Gambling at your favorite online Indian Gaming casino!
Actually, I'm serious...here in California tribes have already gotten permission to run casinos on their land (although I believe the matter is still going through the courts) so then could the same tribes run their own online gaming?
Do Indian tribes have to abide by the Hague Convention or the Berne treaty or whatever that copyright protection treaty is?
Think about it...Indians are desperately seeking self-reliance, which is pretty much impossible given the crappy ass desert land they were given. So what if they built a few wind turbines and ran a data haven? Do you think Disney et. al. could really bully them?
I would be really intersted in finding out about this. We have been looking for safe havens and if we put Indian reservations on the Internet that sounds like it might fit the bill?
I'm not suggesting we all use Passport, in fact I think it should be avoided for the exact reasons you list.
The article I thought was talking about agents that we would each be running ourselves, just like any other service (web, mail, ftp). That agent that we run and maintain interacts on our behalf each time some organization needs financial information.
There would probably have to be some central database, just like there are root servers for resolving web addresses. But there is no reason these databases can't all compete with each other just like registrars are supposed to be doing.
Point is it should definitely be something that we control or maintain, although low tech users may with to enroll with a CSP provider rather than maintain the service themselves.
They are called financial managers. They get all the bills, they keep tabs on all expenses, they handle all dealings with the financial world. All the rich person does is spend it and read reports on the interest they've earned.
So why shouldn't the rest of us have the same thing? I hate having to update dozens of records across the country every time i change an address or lose a credit card. Switching banks caused a huge uproar in my automatic online banking.
It's like e-mail. I would have to be a complete idiot to use my ISP-given e-mail box. As soon as a switch providers, its worthless since no ISP wants to offer a nice handy eForwarding option (even for a small fee). They want to punish you for leaving. Not even that, sometimes ISPs decide on their own to change their addresses (like what Netscape did when it bought some free webmail thing, or like MediaOne did when they became part of @Home).
So what do I do? I get my own domain and give that out. When my ISP changes, I don't care. Update the record in a single place and I'm done.
Extra layers of abstraction, like this, are desperately needed in the financial sector. I would love to see some AI that could handle the same functions as a financial manager without me having to make enough interest off of my measly savings account to be able to pay his salary.
You didn't just say "planes already have autopilots that override the pilot". You also added the comment "pilots hate them" which I took as a counterpoint to my original argument.
And imaginary? WTF? Since Tuesday an in-flight terrorist incident can hardly be called an "imaginary" context. It's a very real possibility that needs to be considered and accounted for in the design of a plane.
I stand by the site and my ability to refute an argument I see presented there.
My understanding is that there is no spot in North America that isn't covered by ground control. The whole continent is divided up into regions and each region has to hand control of a plane over to a neighboring region when it crosses a border.
you'd need some kind of algorithm to scan for an open area
Not really, you'd just have to make a GPS priority list. Put the coordinates for major urban areas (cities and capitals) on the "DO NOT LAND" side of the list, and coordinates for major lakes and plains on the "SAFE TO LAND" side of the list. Perhaps every county could set aside a specific area full of sand and water pits within easy access to medical resources, kind of like how some mountain freeways have great big gravel ditches to catch runaway trucks.
Or, if GPS is too difficult to implement, planes already know how to use approach radar to guide pilots during foggy weather, so all they would need is a big approach radar near a safe landing zone that the plane could home in on and then follow to safety.
Video cameras in the cockpit would also be a good idea
Not really too useful. There are already panic buttons that pilots can press to alert ground control there is a situtation. Having a video camera doesn't really provide much more information than the existing voice recorder. It might help with identification later, but then they should probably just film everyone as they go down the walkway to the plane. Plus, if they are suicidal like these terrorists, having pictures of them after they have killed themselves really doesn't do much.
Uh, what would be the point of that? There's a big difference between knowing where the flight control systems are and having the technical knowledge to patch into them to take control of an airplane away from the cockpit.
If their intent is to crash the plane and kill everyone, they can already kill everyone except the caged marshalls and pilots. They could also open up the emergency exits or start a fire in the cabin if they wanted to take out the plane.
Losing the plane and its passengers is always a possibility. The goal is to keep the destruction and loss of life capped to the plane itself, and not any other highly-populated target on the ground.
