An adversary's Command & Control has always been a prime military target. Why should it be any different in an information age? The only thing that surprises me is the relatively small number of 30 (admitted) members in the unit. I'd bet even money that every single major government in the world has such a cyber unit and probably much larger (*cough* US *cough*) in scale.
Radio Shack asking "how can we get back to our 'Do IT Yourself' roots?" is the completely wrong question. The question that's begging for an answer is "Do WHAT yourself?"
Component level repair? Not in this day and age of disposable electronics. Hell, Radio Shack (and their manufacturers) don't repair anything at the component level anymore (at most they swap out boards), why should they expect their customers would want to? Even for things that could easily be repaired, most people simply don't want to. True example: a week or so ago I accidentally snapped a capacitor off a video card I was replacing - 30 years ago I would've headed straight to RS to pick up a replacement to solder in - now the thought never even crossed my mind.
Build your own gear? Um, let's take a look at Heathkit and copy what they're doing . . . oh wait!
Experiment with some hobby and/or educational circuits? Sure. Not out of the realm of possibility, but how many stores will it take to service that market? I don't honestly know, but it's definitely not a few thousand.
Build "solutions"? IMHO, this was Radio Shack's basis for success and needs to be the focus for their future. It used to be if you had a problem you could look to RS for a solution. Bad TV reception? Go down to the RS and pick up a new antenna or maybe a signal amp. Problem solved. Wife need a phone extension in the kitchen? Go down to RS pick up some wire, modular plugs, and a wallphone. Problem solved. Picture out on the TV? Pull the tubes and go down to the RS to test them. Problem solved (not really, but we felt better about ourselves for trying). Can't hookup the tape deck to the hi-fi receiver? Go down to the RS to pick up an adapter. Problem solved. Sure technology has changed, but certainly not the need for good solutions. And by "good" I don't mean selling the customer a new receiver when they really just need an adapter! Today, unless your problem is "I don't own a cellphone", it's unlikely RS will have a solution for you.
Are there other things they could do? Probably. But I believe solving problems/needs must be at the center of anything they try. Then maybe Radio Shack will once again be the place to go for solutions. (yeah, yeah, I know that sounds ridiculously obvious - yet somehow they and many other businesses seem to have lost sight of it)
How lucrative is the "Mac app store"? No idea, I'm not a Mac user and haven't even seen it. But I doubt they're looking to ultimately create a clone of the iPhone app store for the Mac. More likely they'd want to create the "Mac FULL BLOWN APPLICATIONS Store" where they can extort a percentage of every software sale from every Mac publisher. And if they can convince their userbase the only way to be safe and secure is to purchase their software thru the Mac App Store, it wouldn't be a gold mine, it'd be the freaking mother lode for them!
Let's suppose for a minute that the original author's basic supposition is true: that Apple is looking for a good excuse to herd ISVs into a lucrative [my term, not the original author's] Mac App Store. And that malware would be that good excuse. Where do you suppose that malware could be coming from? Could it be from . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . none other than our beloved Apple Inc.? Before you dismiss this out of hand, consider it wouldn't be the first time a big corporation "invented" a problem for which they just happened to have a solution. (and the mafia has been doing it for countless years!)
That's all this ridiculous idea amounts to. Everybody starts out being a maximum asshole and being in the maximum asshole tax bracket. So for the sake of argument, lets' say a typical game sells for $20 now and Steam would be willing to go as low as $10 for an "excellent" customer. That means you start with a $10/game asshole tax. As you prove yourself to be less of an asshole, your asshole tax bracket does down until it reaches $0/game.
Don't even think about assuming everybody assuming everybody is not an asshole and increase their tax rate rate as their assholeness shines through. Sure it's easy to selectively reduce prices for a given segment of a market, but ever try to RAISE them? For something as subjective as being an asshole? After the PR uproar died down Steam would likely be running afoul of a few consumer protection groups/laws/agencies.
I'm not sure assuming that all of your customers are maximum assholes would be good for business. I wonder if Steam would require you to acknowledge that fact as well. Maybe a checkbox on their signup page: "I acknowledge I'm a maximum asshole and agree to be taxed as such until I prove otherwise".
But it could prove to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys in the customer service department:
(phone rings)
Steam CSR: Steam Customer Service. How may I assist you?
