"I do hope they sort out the cause and can correct it."
Do remember, a bug with seniority is a feature.
2260 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2012
"People these days DON'T WANT to learn."
Easy. Make the people *want* to learn.
'If you get infected due to stupidity, which is entirely the IS shop's call, you are terminated for cause and we'll sue you for damages incurred from the remediation'.
I know of one information security shop that has just that clause in their employment contract.
"Your glowing parents will be over to pick you up as soon as the half life of Plutonium kicks in."
I don't know about the plutonium bit, but I'm of the generation that has radioactive bones, courtesy of strontium-90.
My area also still has plenty of the old CD shelters, aka school, church and older government buildings basements.
As I said long ago, when working with nuclear field missiles, "Go toward the light, my children!".
For, afterward shall be much suckage.
"It OK guys we're safe, I've put the big blue 'e' into my recycle bin, if anyone tries to blow up the internet we can just restore it from there."
Oy!
The Almighty wanted me to tell you, he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're fucked.
I have the internet backed up on my SAN in the basement, run on a Linux cluster, secured by *BSD and managed from a Solaris box.
"Or put another way, what's the minimum connection that would be required simply to keep up with all new content currently being uploaded worldwide?!"
I don't know, but I have six (!) OC-48 feeds coming into my building at work.
And we're *not* the NSA or any other government entity.
Far too often, secret is abused and things that should be unclassified are marked secret. Confidential is largely ignored.
The stupidest thing I ever saw was a group of DoD contractors, who were marking U/FOUO information as S/FOUO. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over?! FOUO is for unclassified information that should still remain free of FOI requests.
Of course, there's a full alphabet soup after the primary security level is determined, NOFORN being the least and I'll not bother getting into bigot lists.
But, I also started out in things nuclear, holding an N clearance and a standard clearance.
Top Secret is determined by whether the information being released would result in critical damage to the government.
Secret is determined whether the information being released would result in significant damage to the government.
Confidential is determined whether the information being released would result in minor damage to the government.
The damage could be to reputation, standing or things like everyone knowing precisely what is inside of the physics package on a modern thermonuclear warhead.
Unclassified is a valid security designated, if sensitive, such as personnel PII, it's designed Unclassified/FOUO (For Official Use Only) and is typically exempt from FOI requests (or the sensitive details removed from the document).
An N clearance is for things nuclear, in nuclear weapons fields, where direct access to the device is part of one's duties.
A Q clearance allows one just to be around a nuclear weapon, but not to directly access, handle or touch a device.
A Yankee White clearance allows one to be physically around the POTUS, such as workers in the White House and other locations the POTUS frequents.
I'm sure I missed a couple of oddball clearances, but it is late here.
"Start taxing all that shit Americans."
Can't, our very first amendment prohibits any interferance with religion. Taxation certainly counts as interference.
Of course, religion isn't supposed to interfere with government, perhaps we can enact a penalty when it does and tax the living dogshit out of them then.
Currently and for quite a bit before, the right in the US has been racing for the bottom.
They're nearing what they fear, "pitchforks and torches". That isn't a true fear, but an allegory of those who are possessing capabilities that approach their misjudgements in government.
There are those of us who are centrist in nature, who have suggested that "fear".
It's literally gotten to the point where small town politics are expressing threats to those who are equally capable, but stubborn on a point of fact.
Personally, I'm a mixed bag of right, left, center and gravitating on center.
I also personally own a full dozen firearms.
All stored in their safes.
I and my peers give the far right insane pause.
For, we *were* or *are* military.
We've long told "them" we'd sit on the side and kick anyone approaching us into the fray, then figure out the reality for ourselves.
Yeah, it's getting *that* bad here.
For some circles, there has been a suggestion of destroying the "football".
Those have been suppressed.
For, that *would* be treason.
"...and they also want it as cheaply as possible."
Erm, this US citizen and recently retired veteran calls bullshit on your bullshit.
We *all* seek the cheapest.
Or are you honestly willing to pay over $1k for a PC, just to bitch about the price?
Every US car has a majority of foreign components. Do you *honestly* want to spend $50k for a *cheap* car and $100k for a decent family car and half a million for a luxury car? SUV, you're shit out of luck for under $300k.
You know, you've increased my respect for the ancient Athenians. They prohibited the Idios the vote.