Fine, but terrorist incidents can't compared to normal in-flight situations. You are assuming that in the case of an in-flight emergency, you'd rather have a human at the controls than a computer. Maybe for some situations, that is a true statement. Sometimes the sensors are malfunctioning and the pilot has a better picture of the real situtation than the autopilot.
But in a terrorist situation, the opposite is true. You don't want the plane to be in control of a human because if the wrong human is at the controls, the plane becomes a flying weapon. Any "pilot" override can be used by a trained terrorist and not just the guy we hired to get the passengers to their destination safely.
Pilots may hate autopilots because in most situations, they want to keep control. But ask those same pilots if they'd like to keep control when there's a terrorist is in the cockpit. Or would they rather be able to say "there is nothing that can be done, the plane is automatically going to land now, kiling me or anyone else can't change that now."
First: Timed safes are used in nearly every major banking institution around the world, guarding billions. They cannot be opened outside business hours. There is no override for this. On occasion people have accidentally been locked inside timed vaults and thankfully they had enough air inside to last until morning.
Second: Systems fail. Life sucks. Grow up and deal with it. Engines fail, landing gears fail, wings fail...things fail. Pilots make mistakes. Which is better? Losing one plane in a million due to system failure or losing the plane AND thousands of people on the ground because terrorists can use it as a flying bomb?
Absolutely not. Because then people will get killed until it is manually overridden!
It is no different than timed safes or safes you see at convenience stores that say in big bold letters "Cannot Be Opened By Employee". If you have a local override, then you risk having someone coerced into using it.
If you put it in the hands of the ground controller or some outside authority, they can't be threatened in the same way. Ground controllers would hate to lose a plane but they would be able to make the tough call perhaps more easily than the pilot thinking about his wife and kids at home.
Blocking off the cabin is not an good option. What if the pilot kills the co-pilot and wants to go sucicidal? Apparently today someone tried to get onto a plane with fake pilot identification so this might be a real threat. What if there is a fire, toxic gas or similar? Heck, what if they have to use the bathroom or need to eat or stretch their legs? I really don't think this will ever happen.
Now regarding the other idea...so you put this jail cell in with a couple marshalls. What do you do when terrorists in the back of the plane start slitting the throats of women, children, or babies? You have to leave your cushy little cage to get to them, whoops sorry that's what they wanted. Do you really think the marshalls would be able to resist the temptation to leave the cage as one-by-one the passangers are all slaughtered? Do you think any of them would still have a job after the public got wind of it? It doesn't matter if they were preventing a crash, the public will still say they should have done something. It's a lose-lose situtation.
No, marshalls should be unfettered and undercover. That way, the terrorists need to have a lot more people on the plane to take it over. A trained gunner can easily take out two or three individuals before they have an opportunity to react.
I think personally what we need to develop is an emergency lockout. A panic button that when pressed will lock the plane on autopilot programmed to land at the nearest airport. If that's not technically possible, it should circle the nearest body of water or uninhabited area (using GPS). The only way to override this lockout would be with a code from ground control. This system would be that difficult to implement. It wouldn't be foolproof, but it wouldn't be something two or three men armed with forks would be able to disarm. Worst case scenario is that the plane runs out of fuel and makes a crash landing in the middle of a field. Hopefully with no fuel, people would survive that. As tech improves, it should be possible to land flawlessly.
But anyway, regardless of what changes are made...I don't think they will be necessary. The reason this happened is because no one conceived of the possibility. Everyone did what the law enforcement agencies have always said: be cooperative and don't fight back. But look what happened in PA. People will fight back now. No one is going to let themselves become a flying bomb.
God help any Arabic person who forgets to put down his pencil/fork/toothbrush before standing up in the aisle. He's likely to be tackled and beaten by a panicing mob of passengers.
- JoeShmoe
Save some for Emergency Services :(
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The outpouring of generousity is incredible, but let's not forget that there is going to be a fund established for the families of all the firefighters, policemen, medical workers and other who died performing their duty, trying to get civilians to safety.
At least 300 firefighters are missing and presumed dead. While I'm sure they all have nice pensions, it often isn't enough. One firefighter is reported to have 10 children and the question is raised who will take care of them with their father gone?
I myself have three friends who are firefighters (over in CA, they mourn the loss of their comrades across the country) and I hope that we all don't get lost in the moment. I'm sure the Red Cross has the resources they need right now to provide care (except for blood, which they probably still need) so try to remember there is going to be a LOT of need in the coming months.
