You make a good point, and one which should be more widely understood. But then:
...as long as it continues to function on existing hardware. Linux cannot "fail".
and
It cannot be bought, swept under the rug, supressed, or otherwise made to go away.
But you have already hinted at the most direct way of making it go away. Make it unusable on current consumer hardware. Herd Linux into a small high-performance niche (IA64 perhaps) and then kill that niche. Microsoft has a famous talent for cutting off the air supply of competitors. Linux's air supply consists partly of the commodity hardware world that is greatly beholden to Microsoft. The drive towards locked down, trusted hardware is coming from two directions: the entertainment industry, which wants to control content, and Microsoft (who recently patented a technique) who would like to lock out Linux. If cleverly done, the lockout can be backed by the DMCA (it requires making it an "access control mechanism"). The third prong which could reinforce the first two is National Security. Ashcroft and company could probably be persuaded to back a "tamperproof" platform which can't be used to elude wiretaps.
Even if Microsoft can entangle Linux in a situation where specific releases and kernels have to be digitally signed (hopefully with a fee), they can narrow the free-flowing linux world into a few corporate channels.
On 7.2 it was a totally different issue. Because of the basic design of the architecture, I actually had to downgrade binutils and gcc to install a pretty damn recent build of Oracle. Why?
You just have to install the *compat rpms to accomodate Oracle's brain-dead java installer. This is explained in the release notes to 7.1 - I would hope 7.2 as well. This is not Red Hat creating a problem - it's Oracle creating a problem and Red Hat fixing the problem.
I don't see how Linux could take away choices. It's GPL'd. Let's say Linus becomes convinced by this dubious "one window manager" argument. Linus wants to make you use KDE. What could he do to enforce this? I guess come up with a patched X server that is hardwired to launch KDE, then patch the kernel to checksum any program trying to access video hardware. If it isn't the special restricted X, refuse to run it. The scheme is obviously porous, since you have the ability and the right to undo these changes, and to distribute your fix to others.
This whole idea of "Linux should standardize..." is silly. Linux is not a corporation. It is a technology. So apply this silliness to other technologies: "Plastics should standardize. They shouldn't let themselves be molded and extruded and pressed and fabricated into so many monitor housings, motorcycle fairings, forks, wire insulation and garbage bags! It's too confusing for the consumer! How will the consumer decide which piece of plastic to buy when they're all different?"
Well, Linux is just as malleable as plastic. Suitable for everything from PDA's (barely) to compute clusters. I think the "standardizers" see Linux as solely a replacement for Windows. That is silly. If a true replacement for Windows arises, it may or may not use a Linux kernel. Either way, the kernel will not be the hard part.
PC hardware makers who hire designers to make their stuff look distinctive get their clocks cleaned by Taiwanese clone makers punching out boxes that look as if they belong on cinderblocks in front of someone's trailer.
But I'd tie it in with another point Stephenson makes in the essay: the Wintel world pretends to be immune to aesthetics, but actually has a well defined aesthetic, an aesthetic that proclaims respectability, common sense and businesslike appearance. I think that the "prettiness" of Macintosh hardware is outright repellent to most of the people making purchasing decisions. But instead of saying this, the purchasers say that looks are irrelevant.
HDTV is intended to prevent home copying and fair use. I looked for a simple, factual link and couldn't find one - the best I saw is this FCC ruling about the right of the content cartel to mandate controls in the TV set itself, as opposed to the auxiliary "POD" which the FCC had originally designated as the site for access control. Circuit City tried to get the FCC to uphold its original idea, and the FCC gave in to Time Warner. I don't understand how this particular decision impacts users; as far as I can see we are harmed by the access control regardless of which piece of equipment houses it.
In the above mentioned ruling, a footnote claims that the DMCA nullifies the Betamax case.
I will also point out the obvious: TV is bad for you, but when you watch it regularly you don't realize how bad it is. Unless you have severe mobility problems due to obesity or a medical condition, you really don't need a bigger, sharper TV. But recognizing that this anti-TV sentiment will not appeal to all, I note that TV lovers are frequently into archiving or sharing shows. HDTV is all about removing your ability to do this. So whether you love or hate TV, HDTV sucks.
