As someone who has gone through a severe E.coli infection, I say, "Amen!" If there is a reliable, quick, scientific way to detect these pathogens, there will be no excuse for contaminated meat to reach consumers. I hope this is proven effective and brought into commercial use as soon as possible.
Is there any chance of this being used in general patient diagnosis eg. from blood samples? For example, if a determination can be made quickly as to what bacteria/virus a person is infected with, an appropriate treatment can be started sooner. I don't know if this is even relevant, but I am curious.
At least you have options, and an alternative if your current provider goes away. Here, we just recently got cablemodem service in town, so if someone doesn't like Qwest (local telco), they at least have a second option for highspeed. As for ISP's, don't get me started. I'm on my second, and _very_ happy with this one, but there's very few to choose from. Guess that's what I get for living somewhere with trees, open spaces, and no traffic problems.
The website for the Car Talk NPR radio program has all of their past puzzlers, some of which are car-related but most are not. They range from the completely obvious to the completely impossible. The Monty Hall puzzler is among them. They're available either as RealAudio or as html (transcripts of the radio segments). Definitely go check them out.
I have a strong suspicion that you are correct, that this was social engineering. Now, I am an ICQ user, so this may not apply to AIM, but there should be a chat history, a record of the messages sent to/from a user. Now, in order for the kid to know where to go, either he knew the person already, or the address was sent to him over IM. The mother should be able to read back through the messages, and find the address (if it's a stranger) and/or what they were intending to do there. Besides, the person's address might not be where they were meeting. It's possible this was legit, but I am very suspicious.
I'm not sure what date you want to put on their invention, but I think the development of palmtop computing has and will have a big impact on things. If not as big as the wheel, then possibly as big as the web browser. It allows people to do many things that they once could only do chained to a wall via a desktop computer, or before that, on paper. Especially with wireless modems, tons of information is available to you at any time and anywhere, without having to carry around a set of encyclopedias, an atlas, a weather radio; the freedom to work wherever (word processor, coding environment, spreadsheet); and the ability to communicate (email, voice, etc.)
I think as the trend goes more to wireless, compact computing, it will enable people to be less restricted in where they work. You no longer need to be at your desk 8-5 to be productive. That, I think, will have an impact on people's lives.
I know people who have done study abroad (in CS or CprE) in Sweden, Swansea(Wales), and Australia, to name a few. There are also work-abroad internship programs. If you can work it so that you take mostly elective-type classes and still be on-track for graduation, you can go pretty much anywhere you want, for that matter. Step one should really be, figure out what part of the world you want to visit. Work from there to find programs.
I recommend going in to your college's study abroad office and talking to someone about what you are looking to get out of an abroad program. There's tons of options, and they probably know of some that aren't publicized within your school very much.
Also try doing a google search for "computer science study abroad" or "computer science exchange program". Should give you some ideas of what schools abroad to look at.
Possibly. But I think it would be more likely to say, they know all possible ways of potentially compromising/breaking it, and are confident that noone except possibly themselves could do so. Because, if there's a way for _them_ to break it, then there's potential for someone else to do so, and if that happened, they'd look awfully stupid....
Computer Engineering is about how to make the computer. Computer Science is about how to make the computer do what you want.
Seriously though, I would get a hold of the course catalog for a school you are interested in, and see which classes in which degree/department has more interest for you. For example, most CprE programs require some EE coursework; if you're not interested in EE, go CS. Career-wise, it makes very little difference really. Figure out which department you'd be happier spending 4-5 years in, and go with that.
I remember one day in our intro computer class, where they showed a slide comparing the size of various airborne contaminants (dust, smoke, hair, etc.) to the distance between the hard drive platter and read head. Since a smoke particle is much bigger than the gap, it could cause a disk crash by striking the head. Here is a link to an article that mentions the phenomenon: HDD Page. It's under "How Drives Work." This assumes, of course, that the particle got through the seal on the hard drive, of course, which is improbable but not unheardof.
You can also do a search for "microcontamination and hard drives" to find more.
You are no doubt making much more $$ than you would be at any number of standard high-school-type jobs (McDonalds, grocery store, etc. etc.) that offer quite a bit less in the way of career building and/or interesting tasks. You're doing real, useful work not involving getting burned by the fryer, and getting paid well for it. This puts you well above the status quo for your peers. Maybe it's not thrilling, but most jobs aren't. Make the most of the experience and get on with your life.
