"As soon as a patch is released (day 1) neither the exploit nor the vulnerability are "zero-day" anymore."
That's neither common sense nor INFOSEC slang. Try that: "As soon as a *day* has passed (day 1) neither the exploit nor the vulnerability are "zero-day" anymore."
*That* is common sense.
And regarding InfoSec, as old as 2003 you will find definitions like this*1:
"FYI, I define zero-day exploits as exploits that were used to actually compromise a system ("in the wild") before the vulnerability was known to exist by most security professionals (not published on public security mailing lists - CERT, Bugtraq, Full Disclosure, Vendors, etc.)."
See? No reference about patching and, by inference, once the vulnerability is "published on public security mailing lists - CERT, Bugtraq, Full Disclosure, Vendors, etc.", once the vulnerability is publicly known, in other words, it can't be a zero-day exploit (it's day zero anymore!).
Of course, software vendors try to stretch the definition to their convenience: "everybody knows" that's impossible to cover from a zero-day exploit directly at the application level so if an attact is the result of a "zero-day exploit" instead of "a bug that went unpatched for weeks" they appear as less guilty.
"I'm not sure you're going to be successful telling everyone to buy a _new_ car every 2 to 5 years to have the best standards of safety."
Countries have sometimes long-run policies. Social security is not one thing you go changing each year nor it's one thing you don't care about its 25~50 years outcome. So, yes, new cars are usually safer than 10 year-old cars but, eventually, your whole car park goes safer and safer and that's what counts.
On the other hand, European governments (you know, those commie countries where lazy people is in paradise since they promote living without working) do tell (and promote with money) people to buy a new car, if not each 2~5 years, each ~10 years.
Points 6 and 7 are easy to be debunked. Point 7 uncovers a level of misoginy that it takes out any value of the previous 6 ones.
"6. If women are so darned good at running and managing big corporations-- where are they?"
Women might be terribly good at managing big corps and still be terribly bad at reaching there and/or having to fight against disproportional prejudices to reach there (see your point 7). I'm not saying that to be the case, but debunking your argument.
"7. Women *do* make good assembly line workers for electronics manufacturers. That is an area where their "innate gifts" have proven to be effective. Also telephone operators. Stuff that's boring and repetitive, they're pretty good at."
Or, they coming lately into the job market they had to make a start in positions that were not of the like of the oldtimers (==men) and at the same time were socially acceptable by the society leaders (==men) and their prejudices (if you already "know" that women perform badly as managers but properly as secretaries, what are the chances that you would consider a woman for a managerial position? -see your point 6). Again, I'm not saying that to be the case, but debunking your argument.
"Why is it assumed that the path with the highest short-term payoff is the rational one? What if you actually care about what the company that you oversee does?"
Because everyng else being equal (and since you don't intro other variables, that's what it has to be assumed), the highest short-term payoff of today puts you in better position to get into the better short term payoff of tomorrow too. Complete induction kinda shows that not to be a bad strategy.
"I don't think that successful businesses ultimately begin with rash and capricious decisions based on a desire to build a monument over one's manly greatness. I think they begin by wise and clever thinking, timing and market positioning and a desire to prevail hardships."
That sounds reasonable, but I have problems to give you an 'A'. It *should* be that way, but is it?
"Clever" is quite a relative concept. There's a lot of clever people around there and you could say that big corps have their share of clever people too. But if it can be said of a bussiness initiative to be "clever" then most of the time it would be risen up on big corporations: they have their share of clever people and they are big, so their share of clever people is bigger.
So, in the end, for a start-up to be *really* succesful (say, ala Microsoft or Google) their ideas can't seem clever. Of course, they are considered clever *after the fact*, by their results, but given that nobody knows the future and that most start-ups fail, it may be the case that the idea couldn't be too dumb, obvioulsy, but that probably it has more to do with luck and stubburness (a strange idea stubburnly pushed in the proper place at the proper moment) than with real cleverness (again, after the fact, the new ubermillionaire probably will tell you that "I knew from the begining", but before the fact, both the future ubermillionaire and the big pack of those that fail will probably tell you "this is going to be next boom, I'm absolutly sure").