In any event, it will eventually be crammed down your throat, like it or not. No need to jump the gun.
I guess the first part is common knowledge. As for the diaries, here's a link. Looks like I omitted the word "net" or "web". I guess that makes it somewhat less insane.
Ask your boss; ask human resources. How hard can that be?
I thought I made it pretty clear that I do what my boss wants. As for your suggestion of asking HR, are you seriously advocating that when my boss tells me to install Linux and Apache on an old PC, I should call up some HR person and ask for permission? I have never had a boss who would be pleased with that behavior.
I'd still like to hear your answer to this: How do you think Linux entered the Fortune 500 IT world? Do you think some sysadmin called up HR one day, patiently explained what an operating system is, and requested permission to install a new OS on an old computer? In my experience it was done quietly, and by the time upper management found out, it was already proving its value. Linux was tolerated retroactively, not pursued proactively. Do you think those pioneering sysadmins should go to jail?
I happen to agree with most of the ideas in this article, but it is terrible journalism. If there's one idea I wish journalists could learn, it's: There are two sides to every dispute.. Usually we see AP publishing an article about how "pirates" are costing the music industry billions. With lots of quotes from record executives, trade associations, legislators. And no attempt to ask normal people how they feel. No investigation of the alleged moral right to confine information.
This time the biased shoe is on the other foot. We hear a bunch of complaints about the corporate closure of the net. And yet the reporter didn't bother contacting any of the alleged villains for a balancing quote. Nor did the reporter talk to the ordinary people who lean heavily on corporate-provided content.
I expect to receive some backlash (if anyone reads this) because the complainers are substantially right, and we know it. But that doesn't excuse one-sided reporting.
The whole point of the Signio Payflow scheme (now VeriSign payment gateway) is you can connect up to any acquirer bank in north america.
Thanks. I didn't know that. I can see how this could help get a better rate. However, it still seems to leave the e-commerce business vulnerable to an outside party unless they internally abstract the interface (which I do).
Under the old frame relay schemes you soon became captive to a particular bank or acquirer because none of them used the same implementation of the alleged standard.
I haven't worked on one of those, but I have implemented a few interfaces to clearing providers over the internet. In each case, I abstract the back end so that none of the terminology and field names of the particular provider leak into our systems, and so there is a clean and minimal interface to hook up a second provider. I've never actually had to hook up the second provider within a given framework, but it should be easy. So if you're using the internet for transit and properly abstracting the interface, there shouldn't be much feeling of lockin. Of course I take your point that Payflow communicates the customer's freedom of choice more effectively.
The situation you describe suggests that you are already largely locked in to a particular back end.
Only in the sense that the relevant decision-makers have so decided. If they decide differently in the future, I will not have much difficulty switching back ends.
Because if you are working on a project of any serious size, the selection of merchant bank will be made by finance folks on its own merits. They are not going to accept a clearing provider with a slightly higher rate just because some programmer prefers their API.
Your advice is applicable to very small net businesses. It is unsuitable to serious e-commerce sites because, among other things, it leaves you completely at the mercy of the clearing provider. Imagine sending an email to all your subscribers saying "Dear valued customer, due to a dispute with our former clearing provider we have lost your card number. Could you please take a moment to go to https://...." You would lose a substantial portion of your hard-won userbase that way.
Good points, but I cannot really agree with leaning on the gateway's crypto scheme, if any. First of all, the bank we are using does not offer this. The session is of course SSL encrypted, but within the SSL connection the card number must be sent in the clear. Before anyone suggests changing banks, I don't choose the bank. And the bank will NOT be chosen based on technical criteria. It will be chosen based on financial/contractual issues.
The second, more general point, is that an e-commerce company must have the fleixibility to change clearing back-ends without impacting the customer. Using the gateway/bank's public key to encrypt card numbers prior to storage would lock us in to this one provider. That would be harmful to my company's interests in the long term. I cannot use any special features of the current clearing provider (which happens to be a bank) because my company needs to be able to switch to whichever provider is most advantageous.