Now, if you weren't getting paid, that's a whole other story. I had an experience in high school with a computer maker who shall remain nameless, who expected us to work 15-20 hours per week, for free. I'm glad I got out of there as fast as possible!
Well, first I would like to applaud the university for doing something, anything to help protect their students and departments. They might not be going about it exactly the right way, but they're trying.
To make an assessment of how you should approach them, you need to know what their motivation is for doing the packet filtering. Is it for security? Is it to limit bandwidth consumption for nonacademic purposes? Is it to stop piracy? Knowing their reasons will help you make your arguments for allowing those services you want.
Now, if it's being done for security reasons, you'll have to argue that the services you want to keep open don't provide a security threat. Maybe get some statistics on number of attacks that utilize the different ports you're after.
If piracy (software, music, whatever) is their reason, you'd want to demonstrate the academic uses for what they're trying to block. In this case you're probably SOL on Napster, but you might get FTP to fly. The only "academic" use I can think of for Napster is a Music Performance major who makes his personal works/performances available through Napster. Show the legit uses for the medium.
Bandwidth consumption is a sticky issue. You'll again have to show an academic need for the service, but also that it does not consume an unacceptable amount of bandwidth. Maybe get some logging statistics for the network, find out what protocols are hogging the network; are the problems being caused by only a few people? There are better ways to control bandwidth use than wholesale blocking incoming packets.
As for "what ports to keep open," the easiest thing to do is survey the students on what network programs they use. It's easier to argue that X should be open because lots of students use it than some obscure program with limited value to the community from keeping it open.
It's really not so important what ports are open now as that there is a means of petitioning for ports to be opened in the future. That will allow you to make changes as new programs are developed using new ports.
Yeah, but when some non-technically-knowledgeable student's computer is taken out by an attack that would have been blocked by the firewall, they and their parents will try to hold the university responsible. "You knew this could happen, why didn't you protect me?" The only way to cover their asses is to protect everything or nothing, and nothing is an awful option.
Um, yeah, actually it does. Legal protections on postal mail apply _only_ to postal mail. I believe the same goes for things sent UPS. There's no law saying UPS can't open your package/letter. If they did, nobody would use their service, but that's beside the point. Same goes for free webmail-type services, and non-uni ISP's, etc. Legally, they can read your mail whenever they want. It's not that laws get "tossed out the window," they didn't apply in the first place.
Also, unless you're encrypting your mail, it's totally out in the open for anyone with a sniffer etc. to read at any hop along the way. If you wouldn't send it in a letter without a sealed envelope, don't send it in an unencrypted email.
Bzzt, wrong answer. You also don't have the terms right. Based on experimental results the entropy per character of the English language is about 1.25 (the range is somewhere between 1 and 1.5). This means that English has a redundancy of approximately 75%, implying that with an appropriate encoding, English text can compress to about 1/4 of its original length.
(Note: character != byte. That is only true of ASCII characters. If all you wanted to do is represent the 26 English letters it would only take 5 bits per character. We're talking language here, irrespective of representation.)
Go read a good cryptography book and straighten out your terms and definitions.
Your number one issue, as has been repeated and repeated here, should be security and privacy of patients' records. If you allow online chart access, you're opening up a huge hole. If physicians store patient data on computers that are connected to the internet, that's another hole. Machines with sensitive info like that have no business being connected to the internet. If I found out that my physician's practice was going to be starting those kind of things, I'd find somewhere else to go.
Now, some of what you've mentioned is quite interesting and has good potential benefits. Like, chat rooms for asking questions. It would probably save people trips to the doctor if they could just ask their question without going in. Stuff along the lines of, do I need to worry about X, or my kid has x,y,z symptoms should I take them to the doctor. Or support groups for people with various syndromes. Or a database of medications and their interreactions. But a lot of this could be handled by having a nurse on staff to answer a telephone.
I think, though, that you should consider what people's motivation is for going to the doctor. They want you to make them healthy (or keep them that way), to treat them like people, to see them on schedule (as close to as possible), to listen to their concerns. Look at what you can do to improve these areas of doctor-patient relations, using technology, carefully.
1. I say, Dominant != Best. They are in fact saying, we think since we are dominant we must have the best product and don't need to learn from anyone else. Of course they should learn from any other product. Where did I say they shouldn't?
2. Yes, the bug notification through CERT will still happen. But not everyone who needs and deserves the information gets it at the same time. That's the whole point of having the "in-group". They've decided that some providers are more important than others, and that they have the right to make that determination, and to charge money for the information. I disagree.
