It's a people thing, not an IT thing
on
Ethics In IT
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· Score: 1
It's the people who are either ethical (do you really mean honest?) or not. There's no attribute of working in an IT environment that would change people's ethics.
Now,a more interesting question might be:
Does IT attract more or fewer honest people? The answer I'd say os that IT people are generally more honest. We are often presented with opportunities to do unethical or dishonest things and not get caught but I think the proportion of IT staff who would go down this route is lower than in the general population.
If IT people were more willing to exploit situations for their own gain, there'd be a lot more of us on yachts in tax havens.
The police don't care about the keyboard, screen or memory - they are only concerned with the data on the disk. If I was given the option of handing over a $1000 laptop or a $100 disk, I'd be prepared to pop the drive and hand it to them.
I wouldn't expect the police to be capable enough or organised enough to ever retun it though. So they'd get one of my old 2GB or 6Gb disks while the "business" data is shipped separately as others have suggested or carried in hold luggage, with lots of bubblewrap around it.
"It is impossible to compute the area of a circle on the diameter as the linear unit without trespassing upon the area outside of the circle to the extent of including one-fifth more area than is contained within the circle's circumference, because the square on the diameter produces the side of a square which equals nine when the arc of ninety degrees equals eight."
Not that other countrys' are any better, I suppose
at least in the mind of the law enforcement people.
The funny thing is: once you start treating people in a certain way, they tend to behave like that. Treat people as if they're inferior and some of them will start to believe it. Make people think that they'll be treated as criminals and don't be surprised if they start to behave as if they are criminals.
Make it look as if the law has no respect for them, and the population will have less respect for the law.
This sort of initiative sends completely the wrong message - it doesn't make everyone safer, it just makes a few people richer.
The article has at it's central point a a new book about innovation.
Apart from rather out-of-place remarks about language - which I'm not sure I really understood, so I can't say if I agree with them or not, there is a lot of column-inches given to one single example of a guy who re-invented the globe, to help teach geography. Surely there are better examples of innovation than this?
I'm also not convinced that innovation for it's own sake is necessarily a good thing. There are lots of innovative, but really dumb ideas out there.
What's interesting to see from all of this is that most of the american east-coast cables terminate in NY (OK, probably not all at exactly the same spot, but with enough concentration to cause concern). We have seen the effect of a couple of accidental cable cuts in widely different places. Imagine what would happen if a ship accidentally dragged it's anchor across a proportion of the cables coming into New York, especially the fat ones. Now imagine if it wasn't an accident and there was more than 1 ship involved....
When I was doing work on resilient architectures for companies, we were always telling then to install redundant and diverse cables, so 1 accident wouldn't chop all their connections.
It looks like this lesson has not been fully learned.
I've definitely noticed a drop in sales calls from indian call centres over the past few days. I normally suffer from a few a day, maybe 2 or 3, but it's been wonderfully quiet for aq couple of days now - bliss!
Is this how someone will make money out of free software?
It looks like there's an opportunity out there - depending on how much people value their time at, or how much companies are prepared to pay to assure their code base. You never know, there may even be some value in having your Python code V3 certified?
The short product development cycles mean that there's a huge pressure to ship as soon as (or sometimes before) a product is functionally complete and relatively bug-free. That means there's no time in the schedule for optimising performance and reducing bloat.
With very few exceptions, these aren't factors that make it onto the feature list.
So far, this hasn't mattered too much as the performance of new PCs rises rapidly - what was a slow program on last year's box is fine on this year's. Great if you're buying new - no so great if your machine is a couple of years old.
The ony solution I can think of would be to force developers to use less than bleeding edge hardware - but then development would slow down.
and can therefore still be tapped, subpoenaed and used in evidence. It doesn't matter where the hosts are, you need to consider where the traffic will flow on it's way to and from whereever. If it touches US territory, they'll still get you.
It's lighter and thinner than every other builder's shovel and it looks really great.
