IIRC, you are using the term NAT when you really mean PAT. In true NAT, you will have X internal addresses mapped to Y external addresses.

If X>Y, then you may have requests get dropped or mangled.

PAT is 1 external to many internal shifting/translating the port numbers to create a unique channel.

As long as Internal32768, then you should be okay ; you need to reserve a port for each end of the channel. Realistically, most channels will have 80\443 as an end point. On those types of networks, you can get much closer to 65535. Still, a few badly.configured torrent clients can easily exhaust ports and bring the network down with almost no utilization.

You'll see a lot of references to defense in depth. If you browse a CISSP syllabus, you'll see they talk about everything from parking lot lighting to ring 0 code. Between an adequately lit parking structure and ring 0, there are a lot of things you can do. Each one adds a bit more security. You do hit diminishing returns quickly, but host-based firewalls are quick and cheep.

To harden a host based fw, turn on remote logging and have the logging server flag configuration changes as critical.

No one should be doing a configuration change without notifying your change mgmt team. If they get a red line on their monitor, they contact and chew out the offending employee. If no one feses up, nuke the server, restore, and re-harden.

It is important to know that your server administration can also be the change manager on small teams. You just need to have him/her mentally firewall the two jobs.

That seems like a bad idea. Roads take a lot of abuse.

Why not make mile markers and guardrails with small windmills on them. The drafts from traffic would drive the generators.

They do this in Japan; kinda. The reflectors on the roadside use the drafts from cars to spin a protective disc that cleans the reflectors. It's not 100%, but nothing ever is...

Not the OP, but it *can* be that way sometimes.

I dropped $12 on each of 2 titles from DCS:World on a special a few weeks ago. They are normally $40, but Steam was running a big sale to promote a new DCS release.

Anyway, it's a $12 game that probably needs $2500 of hardware to run properly. The graphics are part of it, but the background AI really crushes the CPU as well.

Truly.

Lots of people hunt. I'd never call a gun a toy...

Clean, old-fashioned hate rears its ugly head. Oh well, I guess it *is* almost September...

Go Dawgs!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean,_Old-Fashioned_Hate

Defense in depth. Even if we let a terrorist walk into a silo or hangar and take a nuke, he still would never be able to detonate it without the PAL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link

Even when there is a wealth of information on the device (like the B-61 http://www.glennsmuseum.com/controller/controller.html ) there is very little chance someone could recover a working nuclear core. There are multiple layers of failsafes which (probably) fire a small charge inside the sealed core to destroy the pre-detonation subsystems.

So, given the option of ordering a fully capable B-61 off of ebay, or stealing an old USSR/Pakistani/Indian nuke, the terrorist would be better off with the second option.

I don't know anything about PALs or failsafes for their nukes.

I think you hit on the major problem with (US) gun laws. There are something like 300M+ guns in the USA. Supposedly, those are guns in circulation. i.e. Not sitting in a warehouse or on in a gun shop display case.

It is an easy thing for anyone to obtain a gun illegally for illegal purposes. It is somewhat less easy to obtain a gun legally for legal purposes.

And it's only moderately difficult to modify a legally obtained gun to exceed the parameters that make it legal.

Larger magazines, modified lowers and uppers, mil-dot scopes, and general tweaks can turn any gun into an "assault weapon".

As to the mental stability, the US has a bad track record for dealing with mental issues. Even today, it's hard to get good mental help. You could self-identify today as a potential danger to yourself or to others and it could be 2+ years before you are stable.

And that's for someone who wants to get help. Most don't.

I disagree that we need a gun that can determine if you are mentally compromised. It's just too "sci-fi" to be viable. What we do need is a way to track guns from cradle to grave and hold the registered owners accountable for illegal use.

If the plane crashes due to pilot error, then the pilot will never be charged with a crime.

With a UAV, you can immediately test the pilot for drugs/alcohol or any other condition that altered his mental capacity.

If the plane broke, then it sucks to be on the plane. But if the pilot screwed up, then his peers will get to see him charged with manslaughter and dragged through the legal system. Ultimately leaving him a broken shell of a man. Probably in jail.

3 or 4 of those and the other pilots will either become very clever or stop screwing up.

Information? Or in formation?

If the research develops into a marketable product, patents would protect them from other companies.

