I am not a big fan of centralized government control or government run programs. That being said...
I have come to the conclusion that the most beneficial situation would be for the local government to own the actual cable plant for its municipality. With current technology the gov't could easily create a situation where competition occurs because *everyone* has equal access to the cable plant. If one company can deliver a service over the last mile then all can.
The only other option would be to forcefully divest the monopolies of their cable plants ala the breakup of the Bell empire in '84. The cable plant operators would then have an incentive to sell access to as many people as possible. In fact this option may be best as some services (ptp T1 for example) don't really need any hardware connected to them other than what would naturally exist to operate the network.
The fucktards at Network Solutions sent out an email the other day titled "Notice: Update.ORG Registry Transition". Spamassassin caught it but I looked into it a little closer. Some keyboard monkey sent out a list of several hundred email addresses instead of an actual email.
What is sad is that I trust these people with my domain information. Maybe I'll move my domains this year. Register.com seems like a good operation.
Filtering is nice, I've been using SpamAssassin with reasonable results for the last few months. It has nearly no false positives but has recently been missing more. Perhaps I should update.
Anyway, I've said a few times the only way to effectively stop spam is to make it more expensive to the companies having it done. Filtering, blocking ports, refusing mail from RBL'd hosts all helps, but it will not stop until it is fully against the law and people bring legal action to stop it.
Even people who are supposed to be clueful don't get it. I got spammed to buy EZ-Pass for the PA Turnpike. I sent a nastygram to the state DoT. The keyboard monkey responded that I should look closely at the email, that I signed up to receive it. If I had a dollar for every site that claimed I signed up with them I would be rich. What an idiot.
I run two CS servers and find the Half Life engine to be a joke anymore. The physics are wrong half the time and it is inconsistent. The current version takes a lot more horsepower and bandwidth to run as a server so older servers are out.
That being said I thought I'd start playing Wolfenstein again but the Q3 engine appears to be even worse in a multiplayer scenario than the HL engine.
Are there any good games that function consistently? (ie what would be a kill at one moment will always be a kill?)
While I love to pick on the poor Indians too, this just isn't true.
I've run a network to my company's office in India for the last five years. Internet access from VSNL is very good and has a latency of 275 ms round trip to my office in the USA. My private line is 252 ms round trip, so it only cost me 23 ms to come via the Internet instead of my private circuit.
Now, providers other than VSNL leave a lot to be desired. Most come via satellite (500ms-750ms) and suffer from terrible congestion and packet loss.
The only way to stop spam is to make it far more costly to spam than what one makes from doing it. This includes bringing action against the companies advertised in spam as well. Once they find out it costs a lot more to be sued for spamming than they make from doing it they will stop.
On a side note, why aren't ISPs taking a more proactive approach in stopping spam? I remember here a while ago that people were bitching because Verizon blocked all tcp port 25 except to their servers. This should help dramatically in stopping spam as Verizon can then detect it at their server. People here cried about it. If you want to use your SMTP server at work then use a VPN. It is unfortunate but there has to be tighter controls to stop spam at the ISP it originates from.
Why aren't avionics systems properly shielded to begin with? Sure, most of the designs are at least twenty years old, but that's not an excuse to not be protected from even the chance that some sort of RF or EMP attack is possible.
There's a story of how the US managed to capture a Soviet MIG sometime during the 70's (I think). They took it apart and found that the Soviets were still using vacuum tubes. The problem was not that the Soviets couldn't use microchips. They chose vacuum tubes to protect against EMP and to not have the added weight of shielding. I am not suggesting we retrofit modern airlines with vacuum tubes, what I am suggesting is that the dangers of RF and EMP attacks be properly accounted for, and if they currently are then to drop the bunk about "interference with navigation and communications systems."
Yet again people are confused about the protections afforded by the Constitution.
Say it with me people, The Constitution only restricts the actions of the government and has no effect whatsoever on your company's treatment of you!
Now, there may be other laws that may be in place which protect you but that protection is certainly not Constitutional in nature. Also, let's not forget that most companies consider anything you do on company time and resources to be their property, and the law typically backs up this idea. You don't have much privacy if the company owns your communications anyway!
Like most Americans the idea of a "members only" casino is quite foreign, but the casinos in London require you to "join". You can't go for the first 24 hours after you join but the minute past you're more than welcome.