It will be a very cold winter for many NY families.
No, it's not racist. Read the friggin' topic. In Executive Orders, a purchase from a rug dealer was used to activate a sleeper agent who then tried to assasinate President Ryan at the same time his kids were to be kidnapped/killed.
Yes, but a one-time pad is a technique and not an encryption format. You don't need to flip any bits around to use a one-time pad.
If i tell you the word "horpens" means launch a terrorist attack in three days, that's also a one-time pad. Three years later you pick up the phone and hear "Is Mr. Horpens there?" and even if your phone was being listened to there is really know what to convert "horpens" into "launch terrorist attack in three days".
So I put one-time pads until classic counterintelligence techniques and not encryption. There is always SOME way to compromise a message chain, the danger is when you aren't even aware the chain exists.
It is more likely that old fashioned counterintelligent-style phone tricks were used rather than fancy encryption.
After all, if the NSA can probably defeat any encryption if they have reason to suspect they need to. It's nearly impossible to screen the entire Muslim/Islamic community for suspicious rug orders that may or not be instructions.
So he needs to pick and assistant, or a couple of them. If no one is faulting his decision-making then he seems like the right person to choose a replacement/supplement.
I don't see the value in bringing a for-profit enterprise + ICANN bureaucracy into it. If one guy has been doing it since 1986 it can't possible require more than two or three.
My point was that from what I can tell, it seems that the cure is worse than the disease. What good is getting that domain right away if it gets taken two weeks later by some big corporation that considers it a trademark violation and has the money to drag you through a long drawn-out arbitration process?
To me, the decision to privatize/ICANNize the.au domain seems a choice between being ruled by an understanding and benevolent monarch or by democracy where only businesses got to vote. Not being Australian, I had no idea what the former is really like, but I know what the latter is like and I can't imagine anything worse.
ICANN said that as Internet names increasingly had commercial value, decisions could not be made on an ad hoc basis by individuals that were not formally accountable.
Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. What was ICANN's reason for now allowing the TLD iii? "It looks too difficult to pronouce." And who exactly is ICANN accountable to? Well...oh yeah, that's right no one.
Give me a break. When was the last time there was a problem with the way this guy was running things? When was the last time you read a story about some lame cybersquatting issue from AU? I don't think I've ever seen one. And, to close with another adage...if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
Amen. I'd perfectly happy to see Microsoft take over the world of streaming media, since they couldn't make something secure on the most securingest day of their life with an automatic securing machine (blatent Simpsons ripoff).
ASFRecorder is a godsend. I just wish someone would update Streambox VCR to work with the new Real formats so that I can have a solution for those few remaining sites that don't offer streaming video in both formats.
If I can get the RealMedia file local, there are ways to converting it to an open format (they are all a major pain in the ass but at least its possible). However, I have yet to find a way to watch a streaming RealMedia clip without installing that privacy-nightmare known as RealPlayer.
Yes but reliablity isn't just about downtime. Parts are bad sometimes just as often on brand new machines as on older ones (how many of us have received a name-brand machine DOA? I have several times, especially laptops). But that's not what business are worried about.
Reliability is about reducing responability for something down to a single group. If I buy a cheap PC, are I really going to be able to get help if some random error causes the X-session to crash for no apparent reason? Even if I have a major-brand distribution with a nice support contact, will they be able to help me with ghosts in my hardware? Or more likely will they blame the NIC vendor who then points to the mobo maker who then point to the application vendor who then point it back to the NIC?
If you buy a machine from Dell/Compaq/IBM it doesn't matter WHAT goes wrong...they have to fix it because they certified it. If they can't, then they will pound on their component vendors to get them to fix it for you.
That's very attractive to corporations, and I don't see anything in the original article that addresses this. One vendor for software and one vendor for hardware is a compelling solution and for most major companies, that one software vendor is Microsoft and that one hardware vendor is one of the Big 3 (Dell Compaq IBM).
You're not thinking like a corporation...you are falling into the same trap logic that real people (not companies) use.
Let me put it in perspective for you: The cost of an average OSHA-compliant workspace chair is $500. Now you can find perfectly usable chairs at OfficeMax for $200. So with 1000 users that would be a cost savings of wow, $300,000 right?
