Re: If 1984 had a Ministry of Free Speech
More like Brazil
5770 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
Who is buying all these instances? I don't know if BU people would buy lots of IAAS instances themselves, that is a little too technical for most BU users I know
A number of large companies I've worked for have departments that are run internally like mini-businesses, so they will fund a project for a cloud service and farm that out to an internal (or third party) design team.
Those design teams are constrained by the brief, and budget. If someone (increasingly rare, but it still happens) tries to point out that to do what they want *securely* it will take 'x' more days and 'y' more money. I'm sure you can see where this is going.
Of course, most of the time the techies* ensure they get their security objections noted in writing so that when they are ignored at least it doesn't come back on them.
*Well, the ones** who have been around the block a bit do at any rate.
**Also the ones who can see that 'the light at the end of the tunnel' means 'get off the tracks'.
I did a stint once as an account manager for a Global ISP who were going through some dodgy financial issues at the time.
I was given the 'most difficult customer in the world' as one of my accounts. I went along to see him and it was clear in about 5 seconds that this guy hated bullshit more than anything. So I proceeded to explain that some of the issues on his network was down to the really shit routers the company was supplying him.
I eventually worked out a deal where he would upgrade all of his leased lines (recurring revenue) in exchange for our company replacing all his shit routers with Cisco kit. When I presented this to the sales/finance team they went banana's - that is until they realised that the kit cost peanuts and the increased revenue was about £500k/year (which I didn't see a penny of, even though I sold it), and this was at a time when the company was losing accounts hand over fist.
Still didn't stop them forcing me to quit after I got a bollocking in the middle of a crowded office for 'talking' for the last 10 minutes of the day - bloody place was run like a school playground.
I once worked a contract in the city for a very well known firm, ending up effectively doing two jobs (for two different managers) at once. One of them was always having a go at me for not spending enough time on their projects.
It all came to a head when I was planning a road trip across Italy (during my lunch break) and the manager decided I was a lazy sod and terminated my contract.
About two months later I ended up having drinks with a few former colleagues and discovered that they'd had to hire two contractors to replace me, and neither of them was getting as much done as I did in 1/2 the time :)
Speaking of interviews, I landed my most lucrative contract ever even though I was stacked up against people who had 5* the qualifications that I did.
When the hiring manager told me I asked him why he hired me instead of the others - he said that compared to my CV, what I told him during the interview made it clear I had done 10* more than the CV contained, yet when he spoke to the others it was the other way round :)
Some people 'get it' - but not everyone unfortunately.
Contracts do not supersede the law. For example, you cannot sign away your consumer rights in the UK just by opening a software package where all the details are wrapped in the cellophane, the opening of which means 'you agree to this contract' etc.
About time these shady practices were kicked into the long grass. Now, if only we could sort out planned obsolescence - that should be outlawed too for environmental reasons alone.
My main concern around the most recent generation(s) is that they don't seem to have any unifying identities around which to rally and rebel, like most previous generations did.
Maybe this is a sign of advanced spiritual maturity, perhaps not :)
On the topic of poor vs. rich from the article, it is oft noted that the poor are poor in attitude and a shift to the positive can be reflected with a positive shift in their financial circumstances.
For example, smoking is now *very* expensive, yet I bet the largest percentage of smokers would be from poor backgrounds.
"Humans will probably be the least effective, and are often the weakest link in the cyber world."
Doesn't it concern anyone else when a phrase like 'humans are the weakest link' is directly correlated to AI driven military hardware?
Shit, how blind/corrupt are these people?
"That "prefix your email" thing dosnet work for yahoo,"
In the settings you should be able to create a single alias, with multiple variations.
For example - base alias = something@yahoo.mail.com
All the variants would then be along the lines of something-<variant>@yahoo.mail.com
You can have *lots* of variants.
I am suitably terrified, even though I only studied the barest spattering of what was available at the time of my state sponsored education, although at a bit of a loss as to how learning more about it would lead me to feelings of contentment and satisfaction (I lie, but to admit the truth would be like admitting I believe in Unicorns).
I'm pretty sure that the article asking 'does knowledge of AI make you less afraid of it' is a case of taking something obvious and stating it in reverse.
The actual truth of the matter is simple..
The less you know of something, the more afraid of it you are.
(also: Familiarity breeds contempt)
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/3012243 [Thursday 27th October 2016 09:49 GMT]
"What I don't know is if I am somehow deemed to be an 'employee' and wotnot, does the company/agency I am working with have to pay their side of things too? (Such as pension contributions and holiday/sick pay etc.)."
“The economy works fine. Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than have been lifted out by all other ideas combined. ”
Only if you employ checks and balances. At some point, someone has to cough up for all that debt. Spiralling interest payments can bring down governments.
At some point the system will seek balance, whether that’s a worldwide debt erasure, collapsed economic system or the whole world just goes bankrupt I have no idea, but I doubt it will be pleasant.
I have noticed a huge drop in product quality since the 2008 crash, because a lot of quality producers went under. What we are left with now are mostly the bottom feeders of production, lowest common denominator stuff - we’ve gone backwards in so many areas.
What will we have after the next crash? Personally I’m just hoping we can still eat and put on some lights in the evening.
From what I’ve seen they are having enough trouble defining what cyber security actually is, probably because they don’t realise that it’s a vague term that covers a lot of different roles.
Over the years I’ve attempted to explain what I do in more condensed form so non techies can grasp what I do for a living, but in the in end I have given up and now just say ‘I work in computers’. That seems to satisfy 99% of people as they ‘understand’ that, but obviously is completely meaningless - it’s just a way for them to express their tiny minds :)
Some CNI is managed by private companies. One in particular pays a pittance for salaried staff, so it has a hard time recruiting specialists/competent people.
Assumng HMRC continues on its path to ram ir35 changes down the throats of contactors in the private sector, I expect this will have a huge impact on the ability to recruit even contractors. Plenty will work abroad once the pay differential becomes meaningful.