Irate Mother: My son Billy is being charged $18 for Hot New Game X while his friend Timmy only has to pay $13.
Steam CSR: It seems Timmy is less of an asshole than your son Billy.
Irate Mother: WHAT???
Steam CSR: Let me rephrase that: Billy is a much bigger asshole.
Irate Mother: LISTEN YOU! MY HUSBAND IS A LAWYER --
Steam CSR: Excuse me ma'am. You're an asshole as well. Billy now pays $20/game. Thank you for being a valued Steam customer.
(phone clicks)
As long as I don't have to bail anybody out when their pseudo-currency fails I couldn't care less what two parties choose to use as their medium of exchange. It could be bitcoins, de-circulated $1000 bills, precious metals, livestock or hand-carved wooden nickels. As long as they both see value to it, it doesn't (and hasn't thru all of history) matter.
Doesn't it usually take much, much longer to clean up a crapware infested machine than to slap a DIMM into a slot? And isn't ram pretty damn cheap to start with?
Sounds like sort of a silly approach to take.. if the shop just charged for the labor they were actually doing instead of the cheap part they didn't install, they'd make more.
True it may take longer to clean the crapware but it's not necessarily cheaper. An infected machine comes in and the boss yells "Hey Bubba-Tech! Stop playing solitaire for a couple of minutes and run some virus scans on this machine!" Bubba-Tech dutifully obliges and spends a total of about 5-10 minutes of his time running one or more virus scanners (although the total running time will be much longer). 8-9 times out of 10 the problem is gone, boss gets to charge for memory never installed (he was paying Bubba-Tech anyway), Bubba-Tech gets to get back to his solitaire game, and the customer is so happy he/she tells all their friends . . .
Premium SyFy? Hell no! But a Zombie Channel? Now there's something I could sink my necrotic teeth into! Maybe they could even hire Keith Richards as a movie host and save a decripid assload of cash on makeup and wardrobe . . .
Doesn't Apple hold the patents on clouds? They could've just (threatened to) sued for ownership of anything of or petaining to clouds. Guess somebody was asleep in the legal dept.
Oh my god! I just checked my past bank statements! These aren't just hackers they're deviant pervert hackers! They're using my CC to sign up for lesbian-midget-amputee-bondage porn websites (with the optional deluxe live streaming package!) And they have been for months! Even before I had a PS3! What's Sony gonna do about this?
I'd say there's at least a 50/50 chance you have very little understanding of probability or statistics. With over 70 million PSN accounts compromised, it's very likely there will be people who have fraudulent activity on their financial accounts that is completely unrelated to the PSN breach.
Setup a virtual machine at home specifically for work and follow whatever guidelines your employer wants. This is exactly how I solved my problems with needing MS Outlook and a crappy VPN client at home (where I use Linux almost exclusively) for work use. A small little Windows VM with MS Ofiice running under kvm works beautifully for this.
Actually, Altos did implement symbolic links for use with their Worknet product (early implementation of CSMA networking on twisted pair). It was pretty handy too - you could even create symlinks across machines and to devices. In some ways it was similar to the old AT&T RFS except I don't recall RFS allowing device links (I could be wrong). So for example on machine1 you could "ln -s @machine2/dev/lp/dev/lp" to share a printer from machine2. But aside from networking, it was never used very much in their products. In fact, I don't even recall one bundled application that used it - think it was meant primarily for use by VARs and integrators (which was their target market anyway).
And it was the Booster Pak option that permitted the larger block sizes (2k, IIRC)
Your best bet is to call up Century Software and see if they still have a copy of "term" for the Altos laying around somewhere. Developing this product for the Altos boxes was what put them into business. I first discovered it back around 1985 when I was developing vertical apps (medical) for the Altos boxes and needed a way to transfer programs to clients over 1200 baud dialup. Give my regards to Greg H. if he's still around (one of the founders).
Use this time to inconspicuously troll around the office to determine the highest rate ever paid to a consultant. A few well placed lunches with some underpaid payables clerks can be quite beneficial here (who knows? you might even reap some other benefits ). Then when you're gone and the company comes calling for your services, simply multiply their best rate by pi and Viola! you have your billing rate!
Slashdot Mirror
An adversary's Command & Control has always been a prime military target. Why should it be any different in an information age? The only thing that surprises me is the relatively small number of 30 (admitted) members in the unit. I'd bet even money that every single major government in the world has such a cyber unit and probably much larger (*cough* US *cough*) in scale.