In other words: if you take a lot of people blindly shooting at a mark, some of them will make a bull eye but this doesn't mean they aimed any better than the others.
"After reading through the posts, I was thinking the same thing. Everyone keeps mentioning "penis size". Testosterone has nothing to do with penis size once you pass puberty."
"How are you not better off in the second case? How does someone else having $99.99 reduce the value of the $0.01 you have?"
Because it heavily depends on the scenario. Now the one with 99.99 is able to outbid you if need arises instead of being on par to you. Then, as long as his outbidding gives him a net benefit this can have a snowball effect that will make him owning everything and you owning nothing.
The practical case has been shown dozens of times through History: two big countries, about the same in power, and a third lessen one. If one of the two tries to conquer the third one, it's in the best interest of the other of the two to go to war, even if the local optimum is obviously let the other country conquer the "pivotal" one since that would mean direct loses for the one going to war and even lesser value of the conquered one due to loses by its resistance to be conquered. But on the long run, the new bigger country would be in the position to "outbid" in war the other, so the other is forced to go into war even knowing it will make a net loss for the three in the game.
"Btw, the Nash equilibrium, optimal solution for splitting $100 would be to offer $0.01 and keep $99.99. Would you accept that?"
The optimal solution, as always, heavily depends on the exact rules of the game.
If it's a one-off offering, yes, the minimal split should do, but even that *only* if you think the other side to be perfectly rational and aware of the rules' implications*1.
But that's stupid: Dr. Spock is such a memorable character because we perfectly know people is not like that. So how could be considered an intelligent choice one that conciously were against what we know about our oponent? You don't try to dialogue to a fighting bull, you cover, even if it was the best choice for the fighting bull not to attack you, because you know well in advance how fighting bulls are. Well, you know how people tend to be too, and you know not having into account they tend to be proud and greedy is a bad strategy.
*1 By the way, Nash equilibrium is only valid for multiple round games so it can't be a Nash equilibrium if it's a one-off game. And certainly in a multiple round game 0.01/99.99 is not a "best strategy" for both parties. Since this game relies on subjectivity there's probably no Nash equilibrium point but an "equilibrium zone" around how people *tends* to be and it should be around 50/50.
"he quotes throughout his prose and cites credit beyond all the others, and that is God. I would not classify this book within the genre of theology; however it is refreshing to see a man with such scientific acumen articulate his respect for a fundamentally diametrically opposing thought process."
I wouldn't find this refreshing but despressing.
Unless, of course, it's not Kemp "quoting God", but the reviewer wanting to make a point while Kemp is only citing other fellow humans as they think their way about transcendental matters.
That, or you'll provide some proof that it's certainly the Word of God that he was citing and not the word of a man that told God told something.
"There is precisely ZERO money for the manufacturer and the carrier to produce and qualify new firmware for a phone that already has been 'sold' to an end-user."
As in the manufacturer can't open an on-line shop to sell new tested releases for their older devices?
As in the carrier won't charge for the downloads (or a no limits expensive bill as they push on-lineness for the mobile)?
Or is it that with upgradeable phones the vendor won't be able to push a 40% margin on a $600 new device but only a meagre 10% on a $20 upgrade?
Or is it because if the mobile is upgradeable the carrier can't offer you a shinny new one device for no money (and 18 months extension to your contract)?
Currently the mobile phone vendor's client is not the end customer, but the carrier. No wonder mobile producers look for their own interests first, the carrier interests later and never the end user's interests.
"In the context of security, a zero-day vulnerability is a vulnerability for which no patch exists"
References?
I bet that a exploit against a known vulnerability is not a "zero-day" attack no matter if there's still no patch.
But I wouldn't be surprised if software companies, especifically closed source software companies tried to change it to mean "no patch still delivered" of "before our monthly patch Thursday" since "zero-day attack" seems to imply the software vendor really couldn't do any better: another PR trick.
"It's not one or the other. People don't have to constantly play video games, read, be physically active, or practice mathematics to receive their benefits. They can balance them out."