OK, it is 20 times more expensive that a wooden-shafted version with
a steel end, and it will only do the same work, but that's more than made up for by it's looks.
Software does not wear out. Software carries on working just as well as it did when it was new, until the hardware platform which supports it wears out. And even then, it can usually be transferred to a new hardware platform. So as the economy tightens up, people simply stop buying new software. Where's the need to upgrade, when the software you have works acceptably well?
After the dotcom bust, the hardware manufacturers had a much tougher time than the software guys. The reason was that all the companies that failed (much as they tend to in a recession) could sell off their hardware as part of the liquidation - so fewer people bought new, they just grabbed bargains from the firesales.
However, the software licenses weren't transferrable, so people still had to buy new softs and the software companies that did survive came out of the bust in a better state than the hardware co.s who were effectively competing against their own, second hand, equipment.
and if it is like Millenium Edition, they'll get over it and bring out another version in a year (if we believe the rumours) or two (if we believe the forecasts) or three (if we believe our experience).
tucked away on the right side of the motley fool page, was a little link about MS. When you followit you read:
"Stocks rose sharply for a third straight session Friday as investors cheered upbeat profit reports from big names like Microsoft Corp. and were reassured by word of a possible buyout of a trouble bond insurer."
and
"Microsoft's bright forecast and earnings that outpaced expectations lent strength to a notion emerging in recent days that perhaps Wall Street had been too pessimistic in its reading of the economy."
So the Fool can say what it likes - it's always a good story to bash M$, but the people who know and who put their money on the line reckon they're wrong. Hell, I wish I had "only" $20Bn in the bank
Laws pertaining to war only have a meaning if real people can see if they are being broken or adhered to. A country's population can only protest anout atrocities (either committed by their own side or the other guy) if they know about them - which really means if they appear on TV.
Cyber warfare does not exist in places you can get TV cameras. It is the perfect deniable operation. Therefore it is not possible to present "evidence" of transgressions to the court of public opinion, or international outrage and consequently no protests or action can be taken.
As it is, rules of war are only drafted after the event and would therefore need recedents to be set inorder to know where the limits of acceptability lay.
I would expect that the attitude of some governments (not to mention any names) would allow them to treat anyone with a computer as an "enemy combatant" and therefore would be fair game in any cyber warfare action. In that situation, we should all expect to be targets - sometimes it's best to get your defence in first.
So they won't need their brand-spanking new accelerator after all!
Maybe we could put it to good use as a theme park ride instead. Imaging all those superconducting magnets accelerating your cart up to 99.99% of the speed of light - what a ride that would be.
With the relativistic effects, you might even be able to come out of the ride before you went in.
The fact that it operates in a vacuum might be a problem... have to think about that.
It's not a technical problem, it's a people problem.
Consider an average prole on (say) $30/hour. If they get 10 of these dumb emails a day, each of 200 lines it will take a few minutes to read each one. Call it about 30 minutes per day or $15. If just one person responds to each of the 100 people on the email, that takes each of those 100 people another 1 minutes to read the new stuff = 100 minutes = $50 per responder, per email.
If 10 people respond to 10 emails a day (all sent to 100 people), that's $5k/day of wasted people time
Seriously, if that many people are responding to it, then anything you (or the respondents) add will simply be lost in the noise. The only reason to send an email to that many people is if you:
a) have some information to dissemminate
b) don't have an effective heirarchy
In either case there's no point responding.
People (well, inexperienced emailers - and it sounds like your company has it's fair share) often feel the need to respond to something they receive. Apart from giving the illusion of working, when all they're doing is getting in the way, it gives an opportunity to impress other equally idle people with their wit and insight.
Hopefully your personnel dept. are monitoring these emails and using them as the basis for the list of people who contribute nothing to the company - while the rest of you are quietly getting on with your work.