Radio Shack asking "how can we get back to our 'Do IT Yourself' roots?" is the completely wrong question. The question that's begging for an answer is "Do WHAT yourself?"
Component level repair? Not in this day and age of disposable electronics. Hell, Radio Shack (and their manufacturers) don't repair anything at the component level anymore (at most they swap out boards), why should they expect their customers would want to? Even for things that could easily be repaired, most people simply don't want to. True example: a week or so ago I accidentally snapped a capacitor off a video card I was replacing - 30 years ago I would've headed straight to RS to pick up a replacement to solder in - now the thought never even crossed my mind.
Build your own gear? Um, let's take a look at Heathkit and copy what they're doing . . . oh wait!
Experiment with some hobby and/or educational circuits? Sure. Not out of the realm of possibility, but how many stores will it take to service that market? I don't honestly know, but it's definitely not a few thousand.
Build "solutions"? IMHO, this was Radio Shack's basis for success and needs to be the focus for their future. It used to be if you had a problem you could look to RS for a solution. Bad TV reception? Go down to the RS and pick up a new antenna or maybe a signal amp. Problem solved. Wife need a phone extension in the kitchen? Go down to RS pick up some wire, modular plugs, and a wallphone. Problem solved. Picture out on the TV? Pull the tubes and go down to the RS to test them. Problem solved (not really, but we felt better about ourselves for trying). Can't hookup the tape deck to the hi-fi receiver? Go down to the RS to pick up an adapter. Problem solved. Sure technology has changed, but certainly not the need for good solutions. And by "good" I don't mean selling the customer a new receiver when they really just need an adapter! Today, unless your problem is "I don't own a cellphone", it's unlikely RS will have a solution for you.
Are there other things they could do? Probably. But I believe solving problems/needs must be at the center of anything they try. Then maybe Radio Shack will once again be the place to go for solutions. (yeah, yeah, I know that sounds ridiculously obvious - yet somehow they and many other businesses seem to have lost sight of it)
How lucrative is the "Mac app store"? No idea, I'm not a Mac user and haven't even seen it. But I doubt they're looking to ultimately create a clone of the iPhone app store for the Mac. More likely they'd want to create the "Mac FULL BLOWN APPLICATIONS Store" where they can extort a percentage of every software sale from every Mac publisher. And if they can convince their userbase the only way to be safe and secure is to purchase their software thru the Mac App Store, it wouldn't be a gold mine, it'd be the freaking mother lode for them!
So stop with the defensive posturing, get your heads out of your assholes and READ THE FUCKING MANUALS like the rest of us do.
My granny used to tell us stories about these "manuals" . . . having never seen one though I just discounted them as old wives tales and myths.
Let's suppose for a minute that the original author's basic supposition is true: that Apple is looking for a good excuse to herd ISVs into a lucrative [my term, not the original author's] Mac App Store. And that malware would be that good excuse. Where do you suppose that malware could be coming from? Could it be from . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . none other than our beloved Apple Inc.? Before you dismiss this out of hand, consider it wouldn't be the first time a big corporation "invented" a problem for which they just happened to have a solution. (and the mafia has been doing it for countless years!)
That's all this ridiculous idea amounts to. Everybody starts out being a maximum asshole and being in the maximum asshole tax bracket. So for the sake of argument, lets' say a typical game sells for $20 now and Steam would be willing to go as low as $10 for an "excellent" customer. That means you start with a $10/game asshole tax. As you prove yourself to be less of an asshole, your asshole tax bracket does down until it reaches $0/game.
Don't even think about assuming everybody assuming everybody is not an asshole and increase their tax rate rate as their assholeness shines through. Sure it's easy to selectively reduce prices for a given segment of a market, but ever try to RAISE them? For something as subjective as being an asshole? After the PR uproar died down Steam would likely be running afoul of a few consumer protection groups/laws/agencies.
I'm not sure assuming that all of your customers are maximum assholes would be good for business. I wonder if Steam would require you to acknowledge that fact as well. Maybe a checkbox on their signup page: "I acknowledge I'm a maximum asshole and agree to be taxed as such until I prove otherwise".
But it could prove to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys in the customer service department:
(phone rings)
Steam CSR: Steam Customer Service. How may I assist you?
