inside the coporate LAN, sure. But consider laptops. Are you prepared to trust the firewall of the hotel your salesdroid is staying at? The firewall of the office an IT consultant is going out to fix?
Hmmm. I'm compelled to concede your point in regard to mobile machines (Where I, too, rely on a software firewall).
Of course, this leaves me poised for a rant regarding the salesdroids (brilliant term, btw). I think most of us hate dealing with laptops in the hands of the uninitiated (for lack of a better term). Firewall or no, a laptop in their hands is doomed. Just resign yourself to seeing it return in two weeks with 5 gigs of porn and spyware. An example scenario:
"Hey there computer dude! Look man, I was at the big conference, lotsa hot chicks there, man. The company put me up in this great hotel with a kickin' lounge, great suite. Anyway, my laptop started actng up, I don't know what's wrong with it, it just started popping up this naked chick getting it on with a hydraulic donut press, during the big Caulderfield presentation. Man were they pissed, I think we lost the contract. I blamed it on you guys. It's vital I get it back by the end of the day for an important presentation for this super big account that's going to save the company and earn me the-biiiig-bucks. I might even get promoted to a director's position. Thanks man, catcha in an hour."
But, alas, I digress.
The IT consultant, if we are talking about his laptop, should know better. But regardless, your point is valid.
By the same token. Don't most enterprise customers rely on an internet facing hardware or dedicated PC firewall(s)? And wouldn't the presence of an unconfigured workstation firewall tube any systems management?
And lastly, in regard to the outbound blocking: Shouldn't a properly configured workstation have established user rights restrictions limiting the likelihood of rogue software installation either deliberately or clandestinely?
And...
Wait! Why would enterprise customers even care about the included firewall if they have a properly implemented network?
Oh, wait. most business networks aren't well designed to begin with.
1. People still smarting from the tech-bubble popping? Check.
No comment.
I believe that this is merely being milked as an excuse to artificially deflate the compensation for technical employees.
2. New home machines much less accessible to proto-hackers than machines like the C64? Check.
Bull. At a hardware level, the machines are less accessible. But there is plenty of stuff out there... Your C64 proto-hackers today have Lego Mindstorms kits, run Linux (or at least, Cygwin), and have the entire internet as an reference source.
Former C64 Proto Hacker: guilty.
Lego Mindstorms: uhhh guilty.
Linux: uhhhhh guuilty.
Cygwin on my windows boxes: (hanging head), guilty.
Internet as a super-reference: guilty.
Still hack the hell out of my PC both hardware and software: GUILTY
3. Popular culture that denigrates "geeks" and "nerds" and makes it a social crime to get A's? Check.
Now you're just fishing for causes. If anything, the atmosphere is better now: gifted programs, geek/nerd culture, gaming expos, and the always inspiring tech billionares.
I think that depends on whee you are regionally. The southeastern United States (with the arguable exception of Atlanta) is pretty damn backwards. Despite positive media portrayal these people still thing that any cerebrally oriented individual is a "nerd". But then, by the same token, these people lack a business prefessionalism that borders on neanderthal. Hell, getting drunk is still considered a valid weekend pasttime.
By the same token, most places of employment are full of computer stupid employees. Never mind the lack of computer competency of the average non-IT worker, which is to be expected and on par. The individuals populating most IT departments in companies small to enterprise seems lacking. I've seen IS managers and directors who believe that it is a best practice to throw money at the problem before determining the origin of the problem but couldn't script their way our of a wet paper bag or configure a simple router.
MIS Director: "The network is down again, call ComputCrap, our contracted outsourcer."
Systems Administrator: "But sir, I've seen this problem before, I think the script on the linux NAT machine is blacklisting our internal DNS because the DHCP server is assigning it an IP is out of the subnet, again. I can have it fixed in 15 minutes."
MIS Director: "No. Just finish putting those nVidia SLI video cards in those XP Workstations. We pay CompuCrap $150 an hour to manage the network. They can be here tomorrow and have it fixed in four or five hours."
Systems Administrator: "Why can't we just fix it right now and save the time and money."
MIS Director: "Because I have to finish the third quarter cost analysis and prepare the budget for quarter four and you need to finish blowing dust out of the HR computers. Besides, it's in the budget and I need to spend as much as possible to justify my request for a 30% increase in the budget for quarter four."
[Next Day]
President: "What the hell are you computer people doing, the network has been down for over a day!!! I can't check my email, my financials, or slashdot!"
MIS Director: "I know sir, I just don't have a qualified staff, I told them to fix the thingamajig but they have to wait for CompuCrap. If you'll just approve the budget increase we can get up to speed and hire some good workers."
President: "Okay, and fire that inept System Administrator as soon as possible, why can't we get qualified IT people in here?
MIS Director: There just aren't any qualified people in the United States. (looking at stack of résumés) all the candidates are just like that piece of shit, SysAdmin we have. I'll see about some H1Bs.
[Later]
CompuCrap contractor: The problem is your DHCP server assigning out of range addresses. We recommend replacing it and your Nat server with an easy to use hardware solution. It should cost $4000 for both, we can have the work done in about 30 hours. With this you won't have to rely on specially trained personnel to maintain it.
Absolutely correct. This case should be dropped immediately and the prosecutors should be punished for attempting to hold accountable such kind and benevolent companies as UMG and EMI. And the slashdot readership should be hunted down and given thirty days in the county clink for supporting that naughty fibber Shawn Fanning. It is apparent that hostility and mistrust of RIAA is synonymous with support for Fanning and Napster and equates to a willful disregard for intellectual property rights and a blatant disregard for the law of the land.
Please don't misinterpret the above as hostility, I just couldn't resist. But let's be realistic. We don't necessarily have to agree with the ethics behind Napster to respect the technological model. And RIAA has taken pot-shots as every form of music technology that has drifted through its crosshairs, relying on every bullshit contrivance it can muster in an attempt to vilify the technology. Most of us have heard lie after lie, seen misrepresentation after misrepresentation, and forced to endure the eternal bawling, bitching and whining from RIAA about the negative impacts on their business model when every other manufacturing or service business is told "adapt or die". We know they falsify information but are never caught or even pursued. Just as the MPAA, they have repeatedly failed to innovate yet rely on litigation and intervention of the federal justice system to artificially sustain them from the Darwinian effects of a failure to adapt. Their member companies have engaged in ethically monstrous practices for the better part of fifty years, destroying lives and gleefully snorting lines of coke off of super-models' asses the whole damn way. And lastly, they are just plain bullies.