Perhaps it's time for a Constitutional amendment...
Well, as a retired US military citizen, who held some multiple character clearances, with alphabet soup behind the hyphen, I'll suggest you read the writings of US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler.
Then, with an eye to those true words, review history since.
Although, fuck all if I can figure out *why* we'd overthrow Iraq. Iraqi oil goes to Europe.
But then, the US overthrew Iran's democracy to install the corrupt and inept Shah, at the behest of British oil interests.
Something I had long attributed to "taking care of war buddies".
Quite true. But, remember, the GPS satellites are aging.
The number is close to a binary fraction portion of the aging satellites.
The Air Force hasn't gotten Congressional funding to replace the aging satellites for nearly a decade.
So, would you rather do without GPS, out of fears of a camera that has long been present peering at your bum?
Communications is also key. Something I learned firsthand, while I was in the military.
Is spying present?
Yes. Get over something that has been around for thousands of years.
Spies keep every nation honest.
Look up Able Archer and figure out *how* close this planet came to nuclear winter and radioactive fallout. Two spies kept everyone honest and prevented a thermonuclear war.
"Yes every lawnmower, toothbrush and toilet to have a unique IPv6 address and be individually accessible from t'internet with only a perfectly configured free modem from crap-cable-provider(tm) to secure it."
Well, *my* network is connected to a Catalyst 4506 switch routing internal traffic, appropriate firewall in between and a *real* router, configured by myself, to the crap-cable-provider(tm).
The negotiations to actually succeed in doing so was far less than negotiating with the Taliban.
Both, a regrettable experience in my real life.
'What "dubious purposes" are you using your stuff for?
Also, would it be too much to ask for this IoT crap to be IPv6 compliant from day one? I want to be able to get on the Internet, for any purpose, without finding I've been NATed back to the stone age because all the IPv4 addresses are in use by lawnmowers!'
Televisions, well, some, are known to send out every spoken word within range of their microphones.
Don't worry about the lawnmowers. My straight razors already took up those IP's. The remainder was taken by my bathroom paper dispensers, toothbrush and socks.
"Maybe security should be designed, not into the IoT thingamabobs, but into the router/switch/hardware that talks to them."
Bloody piss, have you never heard of not defining a default gateway or DNS servers to IP configuration?
Now, just *where* did I store those laser wearing sharks...
Screw it, the security droids will suffice.
I've been toying with the notion of a "fuel-less" engine, well for in-atmosphere usage. Ionization and acceleration of the ionized air would work, although the energy required would be significant.
There would also be an issue of nitrous and nitric oxides and ozone production as exhaust byproduct.
The entire bit would be using existing experimental ion thruster design.*
I doubt I'd get it off the ground, the environmental folks would be up in arms about the byproducts.
Not to mention trying to figure out how to loft a >10 megawatt power plant is a bit problematic.
*Yes, I'm laughingly serious. I did do some numbers crunching. Laughing the entire time. While it is theoretically possible, it is currently and thankfully, impractical at the current level of our technology.
Thankfully impractical, just because the exhaust of any decent flight would exceed the NOx and O3 products of any five industrialized nations.
Well, with a dinner of the impossible to fin din orbit beef and beans meal, it's a lot like the scene in RED. Do you want a vest? No, it wouldn't help.
As for me, given a meal of beef and beans in orbit, due to age and an excessively long military career, with all of the physiological insults contained therein, what *I* would produce would sink immediately into a teraton thermonuclear event, destroying the planet and likely, causing harm to Sol.
"You've raised the question of how do male astronauts relieve pent-up tension while in space. Into a sock?"
Since it's space, an incredibly hostile and unnatural environment for humans, I'll actually respond.
Considering the low atmospheric pressure *and* microgravity, one is already bloated, has incredibly stuffy sinuses and frequently suffer from motion sickness.
Yeah, not wanting to fuck when I'm about to puke.
And my experience is exclusively on Earth.
There are other issues present, such as stress from being a second to around a minute from being dead, the dread of actual illness with only amateurs to give actual help and the potential for a paint chip to offer you those seconds to a minute time until death.
Now, add in an impressive mission load, where every spare second is consumed, to avoid boredom, idle experimentation that isn't authorized or even opening the airlock to sniff external environment.
Yeah, no sock or anything else required.
