Really? I'd like to know where you get your stats from. According to numerous sources, including W3's OS Statistics ( http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp ) DESKTOP linux users number about 5%. and that doesn't include the VAST number of servers.

Linux in the server market outnumbers windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems in the last few months "Linux/unix and variants" passed 50% of ALL server use.

with most of the people in Internet Security working on a platform that's NOT windows, there's good reason it's as well secured as it is. (that and anybody can find/fix a bug in the open source world. but that's another topic entirely ;)

to whom? what you have to keep in mind is that computers operate as single minded entities. when you approach a machine like that: security is currently an afterthought. this tells me that there is somebody that holds access above the other users, basically missing the point here.

Again, that means that there's somebody administering the logging system. and I almost assure you that even if their logins are listed somewhere: they have full access to remove those entries and make it look like it never happened.

as a hypothetical situation, say I have a machine that stores credit card numbers on a DSS approved network that's locked down in the ways you describe above. at the admin level, it would take me minutes to provision a machine to replicate the target. I don't mean replicate as in contents, I mean replicate to the network view.

the replicated machine can be tunneled into place and act as if it was the machine in question. as the admin: I already know what traffic flows the machine needs to produce on a regular basis (SNMP uptime's, network traffic counters, heartbeats, etc) so I can inject artificial traffic in it's place.

at this point, I can reverse firewall the unit preventing it for calling for help or reporting the changes I make. I can snapshot the drive and move it offsite, while making the changes to the snapshot to remove my presence from the machine and set the loader to write over itself with the snap. reboot into the snap and pull the zombie as the machine comes back up:

and what will the monitoring/auditing/reporting software see? nothing. everything will check out, MAC addresses will match, SNMP keys will match, even the statistics reported will look like they fit into the graphs.

Until CPU's are made to understand the "two key" approach to authentication, any machine will be susceptible to weak physical security.

This.

if you can't trust the person at the top: then either they don't deserve to be there, or you need to find a new job.

when you're the person at the top: you better have earned the trust and respect of those under you. Subverting it does nobody any good in any long term.

is it terrible that all that makes me imagine is kids trying to become sick, so they can get a ride in space?

And how exactly is this anything close to the same thing as "throwing cash into a fireplace"

the reason money exists, is to purchase time/work from somebody. $500M would potentially allow hundreds of people to earn a living for a time, stimulate an economy that globally is stagnating, and would produce results that people would for hundreds of years be able to say "we accomplished that" or "we helped fund that".

the reason the world's in an economic slum, is because people like you think that spending money makes it go away.

when you spend a few dollars on some milk at the store, you're not "throwing that money away". you're trading it for a product. the store then uses a portion of that money to pay the employee for being there to collect the dollar, and spends another portion of it replenishing it's stock. another portion goes to lining the pockets of someone who already collects an unfair portion of that purchase, but they will in turn then take that money and may employ you to pave their driveway, or god-forbid: contribute towards an artistic project involving putting a rock onto a rock that's really far away.

that money in turn will go back into circulation. it's "saving money" that ends up hurting the current system, not spending it.

somebody should get the author in touch with the current "staff" behind ThePirateBay.

I'm sure they'd love to contribute something to the project if the monolith could be used in a distributed link technology. even something dumb like just a solar powered signal repeater would be awesome.

but by participating in the research group at all: they likely already have something wrong with them, and want to do something about it to get better. the first step to them was showing up.

personally: that alone IS a placebo. the remainder of completing the "ritual" or "study" is them proving to themselves that they WANT to get better.

ahead of time: I think the whole homeopathy thing is BS.

nonetheless: I do quite strongly believe that some people honestly WANT to get worse in life. it somehow makes them feel better to have people tell them "get well soon!" or "you're so hard done by!" though a completely alien idea to many: some people enjoy suffering.

some of those people will in earnest change their way of thinking throughout the course of their lives. when somebody with real liver cancer wakes up one morning and honestly says to themselves "I want to get better" after spending the entirety of their lives wanting to be worse and worse off, I honestly believe they have SOME ability to do something about it.

though you're right: when a completely medical issue occurs and is not treated as such it can be devastating, the same can be said for something that isn't caused due to biology.

IMHO: if you "will" your white blood cells (read, cause a cocktail of chemicals to be released into your bloodstream causing them to do as instructed) to attack your blood vesicle walls and this causes internal bleeding: to prevent further damage one must be on another cocktail for the remainder of their lives. where as simply convincing the mind to stop doing what it's doing, will solve the entire problem.

It always makes me wonder why people keep bringing that old term up!

pre-instant communication, not a whole lot of anything got done. when it takes weeks to find out if the place you want to go to exists or not (maybe it got bombed?), it's kinda a pain to plan ahead.

Wow, your district must suck balls for getting a court date, if there's 5 months required for juror selection.

if I was arguing a case, and had to wait six months from the date the overseeing judge agreed that a jury trial should be held, I'd transfer to another district.

around here, three months is pretty standard. most often there's two months notice for the 24 potential jurors, the first twelve to respond with their availability are selected, and if everything is arranged before the final date, your date get's bumped up. it's not unusual to only have three weeks during the winter.

I'm surprised you didn't have 50 people say to you: "uhhhh, you drag it to the trash, DUH!"

Unless I've done something terribly wrong, that would work out to 23.2 amps continuously drawn for 30 days, at $0.20/kWh.

I've got two full racks of equipment that sit JUST over that. (though power here is wonderful at $0.08/kWh!)

and to think that's only ~3-4 air conditioners running 24/7.

If you remember the bill, all you need to know if the price per kWh to get to the total.

multiply it by your service period (in my case, I pay quarterly) and you get the annual kWh. unrelated discussion though, how many people know the price they pay for electricity? Personally I only know mine because my province has one of the lowest energy rates in North America. :P

Hell, it's honest and gives people an idea about how the world really works.

I love it.

the language needs a little cleaning up, but I'll be putting it on my site later on.

Though I am a fan of a number of TV shows,

I do not have a TV, or cable of any sort in my home.

being that I currently spend months waiting for the shows to come to DVD, this is a LOT better than nothing.