...make you realize just what you take for granted.
That voice was the same from day one. Yet it never dawned on me there was a person (and, it turns out, a relatively prominent one) behind that sound.
Another talent gone. Another memory created. Another ubiquitous item in our lives that will have to be replaced.
The voice will never be the same.
Godspeed, Majel.
The problem is that a lot of people get the CS and SE degrees just so they can secure a "career." They don't actually care about the tech. They want to do the bare minimum of work then leave for the day. JUST LIKE ANY OTHER CAREER. Look at marketing, sales, civil engineering, structural engineering, architecture, secretaries, human resources, and all the others. The employees behave the same way. Tech is no longer marginalized like it was. It is a commodity job. All the frat boys and jocks are now doing it as well; so the rules are the same as for any other job.
The main difference between tech and the more prestigious or artistic of the normal careers, is that job hopping in tech is relatively easy to justify because salaries don't scale with results. There is no "stay in this position for five years than make partner" or "complete this project and get a massive bonus or profit share." You just keep hopping until you hit that salary you want or you get stuck in a "cost-of-living" raise situation. But that isn't really different from an accounting, HR, or other commodity positions.
Couple that with the proliferation of technology to the point that for younger people it is commonplace and boring, then you have the current situation.
That being said, there is still probably about the same overall amount of driven, interested techies. The problem is that now they are diluted with all the career people.
Maybe on the corporate side.....I had a four-year, on-site support for a home desktop that I could never get them to honor. I was actually told by the Indian call-center employee that he could not approve the on-site visit because he would be fired if he did. They were hired to keep costs low, so they were not allowed by their management to do anything that would result in a charge to Dell.
I didn't pay chump change for that support and over the course of two hard drive failures, sound card death, and eventual motherboard toastiness, I always ended up having to replace the parts myself on my own dime after days of trying to get them to honor the contract.
I have not bought a Dell since except for corporate installs. The corporate support has always been spectacular. Home became crap once they outsourced it. I hear tell, though, that they are bringing all support back to the USA. I hope so, because maybe then I can order from them again.
I think you missed the point of the original post. He is asking why these weapons being used by the military on American soil? More pointedly, why is the military being used against civilians on American soil? That is not their purpose.
Trust me, I would if I could. Most of the apartments in Dallas have "single provider" agreements. I can't even have a T1 or something like that dropped in because the apartment owners sell the wiring rights to single companies, and those companies will only give you one option and will not allow anybody else into the equipment closets or walls. The apartment owners have the right to refuse access to anyone they want (it is their property, after all), and the telco secures and utilizes that right in a contract with the owner.
I could install satellite, but it would cost me.....a LOT.....a WHOLE LOT!!!!! Try a $1000 non-refundable damage deposit to put the dish on the building plus a minimum of $75000 in renters liability insurance.
I can't get cable, because the same owner that sells the rights to the phone lines also sells rights to the cable...and guess who buys them....the phone company.
Even in the case that the owner sells the rights to two different people (phone and cable to two separate companies), the two parties generally get together and reach a side agreement. In my current building, I am supposed to be able to get Comcast cable and internet....but Comcast and SBC got together and swapped rights on several complexes. Now SBC controls phone AND cable in my complex and Comcast has the same in another (reselling someone elses phone service).
You can't win for losing.
This is pretty much the case at every apartment I have EVER lived in within the Dallas metroplex. The only exception was the apartment in the high crime district where we couldn't even get cable or DSL.
In the end, you are technically correct....I could get a satellite. But it is prohibitively expensive. To me it is simply easier and cheaper to put my ego and my temper to the side and suck up. It works. Its easy. Its cheap.
It is kind of like why I stay at my current job.
I figure patience with these inconvenient things now will pay off by saving me much energy and stress while working on my own things/ideas. Different priorities, I guess.
I just look forward to buying a house in the next few months so that I can have the illusion of provider choice for at least a few more months before the telcos and cable companies manage to legislate their monopolies back into (stronger) existance.
In the end, the telcos have millions of lobbying dollars and congressmen have giant holes in their pockets to fill. One day we will all have to bow to our evil communications overlords, may as well start practicing now.:-)
//I, for one, welcome our monopolistic communications overlords. ////Besides, some of the phone repair people are hot.