My employer has the same requirement. Step 1: Lower your expectations. In a perfect world you could do recurring billing, and yet an intruder could not obtain the payment card numbers. In reality, any scheme which allows an automated system to reconstitute the payment card numbers for billing purposes can be used by an intruder (assuming he has root on all your machines) to obtain the list of numbers. Therefore, the realistic goals are:
You cannot obtain any payment card numbers by getting root on one box.
Recreating a card number involves the coooperation of a secure box. This idea recognizes that a web server running a complex application cannot reach a high level of security. There are likely to be holes. However a "secure box" running a minimum of services and relatively simple code can be more trustworthy.
Any webserver can instruct the secure box to:
Learn a new payment card.
Charge a payment card.
A webserver cannot request any information about a payment card, including the number. (This necessary for criterion 1). Implementation: When the secure box records a new payment card, it cryptographically splits the card number into two numbers N1 and N2, neither of which yield any information about the card number. (See Applied Cryptography). N1 is returned to the requesting webserver (which sticks N1 into the database as part of the customer record) while N2 is stored in a text file on the secure server, indexed by a sequence number that is also returned to the webserver and stored in the database. When a webserver wants to charge a card, it provides N1 and the sequence number to the secure box. The secure box internally reconstitutes the card number and charges the card.
Clearly, there are vulnerabilities in this scheme. For example, an attacher could plant a trojan on the webservers which captures the payment card numbers before they are initially sent to the secure box. However we eliminate the ultimate nightmare of having thousands of card numbers copied in one quick attack. Also, of course, anyone who cracks a webserver can throw in bogus charges (accruing to us). This is a nice bit of sabotage, but doesn't make any money for the attacker.
I have heard of more elaborate schemes, but they seem to consist of security through obscurity. You can make the reconstruction of the card number "complicated", but ultimately all the elements must be available to the automatic billing process. And if the box is cracked, you can assume that all the elements stored on that box have been copied.
Therefore I think this scheme is about as secure as one can realistically get.
And even if the door to a business establishment through an unlocked door, if it says "authorized employees only," you're trespassing if you go through.
Really? What if I am an authorized employee? OK, that's the obvious case. What if I work for a firm installing/repairing communications wiring (been there, so this is from reality)? Since the customer has requested us to do work on his premises, I assume I have the right to enter whatever spaces are necessary, regardless of such signs. Of course there are exceptions, like this sign:
ATTENTION
All maintenance employees and contractors: Opening this door will cause the lift to shut down. You MUST contact M1 and receive authorization immediately before opening this door.
(From memory). So it comes down to judgement. In the real world (non-computer) if the intruder's judgement is incorrect, the worst that will happen is an angry phone call to his boss.
What really bothers me is the naive idea that a corporation has a unified will and intent, like a person. A corporation is an umbrella over a collection of departments, divisions and egos. It's quite common for a contractor to receive conflicting instructions from different people within the same organization. Usually accompanied with "Do NOT listen to the other guy. I am the only one authorized to make this decision." One of the hard parts of contract management is convincing contractors (such as Electrical Contractors) to listen to YOU, and not to some random guy, however convincing. "Why didn't you finish the pulls on the fifth floor?" "This guy told us the plans were wrong, that they were re-issuing them. He was wearing a suit!"
God bless the organization where responsibility is clearly divided. Having seen the opposite, I'm not impressed by the clarity of the "Authorized Employees Only" sign.
And no, I am not saying that Randal was the victim of conflicting corporate drives. I am saying that your simple response is naive.
In December 2001, it's just not that big an issue.
We are at an interesting inflection point in surveillance systems. I worked on engineering several such systems through the mid-90's, and the only thing really changing was that cameras got smaller, cheaper and better. Storage was always on VHS time-lapse, because computer storage was too expensive. Tapes were rotated on a cycle based on legal or liability archive needs.
In other words, these systems were great for providing a record of an incident after it occurred. If no incident occurred, the tape would get reused because nobody really wanted hours of repetitive footage.