Or not.
On one hand, how much gaming is needed to significantly improve your reactions? I'd bet is not five minutes a day; in the other, especially in the era of on-line gaming, videogames are designed to be adictive so you are always on the risk of too much gaming if there's such thing, so it can be the case that you really can't be able to properly "balance it out".
"fortunately, the law doesn't rely on existence of a pure monopoly before it determines that illegal anti-competitive behaviour has taken place."
This doesn't hit the mark either.
It was said "This seems to be more an example of Zynga taking advantage of economies of scale, and entering new game genres to eliminate competition. Which is a monopoly."
Since what he says is obviously not a monopoly I'll assume "which is an abuse of monopoly position" instead. But it doesn't hold water this way neither.
Abusing monopoly has nothing to do about economies of scale but about the fact that you use your position in one market to wipe out competition in a different one. Zynga doesn't abuse it's position (i.e. by reaching under-the-table deals with third parties so it gets exclusivity in new markets); it "abuses" its money and brand recognition, which is completly different and, by itself, perfectly legal (I don't mean that Zynga couldn't be doing something illegal but that taking advantage of its money and popularity is not one of those things).
"99.999999999% of the rest of the world do other things as their primary business model. Small businesses aren't going to do this because it requires a staff that KNOWS how to work with this software and get the data out."
Of course, 99.999999999% of the world doesn't have electricity as their primary business model. Does this mean that small business are going to stay with candles and bonfires? Because, you know, they won't have the needed staff for producing and distributing their own electricity.
This new data-mining environments are just borning. First only companies with data mining as its core bussiness invent and use the new technology. Then, big companies with big money to deploy their own version. After that -if there's in fact a use case for it, utility companies will rise that will bring it to everybody.
"Anyone who cares about churning through massive amounts of data already has ways to do it."
But the associated costs can limit the kind of business you can build on top of heavy data crunching. It might be the case (as it has been with other technologies) that the cost drop will allow for new business to arise that were previously impractical.
"This article is basically written like the invention of the hammer made it so everyone would want to build their own homes because they could."
In a rethoric way, the invention of the hammer allowed people to get out of caves since they could build now there own huts first, then towns and finally cities.
"It isn't about what's practically solvable, it's about what's cheaply solvable."
Aren't they the same? Isn't cost a practical constraint?
"These problems have been practical for anybody with money for a while."
No matter how rich you are, if you need six dollars to get five, it's not practical.
"Hadoop lowers the barrier to entry."
By means of lowering production costs. And that means that now you need four dollars instead of six for your five-dollar opportunity which is exactly which turns an impractical bussiness into a practical one.
"If you've got the cash, IBM will set you up with a monster SQL cluster that will take that massive complex SQL query "(the one that takes a month to run on your desktop), and return results in 2 seconds. If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it."
Your last sentence is *only* valid for luxury goods. For anything else everybody, no matter how rich they are, asks for the costs and rightly so. Do you think rich people get rich by going into negative-ballance bussiness?
"You do realize that 'a cluster' is really just 'a bunch of mirrors' that you're distributing the query across"
You do realize that the kind of cluster we are talking here is not "just 'a bunch of mirrors'" by big margin: you don't copy the whole data set to every node; you don't "copy" the computing load to every node.
"Why not just let the department of energy call it "for official use only" and the department of state call it, "official use only.""
Because sooner or later you will need to cross data from DoE and DoS and you'll have a nightmare to know which data is crossable privacy-wise to which.
"No, identity theft is not because of SSN use as an auth token"
Of course it is.
"Identity theft is because your SSN is used as an identity token [...] I keep my SSN card under lock"
If it is not an authentication/authorization token, why do you try to keep it secret and under lock? And if it is not an identity token, whose identity is being stolen if not the one identified by that very SSN?
You identify yourself as 123-12-1234 (your SSN) and then you probe your authenticity... by knowing your own SSN. That's plain stupid!!!
-Who are you? -I'm John Doe. -How can I be sure you are in fact John Doe instead of a liar? -Because I know my own name: John Doe. -I see.
