Sometimes that is whats down and sometimes the site prefered the pin being almost the same. It actually depended on the site. Or software was very configurable to deal with a wide range of sites(we have grade 1 security military site down to local shops and in the middle large corporates).
The most common policy I encountered was that the duress one number greater than the actual PIN(which lead to some interesting bugs involving accidentally overwriting duress PINS:) ). The reason for this policy was generally twofold.
a. When you are under duress you may not be able to recall your duress PIN as you are understress and its probably something you dont think about too much.
b. Security guards are generally not the brightest cabs on the rank.
The second one is very true. Not slagging all security guards... Ive met some very nice ones(generally the retired military or police who are bored and want to go back to work... even if its a cushy sitting around a guard room all day gig). Most tho are there cause they were too stupid to join the police.
That could work. A potential problem tho could be that the people who are pointing the gun may be aware of this. Its hard to fake... whilst duress code are often chosen to be a very simular number to the real PIN when being typed(I wrote a program that could generate PIN simular duress codes depending on the panel models we supported).
On a funny note. I used to work on a site that had duress buttons in the guard room. Pushing them would trigger a pager to send a prerecorded duress message to someone. The major problem was that nobody could work out how to turn off the speaker. So every time the duress button was pushed loud dialing DTMF codes could be heard, followed by a ring tone, then a voice saying "The guards at
It was firmly bolted to the wall so removal and relocation was impractical. Apparently theyd been worried about it for years. They were very impressed when I pointed out that they could simply disconnect the speaker. This was a Australian dept of Defence site in the sticks. They dont breed for their clevers out there.
One other thing that can be bad about biometric only interfaces that is rarely discussed is that it doesnt allow for whats called in the industry as duress codes. Say for example you are a security guard that has a gun pointed at your head and your being force to give access to someone.
If you have a password/PIN then most security panels allow for a dual PIN and duress code for a user. The regular PIN just opens the door. The duress PIN will open the door and trigger a silent alarm. No one gets hurt, bad guys are happy but the good guys are on the way.
Ballmer (from the article):"We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability," he said. (what does that mean?... I can't count the number of times I've not been able to lace up some Microsoft technology to some other technology... on the other hand, symmetrically I can't count the number of times I have easily been able to lace up some OSS to other technology.... (I know that doesn't qualify for tautology..., but it illustrates a point))
I suspect it means something along the lines of "We support interoperability as long as you are a commercial software development company. That way, if you start doing too well and threating us we can either a) simply buy you b) drive you out of business by undercutting your market with loss leaders c) sue you into oblivion as you are sure to be violating several of our patents from our vast patent library d) if you are too big(like IBM) then well just sign cross licence agreements with each other and back away slowly, muttering to ourselves while plotting our revenge. We might end up sicking SCO on you."
Just a guess.
Re:It makes you wonder...
on
P2P and TV
·
· Score: 1
I'd like to see media companies do something cool: if the product is no longer generating revenue, turn it loose on the web. Maybe that's just a dream, because they're hoping TV Land will pay royalties to air old TV shows, so since there's a *potential* revenue stream, the shows sit on the shelf.
I suspect eventually they might not have too much choice about this. Bandwidth and processing power still increase. Its now a fairly simple matter to download a 45 min TV program over a good broadband. Think 10 years back.. the vast majority where on dial up and the idea of downloading 100s of megs was ludicrous. Give it 30 years and there will be no such things as what we call TV I betcha. Youll have an on demand box that can deliver any TV program, song, movie you want. Its the most obvious integration of high speed packet switching networks and multimedia. How the business model will work I have no idea.... hopefully it humbles some of the idiots in Hollywood.
Well pointed out. I always find it amusing that people on the receiving end of news cannot seem to detach their personal bias from whats being said as well. You could have the most unbiased news report you possibly can, but if the message is not to someones liking then theyll start hollering about bias.
For example if there was a report such as
Today Pres. Bush launchd an unprovoked nuclear attack on a small innocent South American town in northern Brasil today. When question about his actions at the presidental press conference he was quoted as saying "I was kinda bored and wanted to see what its like to let off a nuke in case I lose the next election".