If we were inclined to take sides it would be the side of the creative, devious kid who told a fib, not the mega-giant club hell bent on operating with impunity. Or perhaps, even with BMG if they can cause some damage to the esprit de corps of the RIAA. Hell, I'm not too proud to admit that I want to see some blood in the great corporate halls. Once they smell blood pehaps they'll tear the whole damn machine apart. I'll bring the hot dogs.
But this isn't an issue of taking sides. Who cares if Fanning lied? This is about seeing a company that desperately deserves a reality check, get taken down a notch. We know that, regardless of the legality or legitimacy or corporate practices, they are ethically void. Legal != ethical, never has, never will.
Of course, any argument I could make or that anyone could rebut would be academic. Either by obfuscation or money, this case is dead in the water.
I have always been a strong proponent of well developed communication skills. Unfortunately, from recent experience, I've noticed a startling decline in both written and verbal communication skills from all career fields. This has in turn led to what I perceive as a decline in professionalism across the board.
The number of email communications consisting of two or three poorly constructed sentences populating my inbox has increased over the last year. From the evidence I have witnessed, technical employers and recruiters lack the ability to properly evaluate a potential employee's communication skills due to a poor development of their own skills in this area.
I suspect that this is due to laziness on the part of recruiters and HR personnel or perhaps simply due to a lack of experience in the professional arena. Regardless, I frequently use telephone and written communication as a litmus test. If the employer or his proxy cannot effectively communicate with me in a professional fashion then I cannot help but doubt his ability to recognize my skills and treat me with a professional regard much less communicate his needs to me in an effective fashion.
Please understand that I do not believe that this is a display of hubris on my part. Rather, I believe that the traits of courtesy and politics stem from a well developed ability to communicate, a thing vital to the effective execution any business.
I accept that few vocational environments meet the ideal, but one owes it to himself to establish standards which promote business relationships which will reward them with the same respect and courtesy with which they offer to the employer. How can one expect his professional skills, such as business correspondence and communication, to be recognized and appreciated if his employer lacks those very same skills?
Cool. Compliance through ridicule. I like it. While I don't have a need for it right now, I'm swiping this and adding this to my bin of swiped, nifty code. With your indulgence, of course.
Most systems, from Windows to Unix allow for a pop-up MOTD in a GUI environment. Obviously shell users can get a MOTD but GUI users can recieve it as well. Additionally, it is more difficult to ignore in a GUI environment as the user must actually close the pop-up rather than letting it scoll on by, unread.
By the same token, GUIs aren't immune to network broadcast messages either. Thus, there's no reason that all users cannot be informed of an impending system shutdown at appropriate intervals prior to outages.
I've seen SOX blamed for some amazing things (in my last CEO's quarterly analyst call, he blamed SOX for poor profit despite strong revenue) -- but never yet restrictions on what to put in the MOTD!!!!
This is poo.
Most likely this particular complaint stems from the costs associated of external auditors in the auditor independance clause, redesign in compliance with the PCAOB internal controls proceedures, and overall cost of implementation under 404. However, if all this is done correctly, after initial compliance cost, the only significant cost should be the recurring cost of an external auditing team, which should be a drop in the bucket when weighed against a publicly traded company's revenue and can be justified as nothing more than an operations cost. Now this is dejour versus defacto of couse. In a perfect world...
No, it's not cheap, but to blame a poor revenue to profit margin on SOX is a load. Besides, if the CEOs weren't lying, cheating, and stealing to begin with then they'd never have gotten SarbOxed in the head to begin with. They made their bed...
Back to the topic, SOX shouldn't have any direct effect on the ability to update a MOTD but various security restrictions can make it difficult for some "Administrators" to do their job due to limited rights and its possible that the MOTD (and more vital functions) to one of these. This of couse indicates piss-poor design in need of reevaluation, which of course spells additional cost of reimplementation. Thus your CEOs whining.
But that's just my take in it. Far be it from me to actually understand anything that emerges from the minds of executive management.
Some time back I was doing some work for a particularly draconian client who wanted all web traffic restricted to pre-approved sites for all users at his business. I repeatedly suggested that we go with a server based solution but he was convinced that Content Advisor would solve the problem. He failed to realize that CA is a very poor tool for this as it just doesn't work well for several hundred workstations nor does it have a centralized administration point. But he was convinced that he knew more about the topic, "It'll work fine, just go ahead and do it." So...
He wanted anything not explicitly approved by him to be blacklisted and specifically named msn.com and a few other popular office time-waster sites (yahoo, etc.). It was through this process that I discovered that neither content advisor nor manipulation of the hosts file will block msn.com or other Microsoft sites. As MS has never made it public knowledge that you cannot block these sites in this manner I ended up looking rather foolish when I couldn't black-list. I had guessed at that time what was actually happening but I had no proof of documentation on which to fall back.
At least I reduced the list propagation time by setting up the list on one machine and pushing the registry to the remainder but the damn thing never did work right, it was such a hack job and I'm ashamed of it when I look back in retrospect. I wish they'd let me do it right.
If MS had disclosed this change (along with the Content Advisor change) I wouldn't have felt so foolish.
Doh! I should have proofed that post better. It was supposed to be a shovel wielding angry mob. But considering the context I like the way it turned out even better.
Being violated by housewares utensils is more fun than doing hardware support for the end consumer; and certianly more interesting... and less painful.
We only use OEM discs if a key is provided on the side of the machine or a valid license is presented.
There's a snare here that I'm unclear on. I can understand doing a reload only when a Product ID is present but...
Are you saying that, in these cases, you *only* do Windows reinstalls from OEM discs (meaning not from Retail version discs)? If so then: If you are presented with a machine (say a custom build) that clearly has the PID affixed to the case, there is a chance that the machine will have a retail (or upgrade) version of an OS on it? Retail and upgrade PIDs do not work with OEM discs and vice versa.
If you aren't saying that you only do OEM reinstalls then nevermind, I misunderstood.