To be blunt, where I am there is only one choice for internet service. The single provider may change, depending on what municipality, but in the end you only have one choice in your apartment. So, when I have an issue I suck up. I act stupid and helpless and ultra sickly sweet. I thank them profusely every step of the way.
It may not be as satisfying as being intelligent or righteously indignant on the phone, but it gets great results. I consistently get a tech out same day (from ATT (SBC), no less). I have problems where my circuit speed will drop drastically (from 3Mbps to 145Kbps) on a regular basis, and now that I have started being saccharine sweet, it is generally fixed almost immediately.
Simply point out that it is running incredibly slow (say something about images and pages taking FOREVER to load, don't sound techie) and that you logged in following THEIR instructions (thank you guys for giving me those previously, oh thank you thank you) and checked the speed and saw that it was slower than normal (from what you guys told me before), and that you would greatly appreciate it if they could fix it (since I am so helpless and LOVE you guys), and please help me, and oh lord thank you so much for giving me your time.
Other than that, make sure your router isn't causing you problems. Swap it out with a borrowed one or something. I had a bad one that was destroying my throughput. Check cables, wall sockets, everything. Make sure you can eliminate everything on your end before you call them.
However, if they ask you to test things again, gleefully (pretend) to do it. It makes them happy and gets you better service later. After all, it is not really that hard to sit there reading the newspaper and drinking coffee and simply saying "Nope, still doesn't work."
Sadly, I don't think the real estate bubble is only limited to the "red hot markets." You have to figure, in places like Texas salaries are MUCH lower on average, so house prices really don't have to be that high to have the same effect. I know a LOT of people making $40,000 a year living in $180,000+ houses. They can only afford them through non-standard loans.
Not to mention, even though the prices are lower than they are in hotter markets, they have still increased drastically. Houses that I could have bought just two years ago for $250,000 (which WAS a nice house down here) now go north of $300K. That is a large increase for an area with an average historic annual appreciation of only 2-4% depending on the neighborhood.
It is frustrating for me to watch because everytime I get a pay raise or sell out a small investment for capital, the price of houses jump and I still can't afford the house I want. I have seen my target price rise from $180,000 to $300,000 for the same houses over the last five years. Not the doubling of value annually you saw in other markets, but still not a standard increase. I really hope it starts to cool down. Townhomes and condos have already started to come down here (as out-of-state investors and expatriots realized that in Dallas currently, townhomes were actually more expensive than a house) and I hope the houses follow the trend after the multi-family units equalize in price.
You have to look at their current stage of cultural development. In the past, Christianity and Judaism were barbaric religions. Generally they became this way after gaining too much power and a large following, then they slowly moved back towards moderation. This move to moderation occurred after members of the faith began to sponsor the changes in religious culture. They began to embrace the sharing of ideas and freedom of expression of those ideas, even at great danger to themselves.
The Islamic religion is still in its "terrible twos" so to speak. They are at the same stage that Christians were in during the crusades and inquisition. Until their societies and cultures move past the embracing of religious ideals over social ideals, they will continue to be this way.
Well, maybe this isn't a big deal. From the context of the article, it sounds like it is currently being used/developed to patrol vulnerable networks, not necessarily invade. Of course, it can't be too hard to make it invasive. I would really only be concerned if it actually is put onto the computer system. It would need to be cross-platform to be really effective at that. More than likely it is a port-scanner and data sniffing combination tool. Maybe some TCP/IP "exploit" manipulation. Of course, this is really just speculation on my part.
Even if it was invasive at the actual system software level, any paranoid company/individual could probably easily thwart it by running custom compiled kernels with re-named hooks, custom compiled software, etc. I mean, it would be a time drain to implement, but if you were really that scared of it.....it could be worth it.
Short of it being a locally run program (worm or otherwise), just be sure to properly secure your network and systems. Let it be other peoples problem. Always the best choice.:)
Not to say you shouldn't speak out against it, I plan to if I get the chance and more information on it.
Wow. Rated as redundant, even though I was the first to post this particular observation (I posted when there were only 32 replies). The joys of slashdot.