Im sure you would see some internet wing nut Bush supporter claiming that the entire story is biased and that the quote was taken entirely out of context. Probably that someone would be on fark.
Ask Slashdots with "no, I didn't go to college and I make a lot of money", as if that's the sole reason for actually going to college.
Exactly. Ive had this argument with so many people in the industry. Going to university is supposed to be about more than just earning more money(its supposed to teach you how to think people). I have a friend who is doing a masters in Comp Sci right now. When people hear about it that seem to think its a waste of time, "How is that going to get him more money?" is a common utterance. He aint doing it for more money. Hes doing it because hes curious about Computer Science and wants to research and learn more. Most people respond to that idea with increduality.
Dang. I wrote one as well but it was in 1994. You beat me... but I still beat them. We had what I guess youd call smart play lists also. It was for playing muzac in shopping malls.
OK. Im as tired of random MS bashing as the next guy. But he was, as has been pointed out, responding to paper that was attempting to describe something he produced. And point out the paper was incorrect.
Secondly. Does Microsoft have a product called Avalanche that I can purchase/download and use? No. Hence thats kinda the definition of vaporware really.
i mean, the MP obviously can't vote against their own party's bill. is there some chance they might introduce/support an ammendment to it?...suddenly realizing how little i actually know about canadian parliamentary procedure...
Im Australian, so Im assuming that Canadas parlimentary system is based on a modified British model. A memeber is free in Australia to vote however he or she feels. Despite party lines. In Britan and Australia this is refered to as Crossing the floor
Actually that link says the Canadian parliment refers to it as crossing the floor also.
you're just going to have to get some people skills, that's all.
"Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
Indeed. I used to live in Hammersmith and work in Woking.
Hammersmith was over the inbound flight path for Concorde and Woking was under the outbound(sad I have to say was... I saw the one they floated down the Thames from London Bridge).
From my cubicle you could tell it was leaving by the way things would fall off my desk due to the vibrations.
Even setting them to charge unique rates in all 50 states would probably burn no more than half a day, even with testing.
Youre not a contractor are you? With the correct amount of jargon, confusion and specification preperation; I could easily turn that half day into a three month project requiring several junior developers:)
But if I was running a department, I'd love to create an open forum,/. style, for employees to bounce ideas around. If I could have a department that was wasting their time internally instead of on/., I'd be a happy guy.
Ive been in both situations in my life, working at a tiny software development house and as a contractor at very large finacial instutions. In the tiny office it is, as you say, irrelavent as you can just ask the guys if they have time for a quick 30 min meeting to bounce ideas around.
In a large business environment tho this is generally not practical. The deluges of information that fly about on a large project are almost impossible to keep up with and hence you start to filter it as much as you can. So I dotn see how your system would work unless it had someway of automatically filter irrelavent content from you(and in large depts there is a *lot* of irrelavent content... lots of irrelavent people as well:) ). Ive worked in a large company where there was a company portal, the idea being something like what you talk of. Only just delivering content and newsletters and such. I was there for go live on it. They blew something like 30 million pounds on the whole project. After 6 months and much hype figures showed about 5-10 percent of the staff were using it. Most workers where stuck in Lotus Notes(what had always bee used) and were not going to budge.
As you are reading/. manager a soaftware house Im gonna go out on a limb and say you are interested in technology. I am also. And if you and I used the business slashdot then productive things might happen. *Most* people tho (esp in large companies) dont give a rats arse about technology, increasing productivity or solving problems. They are there to keep the seat warm, do as little work as they can get away with and receive a paycheque so they pay the morgage. That may sound a little negative. But well. Yes its a little negative:)
QNX was never seriously trying to be a competitor to Windows. There was talk at one point of them providing the kernel for a revamp version of AmigaOS when whoever bought AmigaOS bought it. But QNX doesnt need to be widnows cause it never has been. It has(and has for years) a nice little niche market in embeddable real tiem OSes(its competirors are things like vxWorks and eCOS). Quantum Systems seem to still be chuging along nicely in Canada... and from wht I understand, in the last ten years, they have grown steadily.