Wrong. The cost of workman's comp lawsuit for backpain due to less than stellar lumbar support could end up being in the millions. Same with monitors. I'd like the idealistic author of this article to find a 21" monitor that fits his peanuts budget. Because that's what any user with glasses an inch thick is going to demand. If you don't fill that request, prepare for a discrimination suit.
To put it in perspective...the author is suggesting that companies spend LESS on computers than they spend on LIGHTING or TOILET PAPER. There are certain things that can be considered the cost of doing business...well lit cubicals, ergonomic chairs, and stable name-brand computers are three of them.
Even under your scenario where the company is saving a half million dollars...if just one of those less-than-top-of-the-line PCs fails while performing a mission critical severity-one application then it could cost a company a hell of a lot more than the half-million in savings. Yes, any PC can and will fail but if you buy name brand components from one a major computer manufacture, you will literally have engineering trampling each other to get it back up before they lost a multi-million dollar customer.
So, I stand by my earlier post. I see the value for home and small business applications (maybe even a department-wide deployment, particularly in with smarter IT users) but that's it. But corporations love risk management a LOT more than they lost penny-pinching.
Often times you simply cannot find cheap hardware to purchase, unless you want to build it yourself or go with refurbished units.
Build it yourself is a poor option because it is very hard to find the quantities of parts you need, especially since business environments value similarity in desktop platforms. So you end up with groups of five or ten machines with whatever was on sale that week at Fry's Electronics.
If you are like most Windows-based companies you turn to vendors like Dell/Compaq/IBM and then the problem is that the cheaper machine you can buy is still a 900MHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive (granted it's only $600 but still what if you just need it to run training applications through a web browser?). Plus since you are riding the tail end of the cost range, you again enter the problem of having a month go by and suddenly you have completly different hardware.
So it's a choice between
* one vendor to resolve problems
* one platform to support/rollout
* one price that's not so great
or
* many vendors fingerpointing each other
* need a different image for every 5th system
* a price hovering around the lowest possible
For home/small business users I think the second choice is a valid one, but for large business and corporations I just don't think they'll ever see the value in it.
"I wouldn't call it policing, we're just trying to comply with the law and by highlighting the issue to customers, its putting us in a better position as acting as a responsible Netizen on the Internet," the spokesperson said.
Did anyone else read this and see the word Nazi-an? "Comply with the law! Schnell!"
Okay, sorry...or unless you pay THOUSANDS for the "workgroup" or "enterprise" versions, which is exactly the same hardware except apparently for said remote disc select utility.
Anyway you look at it...great idea, crappy implementation.
I seem to remember reading about this kind of thing during the whole Napster incident. If memory serves me correctly, the DMCA states that if someone finds an incident of copyright infringement, they must first attempt to contact the infringer directly with proof of the infringing action and a sworn (under enalty of perjury) statement that they are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder.
If this is not possible or the infringer does not respond, then the copyright agent can contact the ISP and submit the same proof of infringment and swore statement.
AT THAT POINT, the DMCA also states the ISP must give you, the "infringer" a chance to refute the charges with a sworn statment (also under penalty of perjury). If you refute the charges, then the ISP is no longer involved, they leave the content/connection alone and the copyright agent must then file charges against you in court to get a court to issue an order to block the material.
So, if they are cutting access without sufficient proof and without giving you a chance to refute, the ISP is violating the DMCA safe harbor provision and your usage agreement. If the proof doesn't meet the standards in the DMCA then it certainly does not meet the watered-down standards of your average terms of service.
Except the driver for it is cripped to prevent you from sharing drive contents over a network. Unless you pay hundreds of dollars for crappy Win or Mac only software, which doesn't make it any more networkable since only the primary computer has the ability to select which CD/DVD is being accessed.
And to top off insult to injury, they charge $500 for an SDK to keep you from writing your own better software.
No thank you. I just wish someone out there would create a project to built one of these only use a thinserver to provide access to all CD/DVD with standard FTP/SAMBA formats.
Slashdot Mirror
Gambling at your favorite online Indian Gaming casino!
Actually, I'm serious...here in California tribes have already gotten permission to run casinos on their land (although I believe the matter is still going through the courts) so then could the same tribes run their own online gaming?
Do Indian tribes have to abide by the Hague Convention or the Berne treaty or whatever that copyright protection treaty is?
