Posts by Mark 85 12884 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Nov 2012
When our own security services are hoovering up all our comms data it makes bugger all difference whether that data stays inside the EU or lands in US servers. It will all end up in US hands anyway thanks to our intelligence sharing arrangements.
And our data ends up in the EU hands due to the way the info is gathered and swapped. I guess I should say "thanks for sharing", but that's really a rather scary concept about data... metadata.. whatever data.
Everything looked pretty rational and well thought out and perhaps a model for certain other countries, including mine.. the US. That is until the last paragraph. A political discussion, as they call it, will pretty much wreck any of those plans once the lobbyists, security agencies and politicians get involved.
IT really doesn't need a computer type of degree. One needs analysis, problem solving, and above all communication skills. Programming can be taught. The school taught programmers and IT types I've met are, shall we say, bizarre. Yes they can code or do the things that can be done by rote. If there's something outside the box, they are lost. I have nothing against schooling but more against the academic mediocrity. The best IT types are not professors. The old saying about "those who can't do, teach" is pretty true.
On the other side, if they've had a well-rounded education, they seem to do better than those that follow a strict IT curriculum. There are so many levels in IT that to establish one criteria for all jobs is a fallacy. Some need vision, others need a bit of creative grunt work. For what LinkedIn needed, a brain surgeon was perfect. Any other job in the company, he might have fallen flat on his face.
Yep.. small potatoes here. But it's better than nothing. They should have upped their pay-offs to the law. Or maybe these were just the collateral damage to protect the brains behind the operation and reduce the labor costs. A rather harsh method of handling redundancies but better than the methods that the Mexican drug cartels use.
Delivery hasn't been an issue with many fraudulent transactions... either on E-Bay or using a stolen card. The perps use a drop type address.. empty house, a willing "friend", etc. I remember hearing one tail were stuff was being sent to an open field that some conveniently put a mail box near the sidewalk and would meet the UPS driver for the delivery.
One should never underestimate miscreants. They can be truly inventive.
We get the one where Stephen Hawking has a sense of humor (humour). In a different one, he ripped the questioner a new one about wasting his time on inconsequential crap. But if it encourages one person to go into physics that's good. Yeah... stupid motivation but whatever motivates your boat and all that.
Just musing some... maybe shooting all the patent troll lawyers first would be a great start but it seems that there would be 2 more for each one that's shot.
Maybe the companies' patent lawyers should be second but that' s a toss-up between them and ambulance chasers.
I would think that the rules would or should be public knowledge. If for no other reason than if there's a situation where the phones go dead, the average person might have a clue. Secret, secrets, and more secrets.... for something supposedly to used for our protection and could affect millions if the system needed shutting down.
My sense is that ESPN feels that if given the choice, subscribers would not choose ESPN and their market share, prestige (uh-huh... poker...) and profit would drop. Hopefully the days of bullying from content providers will be coming to end industry wide.
Our cable package came with a bunch ESPN channels. I asked about deleting them, since we don't watch them. Got a big fat "no... it's in their contract" answer. I wonder if their advertising revenue is based on the number of viewers it's available to, or the number of viewers who actually watch?
Microsoft on the list? They tossing a hissy fit because Bing is ignored? As for the companies they had a vested interest in such as Expedia... do they still have an interest (read: shares)??? Just a little suprising to see them on this particular list as if they make too much smoke, someone will look for the fire.
My sense is that doing what he did is a good plan and forces them to do something instead of hiding by some form of obscurity. But if he found it, others probably have also and probably not the good guys. The down side, sometimes those who release bugs before contacting the company are vilified and pretty badly also. Still... he deserves a cold one.
I was wondering the same thing. Afterall, they've pulled some pretty self-serving stunts involving PayPal and few other goodies from time to time.
Probably sticking their head over the parapet and waving a flag will not have been a good idea if the Commision mumbles something like.. "Oh, we dealt with Google, now let's have a look at E-Bay".
Glass houses, rocks, and all that.
At home, that will work very well... unless you have unwelcome visitors. Even then... maybe not a problem. They'll steal the computer and ignore the Post-It notes.
At work.. I use a small notepad that's kept in a locked drawer. (We're not allowed to put a PW manager on company machines). I note that many (most) of the employees do the same notepad kept away from prying eyes thing. But there's a few who use Post-It notes... usually managers who won't listen to the reality of locking those away. Go figure...
KISS works for most of us.