Troll me down!:)
Anyway, regarding the reply to my response, thank you for taking the time. I was just too lazy to start digging out the passages. Hypocrite may have been too harsh a word. I think that Hannibal was probably just dismissing an author who had jumped to conclusions based off of vague and overly complex source material. Especially since that author has had a history of doing so in the past. I think it would have been nice, however, for Hannibal to actually read the patent himself and see if he came to different conclusions. But anyway, the past is the past.
It is interesting to note that he uses the same terminologies and conclusions that he lambasted another author for. Wow. Hannibal is a hypocrite.
Specific Example: Locally Addressable Memory vs. Cache.
Granted, he may simply have not had access to the information at that time (doubtful, since the article he critiqued was gleaned from the patent application), but he was vicious in his dissection of the article. Does anyone know if he ever appologized for being a moron towards Nicholas Blachford?
No, they are not in the clear. But the admin (my direct supervisor) is able to go in and check them using a management app. Since all usernames and passwords are assigned from inside the company using random generators for our clients, sometimes they need to be checked to make sure the correct one was sent out. Sometimes they are also reassigned at the customers request.
I will say this though. Our administrator for our call center does something really insecure. All the telemarketers passwords are the same as the username. But, since he is the boss, he gets away with it.
Well, it is nice that this guy actually bothered to write this up, but he seems to simply be using a lot of common mistakes and guesswork. On top of that, his knoweledge of some basic concepts in hardware administration and business processes is somewhat lacking.
First, MAC address are not unique. There is no universal table of MAC's that hardware manufacturers report to. I have installed ethernet cards from the SAME manufacturer that have had the SAME MAC address while setting up machines for a client.
Second, many of these errors are not necessarily the programmers fault. They are more than likely the responsibility of management being cheap and forcing programmers to do the jobs of multiple people. IT is seperate from software development. The fact that the network and server are insecure is the IT department/person's fault. In small companies this may be the same person, but in most large corporations that is not the case. Directory listing and permissions are generally the responsibility of the server administrator.
Now, the username issues are definitely scary. Leaving test accounts open with simple passwords is just plain stupid. The company I develop software for has over fifty million dollars worth of data on their servers. We also store credit card info for clients, etc. If we used common passwords like that, we would be fired. The admin would go through the database, see the passwords, and report them to our supervisor. Say goodbye! Not to mention, test accounts on production servers are bad practice anyway. If you are making any money, you are extremely stupid not to have a seperate development environment.
In my opionion, these problems seem to be more management and implementation problems, and not so much development problems as the author seems to suggest. They are still real problems though. That customer listing one for the phone company really scares me.::shiver:: I hope SBC in Texas doesn't have problems like that.
It is interesting to note that de Grey believes that people will voluntarily cease having children in order to solve any overpopulation problems. This may be as flawed as his assumption that a population problem would continue to manifest itself beyond a certain point. Consider China, if you will. Their population control and birth rate controls have worked, but only with enforcement by governments. Logically, some people will understand the need to control population, in certain areas. However, most people in free countries will not stand for it. It is the forbidden fruit syndrome. The more it is forbidden, the more people want it.
Now consider that people currently inhabit about 54% of the earth's surface. This number includes farms and any areas not totally uninhabited. The average amount of land occupied by one person in many countries is at or over an acre (you can google this to verify). Now, this is an average that includes farms with single families, etc. Considering this, at current birth rates with reduced die off, overpopulation of the globe will take some time. To that point there will be issues with relocating people out of already overcrowded areas, such as China and India, but overall there will be no significant overcrowding globally for some time.
Now here is where the basic flaw of his thinking comes in. He is only conisdering that we inhabit the land masses of the Earth. Rejecting space travel for the moment, that leaves 70% of the Earth's surface uninhabited. Oceans cover the majority of the surface and have the potential to be colonized.
Alright, now for space travel. We have within our technology the ability to travel to and occupy at least one celestial body. Although it would need to be resolved internationally, the moon can be colonized using current technology. Heck, engineers at NASA figured out how to do it in the sixties and seventies, and they believed that we would already be up there by now. If not for the demise of the space race, we might be. Now consider that this life extension will not occur for another 30 years, and the overpopulation will not occur until some time after that. This provides a significant window for technological advancement in other fields that could advance space travel and engineering technologies.