But increasingly powerful computers are starting to enable some extraction of data from the raw video before it is lost. For example, facial recognition could turn that unwieldy bank of video feeds into a list of people with locations and speeds. You could put a camera at each register (which they should do anyway, for an anti-fraud record of check/credit card users) and use it to tie faces to names. There are more benign applications - a retail analysis company has software that will process camera feeds and yield statistics about the effectiveness of merchandise displays. This seems harmless to me because once the raw video is gone, all that's left is aggregate data.
Anyhow, I just want to emphasize that we haven't had to think much about commercial surveillance because the technology didn't permit any really interesting applications. Computers are changing that. We will be faced with some tough choices.
PERSPECTIVE do any of the posters here have perspective? I -often- see people posting this "but you don't have anything to fear..." tripe.
Well arguing the point verbally doesn't seem to get anywhere. I have yet to see a slashdotter write "Now I get it! Privacy really does matter!"
Which seems to be (partly) the point of "sousveillance". Find those (in the real world) who are willing to defend their organization's surveilling ways, and point a camcorder at them. Find out if they're hypocrites.
Remember two rather mangy-looking men who kept glancing at the hobbits in the Prancing Pony? Per the book, one of them would be Bill Ferny, a local good-for-nothing who does a bit of spying for Saruman. Because the Nazgul have driven off all the horses in the night, next morning the hobbits are desperate for any kind of beast to haul their baggage. The only quadraped in town is an emaciated, maltreated little pony belonging to Bill Ferny. Sensing desperation, he sells it to the hobbits at a high price, and Sam names the pony Bill after his erstwhile master.
I would have liked to see the "historical hobbits" and how they lived, distrusting and finally expelling Smeagol from the area....
But it seemed the movie was downplaying the idea of Gollum as a hobbit. The beginning narration referred to him as "the creature Gollum" which made me wince because it's a bit patronizing for a voice claiming to be objective. Had Bilbo held on to the ring for a few more decades, we might be calling him "the creature Bilbo" (or whatever charming nickname evolves from his obsessive mutterings.)
even every drawing that Tolkein did was followed perfectly (the door to Moria, for instance).
But I thought the lines of that drawing were too thick and too bright. From the book:
At first they were no more than pale gossamer-threads, so fine that they only twinkled fitfully where the Moon caught them, but steadily they grew broader and clearer, until their design could be guessed.
In the movie, it looked more like a lit-up sign in front of a shopping center.
Most minor pet peeve? Showing Sauron in the flesh.
I didn't like that either. Tolkien was wise enough not to attempt the description. By portraying Sauron, the movie cheapens him - he seems like a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers villain.
Indeed - as an indistinct shadow or a gleam of eyes. The movie has a brutally obvious closeup of Gollum's face, complete with muttering audio. I couldn't tell if the movie was seriously suggesting that Gollum had crept up to within a few feet of Frodo and Gandalf. If so, it was one of several spatial improbabilities.
So if you work for a big corporation and one day you go to building 275 because you heard it has a better cafeteria than building 106, you should be arrested for trespassing. Because you weren't specifically authorized to enter that building. "But my access card worked; doesn't that mean I'm authorized?" Tam-Lin: "No: Even if I leave my front door unlocked..."
Your idea, which sounds reasonable applied to a house, doesn't work in a corporate environment.
And generally speaking I am allowed to open the unlocked door of a business during business hours and walk in. The assumption is that if it's unlocked it's open for business. A business is not a home.
What I want to know is whay didn't they just fire him...
I'm not sure, but I think the answer is twofold. 1) Randal's arrogant attitude had pissed of someone in Intel security, and 2) Intel investigators semi-legally entered Randal's dwelling to search for Intel IP, which they didn't find. At that point, they were on shaky ground legally and needed to pursue the case to retroactively justify their entry.
To put it differently, the investigation gathered huge momentum based on Randal's previous reputation, the password cracking, and Intel's paranoia about IP theft. When the initial focus of the investigation fizzled, the energy had to go somewhere.
The above is just guesswork based on the fragments of the case I've seen over the years.
If you are talking about a small group of insugents, along the lines of the Waco Compound, no...