I like the idea of a future where virtually everyone is putting their ideas down for others to read. As the internet generation gets older, I think it will be more common for everyone to keep a weblog. The benefit to business is huge... imagine if every office worker was required to spend a few minutes a week on a company weblog, posting their ideas for managers and others to look at, or maybe if there was a company message board setup like Slashdot?
No. Please no. I have enough to do just to keep up with the torrent of email I receeive every day. A business orientated slashdot? Ive kidna done that(a local company usenet server... happens in a lot of tech companies). Ive rarely seen them used for any particularly productive purpose. Mainly used to ask people when/where they are going to lunch and post links to amusing flash animations/games.
The traditional media -- newspapers, TV, radio -- will be the ones to go, if they don't adapt to the new situation.
If other around here are old enough to recall the net before the rise of the WWW and the "Great Coming of the AOLers"
(I was in "The Great Coming of the Undergradates" that annoyed the real old timers... I still recall accidentally using nn to post to the wrong news group. I got about 50 irrate mails telling me this... these days its just par for the course... In those days : Spam bl9ock my email? Why would I want to do that?)
I recall that simular claim were made about plain old fashion HTML over HTTP replacing everything everywhere. Your post chimes a familar bell:)
Why are there no apprenticeships, like in the middle ages? Why can't you apprentice yourself to a microbiologist when you get out of highschool (or even before!), and help them with their research as they teach you the necessities of their job?
OK... senior developer here. Have degrees in Electronics/Comms Engineering and Computer Science. Over ten years experience. Looking for a 'prentice. Preferably young, female, blonde, open minded and impressionable.
I've heard they hypothesis before. The people who raise it seem to forget that civilization started in milder climes, such as Crete and Greece. (Various other places too, but I don't know enough about the weather in most of them to comment.)
That is an excellent point! The one thing milder climate gives you is, I suspect, a lot more leisure time(you dont have to worry about the stupid Nile flooding every year... or a random storm knocking down all your buildings). Leisure gives people like Socrates to lounge about and ponder:)
Look at Australia. They supposedly inherited a culture that was in thrall to science and engineering, but they don't seem to lead the world in much of anything.
Im sorry. Australian here, slightly offended. Australia has all sorts of skills in mining and telecom technology(Australia has had to design high tech equipment that can operate reliably in very harsh conditions... lots of Australians live in Dubai and lots of the middle east for this reason).
Go to the CSIRO web site also and have a poke at lotsa science and tech they do. Have a look at some of the random edu.au sites around the place.
Remember Australia invented the breeder reactor.
Howard Florey was Australian(shared the 1945 nbel prize for working out how to make proper penicillin). Australians also invented the bionic ear(See Dr Graeme Clark) and (the late) Dr Fred Hollows developed cheap cornial replacment treatments to try and put a stop to unnecessary blindness in the third world
William Lawrence the physicist(and winner of a nobel prize with his father Bragg) was born in Australia.
Polically : Australia invented the secret ballot and was the first western nation to give women the right to vote.
Sorry to go on. Please remember... there are only 20 million of us. There are 30 million odd in California alone. I personally think Australia does OK.
Try loading Word in Wine and compare it with OOo under Linux. Word would load almost instantly, while with OOo would wait... and wait... and wait. Unless Wine contains a hidden built-in Office preloader, I can conclude that Word loads fast by itself.
THis would not surprise me. Back when I used to write file system filter drivers for NT Word was our testing application of choice. Word makes use of every funky trick it can to talk to the file system. Some of these tricks are even documented:)
Basically our rulle of thumb was, if we could open a long Word doc with lotsa tables and images and what not in it and our filteer driver dint blue screen, it was pretty safe to assume just about anything could be poked at our driver and it wouldnt blue screen:)
Also. People keep making analogies to breaking into someone house... this analogy is stupid. We are talking about large organisations here that have mission critical computing infrastructure.
If dickhead breaks into my house and steals my DVD or whatever, I generally dont have to be to worried about the microwave oven if its still on the kitchen counter. Once a large commercial or govt network has been comprimised, audits take place all over the place. Maybe he cracked a random Oracle server and you didnt notice. Maybe he tamper with HR data... all sorts fo stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Sometimes that is whats down and sometimes the site prefered the pin being almost the same. It actually depended on the site. Or software was very configurable to deal with a wide range of sites(we have grade 1 security military site down to local shops and in the middle large corporates).
