were wiring all your High Schools, we used fiberglass insulation for toilet paper and we liked it!
Then you have a good argument of; if you data is really that important, why don't you upgrade? I work with a lot of clients and hundreds of wireless setups (just started working with draft-n). Off the top of my head I cannot think of any scenario where I would be forced to use WEP. In my mind WEP only tells people you don't want them joining your network. It doesn't protect you. Anyone who would be capable of doing malicious things would not be deterred by WEP.
Technically you are never forced. There are wonderful tools that can keep you safe even if you are on a wide open network. OpenVPN comes to mind, or for the less technically minded there are many many many, easy to set up vpn clients out there for free use.
easy backups, imagine being able to restore servers in a single bound!
OK now that was just a bad typo....should read a M$ worm and a Linux worm. I will stop trying to sound smart and work on getting this foot out of my mouth.
wow, one person who actually knows what they are talking about. My post was trollbait for the linux kiddies out there who cant tell the difference between a M$ worm and a Blaster worm. All they know are the catchphrases....note that out of the 3 replies to my post you (the AC) are the only one who actually caught the blantant error. The great thing about these topics is, it is a bunch of kiddies who have only configured boxes in their parents basement bitching about who is better.
It doesnt matter who you are but seriously if you do an install of an OS without a firewall you are an idiot, if you are any kind of geek. Ignorant users can be excused, but any self proclaimed geek with ANY experience with linux or M$ boxes should know better than to "feel safe reaching for the dropped soap" so to speak. It is interesting to see that Lunix geeks are so willing to forget code red and then whip out the blaster. Shit happens, learn and live.
You are welcome :)
This discussion will go as follows.
Linux geeks will pound the boards about foul play and all the vulerabilities they would exploit if they werent to busy checking dependencies.
Mac fanboys will make fun of both citing how Symantec didnt like them in the first place, because Mac people dont buy Symantec products.
Windows geeks will state how this has always been the case, but because they are the more popular OS they are a bigger target.
And finally the old unix guys will flame about how none of these vulnerabilites would have happened if we would have stayed away from GUIs.
So now that we have got that out of the way we can bypass all the leg humping and mindless dribble and get down to the real discussion...can Microsoft keep it up? Personally as a network admin I have not been too nervous the last 6 months. Since the year of the blaster MS has done a pretty good job of making up for exploits and covering their asses. All is quiet on the homefront.
Ummm if my CIO decided to turn his machine into a fish tank you better believe I will be in there fixing the leaks before the next slashdot post hits your computer. Then when I am your boss and you are still a self absorbed tech earning $13 bucks an hour I can take great joy in firing your ass for being an arrogant AC :)
Ahhh one of THOSE techs. remember all the win98 4ever geeks....sigh good times.
I installed it (Vista) here at work just yesterday, sure enough some things broke, but on my machine (only a year old) I have only had to install one driver. My AD management tools were fixed with a quick script, Trillian was fixed after I adjusted the quicktime settings, couple printer issues (print server only had NT4 &2K drivers). I am up and running now, only took me one working day roughly. I had a little experience with beta testing but I am working well now and am enjoying many of the features. I use outlook 2007 and love that as well (new office is heads and feet above the 2003 version). Still like my Fedora box at home. XP 2K and NT4 are my forte Desktop environments by far windows wise but vista doesnt have that tough of a learning curve and the features are definately worth it! I have scooted through Windows secrets (halfway through the book in a couple hours) but winXP and vista are not that far apart.
So in answer to your post, it takes some tweaking, not as much as my fedora box, but a little patience and everything works fantastic. Is it worth upgrading a working winXP box? Depends on what you are doing, if I had $200 sitting at home for ultimate I would upgrade in a heartbeat. The added functions, security, (awe heck it I will say it) the prettyness is great.
However if you are one of those "Why can't we go back to windows 98 or 2000 where I felt all warm and fuzzy" well you are just absolutely going to hate this, hate hate hate it.
