Hmm... yep, everything seems good from here... just me, my pets and those blokes from ASIO across the road... hi guys! Sure I'll come over for a coffee.
Because not sealing the door could allow for a potential point of entry for anyone to monitor you. The door doesn't need to lock per-se, but it makes it easier to have the magnetic strips across it when it does.
Data: Storing the data on a samba share, and mapped network drives. To the GP, I would suggest that you haven't had a large corporation to support. We support a nation wide network (ok, so it's australia, we're still a nation!) with only 13 support staff including our in-house development team. The bloke in administration wants to be able to have his funky theme pack, and use OO.o, Firefox and Thunderbird. These are not standard across the organisation, and he understands this. The IT Support team is not there to fix every little problem, and as I mentioned, not every person has the PC or the administrative access on said PC. The IT Support team is there to fix the standard problems with the company standard software. The parent to this post has it right, all data is stored on a network drive any data on the local machine is considered loseable, and the users understand this.
It's an interesting statistic that our IT department get more calls than any other department in the corporation (we're a transport company, so we get a lot of calls to arrange pickups/delivery's). The users know that they can call us, they know that we'll try to fix their problem. 15 minutes isn't a hard and fast rule but the users understand that if we feel it is necessary we will call it in.
My userbase respects my team. They know that we work hard to keep things going for them and they are willing to wait for us to find a resolution to their problem.
Perhaps this is unique to my company, or perhaps this is unique to Australia and the "she'll be right mate" attitude we're so famous for, or perhaps this is just the way we support our staff and the relationship with them. I leave it to each slashdotter to decide.
Oh and we only use certain printers across the company (standards again;) so each image comes with all the print drivers the user should ever need.
Is it flamebait? If I had mod points I'd probably flag as insightful. As I've stated before I'm the linux guy in a Microsoft shop and the majority of Vista upgrades (that are voluntary - so about 3% of our vista users) have done it because Vista offers better security and a slick interface, from a team of Microsoft oriented tech's, this has produced outrage. Despite the best intentions of the IT team Vista is coming regardless of what we want. I personally blame the marketing, and would cite the comment made to me not 3 days ago. "Vista has to be more secure. All the ad[vertisement]s say that it is". I can't compete with Microsofts marketing tactics (nor any other company) I simply don't have the resources. Only the respect of the IT team and the proven skill/competency in what we do has kept the CEO's from asking for the upgrades.
On Topic: Is this really a "bad security winning out" scenario, or are we merely looking at the triangle of cost, security and usability... cost and usability are of course the big factors for most corporations, so the sacrifice of security is, perhaps, merely a progression of cost cutting and the aim to supress those "annoying messages" that indicate a potential PEBKAC when inputting data.
Actually its a very effective method for both the IT team and the people who desperately need the administrative access. IT aren't required to understand every little john doe program that these people can want to install so they don't have to support them (this is very clearly communicated to these users).
It also means that we have a relativly standardised form across the board despite having PC's everywhere and very quickly weed out the users who think they're smart but aren't really.
An example of a good operator: there's a bloke over in administration who I would swear used to work in IT. He's got Open Office installed when everyone else uses Microsoft Office, he uses firefox, thunderbird and trillian for his messenger. About 500 theme packs and a few other bits of software. According to our helpdesk logging system he has only ever called once, and this was when he patched himself for the new daylight savings time last year. Everyone else had the problem as well.
Also, so that those who aren't aware know, you don't have to be a local administrator to install a network printer. Anyone hooking a printer directly to a PC in a corporate environment is either a director or an IT who has lots to learn.
It's interesting to note that the compromises on our machines don't occur on our terminal servers or the critical PC's, they only occur on the one's that "absolutely must have" administrative access on their local machine.
A properly configured windows system is as secure as a properly configured linux system (well, in this case anyway!). And in case your wondering: If our helpdesk can't solve the issue within 15 minutes the PC is re-imaged no questions asked no data saved. People store stuff on network servers because they're told to, anyone who doesn't comply with IT is made to suffer the consequences.
He was too busy dragging a suitcase of gold from his burning wreck of a car to the nearest phone box so that he could call you and ask you to take it for a small fee of course!
Of course the really good crackers are also sysadmin's as this gives them the best insight into how a system works and the ways the security is thought out... they probably also write really nice code for a software company or freelance.
Note: This is a generalisation of a select group. It will not cover every possibility.
Crazy sex jokes aside, I personally wouldn't want a robot jammed up my arse... I have an issue with probes that are attached to anchored piping... let alone something that can autonomously move... what happens when the doctor lets go... OH WAIT HE ALREADY HAS! All I see here is potential for bad things much like the infamous scissor-after-surgery stories...