Think about it...Indians are desperately seeking self-reliance, which is pretty much impossible given the crappy ass desert land they were given. So what if they built a few wind turbines and ran a data haven? Do you think Disney et. al. could really bully them?
I would be really intersted in finding out about this. We have been looking for safe havens and if we put Indian reservations on the Internet that sounds like it might fit the bill?
- JoeShmoe
I'm not suggesting we all use Passport, in fact I think it should be avoided for the exact reasons you list.
The article I thought was talking about agents that we would each be running ourselves, just like any other service (web, mail, ftp). That agent that we run and maintain interacts on our behalf each time some organization needs financial information.
There would probably have to be some central database, just like there are root servers for resolving web addresses. But there is no reason these databases can't all compete with each other just like registrars are supposed to be doing.
Point is it should definitely be something that we control or maintain, although low tech users may with to enroll with a CSP provider rather than maintain the service themselves.
- JoeShmoe
They are called financial managers. They get all the bills, they keep tabs on all expenses, they handle all dealings with the financial world. All the rich person does is spend it and read reports on the interest they've earned.
So why shouldn't the rest of us have the same thing? I hate having to update dozens of records across the country every time i change an address or lose a credit card. Switching banks caused a huge uproar in my automatic online banking.
It's like e-mail. I would have to be a complete idiot to use my ISP-given e-mail box. As soon as a switch providers, its worthless since no ISP wants to offer a nice handy eForwarding option (even for a small fee). They want to punish you for leaving. Not even that, sometimes ISPs decide on their own to change their addresses (like what Netscape did when it bought some free webmail thing, or like MediaOne did when they became part of @Home).
So what do I do? I get my own domain and give that out. When my ISP changes, I don't care. Update the record in a single place and I'm done.
Extra layers of abstraction, like this, are desperately needed in the financial sector. I would love to see some AI that could handle the same functions as a financial manager without me having to make enough interest off of my measly savings account to be able to pay his salary.
- JoeShmoe
Jesus, dude, take a valium.
You didn't just say "planes already have autopilots that override the pilot". You also added the comment "pilots hate them" which I took as a counterpoint to my original argument.
And imaginary? WTF? Since Tuesday an in-flight terrorist incident can hardly be called an "imaginary" context. It's a very real possibility that needs to be considered and accounted for in the design of a plane.
I stand by the site and my ability to refute an argument I see presented there.
- JoeShmoe
If there's no ground control in range
My understanding is that there is no spot in North America that isn't covered by ground control. The whole continent is divided up into regions and each region has to hand control of a plane over to a neighboring region when it crosses a border.
you'd need some kind of algorithm to scan for an open area
Not really, you'd just have to make a GPS priority list. Put the coordinates for major urban areas (cities and capitals) on the "DO NOT LAND" side of the list, and coordinates for major lakes and plains on the "SAFE TO LAND" side of the list. Perhaps every county could set aside a specific area full of sand and water pits within easy access to medical resources, kind of like how some mountain freeways have great big gravel ditches to catch runaway trucks.
Or, if GPS is too difficult to implement, planes already know how to use approach radar to guide pilots during foggy weather, so all they would need is a big approach radar near a safe landing zone that the plane could home in on and then follow to safety.
Video cameras in the cockpit would also be a good idea
Not really too useful. There are already panic buttons that pilots can press to alert ground control there is a situtation. Having a video camera doesn't really provide much more information than the existing voice recorder. It might help with identification later, but then they should probably just film everyone as they go down the walkway to the plane. Plus, if they are suicidal like these terrorists, having pictures of them after they have killed themselves really doesn't do much.
- JoeShmoe
Uh, what would be the point of that? There's a big difference between knowing where the flight control systems are and having the technical knowledge to patch into them to take control of an airplane away from the cockpit.
If their intent is to crash the plane and kill everyone, they can already kill everyone except the caged marshalls and pilots. They could also open up the emergency exits or start a fire in the cabin if they wanted to take out the plane.
Losing the plane and its passengers is always a possibility. The goal is to keep the destruction and loss of life capped to the plane itself, and not any other highly-populated target on the ground.
- JoeShmoe
Fine, but terrorist incidents can't compared to normal in-flight situations. You are assuming that in the case of an in-flight emergency, you'd rather have a human at the controls than a computer. Maybe for some situations, that is a true statement. Sometimes the sensors are malfunctioning and the pilot has a better picture of the real situtation than the autopilot.
