It's not only pretty hard to find really good coders, it's nigh impossible to find brilliant ones; to the tune of "when you catch one, keep it". Whenever I get involved with one of those horrid corporate over-culture places that rewards secret cocaine addiction when combined with expensive suits and pretty much nothing else, I feel nothing but pity for the poor souls who work there, believing that it's their only choice.
We don't all have the terror of being unemployed you know. It seems to me that this person is thoughtful and possibly a bit inexperienced and is really trying to do what's best for the customer, which is exactly how it should be. Classically this would be an open and shut case of calling the provider (maybe mentioning it to you boss in passing) and forging an agreement for free dynamically allocated bandwidth. (within certain thresholds).
A good boss will hear this news and note that his customer base has instant gratification, and that he has more than enough time to talk about traffic shaping the RIGHT way, without losing anyone in the process. Generally the boss becomes bored with his own proposed solution once it's obvious that it's no longer relevant, and will settle for a much simpler, less invasive long term plan.
And if it's not a good boss? Eh. If you can't stand by your principles, you can't stand at all.
It won't be able to reliably tell anything about anyone, except perhaps that they were a little bit nervous about something, just *exactly* the same way current lie detectors do.
The problem with lie detection, as quite a number of people have said endlessly over the years, is that the assumption is made that a lie is something that somehow the body has a physiological problem with. Clearly this is swan songs of morality, as amorphous and dynamic as they are, being applied directly to the human nervous system, and somehow people are surprised to discover that there hasn't been a lie detector in the world that's been proven unquestionably to work at all.
I won't post anonymously. I am in the security field, and I have no current agreements with anyone which would preclude me from agreeing with the quote above.
In my opinion the quote above is not that far off base. It's not exactly a backdoor though, as federal law enforcement agencies do not need back doors to install ML or any number of other sprojans (spy trojans) on Windows machines. While I will absolutely not get into the specifics of how this dll works, I will say this:
Imagine a big honkin' SGI-O2-blue (the type of blue, not the type of machine) refrigerator in a rack, plugged directly into a core router on a big internet hub (or even a small one) and munching down every single packet it sees and analyzing them for routing and content. That's Carnivore.
Now imagine someone's brain beginning to work and realizing that really the most efficient way to see internet traffic is not to do deep-scans on the service provider side, but to instead do all that data harvesting locally on the physical node in question and sending the results periodically offshore (where all domestic spy material must stop first, by federal law) where they're combed through by any number of security people working for the man.
That second one is not Carnivore. It's a much, much more serious matter.
All I can imagine when I think of everyone and their pothead kid being allowed to drop anything they want into Android is Rasterman porting Enlightenment to it, turning it into what enlightenment turned all my computers into in the late 90s; beautiful devices that didn't actually ever work.
I'm also an employer, and I disagree with you completely. I operate by a more modern meme; the one that states beyond repute that an employee that trusts his or her employer is an employee who themselves can be trusted. An employee who does not trust their employer *will* result in lost revenue in some way; be it by slacking off most of their day, all the way up to walking out with equipment.
I would never "check up" on the personal life of any employee, prospective or hired. And I've torn up contracts with companies who think it's somehow alright for them to not only research the personal lives of MY employees, but also to discuss their (negative) opinions of their private lives with me.
As a result, the churn around these parts is very close to zero. I don't have to spend a fortune training new employees all the time. I don't have to pay anyone exorbitant salaries to keep them honest and loyal. And I've managed to assemble a rock-solid, brilliant team who individually may or may not be involved in some pretty weird shit after work.
But it's none of my business. I don't care, because the whole point of business is to make money. Whether or not Jonas or Pip are doing bonghits with shorn goats whilst listening to devil music in their underpants after work is none of my concern at all, so long as they do their job, do it well, and get everything done on time.
It can stop actually, in a way that's quite tried and true.
All that needs to happen at this point is someone who's got some sort of acumen in public relations needs to head up (or just throw it up themselves) a site that contains a "blacklist" of companies who engage in such practices.
I imagine a cross between the consumerist and fucked company.
If it becomes "cool" to check such a place before even dreaming of applying for a job at a specific company, and if thereby enough people take part, it will scare the bejeezus out of the few big fish needed to get the ball rolling.
"But that's not the point, is it? This kind of stuff is a hobby and a fascination to some people. I'm interested enough that I might write a software simulation of the machine, but not interested enough to build one."
I'd be very interested to hear your opinions of these monsters after you've actually attempted to convert one into a real hardware emulator.
Something tells me if you're really serious about doing it in Java though, I'll be waiting a bit more than "about a day".