During my last trip to London one of the gentlemen I was there with had arrived a few days earlier and joined a casino. One evening we decided to go play. In about four hours of basic strategy play I was up nearly £300 on £10 and £15 bets. My buddy who wasn't playing any strategy was up £600 at one point but lost it all playing £100 bets. I left with my profits but when we returned the next night we were told we were no longer welcome there.
Now I wasn't card counting, I don't know if I was doing something that looked like I was, but I am sure they didn't like me taking £300 from them then wanting to come back for more.
Fortunately my office doesn't receive too many of these types of faxes, and if we do I don't see them.
Quite a few people are asking how to apply something like this to email spam. My suggestion is to use whatever anti-spam law may exist on the books in your state and sue the advertiser named in the spam. File it in small claims court, then subpoena their advertising records to prove the purchase of service from the spammer. Even if the suits are thrown out we're still talking about a cost of several hundred dollars per suit to the advertiser. At some point it would have to become more expensive to defend the advertising than to stop it.
That really is the key here, to make it more expensive to advertise this way than not, and ideally the law should make both the company advertised and the spammer liable. That together with a spam email being prima facia evidence of the crime placing the burden of proving the spam was sent without the advertiser's knowledge on them.
And 3 of the top ten shows are part of the law and order syndicate. That's pretty amazing if you ask me.
Watch it sometime, then you'll know why. Even the old shows from eleven years ago are popular with the people who haven't seen it. Amazing that a drama could replace its entire cast and still be #3 in the ratings in its twelfth year!
And on topic point... It will be interesting to see when most people watch TV using their Tivo. I use mine around 5:30p right after I come home from work usually... Then go out around 7:30p. The entire prime time lineup is outside my normal viewing times. Timeshifting the Wed 10p L&O to 5:30p Thursday is great for me. The problem is I don't watch any other prime time program, they all usually suck.
The televised transmission on July 11, 1962, showed an American flag waving in front of the Andover Earth Station... That same day the first long-distance telephone call via satellite was carried by Telstar. During the call, President Lyndon Johnson spoke to Fred Kappel, then chairman of AT&T.
Kennedy wasn't shot until November 22, 1963. This article claims LBJ was President on July 11, 1962. Then later the article mentions President Kennedy making a press release. It MUST be a conspiracy.
Keeping on topic, someone mentioned earlier about what would happen if all the satellites went away... Well, I would guess there wouldn't be much on TV and a lot of pagers would not work but our domestic voice telephone network should continue to work ok, as well as communications with most of Western Europe. The only trouble I could imagine for the domestic voice network would be very remote stations linked via satellite instead of microwave and COs using GPS as an accurate time source without a backup. I'm fairly sure most of the voice network is terrestrial in nature, be it fiber or microwave.
A lot of folks here are all up in arms about this company "violating rights." First of all you chose to rent from them. You agree to a contract which specifies what you and they can and cannot do. If you don't like their terms don't do business with them!
Moving on, most rental car companies prohibit you from driving your car into Canada or Mexico and I would imagine the rental agencies in Arizona have a really big problem with it. As I understand it car theft is a huge problem in Arizona and most of the cars are in Mexico before the owner even knows they are stolen. Another issue is insurance. I am pretty sure my standard auto policy will not cover me in Mexico. That means unless I pay extra for insurance if I wreck in Mexico I am up shit creek without a paddle.
I would also love to sit here and advocate the use of GPS recovery systems by auto manufacturers but that system would simply become cut-wire then drive away quickly. Personally, if I lived in a high theft area or drove an often-stolen car I would add some sort of GPS tracking to it. The issue is how to do the telemetry inexpensively. Because very few people would have this kind of functionality I think a theif would ignore a small GPS receiver, especially if they're trying to get away before being noticed. Imagine grabbing your laptop and packet modem and heading out with the cop with a map on your screen and a dot showing where your stolen car is. Would make for an intersting scene. (Similar to the bait car used in D.C. mentioned here weeks ago)
However, if this type of system were abused by your wife she could see when you're at the Thai Massage House, so then again maybe it isn't such a good idea.
I know it is off-topic but I'll make up for it at the end of the comment...
Preperation A: Shrinks Asteroids. As well as relieves the burning associated with Astroid impacts.
