I have some advice for your software team from a fellow developer, when you're the sole contributer to the software's security design you assume the risk as well. Let the security experts define the functional requirements and focus on the implementation.
Security involves more than encrypting passwords and defining some roles. Thorough auditing, timely alerts, and granular data control are mandated by regulations like SOX and HIPAA. A cavalier, do-it-yourself attitude puts you and your company at risk.
As much as I'm all for freedom of speech, sometimes I think people take it a little too far by bringing such graphic images into the public square. Anti-abortionist protestors will frequently hold up graphic (bordering on pornographic) posters showing aborted fetii. This is done in full view of children.
My beef with abortion protesters isn't with their right to use graphic images to support their argument. I doubt they've received any form of consent to use the images. It's distasteful from the patient's perspective to abortion-rights advocates and from the child's perspective to pro-life advocates. I dislike the campaign's tactic for the same reason, a political site, or even pornography, would have been a better choice.
Also, there's a difference between street corners and targeted communication like Web sites and pamphlets. Forcing graphic images on people robs them of their right to avoid them.
I have to believe Comcast is telling the truth and some kind of malware is to blame. Over my many years in corporate IT departments, I've seen customer information handled poorly in many way. But an application storing passwords in clear text? I can honestly say I've never seen that happen. Maybe in some homegrown internal application, but not a customer-facing web site in the post-SOX era. A company as big as Comcast is certainly using third-party authentication software. They would have to go out of their way to capture passwords.
If this document is traced back to Comcast they're guilty of more than simple incompetence, they engaged in deliberate unethical behavior.
That's something I've never heard of, but according to Wikipedia people really walked around with slide rules on their belt.
Some engineering students and engineers carried ten-inch slide rules in belt holsters, and even into the mid 1970s this was a common sight on campuses. Students also might keep a ten-or twenty-inch rule for precision work at home or the office while carrying a five-inch pocket slide rule around with them.
Thank you, I thought there was some nefarious event in Colossus' history that I wasn't aware of. I spent 20 minutes searching the web for stories about chained-up computer scientists or it's role in bombing orphanages.
I remember using Mosaic as Gopher client, which I used more than the WWW in my early college days. Other browsers may have supported the protocol, but by the time I starting using Netscape, Gopher's time had passed.
I understood the troll's intent. I was just countering his insult by saying most Americans love the food and culture new immigrants bring to our country, more so than work skills.
Oh no! The summary said PhDs and business managers were leaving, so I wasn't worried. But if the restaurant proprietors are going we have to act now. This is America, you can have your doctors and scientists, but for the love of God, don't take our food.
It is exactly the same as insisting that the plate that the waiter brings doesn't have a steaming pile of shit on it.
Allow me to take our bad analogies a step further. It's like asking the waiter, who took this steaming pile shit? Because if it was Microsoft, I'm not eating it. It was Adobe? Ok, some fresh pepper sounds great.
I won't disagree with that. I haven't downloaded the Silverlight plug-in and will do everything I can to keep it that way. When Silverlight was announced I thought "great, finally something is going to challenge Flash." But so far, it's been a less popular, equally crappy platform.
That's like boycotting spoons because a steakhouse didn't give you a knife. This wasn't the right application for a Youtube-like Silverlight player. You can't blame the MS for Netflix's terrible decision.
If Netflix rolled out a Silverlight player with high quality video and didn't force customers to use it exclusively, I doubt there would have been any complaints. Bad features and poor service can be implemented on any platform.
The Japanese phone of choice, the Panasonic P905i, would be a tough sell in the US. Sure, a big screen and TV tuner are nice features, but it's big and ugly. Americans spend their time in their cars and homes, surrounded by televisions. A handheld TV may be useful in Japan, but I doubt many people in the US would waste their time uploading videos to their phone. The iPhone has a thin case, simple interface, and applications Americans want on the go (email, web, youtube, etc). Surprise, people in Japan and the US have different preferences.
According to TechDirt, the judge even allegedly put pressure on BlockShopper to back down by saying, "Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?"
That sounds like bad dialog from a Lifetime network lawyer movie or something.
Well, it was insightful for the first three quarters at least:) This is two exciting finishes in a row, which has to make late-game advertisers happy. With a few minutes on the clock, the conservative game plans went out the window. I live about 10 miles north of the stadium and saw a lot of true Steelers fans there. I'll concede that the game and the crowd were much better than most Super Bowls.
Exactly, this could have been touted as proof that MS was serious about.NET interoperability. Instead they chose to install it silently and make it difficult to remove, making the update a nuisance to FF users.
The Super Bowl without ads is like an adult movie on American network TV. Even avid football fans find the game boring. The neutral-site stadium is filled with disinterested corporate types, the pace is even slower than a typical NFL game, and the teams tend to play very conservative. The game must be unwatchable for anyone without a rooting and/or monetary interest.