The reason that punishment has been laid so strongly and swiftly down on Childs is directly because of the power of the position he held. He's being made an example in order to make sure that no other network admins get any bright ideas about exposing their feelings of real ownership and territory that every good network engineer has about their responsibilities (and equipment for that matter).
As an employer, I hope the steps being taken against this man, no matter what his motivations were, are entirely unsuccessful. The world needs fearless and ballsy geeks a lot more than it needs spineless jellyfish who happily do whatever they're told *despite the ethics of it*. There's something deeply disturbing about so many giant brains have willfully given up control of (and responsibility for) their own actions and are all too ready to claim they were "just doing my job".
Pardon my revulsion, but there are those of us who remember where that sort of outlook takes the species.
That there's a network admin somewhere that has giant ethical nuts. As anyone with even a day's worth of network admin/engineering experience knows, the loyalty of all network admins can be purchased with A. a fat paycheck or B. a threat of any kind from someone with authority.
Can you imagine even half of the network admins in the united states changing the passwords on their routers and shutting them down until Childs is released?
Because science isn't done for the discoveries alone my friend, it's done for the *recognition* in exchange for discoveries. I understand that I could very well be down modded for this sort of opinion, but I've worked in too many research facilities to see it any differently.
Now boil your brain on the fact that the very same thing exists in medical research, and feel the creeping horror at what that implies.
"Davies is particularly interested in places that are heavily contaminated with arsenic, which, he suggests, might support forms of life that use arsenic the way life as we know it uses phosphorus."
I think everyone who's ever seen the original Star Trek Episode "Devil in the Dark" (the one with the Horta, the silicone-based rock creature that Spock mind melds with to share its emo about being a rock) has been waiting for some scientist to start looking for these things.
On behalf of all trekkies from Boomer to Gen X, it's about damn time.
And we've had VT's since the Xerox Alto in 1973. It's what Jobs saw when he made that infamous visit to Xerox PARC, which later influenced the Apple Lisa.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahem, it was a natural assumption to make for a website trying to sell ad space. In the actual world, it was delusional and lame.
It's not only pretty hard to find really good coders, it's nigh impossible to find brilliant ones; to the tune of "when you catch one, keep it". Whenever I get involved with one of those horrid corporate over-culture places that rewards secret cocaine addiction when combined with expensive suits and pretty much nothing else, I feel nothing but pity for the poor souls who work there, believing that it's their only choice.
I've only worked for companies with coders like that. The lack of interesting things in your life is no one's fault but your own.
"do as you're told"?
We don't all have the terror of being unemployed you know. It seems to me that this person is thoughtful and possibly a bit inexperienced and is really trying to do what's best for the customer, which is exactly how it should be. Classically this would be an open and shut case of calling the provider (maybe mentioning it to you boss in passing) and forging an agreement for free dynamically allocated bandwidth. (within certain thresholds).
A good boss will hear this news and note that his customer base has instant gratification, and that he has more than enough time to talk about traffic shaping the RIGHT way, without losing anyone in the process. Generally the boss becomes bored with his own proposed solution once it's obvious that it's no longer relevant, and will settle for a much simpler, less invasive long term plan.
And if it's not a good boss? Eh. If you can't stand by your principles, you can't stand at all.
It won't be able to reliably tell anything about anyone, except perhaps that they were a little bit nervous about something, just *exactly* the same way current lie detectors do.
The problem with lie detection, as quite a number of people have said endlessly over the years, is that the assumption is made that a lie is something that somehow the body has a physiological problem with. Clearly this is swan songs of morality, as amorphous and dynamic as they are, being applied directly to the human nervous system, and somehow people are surprised to discover that there hasn't been a lie detector in the world that's been proven unquestionably to work at all.
"That's what Unix is about"
Exactly.
I won't post anonymously. I am in the security field, and I have no current agreements with anyone which would preclude me from agreeing with the quote above.
In my opinion the quote above is not that far off base. It's not exactly a backdoor though, as federal law enforcement agencies do not need back doors to install ML or any number of other sprojans (spy trojans) on Windows machines. While I will absolutely not get into the specifics of how this dll works, I will say this:
Imagine a big honkin' SGI-O2-blue (the type of blue, not the type of machine) refrigerator in a rack, plugged directly into a core router on a big internet hub (or even a small one) and munching down every single packet it sees and analyzing them for routing and content. That's Carnivore.
Now imagine someone's brain beginning to work and realizing that really the most efficient way to see internet traffic is not to do deep-scans on the service provider side, but to instead do all that data harvesting locally on the physical node in question and sending the results periodically offshore (where all domestic spy material must stop first, by federal law) where they're combed through by any number of security people working for the man.