Sadly, it's probably the HR people who generate a lot of this garbage, and measure a person's worth by the volume of stuff they produce, not it's quality.
Just in case, maybe you should write an email responder that adds a few random comments of your own to each of these, and forwards it to everyone else.
A guild or union or whatever you want to call it only has power because they can do (or stop doing) something that society values - and whose wishes to retain that thing are more than the union members' pain at witholding it.
Where, exactly would a group of bloggers create enough value that "we" would be prepared to pay extra to have them continue?
They have no leverage as most of them are hobbyists and do it more for their own benefit and self-image than for anyone else. If they stopped, they would not be missed and there would not be a hole in our lives that needed filling (possibly the reverse!!!)
Slashdot Mirror
Now,a more interesting question might be:
Does IT attract more or fewer honest people? The answer I'd say os that IT people are generally more honest. We are often presented with opportunities to do unethical or dishonest things and not get caught but I think the proportion of IT staff who would go down this route is lower than in the general population.
If IT people were more willing to exploit situations for their own gain, there'd be a lot more of us on yachts in tax havens.
The person in the article is a british national. Do foreigners have any rights in the US?
I wouldn't expect the police to be capable enough or organised enough to ever retun it though. So they'd get one of my old 2GB or 6Gb disks while the "business" data is shipped separately as others have suggested or carried in hold luggage, with lots of bubblewrap around it.
They'll rip your ears off (or transplant them onto your a.... which they think they already own)
"It is impossible to compute the area of a circle on the diameter as the linear unit without trespassing upon the area outside of the circle to the extent of including one-fifth more area than is contained within the circle's circumference, because the square on the diameter produces the side of a square which equals nine when the arc of ninety degrees equals eight."
Not that other countrys' are any better, I suppose
The funny thing is: once you start treating people in a certain way, they tend to behave like that. Treat people as if they're inferior and some of them will start to believe it. Make people think that they'll be treated as criminals and don't be surprised if they start to behave as if they are criminals.
Make it look as if the law has no respect for them, and the population will have less respect for the law.
This sort of initiative sends completely the wrong message - it doesn't make everyone safer, it just makes a few people richer.
Apart from rather out-of-place remarks about language - which I'm not sure I really understood, so I can't say if I agree with them or not, there is a lot of column-inches given to one single example of a guy who re-invented the globe, to help teach geography. Surely there are better examples of innovation than this?
I'm also not convinced that innovation for it's own sake is necessarily a good thing. There are lots of innovative, but really dumb ideas out there.
When I was doing work on resilient architectures for companies, we were always telling then to install redundant and diverse cables, so 1 accident wouldn't chop all their connections.
It looks like this lesson has not been fully learned.
I've definitely noticed a drop in sales calls from indian call centres over the past few days. I normally suffer from a few a day, maybe 2 or 3, but it's been wonderfully quiet for aq couple of days now - bliss!
It looks like there's an opportunity out there - depending on how much people value their time at, or how much companies are prepared to pay to assure their code base. You never know, there may even be some value in having your Python code V3 certified?
With very few exceptions, these aren't factors that make it onto the feature list.
So far, this hasn't mattered too much as the performance of new PCs rises rapidly - what was a slow program on last year's box is fine on this year's. Great if you're buying new - no so great if your machine is a couple of years old.
The ony solution I can think of would be to force developers to use less than bleeding edge hardware - but then development would slow down.
People probably have find memories of a console they used when they were (are?( children, but they're probably just remembering the good old days.
Consoles are improving the whole time, just don't wait for the "best", because you'll never find it
and can therefore still be tapped, subpoenaed and used in evidence. It doesn't matter where the hosts are, you need to consider where the traffic will flow on it's way to and from whereever. If it touches US territory, they'll still get you.
OK, it is 20 times more expensive that a wooden-shafted version with a steel end, and it will only do the same work, but that's more than made up for by it's looks.
Did I mention it looks great?