But in a way, the Branch Davidians won. The massive use of force by federal agencies apparently led to some serious shakeups and policy changes. I'm not saying it's permanent, but the occasional Waco-like incident probably does a lot to keep our agencies from morphing into the SS. With armed groups like the Branch Davidians, the government has to weight the PR cost of storming the fortress against the public interest served by enforcing the law. With a disarmed citizenry, the government would be more free to enforce their will quietly and quickly, without generating negative publicity.
Look at the Elian Gonzales case for another example. The dramatic photo of the INS agent pointing an assault rifle at a Cuban-American is actually a consequence of the right to bear arms. This photo illuminated to all Americans the coercive character of the government's action. If the INS could have known positively that the people were disarmed, they could have seized Elian without creating such a dramatic photo.
Freedom of the press combined with the right to bear arms makes a powerful combo.
But it's never OK to let a kid handle a firearm, supervised or not.
Why do you think that? I, like lots of kids, was taught to fire a.22 rifle. I don't know which is scarier, the idea that you don't realize how common and normal it is for kids to receive firearm instruction, or the idea that you do realize and have a huge problem with it. Anyhow, I think it's important for kids to learn proper handling of firearms before the hormones kick in and they are most at risk for violent behavior. The place for kids to learn about firearms should be on a range with a qualified instructor, or in the woods with Dad. Not playing around with an unsecured weapon at a friend's house.
Slashdot Mirror
and
But you have already hinted at the most direct way of making it go away. Make it unusable on current consumer hardware. Herd Linux into a small high-performance niche (IA64 perhaps) and then kill that niche. Microsoft has a famous talent for cutting off the air supply of competitors. Linux's air supply consists partly of the commodity hardware world that is greatly beholden to Microsoft. The drive towards locked down, trusted hardware is coming from two directions: the entertainment industry, which wants to control content, and Microsoft (who recently patented a technique) who would like to lock out Linux. If cleverly done, the lockout can be backed by the DMCA (it requires making it an "access control mechanism"). The third prong which could reinforce the first two is National Security. Ashcroft and company could probably be persuaded to back a "tamperproof" platform which can't be used to elude wiretaps.
Even if Microsoft can entangle Linux in a situation where specific releases and kernels have to be digitally signed (hopefully with a fee), they can narrow the free-flowing linux world into a few corporate channels.
You just have to install the *compat rpms to accomodate Oracle's brain-dead java installer. This is explained in the release notes to 7.1 - I would hope 7.2 as well. This is not Red Hat creating a problem - it's Oracle creating a problem and Red Hat fixing the problem.
I don't see how Linux could take away choices. It's GPL'd. Let's say Linus becomes convinced by this dubious "one window manager" argument. Linus wants to make you use KDE. What could he do to enforce this? I guess come up with a patched X server that is hardwired to launch KDE, then patch the kernel to checksum any program trying to access video hardware. If it isn't the special restricted X, refuse to run it. The scheme is obviously porous, since you have the ability and the right to undo these changes, and to distribute your fix to others.
This whole idea of "Linux should standardize..." is silly. Linux is not a corporation. It is a technology. So apply this silliness to other technologies: "Plastics should standardize. They shouldn't let themselves be molded and extruded and pressed and fabricated into so many monitor housings, motorcycle fairings, forks, wire insulation and garbage bags! It's too confusing for the consumer! How will the consumer decide which piece of plastic to buy when they're all different?"
Well, Linux is just as malleable as plastic. Suitable for everything from PDA's (barely) to compute clusters. I think the "standardizers" see Linux as solely a replacement for Windows. That is silly. If a true replacement for Windows arises, it may or may not use a Linux kernel. Either way, the kernel will not be the hard part.
Neal Stephenson wrote about this in his essay In the Beginning was the Command Line:
But I'd tie it in with another point Stephenson makes in the essay: the Wintel world pretends to be immune to aesthetics, but actually has a well defined aesthetic, an aesthetic that proclaims respectability, common sense and businesslike appearance. I think that the "prettiness" of Macintosh hardware is outright repellent to most of the people making purchasing decisions. But instead of saying this, the purchasers say that looks are irrelevant.