I did a brief stint at a small computer shop. Between actually administrating clients' networks we'd do in-shop repair for home users (being set on fire and beaten by a shovel weilding angry mop is much more fun than this). Users would bring in computers for OS reloads and invariably have lost their Windows or Dell or Gateway discs (if they even got them at all). On some occasions they'd just look at me blankly, not realizing that I didn't just wave a magic wand and make it all okay. "What's an Operating system?" I swear one customer asked me this!!!
Our practice was to keep a copy of every breed of OS at the bench (including Dell and Gateway versions which use unique Product ID schemes). As long as the customer had a PID stuck on the box it would get reloaded. If it didn't have a PID they were informed to produce the entire packaging or pony up the cost of the software.
It was always Windows systems that involved these headaches. I occasionally did work on Linux or MacOS boxes but those were very rare as Linux users already know how to do their own work and Mac users didn't have the typical windows problems (spyware, viri, registry, ect.).
It has always been my understanding that the EULA of Windows is associated to the PID not the physical media. This assumes one installation per PID per machine (excepting corporate editions). I'm sure it's not that simple in the end but I've never known anyone who could actually clarify the matter. This is why corporate volume licensing is preferable... and more expensive.
Sadly, the American public has become too apathetic to take any significant action on this or other questionable matters. Regardless of which side of the political fence you fall on there has been enough questionable activity by our government leaders as individuals or a collective that the outcry should have been louder than it has been. I just don't think people care anymore, or they believe that their voice won't be heard.
The best that can be hoped for is that people will flip-off the AT&T building as they go on paying their phone bills.
If I'm reading this right, this article implies that the government's right to squelch cases on the grounds of national security aren't necessarily clearly enumerated (a vagary which favors the government in this case) thus all the weight of the case falls to precedent established in U.S. versus Reynolds. I'm not a lawyer but I could see a similar card being played here if the government decides not to leave AT&T to twist in the wind.
The deciding factor will be a PR matter in the in, I believe.
I vaguely recall a case in which an inventor was denied the right to pursue a patent infringement case based upon the grounds of government security concerns. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the specific circumstances of the case, perhaps someone else can help me clarify. Nevertheless...
If the government decides that this case threatens national security this case will never make it to the deposition stage...much less a trial hearing. AT&T merely has to seek intervention from the government on their behalf. With the corroboration of the government this case will get squelched in no time flat. And, in theory, all that should required is the statement that this technology was developed under contract for the US government. At this point such a statement should have little damning effect as our executive as effectively admitted outright to extra-judicial wiretapping.
On a slightly different note, am I the only one who is having flashbacks of the Echelon and FBI Carnivore projects?
Anything that comes from CNN is immediately suspect as far as I'm concerned. I've seen bs report after bs report regarding the best jobs, the best salaries, best places to work, best hookers for the up-and-coming coke snorting MBA. They are all fabricated pablum excrementum.
Upon a cursory examination I couldn't find any reference to the criteria for their "research". Who did they poll, individuals or corporations? Which individuals or corporations? Is there any science in this article or did they just scribble a couple-of-hundred occupations on slips of paper and then pull from a hat? Where are statistics? Did I just overlook them?
This article is nothing more than spin, considering neither CNN nor most employers know a software engineer from a proctologist, though both wade through the same type of bio-matter.
Most of this corporate gibbering and drooling is really nothing more than a distasteful variation of a theme derived from Orwellian Doublespeak. All one must do is listen to a George Carlin routine to really get an understanding of how we manipulate words to lessen or eliminate the negative impact. The purpose is, of course, is the adumbration of the negative points of a given topic. One of the concepts of "selling" is getting around the buyer's misgivings. This is accomplished by burying the question in a mire of buzzwords and ding-a-lingo so that the misgiving can never be voiced. I won't delve into the many ways an employee can get "canned" in corporate dildo-speak.
That aside I am reminded of the remarks of a respected anthropology professor I studied under some years ago. One of his first lessons was to impress upon us that every profession has its own unique vocabulary and that the wise would learn that profession's vocabulary if they wished to communicate with their peers. He maintained that the greatest part of mastering a profession was mastering its vocabulary. As the business world involves more babbling than actually doing, more deferring blame than accepting responsibility then one must conclude his statements to be true.
Now one could argue that an anthropological vocabulary actually has more meaning than a corporate vocabulary and they'd probably be right. However, we aren't arguing the legitimacy of the argot but rather the wisdom in investing in it. Considering the IT sector has devolved into technical slaves toiling away for the corporate plutocrats you've been handed a unique opportunity to tip the scale in our (the IT geeks) favor as well as advance your career simultaneously. Learn to "talk the talk" while walking your own walk. Learn to communicate with these high-dollar cutpurses in their own language, thus ingratiating yourself to them. This way, you see past the lies and obfuscation and hopefully can more effectively cut to the heart of the issue. If you are fortunate it will make you appear to be "part of the corporate culture, a "team player" and also be the one guy who is known for getting things done. Just don't forget to blow your own horn.
If you fear that this approach might "eat your brain" like a cancer remember this. When you were a kid you most likely learned a great many obscenities that you used in casual conversation with your friends but somehow managed to automatically and unconsciously censor yourself around your parents. You may have to call upon that same mechanism to avoid "entering into a dialog" and "minimizing risk" in your everyday social life. But it can be done.
Or do look at it another way. We "geeks" tend to have something of an (not necessarily erroneous) inflated intellectual opinion of ourselves, especially when compared against our corporate masters. If this is true then we should have little trouble mastering their silly little pidgin and translating the bs into an efficient productive tongue. Pride yourself on being an effective translator. Though its not likely to get you a position at the UN it is something that is needed in today's dysfunctional corporate economy.
Hell, maybe you could compile a lexicon for the rest of us.
>I mean, it sounds more like you want them to be doing debugging and QA, than actual administration...
---
I couldn't agree more. While I am quite capable of Unix/Linux administration (including use of lsmod, insmod, modprobe, etc) and though I do know some C++ and even a few other languages and scripts, I make it very clear that I'm not a developer. Yes, I know a bit of programming but I don't consider myself to have the ingrained best practices that are necessary for quality application development.
It seems to have become a common practice of attempting to get "two for the price of one" in the IT world today. Employers want developers who will be responsible for maintaining their network infrastructure and they want administrators to perform double duty as developers. I'm not even sure that anyone truly knows what these job titles mean anymore.