What happened to the poor bastards that tried Preperations A through G before they finally got it right?
ObOnTopic: What happens when one of these near misses happens to swing through the 22,300 mile mark and take out a few satellites? Anyone have an idea as to how often a satellite is disabled by an object in space? I remember reading that a paint speck cracked the window in a space shuttle.
5) As a reference say you were a good employee, but I did need to extend a counter offer to keep you in a critical position. (This shoots your judgment in the view of many potential empolyers...)
While this will likely make you feel good because you're causing trouble for your employee, think about this in two ways:
First, you are paying less than market for this employee who took a counter-offer. What does that say about your company? What if he tells people he knows not to work for you and why? It goes both ways, especially with the Internet making it easier to communicate amongst the "little" people. In fact, I (mere minutes ago) gave a coworker my opinion of a local company his son was thinking of working for. The info for that company went straight to the trash can.
Second, what kind of legal exposure have you created for yourself? While it is a factually correct statement you might find yourself on the wrong end of a very expensive lawsuit. My understanding is that the best way to address questions from an employee's prospective employer is to simply say, "Yes I would hire this person again," or "No, I would not hire this person again."
Again, be careful. Your vengeful attitude could backfire, especially as your company needs to maintain a respectable appearance while the employee can employ guerilla tactics as long as they are factually correct. (ie companysucks.com type things)
We're never going to stop spam flat out, but I have started to take an agressive stance against spam during the last few days.
First I grabbed a sendmail access database someone else was using as a base to start my anti-spam efforts from. To this I add domains from which I or a coworker received spam from. One spam and it's done. This list contains more than 9000 domains and IP addresses.
Next I added ordb.org as an RBL. This has helped as well but has also exposed some of our clients as having open relays. I find it interesting to get a call insinuating the problem is with my mail server when the user has not even read the error message. (Which, as you may know, tells them to visit ordb.org to find out what the story is) It is frustrating to explain that I am not going to turn off my RBL because their mail server is incorrectly configured.
I've been using the RBL for about 20 hours off and on and the access database for about two days. So far it has dropped 309 messages intended for a mail server with about 20 users on it.
1) Scalability - how do keep this IP list? How do you search it quickly? How do store the data? Expire it? Compute your run time for values of N > 100,000,000. Does it still work?
I would imagine if you're dealing with an authentication system the size of Yahoo's that you're already dealing with large data sets that need searched quickly. IP address and number of failures from taht address could simply be an additional token checked when the authentication occurs.
You're right tho, even the simplest solutions would require an elaborate implementation, both in terms of coding it in efficiently and equipment to supply the data quickly.
2) Proxy servers & routers/ip masquerading. While a lot of slashdotter's don't live behind them, a lot of Internet users, including those using very popular providers, such as AOL, do. If you block based upon IP, you still allow AOL users to block one other. A step up from nothing, perhaps, but far from a complete solution.
This is a complicated problem... Does the proxy include some sort of unique identifier in its request? Filtering based on that, however, would introduce the same type of horsepower problems you mention... I am split, however, on simply saying that the losers should get a better ISP but at the same time I like proxies because they typically make a network more efficient. AGH!
During hotly contested auctions, some users will mount password attacks on other bidder's accounts an hour before the end of the auction -- not to actually gain access, but merely to trigger a security lockout, thereby ensuring that the legitimate user cannot place last-minute bids.
I realize how ridiculously easy it is to get a new IP address on a dialup system or in a facility where someone has access to many addresses but wouldn't a simple IP block after so many attempts help discourage the casual DoS but still allow the legitimate user access when they come to make their last minute bid?
If not this then what about using a login name which is different then the displayed account name? This way the login name is not available to people viewing a particular account's public details for their use in a DoS. I know this is an added step of complication but may be necessary to eliminate bad side effects.
I am assuming that our favorite speed cameras operate using regular good old fashioned traffic radar... On that assumption:
Grab yourself a proper frequency counter and find out what frequency the radar leaves the camera at. Using Doppler's forumlae figure out what frequency is necessary to cause a reading of 98 MPH or 69 MPH (or some similarly improbable number less than 100). Find/tune a magnetron to the frequency you have calculated. Park a car or rent an apartment close enough to the camera and point said magnetron at the camera. The camera likely uses unmodulated radar and will be incapable of distinguishing the source of the microwave radiation/reflected waves causing the camera to take lots of pictures of "nothing" going 98 MPH or cars that obviously couldn't be doing 98 MPH.