HDTV is intended to prevent home copying and fair use. I looked for a simple, factual link and couldn't find one - the best I saw is this FCC ruling about the right of the content cartel to mandate controls in the TV set itself, as opposed to the auxiliary "POD" which the FCC had originally designated as the site for access control. Circuit City tried to get the FCC to uphold its original idea, and the FCC gave in to Time Warner. I don't understand how this particular decision impacts users; as far as I can see we are harmed by the access control regardless of which piece of equipment houses it.
In the above mentioned ruling, a footnote claims that the DMCA nullifies the Betamax case.
I will also point out the obvious: TV is bad for you, but when you watch it regularly you don't realize how bad it is. Unless you have severe mobility problems due to obesity or a medical condition, you really don't need a bigger, sharper TV. But recognizing that this anti-TV sentiment will not appeal to all, I note that TV lovers are frequently into archiving or sharing shows. HDTV is all about removing your ability to do this. So whether you love or hate TV, HDTV sucks.
In any event, it will eventually be crammed down your throat, like it or not. No need to jump the gun.
I guess the first part is common knowledge. As for the diaries, here's a link. Looks like I omitted the word "net" or "web". I guess that makes it somewhat less insane.
I thought I made it pretty clear that I do what my boss wants. As for your suggestion of asking HR, are you seriously advocating that when my boss tells me to install Linux and Apache on an old PC, I should call up some HR person and ask for permission? I have never had a boss who would be pleased with that behavior.
I'd still like to hear your answer to this: How do you think Linux entered the Fortune 500 IT world? Do you think some sysadmin called up HR one day, patiently explained what an operating system is, and requested permission to install a new OS on an old computer? In my experience it was done quietly, and by the time upper management found out, it was already proving its value. Linux was tolerated retroactively, not pursued proactively. Do you think those pioneering sysadmins should go to jail?
I happen to agree with most of the ideas in this article, but it is terrible journalism. If there's one idea I wish journalists could learn, it's: There are two sides to every dispute.. Usually we see AP publishing an article about how "pirates" are costing the music industry billions. With lots of quotes from record executives, trade associations, legislators. And no attempt to ask normal people how they feel. No investigation of the alleged moral right to confine information.
This time the biased shoe is on the other foot. We hear a bunch of complaints about the corporate closure of the net. And yet the reporter didn't bother contacting any of the alleged villains for a balancing quote. Nor did the reporter talk to the ordinary people who lean heavily on corporate-provided content.
I expect to receive some backlash (if anyone reads this) because the complainers are substantially right, and we know it. But that doesn't excuse one-sided reporting.
Thanks. I didn't know that. I can see how this could help get a better rate. However, it still seems to leave the e-commerce business vulnerable to an outside party unless they internally abstract the interface (which I do).
I haven't worked on one of those, but I have implemented a few interfaces to clearing providers over the internet. In each case, I abstract the back end so that none of the terminology and field names of the particular provider leak into our systems, and so there is a clean and minimal interface to hook up a second provider. I've never actually had to hook up the second provider within a given framework, but it should be easy. So if you're using the internet for transit and properly abstracting the interface, there shouldn't be much feeling of lockin. Of course I take your point that Payflow communicates the customer's freedom of choice more effectively.
Only in the sense that the relevant decision-makers have so decided. If they decide differently in the future, I will not have much difficulty switching back ends.
I don't get it. How will the system encrypt the card numbers if it doesn't have the key?
Because if you are working on a project of any serious size, the selection of merchant bank will be made by finance folks on its own merits. They are not going to accept a clearing provider with a slightly higher rate just because some programmer prefers their API.
Your advice is applicable to very small net businesses. It is unsuitable to serious e-commerce sites because, among other things, it leaves you completely at the mercy of the clearing provider. Imagine sending an email to all your subscribers saying "Dear valued customer, due to a dispute with our former clearing provider we have lost your card number. Could you please take a moment to go to https://...." You would lose a substantial portion of your hard-won userbase that way.
Good points, but I cannot really agree with leaning on the gateway's crypto scheme, if any. First of all, the bank we are using does not offer this. The session is of course SSL encrypted, but within the SSL connection the card number must be sent in the clear. Before anyone suggests changing banks, I don't choose the bank. And the bank will NOT be chosen based on technical criteria. It will be chosen based on financial/contractual issues.