I don't know why people use (insert distro here) I use (insert distro here) and it works great for anyone because (insert distro here) is so easy to use why would anyone use anything else?
To which you will get flaming littleman replies and people will hurl insults left and right as if you insulted their mom.
This argument is carried on with Chevy vs Ford, Catholics vs Protestant, Athiest vs Gnostic, Crunchy vs smooth peanut butter and on and on.
People have opinions, they like to stick to them like a religion, get used to it.
I have, but your statement is spot on. Whereas we may use an up to date version of veritas with good labels. I have seen other agencies and shivers run down my spine....thats what you get when you hire and promote whoever is available for the lowest dollar.
Our agency is looking into a hotsite (luckily have fiber run to a remote site). The dream is to be running a monster VMware ESX box for when the building blows up, a heck of a lot cheaper than an offsite tape backup, but right now it is just a pipe dream :)
using multiple hard drives and DVD burning is for non-enterprise backups. It works pretty well (buffallo terrastation) for small business who dont store mass amounts of information. But find a DVD burner or hard drive solution that allows me to backup 17 remote sites and about 10 Terrabytes of information in a reasonable amount of time that isnt tape, let me know.
Next, it doesn't matter what field you are in, Computers or agriculture. There are different kinds of people, some are creative, some are good at following orders, some just float along. A degree doesnt change your personality, a degree simply informs you. A good person can be creative with the knowledge in a BS Computer Science. Others can be book smart and simply regurgitate the taylor series and algorithms. Hopefully you went to a college where those people are weeded out quickly.
Truth be told though, there are an extrordinary amount of people in IT who were put in there because they knew how to type. I dont think IT will be the world you envisioned until the workforce leftover from pre 2002 retires. Sure we will lose a couple giants, but until we get refined with people who have degrees and are creative, rather than this current workforce of paycheck hunters, we will remain under the thumb of idiocy.
Between private consulting and working for Law Enforcement IT, I have seen a number of them. Big networks or small ones, there is always that guy/girl. The one who firmly believes they "should" be IT, and in control of everything. Just once, I would like to grant their wish, just once when my neck isnt on the line...and watch them get smacked by reality. I like to think it would be like a large truck hitting them at high speed while they explain of how it should be done.
From experience of a few different departments it's usually only one or two who have the knowledge to begin with and another five or six who are all talk
Most insightful thing I have read all day. I work in a department where, while good intentioned, the majority of the staff are just hoping no one catches on to the fact that they dont know what they are talking about. One or two are arrogant enough to think they actually belong where they are. and the remaining 3 who are actually good at what they do are made up of 1 non technical background, 1 associates, and one BS in Computer Science. It seems the dilbert principle works rather well in most IT departments. If you cant keep up technically then they figure you must be better at management. So on a network of 800 people you have all the support calls going to 2-3 people at any given time out of 14. And from what I hear, this is not an uncommon scenario.
I get your jest, /.ers carry more of the stigma of autoerotica than being able to attract, let alone marry, a hot wife. I for one am glad to be in the .00001% percent :)
Already done, anybody with the will to do it can steal your ID. My sister had her Identity stolen 7 years ago or so. Took her YEARS to get back out of the paperwork hole.
Nah, Passports last 10 years, don't give your address (because why does France care what town I live in?), and are voluntary.