So why do so many Americans watch it? The ads, parties, beer, salted snacks, and gambling. Don't get me wrong, Americans love football, but Super Bowl Sunday has evolved into a national holiday. Football is as important to the Super Bowl as Jesus is to Christmas.
I don't mind a distinction between workstation and server versions of an OS, or a cheaper basic version stripped of bundled crap like media software and bad productivity suites (like MS Works).
But I find the Vista versions really objectionable. It's a dishonest scheme to milk PC buyers. The buyer wants to know what version is right for him, and the salesman says "you want a great looking interface for that great computer you just bought, right? Well, you'll need the Premium Edition. How about backups, you don't want to lose your files? OK, you'll need the Business Edition. Wait, you want backups and be able to create DVDs right? Great, I'll ring you up for the Ultimate Edition."
The minister must start listening to the experts, who have repeatedly made the point that most predatory risks to children lurk in those areas of the online world this kind of filtering will do little to combat.
Blacklists and content scanning will have, at best, a negligible impact on child predators and pornographers. Any progress will be quickly negated as pedophiles adapt to the technology. Even proponents of the filter have to recognize that.
Given the enormous monetary and social costs, I can't believe this will ever really materialize. I'm sure some politicians exploited the issue for their own benefit, but I suspect the idea will either go away or be implemented in a symbolic, watered-down manner.
I would argue it takes more effort to wipe out all traces of email and files than find a backup. I call shenanigans if the White House claims any email was "lost" and can't be recovered.
Sure, more companies may be looking for ways to avoid licensing fees, but does that translate into more contributions to FOSS projects? Don't get me wrong, a larger user base is a good thing, but more companies riding the coattails of the open source community won't lead to a golden age of open source. When organizations use their development resources to contribute to projects rather than develop internal applications or hire a commercial vendor's professional services "free software idealism" is realized.
When I say "more sympathetic" I don't mean I expect everyone to completely agree with the RIAA. I still have a problem with perpetual copyright for example. But what if their position was: "Hey, we produce songs and expect people to pay for it over the next few years. If you make copies for personal use and to share directly with friends, or resell the music you legally purchased, no problem. But downloading songs from distribution channels that fail to compensate our company is theft." That would be fair and logical. If downloading a song you simply didn't feel like paying for was the legal equivalent of stealing a Chapstick from Walgreens, I don't think most people would feel it was an injustice.
I'm an avid music fan that has always paid for music on whatever the predominant media was at the time. But now I'm treated like a criminal or burdened by bizarre DRM schemes when I try to share and enjoy music like I used to.
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I have some advice for your software team from a fellow developer, when you're the sole contributer to the software's security design you assume the risk as well. Let the security experts define the functional requirements and focus on the implementation.
Security involves more than encrypting passwords and defining some roles. Thorough auditing, timely alerts, and granular data control are mandated by regulations like SOX and HIPAA. A cavalier, do-it-yourself attitude puts you and your company at risk.
As much as I'm all for freedom of speech, sometimes I think people take it a little too far by bringing such graphic images into the public square. Anti-abortionist protestors will frequently hold up graphic (bordering on pornographic) posters showing aborted fetii. This is done in full view of children.
My beef with abortion protesters isn't with their right to use graphic images to support their argument. I doubt they've received any form of consent to use the images. It's distasteful from the patient's perspective to abortion-rights advocates and from the child's perspective to pro-life advocates. I dislike the campaign's tactic for the same reason, a political site, or even pornography, would have been a better choice.
Also, there's a difference between street corners and targeted communication like Web sites and pamphlets. Forcing graphic images on people robs them of their right to avoid them.
I have to believe Comcast is telling the truth and some kind of malware is to blame. Over my many years in corporate IT departments, I've seen customer information handled poorly in many way. But an application storing passwords in clear text? I can honestly say I've never seen that happen. Maybe in some homegrown internal application, but not a customer-facing web site in the post-SOX era. A company as big as Comcast is certainly using third-party authentication software. They would have to go out of their way to capture passwords.
If this document is traced back to Comcast they're guilty of more than simple incompetence, they engaged in deliberate unethical behavior.
The belt holster is the pocket protector of the 21st century. But don't worry retro-nerds, the GP assures us it fits in your shirt pocket.
Thank you, I thought there was some nefarious event in Colossus' history that I wasn't aware of. I spent 20 minutes searching the web for stories about chained-up computer scientists or it's role in bombing orphanages.
I remember using Mosaic as Gopher client, which I used more than the WWW in my early college days. Other browsers may have supported the protocol, but by the time I starting using Netscape, Gopher's time had passed.
I understood the troll's intent. I was just countering his insult by saying most Americans love the food and culture new immigrants bring to our country, more so than work skills.