We had a system going at my school when I was going through
For every flaw I found in the firewall/security, I scored $5. For every major flaw (I managed to redirect my report to a different print spooler for example) I scored $10. The IT guy there paid out of his own pocket. Since I left (and the 3 kids with me - I'm not that good at these things!) I have heard of only ONE instance where this guy had to pay up, and that was because he screwed a configuration setting.
For us, all it took was a bit of incentive (I've heard tell of this being implemented with various priveledges such as a multiplayer Quake session during a class) and the IT guy willing to take the time rather than disabling the accounts.
Of course, there are other issues here... but before all this FIRE THE HEAD! Friend of mine failed his senior year because the IT at his school screwed up and they blamed it on him, so he lost all PC access while at school. That's pretty unfair and downright stupid...
Assuming we populate other planets, would it then be a good idea to use IPv6 as the links between these planets (ala the 6bone) and then IPv4 with giant 4to6 devices on each of the off world connection nodes? That way we get the ease of IPv4 IP address' with the scalability of 6.
Whilst not answering the question, I have a 6 monitor setup across 3 machines (all based on various nVidia and Radeon cards). I use synergy (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) to keep the clutter off my desk (only one keyboard and mouse now) and it works well.
Now all I'm doing is waiting to convert psDooM to be more like the BOFH Doom: (http://www.nyms.de/bofh1998eng.html/ Search for: The head's mid-life crisis)
Good points, the document in question was of a technical nature, pertaining to the process through which certain alcohols were made.
I've been reading the responses, and they were all pretty good, the best by far was that which mentioned the finite way of putting things. The problem here is not that I didn't contribute to the human intellect pool, the problem is that by using (admittedly only) one source and rewriting my re-write into what I personally considered a more technical language, I had managed to (sub-consciously?) re-write the document to be damn near exactly what the original source was. The point is that I didn't blatantly copy the original source, I condensed each idea into a language based on paragraphs of information, and then when I rewrote said paragraphs of information I made an almost exact replica.
Freaky co-incidence perhaps, and I realised pretty quickly that rewriting documents based on paragraph's is not the best way of doing it (I now read an entire document three or four times, then write down the key points and terms that I remember and go from there)...
OTOH I recall failing a class a few years back for so-called plagiarizing of works.
Turns out I had taken a document, re-written it for my own words and submitted it to a friend for review. The friend suggested that I make it sound more technical than it did, so I proceeded to take my re-write and re-write it. Unfortunately my vocabulary at the time meant that I re-wrote it to sound almost identical to the original source, which in my case was a genuine mistake.
Perhaps I'm just a part of the nth percentile in this, but it begs the question of how many students fail because of similar circumstances.
Incidentally, I'm all for getting rid of the term paper, out here in Australia I have found it to be a useless venture (albeit profitable when co-students pay you for your work).
I'm in an apartment and do the same thing, I run a light coloured cable near the skirting boards on the walls. However, as I am renting the apartment I am not permitted to use staples or conduit. Thus I have a WPA - RADIUS solution implemented to get my laptop away from the cables...
It's great to argue a side of an argument, but some of us are forced to use the tools available to us and can't improve. That said, anyone using WEP deserves to be attacked IMHO (Nintendo fans: buy a wireless card and build your own wireless access point just for it. MAC filtering and a strong WEP key are a better solution than nothing at all.)
There was an article recently (was it on/.? I don't know) which gave a lot of tips for power saving and performance. To cover one or two:
* As parent said, LCD screens. Not only do these reduce power they're almost instant on * More RAM. Every geeks dream, but more RAM means less paging. This also helps to increase boot time. After monitoring system performance and adding an additional 50% RAM to my file server (parent's "archive") for a total of 256MB RAM I managed to reduce the boot time to something in the order of 30 seconds.
Obviously there is only so much hardware you can throw at a system, but it is definately worth looking at.
Doing this helps the home user reboot easily (I mean, seriously guys, you're posting on slashdot... how can you call yourself a home user?!)
Slashdot Mirror
I plan to kill George W. Bush Junior.
Hmm... yep, everything seems good from here... just me, my pets and those blokes from ASIO across the road... hi guys! Sure I'll come over for a coffee.
BRB my country calls...
You must be a contractor. Hello, welcome to slashdot.
Then they wouldn't arrest you, they'd just shoot you for crimes against humanity!!
Because not sealing the door could allow for a potential point of entry for anyone to monitor you. The door doesn't need to lock per-se, but it makes it easier to have the magnetic strips across it when it does.
I agree. Protect against Spam and Scam's first. Children at least have parents who should have taught them properly, the elderly don't have this...
