Use non-Apple batteries when availability is critical. And given the same sort of corporate-entitlement-centered gimmickry is used on things like name-brand printer cartridges, perhaps the lesson is to use non-American knock-off products in general when you need absolute reliability.
While the idea is kind of cool, I'm not sure that the argument "But it will cost us money to adhere to regulations!" should be a valid excuse.
If an idea is not profitable, the solution is not to exempt it from everything until it _is_ profitable, it's to say "Well, that isn't profitable, feel free to try something else."
If it was a real issue, terrorists wouldn't waste time blowing up the plane from the inside. They'd detonate bombs at the security checkpoints, having them triggered by backscatter radiation, X-ray or neutron sensors etc. As a bonus, any such detonation would probably shut down a chunk of the airport and disrupt dozens of flights.
Cue checkpoints being redesigned to process one person at a time inside a blastproof cell. Better get there four hours early. Until the bombs start being detonated right in the middle of the security checkpoint queues before the machines come into the picture. How are the TSA going to stop people lining up in front of the checkpoint? Put checkpoints at every airport door? And when there's only one checkpoint operating, and people are lining up in front of it...?
Besides, someone with an Indian accent introducing themselves as Rakesh _sounds_ more likely to be located inside the local borders, and therefore possibly more able to help. The same person introducing themselves as Duncan immediately sends the message "I am lying to you, possibly under orders, and will be of no help whatsoever."
The engineers are smart, but their intellect is being redirected towards more profitable activities.
The managers are smart enough to direct the engineers' activities away from preventing botnets when doing so is less profitable for the managers than other things the engineers could be doing.
The smart thing is not always the right thing, the good thing, or even the nice thing.
Which is why you write your botnet clients and infrastructure as if they were created by a coalition of the US government, Microsoft, the RIAA, 4chan, Anonymous, fifteen televangelists, and Steve Jobs.
Then, while it's wreaking havoc and distracting all the wannabe reverse engineers, you steal their socks.
Interestingly, I worked for a government department back in the mid-90s, and idly one day worked out how I'd go about untraceably diverting the multiple billions they oversaw to overseas accounts etc. Part of the anonymizing would have been to have the entire thing launch from an appropriately-named EXE on a floppy disk dropped casually in the waiting area or one one of their desks, and labeled "Social Work data". The office SWs at the time were notorious for having about the same computer-savvy as roadkill, so they'd be unlikely to make the connection between the disk and the month-later financial disaster. Particularly if the disk got overwritten with actual SW data in the process, and the worm erased itself retroactively from the first dozen computers it infected.
I see the idea of leaving a mislabeled item of media lying around where an unsuspecting administrative worker could introduce it to the corporate network hasn't lost any of its appeal. Social engineering strikes again.
I wonder how easy it would be to spaghettify and obscure a set of source code, and write a corresponding compiler which would turn it into the required binary? How good are the expert panel in spotting and unraveling deliberate obfuscations?
Or at least never do it from where you or anything you use lies in a sphere which can be affected by those same lawyers or politicians, or their associations, or their friends or affiliates.
Easily solved. The software writers stop selling the software and instead start selling the right to access a software download site which might contain, among other things, a free version of the software.
I have to wonder if perhaps it would work better in modules. The first one would just record times and maybe types of attendance/leave from a dropdown. Any software company could knock out one of those in five minutes. Then, once it was in place and running, the project team could take requests for analysis algorithms, local and global attendance categories, supervisor permissions, stats reports, that sort of thing. In the meantime, staff could just keep using the very simple interface.
I worked one national government department where someone internal had thrown together an incredibly simple VB timesheet interface (effectively, a four-week list of dates with before-lunch, after-lunch, and overtime start-finish cell pairs for each date). It was astonishingly easy and intuitive to use, and faster than a greased weasel. The only problem I ever had with it was that eventually a bunch of departments in HQ wanted more data but couldn't be bothered requesting access to the equally simple backend, so they all wrote their own nasty, broken, slow, incompatible programs and proclaimed that staff had to use them. It got to the point where if you wanted to take leave, you could end up having to record the details in four separate interfaces, none of which talked to each other or used the same conventions.
Interesting how all of their listed advantages were not in the field of software development, but in administration, paperwork, politics, red tape, and so on. And yet they still won the contract.
Makes me wonder just how many government agencies deliberately hire outside contractors not because they can do the job well, but because they are red-tape-crunching monsters who can do most of the job, to a reasonable degree, more or less, while being very good at speaking bureaucratese.
Slashdot Mirror
Admittedly, 22nd-century scientific techniques would fit with the SCA's name...
Use non-Apple batteries when availability is critical. And given the same sort of corporate-entitlement-centered gimmickry is used on things like name-brand printer cartridges, perhaps the lesson is to use non-American knock-off products in general when you need absolute reliability.
While the idea is kind of cool, I'm not sure that the argument "But it will cost us money to adhere to regulations!" should be a valid excuse.