:) ). The reason for this policy was generally twofold.
The most common policy I encountered was that the duress one number greater than the actual PIN(which lead to some interesting bugs involving accidentally overwriting duress PINS
a. When you are under duress you may not be able to recall your duress PIN as you are understress and its probably something you dont think about too much. b. Security guards are generally not the brightest cabs on the rank.
The second one is very true. Not slagging all security guards... Ive met some very nice ones(generally the retired military or police who are bored and want to go back to work... even if its a cushy sitting around a guard room all day gig). Most tho are there cause they were too stupid to join the police.
That could work. A potential problem tho could be that the people who are pointing the gun may be aware of this. Its hard to fake... whilst duress code are often chosen to be a very simular number to the real PIN when being typed(I wrote a program that could generate PIN simular duress codes depending on the panel models we supported).
On a funny note. I used to work on a site that had duress buttons in the guard room. Pushing them would trigger a pager to send a prerecorded duress message to someone. The major problem was that nobody could work out how to turn off the speaker. So every time the duress button was pushed loud dialing DTMF codes could be heard, followed by a ring tone, then a voice saying "The guards at
It was firmly bolted to the wall so removal and relocation was impractical. Apparently theyd been worried about it for years. They were very impressed when I pointed out that they could simply disconnect the speaker. This was a Australian dept of Defence site in the sticks. They dont breed for their clevers out there.
One other thing that can be bad about biometric only interfaces that is rarely discussed is that it doesnt allow for whats called in the industry as duress codes. Say for example you are a security guard that has a gun pointed at your head and your being force to give access to someone.
If you have a password/PIN then most security panels allow for a dual PIN and duress code for a user. The regular PIN just opens the door. The duress PIN will open the door and trigger a silent alarm. No one gets hurt, bad guys are happy but the good guys are on the way.
Ballmer (from the article):"We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability," he said. (what does that mean?... I can't count the number of times I've not been able to lace up some Microsoft technology to some other technology... on the other hand, symmetrically I can't count the number of times I have easily been able to lace up some OSS to other technology.... (I know that doesn't qualify for tautology..., but it illustrates a point))
I suspect it means something along the lines of "We support interoperability as long as you are a commercial software development company. That way, if you start doing too well and threating us we can either a) simply buy you b) drive you out of business by undercutting your market with loss leaders c) sue you into oblivion as you are sure to be violating several of our patents from our vast patent library d) if you are too big(like IBM) then well just sign cross licence agreements with each other and back away slowly, muttering to ourselves while plotting our revenge. We might end up sicking SCO on you."
Just a guess.
I'd like to see media companies do something cool: if the product is no longer generating revenue, turn it loose on the web. Maybe that's just a dream, because they're hoping TV Land will pay royalties to air old TV shows, so since there's a *potential* revenue stream, the shows sit on the shelf.
I suspect eventually they might not have too much choice about this. Bandwidth and processing power still increase. Its now a fairly simple matter to download a 45 min TV program over a good broadband. Think 10 years back.. the vast majority where on dial up and the idea of downloading 100s of megs was ludicrous. Give it 30 years and there will be no such things as what we call TV I betcha. Youll have an on demand box that can deliver any TV program, song, movie you want. Its the most obvious integration of high speed packet switching networks and multimedia. How the business model will work I have no idea.... hopefully it humbles some of the idiots in Hollywood.
Well pointed out. I always find it amusing that people on the receiving end of news cannot seem to detach their personal bias from whats being said as well. You could have the most unbiased news report you possibly can, but if the message is not to someones liking then theyll start hollering about bias.
For example if there was a report such as
Today Pres. Bush launchd an unprovoked nuclear attack on a small innocent South American town in northern Brasil today. When question about his actions at the presidental press conference he was quoted as saying "I was kinda bored and wanted to see what its like to let off a nuke in case I lose the next election".
Im sure you would see some internet wing nut Bush supporter claiming that the entire story is biased and that the quote was taken entirely out of context. Probably that someone would be on fark.