That second one is not Carnivore. It's a much, much more serious matter.
All I can imagine when I think of everyone and their pothead kid being allowed to drop anything they want into Android is Rasterman porting Enlightenment to it, turning it into what enlightenment turned all my computers into in the late 90s; beautiful devices that didn't actually ever work.
Ahem. Lets see some of these designs. :)
"engineer"?
An appropriate platform for Word.
I'm also an employer, and I disagree with you completely. I operate by a more modern meme; the one that states beyond repute that an employee that trusts his or her employer is an employee who themselves can be trusted. An employee who does not trust their employer *will* result in lost revenue in some way; be it by slacking off most of their day, all the way up to walking out with equipment.
I would never "check up" on the personal life of any employee, prospective or hired. And I've torn up contracts with companies who think it's somehow alright for them to not only research the personal lives of MY employees, but also to discuss their (negative) opinions of their private lives with me.
As a result, the churn around these parts is very close to zero. I don't have to spend a fortune training new employees all the time. I don't have to pay anyone exorbitant salaries to keep them honest and loyal. And I've managed to assemble a rock-solid, brilliant team who individually may or may not be involved in some pretty weird shit after work.
But it's none of my business. I don't care, because the whole point of business is to make money. Whether or not Jonas or Pip are doing bonghits with shorn goats whilst listening to devil music in their underpants after work is none of my concern at all, so long as they do their job, do it well, and get everything done on time.
It's all I ask, and it's precisely what I get.
It can stop actually, in a way that's quite tried and true.
All that needs to happen at this point is someone who's got some sort of acumen in public relations needs to head up (or just throw it up themselves) a site that contains a "blacklist" of companies who engage in such practices.
I imagine a cross between the consumerist and fucked company.
If it becomes "cool" to check such a place before even dreaming of applying for a job at a specific company, and if thereby enough people take part, it will scare the bejeezus out of the few big fish needed to get the ball rolling.
I liked it better when IBM made those Thinkpad things.
Anyone up for invading France again and forcing their surrender, or is it my turn?
Bleh, I really don't want it to be my turn.
Anyone have a look at Miss Bruni's iPod lately?
"But that's not the point, is it? This kind of stuff is a hobby and a fascination to some people. I'm interested enough that I might write a software simulation of the machine, but not interested enough to build one."
I'd be very interested to hear your opinions of these monsters after you've actually attempted to convert one into a real hardware emulator.
Something tells me if you're really serious about doing it in Java though, I'll be waiting a bit more than "about a day".
As an employer, I'll let you in on something:
The reason that punishment has been laid so strongly and swiftly down on Childs is directly because of the power of the position he held. He's being made an example in order to make sure that no other network admins get any bright ideas about exposing their feelings of real ownership and territory that every good network engineer has about their responsibilities (and equipment for that matter).
As an employer, I hope the steps being taken against this man, no matter what his motivations were, are entirely unsuccessful. The world needs fearless and ballsy geeks a lot more than it needs spineless jellyfish who happily do whatever they're told *despite the ethics of it*. There's something deeply disturbing about so many giant brains have willfully given up control of (and responsibility for) their own actions and are all too ready to claim they were "just doing my job".
Pardon my revulsion, but there are those of us who remember where that sort of outlook takes the species.
That there's a network admin somewhere that has giant ethical nuts. As anyone with even a day's worth of network admin/engineering experience knows, the loyalty of all network admins can be purchased with A. a fat paycheck or B. a threat of any kind from someone with authority.
Can you imagine even half of the network admins in the united states changing the passwords on their routers and shutting them down until Childs is released?
Yeah, I can't either.
Because science isn't done for the discoveries alone my friend, it's done for the *recognition* in exchange for discoveries. I understand that I could very well be down modded for this sort of opinion, but I've worked in too many research facilities to see it any differently.
Now boil your brain on the fact that the very same thing exists in medical research, and feel the creeping horror at what that implies.
I do indeed. Or do I? Silicone based life forms may indeed be worth looking for.
"I'm a doctor, not a brick layer!"
RTFA:
"Davies is particularly interested in places that are heavily contaminated with arsenic, which, he suggests, might support forms of life that use arsenic the way life as we know it uses phosphorus."
I think everyone who's ever seen the original Star Trek Episode "Devil in the Dark" (the one with the Horta, the silicone-based rock creature that Spock mind melds with to share its emo about being a rock) has been waiting for some scientist to start looking for these things.
On behalf of all trekkies from Boomer to Gen X, it's about damn time.
And we've had VT's since the Xerox Alto in 1973. It's what Jobs saw when he made that infamous visit to Xerox PARC, which later influenced the Apple Lisa.