The hilarity in this is that if it worked you would likely see the camera serviced many times and even replaced several times. I wonder if they'd figure it out and then try to determine the source of the microwave radiation. The downside is a potential visit from the FCC but I imagine the camera is a Part 15 device and as long as you can show you are not maliciously interfering with it you can probably beat the rap. How to explain your pointing a magnetron out the window of your house is your business. Don't use more than a few milliwatts or else you may find cancer or unusual warmness to be a side effect.
Where do we draw the line? No matter how secure I make my physical network someone is going to be able to break my security if they are allowed physical access to it. Pressurized tubing, fiber to the desk, whatever.
And how do I stop employees from bringing in these things? Metal detector and searches at the door? How long do you think my employees will stay?
Further, if it was my intent to hack a network I would use something like Soekris' net4501 set up to bridge across the net ports and put it inline with my PC at the office. Let it sit and collect information all day then unplug it and take it home at night to see what it found.
I think a lot of peeps here have made the accurate point that if you treat your employees better than slaves that (typically) your employees will be more concerned about the wellbeing of the company and won't do things to damage it. Exceptions do exist but how much money and time should you expend to oppress the innocent just to prevent the guilty from harming you? (For those looking for greater meaning, yes this argument can be extended to our current problems with terrorism in America)
I have an office in India to which I deliver VoIP via a private network connection for call center use. I estimate our minimum per minute cost to be less than $0.01 including equipment and line charges. (Assuming 100% utilization, even if we come down to 40% utilization we're at $0.025/min)
And on top of that our voice quality is US toll quality or better, even with the quater second delay. If it were not illegal I would interconnect to the Indian PSTN and sell a calling card using excess capacity on my system.
It *is* possible for the telcos to embrace VoIP or a similar packet voice technology and integrate it into their SS7 or ISDN networks. Other than corruption of the PTTs I don't see why it isn't being done to lower costs and improve quality where appropriate.
There is a guy out in Washington I think that has done something similar with his car and what I base this post on...
You can do something nearly simliar with your own car if you want to pay the monthly service charges on CDPD or a similar packet data network. Basically grab a CDPD modem that is capable of telemetry. Tie a NEMA capable GPS receiver to it. When you need to know where your car is telnet to the CDPD modem on a particular port and watch the NEMA stream. Heck, redirect it to something like Delorme AAA Map'n'Go and watch your car drive down the road. I imagine it would be a simple exercise to direct the police to your vehicle.
Now, this working as an effective recovery device depends on the car being able to acquire a GPS signal and maintain it, ability to communicate on the CDPD network, and finding out your car is stolen before it is stripped or the battery is disconnected.
... is to put tasers in the vehicles so that even if someone tries to steal something from your car (ie. car stereo/cd/mp3 player) they get zapped and just lie there quivvering until the authorities get there. Of course, in this case, the vehicle should probably call the paramedics as well as the police though.
While I certainly would like to see this idea implemented it is, IIRC, illegal in America to booby-trap a car or house to cause injury to someone. This also leads to the warning labels that you see indicating "This house protected by ADT" or some such agency.
Unfortunately, "This house protected by Heckler and Koch three nights a week, you guess which three" doesn't qualify as legal warning.
Slashdot Mirror
While it might be fun for our "enlightened" friends to try to blame this on Republicans only, guess who the Schumer is on the bill name listed above?
That's right folks, our favorite bastion of liberalism Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
There's plenty of blame to go around, so let's be fair about it.
I have come to the conclusion that the most beneficial situation would be for the local government to own the actual cable plant for its municipality. With current technology the gov't could easily create a situation where competition occurs because *everyone* has equal access to the cable plant. If one company can deliver a service over the last mile then all can.
The only other option would be to forcefully divest the monopolies of their cable plants ala the breakup of the Bell empire in '84. The cable plant operators would then have an incentive to sell access to as many people as possible. In fact this option may be best as some services (ptp T1 for example) don't really need any hardware connected to them other than what would naturally exist to operate the network.
What is sad is that I trust these people with my domain information. Maybe I'll move my domains this year. Register.com seems like a good operation.