Is this really about the environment? Or is it about profit? Hawaii is prime real estate and as developers move in, the light and radio pollution will only get worse to the point the telescopes will be useless. If they put an exclusionary zone around the 'scopes, then the developers and local politicians will be deprived of profit. The local populace will be deprived of jobs.
I can understand some of the "keep in the US territory" because of some equipment issues.. secrecy and all that. If that's what's needed, there's an awful lot of empty places in the 48 that would meet the criteria... I'm thinking the Rocky Mountains or even the Cascades. The problem there is that they are so remote from anything including electric power that just getting the services to them would be an undertaking.
Still, my first rule of thumb is "don't go where you're not wanted". I'm sure there's places in Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, etc. that would welcome this project.
I made this comment on a similar topic and it applies here... very much so here:
Two things are obviously needed and therein will be a whole new set of problems...
1) The company producing IoT must be willing to sacrifice some profit for updates and maintenance of the software. We as IT know this, but most of the companies doing this don't care except for the bottom line. They should also be providing information to the user to secure these devices once installed.
2) User education. This is the toughest as education on the simplest things is rapidly disappearing in the US, maybe elsewhere. The users/customers should ask questions.... like "how often for software updates and fixes?", "What do I need to do to keep these things updated and secure?". But given that most people will buy the shiny and not give a thought to upkeep.... meh....
Until number 2) happens and forces the issue, number 1) won't ever happen.
Today's Adobe news: http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2015/04/24/adobe-gives-employees-giftcards-kickstart-initiative/?SiteID=cbaolcompromotion_apr_84&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl15%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D710390111
Now if they would just put some of that cash into fixing (hahahahahaha) Flash.
Sorry for the long link... I'm tired and lazy as it was bitch of a weekend upgrade.
Speaking of IoT...
Two things are obviously needed and therein will be a whole new set of problems...
1) The company must be willing to sacrifice some profit for updates and maintenance of the software. We as IT know this, but most of the companies doing this don't care except for the bottom line.
2) User education. This is the toughest as education on the simplest things is rapidly disappearing in the US, maybe elsewhere. The users/customers should ask questions.... like "how often for software updates and fixes?", "What do I need to do to keep these things updated and secure?". But given that most people will buy the shiny and not give a thought to upkeep.... meh....
Not much oil coming out of Pakistan.. maybe <100,000 barrels a day. There's probably more money in outsourcing call centers and clothing manufacturing for them. So they're not a threat to the Sauds. However, their government and society have headed to the fundamentalist side of Islam with all that entails. The police have been involved in quite a few killings motivated by "threats to Islam". Part of the reason they weren't real co-operartive about Bin Ladin was that they lean towards that mentality.
My take.. the cops got her or they knew who planned it and for when and made sure they weren't anywhere close by much like the revenge killings, honor killings, etc. that have happened. They don't handle dissonance well.. and she was definitely a crap-disturber in their society.
McCain is a running joke on most issues... I'm not sure why you brought him up.
Indeed... some of the US injured, maybe? Back to the States? I'm sure the hospitals that are still standing are overloaded... Yeah.. rich tourists with insurance, you attitude says let take a bed from the locals. If not them, then bring a few of the seriously injured locals to the States for treatment.
If Google sends a plane, the damn thing should be loaded with supplies. When it comes back, load it with people. A few is better than none.
A tragedy for everyone, no just Nepal. It's far worse there and yes, I would hope Google will load the plane up and also bring back some of the injured. I'm pretty sure that whatever medical facilities are left standing are in pretty bad shape and the death toll will go up due to lack of treatment.
This is one of those defining moments for mankind just like Fukushima. There will be those who rise above and try to solve the problems. Then there are those who will simply be asses and look to fix blame or ignore it since it doesn't personally affect them.
Doing a late night upgrade and I walked into the darkened lunchroom for coffee. Here's the unmistakable sounds of delight coming from the back corner. After quietly leaving so as not to cause interruptus I perused the door logs. A VP and one of the other VP's admins.... Never said a word about it.
I have heard that (I didn't work much longer.. bigger and better things came to pass) that the day after she quit, a small metal plaque appeared on the table designating the "XXXX XXXX Memorial Joy Table". Rumor has it from a friend that it was their "regular table"...
I can hear the NSA Bossman now as he sits in his futuristic command center.. "Now show them the power of a fully operational battle station"...
Reference for those who missed it: (yeah.. different movie but you get the idea) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/16/alexander_star_trek_bridge/
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