John Bourne Vertebrate Pest Specialist
Wow. With a job description like that I bet he can impress the ladies.
Lay off the "synergy" powder dude.
Ask Slashdots with "no, I didn't go to college and I make a lot of money", as if that's the sole reason for actually going to college.
Exactly. Ive had this argument with so many people in the industry. Going to university is supposed to be about more than just earning more money(its supposed to teach you how to think people). I have a friend who is doing a masters in Comp Sci right now. When people hear about it that seem to think its a waste of time, "How is that going to get him more money?" is a common utterance. He aint doing it for more money. Hes doing it because hes curious about Computer Science and wants to research and learn more. Most people respond to that idea with increduality.
Dang. I wrote one as well but it was in 1994. You beat me... but I still beat them. We had what I guess youd call smart play lists also. It was for playing muzac in shopping malls.
OK. Im as tired of random MS bashing as the next guy. But he was, as has been pointed out, responding to paper that was attempting to describe something he produced. And point out the paper was incorrect.
Secondly. Does Microsoft have a product called Avalanche that I can purchase/download and use? No. Hence thats kinda the definition of vaporware really.
i mean, the MP obviously can't vote against their own party's bill. is there some chance they might introduce/support an ammendment to it? ...suddenly realizing how little i actually know about canadian parliamentary procedure...
Im Australian, so Im assuming that Canadas parlimentary system is based on a modified British model. A memeber is free in Australia to vote however he or she feels. Despite party lines. In Britan and Australia this is refered to as Crossing the floor
Actually that link says the Canadian parliment refers to it as crossing the floor also.
you're just going to have to get some people skills, that's all.
"Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"
Indeed. I used to live in Hammersmith and work in Woking.
Hammersmith was over the inbound flight path for Concorde and Woking was under the outbound(sad I have to say was... I saw the one they floated down the Thames from London Bridge).
From my cubicle you could tell it was leaving by the way things would fall off my desk due to the vibrations.
Even setting them to charge unique rates in all 50 states would probably burn no more than half a day, even with testing.
:)
Youre not a contractor are you? With the correct amount of jargon, confusion and specification preperation; I could easily turn that half day into a three month project requiring several junior developers
(Joking... kinda)
But if I was running a department, I'd love to create an open forum, /. style, for employees to bounce ideas around. If I could have a department that was wasting their time internally instead of on /., I'd be a happy guy.
:) ). Ive worked in a large company where there was a company portal, the idea being something like what you talk of. Only just delivering content and newsletters and such. I was there for go live on it. They blew something like 30 million pounds on the whole project. After 6 months and much hype figures showed about 5-10 percent of the staff were using it. Most workers where stuck in Lotus Notes(what had always bee used) and were not going to budge.
/. manager a soaftware house Im gonna go out on a limb and say you are interested in technology. I am also. And if you and I used the business slashdot then productive things might happen. *Most* people tho (esp in large companies) dont give a rats arse about technology, increasing productivity or solving problems. They are there to keep the seat warm, do as little work as they can get away with and receive a paycheque so they pay the morgage. That may sound a little negative. But well. Yes its a little negative :)
Ive been in both situations in my life, working at a tiny software development house and as a contractor at very large finacial instutions. In the tiny office it is, as you say, irrelavent as you can just ask the guys if they have time for a quick 30 min meeting to bounce ideas around.
In a large business environment tho this is generally not practical. The deluges of information that fly about on a large project are almost impossible to keep up with and hence you start to filter it as much as you can. So I dotn see how your system would work unless it had someway of automatically filter irrelavent content from you(and in large depts there is a *lot* of irrelavent content... lots of irrelavent people as well
As you are reading
QNX
QNX was never seriously trying to be a competitor to Windows. There was talk at one point of them providing the kernel for a revamp version of AmigaOS when whoever bought AmigaOS bought it. But QNX doesnt need to be widnows cause it never has been. It has(and has for years) a nice little niche market in embeddable real tiem OSes(its competirors are things like vxWorks and eCOS). Quantum Systems seem to still be chuging along nicely in Canada... and from wht I understand, in the last ten years, they have grown steadily.