His response was that I must have signed up for it as the email said so, and we all know that everything on the Internet is true. ;)
Anyway, I've said a few times the only way to effectively stop spam is to make it more expensive to the companies having it done. Filtering, blocking ports, refusing mail from RBL'd hosts all helps, but it will not stop until it is fully against the law and people bring legal action to stop it.
Even people who are supposed to be clueful don't get it. I got spammed to buy EZ-Pass for the PA Turnpike. I sent a nastygram to the state DoT. The keyboard monkey responded that I should look closely at the email, that I signed up to receive it. If I had a dollar for every site that claimed I signed up with them I would be rich. What an idiot.
That being said I thought I'd start playing Wolfenstein again but the Q3 engine appears to be even worse in a multiplayer scenario than the HL engine.
Are there any good games that function consistently? (ie what would be a kill at one moment will always be a kill?)
Just ask India, because that's all they have.
While I love to pick on the poor Indians too, this just isn't true.
I've run a network to my company's office in India for the last five years. Internet access from VSNL is very good and has a latency of 275 ms round trip to my office in the USA. My private line is 252 ms round trip, so it only cost me 23 ms to come via the Internet instead of my private circuit.
Now, providers other than VSNL leave a lot to be desired. Most come via satellite (500ms-750ms) and suffer from terrible congestion and packet loss.
On a side note, why aren't ISPs taking a more proactive approach in stopping spam? I remember here a while ago that people were bitching because Verizon blocked all tcp port 25 except to their servers. This should help dramatically in stopping spam as Verizon can then detect it at their server. People here cried about it. If you want to use your SMTP server at work then use a VPN. It is unfortunate but there has to be tighter controls to stop spam at the ISP it originates from.
There's a story of how the US managed to capture a Soviet MIG sometime during the 70's (I think). They took it apart and found that the Soviets were still using vacuum tubes. The problem was not that the Soviets couldn't use microchips. They chose vacuum tubes to protect against EMP and to not have the added weight of shielding. I am not suggesting we retrofit modern airlines with vacuum tubes, what I am suggesting is that the dangers of RF and EMP attacks be properly accounted for, and if they currently are then to drop the bunk about "interference with navigation and communications systems."
Say it with me people, The Constitution only restricts the actions of the government and has no effect whatsoever on your company's treatment of you!
Now, there may be other laws that may be in place which protect you but that protection is certainly not Constitutional in nature. Also, let's not forget that most companies consider anything you do on company time and resources to be their property, and the law typically backs up this idea. You don't have much privacy if the company owns your communications anyway!
During my last trip to London one of the gentlemen I was there with had arrived a few days earlier and joined a casino. One evening we decided to go play. In about four hours of basic strategy play I was up nearly £300 on £10 and £15 bets. My buddy who wasn't playing any strategy was up £600 at one point but lost it all playing £100 bets. I left with my profits but when we returned the next night we were told we were no longer welcome there.
Now I wasn't card counting, I don't know if I was doing something that looked like I was, but I am sure they didn't like me taking £300 from them then wanting to come back for more.
Quite a few people are asking how to apply something like this to email spam. My suggestion is to use whatever anti-spam law may exist on the books in your state and sue the advertiser named in the spam. File it in small claims court, then subpoena their advertising records to prove the purchase of service from the spammer. Even if the suits are thrown out we're still talking about a cost of several hundred dollars per suit to the advertiser. At some point it would have to become more expensive to defend the advertising than to stop it.
That really is the key here, to make it more expensive to advertise this way than not, and ideally the law should make both the company advertised and the spammer liable. That together with a spam email being prima facia evidence of the crime placing the burden of proving the spam was sent without the advertiser's knowledge on them.
Watch it sometime, then you'll know why. Even the old shows from eleven years ago are popular with the people who haven't seen it. Amazing that a drama could replace its entire cast and still be #3 in the ratings in its twelfth year!
And on topic point... It will be interesting to see when most people watch TV using their Tivo. I use mine around 5:30p right after I come home from work usually... Then go out around 7:30p. The entire prime time lineup is outside my normal viewing times. Timeshifting the Wed 10p L&O to 5:30p Thursday is great for me. The problem is I don't watch any other prime time program, they all usually suck.