It doesn't start and end there either. I've seen helpdesk positions that demand qualifications that would put the best network administrators to shame. Since when does a helpdesk position require 5+ years of "Active Directory Deployment and Administration and 8+ years of Network Design"; all for less than $15 an hour. This smacks of an employer looking to get a System Administrator for a cut rate whilst depriving the employee of a much needed job title to boot, thus ensuring position security by preventing the employee from jumping ship with a good line on his/her résumé.
More agonizing is this absurd practice of inventing job titles in attempt to obfuscate the range of duties that employers are going to demand of their IT personnel. Dildosoft Principal Auditing and Coordination Flabebergastrication Analyst? Companies make fun of the ridiculous titles that were prominent during the ".com" era while cooking up the most bloated and absurd titles that scream self-importance when in reality they want a system admin who can work on everything, program in four languages under three architectures, manage department costing and head up project management for nine projects while the MBAs are out playing golf and snorting cocaine off a an expensive hooker's ass. Then when the Dildosoft Principal Auditing and Coordination Flabebergastrication Analyst completes the assignments (and eight others) for which he was hired he gets "down sized" without the courtesy of a reach-around. Now the former Dildosoft Principal Auditing and Coordination Flabebergastrication Analyst finds himself faced with securing gainful employment in a market that only wants Embezzlecom Rectum Probe Enterprise Mismanagement Suite Team Leads.
It is my belief that the current aggravated state of the IT employment market is the culmination of an out-of-control train-of-consequences beginning with the employer, ending with the employee and with HR and headhunters squarely at the epicenter of it all. I've pitched more résumés into the black hole of job boards and recruiter sites (and physical walk-ins) with little or no response. Recruiters troll the job boards with non-existent jobs in order to line the filing cabinet with a base of "skilled" employees whom they will never put to work. Of course, these recruiters are kept in business by Human Resources departments who, if they were doing the jobs they were hired to do, wouldn't be relying on recruiters.
Interviewing, when the rare occasion to actually interact with flesh and blood does occur, sees little more success. How does a qualified candidate translate their experience into quantifiable skills that will help the company achieve its goals when those skills don't directly mesh with the impossibly specific matrix designed by unthinking HR drones with little to no grasp of the demands of the position for which they are screening in the first place?
The employers have done themselves no small favor in restructuring the entire state of an industry either. This idea of cross-breeding suits and propeller-heads doesn't work. A business degree is not a computer science degree and a computer science degree is not a business degree. With the exception of a few programs out there designed as "Information Technology" degrees you aren't going to find a CS graduate with an understanding of concepts of TOC and ROI any more than you are going to find an MBA with more than an elementary grasp of how to check his email and download spy-ware. The employer must undertake the responsibility of training their training CS people in business concepts (some do this) and training management in CS concepts (which is rarely done adding to the geek/administration gap in corporate culture) otherwise we fall back to the ethically questionable practice of raiding talent from the enemy camp; thus shuffling the same hand of cards back and forth rather than dealing a fresh hand.
Companies are buying into the technology venders spin and getting big eyes at the technological possibilities of the latest greatest products to come off the shelf (often in little better than an alpha state) without considering the cost of implementation and the resources required to implement said technology. Part of the cost of implementation is ensuring that the employee base is ready to implement it. Of course, the standard response is to layoff those without the implicit knowledge of the new product and hit the meat market. But the product is new and there is no talent base for it yet and in the long run it would have been cheaper to un-ass the budget to train the old IT staff as they likely have a record of adapting to technology in a fast and efficient manner (else they wouldn't be good employees). Fast forward five years: the new product is on the way out a new one has taken its place and the process begins anew along with the complaint, "There are no qualified people".
Personally, I wouldn't touch a job that offered minimum wage, with or without bonuses. I've worked with companies that have some form of "incentive" program and I've been screwed every time. Individual incentives lead to throat cutting (regardless of the industry) and so-called team incentives merely offer employers a method of penalizing the entire team for the poor performance of one or two individuals. I've seen promises of bonuses that never materialized with the employer justifying themselves with ever piss-poor lie they could produce. While I could be wrong, this also seems to suggest that sales numbers are involved. IT professionals have enough demand with temporal performance standards as it stands. Adding financial numbers to the stress levels might serve to drive them away.
I strongly resent the attitude that your comment appears to imply, as I fit the profile of individual toward whom you've leveled the canon.
This is not to say that I resent those who hold a degree, quite the contrary. I've found myself stalled at junior status in pursuit of a bachelors degree for years due to financial limitations. What I have accomplished was achieved piecemeal, by scrounging classes at junior colleges and where ever else I could afford them. At one point, when out of work I completed an entire year of college in a single semester. I worked my glutius off.
I've never been wealthy and I come from a very poor family who was never able to pay my way through the finest universities. Despite this, there's nothing I'd love more than to finish a bachelors and even continue to a masters.
This however, has no derogatory impact on my skills. I have extremely strong academic skills despite my humble education and possess superior writing skills. When it comes to IT I am *damn* good at what I do and I take significant pride in my knowledge and technical prowess. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I've trained and consulted for degree holders with master's degrees and years of experience exceeding my own.
In an attempt to both compensate for my lack of a formal education and to maintain my edge in an industry that lacks appreciation for my efforts, my free time is frequently consumed in the study of technologies and trends germane to the IT world. I established a reputation that has followed me with prior employers to such an extent that I still receive calls from them asking for advice in resolving network issues.
Am I lazy? If the proceeding is interpreted in any part true then I cannot see how one could assert that I am. Am I stupid? I would hope that the tenor of my message would prove otherwise.
Most troubling is the realization that you are not singular in your ideals. Doubtless your notions of the "dedicated worker" were passed on to you through hereditary channels and it is this that represents my strongest point of resentment. This "privilege breeds privilege" attitude is the greatest bastion of class bigotry and it has no place in the technical arena and is, in and of itself extremely unprofessional. A point which, in brief reprise of the topic of this thread, flawlessly illustrates that which has brought Information Technology, as a career, to its current shoddy state.
Your subscription to elitist ideals singles you out as an example of what I hope not to become should I ever find the means to complete my education. In the meantime, you can take comfort in the knowledge that I have no more desire to be employed by you as you to employ me.
Slashdot Mirror
inside the coporate LAN, sure. But consider laptops. Are you prepared to trust the firewall of the hotel your salesdroid is staying at? The firewall of the office an IT consultant is going out to fix?