Considering the window of opportunity that presents itself for technological advancement, the assumption that overpopulation itself will be a significant issue for long, if at all, is a flawed assumption. It is simply a possibility, not a certainty. In all likelihood, by the time this life extension is possible and available to the population as a whole, there will be many other factors at play. You must remember that although it may be possible by 2030, that doesn't mean it will be cheap by 2030. Most likely the cost will remove it from all but the most wealthy individuals list of options for some time. Realistically, I wouldn't expect this technology to be available to the population at large for at least fifty years after introduction. Barring a governmental mandate, as per vacinations, there would be no incentive for companies to make it affordable. Anyone who really wants to live that long will pay for it. Not to mention, misplaced fears of overcrowding will probably be used as an excuse to keep it out of the hands of the bourgeoisie.
To summarize, the notion that this technology will be made available and affordable for regular use within our lifetimes is unlikely, if not pure fantasy. Whether or not it is possible has nothing to do with it. On top of that, the notion that if made available it will cause overcrowding in any rapid manner is also based on misconceptions of population trends and also does not account for technological advancements. Finally, assuming overcrowding does become an issue, it will either reverse itself through the spread of civilization beyond current bounds due to technological advancements, or it will be a fatal factor. There will never be a voluntary, rational reduction in birth rates. Even with re
As a student and (former) resident of said university, let me clarify a few issues. UTDallas provides free wireless internet connectivity to all residents in the Waterview Park apartment community. Waterview Park is a privately operated apartment community residing on state held land and is exclusively for students of UTD. When you move into Waterview, you sign a standart TAA (Texas Apartment Association) lease with three or four addendums. These addendums govern your stay in the apartments. These are the ONLY applicable restrictions on a contractual basis. No where in those rules does it mention internet connectivity.
The university is using a campus policy prohibiting the operation of wireless equipment by faculty and staff in the classroom buildings to try to ban the operation of private access points in residences governed under tenant law, not campus policy. That is unenforceable. The only problem is that most students will simply capitulate in order to avoid trouble.
A word on the wireless access itself. It was originally installed in phase eight of the campus housing in the fall of 2001. That was my freshman year. Connectivity was decent, but there were many restrictions. If you uploaded too many files by FTP, for example, you would be dropped and banned for one hour. Since I worked in web design and internet applications programming, this was unacceptable. I got my own connection. Since then, the wireless has been expanded to all residential housing. It has never been the same since. Instead of installing wiring to each phase and then using wireless inside the phases, all the phases are operating on a giant radio mesh back to phase eight where the connectivity to campus is. Bandwidth is terrible. Many times it is non-existant. In order to alleviate security concerns, they recently rolled out 802.1x authentication using PEAP.
Now the network doesn't even work for most users. Many of my friends and myself are now unable to connect, even when assisted by the campus help desk. Instructions are followed to the letter, with the result of "802.1x authentication failed." This leaves residents with no recourse but to seek other connectivity.
The simplest way to share a connection in these apartments is with wireless connectivity. It is also the safest, since the fire marshall will write tickets for cables running across the apartment during his regular inspections (these are allowed through an addendum to the lease contract). So, running cables can result in a fine.
The campus information resources department is now blaming all their problems on "rogue" access points. They claim that the connectivity issues are being caused by too many access points in the phases. I would like to point out that even when WAP's were still $200-$300 and no students had them, the connectivity was bad.
The advice I give to my friends is this: Turn off SSID broadcast. They are too stupid to be able to find them if they can't just browse them. On top of that, simply refuse them access to your apartment. The only people allowed in are campus police, maintenace, and the fire department. That is in the contract, hold them to it. Last, don't be afraid to call a lawyer. Free money is free money. There are probably many lawyers out there who will see this as a goldmine.
If a campus official is reading this, here is a message: Maybe you should have run this by the campus legal department first. These apartments are governed under tenant laws, not campus policy. By detecting and shutting down access points, you may be committing several punishable hacking offenses. (Warchalking, anyone?) By governing unlicensed spectrum, you are very possibly in violation of federal law.
And by saying that access points running on seperate channels are interfering with your connections (despite evidence from students that this is not the case), they are simply showing your ignorance of current technologies. They should ban cell phones, wireless phones, and water heaters first. All of those cause proven interference.