Irate Mother: My son Billy is being charged $18 for Hot New Game X while his friend Timmy only has to pay $13.
Steam CSR: It seems Timmy is less of an asshole than your son Billy.
Irate Mother: WHAT???
Steam CSR: Let me rephrase that: Billy is a much bigger asshole.
Irate Mother: LISTEN YOU! MY HUSBAND IS A LAWYER --
Steam CSR: Excuse me ma'am. You're an asshole as well. Billy now pays $20/game. Thank you for being a valued Steam customer.
(phone clicks)
As long as I don't have to bail anybody out when their pseudo-currency fails I couldn't care less what two parties choose to use as their medium of exchange. It could be bitcoins, de-circulated $1000 bills, precious metals, livestock or hand-carved wooden nickels. As long as they both see value to it, it doesn't (and hasn't thru all of history) matter.
Shame the hackers weren't Amazon Prime members - then they could have had everything they wanted in 2 days at no extra charge.
Doesn't it usually take much, much longer to clean up a crapware infested machine than to slap a DIMM into a slot? And isn't ram pretty damn cheap to start with? Sounds like sort of a silly approach to take.. if the shop just charged for the labor they were actually doing instead of the cheap part they didn't install, they'd make more.
True it may take longer to clean the crapware but it's not necessarily cheaper. An infected machine comes in and the boss yells "Hey Bubba-Tech! Stop playing solitaire for a couple of minutes and run some virus scans on this machine!" Bubba-Tech dutifully obliges and spends a total of about 5-10 minutes of his time running one or more virus scanners (although the total running time will be much longer). 8-9 times out of 10 the problem is gone, boss gets to charge for memory never installed (he was paying Bubba-Tech anyway), Bubba-Tech gets to get back to his solitaire game, and the customer is so happy he/she tells all their friends . . .
I had a Sony pony, but mean people without names in black hats came and took him when I left the barn door wide open.
Premium SyFy? Hell no! But a Zombie Channel? Now there's something I could sink my necrotic teeth into! Maybe they could even hire Keith Richards as a movie host and save a decripid assload of cash on makeup and wardrobe . . .
Doesn't Apple hold the patents on clouds? They could've just (threatened to) sued for ownership of anything of or petaining to clouds. Guess somebody was asleep in the legal dept.
Oh my god! I just checked my past bank statements! These aren't just hackers they're deviant pervert hackers! They're using my CC to sign up for lesbian-midget-amputee-bondage porn websites (with the optional deluxe live streaming package!) And they have been for months! Even before I had a PS3! What's Sony gonna do about this?
I'd say there's at least a 50/50 chance you have very little understanding of probability or statistics. With over 70 million PSN accounts compromised, it's very likely there will be people who have fraudulent activity on their financial accounts that is completely unrelated to the PSN breach.
Setup a virtual machine at home specifically for work and follow whatever guidelines your employer wants. This is exactly how I solved my problems with needing MS Outlook and a crappy VPN client at home (where I use Linux almost exclusively) for work use. A small little Windows VM with MS Ofiice running under kvm works beautifully for this.
Actually, Altos did implement symbolic links for use with their Worknet product (early implementation of CSMA networking on twisted pair). It was pretty handy too - you could even create symlinks across machines and to devices. In some ways it was similar to the old AT&T RFS except I don't recall RFS allowing device links (I could be wrong). So for example on machine1 you could "ln -s @machine2/dev/lp /dev/lp" to share a printer from machine2. But aside from networking, it was never used very much in their products. In fact, I don't even recall one bundled application that used it - think it was meant primarily for use by VARs and integrators (which was their target market anyway).
And it was the Booster Pak option that permitted the larger block sizes (2k, IIRC)
Your best bet is to call up Century Software and see if they still have a copy of "term" for the Altos laying around somewhere. Developing this product for the Altos boxes was what put them into business. I first discovered it back around 1985 when I was developing vertical apps (medical) for the Altos boxes and needed a way to transfer programs to clients over 1200 baud dialup. Give my regards to Greg H. if he's still around (one of the founders).
Use this time to inconspicuously troll around the office to determine the highest rate ever paid to a consultant. A few well placed lunches with some underpaid payables clerks can be quite beneficial here (who knows? you might even reap some other benefits ). Then when you're gone and the company comes calling for your services, simply multiply their best rate by pi and Viola! you have your billing rate!