If the research doesn't pan out, then nothing is lost.

As for fund sharing, if Cali funds 20% of research that goes on to become the next Cisco, Google, etc, then Cali should get 20% of the company stock. Or get a 20% cut of quarterly revenue.

Maybe demand the filing party put a value of the patent into an escrow account. If the value of the patent goes up, just put in more money. After the patent expires, the company gets the money back.

If they file a suit, they can't value the patent at more than is in the escrow account; i.e. MS uses a $10 unlicensed patent to do $100M in business means the company can sue MS for $10.

If they lose, the escrow account goes to the winner.

I'm not a NRA-type. But I do like to shoot.

Not everyone here loves guns. And those who do love guns have hundreds of reasons why they do.

I keep a shotgun for shooting skeet. I don't care to hunt or eat birds, so it's just a sport for me.

I have a bolt-action rifle for hunting deer. I'm from the Southern USA, and deer season has been in my family since they got off the boat 400+ years ago. I grew up with it and it's something I love to do.

I also have a semi-automatic rifle. One could make an argument for it being an assault rifle, but just because it looks like a military rifle doesn't really mean anything. All semi-automatic rifles work the same. Again, this is a sport rifle for short and medium range shooting. A local gun club hosts a CQB tournament a few times a year and it's fun to run through their "village" and clear targets.

I also have a small, semi-auto pistol. It holds 7/8 rounds of .380. I use it, again, for sport. But I also keep it on me most of the time.

To most of the gun crowd, the 2nd covers any "gun" that fires any "bullet". We have people out here with everything from Civil War cannons to Vietnam-era artillery. Most people in that group agree that a tank would also be acceptable and I have heard that some people do, in fact, have functioning WW2/Vietnam tanks.

The crowd here gets divided when we start talking about bombs and missiles. I fly RC airplanes also, and I do a lot with tri-copters and quad-copters. Most of these control systems aren't much different to 80's style guided missile control systems. But folks around here just think it's going too far to actually implement such a system.

So, we stick with, mostly, a "bullet" fired from a "gun".

Yes, that includes rocket launchers, recoil-less rifles, and RPGs. There are several individuals in the area who are licensed to own fully-automatic weapons and RPGs and the like.

Really, in the US, it's all about what you can afford to license. If there was a "room-killer" on the market, then someone here would probably have a license to own one. I think it's a bit much for anything practical, but I still think it would be cool as hell to shoot one at the range.

A final point. The Second Amendment is a touchy subject. First off, there are (at least) 2 versions that differ in punctuation and capitalization. Second, people argue if it means a Military, a Militia, or just every-day people like me. No one really knows what "arms" are; could be a muzzle-loading smoothbore or could be a tactical nuke in the garage. Third, there is a lot of debate between "well regulated" and "shall not be infringed".

Anyway, it's all a dumb argument anyway. Most guns can't be obtained legally. The ones that can mostly need a State license. Even with the license and legally-obtained gun, you can't carry it in most places.

And that's the way all of the amendments are going. Somewhere, "Congress shall make no law...abridging...the right of the people to peaceably assemble" got turned into "free speech zones".

"The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches" turned into "stop-and-pat" and your iPhone doesn't count as "papers" or "effects".

Everything today is "interstate commerce" so the DEA can raid a local pot grower in Colorado.

The Second Amendment should have been a negotiating position to stop that from happening. Not so much of a "I'll shoot you if you try to do this" but more of a "let's see you enforce it" concept. That's probably what it was written for. But it's too late now and people have Idol and Game of Thrones to watch. It ended, not with a bang, but with a flurry of text messages to vote for the next Top Model...

That may apply in most cases. However, a degree is now acting as a barrier for entry to jobs people are fully qualified for.

I have seen government contractors hired with a BS in Art History and a CCNA over candidates with HS diploma and a CCNP. It's happening more and more to those of us who just want to ride routers all day. We know the job and lack of a degree should be seen as a good thing. We aren't looking to replace our bosses. We don't want to become managers or team leads or any of that crap. We just want to sit in darkness and work on network stability and optimization.

I'm sure you can find the same thing in CS. People who know how to code, but lack a degree for whatever reason. You'll pass over a candidate who's been programming since age 8 and select a candidate who first heard of programming in his Intro to Computers class.