But in a terrorist situation, the opposite is true. You don't want the plane to be in control of a human because if the wrong human is at the controls, the plane becomes a flying weapon. Any "pilot" override can be used by a trained terrorist and not just the guy we hired to get the passengers to their destination safely.
Pilots may hate autopilots because in most situations, they want to keep control. But ask those same pilots if they'd like to keep control when there's a terrorist is in the cockpit. Or would they rather be able to say "there is nothing that can be done, the plane is automatically going to land now, kiling me or anyone else can't change that now."
- JoeShmoe
First: Timed safes are used in nearly every major banking institution around the world, guarding billions. They cannot be opened outside business hours. There is no override for this. On occasion people have accidentally been locked inside timed vaults and thankfully they had enough air inside to last until morning.
Second: Systems fail. Life sucks. Grow up and deal with it. Engines fail, landing gears fail, wings fail...things fail. Pilots make mistakes. Which is better? Losing one plane in a million due to system failure or losing the plane AND thousands of people on the ground because terrorists can use it as a flying bomb?
- JoeShmoe
Absolutely not. Because then people will get killed until it is manually overridden!
It is no different than timed safes or safes you see at convenience stores that say in big bold letters "Cannot Be Opened By Employee". If you have a local override, then you risk having someone coerced into using it.
If you put it in the hands of the ground controller or some outside authority, they can't be threatened in the same way. Ground controllers would hate to lose a plane but they would be able to make the tough call perhaps more easily than the pilot thinking about his wife and kids at home.
- JoeShmoe
Blocking off the cabin is not an good option. What if the pilot kills the co-pilot and wants to go sucicidal? Apparently today someone tried to get onto a plane with fake pilot identification so this might be a real threat. What if there is a fire, toxic gas or similar? Heck, what if they have to use the bathroom or need to eat or stretch their legs? I really don't think this will ever happen.
Now regarding the other idea...so you put this jail cell in with a couple marshalls. What do you do when terrorists in the back of the plane start slitting the throats of women, children, or babies? You have to leave your cushy little cage to get to them, whoops sorry that's what they wanted. Do you really think the marshalls would be able to resist the temptation to leave the cage as one-by-one the passangers are all slaughtered? Do you think any of them would still have a job after the public got wind of it? It doesn't matter if they were preventing a crash, the public will still say they should have done something. It's a lose-lose situtation.
No, marshalls should be unfettered and undercover. That way, the terrorists need to have a lot more people on the plane to take it over. A trained gunner can easily take out two or three individuals before they have an opportunity to react.
I think personally what we need to develop is an emergency lockout. A panic button that when pressed will lock the plane on autopilot programmed to land at the nearest airport. If that's not technically possible, it should circle the nearest body of water or uninhabited area (using GPS). The only way to override this lockout would be with a code from ground control. This system would be that difficult to implement. It wouldn't be foolproof, but it wouldn't be something two or three men armed with forks would be able to disarm. Worst case scenario is that the plane runs out of fuel and makes a crash landing in the middle of a field. Hopefully with no fuel, people would survive that. As tech improves, it should be possible to land flawlessly.
But anyway, regardless of what changes are made...I don't think they will be necessary. The reason this happened is because no one conceived of the possibility. Everyone did what the law enforcement agencies have always said: be cooperative and don't fight back. But look what happened in PA. People will fight back now. No one is going to let themselves become a flying bomb.
God help any Arabic person who forgets to put down his pencil/fork/toothbrush before standing up in the aisle. He's likely to be tackled and beaten by a panicing mob of passengers.
- JoeShmoe
The outpouring of generousity is incredible, but let's not forget that there is going to be a fund established for the families of all the firefighters, policemen, medical workers and other who died performing their duty, trying to get civilians to safety.
At least 300 firefighters are missing and presumed dead. While I'm sure they all have nice pensions, it often isn't enough. One firefighter is reported to have 10 children and the question is raised who will take care of them with their father gone?
I myself have three friends who are firefighters (over in CA, they mourn the loss of their comrades across the country) and I hope that we all don't get lost in the moment. I'm sure the Red Cross has the resources they need right now to provide care (except for blood, which they probably still need) so try to remember there is going to be a LOT of need in the coming months.