3. As for arrogance, read the answer to the second question under "Member Selectivity". "We're real sorry if you lose a ton of money because you didn't know about a vulnerability. But it's not our fault that you're not important enough!"
I stand by my post. They're brushing us off like the criticisms don't matter without even considering them seriously. That bothers me more than the fact that I don't agree with the answers. I don't like their policies or attitude towards a community that has supported them in the past, and thus will not use their product. If you disagree, hey, what you run on your machine is your business.
Having read the FAQ, I don't think that the community "was a bit quick in their assessment of what's going to happen" at all. BIND is moving to a security-through-obscurity model. That much is clear. Mr. Vixie's answers in the FAQ indicate that the ISC did not take any of the criticism/comments from the community about this move seriously. Some of the answers sound like a parent brushing off questions from a small child. "Now, run along, and trust us to fix stuff in time. You don't need to know when a bug exists."
For example: the answer that referred to (paraphrased) "if anyone else's software runs on 80% of servers and is as dominant as ours, then we'll take a lesson from them" smacks horribly of arrogance. Nah, couldn't be that anything but the most widespread software would be the best, could it? *cough*Microsoft*cough*Sendmail*ehem* Just because your software is on more machines than others, doesn't mean it isn't "full of holes."
Basically, the ISC is closing off the information loop for its own benefit and leaving the little guys in the dust. I could understand this better if it were a purely commercial entity, but their purpose is to serve the community, not just an elite, specially chosen group who is willing (and able) to fork over the money to be in on the secrets. This is not right and that is exactly why the community is in an uproar.
Anybody who's thinking of migrating to BIND9: if you're going to retool for the new version anyway, just switch to something else. Save the headache in the long run.
All the more reason to use a free-beer OS, yes? Then they could save that money every time they feel the need to upgrade. Do they think MS is going to make that same "donation" every time a new version comes out and the administration wants the latest thing? Not likely.
You also have to factor in where exactly (in that country) he's thinking of working. Just like the cost of living is higher in Chicago than Des Moines (and salaries adjust accordingly), the cost of living is higher in Paris than in Nantes.
Too, there's the "I've always wanted to live there factor." Hard to quantify that. I'd take a significantly lower wage to live somewhere cool for a while, as long as it was enough to live on.
By your logic, a landlord should have the right to listen in on his tenants' phone conversations. He owns the wiring in the building, right? So he should have the right to manipulate that signal any way he wants. The same goes for the phone company; once the wire leaves your property, it becomes their property, and they should be able to use that signal travelling through their property however they want. Or let's say our hypothetical landlord has moral problems with porn on tv, and sets up a filter on the cabling to keep pay-per-view porn channels from coming through the cable. By your reasoning, this is all perfectly acceptable.
Unlike the broadcast medium, the signal belongs to DirecTV. They do have the right to control how it is used, if they can. Just like the signal going over your phone line belongs to you.
The airwaves are public, yes, but that doesn't give you the "absolute right" to do whatever you want with the signal. Roads are public but there are limits on their use. BTW, IIRC, you do not own the airspace above your property. Further, if powerlines or water mains go through your backyard, that doesn't make them yours. Just because it's _within_ your property doesn't make it yours.
Ahhh... I understand why we might have differing opinions. My hands are tiny. Like, my hand is as long as a CDROM drive bay is wide. For me, ergonomic mice are like holding a softball: very hard to control. So, you can have your extra-large models, as long as I can have my scaled-down versions.
You'd think there'd be some sort of market for pointers for lefties, large folks, small folks. Especially with RSI concerns about proper fit and companies willing to accommodate about any way possible to avoid a potential lawsuit/disability claim. It can't be that hard to adapt current designs. Why hasn't someone taken advantage of this?
I have not encountered any left-handed trackballs, but would like to second the support of tracking with the left hand. I have mild RSI and found that switching to left-handed mousing made a world of difference. I'm not reaching over past the numpad for the mouse anymore, it's right where it belongs. It did take a lot of concentration to get used to, but wasn't that hard to get the hang of (though I might have benefited from playing piano as a child thus having to do stuff with my left hand).
I've also found that "ergonomically shaped" mice are annoying and irritate my wrists. I wonder if a left-shaped trackball would really be more comfortable than a symmetrical one? It would be interesting to try out.