Hmmm. I'm compelled to concede your point in regard to mobile machines (Where I, too, rely on a software firewall).
Of course, this leaves me poised for a rant regarding the salesdroids (brilliant term, btw). I think most of us hate dealing with laptops in the hands of the uninitiated (for lack of a better term). Firewall or no, a laptop in their hands is doomed. Just resign yourself to seeing it return in two weeks with 5 gigs of porn and spyware. An example scenario:
"Hey there computer dude! Look man, I was at the big conference, lotsa hot chicks there, man. The company put me up in this great hotel with a kickin' lounge, great suite. Anyway, my laptop started actng up, I don't know what's wrong with it, it just started popping up this naked chick getting it on with a hydraulic donut press, during the big Caulderfield presentation. Man were they pissed, I think we lost the contract. I blamed it on you guys. It's vital I get it back by the end of the day for an important presentation for this super big account that's going to save the company and earn me the-biiiig-bucks. I might even get promoted to a director's position. Thanks man, catcha in an hour."
But, alas, I digress.
The IT consultant, if we are talking about his laptop, should know better. But regardless, your point is valid.
By the same token. Don't most enterprise customers rely on an internet facing hardware or dedicated PC firewall(s)? And wouldn't the presence of an unconfigured workstation firewall tube any systems management?
And lastly, in regard to the outbound blocking: Shouldn't a properly configured workstation have established user rights restrictions limiting the likelihood of rogue software installation either deliberately or clandestinely?
And...
Wait! Why would enterprise customers even care about the included firewall if they have a properly implemented network?
Oh, wait. most business networks aren't well designed to begin with.
My hat's off to you. You've summed the corpus of my thoughts and fears. This is the sort of commentary for which I wish I possessed the eloquence.
1. People still smarting from the tech-bubble popping? Check.
No comment.
I believe that this is merely being milked as an excuse to artificially deflate the compensation for technical employees.
2. New home machines much less accessible to proto-hackers than machines like the C64? Check.
Bull. At a hardware level, the machines are less accessible. But there is plenty of stuff out there... Your C64 proto-hackers today have Lego Mindstorms kits, run Linux (or at least, Cygwin), and have the entire internet as an reference source.
Former C64 Proto Hacker: guilty.
Lego Mindstorms: uhhh guilty.
Linux: uhhhhh guuilty.
Cygwin on my windows boxes: (hanging head), guilty.
Internet as a super-reference: guilty.
Still hack the hell out of my PC both hardware and software: GUILTY
3. Popular culture that denigrates "geeks" and "nerds" and makes it a social crime to get A's? Check.
Now you're just fishing for causes. If anything, the atmosphere is better now: gifted programs, geek/nerd culture, gaming expos, and the always inspiring tech billionares.
I think that depends on whee you are regionally. The southeastern United States (with the arguable exception of Atlanta) is pretty damn backwards. Despite positive media portrayal these people still thing that any cerebrally oriented individual is a "nerd". But then, by the same token, these people lack a business prefessionalism that borders on neanderthal. Hell, getting drunk is still considered a valid weekend pasttime.
By the same token, most places of employment are full of computer stupid employees. Never mind the lack of computer competency of the average non-IT worker, which is to be expected and on par. The individuals populating most IT departments in companies small to enterprise seems lacking. I've seen IS managers and directors who believe that it is a best practice to throw money at the problem before determining the origin of the problem but couldn't script their way our of a wet paper bag or configure a simple router.
MIS Director: "The network is down again, call ComputCrap, our contracted outsourcer."
Systems Administrator: "But sir, I've seen this problem before, I think the script on the linux NAT machine is blacklisting our internal DNS because the DHCP server is assigning it an IP is out of the subnet, again. I can have it fixed in 15 minutes."
MIS Director: "No. Just finish putting those nVidia SLI video cards in those XP Workstations. We pay CompuCrap $150 an hour to manage the network. They can be here tomorrow and have it fixed in four or five hours."
Systems Administrator: "Why can't we just fix it right now and save the time and money."
MIS Director: "Because I have to finish the third quarter cost analysis and prepare the budget for quarter four and you need to finish blowing dust out of the HR computers. Besides, it's in the budget and I need to spend as much as possible to justify my request for a 30% increase in the budget for quarter four."
[Next Day]
President: "What the hell are you computer people doing, the network has been down for over a day!!! I can't check my email, my financials, or slashdot!"
MIS Director: "I know sir, I just don't have a qualified staff, I told them to fix the thingamajig but they have to wait for CompuCrap. If you'll just approve the budget increase we can get up to speed and hire some good workers."
President: "Okay, and fire that inept System Administrator as soon as possible, why can't we get qualified IT people in here?
MIS Director: There just aren't any qualified people in the United States. (looking at stack of résumés) all the candidates are just like that piece of shit, SysAdmin we have. I'll see about some H1Bs.
[Later]
CompuCrap contractor: The problem is your DHCP server assigning out of range addresses. We recommend replacing it and your Nat server with an easy to use hardware solution. It should cost $4000 for both, we can have the work done in about 30 hours. With this you won't have to rely on specially trained personnel to maintain it.
Absolutely correct. This case should be dropped immediately and the prosecutors should be punished for attempting to hold accountable such kind and benevolent companies as UMG and EMI. And the slashdot readership should be hunted down and given thirty days in the county clink for supporting that naughty fibber Shawn Fanning. It is apparent that hostility and mistrust of RIAA is synonymous with support for Fanning and Napster and equates to a willful disregard for intellectual property rights and a blatant disregard for the law of the land.
Please don't misinterpret the above as hostility, I just couldn't resist. But let's be realistic. We don't necessarily have to agree with the ethics behind Napster to respect the technological model. And RIAA has taken pot-shots as every form of music technology that has drifted through its crosshairs, relying on every bullshit contrivance it can muster in an attempt to vilify the technology. Most of us have heard lie after lie, seen misrepresentation after misrepresentation, and forced to endure the eternal bawling, bitching and whining from RIAA about the negative impacts on their business model when every other manufacturing or service business is told "adapt or die". We know they falsify information but are never caught or even pursued. Just as the MPAA, they have repeatedly failed to innovate yet rely on litigation and intervention of the federal justice system to artificially sustain them from the Darwinian effects of a failure to adapt. Their member companies have engaged in ethically monstrous practices for the better part of fifty years, destroying lives and gleefully snorting lines of coke off of super-models' asses the whole damn way. And lastly, they are just plain bullies.