It will be a very cold winter for many NY families.
- JoeShmoe
No, it's not racist. Read the friggin' topic. In Executive Orders, a purchase from a rug dealer was used to activate a sleeper agent who then tried to assasinate President Ryan at the same time his kids were to be kidnapped/killed.
- JoeShmoe
Yes, but a one-time pad is a technique and not an encryption format. You don't need to flip any bits around to use a one-time pad.
If i tell you the word "horpens" means launch a terrorist attack in three days, that's also a one-time pad. Three years later you pick up the phone and hear "Is Mr. Horpens there?" and even if your phone was being listened to there is really know what to convert "horpens" into "launch terrorist attack in three days".
So I put one-time pads until classic counterintelligence techniques and not encryption. There is always SOME way to compromise a message chain, the danger is when you aren't even aware the chain exists.
- JoeShmoe
It is more likely that old fashioned counterintelligent-style phone tricks were used rather than fancy encryption.
After all, if the NSA can probably defeat any encryption if they have reason to suspect they need to. It's nearly impossible to screen the entire Muslim/Islamic community for suspicious rug orders that may or not be instructions.
- JoeShmoe
TiVo la revolución!
:)
- JoeShmoe
So he needs to pick and assistant, or a couple of them. If no one is faulting his decision-making then he seems like the right person to choose a replacement/supplement.
.au domain seems a choice between being ruled by an understanding and benevolent monarch or by democracy where only businesses got to vote. Not being Australian, I had no idea what the former is really like, but I know what the latter is like and I can't imagine anything worse.
I don't see the value in bringing a for-profit enterprise + ICANN bureaucracy into it. If one guy has been doing it since 1986 it can't possible require more than two or three.
My point was that from what I can tell, it seems that the cure is worse than the disease. What good is getting that domain right away if it gets taken two weeks later by some big corporation that considers it a trademark violation and has the money to drag you through a long drawn-out arbitration process?
To me, the decision to privatize/ICANNize the
- JoeShmoe
ICANN said that as Internet names increasingly had commercial value, decisions could not be made on an ad hoc basis by individuals that were not formally accountable.
Well if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black. What was ICANN's reason for now allowing the TLD iii? "It looks too difficult to pronouce." And who exactly is ICANN accountable to? Well...oh yeah, that's right no one.
Give me a break. When was the last time there was a problem with the way this guy was running things? When was the last time you read a story about some lame cybersquatting issue from AU? I don't think I've ever seen one. And, to close with another adage...if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
- JoeShmoe
Amen. I'd perfectly happy to see Microsoft take over the world of streaming media, since they couldn't make something secure on the most securingest day of their life with an automatic securing machine (blatent Simpsons ripoff).
ASFRecorder is a godsend. I just wish someone would update Streambox VCR to work with the new Real formats so that I can have a solution for those few remaining sites that don't offer streaming video in both formats.
If I can get the RealMedia file local, there are ways to converting it to an open format (they are all a major pain in the ass but at least its possible). However, I have yet to find a way to watch a streaming RealMedia clip without installing that privacy-nightmare known as RealPlayer.
Anyone have an update on this situation?
- JoeShmoe
Yes but reliablity isn't just about downtime. Parts are bad sometimes just as often on brand new machines as on older ones (how many of us have received a name-brand machine DOA? I have several times, especially laptops). But that's not what business are worried about.
Reliability is about reducing responability for something down to a single group. If I buy a cheap PC, are I really going to be able to get help if some random error causes the X-session to crash for no apparent reason? Even if I have a major-brand distribution with a nice support contact, will they be able to help me with ghosts in my hardware? Or more likely will they blame the NIC vendor who then points to the mobo maker who then point to the application vendor who then point it back to the NIC?
If you buy a machine from Dell/Compaq/IBM it doesn't matter WHAT goes wrong...they have to fix it because they certified it. If they can't, then they will pound on their component vendors to get them to fix it for you.
That's very attractive to corporations, and I don't see anything in the original article that addresses this. One vendor for software and one vendor for hardware is a compelling solution and for most major companies, that one software vendor is Microsoft and that one hardware vendor is one of the Big 3 (Dell Compaq IBM).
- JoeShmoe
You're not thinking like a corporation...you are falling into the same trap logic that real people (not companies) use.