Data: Storing the data on a samba share, and mapped network drives. To the GP, I would suggest that you haven't had a large corporation to support. We support a nation wide network (ok, so it's australia, we're still a nation!) with only 13 support staff including our in-house development team. The bloke in administration wants to be able to have his funky theme pack, and use OO.o, Firefox and Thunderbird. These are not standard across the organisation, and he understands this. The IT Support team is not there to fix every little problem, and as I mentioned, not every person has the PC or the administrative access on said PC. The IT Support team is there to fix the standard problems with the company standard software. The parent to this post has it right, all data is stored on a network drive any data on the local machine is considered loseable, and the users understand this.
;) so each image comes with all the print drivers the user should ever need.
It's an interesting statistic that our IT department get more calls than any other department in the corporation (we're a transport company, so we get a lot of calls to arrange pickups/delivery's). The users know that they can call us, they know that we'll try to fix their problem. 15 minutes isn't a hard and fast rule but the users understand that if we feel it is necessary we will call it in.
My userbase respects my team. They know that we work hard to keep things going for them and they are willing to wait for us to find a resolution to their problem.
Perhaps this is unique to my company, or perhaps this is unique to Australia and the "she'll be right mate" attitude we're so famous for, or perhaps this is just the way we support our staff and the relationship with them. I leave it to each slashdotter to decide.
Oh and we only use certain printers across the company (standards again
Is it flamebait? If I had mod points I'd probably flag as insightful. As I've stated before I'm the linux guy in a Microsoft shop and the majority of Vista upgrades (that are voluntary - so about 3% of our vista users) have done it because Vista offers better security and a slick interface, from a team of Microsoft oriented tech's, this has produced outrage. Despite the best intentions of the IT team Vista is coming regardless of what we want. I personally blame the marketing, and would cite the comment made to me not 3 days ago. "Vista has to be more secure. All the ad[vertisement]s say that it is". I can't compete with Microsofts marketing tactics (nor any other company) I simply don't have the resources. Only the respect of the IT team and the proven skill/competency in what we do has kept the CEO's from asking for the upgrades.
On Topic: Is this really a "bad security winning out" scenario, or are we merely looking at the triangle of cost, security and usability... cost and usability are of course the big factors for most corporations, so the sacrifice of security is, perhaps, merely a progression of cost cutting and the aim to supress those "annoying messages" that indicate a potential PEBKAC when inputting data.
My $0.02 AU
Actually its a very effective method for both the IT team and the people who desperately need the administrative access. IT aren't required to understand every little john doe program that these people can want to install so they don't have to support them (this is very clearly communicated to these users).
It also means that we have a relativly standardised form across the board despite having PC's everywhere and very quickly weed out the users who think they're smart but aren't really.
An example of a good operator: there's a bloke over in administration who I would swear used to work in IT. He's got Open Office installed when everyone else uses Microsoft Office, he uses firefox, thunderbird and trillian for his messenger. About 500 theme packs and a few other bits of software. According to our helpdesk logging system he has only ever called once, and this was when he patched himself for the new daylight savings time last year. Everyone else had the problem as well.
Also, so that those who aren't aware know, you don't have to be a local administrator to install a network printer. Anyone hooking a printer directly to a PC in a corporate environment is either a director or an IT who has lots to learn.
It's interesting to note that the compromises on our machines don't occur on our terminal servers or the critical PC's, they only occur on the one's that "absolutely must have" administrative access on their local machine.
A properly configured windows system is as secure as a properly configured linux system (well, in this case anyway!). And in case your wondering: If our helpdesk can't solve the issue within 15 minutes the PC is re-imaged no questions asked no data saved. People store stuff on network servers because they're told to, anyone who doesn't comply with IT is made to suffer the consequences.
He was too busy dragging a suitcase of gold from his burning wreck of a car to the nearest phone box so that he could call you and ask you to take it for a small fee of course!
Perhaps your relationship with your boss requires a little more... umm... "spark"...
Cut open a power cable and get them to hold it while you plug it in... if it doesn't work at least you had the fun of it!
That all depends on your opinion of the distro and your definition of the word ;)
With or without the shotgun we want to use to shut the little mongrels up? ;)
OT: I need one of these. Getting paid by the hour means that ever hour I sleep is an hour in money I don't make.
Of course the really good crackers are also sysadmin's as this gives them the best insight into how a system works and the ways the security is thought out... they probably also write really nice code for a software company or freelance.
Note: This is a generalisation of a select group. It will not cover every possibility.
The deceived... every time...
And "she" got me to the altar twice... But i know who wore the pants in those relationships, and as a healthy male, i have to tell you it wasn't me.
