The Fur - Slashdot User

Comment Good for the fed and good for the hacker (Score 1) 1

by The Fur on Wednesday October 12, 2011 @09:49PM (#37697536) Attached to: How Fifty Celebrities Got Hacked

I hate hackers, but I love it when they find stupid stuff on other peoples systems/equipment. Maybe it will teach these "actresses" not to be taking nude/embarrassing photos of themselves with their cell phone and or computers. It is amazing to me how stupid the average user is about security and their privacy, but want to act offended when the get hacked. Don't do stupid things like that and you won't have to worry about it. Same thing with Facebook, twitter, text messages, email ect. ect.

Submission + - California Teachers vs Online Courses (insidehighered.com)

Submitted by schwit1 on Wednesday October 12, 2011 @09:49PM

schwit1 writes: The University of California last week tentatively agreed to a deal with UC-AFT that included a new provision barring the system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in "a change to a term or condition of employment" of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.

Sounds like the state has got its priorities straight. I wonder if the state hadn't agreed to this if the NLRB would have sued the state.

Submission + - How Fifty Celebrities Got Hacked 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Wednesday October 12, 2011 @09:05PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Federal authorities announced a breakthrough in finding a hacker accused of hacking into accounts belonging to more than 50 celebrities, including entertainers Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera, Mila Kunis, Simone Harouche and Renee Olstead indicting Christopher Chaney of Jacksonville, Florida on charges of accessing protected computers without authorization, damaging protected computers, wiretapping and aggravated identity theft. "Unfortunately, Mr. Chaney was able to access nude photos of some of the celebrities and some of them were uploaded on the Internet," says US. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. Chaney allegedly was able to access passwords by monitoring social media and other online sites that the celebrities used. "You may have selected a password that's meaningful to you that you may disclose online with friends," says Steven Martinez, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office. "Your pet's name or whatever. That's a clue to a hacker, to start there." Once Chaney hacked into a celebrity's e-mail account, he would use the contact lists to find other celebrities' e-mail accounts allowing him to add new victims. Investigators don't have a motive for Chaney's alleged offenses. "Motive is always a question in criminal cases and we don't know and we don't care" in this case, says Birotte, adding he is confident of the hacking evidence against Chaney."

Comment Re:My thoughts (Score 2) 239

by The Fur on Wednesday October 12, 2011 @12:44PM (#37691976) Attached to: HP Rethinking Wisdom of Spinning Off PC Division

That is the sad part. They have always made great printers. But their PCs/laptops are crap for the most part. Even their customer support isn't good. The only people worse in CS and product is Sony imo. Their VIO line is a crapfest. If HP would concentrate on what they do best, printers, they could destroy the marketshare and make up for any losses they had from the PC/laptop market.

Comment Re:Can that tag ... (Score 1) 357

by The Fur on Wednesday October 12, 2011 @12:33PM (#37691824) Attached to: Linux Kernel Developer Declares VirtualBox Driver "Crap"

My intro CS prof always told us that "The first rule of programming is.... the user is an idiot."

He's wrong. Totally, 180 degrees, wrong.

Users know what they want. They may not know all the of steps to get there, and they usually don't know all of the implications and side-effects of those steps. But they do know where they want to end up. It's the software's job to help them get there, in fact that is the one and only job of software. When a user screws up the root cause is a failure of the software to help them take the correct steps to accomplish their goals.

One might argue that there is no practical difference between a user that makes a mistake because they are an idiot and a user that makes a mistake because the application didn't help them enough. But there is a huge difference - you can't fix an idiot, but you can fix your software.

I'm not saying it's easy, in fact user interface stuff is really hard. Which, I think is one of the reasons a lot of developers take the attitude of your prof -- it is so much easier to put the responsibility somewhere else because then the developer is only responsible for "idiot-proofing" their software rather than the much harder job of designing it to enable the user.

No, the user is an idiot. I have lost track of how many times I have given the user exactly what they asked for and them say "Well, this isn't going to work at all. This isn't what I wanted". Then I reply "Yea, yea it is. In fact, here are the notes from our meetings and here is where I told you that I didn't think that this was what you wanted or needed. At that point you can see right here is where you said, and I quote "I know what I want and need, you just do what I am asking." At that point I insist on payment for the project and run to their bank to cash it.

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