Let me put it in perspective for you: The cost of an average OSHA-compliant workspace chair is $500. Now you can find perfectly usable chairs at OfficeMax for $200. So with 1000 users that would be a cost savings of wow, $300,000 right?
Wrong. The cost of workman's comp lawsuit for backpain due to less than stellar lumbar support could end up being in the millions. Same with monitors. I'd like the idealistic author of this article to find a 21" monitor that fits his peanuts budget. Because that's what any user with glasses an inch thick is going to demand. If you don't fill that request, prepare for a discrimination suit.
To put it in perspective...the author is suggesting that companies spend LESS on computers than they spend on LIGHTING or TOILET PAPER. There are certain things that can be considered the cost of doing business...well lit cubicals, ergonomic chairs, and stable name-brand computers are three of them.
Even under your scenario where the company is saving a half million dollars...if just one of those less-than-top-of-the-line PCs fails while performing a mission critical severity-one application then it could cost a company a hell of a lot more than the half-million in savings. Yes, any PC can and will fail but if you buy name brand components from one a major computer manufacture, you will literally have engineering trampling each other to get it back up before they lost a multi-million dollar customer.
So, I stand by my earlier post. I see the value for home and small business applications (maybe even a department-wide deployment, particularly in with smarter IT users) but that's it. But corporations love risk management a LOT more than they lost penny-pinching.
- JoeShmoe
Often times you simply cannot find cheap hardware to purchase, unless you want to build it yourself or go with refurbished units.
Build it yourself is a poor option because it is very hard to find the quantities of parts you need, especially since business environments value similarity in desktop platforms. So you end up with groups of five or ten machines with whatever was on sale that week at Fry's Electronics.
If you are like most Windows-based companies you turn to vendors like Dell/Compaq/IBM and then the problem is that the cheaper machine you can buy is still a 900MHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive (granted it's only $600 but still what if you just need it to run training applications through a web browser?). Plus since you are riding the tail end of the cost range, you again enter the problem of having a month go by and suddenly you have completly different hardware.
So it's a choice between
* one vendor to resolve problems
* one platform to support/rollout
* one price that's not so great
or
* many vendors fingerpointing each other
* need a different image for every 5th system
* a price hovering around the lowest possible
For home/small business users I think the second choice is a valid one, but for large business and corporations I just don't think they'll ever see the value in it.
- JoeShmoe
"I wouldn't call it policing, we're just trying to comply with the law and by highlighting the issue to customers, its putting us in a better position as acting as a responsible Netizen on the Internet," the spokesperson said.
Did anyone else read this and see the word Nazi-an? "Comply with the law! Schnell! "
- JoeShmoe
Okay, sorry...or unless you pay THOUSANDS for the "workgroup" or "enterprise" versions, which is exactly the same hardware except apparently for said remote disc select utility.
Anyway you look at it...great idea, crappy implementation.
- JoeShmoe
I seem to remember reading about this kind of thing during the whole Napster incident. If memory serves me correctly, the DMCA states that if someone finds an incident of copyright infringement, they must first attempt to contact the infringer directly with proof of the infringing action and a sworn (under enalty of perjury) statement that they are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder.
If this is not possible or the infringer does not respond, then the copyright agent can contact the ISP and submit the same proof of infringment and swore statement.
AT THAT POINT, the DMCA also states the ISP must give you, the "infringer" a chance to refute the charges with a sworn statment (also under penalty of perjury). If you refute the charges, then the ISP is no longer involved, they leave the content/connection alone and the copyright agent must then file charges against you in court to get a court to issue an order to block the material.
So, if they are cutting access without sufficient proof and without giving you a chance to refute, the ISP is violating the DMCA safe harbor provision and your usage agreement. If the proof doesn't meet the standards in the DMCA then it certainly does not meet the watered-down standards of your average terms of service.
IANAL, just what I remember reading.
- JoeShmoe
Except the driver for it is cripped to prevent you from sharing drive contents over a network. Unless you pay hundreds of dollars for crappy Win or Mac only software, which doesn't make it any more networkable since only the primary computer has the ability to select which CD/DVD is being accessed.
And to top off insult to injury, they charge $500 for an SDK to keep you from writing your own better software.
No thank you. I just wish someone out there would create a project to built one of these only use a thinserver to provide access to all CD/DVD with standard FTP/SAMBA formats.
- JoeShmoe