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...make you realize just what you take for granted. That voice was the same from day one. Yet it never dawned on me there was a person (and, it turns out, a relatively prominent one) behind that sound. Another talent gone. Another memory created. Another ubiquitous item in our lives that will have to be replaced. The voice will never be the same. Godspeed, Majel.
The problem is that a lot of people get the CS and SE degrees just so they can secure a "career." They don't actually care about the tech. They want to do the bare minimum of work then leave for the day. JUST LIKE ANY OTHER CAREER. Look at marketing, sales, civil engineering, structural engineering, architecture, secretaries, human resources, and all the others. The employees behave the same way. Tech is no longer marginalized like it was. It is a commodity job. All the frat boys and jocks are now doing it as well; so the rules are the same as for any other job.
The main difference between tech and the more prestigious or artistic of the normal careers, is that job hopping in tech is relatively easy to justify because salaries don't scale with results. There is no "stay in this position for five years than make partner" or "complete this project and get a massive bonus or profit share." You just keep hopping until you hit that salary you want or you get stuck in a "cost-of-living" raise situation. But that isn't really different from an accounting, HR, or other commodity positions.
Couple that with the proliferation of technology to the point that for younger people it is commonplace and boring, then you have the current situation.
That being said, there is still probably about the same overall amount of driven, interested techies. The problem is that now they are diluted with all the career people.
Maybe on the corporate side.....I had a four-year, on-site support for a home desktop that I could never get them to honor. I was actually told by the Indian call-center employee that he could not approve the on-site visit because he would be fired if he did. They were hired to keep costs low, so they were not allowed by their management to do anything that would result in a charge to Dell.
I didn't pay chump change for that support and over the course of two hard drive failures, sound card death, and eventual motherboard toastiness, I always ended up having to replace the parts myself on my own dime after days of trying to get them to honor the contract.
I have not bought a Dell since except for corporate installs. The corporate support has always been spectacular. Home became crap once they outsourced it. I hear tell, though, that they are bringing all support back to the USA. I hope so, because maybe then I can order from them again.
I think you missed the point of the original post. He is asking why these weapons being used by the military on American soil? More pointedly, why is the military being used against civilians on American soil? That is not their purpose.
Trust me, I would if I could. Most of the apartments in Dallas have "single provider" agreements. I can't even have a T1 or something like that dropped in because the apartment owners sell the wiring rights to single companies, and those companies will only give you one option and will not allow anybody else into the equipment closets or walls. The apartment owners have the right to refuse access to anyone they want (it is their property, after all), and the telco secures and utilizes that right in a contract with the owner.
:-)
//I, for one, welcome our monopolistic communications overlords.
////Besides, some of the phone repair people are hot.
I could install satellite, but it would cost me.....a LOT.....a WHOLE LOT!!!!! Try a $1000 non-refundable damage deposit to put the dish on the building plus a minimum of $75000 in renters liability insurance.
I can't get cable, because the same owner that sells the rights to the phone lines also sells rights to the cable...and guess who buys them....the phone company.
Even in the case that the owner sells the rights to two different people (phone and cable to two separate companies), the two parties generally get together and reach a side agreement. In my current building, I am supposed to be able to get Comcast cable and internet....but Comcast and SBC got together and swapped rights on several complexes. Now SBC controls phone AND cable in my complex and Comcast has the same in another (reselling someone elses phone service).
You can't win for losing.
This is pretty much the case at every apartment I have EVER lived in within the Dallas metroplex. The only exception was the apartment in the high crime district where we couldn't even get cable or DSL.
In the end, you are technically correct....I could get a satellite. But it is prohibitively expensive. To me it is simply easier and cheaper to put my ego and my temper to the side and suck up. It works. Its easy. Its cheap.
It is kind of like why I stay at my current job.
I figure patience with these inconvenient things now will pay off by saving me much energy and stress while working on my own things/ideas. Different priorities, I guess.
I just look forward to buying a house in the next few months so that I can have the illusion of provider choice for at least a few more months before the telcos and cable companies manage to legislate their monopolies back into (stronger) existance.
In the end, the telcos have millions of lobbying dollars and congressmen have giant holes in their pockets to fill. One day we will all have to bow to our evil communications overlords, may as well start practicing now.