"And SSN was only supposed to be used to track eligibility for SS benefits. Not for identification."
Do you mean that eligibility for SS benefits depends in some characteristic of the SSN, like being odd or prime? Of course it is an identity token!!! It's the means by which the Social Security identificates their subjects: you can *track* benefits because you can *identificate* beneficiaries by means of their SSN.
What you probably meant was that SSN was meant to be an identity token to be used only within the SS.
Yes, it could be worse. Imagine it's the other Steve (Ballmer) the one having at the reach of his hand some throwable weapons that, for once, are not chairs.
"Einstein did not fail math. sorry about being pedantic, but this is a pet peeve."
It is not. *Specially* when this whole thread is about testing your abilities in contrast with your testing results.
On one hand I did not say that Einstein failed at maths, but that as per Einstein's own accord he was bad at maths. Again by Einstein's own saying, he wouldn't have pass his math tests at the Polytechnikum without the unvaluable help from Marcel Grossmann.
A different thing is the relative value (pun intended) of Einstein's assertion which has to be understood in the context of his work: Einstein being "bad" at maths doesn't mean he had problems with second degree polynomics or elemental algebra as it would mean for us, mere mortals, but that he had problems with things like tensorial calculus or elliptic geometry (both *essential* for his latter work)... up to the point that he made quite an serious mistake when calculating the angular value for light distortion from Sun by gravitational lens effect that would have had a massive effect on the early adoption of his general relativity theory where not the case that Eddington's mission to test it had to be delayed till 1919 due to IWW, so giving Einstein time to find the mistake.
Slashdot Mirror
"As soon as a patch is released (day 1) neither the exploit nor the vulnerability are "zero-day" anymore."
That's neither common sense nor INFOSEC slang. Try that:
"As soon as a *day* has passed (day 1) neither the exploit nor the vulnerability are "zero-day" anymore."
*That* is common sense.
And regarding InfoSec, as old as 2003 you will find definitions like this*1:
"FYI, I define zero-day exploits as exploits that were used to actually
compromise a system ("in the wild") before the vulnerability was known
to exist by most security professionals (not published on public
security mailing lists - CERT, Bugtraq, Full Disclosure, Vendors,
etc.)."
See? No reference about patching and, by inference, once the vulnerability is "published on public
security mailing lists - CERT, Bugtraq, Full Disclosure, Vendors, etc.", once the vulnerability is publicly known, in other words, it can't be a zero-day exploit (it's day zero anymore!).
Of course, software vendors try to stretch the definition to their convenience: "everybody knows" that's impossible to cover from a zero-day exploit directly at the application level so if an attact is the result of a "zero-day exploit" instead of "a bug that went unpatched for weeks" they appear as less guilty.
As I already said, PR in action.
*1 http://www.mail-archive.com/isn%40attrition.org/msg02376.html
"I'm not sure you're going to be successful telling everyone to buy a _new_ car every 2 to 5 years to have the best standards of safety."
Countries have sometimes long-run policies. Social security is not one thing you go changing each year nor it's one thing you don't care about its 25~50 years outcome. So, yes, new cars are usually safer than 10 year-old cars but, eventually, your whole car park goes safer and safer and that's what counts.
On the other hand, European governments (you know, those commie countries where lazy people is in paradise since they promote living without working) do tell (and promote with money) people to buy a new car, if not each 2~5 years, each ~10 years.
"you want a CEO with just the right balance of gambling on growth versus security and stagnation."
Problem being that you will only know for certain where the right balance point were after the fact.
Points 6 and 7 are easy to be debunked. Point 7 uncovers a level of misoginy that it takes out any value of the previous 6 ones.
"6. If women are so darned good at running and managing big corporations-- where are they?"
Women might be terribly good at managing big corps and still be terribly bad at reaching there and/or having to fight against disproportional prejudices to reach there (see your point 7). I'm not saying that to be the case, but debunking your argument.
"7. Women *do* make good assembly line workers for electronics manufacturers. That is an area where their "innate gifts" have proven to be effective. Also telephone operators. Stuff that's boring and repetitive, they're pretty good at."