I like the idea of a future where virtually everyone is putting their ideas down for others to read. As the internet generation gets older, I think it will be more common for everyone to keep a weblog. The benefit to business is huge... imagine if every office worker was required to spend a few minutes a week on a company weblog, posting their ideas for managers and others to look at, or maybe if there was a company message board setup like Slashdot?
No. Please no. I have enough to do just to keep up with the torrent of email I receeive every day. A business orientated slashdot? Ive kidna done that(a local company usenet server... happens in a lot of tech companies). Ive rarely seen them used for any particularly productive purpose. Mainly used to ask people when/where they are going to lunch and post links to amusing flash animations/games.
The traditional media -- newspapers, TV, radio -- will be the ones to go, if they don't adapt to the new situation.
:)
If other around here are old enough to recall the net before the rise of the WWW and the "Great Coming of the AOLers"
(I was in "The Great Coming of the Undergradates" that annoyed the real old timers... I still recall accidentally using nn to post to the wrong news group. I got about 50 irrate mails telling me this... these days its just par for the course... In those days : Spam bl9ock my email? Why would I want to do that?)
I recall that simular claim were made about plain old fashion HTML over HTTP replacing everything everywhere. Your post chimes a familar bell
Why are there no apprenticeships, like in the middle ages? Why can't you apprentice yourself to a microbiologist when you get out of highschool (or even before!), and help them with their research as they teach you the necessities of their job?
OK... senior developer here. Have degrees in Electronics/Comms Engineering and Computer Science. Over ten years experience. Looking for a 'prentice. Preferably young, female, blonde, open minded and impressionable.
I've heard they hypothesis before. The people who raise it seem to forget that civilization started in milder climes, such as Crete and Greece. (Various other places too, but I don't know enough about the weather in most of them to comment.)
:)
That is an excellent point! The one thing milder climate gives you is, I suspect, a lot more leisure time(you dont have to worry about the stupid Nile flooding every year... or a random storm knocking down all your buildings). Leisure gives people like Socrates to lounge about and ponder
Look at Australia. They supposedly inherited a culture that was in thrall to science and engineering, but they don't seem to lead the world in much of anything.
Im sorry. Australian here, slightly offended. Australia has all sorts of skills in mining and telecom technology(Australia has had to design high tech equipment that can operate reliably in very harsh conditions... lots of Australians live in Dubai and lots of the middle east for this reason).
Go to the CSIRO web site also and have a poke at lotsa science and tech they do. Have a look at some of the random edu.au sites around the place. Remember Australia invented the breeder reactor.
Howard Florey was Australian(shared the 1945 nbel prize for working out how to make proper penicillin). Australians also invented the bionic ear(See Dr Graeme Clark) and (the late) Dr Fred Hollows developed cheap cornial replacment treatments to try and put a stop to unnecessary blindness in the third world
William Lawrence the physicist(and winner of a nobel prize with his father Bragg) was born in Australia.
Polically : Australia invented the secret ballot and was the first western nation to give women the right to vote.
Sorry to go on. Please remember... there are only 20 million of us. There are 30 million odd in California alone. I personally think Australia does OK.
Try loading Word in Wine and compare it with OOo under Linux. Word would load almost instantly, while with OOo would wait... and wait... and wait. Unless Wine contains a hidden built-in Office preloader, I can conclude that Word loads fast by itself.
:)
:)
THis would not surprise me. Back when I used to write file system filter drivers for NT Word was our testing application of choice. Word makes use of every funky trick it can to talk to the file system. Some of these tricks are even documented
Basically our rulle of thumb was, if we could open a long Word doc with lotsa tables and images and what not in it and our filteer driver dint blue screen, it was pretty safe to assume just about anything could be poked at our driver and it wouldnt blue screen
Also. People keep making analogies to breaking into someone house... this analogy is stupid. We are talking about large organisations here that have mission critical computing infrastructure.
If dickhead breaks into my house and steals my DVD or whatever, I generally dont have to be to worried about the microwave oven if its still on the kitchen counter. Once a large commercial or govt network has been comprimised, audits take place all over the place. Maybe he cracked a random Oracle server and you didnt notice. Maybe he tamper with HR data... all sorts fo stuff.
So do insurance companies.