Comment Re:The UK Cobol Climate Is Very Different (Score 1) 270
Indeed. I do that routinely, as that is the most productive setting for me. Never had any customer complaints either, once they saw the first results.
Comment Re:The UK Cobol Climate Is Very Different (Score 1) 270
Simple: It is higher effort and cost and uncomfortable, unless you are used to it. In most IT departments, you can get away very well with shirt and (black, non-worn) jeans even as a consultant.
Comment Re:It's a production system (Score 1) 85
Indeed. Also, a medium-sized ISP head of network engineering once told me "most non-peering traffic is default route anyways". BGP seems to be used mostly internally and by some enterprising individuals. Might be the reason why we have seen only very few BGP based attacks. An they have a high risk of being detected immediately, while attackers that invest time (as opposed to automated attackers) want to be detected as late as possibly and preferably never. I mean, even adding a single hop with a BGP attack will be blatantly obvious in ping-time monitoring (think smoke-ping), and even the most stupid network operators are hopefully doing that as it is also the easiest way to detect failing or overloaded equipment.
Comment Re:Just attack your own citizens! (Score 1) 103
Nice one!
Comment Hint: What YOU do is an act of war... (Score 1) 103
I guess their troubles are how to define it so that they are a mere criminal gang (and hence have immunity like all "law enforcement"), yet others are committing acts of war so they can be drone-killed and it is (legally, but not ethically) not murder...
Comment Re:When self interest supersedes the common good.. (Score 4, Insightful) 122
Indeed. Or restated in simpler form: A community that does not keep its egoistic idiots under control, eventually collapses. That seems to be the primary problem of the human race at this time.
What To Expect With Windows 9 545
snydeq writes: Two weeks before the its official unveiling, this article provides a roundup of what to expect and the open questions around Windows 9, given Build 9834 leaks and confirmations springing up all over the Web. The desktop's Start Menu, Metro apps running in resizable windows on the desktop, virtual desktops, Notification Center, and Storage Sense, are among the presumed features in store for Windows 9. Chief among the open questions are the fates of Internet Explorer, Cortana, and the Metro Start Screen. Changes to Windows 9 will provide an inkling of where Nadella will lead Microsoft in the years ahead. What's your litmus test on Windows 9?
FBI Completes New Face Recognition System 129
Advocatus Diaboli writes:
According to a report from Gizmodo, "After six years and over one billion dollars in development, the FBI has just announced that its new biometric facial recognition software system is finally complete. Meaning that, starting soon, photos of tens of millions of U.S. citizen's faces will be captured by the national system on a daily basis. The Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will logs all of those faces, and will reference them against its growing database in the event of a crime. It's not just faces, though. Thanks to the shared database dubbed the Interstate Photo System (IPS), everything from tattoos to scars to a person's irises could be enough to secure an ID. What's more, the FBI is estimating that NGI will include as many as 52 million individual faces by next year, collecting identified faces from mug shots and some job applications." Techdirt points out that an assessment of how this system affects privacy was supposed to have preceded the actual rollout. Unfortunately, that assessment is nowhere to be found.
Two recent news items are related. First, at a music festival in Boston last year, face recognition software was tested on festival-goers. Boston police denied involvement, but were seen using the software, and much of the data was carelessly made available online. Second, both Ford and GM are working on bringing face recognition software to cars. It's intended for safety and security — it can act as authentication and to make sure the driver is paying attention to the road.
Two recent news items are related. First, at a music festival in Boston last year, face recognition software was tested on festival-goers. Boston police denied involvement, but were seen using the software, and much of the data was carelessly made available online. Second, both Ford and GM are working on bringing face recognition software to cars. It's intended for safety and security — it can act as authentication and to make sure the driver is paying attention to the road.
Ask Slashdot: Any Place For Liberal Arts Degrees In Tech? 392
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes A new article in Fast Company suggests tech CEOs want employees with liberal arts degrees, because those graduates have critical thinking skills. Meanwhile, a new article on Dice (yes, yes, we know) posits that STEM degrees such as data science, IT admin, and electrical engineering are what science-and-tech companies are going to want for the foreseeable future. What do you think? What place do those with liberal arts degrees have in companies such as, say, Tesla or a biomedical engineering firm?
Comment Re:Antibiotics and Viruses (Score 1) 106
Fascinating new insights, indeed! Unfortunately, all attempts at verifying these "insights" failed, except when complete morons were used as experimenters.
Comment Re:Where is the misuse of military equipment charg (Score 1) 286
Apology accepted. Your 3) is spot on and there is also serious pressure from those pushing for even more surveillance. They do not even publish statistics of how many producers they have stopped here, likely because the number is so low.
Comment Re:One of those strange rules of war. (Score 1) 180
You can kill, but you cannot torture. Blinding somebody for life intentionally is cruel and hence unacceptable. Not that such distinctions are understood in the US.
Comment People are stupid (Score 1) 92
Really. A printer belongs behind a firewall and has no business having a public IP in the first place. This is neither a new risk not in any way surprising. Asking the manufacturer to secure the printer is not going to work.
Funding Tech For Government, Instead of Tech For Industry 64
An anonymous reader writes: If you're a creative engineer looking to build a product, you're probably going to end up starting your own business or joining an established one. That's where ideas get funding, and that's where products make a difference (not to mention money). Unfortunately, it also siphons a lot of the tech-related talent away from government (and by extension, everybody else), who could really benefit from this creative brilliance. That's why investor Ron Bouganim just started a $23 million fund for investment in tech companies that develop ideas for the U.S. government. Not only is he hoping to transfer some of the $74 billion spent annually by the government on technology to more efficient targets, but also to change the perception that the best tech comes from giant, entrenched government contractors.
Comment Re:why? (Score 1) 182
Thanks for giving an example of functional illiteracy. It is one of the problems people relying too much on computers have.
If you try really, really hard and read my statement again several times, you might notice that I actually said that pen, paper and books are technology, but that they are enough technology for learning.