To be blunt, where I am there is only one choice for internet service. The single provider may change, depending on what municipality, but in the end you only have one choice in your apartment. So, when I have an issue I suck up. I act stupid and helpless and ultra sickly sweet. I thank them profusely every step of the way.
It may not be as satisfying as being intelligent or righteously indignant on the phone, but it gets great results. I consistently get a tech out same day (from ATT (SBC), no less). I have problems where my circuit speed will drop drastically (from 3Mbps to 145Kbps) on a regular basis, and now that I have started being saccharine sweet, it is generally fixed almost immediately.
Simply point out that it is running incredibly slow (say something about images and pages taking FOREVER to load, don't sound techie) and that you logged in following THEIR instructions (thank you guys for giving me those previously, oh thank you thank you) and checked the speed and saw that it was slower than normal (from what you guys told me before), and that you would greatly appreciate it if they could fix it (since I am so helpless and LOVE you guys), and please help me, and oh lord thank you so much for giving me your time.
Other than that, make sure your router isn't causing you problems. Swap it out with a borrowed one or something. I had a bad one that was destroying my throughput. Check cables, wall sockets, everything. Make sure you can eliminate everything on your end before you call them.
However, if they ask you to test things again, gleefully (pretend) to do it. It makes them happy and gets you better service later. After all, it is not really that hard to sit there reading the newspaper and drinking coffee and simply saying "Nope, still doesn't work."
Sadly, I don't think the real estate bubble is only limited to the "red hot markets." You have to figure, in places like Texas salaries are MUCH lower on average, so house prices really don't have to be that high to have the same effect. I know a LOT of people making $40,000 a year living in $180,000+ houses. They can only afford them through non-standard loans.
Not to mention, even though the prices are lower than they are in hotter markets, they have still increased drastically. Houses that I could have bought just two years ago for $250,000 (which WAS a nice house down here) now go north of $300K. That is a large increase for an area with an average historic annual appreciation of only 2-4% depending on the neighborhood.
It is frustrating for me to watch because everytime I get a pay raise or sell out a small investment for capital, the price of houses jump and I still can't afford the house I want. I have seen my target price rise from $180,000 to $300,000 for the same houses over the last five years. Not the doubling of value annually you saw in other markets, but still not a standard increase. I really hope it starts to cool down. Townhomes and condos have already started to come down here (as out-of-state investors and expatriots realized that in Dallas currently, townhomes were actually more expensive than a house) and I hope the houses follow the trend after the multi-family units equalize in price.
You have to look at their current stage of cultural development. In the past, Christianity and Judaism were barbaric religions. Generally they became this way after gaining too much power and a large following, then they slowly moved back towards moderation. This move to moderation occurred after members of the faith began to sponsor the changes in religious culture. They began to embrace the sharing of ideas and freedom of expression of those ideas, even at great danger to themselves. The Islamic religion is still in its "terrible twos" so to speak. They are at the same stage that Christians were in during the crusades and inquisition. Until their societies and cultures move past the embracing of religious ideals over social ideals, they will continue to be this way.
Well, maybe this isn't a big deal. From the context of the article, it sounds like it is currently being used/developed to patrol vulnerable networks, not necessarily invade. Of course, it can't be too hard to make it invasive. I would really only be concerned if it actually is put onto the computer system. It would need to be cross-platform to be really effective at that. More than likely it is a port-scanner and data sniffing combination tool. Maybe some TCP/IP "exploit" manipulation. Of course, this is really just speculation on my part.
:)
Even if it was invasive at the actual system software level, any paranoid company/individual could probably easily thwart it by running custom compiled kernels with re-named hooks, custom compiled software, etc. I mean, it would be a time drain to implement, but if you were really that scared of it.....it could be worth it.
Short of it being a locally run program (worm or otherwise), just be sure to properly secure your network and systems. Let it be other peoples problem. Always the best choice.
Not to say you shouldn't speak out against it, I plan to if I get the chance and more information on it.
Wow. Rated as redundant, even though I was the first to post this particular observation (I posted when there were only 32 replies). The joys of slashdot.
:)
Troll me down!