This is exactly the sort of "insurance" I have set myself up for. I have mild carpal tunnel, and I know that someday, no matter how good of care I take of my arms, I might not be able to be a programmer anymore. This is part of why I am pursuing my master's degree (also, because I want to study this stuff). If that day comes, I'll spend the extra 3-4 years to get my PhD and become a professor (a job I wouldn't mind having anyway), and not have to make my livelihood typing anymore, but still be able to do something I enjoy.
It also eliminates a young person's access to sites with information about venereal disease and birth control. Women with breast cancer are also unlikely to spend time with relevent web sites up on the screen. Men suffering from impotence are not going to visit sites that provide information. The list just goes on.
I don't think this is a big issue. If the site is giving primarily textual information rather than lots of big pictures, it is much harder to glance at the screen as you're passing by and figure out any of what's on it. Porn sites stick out pretty well.
I agree that people should not expect the library to "babysit" their kids. That's why I'm not concerned about preventing people from accessing any site. This primarily catches people who believe they have a right to use a public resource (library computers) for accessing porn, and do so.
The best "filtering" method I have seen is simple, easy to administer, and free: turn the computer so that the screen faces a public area. Eliminates porn pretty well.
The library in the town my family lives in has an internet policy something like this:
Kids under 12 must be accompanied by a parent/guardian or relative over 18.
Kids 12-18 must either be accompanied or have a form on file signed by a parent/guardian stating that the parent understands that there may be material on the internet that they do not approve of, and that the child has permission to use the internet alone.
Everyone 18+ must have a signed form on file stating that they understand that viewing of pornography is against library policy, punishable by revoking of internet privileges.
Having a policy like this (and enforcing it) has pretty much killed any talk of filtering there.
Slashdot Mirror
Is there any chance of this being used in general patient diagnosis eg. from blood samples? For example, if a determination can be made quickly as to what bacteria/virus a person is infected with, an appropriate treatment can be started sooner. I don't know if this is even relevant, but I am curious.
I think as the trend goes more to wireless, compact computing, it will enable people to be less restricted in where they work. You no longer need to be at your desk 8-5 to be productive. That, I think, will have an impact on people's lives.
I recommend going in to your college's study abroad office and talking to someone about what you are looking to get out of an abroad program. There's tons of options, and they probably know of some that aren't publicized within your school very much.
Also try doing a google search for "computer science study abroad" or "computer science exchange program". Should give you some ideas of what schools abroad to look at.
Seriously though, I would get a hold of the course catalog for a school you are interested in, and see which classes in which degree/department has more interest for you. For example, most CprE programs require some EE coursework; if you're not interested in EE, go CS. Career-wise, it makes very little difference really. Figure out which department you'd be happier spending 4-5 years in, and go with that.
You can also do a search for "microcontamination and hard drives" to find more.
Now, if you weren't getting paid, that's a whole other story. I had an experience in high school with a computer maker who shall remain nameless, who expected us to work 15-20 hours per week, for free. I'm glad I got out of there as fast as possible!
To make an assessment of how you should approach them, you need to know what their motivation is for doing the packet filtering. Is it for security? Is it to limit bandwidth consumption for nonacademic purposes? Is it to stop piracy? Knowing their reasons will help you make your arguments for allowing those services you want.
Now, if it's being done for security reasons, you'll have to argue that the services you want to keep open don't provide a security threat. Maybe get some statistics on number of attacks that utilize the different ports you're after.
If piracy (software, music, whatever) is their reason, you'd want to demonstrate the academic uses for what they're trying to block. In this case you're probably SOL on Napster, but you might get FTP to fly. The only "academic" use I can think of for Napster is a Music Performance major who makes his personal works/performances available through Napster. Show the legit uses for the medium.
Bandwidth consumption is a sticky issue. You'll again have to show an academic need for the service, but also that it does not consume an unacceptable amount of bandwidth. Maybe get some logging statistics for the network, find out what protocols are hogging the network; are the problems being caused by only a few people? There are better ways to control bandwidth use than wholesale blocking incoming packets.
As for "what ports to keep open," the easiest thing to do is survey the students on what network programs they use. It's easier to argue that X should be open because lots of students use it than some obscure program with limited value to the community from keeping it open.
It's really not so important what ports are open now as that there is a means of petitioning for ports to be opened in the future. That will allow you to make changes as new programs are developed using new ports.
Good luck, I hope they consider your case well.
Also, unless you're encrypting your mail, it's totally out in the open for anyone with a sniffer etc. to read at any hop along the way. If you wouldn't send it in a letter without a sealed envelope, don't send it in an unencrypted email.