If we were inclined to take sides it would be the side of the creative, devious kid who told a fib, not the mega-giant club hell bent on operating with impunity. Or perhaps, even with BMG if they can cause some damage to the esprit de corps of the RIAA. Hell, I'm not too proud to admit that I want to see some blood in the great corporate halls. Once they smell blood pehaps they'll tear the whole damn machine apart. I'll bring the hot dogs.
But this isn't an issue of taking sides. Who cares if Fanning lied? This is about seeing a company that desperately deserves a reality check, get taken down a notch. We know that, regardless of the legality or legitimacy or corporate practices, they are ethically void. Legal != ethical, never has, never will.
Of course, any argument I could make or that anyone could rebut would be academic. Either by obfuscation or money, this case is dead in the water.
I have always been a strong proponent of well developed communication skills. Unfortunately, from recent experience, I've noticed a startling decline in both written and verbal communication skills from all career fields. This has in turn led to what I perceive as a decline in professionalism across the board.
The number of email communications consisting of two or three poorly constructed sentences populating my inbox has increased over the last year. From the evidence I have witnessed, technical employers and recruiters lack the ability to properly evaluate a potential employee's communication skills due to a poor development of their own skills in this area.
I suspect that this is due to laziness on the part of recruiters and HR personnel or perhaps simply due to a lack of experience in the professional arena. Regardless, I frequently use telephone and written communication as a litmus test. If the employer or his proxy cannot effectively communicate with me in a professional fashion then I cannot help but doubt his ability to recognize my skills and treat me with a professional regard much less communicate his needs to me in an effective fashion.
Please understand that I do not believe that this is a display of hubris on my part. Rather, I believe that the traits of courtesy and politics stem from a well developed ability to communicate, a thing vital to the effective execution any business.
I accept that few vocational environments meet the ideal, but one owes it to himself to establish standards which promote business relationships which will reward them with the same respect and courtesy with which they offer to the employer. How can one expect his professional skills, such as business correspondence and communication, to be recognized and appreciated if his employer lacks those very same skills?
Cool. Compliance through ridicule. I like it. While I don't have a need for it right now, I'm swiping this and adding this to my bin of swiped, nifty code. With your indulgence, of course.
Most systems, from Windows to Unix allow for a pop-up MOTD in a GUI environment. Obviously shell users can get a MOTD but GUI users can recieve it as well. Additionally, it is more difficult to ignore in a GUI environment as the user must actually close the pop-up rather than letting it scoll on by, unread.
By the same token, GUIs aren't immune to network broadcast messages either. Thus, there's no reason that all users cannot be informed of an impending system shutdown at appropriate intervals prior to outages.
I've seen SOX blamed for some amazing things (in my last CEO's quarterly analyst call, he blamed SOX for poor profit despite strong revenue) -- but never yet restrictions on what to put in the MOTD!!!!
This is poo.
Most likely this particular complaint stems from the costs associated of external auditors in the auditor independance clause, redesign in compliance with the PCAOB internal controls proceedures, and overall cost of implementation under 404. However, if all this is done correctly, after initial compliance cost, the only significant cost should be the recurring cost of an external auditing team, which should be a drop in the bucket when weighed against a publicly traded company's revenue and can be justified as nothing more than an operations cost. Now this is dejour versus defacto of couse. In a perfect world...
No, it's not cheap, but to blame a poor revenue to profit margin on SOX is a load. Besides, if the CEOs weren't lying, cheating, and stealing to begin with then they'd never have gotten SarbOxed in the head to begin with. They made their bed...
Back to the topic, SOX shouldn't have any direct effect on the ability to update a MOTD but various security restrictions can make it difficult for some "Administrators" to do their job due to limited rights and its possible that the MOTD (and more vital functions) to one of these. This of couse indicates piss-poor design in need of reevaluation, which of course spells additional cost of reimplementation. Thus your CEOs whining.
But that's just my take in it. Far be it from me to actually understand anything that emerges from the minds of executive management.
Some time back I was doing some work for a particularly draconian client who wanted all web traffic restricted to pre-approved sites for all users at his business. I repeatedly suggested that we go with a server based solution but he was convinced that Content Advisor would solve the problem. He failed to realize that CA is a very poor tool for this as it just doesn't work well for several hundred workstations nor does it have a centralized administration point. But he was convinced that he knew more about the topic, "It'll work fine, just go ahead and do it." So...
He wanted anything not explicitly approved by him to be blacklisted and specifically named msn.com and a few other popular office time-waster sites (yahoo, etc.). It was through this process that I discovered that neither content advisor nor manipulation of the hosts file will block msn.com or other Microsoft sites. As MS has never made it public knowledge that you cannot block these sites in this manner I ended up looking rather foolish when I couldn't black-list. I had guessed at that time what was actually happening but I had no proof of documentation on which to fall back.
At least I reduced the list propagation time by setting up the list on one machine and pushing the registry to the remainder but the damn thing never did work right, it was such a hack job and I'm ashamed of it when I look back in retrospect. I wish they'd let me do it right.
If MS had disclosed this change (along with the Content Advisor change) I wouldn't have felt so foolish.
Doh! I should have proofed that post better. It was supposed to be a shovel wielding angry mob. But considering the context I like the way it turned out even better.
Being violated by housewares utensils is more fun than doing hardware support for the end consumer; and certianly more interesting... and less painful.
We only use OEM discs if a key is provided on the side of the machine or a valid license is presented.
There's a snare here that I'm unclear on. I can understand doing a reload only when a Product ID is present but...
Are you saying that, in these cases, you *only* do Windows reinstalls from OEM discs (meaning not from Retail version discs)? If so then: If you are presented with a machine (say a custom build) that clearly has the PID affixed to the case, there is a chance that the machine will have a retail (or upgrade) version of an OS on it? Retail and upgrade PIDs do not work with OEM discs and vice versa.
If you aren't saying that you only do OEM reinstalls then nevermind, I misunderstood.