Or, they coming lately into the job market they had to make a start in positions that were not of the like of the oldtimers (==men) and at the same time were socially acceptable by the society leaders (==men) and their prejudices (if you already "know" that women perform badly as managers but properly as secretaries, what are the chances that you would consider a woman for a managerial position? -see your point 6). Again, I'm not saying that to be the case, but debunking your argument.
"Building up a reputation of rejecting low offers can help you in the long term."
Only if you are given the chance of gaming more than once and your choices are known by the other gamers.
"Why is it assumed that the path with the highest short-term payoff is the rational one? What if you actually care about what the company that you oversee does?"
Because everyng else being equal (and since you don't intro other variables, that's what it has to be assumed), the highest short-term payoff of today puts you in better position to get into the better short term payoff of tomorrow too. Complete induction kinda shows that not to be a bad strategy.
"I don't think that successful businesses ultimately begin with rash and capricious decisions based on a desire to build a monument over one's manly greatness. I think they begin by wise and clever thinking, timing and market positioning and a desire to prevail hardships."
That sounds reasonable, but I have problems to give you an 'A'. It *should* be that way, but is it?
"Clever" is quite a relative concept. There's a lot of clever people around there and you could say that big corps have their share of clever people too. But if it can be said of a bussiness initiative to be "clever" then most of the time it would be risen up on big corporations: they have their share of clever people and they are big, so their share of clever people is bigger.
So, in the end, for a start-up to be *really* succesful (say, ala Microsoft or Google) their ideas can't seem clever. Of course, they are considered clever *after the fact*, by their results, but given that nobody knows the future and that most start-ups fail, it may be the case that the idea couldn't be too dumb, obvioulsy, but that probably it has more to do with luck and stubburness (a strange idea stubburnly pushed in the proper place at the proper moment) than with real cleverness (again, after the fact, the new ubermillionaire probably will tell you that "I knew from the begining", but before the fact, both the future ubermillionaire and the big pack of those that fail will probably tell you "this is going to be next boom, I'm absolutly sure").
In other words: if you take a lot of people blindly shooting at a mark, some of them will make a bull eye but this doesn't mean they aimed any better than the others.
"After reading through the posts, I was thinking the same thing. Everyone keeps mentioning "penis size". Testosterone has nothing to do with penis size once you pass puberty."
You don't know what a metaphor is, do you?
"How are you not better off in the second case? How does someone else having $99.99 reduce the value of the $0.01 you have?"
Because it heavily depends on the scenario. Now the one with 99.99 is able to outbid you if need arises instead of being on par to you. Then, as long as his outbidding gives him a net benefit this can have a snowball effect that will make him owning everything and you owning nothing.
The practical case has been shown dozens of times through History: two big countries, about the same in power, and a third lessen one. If one of the two tries to conquer the third one, it's in the best interest of the other of the two to go to war, even if the local optimum is obviously let the other country conquer the "pivotal" one since that would mean direct loses for the one going to war and even lesser value of the conquered one due to loses by its resistance to be conquered. But on the long run, the new bigger country would be in the position to "outbid" in war the other, so the other is forced to go into war even knowing it will make a net loss for the three in the game.
"Btw, the Nash equilibrium, optimal solution for splitting $100 would be to offer $0.01 and keep $99.99. Would you accept that?"
The optimal solution, as always, heavily depends on the exact rules of the game.
If it's a one-off offering, yes, the minimal split should do, but even that *only* if you think the other side to be perfectly rational and aware of the rules' implications*1.
But that's stupid: Dr. Spock is such a memorable character because we perfectly know people is not like that. So how could be considered an intelligent choice one that conciously were against what we know about our oponent? You don't try to dialogue to a fighting bull, you cover, even if it was the best choice for the fighting bull not to attack you, because you know well in advance how fighting bulls are. Well, you know how people tend to be too, and you know not having into account they tend to be proud and greedy is a bad strategy.