The televised transmission on July 11, 1962, showed an American flag waving in front of the Andover Earth Station ... That same day the first long-distance telephone call via satellite was carried by Telstar. During the call, President Lyndon Johnson spoke to Fred Kappel, then chairman of AT&T.
Kennedy wasn't shot until November 22, 1963. This article claims LBJ was President on July 11, 1962. Then later the article mentions President Kennedy making a press release. It MUST be a conspiracy.
Keeping on topic, someone mentioned earlier about what would happen if all the satellites went away... Well, I would guess there wouldn't be much on TV and a lot of pagers would not work but our domestic voice telephone network should continue to work ok, as well as communications with most of Western Europe. The only trouble I could imagine for the domestic voice network would be very remote stations linked via satellite instead of microwave and COs using GPS as an accurate time source without a backup. I'm fairly sure most of the voice network is terrestrial in nature, be it fiber or microwave.
Moving on, most rental car companies prohibit you from driving your car into Canada or Mexico and I would imagine the rental agencies in Arizona have a really big problem with it. As I understand it car theft is a huge problem in Arizona and most of the cars are in Mexico before the owner even knows they are stolen. Another issue is insurance. I am pretty sure my standard auto policy will not cover me in Mexico. That means unless I pay extra for insurance if I wreck in Mexico I am up shit creek without a paddle.
I would also love to sit here and advocate the use of GPS recovery systems by auto manufacturers but that system would simply become cut-wire then drive away quickly. Personally, if I lived in a high theft area or drove an often-stolen car I would add some sort of GPS tracking to it. The issue is how to do the telemetry inexpensively. Because very few people would have this kind of functionality I think a theif would ignore a small GPS receiver, especially if they're trying to get away before being noticed. Imagine grabbing your laptop and packet modem and heading out with the cop with a map on your screen and a dot showing where your stolen car is. Would make for an intersting scene. (Similar to the bait car used in D.C. mentioned here weeks ago)
However, if this type of system were abused by your wife she could see when you're at the Thai Massage House, so then again maybe it isn't such a good idea.
Preperation A: Shrinks Asteroids. As well as relieves the burning associated with Astroid impacts.
What happened to the poor bastards that tried Preperations A through G before they finally got it right?
ObOnTopic: What happens when one of these near misses happens to swing through the 22,300 mile mark and take out a few satellites? Anyone have an idea as to how often a satellite is disabled by an object in space? I remember reading that a paint speck cracked the window in a space shuttle.
While this will likely make you feel good because you're causing trouble for your employee, think about this in two ways:
First, you are paying less than market for this employee who took a counter-offer. What does that say about your company? What if he tells people he knows not to work for you and why? It goes both ways, especially with the Internet making it easier to communicate amongst the "little" people. In fact, I (mere minutes ago) gave a coworker my opinion of a local company his son was thinking of working for. The info for that company went straight to the trash can.
Second, what kind of legal exposure have you created for yourself? While it is a factually correct statement you might find yourself on the wrong end of a very expensive lawsuit. My understanding is that the best way to address questions from an employee's prospective employer is to simply say, "Yes I would hire this person again," or "No, I would not hire this person again."
Again, be careful. Your vengeful attitude could backfire, especially as your company needs to maintain a respectable appearance while the employee can employ guerilla tactics as long as they are factually correct. (ie companysucks.com type things)
First I grabbed a sendmail access database someone else was using as a base to start my anti-spam efforts from. To this I add domains from which I or a coworker received spam from. One spam and it's done. This list contains more than 9000 domains and IP addresses.
Next I added ordb.org as an RBL. This has helped as well but has also exposed some of our clients as having open relays. I find it interesting to get a call insinuating the problem is with my mail server when the user has not even read the error message. (Which, as you may know, tells them to visit ordb.org to find out what the story is) It is frustrating to explain that I am not going to turn off my RBL because their mail server is incorrectly configured.
I've been using the RBL for about 20 hours off and on and the access database for about two days. So far it has dropped 309 messages intended for a mail server with about 20 users on it.
I would imagine if you're dealing with an authentication system the size of Yahoo's that you're already dealing with large data sets that need searched quickly. IP address and number of failures from taht address could simply be an additional token checked when the authentication occurs.
You're right tho, even the simplest solutions would require an elaborate implementation, both in terms of coding it in efficiently and equipment to supply the data quickly.
