Comment yes (Score 1) 275
I only work one day from home a week and I miss out on a lot. I find that I have to pester people far more often to get updates about projects or issues.
Credit card payment processing is the ideal complicity/trace/choke point for much of the world of spam and crimeware.
Why doesn't the FBI turn the next prosecution into a RICO prosecution and drag a payment processor and/or bank and some of its executives into the prosecution?
A few 20 year jail sentences and $250,000 fines plus forfeitures would make many processors think twice about their "man in the middle" role.
Spam and scareware wouldn't be worth doing if you couldn't get paid for them -- no matter how scared I am, I can't manage to shove a $20 into my monitor.
I don't see them ever making the banks accountable for this. Hell they didn't even make them accountable for the mess they created with the mortgage crisis. The banking industry just has to much power and will argue that putting checks in place to prevent this will inhibit free trade and would be a burden to them. But hell lets try and see what happens. I would love to see them take some responsibility.
Why do I have to reboot after installing a PDF reader? Remember that this is Windows we're talking about. Each computer is an island unto itself, to be conquered and subjugated by each software package installed.
Adobe applications often write to the boot sector. A co-worker of mine found this out when is full disk encryption stopped allowing the system to boot. That was with the full version of adobe Acrobat, but it would not surprise me if they do this with their other applications.
But rather than just checking SMART, get the manufacturer's test program. All the HD makers have one, just get the one appropriate for yours.
Careful, some manufactures have utilities that just check SMART and don't actually do a test.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken
