1) VPN access needs to be locked down tight, preferably admins should only be able to access company servers from static IPs. (they can access user level resources from anywhere using a different account name) It's a pain, but in a large firm with multiple admins, the ones on call should be typically at home. Other admins can update the IP list if needed.
2) A master account should be created, with a password given in pieces to more than 1 person. Use a script, hidden somewhere in the system, that automatically resets this password once every hour or so. If some disgruntled admin changes it, it would reset itself soon enough. This script should be read only even to admins, so no one has permission to modify it. (the password file it uses should be accessible to the execs given parts of the password) It's not a perfect system, but it's pretty strong.
3) each admin gets 2 accounts: an admin account and a user account. As much as is possible should be done as a user. Admins should never, under penalty of immediate termination, share their login credentials with another admin or user. (there should be no need if everyone has their own)
4) login permission systems (Active directory, e-directory, whatever) need to be backed up daily to more than 1 location, and those files created should be read-only even to admins.
When firing a technician, have someone logged in and working to disable the terminated admin's permissions at the same time he's being called in to HR to be fired. Terminate all sessions using his user name and make all other admins immediately reset their own passwords. Lock out the VPN account as well.
Obviously in a small company with only 1 admin, this is nearly impossible. In that case, meticulous care in the backs is important (including getting rid of all tape based backup systems as they're easy to destroy) Also, meticulous care in the hiring process (and then continual treatment of the IT person) is critical. In general however, if you only have 1 IT person, it's usually better (and cheaper) to outsource.
read their stuff. Real numbers, no hype, proven processes.
Sure, 40 trillion over 30 years sounds like a lot of money, but when you considder that the proposed carbon taxes will cost 2 trillion per year, without actually helping add fuel to the mix, the economics start to make sense. Also, that $40 trillion spent is going to generate thousands of jobs, create $60 trillion dollars in sellable materials, and solve our energy chrisis. Considder this: the 4 billon POOREST people in the world have 5 trillion in purchasing power.
Microsoft's model of basic permissions is much the same, but applications have the ability to hide their actions from a user, and even from the system itself. In Unix, this is MUCH more difficult to accomplish. Whole programs can launch in Windows, but if they're not coded to have a taskbar notification, and don't show up in Applications, the user, unless they dive into advanced tools, is completely unaware. Also, in Windows, applications launch with the permissions of the user launching them, in unix, applications can have more restrictive permissions, or require escalated user permissions to run at all (aka, must be run by root, etc)
Yes, i mentioned that. What i want is for the OS to INFORM the user, instead of the user needing to know how to use a buried admin tool that likely they won't be able to understand anyway.
If the OS knows it's own performance bottlenecks, and can dynamically adjust how it uses what type of cache (disk/ram/flash) and also control background states for unused or underutilized items, it can be made MUCH more efficient, even on under configured hardware. If applications can communicate their requirements for resources to the OS as well, the OS can make decisions and inform users of actions to take (saving out of word before launching WoW).
You would only need a cert for applications that require access to data or files created by other applications. Everything else is a simple app, and thus simply can't run unless a user initiates it first. Trust me, Symantec doesn't care that their AV program requires a 1 time per year $200 application fee... Anyone creating devices that use cross application resources, trust me, they're not releasing free code.... $200 is a non-issue. Anyone who WOULD release free code that requires a cert? well, simply don't include the cert, and then the user simply gets a prompt instead of it working dynamically. Free apps may be annoying that way, but few of them would even get the prompt... this is a minor inconvenience at best, and effects few devs, and for those who sell wares for profit, $200 again is a complete non-issue.
Well, Linux simply doesn't have the graphics hungry load that Windows and Mac OS do. Linux users tend also to not have a lot of cross application resources available to them (limiting the number of applications, drivers, and more than pre or partially load at startup).
We'd LOVE to get rid of Swap entirely, and that's kind of where I'm headed with this, but to eliminate Swap, you're looking at Vista needing 2GM minimum, 4 Reccomended, basically to work at all. that won't sell... Takign a small step by cluing the users in to how much RAM they're really using, and measuring it as a performance report, not functionality, will help people understand that more RAM is in fact needed, and since RAM is cheap, people should comply. With Windows 8, maybe we can be rid of Swap forever...
about the same as is made making an existing LiIon cell, which is about the same amount of energy used to make a battery pack in a computer, which is negligable, and considdering they have less than $30 invested in manufacturing costs of a typical laptop battery, which contains 12-16 batteries, and with the current costs of lithium, copper, and other expensive materials in the batteries, I doubt very much that the energy required to make a battery is even half as much as the battery could hold in a single charge, let alone the 5 thousand charges it can be used for.
Virtually no CO2 is released during manufacturing (at least directly, and though some small amount is likely released to power the plant's manufacturing line, that could be replaced with wind or solar power, so is not really a long term concern).
The argument of "how much is generated making it" is completely ridiculous. I'd say, based on my knowledge of power use in manufacturing plants from working IT in them for years, is about the equivalent of driving a car 100 feet. A car needs about 1500 such batteries, so less than 1/2 of mile mile of CO2 equivalent sounds about right.
If I read your post wrong (or you wrote it wrong) and meant to say, "how much CO2 is released charging the car", then I say to you: CO2 released charging the batteries is about 35% of that used in even the most efficient cars running on gas. If you include refining, transportation, and combustion (wells to wheels) electric cars give off less than 25% of the CO2, all of which could be generated using 100% green energy in the future, eliminating any such concerns completely.
STOP SPREADING FUD, use real research, real numbers, and learn something about the process before you try to refute it.
1) the legal and political hurdles ARE relevent. They may not be in Japan or China where the government simple dictates what will happen and the people have to accept it, but in this country, and most of Europe and the rest of the world, these cost overruns, lawsuaits, and more (not to mention safety restrictions that also don't apply in Japan), do have to be included.
2) The cost of nuclear is currently at $150/MWHr. This is the international avereage cost collected from active nuclear plants, assuming 85% peak output at a cost of $7/Wpe. Wind costs only $1.2/Wpe, and was accounted for as only having 32% of it's output at peak, and still came in at $46/MWHr. Solar (Current PV technology) came in at over $298/MWHr. Nuclear is cheaper than solar, but not wind, it;s more than 3 times the cost of wind.
3) nuclear fuel costs vs wind. a) Wind will get cheaper, not more expensive. As generator technology and manufacturing efficiency of large wind turbines increses, the cost can only get better, and the wind itself is free, and not subject to market issues. Steel and other materials have increased in cost about 50% in the last 10 years, but carbon fiber is coming down in cost, and will soon be competitive or cheaper than many of the materials currently used in turbine construction. Newer turbines also require less maintenance and downtime compared to those that have been running for the last 5 years, further decreasing operational costs. b) nuclear fuel has risen dramatically, not only in cost, but in disposal. In 2001, Uranium ore was $10/lb. Today it;s over $60/lb. Worldwide production of ore is actually DROPPING, not rising, adding to cost increses. Also, the concentration of usable uranium in ore mined today is about 1/100th of that mined 30 years ago. New ore being surfaced is both harder and deeper, and less potent. high grade uranium like we had 30 years ago has net to be located in a mineable location. In 15 years, without recycling the uranium we have today, we'll have little left to mine that is worth the cost of digging it up. Also, even with supplies current, plus a government surge of over 200 tons released from a reserve, the price is still increasing. This is a simple economic facor as such that when other forms of energy rise in cost, so may nuclear, because demand is constant. Building more plants, and increaing demand by orders of magnitude, as would be required in the nuclear ideal, likely will have uranium at over $250/lb even after recycling is in full swing.
4) If you read the article, then you'd know that wind used for WindFuels will not be held to the same requirements as wind for grid energy. Generators do not need to be synchronized, nor do dips in power matter. Loosengin these restrictions makes installation cheaper, and generators 15-20% more efficient than those used for grid power.
Much of above information is posted at dotyscientific.com. If you want their sources, their site both has plenty, or you can order their complete documentation for about $90 (hundreds of pages of research and numbers that several expert economists and scientists have already absorbed and confirmed)
The OS ram use should remain basically stable. Adding too many background applications, and based on user patterns, a report recomending performance changes, like changing driver load preferences, defragging, and more are already common, adding RAM, especially when paging to disk begins causing performance degredation in realtime applications, is a good thing. RAM is cheap. Recomendation based on testable processes(pages per second, etc) can be proven to be legitimate. Recomending RAM should be a last resort, but it should be an option. Too many users suffer from a lack of understanding system requirements. In this case, we're not saying "add more RAM because we feel you need it and we're in the pocket of Samsung" we're saying "you've added several applications recently (listing them) that have increased your RAM unitilation average by 140MB, we reccomend the following changes to improve system performance: unload this, change this, add RAM..."
Since we all THINK RAM companies will try to benefit from this, and Microsoft knows they would be blamed for it, they'll work fairly hard to make sure the system coundn't be abused (by threatening to post RAM use, memory leak, and potential abusive applications online, and actively persuing any expected activity of this kind).
right, but we're talking about the NEXT incarnation of windows. Unix has been using a security model similar to this for 20 years.... microsoft should get on board.
Unfortunately, we already know Windows 7 with be using the Vista Kernel, so it's highly uinlikely any of this is possible, let alone probable, in the next OS.
If Microsoft doesn't do an about face soon, an Apple or novel style 100% backward compatability block when swithcing versions, abandon all the old code (but including an XP virtual machine for application and driver only backwards compatability, at a cost in both performance and inter-os application communication), they're doomed. Windows go too complex. No so much their fault in design, just in vision. It got away from them, and now to fix it is simply no longer a reasonable prospect. Windows 7 should be released, but very soon after it should come something completely different, something powererful, fast, and secure, that can actually compete with OS X, Linux, and other 4th generation OS systems.
OK, thanks for the clarification (and the appology). It's nice to have someone admit that, and rare here in/.
Yes, we could use nuclear to create these fuels in a similar way that wind is presented by Doty Scientific. However, even if the cost was equivolent, the sheer number of plants necessary to perform this, assuming that close to every havy CO2 production area, we'd need a nearby H2 production facility, it would be not only be a more difficult logistics issue to solve, but also a majow political one. (H2 is difficult and dangerous to ship, solid carbon or condensed CO2 can't be pipelined, so these to need to be co-located). Wind can be used almost anywhere, or has relatively close proximity to many areas and we could use superconducting lines like those recently brought online near NYC. Nuclear would likely be more sporatically distributed, and complicate power transmission issues, and require more miles of these expensive lines.
Had you posed as you clarified, I'd have simply stated that wind is not only far cheaper, but mass accepted and lacks deployment hurdles currently stoping our nuclear plans. Granted, much of that hurdle is misunderstanding anf FUD, but unfortunately sheep are hard of learning and stubborn. Even if these social and political hurdles were not here, it is a fact that wind costs approxamately $42/MWHr, nuclear 150.
I will also note, I stated somewhere earlier that nuclear was our most expensive alternative. Actually, that's innacurate. Excluding Fusion (Sci-fi), Root Top Solar is the most expensive, currently sitting around $800/MWHr. MIt's recent annoucnements may improve that as much as 4 fold, but it still technically costs more than nuclear. On the otherhand, rooftop (or better yet solar concentration plants), will produce far more jobs, and far more market activity than any of the other options, and could be the most eceonomically beneficial (in the long run). Likely, we'll see solar in some places, water in others, and wind everywhere else.
Another thing I REALLY like about this WindFuels idea, there are already multiple companies with multi-bilion dolar production plants producing the required complonents of this process. Big Oil has a very small percentage of this market, and a lot of unregulated competition. nuclear would be the domain almost exclusively of private, goverment contracts, overbudget runs, and underhanded practices. It;s easier to track the money train in an open industry, and since all this technology is currently in use, and proven safe, there's little reason to expect it to become regulated. Nozens of firms will make H2, dozens more will provide various forms of carbon, more still will convert, pipeline, and ship fules. Everyone gets to play, and little of this money should be going overseas.
Check it out if you haven not already: dotyenergy.com.
Why not do it like Apple (and the rest of Unix) The APPLICATION has permissions, and those are LESS than the users permission level. If applications can't cross communicate without user initiated actions, and can't run in the background without going through rigorous, kernel controlled, proper steps, then applications can't place the user at any real risk. If an app needs to do something it doesn't have permission to do, then it should request it, and tell the user SPECIFICALLY what its requesting, and that should only grant an elevated permission on THAT SPECIFIC cross-application permission. This can be further enhaced through application signing, eliminating these requests for applications that have been cleared through a central authority, but they should still bow to user imposed locks.
The OS should NEVER allow an EXE or driver file to be created, nor any form of auto launch process, without an explicit check from the user. An application shoulc only be able to be lauched by a user, or by the kernel, and never by another application. Simple security. Hard to crack.
Allow the OS to be aware of it's own limitations, and adjust it caching style to accomodate that. If the OS knows it has a slow HDD, it should cach more into RAM. If it knows it's low on RAM, it should cache to disk backround paused tasks. If it's low on resources, unloading (or not loading at all) unsuled items (like fonts, textures, etc) would be awesome, thanks.
Take it a step futher and have it unload drivers for devices not currently connected, recomend the user terminate programs that are not needed, limit the use of "pre-load" application resources for items rarely used (I don't need itunes and acrobat pre loading crap if I only look at a PDF occasionally, and don't typically play music while working).
It should recomend TO the user to add more RAM, and be able to communicate the number of minutes or seconds it would save the user to perform the upgrade. If the user commonly runs a lot of programs, and it commonly caches stuff that would otherwise be in RAM, TELL THE USER TO GET MORE RAM, don't assume they know. If HDD performance is causing real-time applications to stutter, or games to have frame skip, tell the user it's too slow.
Microsoft should also list system requirements, as should EVERYONE else, based on an average system configuration, not on a clean install. Windows Vista runs OK on a cleam machine, but load Outlook, OneNote, iTunes, Acrobat, a domain connection, a few network shares, 2-3 printers, motherboard and network monitoring software, and some AV and spyware security software, and it runs like CRAP! Retailers are not equipped to explain this to people, so lets start quoting resource limitations in REAL WORLD scenarios. Also, games and other real time applications, should list not only the recomended requirements, but what frame rate to expect with a given screen resolution using out of the box settings (and all images on the box should be required to use default settings, or note otherwise that they're using "prefered" settings which should also have their own requirements listing and frame rate expectation). No, it won't be perfect, but if they use benchmarking on real word systems, it should be cloe enough for most people to understand.
"Game Mode" for the OS is a load of crap. A nice OS embeded script that automatically kills some background stuff, and unloads unnecessary drivers, thats fine, but to be honest, it should do that ALL BY ITSELF, not with a click. The application should be signed, and should be able to request those kinds of resources when it needs them, and background "helper" apps should be the first to go, followed by warnings about any applications the user launched that should first be killed before playing the game. Booting to a seperate mode? no, that's a pain in the ass... Besides, it's not really to OS settings that slow game play, but all the crap you added to the OS.
1) wind is free, nuclear fuel isnt. (nuclear is 3 times the cost per MWHr) 2) Wind is cheap, nuclear plant's aren't (location, construction, maintenance, etc, nuclear facilities are far more expensive simply to build) 3) wind produces no waste, nuclear does. 4) we can scale wind quickly, and require few long battles with land owners and nearby towns, Nuclear building ANYWHERE is a LONG HARD battle, which is why there have been viirtually no new nuclear plants in a decade. I woudn't mind seeing a wind turbine from here (I see a water tower today, a turbine would be no different. If you built a nuclear plant within 5 miles of me, my property val;ue would plumet, and I'd fight any attempt). 5) Wind turbines are easy to maintain and repair, nuclear requires expensive and specially trained technicians, lots of security, and other expenses 60 wind farms can be easily upgraded (lighter blades due to better carbon fibers, improved generators, and other upgrades can be done 1 generator at a time with no impact, nuclear plants have to be decommissioned for most upgrades, causing expensive side effects. They eventually have to simply be shut off and buried). 7) no risk vs low risk is always a batter path 8) wind produces a larger industry, and better economics (and many more jobs). 9) there's no single target to take a wind farm offline. Sure, you can't really hurt a reactor by slamming a plane into one, but it WILL go offline for quite some time while they clean up. Other sabotage attemtps will likely occur. It's simply too tempting of a target.
Toshiba announced a battery technology breakthrough called SCiB (Super Charge ion Battery). It can reach 90% charge in less than 5 minutes, has a duty cycle approaching 10 years, and is far safer (extremely low risk of thermal runaway) compared to either Ni-Cad or Li-Ion. Oh, and they operate at down to 30 degrees below zero (fine for starting cars in the winter).
They're in production and commercially available today (though supply is an issue), and are cost competitive to existing Li-Ion packs. Toshiba expects to dump out about 900 million $ worth per year by 2015.
Of course, to charge a car in 5 minutes to 90%, well, lets say you won't be doing that at home...
Cost may not go down on the batteries much, and yes, profit per battery will continually decline, but as long as sales increase, who cares. It will all balance out. A full tank of ions to go 100 miles costs about half as much as gas to go the same distance, and if I can recharge without issue, I'm OK with this idea.
If everyone starts driving electric, than it' only makes Doty Scientific's idea of WindFuels a stronger plan (dotyenergy.com)
I think you're thinking of tidal energy being synonymous with wave energy generation. True, that does fluctuate, but in places where it would be deployed, not so much as it would be a concern. Also, "tidal" is not necessarily wave. It's tidal FLOW power. Inlets fill and drain twice a day. However, using baffles, the flow can be made to be continuous (drains slower than fills, etc) Also, power can be saved into charge systems, allowing over-generation, and power on demand (similar to solar/water capacitors). The delay between inlet and outlet can be made to be near zero (the generators won't stop spinning).
Nuclear can be safer, but it simply costs too much. I fact, it's the most expensive of the alternative options. Safe or not, it's only a stop gap until other systems are running.
There IS enough energy to easily replace fossil fuels. It's not to be found in ethanol, but in Wind Fuels. Using water and wind energy, we can make massive amounts of H2. By itself, H2 is difficult to store, ship, and is relatively unsafe. However, combined in a chemical process with waste CO2 and solid carbon, we can make hydrocarbons, aka gasoline and all similar substances, which can easily be pipelined or trucked anywhere using today's systems.
The infrastructure can be built, and it is profitable. Doty Scientific released a statement (now that all their patents are locked in) on Friday anouncing it. Check out DotyEnergy.com.
There is enough wind in the texas coridor alone to power more than 20% of north america. Offshore wind and more, and we can easily do this. If we focus the wind on generating H2 (and as a backup instant energy source when needed), burn liquid fuels, sequester the CO2, combine it back with the H2 (using solar or more wind power to do so), then we have a closed cycle. More solar, water, geothermal, and a small spattering of existing nuclear plants, and we can make 100% clean renewable energy without using a single acre of farm land, and without drilling any more oil or coal. (and we can do it for 60-80 a barel)
Check out DotyEnergy.com. They have some good information on why nuclear is not the future... WindFuels (hydrocarbons made by combing H2 made from wind energy with carbon from coal sequestration (and eventually windfuel burning), can replace all of our power and fuel needs.
Nuclear would work for us for a few thousand years, and can be very safe and clean, but it costs multiple times more to do, and doesn't solve the problems with needing a portable liquid (or safe solid) fuel. All well and good that we can run cars on electricity only (assuming we solve several technology hurdles, and deploy a 20 trillion dolar superconducting electric grid, and people would be OK with 90 minute fill-up times every 300 miles of driving). Even with that, electric drives are VERY poor solutions for the trucking industry (load and distance issues abound).
Check out the site. Read a lot (there's a TON of research there). This could well be a VIABLE and AFFORDABLE solution (it's profitable at higher margins at lower prices than oil.) Those who invest fastest, win!
Check out www.dotyenergy.com. WindFuels are the future. They broke a story Friday about their years of research (and finally I can talk about it with other people).
Basically, use wind to make H2 efficiently, clean and unlimited. Combine H2 with carbon waste and sequestered CO2 from coal and other sources to make liquid fuels (aka hydrocarbons). Use fules (and coal) to run more power plants (plus additional wind water, and solar power) to power all electric cars and everything else we do.
It can not only be done, but from what I understand it can be done at higher profits than any competing fuels, uses technology we HAVE today, not that we have to invent, and the fuel should be able to be made for about $80 per barrel.
Sure, it'll take 40-60 trillion to get the whole system running (to produce enough fuel to replace oil completely), and 30-40 years time, but sine most of the steps in the process include good profit margin, inventment is actually worth while and I expect the business to be very good and produce results very quickly.
This is not vaporware, this is real science, and real number analysys. Doty Scientific is actualy making the process and their data sources available in print, completely described, and is challenging people to find fault with it. If you have money to invest, I'd suggest getting in line!
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with this company and in no way profit or benefit from discussing this technology. Had I the money, I know a few people personally who are a part of this. They're good people, and honest, hard working scientists.
My assuption from talking with them is, in a lab, yes, all of the parts that make this plan feasable are either already in use in some way today, or are proven technologies. There's no "magic" here, no vaporware, this is simply a method for producing hydrocarbons from H2 and CO2 using input energy. Building the infrastructure behind it is the real challenge (a 40+ Trillion dollar challenge).
I however am no scientist, nor have I detailed all the information this company is making available. I know David, and many of the other people working in their firm. They do not make light about new ideas, and they're no stranger to the patent office or cutting edge research. From what I have read thus far, this is a well thought out idea, and the science behind it is in fact NOT really cutting edge. It's a plan, not a technology (though there are several patents involved from what I understand).
Take a look at this. Some good friends of mine work for this research firm in South Carolina. They went live with a project today that they have been working on for nearly a decade.
www.dotyenergy.com.
Basically, it's an idea for using wind and other free power to turn water into H2, then combine that with sequestered and other forms of CO2 to make hydrocarbons. It can be done at a very competitive cost to refining oils, and at quite a profit at existing prices.
Yes, it will take a few trillion in investments, but since it has significant profit potential, it's only a matter of time until the money is invested. This process works, using todays technology, it simply has to be built...
It's not vaporware, this is the real deal, a good solution that is feasable, and the patents for it are all filed and ready to be licensed.
They are actively requesting people to read their information, and find the faults in it. Prove to them it can't be done...
The site just went live a few hours ago, so keep checking over the next week or two as they add to the challenges and references sections, and expand on the details. Contact them with your feedback.
As a close friend of the family, and a network engineer, I'm doing my part to spread the word. I have nothing to do with the product, process, or any of the information in the site, but I am on a ton of forums, and this looked like a great place to chat about it.
I doubt you'll every see that level of activity. Remember, VoIP calls to a person have to be placed through a central service, and that service does NOT provide free toll charges to businesses the way it does to people.
Folks on Skype, and other non-centralized VoIP (direct IP to IP calling) may be suceptable to this, but since SSkype can't support e-911, it;s not really an issue... IP to Vonage calls, for example, in part run across telco networks, and those incur charges. The SPITers won;t be able to make good on their investment.
Besides, the Teloc netowkrs and VOIP networks would not be able to handle that volume. e-mail gets bogged down due to Spam, but calls either work or not. If this becomes an issue, the FCC will be on it lightning fast and with great ferocity. Each call is a trunk line, not a few packets...
A PC can't really just CALL a Voip line... The softphone, even for the very small percentage of people who use them as opposed to most people on VOIP havoing a hardware device, is a proprietary program, and on the back end is interfacing with an authentication system. Some random virus is not going to be able to interface with Vonage to make calls that way...
Like I said, Skype might be a hackable system, but business voip is all inter-office (VPN tunnels) not open internet calls. Businesses using VOIP use PRI or BRI trunks and traditionsal call networks to place person to person calls (except intra/inter office over secure systems). SPITing on a business extention means placing a call through a terrestrial phone company. Those can be traced, and blocked, if abused.
If SPITing was potentially that successful, I'd be getting 100 calls a day at my home line already.
Also, a Drone infrected PC that was SPITing, how many calls a day do you think it would be making? and how many calls a day (or at a TIME!) is it reasonable for a human to make? It should be easy for phone companies to identify drone VOIP machines and shut them down... Calling habbits for a household are easy to model, and since even a telemarketer working from home has to have a business class phone license, they'll be easy to identify and eliminate false positive screenings. (most home telemarketers run through VPN to a central switch anyway).
This really isn't a big deal. If they ever figure out HOW to make it a big deal, expect strict and sweeping legislation. Attacks on the US phone system are considdered terrorist activity, unlike spam which is just a civil, not even criminal, in most cases offence. Also, VoIP is easy to trace, since it;s clearly a 2 way communication requirement, unlike spam.
DDoS is a possible abuse, but even that should not effect centralized VoIP providers and their customers (100 calls in 3 minutes? block it. Done.)
Well, actually, more than 2 million people in the USA alone use VoIP as their home phone.
On to the topic at hand however...
VoIP actually is uniquely structured as to easily be able to prevent SPIT. You see, unlike a cell phone or land line, incoming calls DO get sent through a server, like e-mail, and contracry to the articles ideas.
For big business, running in-house VoIP systems, there is a central server, which has built in software in most cases for call screening and filtering (ShoreTel's system does, I'm sure others do). For home users, Vonage, Time Warner, and others can easily filter calls from their central systems, blocking numbers from known SPITers and from those who spoof caller ID.
A big idea with SPIT is to get you to answer, claim to be someone you are not, demand a payment, and make money. If someone answers the call, it's an issue. Pestering rings at 4AM are a problem, but personally, I disable the VoIP box through a router rule at night, so I simply don't get calls at 4AM (though a voicemail will bounce to my computer and if it;s from a whitelist caller, my computer wakes me, as it's likely a family medical issue.
White lists are one thing, simply not answering blocked calls is another. What I do is a bit of both: I don't ansewr blocked calls, and any calls I get from caller ID where I don't have a name record (I save every phone number I can identify into my phone, and calerID with name fills in the blanks). Calls from unknown local numbers that are important end up either leaving a voicemail, or I call them back. ALL calls from 800, 866, and other likely business extensions, I simply call them back to verify their identity, unless I'm expecting their call, since they rarely leave voicemail... I also know what companies I do and do not do business with, and since I have a stirct No Telemarketing policy in my house, calls from any business I don't already do business with get a stern request to have me removed from their list (and I track who I spoke to and go after the ones that call back).
All of this is very easy to do with a VoIP system, and much of it can be automated for businesses, or by Vonage or another VoiP Provider. Cell phones and land lines offer no such luxuries, so you;d have to do it all like I do, the hard way...
Actually, likely not. HAving worked for a rehab for several years myself, I can say with fair certainty, that those robbed are those known to be unarmed, and typically, are those KNOWN by the robber, houses they've either been in before, or people they knew in some way.
Drug crased people who are desperate engough to steal to get drugs are still typically of a sense of mind to do it safely (otherwise they'd not be so careful to pick those targets like elderly or infirm. Most of them however simply find a house where noone's home. Armed or not, if your not there, it;s not an issue. Elderly get nocked over more than others because most of us know elderly don't have a lot of trust in banks, and typically keep large amounts of cash. Many of the elderly are robbed when home so that they can be interrogated for the money, instead of having to toss the place to find it in some random jar in a freezer, or can of flour...
A gun in a hand is one thing. A gun in a purse, or under a shirt is another. If you are armed, it should be in plain view, and you should have a badge or ID that clearly authorises you to have a gun.
A Probate judge here in SC got her granddaughter killed at a Sams club earlir this week because her LEGALLY CONCEALED WEAPON in her purse went off when the kid was digging for some candy....and Sam';s has a sign indicating NO CONCEALED WEAPONS!
I can't come up with a single reason why you need to hide a gun. Wear it on your hip where everyone can see it, and have a damned good reason for having it. If a cop points his gun at you when he sees it, get on the ground slowly and show him your ID and permit. It's inconvenient, but safe.
If we not only have cops, but have everyone in the military, private security, and other licenced, trained, monityored people walking around with guns displayed, then the crooks won't be able to go many places where there are no guns, except where smart citizens don't go.
What I was TRYING to get at in the thatement you quoted however was, a cop normally arresting someone would not draw a gun. If however they see a concealed weapon, or believe you to be armed, you'll have a gun pointed at you long before you draw, and any motion TO draw would get you shot. Currently the rules regarding when a cop can engage are much more strict, and typically he has to get shot at first before he can fire. If you're HOLDING a gun, don't drop it in SECONDS, or move it up like you;re aiming, you won't get shot once, but you'll get a clip emptied at you. If it's concealed, and he can't truly identify gun or not, you might just take one in the shoulder first, hoprefully a rubber bullet loaded in the chamber just to be safer, with live ammo behind it in the clip.
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Machine passwords are easy to reset, active directory however, not so much.... Have you ever done an AD restore for a large company???
Here's the simple solution to avoid this issue:
1) VPN access needs to be locked down tight, preferably admins should only be able to access company servers from static IPs. (they can access user level resources from anywhere using a different account name) It's a pain, but in a large firm with multiple admins, the ones on call should be typically at home. Other admins can update the IP list if needed.
2) A master account should be created, with a password given in pieces to more than 1 person. Use a script, hidden somewhere in the system, that automatically resets this password once every hour or so. If some disgruntled admin changes it, it would reset itself soon enough. This script should be read only even to admins, so no one has permission to modify it. (the password file it uses should be accessible to the execs given parts of the password) It's not a perfect system, but it's pretty strong.
3) each admin gets 2 accounts: an admin account and a user account. As much as is possible should be done as a user. Admins should never, under penalty of immediate termination, share their login credentials with another admin or user. (there should be no need if everyone has their own)
4) login permission systems (Active directory, e-directory, whatever) need to be backed up daily to more than 1 location, and those files created should be read-only even to admins.
When firing a technician, have someone logged in and working to disable the terminated admin's permissions at the same time he's being called in to HR to be fired. Terminate all sessions using his user name and make all other admins immediately reset their own passwords. Lock out the VPN account as well.
Obviously in a small company with only 1 admin, this is nearly impossible. In that case, meticulous care in the backs is important (including getting rid of all tape based backup systems as they're easy to destroy) Also, meticulous care in the hiring process (and then continual treatment of the IT person) is critical. In general however, if you only have 1 IT person, it's usually better (and cheaper) to outsource.
www.dotyscientific.com
read their stuff. Real numbers, no hype, proven processes.
Sure, 40 trillion over 30 years sounds like a lot of money, but when you considder that the proposed carbon taxes will cost 2 trillion per year, without actually helping add fuel to the mix, the economics start to make sense. Also, that $40 trillion spent is going to generate thousands of jobs, create $60 trillion dollars in sellable materials, and solve our energy chrisis. Considder this: the 4 billon POOREST people in the world have 5 trillion in purchasing power.
Microsoft's model of basic permissions is much the same, but applications have the ability to hide their actions from a user, and even from the system itself. In Unix, this is MUCH more difficult to accomplish. Whole programs can launch in Windows, but if they're not coded to have a taskbar notification, and don't show up in Applications, the user, unless they dive into advanced tools, is completely unaware. Also, in Windows, applications launch with the permissions of the user launching them, in unix, applications can have more restrictive permissions, or require escalated user permissions to run at all (aka, must be run by root, etc)
Subtle differences, great power of control.
Yes, i mentioned that. What i want is for the OS to INFORM the user, instead of the user needing to know how to use a buried admin tool that likely they won't be able to understand anyway.
If the OS knows it's own performance bottlenecks, and can dynamically adjust how it uses what type of cache (disk/ram/flash) and also control background states for unused or underutilized items, it can be made MUCH more efficient, even on under configured hardware. If applications can communicate their requirements for resources to the OS as well, the OS can make decisions and inform users of actions to take (saving out of word before launching WoW).
You would only need a cert for applications that require access to data or files created by other applications. Everything else is a simple app, and thus simply can't run unless a user initiates it first. Trust me, Symantec doesn't care that their AV program requires a 1 time per year $200 application fee... Anyone creating devices that use cross application resources, trust me, they're not releasing free code.... $200 is a non-issue. Anyone who WOULD release free code that requires a cert? well, simply don't include the cert, and then the user simply gets a prompt instead of it working dynamically. Free apps may be annoying that way, but few of them would even get the prompt... this is a minor inconvenience at best, and effects few devs, and for those who sell wares for profit, $200 again is a complete non-issue.
Well, Linux simply doesn't have the graphics hungry load that Windows and Mac OS do. Linux users tend also to not have a lot of cross application resources available to them (limiting the number of applications, drivers, and more than pre or partially load at startup).
We'd LOVE to get rid of Swap entirely, and that's kind of where I'm headed with this, but to eliminate Swap, you're looking at Vista needing 2GM minimum, 4 Reccomended, basically to work at all. that won't sell... Takign a small step by cluing the users in to how much RAM they're really using, and measuring it as a performance report, not functionality, will help people understand that more RAM is in fact needed, and since RAM is cheap, people should comply. With Windows 8, maybe we can be rid of Swap forever...
about the same as is made making an existing LiIon cell, which is about the same amount of energy used to make a battery pack in a computer, which is negligable, and considdering they have less than $30 invested in manufacturing costs of a typical laptop battery, which contains 12-16 batteries, and with the current costs of lithium, copper, and other expensive materials in the batteries, I doubt very much that the energy required to make a battery is even half as much as the battery could hold in a single charge, let alone the 5 thousand charges it can be used for.
Virtually no CO2 is released during manufacturing (at least directly, and though some small amount is likely released to power the plant's manufacturing line, that could be replaced with wind or solar power, so is not really a long term concern).
The argument of "how much is generated making it" is completely ridiculous. I'd say, based on my knowledge of power use in manufacturing plants from working IT in them for years, is about the equivalent of driving a car 100 feet. A car needs about 1500 such batteries, so less than 1/2 of mile mile of CO2 equivalent sounds about right.
If I read your post wrong (or you wrote it wrong) and meant to say, "how much CO2 is released charging the car", then I say to you: CO2 released charging the batteries is about 35% of that used in even the most efficient cars running on gas. If you include refining, transportation, and combustion (wells to wheels) electric cars give off less than 25% of the CO2, all of which could be generated using 100% green energy in the future, eliminating any such concerns completely.
STOP SPREADING FUD, use real research, real numbers, and learn something about the process before you try to refute it.
1) the legal and political hurdles ARE relevent. They may not be in Japan or China where the government simple dictates what will happen and the people have to accept it, but in this country, and most of Europe and the rest of the world, these cost overruns, lawsuaits, and more (not to mention safety restrictions that also don't apply in Japan), do have to be included.
2) The cost of nuclear is currently at $150/MWHr. This is the international avereage cost collected from active nuclear plants, assuming 85% peak output at a cost of $7/Wpe. Wind costs only $1.2/Wpe, and was accounted for as only having 32% of it's output at peak, and still came in at $46/MWHr. Solar (Current PV technology) came in at over $298/MWHr. Nuclear is cheaper than solar, but not wind, it;s more than 3 times the cost of wind.
3) nuclear fuel costs vs wind. a) Wind will get cheaper, not more expensive. As generator technology and manufacturing efficiency of large wind turbines increses, the cost can only get better, and the wind itself is free, and not subject to market issues. Steel and other materials have increased in cost about 50% in the last 10 years, but carbon fiber is coming down in cost, and will soon be competitive or cheaper than many of the materials currently used in turbine construction. Newer turbines also require less maintenance and downtime compared to those that have been running for the last 5 years, further decreasing operational costs. b) nuclear fuel has risen dramatically, not only in cost, but in disposal. In 2001, Uranium ore was $10/lb. Today it;s over $60/lb. Worldwide production of ore is actually DROPPING, not rising, adding to cost increses. Also, the concentration of usable uranium in ore mined today is about 1/100th of that mined 30 years ago. New ore being surfaced is both harder and deeper, and less potent. high grade uranium like we had 30 years ago has net to be located in a mineable location. In 15 years, without recycling the uranium we have today, we'll have little left to mine that is worth the cost of digging it up. Also, even with supplies current, plus a government surge of over 200 tons released from a reserve, the price is still increasing. This is a simple economic facor as such that when other forms of energy rise in cost, so may nuclear, because demand is constant. Building more plants, and increaing demand by orders of magnitude, as would be required in the nuclear ideal, likely will have uranium at over $250/lb even after recycling is in full swing.
4) If you read the article, then you'd know that wind used for WindFuels will not be held to the same requirements as wind for grid energy. Generators do not need to be synchronized, nor do dips in power matter. Loosengin these restrictions makes installation cheaper, and generators 15-20% more efficient than those used for grid power.
Much of above information is posted at dotyscientific.com. If you want their sources, their site both has plenty, or you can order their complete documentation for about $90 (hundreds of pages of research and numbers that several expert economists and scientists have already absorbed and confirmed)
The OS ram use should remain basically stable. Adding too many background applications, and based on user patterns, a report recomending performance changes, like changing driver load preferences, defragging, and more are already common, adding RAM, especially when paging to disk begins causing performance degredation in realtime applications, is a good thing. RAM is cheap. Recomendation based on testable processes(pages per second, etc) can be proven to be legitimate. Recomending RAM should be a last resort, but it should be an option. Too many users suffer from a lack of understanding system requirements. In this case, we're not saying "add more RAM because we feel you need it and we're in the pocket of Samsung" we're saying "you've added several applications recently (listing them) that have increased your RAM unitilation average by 140MB, we reccomend the following changes to improve system performance: unload this, change this, add RAM..."
Since we all THINK RAM companies will try to benefit from this, and Microsoft knows they would be blamed for it, they'll work fairly hard to make sure the system coundn't be abused (by threatening to post RAM use, memory leak, and potential abusive applications online, and actively persuing any expected activity of this kind).
right, but we're talking about the NEXT incarnation of windows. Unix has been using a security model similar to this for 20 years.... microsoft should get on board.
Unfortunately, we already know Windows 7 with be using the Vista Kernel, so it's highly uinlikely any of this is possible, let alone probable, in the next OS.
If Microsoft doesn't do an about face soon, an Apple or novel style 100% backward compatability block when swithcing versions, abandon all the old code (but including an XP virtual machine for application and driver only backwards compatability, at a cost in both performance and inter-os application communication), they're doomed. Windows go too complex. No so much their fault in design, just in vision. It got away from them, and now to fix it is simply no longer a reasonable prospect. Windows 7 should be released, but very soon after it should come something completely different, something powererful, fast, and secure, that can actually compete with OS X, Linux, and other 4th generation OS systems.
OK, thanks for the clarification (and the appology). It's nice to have someone admit that, and rare here in /.
Yes, we could use nuclear to create these fuels in a similar way that wind is presented by Doty Scientific. However, even if the cost was equivolent, the sheer number of plants necessary to perform this, assuming that close to every havy CO2 production area, we'd need a nearby H2 production facility, it would be not only be a more difficult logistics issue to solve, but also a majow political one. (H2 is difficult and dangerous to ship, solid carbon or condensed CO2 can't be pipelined, so these to need to be co-located). Wind can be used almost anywhere, or has relatively close proximity to many areas and we could use superconducting lines like those recently brought online near NYC. Nuclear would likely be more sporatically distributed, and complicate power transmission issues, and require more miles of these expensive lines.
Had you posed as you clarified, I'd have simply stated that wind is not only far cheaper, but mass accepted and lacks deployment hurdles currently stoping our nuclear plans. Granted, much of that hurdle is misunderstanding anf FUD, but unfortunately sheep are hard of learning and stubborn. Even if these social and political hurdles were not here, it is a fact that wind costs approxamately $42/MWHr, nuclear 150.
I will also note, I stated somewhere earlier that nuclear was our most expensive alternative. Actually, that's innacurate. Excluding Fusion (Sci-fi), Root Top Solar is the most expensive, currently sitting around $800/MWHr. MIt's recent annoucnements may improve that as much as 4 fold, but it still technically costs more than nuclear. On the otherhand, rooftop (or better yet solar concentration plants), will produce far more jobs, and far more market activity than any of the other options, and could be the most eceonomically beneficial (in the long run). Likely, we'll see solar in some places, water in others, and wind everywhere else.
Another thing I REALLY like about this WindFuels idea, there are already multiple companies with multi-bilion dolar production plants producing the required complonents of this process. Big Oil has a very small percentage of this market, and a lot of unregulated competition. nuclear would be the domain almost exclusively of private, goverment contracts, overbudget runs, and underhanded practices. It;s easier to track the money train in an open industry, and since all this technology is currently in use, and proven safe, there's little reason to expect it to become regulated. Nozens of firms will make H2, dozens more will provide various forms of carbon, more still will convert, pipeline, and ship fules. Everyone gets to play, and little of this money should be going overseas.
Check it out if you haven not already: dotyenergy.com.
Why not do it like Apple (and the rest of Unix) The APPLICATION has permissions, and those are LESS than the users permission level. If applications can't cross communicate without user initiated actions, and can't run in the background without going through rigorous, kernel controlled, proper steps, then applications can't place the user at any real risk. If an app needs to do something it doesn't have permission to do, then it should request it, and tell the user SPECIFICALLY what its requesting, and that should only grant an elevated permission on THAT SPECIFIC cross-application permission. This can be further enhaced through application signing, eliminating these requests for applications that have been cleared through a central authority, but they should still bow to user imposed locks.
The OS should NEVER allow an EXE or driver file to be created, nor any form of auto launch process, without an explicit check from the user. An application shoulc only be able to be lauched by a user, or by the kernel, and never by another application. Simple security. Hard to crack.
Allow the OS to be aware of it's own limitations, and adjust it caching style to accomodate that. If the OS knows it has a slow HDD, it should cach more into RAM. If it knows it's low on RAM, it should cache to disk backround paused tasks. If it's low on resources, unloading (or not loading at all) unsuled items (like fonts, textures, etc) would be awesome, thanks.
Take it a step futher and have it unload drivers for devices not currently connected, recomend the user terminate programs that are not needed, limit the use of "pre-load" application resources for items rarely used (I don't need itunes and acrobat pre loading crap if I only look at a PDF occasionally, and don't typically play music while working).
It should recomend TO the user to add more RAM, and be able to communicate the number of minutes or seconds it would save the user to perform the upgrade. If the user commonly runs a lot of programs, and it commonly caches stuff that would otherwise be in RAM, TELL THE USER TO GET MORE RAM, don't assume they know. If HDD performance is causing real-time applications to stutter, or games to have frame skip, tell the user it's too slow.
Microsoft should also list system requirements, as should EVERYONE else, based on an average system configuration, not on a clean install. Windows Vista runs OK on a cleam machine, but load Outlook, OneNote, iTunes, Acrobat, a domain connection, a few network shares, 2-3 printers, motherboard and network monitoring software, and some AV and spyware security software, and it runs like CRAP! Retailers are not equipped to explain this to people, so lets start quoting resource limitations in REAL WORLD scenarios. Also, games and other real time applications, should list not only the recomended requirements, but what frame rate to expect with a given screen resolution using out of the box settings (and all images on the box should be required to use default settings, or note otherwise that they're using "prefered" settings which should also have their own requirements listing and frame rate expectation). No, it won't be perfect, but if they use benchmarking on real word systems, it should be cloe enough for most people to understand.
"Game Mode" for the OS is a load of crap. A nice OS embeded script that automatically kills some background stuff, and unloads unnecessary drivers, thats fine, but to be honest, it should do that ALL BY ITSELF, not with a click. The application should be signed, and should be able to request those kinds of resources when it needs them, and background "helper" apps should be the first to go, followed by warnings about any applications the user launched that should first be killed before playing the game. Booting to a seperate mode? no, that's a pain in the ass... Besides, it's not really to OS settings that slow game play, but all the crap you added to the OS.
1) wind is free, nuclear fuel isnt. (nuclear is 3 times the cost per MWHr)
2) Wind is cheap, nuclear plant's aren't (location, construction, maintenance, etc, nuclear facilities are far more expensive simply to build)
3) wind produces no waste, nuclear does.
4) we can scale wind quickly, and require few long battles with land owners and nearby towns, Nuclear building ANYWHERE is a LONG HARD battle, which is why there have been viirtually no new nuclear plants in a decade. I woudn't mind seeing a wind turbine from here (I see a water tower today, a turbine would be no different. If you built a nuclear plant within 5 miles of me, my property val;ue would plumet, and I'd fight any attempt).
5) Wind turbines are easy to maintain and repair, nuclear requires expensive and specially trained technicians, lots of security, and other expenses
60 wind farms can be easily upgraded (lighter blades due to better carbon fibers, improved generators, and other upgrades can be done 1 generator at a time with no impact, nuclear plants have to be decommissioned for most upgrades, causing expensive side effects. They eventually have to simply be shut off and buried).
7) no risk vs low risk is always a batter path
8) wind produces a larger industry, and better economics (and many more jobs).
9) there's no single target to take a wind farm offline. Sure, you can't really hurt a reactor by slamming a plane into one, but it WILL go offline for quite some time while they clean up. Other sabotage attemtps will likely occur. It's simply too tempting of a target.
I can go on...
Toshiba announced a battery technology breakthrough called SCiB (Super Charge ion Battery). It can reach 90% charge in less than 5 minutes, has a duty cycle approaching 10 years, and is far safer (extremely low risk of thermal runaway) compared to either Ni-Cad or Li-Ion. Oh, and they operate at down to 30 degrees below zero (fine for starting cars in the winter).
They're in production and commercially available today (though supply is an issue), and are cost competitive to existing Li-Ion packs. Toshiba expects to dump out about 900 million $ worth per year by 2015.
Of course, to charge a car in 5 minutes to 90%, well, lets say you won't be doing that at home...
Cost may not go down on the batteries much, and yes, profit per battery will continually decline, but as long as sales increase, who cares. It will all balance out. A full tank of ions to go 100 miles costs about half as much as gas to go the same distance, and if I can recharge without issue, I'm OK with this idea.
If everyone starts driving electric, than it' only makes Doty Scientific's idea of WindFuels a stronger plan (dotyenergy.com)
I think you're thinking of tidal energy being synonymous with wave energy generation. True, that does fluctuate, but in places where it would be deployed, not so much as it would be a concern. Also, "tidal" is not necessarily wave. It's tidal FLOW power. Inlets fill and drain twice a day. However, using baffles, the flow can be made to be continuous (drains slower than fills, etc) Also, power can be saved into charge systems, allowing over-generation, and power on demand (similar to solar/water capacitors). The delay between inlet and outlet can be made to be near zero (the generators won't stop spinning).
Nuclear can be safer, but it simply costs too much. I fact, it's the most expensive of the alternative options. Safe or not, it's only a stop gap until other systems are running.
There IS enough energy to easily replace fossil fuels. It's not to be found in ethanol, but in Wind Fuels. Using water and wind energy, we can make massive amounts of H2. By itself, H2 is difficult to store, ship, and is relatively unsafe. However, combined in a chemical process with waste CO2 and solid carbon, we can make hydrocarbons, aka gasoline and all similar substances, which can easily be pipelined or trucked anywhere using today's systems.
The infrastructure can be built, and it is profitable. Doty Scientific released a statement (now that all their patents are locked in) on Friday anouncing it. Check out DotyEnergy.com.
There is enough wind in the texas coridor alone to power more than 20% of north america. Offshore wind and more, and we can easily do this. If we focus the wind on generating H2 (and as a backup instant energy source when needed), burn liquid fuels, sequester the CO2, combine it back with the H2 (using solar or more wind power to do so), then we have a closed cycle. More solar, water, geothermal, and a small spattering of existing nuclear plants, and we can make 100% clean renewable energy without using a single acre of farm land, and without drilling any more oil or coal. (and we can do it for 60-80 a barel)
Check out DotyEnergy.com. They have some good information on why nuclear is not the future... WindFuels (hydrocarbons made by combing H2 made from wind energy with carbon from coal sequestration (and eventually windfuel burning), can replace all of our power and fuel needs.
Nuclear would work for us for a few thousand years, and can be very safe and clean, but it costs multiple times more to do, and doesn't solve the problems with needing a portable liquid (or safe solid) fuel. All well and good that we can run cars on electricity only (assuming we solve several technology hurdles, and deploy a 20 trillion dolar superconducting electric grid, and people would be OK with 90 minute fill-up times every 300 miles of driving). Even with that, electric drives are VERY poor solutions for the trucking industry (load and distance issues abound).
Check out the site. Read a lot (there's a TON of research there). This could well be a VIABLE and AFFORDABLE solution (it's profitable at higher margins at lower prices than oil.) Those who invest fastest, win!
Check out www.dotyenergy.com. WindFuels are the future. They broke a story Friday about their years of research (and finally I can talk about it with other people).
Basically, use wind to make H2 efficiently, clean and unlimited. Combine H2 with carbon waste and sequestered CO2 from coal and other sources to make liquid fuels (aka hydrocarbons). Use fules (and coal) to run more power plants (plus additional wind water, and solar power) to power all electric cars and everything else we do.
It can not only be done, but from what I understand it can be done at higher profits than any competing fuels, uses technology we HAVE today, not that we have to invent, and the fuel should be able to be made for about $80 per barrel.
Sure, it'll take 40-60 trillion to get the whole system running (to produce enough fuel to replace oil completely), and 30-40 years time, but sine most of the steps in the process include good profit margin, inventment is actually worth while and I expect the business to be very good and produce results very quickly.
This is not vaporware, this is real science, and real number analysys. Doty Scientific is actualy making the process and their data sources available in print, completely described, and is challenging people to find fault with it. If you have money to invest, I'd suggest getting in line!
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with this company and in no way profit or benefit from discussing this technology. Had I the money, I know a few people personally who are a part of this. They're good people, and honest, hard working scientists.
My assuption from talking with them is, in a lab, yes, all of the parts that make this plan feasable are either already in use in some way today, or are proven technologies. There's no "magic" here, no vaporware, this is simply a method for producing hydrocarbons from H2 and CO2 using input energy. Building the infrastructure behind it is the real challenge (a 40+ Trillion dollar challenge).
I however am no scientist, nor have I detailed all the information this company is making available. I know David, and many of the other people working in their firm. They do not make light about new ideas, and they're no stranger to the patent office or cutting edge research. From what I have read thus far, this is a well thought out idea, and the science behind it is in fact NOT really cutting edge. It's a plan, not a technology (though there are several patents involved from what I understand).