Software does not wear out. Software carries on working just as well as it did when it was new, until the hardware platform which supports it wears out. And even then, it can usually be transferred to a new hardware platform. So as the economy tightens up, people simply stop buying new software. Where's the need to upgrade, when the software you have works acceptably well?
After the dotcom bust, the hardware manufacturers had a much tougher time than the software guys. The reason was that all the companies that failed (much as they tend to in a recession) could sell off their hardware as part of the liquidation - so fewer people bought new, they just grabbed bargains from the firesales.
However, the software licenses weren't transferrable, so people still had to buy new softs and the software companies that did survive came out of the bust in a better state than the hardware co.s who were effectively competing against their own, second hand, equipment.
There's a lot of life in the ole dog yet
"Stocks rose sharply for a third straight session Friday as investors cheered upbeat profit reports from big names like Microsoft Corp. and were reassured by word of a possible buyout of a trouble bond insurer."
and
"Microsoft's bright forecast and earnings that outpaced expectations lent strength to a notion emerging in recent days that perhaps Wall Street had been too pessimistic in its reading of the economy."
So the Fool can say what it likes - it's always a good story to bash M$, but the people who know and who put their money on the line reckon they're wrong. Hell, I wish I had "only" $20Bn in the bank
Cyber warfare does not exist in places you can get TV cameras. It is the perfect deniable operation. Therefore it is not possible to present "evidence" of transgressions to the court of public opinion, or international outrage and consequently no protests or action can be taken.
As it is, rules of war are only drafted after the event and would therefore need recedents to be set inorder to know where the limits of acceptability lay.
I would expect that the attitude of some governments (not to mention any names) would allow them to treat anyone with a computer as an "enemy combatant" and therefore would be fair game in any cyber warfare action. In that situation, we should all expect to be targets - sometimes it's best to get your defence in first.
Maybe we could put it to good use as a theme park ride instead. Imaging all those superconducting magnets accelerating your cart up to 99.99% of the speed of light - what a ride that would be.
With the relativistic effects, you might even be able to come out of the ride before you went in.
The fact that it operates in a vacuum might be a problem ... have to think about that.
Consider an average prole on (say) $30/hour. If they get 10 of these dumb emails a day, each of 200 lines it will take a few minutes to read each one. Call it about 30 minutes per day or $15. If just one person responds to each of the 100 people on the email, that takes each of those 100 people another 1 minutes to read the new stuff = 100 minutes = $50 per responder, per email.
If 10 people respond to 10 emails a day (all sent to 100 people), that's $5k/day of wasted people time
Seriously, if that many people are responding to it, then anything you (or the respondents) add will simply be lost in the noise. The only reason to send an email to that many people is if you:
a) have some information to dissemminate
b) don't have an effective heirarchy
In either case there's no point responding.
People (well, inexperienced emailers - and it sounds like your company has it's fair share) often feel the need to respond to something they receive. Apart from giving the illusion of working, when all they're doing is getting in the way, it gives an opportunity to impress other equally idle people with their wit and insight.
Hopefully your personnel dept. are monitoring these emails and using them as the basis for the list of people who contribute nothing to the company - while the rest of you are quietly getting on with your work.
Sadly, it's probably the HR people who generate a lot of this garbage, and measure a person's worth by the volume of stuff they produce, not it's quality.
Just in case, maybe you should write an email responder that adds a few random comments of your own to each of these, and forwards it to everyone else.
Where, exactly would a group of bloggers create enough value that "we" would be prepared to pay extra to have them continue?
They have no leverage as most of them are hobbyists and do it more for their own benefit and self-image than for anyone else. If they stopped, they would not be missed and there would not be a hole in our lives that needed filling (possibly the reverse!!!)
then when they break the laws ....
Oh silly me. They won't evolve lawyers until they've invented money.
Which could be a problem considering how much profit the duty-free shops make from selling overpriced perfume and the like
Nothing new here