*1 By the way, Nash equilibrium is only valid for multiple round games so it can't be a Nash equilibrium if it's a one-off game. And certainly in a multiple round game 0.01/99.99 is not a "best strategy" for both parties. Since this game relies on subjectivity there's probably no Nash equilibrium point but an "equilibrium zone" around how people *tends* to be and it should be around 50/50.
"he quotes throughout his prose and cites credit beyond all the others, and that is God. I would not classify this book within the genre of theology; however it is refreshing to see a man with such scientific acumen articulate his respect for a fundamentally diametrically opposing thought process."
I wouldn't find this refreshing but despressing.
Unless, of course, it's not Kemp "quoting God", but the reviewer wanting to make a point while Kemp is only citing other fellow humans as they think their way about transcendental matters.
That, or you'll provide some proof that it's certainly the Word of God that he was citing and not the word of a man that told God told something.
"Companies should simply block social networking sites or have policies against there use."
How this can be offtopic about a news telling that social networking sites pose a financial danger for companies?
It might be "-1 idiotic" but never off topic.
"There is precisely ZERO money for the manufacturer and the carrier to produce and qualify new firmware for a phone that already has been 'sold' to an end-user."
As in the manufacturer can't open an on-line shop to sell new tested releases for their older devices?
As in the carrier won't charge for the downloads (or a no limits expensive bill as they push on-lineness for the mobile)?
Or is it that with upgradeable phones the vendor won't be able to push a 40% margin on a $600 new device but only a meagre 10% on a $20 upgrade?
Or is it because if the mobile is upgradeable the carrier can't offer you a shinny new one device for no money (and 18 months extension to your contract)?
Currently the mobile phone vendor's client is not the end customer, but the carrier. No wonder mobile producers look for their own interests first, the carrier interests later and never the end user's interests.
"Hey Taco man you do realize this is recycled old news from about two month ago, don't you?"
Do you mean it's not zero-day news?
"In the context of security, a zero-day vulnerability is a vulnerability for which no patch exists"
References?
I bet that a exploit against a known vulnerability is not a "zero-day" attack no matter if there's still no patch.
But I wouldn't be surprised if software companies, especifically closed source software companies tried to change it to mean "no patch still delivered" of "before our monthly patch Thursday" since "zero-day attack" seems to imply the software vendor really couldn't do any better: another PR trick.
"It's not one or the other. People don't have to constantly play video games, read, be physically active, or practice mathematics to receive their benefits. They can balance them out."
Or not.
On one hand, how much gaming is needed to significantly improve your reactions? I'd bet is not five minutes a day; in the other, especially in the era of on-line gaming, videogames are designed to be adictive so you are always on the risk of too much gaming if there's such thing, so it can be the case that you really can't be able to properly "balance it out".
"fortunately, the law doesn't rely on existence of a pure monopoly before it determines that illegal anti-competitive behaviour has taken place."
This doesn't hit the mark either.
It was said "This seems to be more an example of Zynga taking advantage of economies of scale, and entering new game genres to eliminate competition. Which is a monopoly."
Since what he says is obviously not a monopoly I'll assume "which is an abuse of monopoly position" instead. But it doesn't hold water this way neither.
Abusing monopoly has nothing to do about economies of scale but about the fact that you use your position in one market to wipe out competition in a different one. Zynga doesn't abuse it's position (i.e. by reaching under-the-table deals with third parties so it gets exclusivity in new markets); it "abuses" its money and brand recognition, which is completly different and, by itself, perfectly legal (I don't mean that Zynga couldn't be doing something illegal but that taking advantage of its money and popularity is not one of those things).
"99.999999999% of the rest of the world do other things as their primary business model. Small businesses aren't going to do this because it requires a staff that KNOWS how to work with this software and get the data out."
Of course, 99.999999999% of the world doesn't have electricity as their primary business model. Does this mean that small business are going to stay with candles and bonfires? Because, you know, they won't have the needed staff for producing and distributing their own electricity.
This new data-mining environments are just borning. First only companies with data mining as its core bussiness invent and use the new technology. Then, big companies with big money to deploy their own version. After that -if there's in fact a use case for it, utility companies will rise that will bring it to everybody.