Oh no! The summary said PhDs and business managers were leaving, so I wasn't worried. But if the restaurant proprietors are going we have to act now. This is America, you can have your doctors and scientists, but for the love of God, don't take our food.
Allow me to take our bad analogies a step further. It's like asking the waiter, who took this steaming pile shit? Because if it was Microsoft, I'm not eating it. It was Adobe? Ok, some fresh pepper sounds great.
I won't disagree with that. I haven't downloaded the Silverlight plug-in and will do everything I can to keep it that way. When Silverlight was announced I thought "great, finally something is going to challenge Flash." But so far, it's been a less popular, equally crappy platform.
That's like boycotting spoons because a steakhouse didn't give you a knife. This wasn't the right application for a Youtube-like Silverlight player. You can't blame the MS for Netflix's terrible decision.
If Netflix rolled out a Silverlight player with high quality video and didn't force customers to use it exclusively, I doubt there would have been any complaints. Bad features and poor service can be implemented on any platform.
You must not have seen US automakers' stock prices lately ;)
The Japanese phone of choice, the Panasonic P905i, would be a tough sell in the US. Sure, a big screen and TV tuner are nice features, but it's big and ugly. Americans spend their time in their cars and homes, surrounded by televisions. A handheld TV may be useful in Japan, but I doubt many people in the US would waste their time uploading videos to their phone. The iPhone has a thin case, simple interface, and applications Americans want on the go (email, web, youtube, etc). Surprise, people in Japan and the US have different preferences.
That sounds like bad dialog from a Lifetime network lawyer movie or something.
That was always one of my favorite MS facts, unfortunately they switched to IIS a few years ago. Netcraft confirmed it :)
Well, it was insightful for the first three quarters at least :) This is two exciting finishes in a row, which has to make late-game advertisers happy. With a few minutes on the clock, the conservative game plans went out the window. I live about 10 miles north of the stadium and saw a lot of true Steelers fans there. I'll concede that the game and the crowd were much better than most Super Bowls.
Exactly, this could have been touted as proof that MS was serious about .NET interoperability. Instead they chose to install it silently and make it difficult to remove, making the update a nuisance to FF users.
The Super Bowl without ads is like an adult movie on American network TV. Even avid football fans find the game boring. The neutral-site stadium is filled with disinterested corporate types, the pace is even slower than a typical NFL game, and the teams tend to play very conservative. The game must be unwatchable for anyone without a rooting and/or monetary interest.
So why do so many Americans watch it? The ads, parties, beer, salted snacks, and gambling. Don't get me wrong, Americans love football, but Super Bowl Sunday has evolved into a national holiday. Football is as important to the Super Bowl as Jesus is to Christmas.
I don't mind a distinction between workstation and server versions of an OS, or a cheaper basic version stripped of bundled crap like media software and bad productivity suites (like MS Works).
But I find the Vista versions really objectionable. It's a dishonest scheme to milk PC buyers. The buyer wants to know what version is right for him, and the salesman says "you want a great looking interface for that great computer you just bought, right? Well, you'll need the Premium Edition. How about backups, you don't want to lose your files? OK, you'll need the Business Edition. Wait, you want backups and be able to create DVDs right? Great, I'll ring you up for the Ultimate Edition."
Blacklists and content scanning will have, at best, a negligible impact on child predators and pornographers. Any progress will be quickly negated as pedophiles adapt to the technology. Even proponents of the filter have to recognize that.
Given the enormous monetary and social costs, I can't believe this will ever really materialize. I'm sure some politicians exploited the issue for their own benefit, but I suspect the idea will either go away or be implemented in a symbolic, watered-down manner.
As Homer Simpson would say, they're incompetent, incompetent like a fox!
I would argue it takes more effort to wipe out all traces of email and files than find a backup. I call shenanigans if the White House claims any email was "lost" and can't be recovered.
Sure, more companies may be looking for ways to avoid licensing fees, but does that translate into more contributions to FOSS projects? Don't get me wrong, a larger user base is a good thing, but more companies riding the coattails of the open source community won't lead to a golden age of open source. When organizations use their development resources to contribute to projects rather than develop internal applications or hire a commercial vendor's professional services "free software idealism" is realized.
When I say "more sympathetic" I don't mean I expect everyone to completely agree with the RIAA. I still have a problem with perpetual copyright for example. But what if their position was: "Hey, we produce songs and expect people to pay for it over the next few years. If you make copies for personal use and to share directly with friends, or resell the music you legally purchased, no problem. But downloading songs from distribution channels that fail to compensate our company is theft." That would be fair and logical. If downloading a song you simply didn't feel like paying for was the legal equivalent of stealing a Chapstick from Walgreens, I don't think most people would feel it was an injustice.
I'm an avid music fan that has always paid for music on whatever the predominant media was at the time. But now I'm treated like a criminal or burdened by bizarre DRM schemes when I try to share and enjoy music like I used to.