Anyway, regarding the reply to my response, thank you for taking the time. I was just too lazy to start digging out the passages. Hypocrite may have been too harsh a word. I think that Hannibal was probably just dismissing an author who had jumped to conclusions based off of vague and overly complex source material. Especially since that author has had a history of doing so in the past. I think it would have been nice, however, for Hannibal to actually read the patent himself and see if he came to different conclusions. But anyway, the past is the past.
It is interesting to note that he uses the same terminologies and conclusions that he lambasted another author for. Wow. Hannibal is a hypocrite.
Specific Example: Locally Addressable Memory vs. Cache.
Granted, he may simply have not had access to the information at that time (doubtful, since the article he critiqued was gleaned from the patent application), but he was vicious in his dissection of the article. Does anyone know if he ever appologized for being a moron towards Nicholas Blachford?
No, they are not in the clear. But the admin (my direct supervisor) is able to go in and check them using a management app. Since all usernames and passwords are assigned from inside the company using random generators for our clients, sometimes they need to be checked to make sure the correct one was sent out. Sometimes they are also reassigned at the customers request.
I will say this though. Our administrator for our call center does something really insecure. All the telemarketers passwords are the same as the username. But, since he is the boss, he gets away with it.
Well, it is nice that this guy actually bothered to write this up, but he seems to simply be using a lot of common mistakes and guesswork. On top of that, his knoweledge of some basic concepts in hardware administration and business processes is somewhat lacking.
First, MAC address are not unique. There is no universal table of MAC's that hardware manufacturers report to. I have installed ethernet cards from the SAME manufacturer that have had the SAME MAC address while setting up machines for a client.
Second, many of these errors are not necessarily the programmers fault. They are more than likely the responsibility of management being cheap and forcing programmers to do the jobs of multiple people. IT is seperate from software development. The fact that the network and server are insecure is the IT department/person's fault. In small companies this may be the same person, but in most large corporations that is not the case. Directory listing and permissions are generally the responsibility of the server administrator.
Now, the username issues are definitely scary. Leaving test accounts open with simple passwords is just plain stupid. The company I develop software for has over fifty million dollars worth of data on their servers. We also store credit card info for clients, etc. If we used common passwords like that, we would be fired. The admin would go through the database, see the passwords, and report them to our supervisor. Say goodbye! Not to mention, test accounts on production servers are bad practice anyway. If you are making any money, you are extremely stupid not to have a seperate development environment.
In my opionion, these problems seem to be more management and implementation problems, and not so much development problems as the author seems to suggest. They are still real problems though. That customer listing one for the phone company really scares me. ::shiver:: I hope SBC in Texas doesn't have problems like that.
It is interesting to note that de Grey believes that people will voluntarily cease having children in order to solve any overpopulation problems. This may be as flawed as his assumption that a population problem would continue to manifest itself beyond a certain point. Consider China, if you will. Their population control and birth rate controls have worked, but only with enforcement by governments. Logically, some people will understand the need to control population, in certain areas. However, most people in free countries will not stand for it. It is the forbidden fruit syndrome. The more it is forbidden, the more people want it.
Now consider that people currently inhabit about 54% of the earth's surface. This number includes farms and any areas not totally uninhabited. The average amount of land occupied by one person in many countries is at or over an acre (you can google this to verify). Now, this is an average that includes farms with single families, etc. Considering this, at current birth rates with reduced die off, overpopulation of the globe will take some time. To that point there will be issues with relocating people out of already overcrowded areas, such as China and India, but overall there will be no significant overcrowding globally for some time.
Now here is where the basic flaw of his thinking comes in. He is only conisdering that we inhabit the land masses of the Earth. Rejecting space travel for the moment, that leaves 70% of the Earth's surface uninhabited. Oceans cover the majority of the surface and have the potential to be colonized.
Alright, now for space travel. We have within our technology the ability to travel to and occupy at least one celestial body. Although it would need to be resolved internationally, the moon can be colonized using current technology. Heck, engineers at NASA figured out how to do it in the sixties and seventies, and they believed that we would already be up there by now. If not for the demise of the space race, we might be. Now consider that this life extension will not occur for another 30 years, and the overpopulation will not occur until some time after that. This provides a significant window for technological advancement in other fields that could advance space travel and engineering technologies.