"Anyone who cares about churning through massive amounts of data already has ways to do it."
But the associated costs can limit the kind of business you can build on top of heavy data crunching. It might be the case (as it has been with other technologies) that the cost drop will allow for new business to arise that were previously impractical.
"This article is basically written like the invention of the hammer made it so everyone would want to build their own homes because they could."
In a rethoric way, the invention of the hammer allowed people to get out of caves since they could build now there own huts first, then towns and finally cities.
"It isn't about what's practically solvable, it's about what's cheaply solvable."
Aren't they the same? Isn't cost a practical constraint?
"These problems have been practical for anybody with money for a while."
No matter how rich you are, if you need six dollars to get five, it's not practical.
"Hadoop lowers the barrier to entry."
By means of lowering production costs. And that means that now you need four dollars instead of six for your five-dollar opportunity which is exactly which turns an impractical bussiness into a practical one.
"If you've got the cash, IBM will set you up with a monster SQL cluster that will take that massive complex SQL query "(the one that takes a month to run on your desktop), and return results in 2 seconds. If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it."
Your last sentence is *only* valid for luxury goods. For anything else everybody, no matter how rich they are, asks for the costs and rightly so. Do you think rich people get rich by going into negative-ballance bussiness?
"You do realize that 'a cluster' is really just 'a bunch of mirrors' that you're distributing the query across"
You do realize that the kind of cluster we are talking here is not "just 'a bunch of mirrors'" by big margin: you don't copy the whole data set to every node; you don't "copy" the computing load to every node.
Distributing is quite different from mirroring.
"Why not just let the department of energy call it "for official use only" and the department of state call it, "official use only.""
Because sooner or later you will need to cross data from DoE and DoS and you'll have a nightmare to know which data is crossable privacy-wise to which.
"No, identity theft is not because of SSN use as an auth token"
Of course it is.
"Identity theft is because your SSN is used as an identity token [...] I keep my SSN card under lock"
If it is not an authentication/authorization token, why do you try to keep it secret and under lock? And if it is not an identity token, whose identity is being stolen if not the one identified by that very SSN?
You identify yourself as 123-12-1234 (your SSN) and then you probe your authenticity... by knowing your own SSN. That's plain stupid!!!
-Who are you?
-I'm John Doe.
-How can I be sure you are in fact John Doe instead of a liar?
-Because I know my own name: John Doe.
-I see.
Do you see?
"And SSN was only supposed to be used to track eligibility for SS benefits. Not for identification."
Do you mean that eligibility for SS benefits depends in some characteristic of the SSN, like being odd or prime? Of course it is an identity token!!! It's the means by which the Social Security identificates their subjects: you can *track* benefits because you can *identificate* beneficiaries by means of their SSN.
What you probably meant was that SSN was meant to be an identity token to be used only within the SS.
"Hey, it's Steve Jobs and this is /."
Yes, it could be worse. Imagine it's the other Steve (Ballmer) the one having at the reach of his hand some throwable weapons that, for once, are not chairs.
"Einstein did not fail math. sorry about being pedantic, but this is a pet peeve."
It is not. *Specially* when this whole thread is about testing your abilities in contrast with your testing results.
On one hand I did not say that Einstein failed at maths, but that as per Einstein's own accord he was bad at maths. Again by Einstein's own saying, he wouldn't have pass his math tests at the Polytechnikum without the unvaluable help from Marcel Grossmann.
A different thing is the relative value (pun intended) of Einstein's assertion which has to be understood in the context of his work: Einstein being "bad" at maths doesn't mean he had problems with second degree polynomics or elemental algebra as it would mean for us, mere mortals, but that he had problems with things like tensorial calculus or elliptic geometry (both *essential* for his latter work)... up to the point that he made quite an serious mistake when calculating the angular value for light distortion from Sun by gravitational lens effect that would have had a massive effect on the early adoption of his general relativity theory where not the case that Eddington's mission to test it had to be delayed till 1919 due to IWW, so giving Einstein time to find the mistake.