I did a brief stint at a small computer shop. Between actually administrating clients' networks we'd do in-shop repair for home users (being set on fire and beaten by a shovel weilding angry mop is much more fun than this). Users would bring in computers for OS reloads and invariably have lost their Windows or Dell or Gateway discs (if they even got them at all). On some occasions they'd just look at me blankly, not realizing that I didn't just wave a magic wand and make it all okay. "What's an Operating system?" I swear one customer asked me this!!!
Our practice was to keep a copy of every breed of OS at the bench (including Dell and Gateway versions which use unique Product ID schemes). As long as the customer had a PID stuck on the box it would get reloaded. If it didn't have a PID they were informed to produce the entire packaging or pony up the cost of the software.
It was always Windows systems that involved these headaches. I occasionally did work on Linux or MacOS boxes but those were very rare as Linux users already know how to do their own work and Mac users didn't have the typical windows problems (spyware, viri, registry, ect.).
It has always been my understanding that the EULA of Windows is associated to the PID not the physical media. This assumes one installation per PID per machine (excepting corporate editions). I'm sure it's not that simple in the end but I've never known anyone who could actually clarify the matter. This is why corporate volume licensing is preferable... and more expensive.
Sadly, the American public has become too apathetic to take any significant action on this or other questionable matters. Regardless of which side of the political fence you fall on there has been enough questionable activity by our government leaders as individuals or a collective that the outcry should have been louder than it has been. I just don't think people care anymore, or they believe that their voice won't be heard.
The best that can be hoped for is that people will flip-off the AT&T building as they go on paying their phone bills.
That's the one!! Thank you.
If I'm reading this right, this article implies that the government's right to squelch cases on the grounds of national security aren't necessarily clearly enumerated (a vagary which favors the government in this case) thus all the weight of the case falls to precedent established in U.S. versus Reynolds. I'm not a lawyer but I could see a similar card being played here if the government decides not to leave AT&T to twist in the wind.
The deciding factor will be a PR matter in the in, I believe.
I vaguely recall a case in which an inventor was denied the right to pursue a patent infringement case based upon the grounds of government security concerns. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the specific circumstances of the case, perhaps someone else can help me clarify. Nevertheless...
If the government decides that this case threatens national security this case will never make it to the deposition stage...much less a trial hearing. AT&T merely has to seek intervention from the government on their behalf. With the corroboration of the government this case will get squelched in no time flat. And, in theory, all that should required is the statement that this technology was developed under contract for the US government. At this point such a statement should have little damning effect as our executive as effectively admitted outright to extra-judicial wiretapping.
On a slightly different note, am I the only one who is having flashbacks of the Echelon and FBI Carnivore projects?
Anything that comes from CNN is immediately suspect as far as I'm concerned. I've seen bs report after bs report regarding the best jobs, the best salaries, best places to work, best hookers for the up-and-coming coke snorting MBA. They are all fabricated pablum excrementum.
Upon a cursory examination I couldn't find any reference to the criteria for their "research". Who did they poll, individuals or corporations? Which individuals or corporations? Is there any science in this article or did they just scribble a couple-of-hundred occupations on slips of paper and then pull from a hat? Where are statistics? Did I just overlook them?
This article is nothing more than spin, considering neither CNN nor most employers know a software engineer from a proctologist, though both wade through the same type of bio-matter.
Most of this corporate gibbering and drooling is really nothing more than a distasteful variation of a theme derived from Orwellian Doublespeak. All one must do is listen to a George Carlin routine to really get an understanding of how we manipulate words to lessen or eliminate the negative impact. The purpose is, of course, is the adumbration of the negative points of a given topic. One of the concepts of "selling" is getting around the buyer's misgivings. This is accomplished by burying the question in a mire of buzzwords and ding-a-lingo so that the misgiving can never be voiced. I won't delve into the many ways an employee can get "canned" in corporate dildo-speak.
That aside I am reminded of the remarks of a respected anthropology professor I studied under some years ago. One of his first lessons was to impress upon us that every profession has its own unique vocabulary and that the wise would learn that profession's vocabulary if they wished to communicate with their peers. He maintained that the greatest part of mastering a profession was mastering its vocabulary. As the business world involves more babbling than actually doing, more deferring blame than accepting responsibility then one must conclude his statements to be true.
Now one could argue that an anthropological vocabulary actually has more meaning than a corporate vocabulary and they'd probably be right. However, we aren't arguing the legitimacy of the argot but rather the wisdom in investing in it. Considering the IT sector has devolved into technical slaves toiling away for the corporate plutocrats you've been handed a unique opportunity to tip the scale in our (the IT geeks) favor as well as advance your career simultaneously. Learn to "talk the talk" while walking your own walk. Learn to communicate with these high-dollar cutpurses in their own language, thus ingratiating yourself to them. This way, you see past the lies and obfuscation and hopefully can more effectively cut to the heart of the issue. If you are fortunate it will make you appear to be "part of the corporate culture, a "team player" and also be the one guy who is known for getting things done. Just don't forget to blow your own horn.
If you fear that this approach might "eat your brain" like a cancer remember this. When you were a kid you most likely learned a great many obscenities that you used in casual conversation with your friends but somehow managed to automatically and unconsciously censor yourself around your parents. You may have to call upon that same mechanism to avoid "entering into a dialog" and "minimizing risk" in your everyday social life. But it can be done.
Or do look at it another way. We "geeks" tend to have something of an (not necessarily erroneous) inflated intellectual opinion of ourselves, especially when compared against our corporate masters. If this is true then we should have little trouble mastering their silly little pidgin and translating the bs into an efficient productive tongue. Pride yourself on being an effective translator. Though its not likely to get you a position at the UN it is something that is needed in today's dysfunctional corporate economy.
Hell, maybe you could compile a lexicon for the rest of us.
>I mean, it sounds more like you want them to be doing debugging and QA, than actual administration... ---
I couldn't agree more. While I am quite capable of Unix/Linux administration (including use of lsmod, insmod, modprobe, etc) and though I do know some C++ and even a few other languages and scripts, I make it very clear that I'm not a developer. Yes, I know a bit of programming but I don't consider myself to have the ingrained best practices that are necessary for quality application development.
It seems to have become a common practice of attempting to get "two for the price of one" in the IT world today. Employers want developers who will be responsible for maintaining their network infrastructure and they want administrators to perform double duty as developers. I'm not even sure that anyone truly knows what these job titles mean anymore.