Considering the window of opportunity that presents itself for technological advancement, the assumption that overpopulation itself will be a significant issue for long, if at all, is a flawed assumption. It is simply a possibility, not a certainty. In all likelihood, by the time this life extension is possible and available to the population as a whole, there will be many other factors at play. You must remember that although it may be possible by 2030, that doesn't mean it will be cheap by 2030. Most likely the cost will remove it from all but the most wealthy individuals list of options for some time. Realistically, I wouldn't expect this technology to be available to the population at large for at least fifty years after introduction. Barring a governmental mandate, as per vacinations, there would be no incentive for companies to make it affordable. Anyone who really wants to live that long will pay for it. Not to mention, misplaced fears of overcrowding will probably be used as an excuse to keep it out of the hands of the bourgeoisie.
To summarize, the notion that this technology will be made available and affordable for regular use within our lifetimes is unlikely, if not pure fantasy. Whether or not it is possible has nothing to do with it. On top of that, the notion that if made available it will cause overcrowding in any rapid manner is also based on misconceptions of population trends and also does not account for technological advancements. Finally, assuming overcrowding does become an issue, it will either reverse itself through the spread of civilization beyond current bounds due to technological advancements, or it will be a fatal factor. There will never be a voluntary, rational reduction in birth rates. Even with re
As a student and (former) resident of said university, let me clarify a few issues. UTDallas provides free wireless internet connectivity to all residents in the Waterview Park apartment community. Waterview Park is a privately operated apartment community residing on state held land and is exclusively for students of UTD. When you move into Waterview, you sign a standart TAA (Texas Apartment Association) lease with three or four addendums. These addendums govern your stay in the apartments. These are the ONLY applicable restrictions on a contractual basis. No where in those rules does it mention internet connectivity.
The university is using a campus policy prohibiting the operation of wireless equipment by faculty and staff in the classroom buildings to try to ban the operation of private access points in residences governed under tenant law, not campus policy. That is unenforceable. The only problem is that most students will simply capitulate in order to avoid trouble.
A word on the wireless access itself. It was originally installed in phase eight of the campus housing in the fall of 2001. That was my freshman year. Connectivity was decent, but there were many restrictions. If you uploaded too many files by FTP, for example, you would be dropped and banned for one hour. Since I worked in web design and internet applications programming, this was unacceptable. I got my own connection. Since then, the wireless has been expanded to all residential housing. It has never been the same since. Instead of installing wiring to each phase and then using wireless inside the phases, all the phases are operating on a giant radio mesh back to phase eight where the connectivity to campus is. Bandwidth is terrible. Many times it is non-existant. In order to alleviate security concerns, they recently rolled out 802.1x authentication using PEAP.
Now the network doesn't even work for most users. Many of my friends and myself are now unable to connect, even when assisted by the campus help desk. Instructions are followed to the letter, with the result of "802.1x authentication failed."
This leaves residents with no recourse but to seek other connectivity.
The simplest way to share a connection in these apartments is with wireless connectivity. It is also the safest, since the fire marshall will write tickets for cables running across the apartment during his regular inspections (these are allowed through an addendum to the lease contract). So, running cables can result in a fine.
The campus information resources department is now blaming all their problems on "rogue" access points. They claim that the connectivity issues are being caused by too many access points in the phases. I would like to point out that even when WAP's were still $200-$300 and no students had them, the connectivity was bad.
The advice I give to my friends is this: Turn off SSID broadcast. They are too stupid to be able to find them if they can't just browse them. On top of that, simply refuse them access to your apartment. The only people allowed in are campus police, maintenace, and the fire department. That is in the contract, hold them to it. Last, don't be afraid to call a lawyer. Free money is free money. There are probably many lawyers out there who will see this as a goldmine.
If a campus official is reading this, here is a message: Maybe you should have run this by the campus legal department first. These apartments are governed under tenant laws, not campus policy. By detecting and shutting down access points, you may be committing several punishable hacking offenses. (Warchalking, anyone?) By governing unlicensed spectrum, you are very possibly in violation of federal law.
And by saying that access points running on seperate channels are interfering with your connections (despite evidence from students that this is not the case), they are simply showing your ignorance of current technologies. They should ban cell phones, wireless phones, and water heaters first. All of those cause proven interference.