Ahhhh so now we are just arguing on implementation not on principle. The way I see it, from the Law enforcement side, ID would be as voluntary as a passport. Now traveling is a bitch without a passport but can be done just fine. Many of my friends back in college didn't have a drivers license but still had a photo ID so they could go to the bar. Now I can see a day in the not to far future where in order to get into a bar you will need a fingerprint ID to get in. IT is quick, easy, and reasonably hard to spoof. The database is already there. I personally work with mobile stations that can identify you anywhere if you have been fingerprinted. We currently can import DMV, CID, and AFIS information from other states to identify people. It would be much easier if we could use one device to read info rather than paying billions for multiple readers in each state, RFID, Magnetic tape, Fingerprint. It would be trivial to make a device that required a fingerprint and RFID tag. Or something that would be adequately difficult to spoof yet not cause a large inconvenience to the carrier. In the meantime, the paranoid could still go about using the archaic system but be subject to the inconvenience of it, by choice. Heck at the rate that Gov't moves it would take at least 40 years to implement. All I want is a standard, information sharing is another beast that we have to fight regardless of what ID we are using.
in the end it all comes down to beer, how quick can I get to it. I had one friend get rejected from a bar by a stupid bouncer who thought his CA license was fake.
There's no reason the police need to, or even should detain someone because they don't present a national ID and happen to be near a crime scene.
Hey I am not saying I like the law the way it is, just laying out what can be done. We are discussing the points of the usefulness of a national ID system, not our judicial system. Currently in my state if you are suspect and cannot prove ID, Law enforcement has a right to detain you until they get a positive ID or your lawyer bails you out.
They demand my ID to protect me? In case you forgot, this is illegal, and I can do without the protection, thank you.
Once again circumstantial, no officer can come up to you randomly and check your ID without cause.
I'm fine with a government system. I just don't want a national one, as that's far too easy to abuse. Preaching to the choir here, however even in the case of every state being on its own it would be very convenient to have a standardized ID even if the info was not shared state to state. One kind of media reader, less training, businesses could give employees the option of using their ID rather than having a series of Keys. I currently own 4 IDs.
Now who's the moron?
Hey I never claimed to be smart :)
I prefer the mess, mainly because efficiency in working of people who can exercise force on you is hazardous to my health.
Good we need the paranoid people, of course it could be that the South Park episode I was forced to watch the other night is correct...what was the title, something about a dookie in a urinal. Anyway the short of it is the national gov't is so inept as it is that they create these paranoia events to make people think that the gov't is unified.
Personally I am a civilian in law enforcement IT at the state level. Right now the system is abused incredibly, raising your taxes, decreasing the security of your kids, and keeping SS from getting to your parents. The national ID system is a 9 digit system,a fingerprint, or a face. There already is a system in place, we are not arguing about law here, we are arguing about the convenience of showing a unified front, we can lobby for different laws if we want and I am guessing that is what you are really worried about, but that does not have anything to do with a national ID.
BTW, you wouldn't happen to enjoy the benefits of a passport would you?...if so I call hypocrite.
If a criminal cannot prove identity the police can detain them in many states. Making a nationally recognized ID system would keep the average Joe from being detained, and if the ID system were set at secure enough standards we could reduce the number of counterfit IDs in use.
What business do the police have demanding my ID in the first place?To protect you, are you really this stupid? If someone is hiding their identity there is probably a reason.
Why would I want a national level database in the first place - have you learned nothing from Hoover?You obviously are young or know little of Hoover and why things went so bad.
Study your knowledge of law a bit more before it bites you in the ass. Couple things you may and probably do not know. AFIS techs are working on a national system. Do you want this to be the national ID for you? One way or another you will need to be identified if you want to be part of a governmental system. If you dont want to be part of a gov't system, good luck with that and no one had better catch you bitching about elections, medicare, Social security, or any other issue that depends on Identification. The fact of the matter is, everyone is identified in one way or another, better an agreed upon standard than this messsy piece of crap we have now. When we are standardized we can then work on who gets control of that data.
Even more reason for an improved national ID system. SSN is broken, easily spoofed, and typo'd. Now no National ID system is going to be a fix all. But this Social Security number stuff is crap the way it is. It would be much harder to mess a 256-512 bit number that is stored electronically only with redundancy checks constantly run on it. If you worked in Child Support your would have seen how reliant SS, welfare, and medicare are dependent on SS#s and how the system constantly fails because data cant get from point A to point B.