Hell, under those conditions, it's likely that an erection would be decidedly uncomfortable.
"Might even be unconstitutional here in the U.S., where we have the right to arm bears or something like that."
I have it upon great authority from Billy-bob that one has the right to bare arms in the US.
Although, the actual intent, as insane as it sounds today, recall that gunpoweder ran firearms, they were flintlocks or fused cannons, *everyone* was allowed to have any one of those.
As a cannon cost as much as a fire engine of the period, rifles were a lifelong investment and pistols were for the gentry.
Today, one goes through the same background investigation as is required for a top secret security clearance, which involves neighbors interviewed, a decade of former neighbors and employers (if something cropped up in the seven year portion), current and former employers, current and former coworkers, one's criminal history, domestic violence makes you shit out of luck, current on child support.
*Then* you can get your howitzer.
Or machinegun.
Or disguised firearm.
Or "destructive weapons" (see food for howitzers and other things that can blow up the neighborhood).
*While* previously paying for a $200 tax stamp, which if rejected, see shit out of luck.
Me? I'm happy with a bolt action, lever action, semiautomatic action and nothing crazier. .50 BMG is flat out wrong for me, my osteoarthritis would never forgive me that abuse.
I'll be happy with a .308 precision fire system to enter into contests for cash prize.
My pistols are largely the same, expensive, due to customization to ensure pinpoint accuracy.
I keep a hunting rifle and pistol to dispatch still living game, lest it suffer further.
But, the majority of my firearms defend me from only one "tyranny" of this modern world; the tyranny of the unperforated "x" ring.
I enjoy that last bit.
Back to the matter at hand, I'd use radiothermic generators to melt the ice and slide in the probe behind.
But, I'm dubious on gathering enough energy, considering our current level of technology.
Making the damned thing work on Earth would be beyond our current level, considering the specifications. Might as well specify a TARDIS.
"It seems an awfully long winded way to go about it ..."
Indeed! Wouldn't be simpler to train those about how to properly collect your kit, protect it and move it to a less rural region, rather than going largely insane and jetting across the globe?
But then, this BOFH Mk II always used the suggested method to excellent success, even under military conditions.
But, also remembers , the US government does what most governments does, treat the average citizen as a village idiot.
Whilst being ruled by elected village idiots.
" I see you missed this recent discussion at the UN about the loss of the Samarra chemical weapons complex to ISIS last year "
Moron milk drinker, who has never learned a shit stain of NBC comprehension.
First off, *any* petrochemical plant, any pharmaceutical plant, any chemical plant *is*, by definition, a chemical weapons plant under variable conditions.
Variable being, producing chemical weapons (*any* US citizen can produce a fair handful of such weapons in their garage or basement), via actually producing such weapons or more rarely, suggesting capability by the company or just having the precursor chemicals (which also produce plastics and drugs).
What is lacking in your insane world view is actual production, suggestion of production, existing stockpiles, anything other than the fucking sand I and my buddies examined until quite a few were killed by IED's. Oh, and the lack of any WMD within the entire, centimeter observed nation of Iraq.
Oh! Maybe they're in Syria, just to puff up your failed nation leadership desiring misleadership!
Too bad, beat you to the punch. Terabytes of data are stored on various secure networks to remove the clearance of a leader attempting such.
"Wow, you really want to go off-topic, don't you? Not feeling too confident on discussing UN embargo breaches?"
As one who served in war after a yellowcake brownstain on a national undergarments mess *and* having worked for a US company that suffered multiple ITAR violations, do you *really* want to go down that road with me?
There will be an investigation. Espionage for corporate gain will not be permitted.
If such has been conducted, the NSA will be properly monitored and guided.
Here's the fun part. Due to an oddity of circumstances, I happen to be within "small arms range" of the NSA. That doesn't suggest I'd fire a weapon, it only describes a certain oddity of time and corporate conditions.
So, such a suggestion of corporate gain conditions with the NSA *will* be investigated and reported upon.
But, it will take time. If such is present, it'll be eliminated silently.
As a retired soldier of the US military, I have to agree with the statement, if not some guided views.
A lawful order is supreme, an unlawful order was and is inactionable.
But, we're dealing with spy land, where things get... Strange.
But, I've learned to love spies.
They keep everyone honest.
Save, when it's for economic gain.