Damn you the internet... damn you to heck...
I always assume that every user is the super idiot... it's less of a paranoia thing and has the same result...
Crazy sex jokes aside, I personally wouldn't want a robot jammed up my arse... I have an issue with probes that are attached to anchored piping... let alone something that can autonomously move... what happens when the doctor lets go... OH WAIT HE ALREADY HAS! All I see here is potential for bad things much like the infamous scissor-after-surgery stories...
We had a system going at my school when I was going through
For every flaw I found in the firewall/security, I scored $5. For every major flaw (I managed to redirect my report to a different print spooler for example) I scored $10. The IT guy there paid out of his own pocket. Since I left (and the 3 kids with me - I'm not that good at these things!) I have heard of only ONE instance where this guy had to pay up, and that was because he screwed a configuration setting.
For us, all it took was a bit of incentive (I've heard tell of this being implemented with various priveledges such as a multiplayer Quake session during a class) and the IT guy willing to take the time rather than disabling the accounts.
Of course, there are other issues here... but before all this FIRE THE HEAD! Friend of mine failed his senior year because the IT at his school screwed up and they blamed it on him, so he lost all PC access while at school. That's pretty unfair and downright stupid...
Assuming we populate other planets, would it then be a good idea to use IPv6 as the links between these planets (ala the 6bone) and then IPv4 with giant 4to6 devices on each of the off world connection nodes? That way we get the ease of IPv4 IP address' with the scalability of 6.
It was just a thought!!
My $0.02 AU
Just FYI: VMWare workstation (only have a windows installer, don't know if it runs on Linux) allows for any number of snapshots.
Whilst not answering the question, I have a 6 monitor setup across 3 machines (all based on various nVidia and Radeon cards). I use synergy (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) to keep the clutter off my desk (only one keyboard and mouse now) and it works well.
Now all I'm doing is waiting to convert psDooM to be more like the BOFH Doom: (http://www.nyms.de/bofh1998eng.html/ Search for: The head's mid-life crisis)
Good points, the document in question was of a technical nature, pertaining to the process through which certain alcohols were made.
I've been reading the responses, and they were all pretty good, the best by far was that which mentioned the finite way of putting things. The problem here is not that I didn't contribute to the human intellect pool, the problem is that by using (admittedly only) one source and rewriting my re-write into what I personally considered a more technical language, I had managed to (sub-consciously?) re-write the document to be damn near exactly what the original source was. The point is that I didn't blatantly copy the original source, I condensed each idea into a language based on paragraphs of information, and then when I rewrote said paragraphs of information I made an almost exact replica.
Freaky co-incidence perhaps, and I realised pretty quickly that rewriting documents based on paragraph's is not the best way of doing it (I now read an entire document three or four times, then write down the key points and terms that I remember and go from there)...
OTOH I recall failing a class a few years back for so-called plagiarizing of works.
Turns out I had taken a document, re-written it for my own words and submitted it to a friend for review. The friend suggested that I make it sound more technical than it did, so I proceeded to take my re-write and re-write it. Unfortunately my vocabulary at the time meant that I re-wrote it to sound almost identical to the original source, which in my case was a genuine mistake.
Perhaps I'm just a part of the nth percentile in this, but it begs the question of how many students fail because of similar circumstances.
Incidentally, I'm all for getting rid of the term paper, out here in Australia I have found it to be a useless venture (albeit profitable when co-students pay you for your work).
I'm in an apartment and do the same thing, I run a light coloured cable near the skirting boards on the walls. However, as I am renting the apartment I am not permitted to use staples or conduit. Thus I have a WPA - RADIUS solution implemented to get my laptop away from the cables...
It's great to argue a side of an argument, but some of us are forced to use the tools available to us and can't improve. That said, anyone using WEP deserves to be attacked IMHO (Nintendo fans: buy a wireless card and build your own wireless access point just for it. MAC filtering and a strong WEP key are a better solution than nothing at all.)
My $0.02 AU
There was an article recently (was it on /.? I don't know) which gave a lot of tips for power saving and performance. To cover one or two:
* As parent said, LCD screens. Not only do these reduce power they're almost instant on
* More RAM. Every geeks dream, but more RAM means less paging. This also helps to increase boot time. After monitoring system performance and adding an additional 50% RAM to my file server (parent's "archive") for a total of 256MB RAM I managed to reduce the boot time to something in the order of 30 seconds.
Obviously there is only so much hardware you can throw at a system, but it is definately worth looking at.
Doing this helps the home user reboot easily (I mean, seriously guys, you're posting on slashdot... how can you call yourself a home user?!)
my $0.02 AU