2) Proxy servers & routers/ip masquerading. While a lot of slashdotter's don't live behind them, a lot of Internet users, including those using very popular providers, such as AOL, do. If you block based upon IP, you still allow AOL users to block one other. A step up from nothing, perhaps, but far from a complete solution.
This is a complicated problem... Does the proxy include some sort of unique identifier in its request? Filtering based on that, however, would introduce the same type of horsepower problems you mention... I am split, however, on simply saying that the losers should get a better ISP but at the same time I like proxies because they typically make a network more efficient. AGH!
During hotly contested auctions, some users will mount password attacks on other bidder's accounts an hour before the end of the auction -- not to actually gain access, but merely to trigger a security lockout, thereby ensuring that the legitimate user cannot place last-minute bids.
I realize how ridiculously easy it is to get a new IP address on a dialup system or in a facility where someone has access to many addresses but wouldn't a simple IP block after so many attempts help discourage the casual DoS but still allow the legitimate user access when they come to make their last minute bid?
If not this then what about using a login name which is different then the displayed account name? This way the login name is not available to people viewing a particular account's public details for their use in a DoS. I know this is an added step of complication but may be necessary to eliminate bad side effects.
Grab yourself a proper frequency counter and find out what frequency the radar leaves the camera at. Using Doppler's forumlae figure out what frequency is necessary to cause a reading of 98 MPH or 69 MPH (or some similarly improbable number less than 100). Find/tune a magnetron to the frequency you have calculated. Park a car or rent an apartment close enough to the camera and point said magnetron at the camera. The camera likely uses unmodulated radar and will be incapable of distinguishing the source of the microwave radiation/reflected waves causing the camera to take lots of pictures of "nothing" going 98 MPH or cars that obviously couldn't be doing 98 MPH.
The hilarity in this is that if it worked you would likely see the camera serviced many times and even replaced several times. I wonder if they'd figure it out and then try to determine the source of the microwave radiation. The downside is a potential visit from the FCC but I imagine the camera is a Part 15 device and as long as you can show you are not maliciously interfering with it you can probably beat the rap. How to explain your pointing a magnetron out the window of your house is your business. Don't use more than a few milliwatts or else you may find cancer or unusual warmness to be a side effect.
And how do I stop employees from bringing in these things? Metal detector and searches at the door? How long do you think my employees will stay?
Further, if it was my intent to hack a network I would use something like Soekris' net4501 set up to bridge across the net ports and put it inline with my PC at the office. Let it sit and collect information all day then unplug it and take it home at night to see what it found.
I think a lot of peeps here have made the accurate point that if you treat your employees better than slaves that (typically) your employees will be more concerned about the wellbeing of the company and won't do things to damage it. Exceptions do exist but how much money and time should you expend to oppress the innocent just to prevent the guilty from harming you? (For those looking for greater meaning, yes this argument can be extended to our current problems with terrorism in America)
And on top of that our voice quality is US toll quality or better, even with the quater second delay. If it were not illegal I would interconnect to the Indian PSTN and sell a calling card using excess capacity on my system.
It *is* possible for the telcos to embrace VoIP or a similar packet voice technology and integrate it into their SS7 or ISDN networks. Other than corruption of the PTTs I don't see why it isn't being done to lower costs and improve quality where appropriate.
You can do something nearly simliar with your own car if you want to pay the monthly service charges on CDPD or a similar packet data network. Basically grab a CDPD modem that is capable of telemetry. Tie a NEMA capable GPS receiver to it. When you need to know where your car is telnet to the CDPD modem on a particular port and watch the NEMA stream. Heck, redirect it to something like Delorme AAA Map'n'Go and watch your car drive down the road. I imagine it would be a simple exercise to direct the police to your vehicle.
Now, this working as an effective recovery device depends on the car being able to acquire a GPS signal and maintain it, ability to communicate on the CDPD network, and finding out your car is stolen before it is stripped or the battery is disconnected.
While I certainly would like to see this idea implemented it is, IIRC, illegal in America to booby-trap a car or house to cause injury to someone. This also leads to the warning labels that you see indicating "This house protected by ADT" or some such agency.
Unfortunately, "This house protected by Heckler and Koch three nights a week, you guess which three" doesn't qualify as legal warning.