If an idea is not profitable, the solution is not to exempt it from everything until it _is_ profitable, it's to say "Well, that isn't profitable, feel free to try something else."
If it was a real issue, terrorists wouldn't waste time blowing up the plane from the inside. They'd detonate bombs at the security checkpoints, having them triggered by backscatter radiation, X-ray or neutron sensors etc. As a bonus, any such detonation would probably shut down a chunk of the airport and disrupt dozens of flights.
Cue checkpoints being redesigned to process one person at a time inside a blastproof cell. Better get there four hours early. Until the bombs start being detonated right in the middle of the security checkpoint queues before the machines come into the picture. How are the TSA going to stop people lining up in front of the checkpoint? Put checkpoints at every airport door? And when there's only one checkpoint operating, and people are lining up in front of it...?
Because implanted bombs can't have timers. Or inertial altitude detectors.
Besides, someone with an Indian accent introducing themselves as Rakesh _sounds_ more likely to be located inside the local borders, and therefore possibly more able to help. The same person introducing themselves as Duncan immediately sends the message "I am lying to you, possibly under orders, and will be of no help whatsoever."
The engineers are smart, but their intellect is being redirected towards more profitable activities.
The managers are smart enough to direct the engineers' activities away from preventing botnets when doing so is less profitable for the managers than other things the engineers could be doing.
The smart thing is not always the right thing, the good thing, or even the nice thing.
Which is why you write your botnet clients and infrastructure as if they were created by a coalition of the US government, Microsoft, the RIAA, 4chan, Anonymous, fifteen televangelists, and Steve Jobs.
Then, while it's wreaking havoc and distracting all the wannabe reverse engineers, you steal their socks.
Or if significantly more wires were plugged in than the usual observers are used to seeing.
How would you describe _your_ workplace? :)
A triple +5 one-person comment cascade. Bravo.
Two pi, don't bother me.
Good bars aren't likely to be using this technology in the first place.
So, do you prefer pre-op or post-op?
Interestingly, I worked for a government department back in the mid-90s, and idly one day worked out how I'd go about untraceably diverting the multiple billions they oversaw to overseas accounts etc. Part of the anonymizing would have been to have the entire thing launch from an appropriately-named EXE on a floppy disk dropped casually in the waiting area or one one of their desks, and labeled "Social Work data". The office SWs at the time were notorious for having about the same computer-savvy as roadkill, so they'd be unlikely to make the connection between the disk and the month-later financial disaster. Particularly if the disk got overwritten with actual SW data in the process, and the worm erased itself retroactively from the first dozen computers it infected.
I see the idea of leaving a mislabeled item of media lying around where an unsuspecting administrative worker could introduce it to the corporate network hasn't lost any of its appeal. Social engineering strikes again.
I wonder how easy it would be to spaghettify and obscure a set of source code, and write a corresponding compiler which would turn it into the required binary? How good are the expert panel in spotting and unraveling deliberate obfuscations?
Kid: "Oh no, my XBox... which is totally mine, yes... not one of five stolen ones I have in the cupboard at all..."
True - there are a lot of lawyers as well.
Because the rules were drawn up by lawyers and ex-lawyer politicians with lawyer friends?
Or at least never do it from where you or anything you use lies in a sphere which can be affected by those same lawyers or politicians, or their associations, or their friends or affiliates.
Easily solved. The software writers stop selling the software and instead start selling the right to access a software download site which might contain, among other things, a free version of the software.
IT security expert, although admittedly those they're protecting from don't tend to identify themselves as being in the profession, exactly.
Politician? Advertiser? Image consultant? Marketer?
I have to wonder if perhaps it would work better in modules. The first one would just record times and maybe types of attendance/leave from a dropdown. Any software company could knock out one of those in five minutes. Then, once it was in place and running, the project team could take requests for analysis algorithms, local and global attendance categories, supervisor permissions, stats reports, that sort of thing. In the meantime, staff could just keep using the very simple interface.
I worked one national government department where someone internal had thrown together an incredibly simple VB timesheet interface (effectively, a four-week list of dates with before-lunch, after-lunch, and overtime start-finish cell pairs for each date). It was astonishingly easy and intuitive to use, and faster than a greased weasel. The only problem I ever had with it was that eventually a bunch of departments in HQ wanted more data but couldn't be bothered requesting access to the equally simple backend, so they all wrote their own nasty, broken, slow, incompatible programs and proclaimed that staff had to use them. It got to the point where if you wanted to take leave, you could end up having to record the details in four separate interfaces, none of which talked to each other or used the same conventions.
Interesting how all of their listed advantages were not in the field of software development, but in administration, paperwork, politics, red tape, and so on. And yet they still won the contract.
Makes me wonder just how many government agencies deliberately hire outside contractors not because they can do the job well, but because they are red-tape-crunching monsters who can do most of the job, to a reasonable degree, more or less, while being very good at speaking bureaucratese.
Perhaps incidents like this might encourage vendors and bidders not to underbid when they can't afford the fallout from failing to deliver?