It doesn't start and end there either. I've seen helpdesk positions that demand qualifications that would put the best network administrators to shame. Since when does a helpdesk position require 5+ years of "Active Directory Deployment and Administration and 8+ years of Network Design"; all for less than $15 an hour. This smacks of an employer looking to get a System Administrator for a cut rate whilst depriving the employee of a much needed job title to boot, thus ensuring position security by preventing the employee from jumping ship with a good line on his/her résumé.
More agonizing is this absurd practice of inventing job titles in attempt to obfuscate the range of duties that employers are going to demand of their IT personnel. Dildosoft Principal Auditing and Coordination Flabebergastrication Analyst? Companies make fun of the ridiculous titles that were prominent during the ".com" era while cooking up the most bloated and absurd titles that scream self-importance when in reality they want a system admin who can work on everything, program in four languages under three architectures, manage department costing and head up project management for nine projects while the MBAs are out playing golf and snorting cocaine off a an expensive hooker's ass. Then when the Dildosoft Principal Auditing and Coordination Flabebergastrication Analyst completes the assignments (and eight others) for which he was hired he gets "down sized" without the courtesy of a reach-around. Now the former Dildosoft Principal Auditing and Coordination Flabebergastrication Analyst finds himself faced with securing gainful employment in a market that only wants Embezzlecom Rectum Probe Enterprise Mismanagement Suite Team Leads.
But I'm not bitter or anything.
It is my belief that the current aggravated state of the IT employment market is the culmination of an out-of-control train-of-consequences beginning with the employer, ending with the employee and with HR and headhunters squarely at the epicenter of it all. I've pitched more résumés into the black hole of job boards and recruiter sites (and physical walk-ins) with little or no response. Recruiters troll the job boards with non-existent jobs in order to line the filing cabinet with a base of "skilled" employees whom they will never put to work. Of course, these recruiters are kept in business by Human Resources departments who, if they were doing the jobs they were hired to do, wouldn't be relying on recruiters.
Interviewing, when the rare occasion to actually interact with flesh and blood does occur, sees little more success. How does a qualified candidate translate their experience into quantifiable skills that will help the company achieve its goals when those skills don't directly mesh with the impossibly specific matrix designed by unthinking HR drones with little to no grasp of the demands of the position for which they are screening in the first place?
The employers have done themselves no small favor in restructuring the entire state of an industry either. This idea of cross-breeding suits and propeller-heads doesn't work. A business degree is not a computer science degree and a computer science degree is not a business degree. With the exception of a few programs out there designed as "Information Technology" degrees you aren't going to find a CS graduate with an understanding of concepts of TOC and ROI any more than you are going to find an MBA with more than an elementary grasp of how to check his email and download spy-ware. The employer must undertake the responsibility of training their training CS people in business concepts (some do this) and training management in CS concepts (which is rarely done adding to the geek/administration gap in corporate culture) otherwise we fall back to the ethically questionable practice of raiding talent from the enemy camp; thus shuffling the same hand of cards back and forth rather than dealing a fresh hand.
Companies are buying into the technology venders spin and getting big eyes at the technological possibilities of the latest greatest products to come off the shelf (often in little better than an alpha state) without considering the cost of implementation and the resources required to implement said technology. Part of the cost of implementation is ensuring that the employee base is ready to implement it. Of course, the standard response is to layoff those without the implicit knowledge of the new product and hit the meat market. But the product is new and there is no talent base for it yet and in the long run it would have been cheaper to un-ass the budget to train the old IT staff as they likely have a record of adapting to technology in a fast and efficient manner (else they wouldn't be good employees). Fast forward five years: the new product is on the way out a new one has taken its place and the process begins anew along with the complaint, "There are no qualified people".
Personally, I wouldn't touch a job that offered minimum wage, with or without bonuses. I've worked with companies that have some form of "incentive" program and I've been screwed every time. Individual incentives lead to throat cutting (regardless of the industry) and so-called team incentives merely offer employers a method of penalizing the entire team for the poor performance of one or two individuals. I've seen promises of bonuses that never materialized with the employer justifying themselves with ever piss-poor lie they could produce. While I could be wrong, this also seems to suggest that sales numbers are involved. IT professionals have enough demand with temporal performance standards as it stands. Adding financial numbers to the stress levels might serve to drive them away.
Hopefully this will not be inter
I strongly resent the attitude that your comment appears to imply, as I fit the profile of individual toward whom you've leveled the canon.
This is not to say that I resent those who hold a degree, quite the contrary. I've found myself stalled at junior status in pursuit of a bachelors degree for years due to financial limitations. What I have accomplished was achieved piecemeal, by scrounging classes at junior colleges and where ever else I could afford them. At one point, when out of work I completed an entire year of college in a single semester. I worked my glutius off.
I've never been wealthy and I come from a very poor family who was never able to pay my way through the finest universities. Despite this, there's nothing I'd love more than to finish a bachelors and even continue to a masters.
This however, has no derogatory impact on my skills. I have extremely strong academic skills despite my humble education and possess superior writing skills. When it comes to IT I am *damn* good at what I do and I take significant pride in my knowledge and technical prowess. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I've trained and consulted for degree holders with master's degrees and years of experience exceeding my own.
In an attempt to both compensate for my lack of a formal education and to maintain my edge in an industry that lacks appreciation for my efforts, my free time is frequently consumed in the study of technologies and trends germane to the IT world. I established a reputation that has followed me with prior employers to such an extent that I still receive calls from them asking for advice in resolving network issues.
Am I lazy? If the proceeding is interpreted in any part true then I cannot see how one could assert that I am. Am I stupid? I would hope that the tenor of my message would prove otherwise.
Most troubling is the realization that you are not singular in your ideals. Doubtless your notions of the "dedicated worker" were passed on to you through hereditary channels and it is this that represents my strongest point of resentment. This "privilege breeds privilege" attitude is the greatest bastion of class bigotry and it has no place in the technical arena and is, in and of itself extremely unprofessional. A point which, in brief reprise of the topic of this thread, flawlessly illustrates that which has brought Information Technology, as a career, to its current shoddy state.
Your subscription to elitist ideals singles you out as an example of what I hope not to become should I ever find the means to complete my education. In the meantime, you can take comfort in the knowledge that I have no more desire to be employed by you as you to employ me.