The second, more general point, is that an e-commerce company must have the fleixibility to change clearing back-ends without impacting the customer. Using the gateway/bank's public key to encrypt card numbers prior to storage would lock us in to this one provider. That would be harmful to my company's interests in the long term. I cannot use any special features of the current clearing provider (which happens to be a bank) because my company needs to be able to switch to whichever provider is most advantageous.
Step 1: Lower your expectations. In a perfect world you could do recurring billing, and yet an intruder could not obtain the payment card numbers. In reality, any scheme which allows an automated system to reconstitute the payment card numbers for billing purposes can be used by an intruder (assuming he has root on all your machines) to obtain the list of numbers. Therefore, the realistic goals are:
- Learn a new payment card.
- Charge a payment card.
A webserver cannot request any information about a payment card, including the number. (This necessary for criterion 1).Implementation: When the secure box records a new payment card, it cryptographically splits the card number into two numbers N1 and N2, neither of which yield any information about the card number. (See Applied Cryptography). N1 is returned to the requesting webserver (which sticks N1 into the database as part of the customer record) while N2 is stored in a text file on the secure server, indexed by a sequence number that is also returned to the webserver and stored in the database.
When a webserver wants to charge a card, it provides N1 and the sequence number to the secure box. The secure box internally reconstitutes the card number and charges the card.
Clearly, there are vulnerabilities in this scheme. For example, an attacher could plant a trojan on the webservers which captures the payment card numbers before they are initially sent to the secure box. However we eliminate the ultimate nightmare of having thousands of card numbers copied in one quick attack. Also, of course, anyone who cracks a webserver can throw in bogus charges (accruing to us). This is a nice bit of sabotage, but doesn't make any money for the attacker.
I have heard of more elaborate schemes, but they seem to consist of security through obscurity. You can make the reconstruction of the card number "complicated", but ultimately all the elements must be available to the automatic billing process. And if the box is cracked, you can assume that all the elements stored on that box have been copied.
Therefore I think this scheme is about as secure as one can realistically get.
Really? What if I am an authorized employee? OK, that's the obvious case. What if I work for a firm installing/repairing communications wiring (been there, so this is from reality)? Since the customer has requested us to do work on his premises, I assume I have the right to enter whatever spaces are necessary, regardless of such signs. Of course there are exceptions, like this sign:
(From memory). So it comes down to judgement. In the real world (non-computer) if the intruder's judgement is incorrect, the worst that will happen is an angry phone call to his boss.
What really bothers me is the naive idea that a corporation has a unified will and intent, like a person. A corporation is an umbrella over a collection of departments, divisions and egos. It's quite common for a contractor to receive conflicting instructions from different people within the same organization. Usually accompanied with "Do NOT listen to the other guy. I am the only one authorized to make this decision." One of the hard parts of contract management is convincing contractors (such as Electrical Contractors) to listen to YOU, and not to some random guy, however convincing. "Why didn't you finish the pulls on the fifth floor?" "This guy told us the plans were wrong, that they were re-issuing them. He was wearing a suit!"
God bless the organization where responsibility is clearly divided. Having seen the opposite, I'm not impressed by the clarity of the "Authorized Employees Only" sign.
And no, I am not saying that Randal was the victim of conflicting corporate drives. I am saying that your simple response is naive.
We are at an interesting inflection point in surveillance systems. I worked on engineering several such systems through the mid-90's, and the only thing really changing was that cameras got smaller, cheaper and better. Storage was always on VHS time-lapse, because computer storage was too expensive. Tapes were rotated on a cycle based on legal or liability archive needs.
In other words, these systems were great for providing a record of an incident after it occurred. If no incident occurred, the tape would get reused because nobody really wanted hours of repetitive footage.
But increasingly powerful computers are starting to enable some extraction of data from the raw video before it is lost. For example, facial recognition could turn that unwieldy bank of video feeds into a list of people with locations and speeds. You could put a camera at each register (which they should do anyway, for an anti-fraud record of check/credit card users) and use it to tie faces to names.