(Note: character != byte. That is only true of ASCII characters. If all you wanted to do is represent the 26 English letters it would only take 5 bits per character. We're talking language here, irrespective of representation.)
Go read a good cryptography book and straighten out your terms and definitions.
Now, some of what you've mentioned is quite interesting and has good potential benefits. Like, chat rooms for asking questions. It would probably save people trips to the doctor if they could just ask their question without going in. Stuff along the lines of, do I need to worry about X, or my kid has x,y,z symptoms should I take them to the doctor. Or support groups for people with various syndromes. Or a database of medications and their interreactions. But a lot of this could be handled by having a nurse on staff to answer a telephone.
I think, though, that you should consider what people's motivation is for going to the doctor. They want you to make them healthy (or keep them that way), to treat them like people, to see them on schedule (as close to as possible), to listen to their concerns. Look at what you can do to improve these areas of doctor-patient relations, using technology, carefully.
2. Yes, the bug notification through CERT will still happen. But not everyone who needs and deserves the information gets it at the same time. That's the whole point of having the "in-group". They've decided that some providers are more important than others, and that they have the right to make that determination, and to charge money for the information. I disagree.
3. As for arrogance, read the answer to the second question under "Member Selectivity". "We're real sorry if you lose a ton of money because you didn't know about a vulnerability. But it's not our fault that you're not important enough!"
I stand by my post. They're brushing us off like the criticisms don't matter without even considering them seriously. That bothers me more than the fact that I don't agree with the answers. I don't like their policies or attitude towards a community that has supported them in the past, and thus will not use their product. If you disagree, hey, what you run on your machine is your business.
For example: the answer that referred to (paraphrased) "if anyone else's software runs on 80% of servers and is as dominant as ours, then we'll take a lesson from them" smacks horribly of arrogance. Nah, couldn't be that anything but the most widespread software would be the best, could it? *cough*Microsoft*cough*Sendmail*ehem* Just because your software is on more machines than others, doesn't mean it isn't "full of holes."
Basically, the ISC is closing off the information loop for its own benefit and leaving the little guys in the dust. I could understand this better if it were a purely commercial entity, but their purpose is to serve the community, not just an elite, specially chosen group who is willing (and able) to fork over the money to be in on the secrets. This is not right and that is exactly why the community is in an uproar.
Anybody who's thinking of migrating to BIND9: if you're going to retool for the new version anyway, just switch to something else. Save the headache in the long run.
Too, there's the "I've always wanted to live there factor." Hard to quantify that. I'd take a significantly lower wage to live somewhere cool for a while, as long as it was enough to live on.
Unlike the broadcast medium, the signal belongs to DirecTV. They do have the right to control how it is used, if they can. Just like the signal going over your phone line belongs to you.
The airwaves are public, yes, but that doesn't give you the "absolute right" to do whatever you want with the signal. Roads are public but there are limits on their use. BTW, IIRC, you do not own the airspace above your property. Further, if powerlines or water mains go through your backyard, that doesn't make them yours. Just because it's _within_ your property doesn't make it yours.
You'd think there'd be some sort of market for pointers for lefties, large folks, small folks. Especially with RSI concerns about proper fit and companies willing to accommodate about any way possible to avoid a potential lawsuit/disability claim. It can't be that hard to adapt current designs. Why hasn't someone taken advantage of this?
I've also found that "ergonomically shaped" mice are annoying and irritate my wrists. I wonder if a left-shaped trackball would really be more comfortable than a symmetrical one? It would be interesting to try out.
It's always good to have a backup plan.
I don't think this is a big issue. If the site is giving primarily textual information rather than lots of big pictures, it is much harder to glance at the screen as you're passing by and figure out any of what's on it. Porn sites stick out pretty well.
I agree that people should not expect the library to "babysit" their kids. That's why I'm not concerned about preventing people from accessing any site. This primarily catches people who believe they have a right to use a public resource (library computers) for accessing porn, and do so.
The library in the town my family lives in has an internet policy something like this:
Kids under 12 must be accompanied by a parent/guardian or relative over 18.
Kids 12-18 must either be accompanied or have a form on file signed by a parent/guardian stating that the parent understands that there may be material on the internet that they do not approve of, and that the child has permission to use the internet alone.
Everyone 18+ must have a signed form on file stating that they understand that viewing of pornography is against library policy, punishable by revoking of internet privileges.
Having a policy like this (and enforcing it) has pretty much killed any talk of filtering there.