Where I live they haven't bothered to make any provision for back up power to the repeaters on their coax plant. Power goes out? Kiss your phone service goodbye, even if you've got the battery in your modem. They finally did upgrade us to DOCSIS 3, about eight months ago, so now our peak hour speeds have gone from atrocious to tolerable FWIW.

They're not. The GP obviously doesn't realize that Time Warner spun off Time Warner Cable quite some time ago.

One of the requirements of PCI compliance with the credit card companies is that you don't use default passwords in any equipment tied to the card transaction.

Which makes this even more interesting. Based on the password and the fact that a paperclip is required I know the specific vendor and equipment to which the article refers, despite the authors going to great lengths to omit that information. The vendor is a big one and their equipment is involved in millions of electronic payments made every day. You could even say they are "the way to pay." In fact, they are involved in PCI certification for most production deployments involving their hardware: most, but not all, because certain deployments using default configurations do not need additional certification, just a quick verification that IP addresses and the like are properly configured.

I understand the need for a default password, but it really should be changed. That being said, the encryption keys are not accessible using that password. They are stored in a hardware module that self-destructs if you tamper with it. They can only be set in one of two secure locations both controlled by the vendor: if you attempt to use any other means to mess with the keys, bye-bye memory card that stores them. This is bad, but not as bad as it sounds at first.

In my experience (New York State) they tend to side with the employee at the first level of appeal. If the employer contests that decision it goes before an administrative law judge, where anything can happen, though even there they tend to favor the employee in this blue state.

I quit a job once upon a time and secured unemployment. The employer attempted to retroactively impose random drug testing, I asked for an opt-out since it wasn't part of the conditions of employment when I was hired, they said no. I cited the applicable case law with HR, they still said no, so I quit. Won that one at both levels of appeal, found a new job three weeks later, started it two weeks after that, using the interim to take a nice vacation to Finland on the ex-employer's dime. I may have sent them an unsigned post card from Helsinki saying thanks for 50% of the salary for 0% of the work.....

And you've concluded stimulant use in the workplace is expected from the fact that 85% of people use caffeine? Have you ever known someone who was fired or held back from a promotion for a failure to use caffeine? I haven't. I've worked in offices my entire professional life and managed to go that long without picking up a caffeine habit; it hasn't held me back any. *shrug*

I would have filed a claim for unemployment, then when said claim was initially denied because you quit voluntarily tell the Department of Labor why you quit. You would have doubtless been approved at that point and DOL starts an investigation of that company, a win win.

What's truly pathetic is I can't get it from Time Warner Cable on our dedicated fiber (not DOCSIS) connection, despite their claims that it's available to DIA customers. They have been dragging their feet now for eight or nine months, professing that we're the first business in our whole area (~250,000 people) to ask for it, so they don't actually have any experience getting it to us.

That's either complete bullshit (we have one of the largest universities in NYS here, along with major defense contractors and even a Fortune 100) to stonewall my request, or it's actually true and a sad reflection on our complete lack of progress on this issue.

If that's your argument just use the Windows firewall. It's completely free.

The rest of the West doesn't stop it either. It may be unique to the United States (+ South Korea and the Philippines, incidentally) in the non-religious context, but if you want to mutilate your son elsewhere in the West the authorities won't do anything to stop you. There were rumblings about Germany doing something to end the practice, but that's politically tricky to say the least, given their history with a certain frequently prosecuted group that happens to practice circumcision.....

I love how society gets worked up about FGM but thinks it's okay to mutilate young boys by the millions. And don't give me any shit about how it's not the same thing, because even if I bought the BS put out there by the pro-circumcision crowd, it'd still be the equivalent of elective cosmetic surgery on people too young to give informed consent. Of course, it's not really, you're chopping off functional body parts.

Facebook leaving the web could be a good thing, our generation's version of Eternal September would finally come to an end. :P

That's what firewalls are for.

Let me guess, you're one of those that thinks the breaking of end-to-end communications (NAT) is an acceptable substitute for a firewall?

*shrug*, in New York State they have six months for all felony charges except murder, where they have a year. It takes time for both sides (defense and prosecution) to prepare their cases. 70 days seems reasonable to me, particularly in the case of someone (like the subject of TFA) who isn't being held pending trial.

The relevant law is here. In most cases they have 70 days to bring you to trial after the information is filed/indictment is handed down. When it takes longer than that it's usually because the defendant is the one requesting the delay.