Take a look at this. Some good friends of mine work for this research firm in South Carolina. They went live with a project today that they have been working on for nearly a decade.
www.dotyenergy.com.
Basically, it's an idea for using wind and other free power to turn water into H2, then combine that with sequestered and other forms of CO2 to make hydrocarbons. It can be done at a very competitive cost to refining oils, and at quite a profit at existing prices.
Yes, it will take a few trillion in investments, but since it has significant profit potential, it's only a matter of time until the money is invested. This process works, using todays technology, it simply has to be built...
It's not vaporware, this is the real deal, a good solution that is feasable, and the patents for it are all filed and ready to be licensed.
They are actively requesting people to read their information, and find the faults in it. Prove to them it can't be done...
The site just went live a few hours ago, so keep checking over the next week or two as they add to the challenges and references sections, and expand on the details. Contact them with your feedback.
As a close friend of the family, and a network engineer, I'm doing my part to spread the word. I have nothing to do with the product, process, or any of the information in the site, but I am on a ton of forums, and this looked like a great place to chat about it.
I doubt you'll every see that level of activity. Remember, VoIP calls to a person have to be placed through a central service, and that service does NOT provide free toll charges to businesses the way it does to people.
Folks on Skype, and other non-centralized VoIP (direct IP to IP calling) may be suceptable to this, but since SSkype can't support e-911, it;s not really an issue... IP to Vonage calls, for example, in part run across telco networks, and those incur charges. The SPITers won;t be able to make good on their investment.
Besides, the Teloc netowkrs and VOIP networks would not be able to handle that volume. e-mail gets bogged down due to Spam, but calls either work or not. If this becomes an issue, the FCC will be on it lightning fast and with great ferocity. Each call is a trunk line, not a few packets...
A PC can't really just CALL a Voip line... The softphone, even for the very small percentage of people who use them as opposed to most people on VOIP havoing a hardware device, is a proprietary program, and on the back end is interfacing with an authentication system. Some random virus is not going to be able to interface with Vonage to make calls that way...
Like I said, Skype might be a hackable system, but business voip is all inter-office (VPN tunnels) not open internet calls. Businesses using VOIP use PRI or BRI trunks and traditionsal call networks to place person to person calls (except intra/inter office over secure systems). SPITing on a business extention means placing a call through a terrestrial phone company. Those can be traced, and blocked, if abused.
If SPITing was potentially that successful, I'd be getting 100 calls a day at my home line already.
Also, a Drone infrected PC that was SPITing, how many calls a day do you think it would be making? and how many calls a day (or at a TIME!) is it reasonable for a human to make? It should be easy for phone companies to identify drone VOIP machines and shut them down... Calling habbits for a household are easy to model, and since even a telemarketer working from home has to have a business class phone license, they'll be easy to identify and eliminate false positive screenings. (most home telemarketers run through VPN to a central switch anyway).
This really isn't a big deal. If they ever figure out HOW to make it a big deal, expect strict and sweeping legislation. Attacks on the US phone system are considdered terrorist activity, unlike spam which is just a civil, not even criminal, in most cases offence. Also, VoIP is easy to trace, since it;s clearly a 2 way communication requirement, unlike spam.
DDoS is a possible abuse, but even that should not effect centralized VoIP providers and their customers (100 calls in 3 minutes? block it. Done.)
Well, actually, more than 2 million people in the USA alone use VoIP as their home phone.
On to the topic at hand however...
VoIP actually is uniquely structured as to easily be able to prevent SPIT. You see, unlike a cell phone or land line, incoming calls DO get sent through a server, like e-mail, and contracry to the articles ideas.
For big business, running in-house VoIP systems, there is a central server, which has built in software in most cases for call screening and filtering (ShoreTel's system does, I'm sure others do). For home users, Vonage, Time Warner, and others can easily filter calls from their central systems, blocking numbers from known SPITers and from those who spoof caller ID.
A big idea with SPIT is to get you to answer, claim to be someone you are not, demand a payment, and make money. If someone answers the call, it's an issue. Pestering rings at 4AM are a problem, but personally, I disable the VoIP box through a router rule at night, so I simply don't get calls at 4AM (though a voicemail will bounce to my computer and if it;s from a whitelist caller, my computer wakes me, as it's likely a family medical issue.
White lists are one thing, simply not answering blocked calls is another. What I do is a bit of both: I don't ansewr blocked calls, and any calls I get from caller ID where I don't have a name record (I save every phone number I can identify into my phone, and calerID with name fills in the blanks). Calls from unknown local numbers that are important end up either leaving a voicemail, or I call them back. ALL calls from 800, 866, and other likely business extensions, I simply call them back to verify their identity, unless I'm expecting their call, since they rarely leave voicemail...
I also know what companies I do and do not do business with, and since I have a stirct No Telemarketing policy in my house, calls from any business I don't already do business with get a stern request to have me removed from their list (and I track who I spoke to and go after the ones that call back).
All of this is very easy to do with a VoIP system, and much of it can be automated for businesses, or by Vonage or another VoiP Provider. Cell phones and land lines offer no such luxuries, so you;d have to do it all like I do, the hard way...
Actually, likely not. HAving worked for a rehab for several years myself, I can say with fair certainty, that those robbed are those known to be unarmed, and typically, are those KNOWN by the robber, houses they've either been in before, or people they knew in some way.
Drug crased people who are desperate engough to steal to get drugs are still typically of a sense of mind to do it safely (otherwise they'd not be so careful to pick those targets like elderly or infirm. Most of them however simply find a house where noone's home. Armed or not, if your not there, it;s not an issue. Elderly get nocked over more than others because most of us know elderly don't have a lot of trust in banks, and typically keep large amounts of cash. Many of the elderly are robbed when home so that they can be interrogated for the money, instead of having to toss the place to find it in some random jar in a freezer, or can of flour...
A gun in a hand is one thing. A gun in a purse, or under a shirt is another. If you are armed, it should be in plain view, and you should have a badge or ID that clearly authorises you to have a gun.
...and Sam';s has a sign indicating NO CONCEALED WEAPONS!
A Probate judge here in SC got her granddaughter killed at a Sams club earlir this week because her LEGALLY CONCEALED WEAPON in her purse went off when the kid was digging for some candy.
I can't come up with a single reason why you need to hide a gun. Wear it on your hip where everyone can see it, and have a damned good reason for having it. If a cop points his gun at you when he sees it, get on the ground slowly and show him your ID and permit. It's inconvenient, but safe.
If we not only have cops, but have everyone in the military, private security, and other licenced, trained, monityored people walking around with guns displayed, then the crooks won't be able to go many places where there are no guns, except where smart citizens don't go.
What I was TRYING to get at in the thatement you quoted however was, a cop normally arresting someone would not draw a gun. If however they see a concealed weapon, or believe you to be armed, you'll have a gun pointed at you long before you draw, and any motion TO draw would get you shot. Currently the rules regarding when a cop can engage are much more strict, and typically he has to get shot at first before he can fire. If you're HOLDING a gun, don't drop it in SECONDS, or move it up like you;re aiming, you won't get shot once, but you'll get a clip emptied at you. If it's concealed, and he can't truly identify gun or not, you might just take one in the shoulder first, hoprefully a rubber bullet loaded in the chamber just to be safer, with live ammo behind it in the clip.