There are more benign applications - a retail analysis company has software that will process camera feeds and yield statistics about the effectiveness of merchandise displays. This seems harmless to me because once the raw video is gone, all that's left is aggregate data.
Anyhow, I just want to emphasize that we haven't had to think much about commercial surveillance because the technology didn't permit any really interesting applications. Computers are changing that. We will be faced with some tough choices.
Well arguing the point verbally doesn't seem to get anywhere. I have yet to see a slashdotter write "Now I get it! Privacy really does matter!"
Which seems to be (partly) the point of "sousveillance". Find those (in the real world) who are willing to defend their organization's surveilling ways, and point a camcorder at them. Find out if they're hypocrites.
Remember two rather mangy-looking men who kept glancing at the hobbits in the Prancing Pony? Per the book, one of them would be Bill Ferny, a local good-for-nothing who does a bit of spying for Saruman. Because the Nazgul have driven off all the horses in the night, next morning the hobbits are desperate for any kind of beast to haul their baggage. The only quadraped in town is an emaciated, maltreated little pony belonging to Bill Ferny. Sensing desperation, he sells it to the hobbits at a high price, and Sam names the pony Bill after his erstwhile master.
But it seemed the movie was downplaying the idea of Gollum as a hobbit. The beginning narration referred to him as "the creature Gollum" which made me wince because it's a bit patronizing for a voice claiming to be objective. Had Bilbo held on to the ring for a few more decades, we might be calling him "the creature Bilbo" (or whatever charming nickname evolves from his obsessive mutterings.)
But I thought the lines of that drawing were too thick and too bright. From the book:
In the movie, it looked more like a lit-up sign in front of a shopping center.
I didn't like that either. Tolkien was wise enough not to attempt the description. By portraying Sauron, the movie cheapens him - he seems like a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers villain.
Indeed - as an indistinct shadow or a gleam of eyes. The movie has a brutally obvious closeup of Gollum's face, complete with muttering audio. I couldn't tell if the movie was seriously suggesting that Gollum had crept up to within a few feet of Frodo and Gandalf. If so, it was one of several spatial improbabilities.
So if you work for a big corporation and one day you go to building 275 because you heard it has a better cafeteria than building 106, you should be arrested for trespassing. Because you weren't specifically authorized to enter that building. "But my access card worked; doesn't that mean I'm authorized?" Tam-Lin: "No: Even if I leave my front door unlocked..."
Your idea, which sounds reasonable applied to a house, doesn't work in a corporate environment.
And generally speaking I am allowed to open the unlocked door of a business during business hours and walk in. The assumption is that if it's unlocked it's open for business. A business is not a home.
I'm not sure, but I think the answer is twofold. 1) Randal's arrogant attitude had pissed of someone in Intel security, and 2) Intel investigators semi-legally entered Randal's dwelling to search for Intel IP, which they didn't find. At that point, they were on shaky ground legally and needed to pursue the case to retroactively justify their entry.
To put it differently, the investigation gathered huge momentum based on Randal's previous reputation, the password cracking, and Intel's paranoia about IP theft. When the initial focus of the investigation fizzled, the energy had to go somewhere.
The above is just guesswork based on the fragments of the case I've seen over the years.
But in a way, the Branch Davidians won. The massive use of force by federal agencies apparently led to some serious shakeups and policy changes. I'm not saying it's permanent, but the occasional Waco-like incident probably does a lot to keep our agencies from morphing into the SS. With armed groups like the Branch Davidians, the government has to weight the PR cost of storming the fortress against the public interest served by enforcing the law. With a disarmed citizenry, the government would be more free to enforce their will quietly and quickly, without generating negative publicity.
Look at the Elian Gonzales case for another example. The dramatic photo of the INS agent pointing an assault rifle at a Cuban-American is actually a consequence of the right to bear arms. This photo illuminated to all Americans the coercive character of the government's action. If the INS could have known positively that the people were disarmed, they could have seized Elian without creating such a dramatic photo.
Freedom of the press combined with the right to bear arms makes a powerful combo.
Why do you think that? I, like lots of kids, was taught to fire a
I assume you also disapprove of sex education.