
Government Ponders Future Of Y2K Command Bunker 147
When the command center was announced last August, as explained in this Reuters article, the government's idea was that post-Y2K, the center would serve to coordinate "future cooperation between key infrastructure industries and the federal government to protect communication networks."
The government certainly has a vested interest in keeping communication networks functional; the question is, how vested? Especially with the recent talk of ever greater (and more explicit) governmental oversight of Internet traffic and activities, I'm not sure I want any more observation posts than already exist.
On the other hand, it seems likely that government involvement in Cyberspace will increase dramatically, and soon. Is there some way that this command post could play a vaguely positive role in that involvement? Or does it smack of a open door to ever-more-pervasive observation and tracking of personal behavior?
Al Gore and you (Score:1)
(a) is he current on support payments; and
(b) does Tipper know?
Re:Conspiracy theory... (Score:1)
Well...if they REALLY need a suggestion.... (Score:1)
Of course, the day the government starts donating hardware to Open Source is the day cows start to fly, but hey....one can always hope...
Network security training (Score:1)
Re:moderation of 1st post (Score:1)
Think of Slashdot as a vacant lot that some of us are trying to build on and some of us are dumping garbage on. If we see someone walking up carrying a trash can, we're likely to jump to the conclusion that they're there to dump more, not to pick some up.
Re:moderation of 1st post (Score:1)
Archeologists of the future may find this stuff fascinating and extremely helpful in understanding the present era, but right now it's just garbage, and it just gets in the way.
Re:moderation of 1st post (Score:1)
Here we go again (Score:1)
The equipment is meaningless, it's the mandate! (Score:1)
Re:hhmm (Score:1)
Seriously, there's a surplus process, it's not pleasant but it's possible to find some cool stuff. It helps a lot to have a buddy "inside".
Re:Here we go again (Score:1)
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:send the stuff to me (Score:1)
Trolling ENHANCES bad moderation.. (Score:1)
They exist and that IS what M2 is for...
That is also what e-mailing Rob "CmderTaco" Mulda is for...
While you are "troll" you are a +2 troll...
How did that happen? I can be a +1 troll at best... unless... yes.. you got modded UP!!! Not once not twice but THREE TIMES (once to counter the mod -1) and posably more to account for bad mods -1.
As you go around and notice all the bad moderation where moderators mod up or down based on opinions.. in the mean time other moderators are busy moderating the trolls.. the REAL trolls..
You'll also see bad moderation on the trolls themselfs.. people moding UP "first post" as well as modding down relevent matereal.
M2 dosn't mean you can not complaint to CmdrTaco it just means if no one dose something is likely to happen anyway...
Right now it seems there are some bad moderators who have learnned to dodge M2. Those people need to lose moderation. Finnaly and totally....
But trolling dosn't help.. it just pulls away good moderators while the bad ones play there tyrany games...
And it makes Rob "CmdrTaco" Mulda think we need MORE moderation.... MORE bad moderators.. MORE of this same crud....
If you want to demonstrate a need to re-evaluate the current policys show that they are failling don't show that <B>more is needed</B>. If you want rid of the moderation STOP TROLLING and get other trolls to stop and START e-mail....
PS. I can take a Karma hit I've got more Karma than Signal
Re:NooooooOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!!! (Score:1)
Thanks to you it will only get WORSE...
What are you expecting here? That someone is going to notice the bad moderation? How can they when you are providing such a HUGE distraction.
You should be complainning about the bad moderation INSTEAD of trolling...
With all this trolling going on you just look like a bunch of cry babys becouse your trolls get modded down...
and if it really is that bad that you can not get anything done... there are plenty of other weblogs... Including my own...where your voice can be heard... presumming of course you really are victoms of bad moderation.. I use the "erase bad posts by hand" tactic instead of relying on moderators..
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
Yes, i've read Godel, Escher, Bach. I know all about the halting problem, and i know it's unsolvable. That's why it's funny - the same reason why #7 and #1 are funny. (Also, i guess #10 is also for all intents and purposes unsolvable, at least during any of our lifetimes)
I have to admit, though, this is a pretty funny flamewar. Keep up the good work.
Millennium Bunker (Score:1)
...or not.
Re:I'll take it (Score:1)
in australia, old government hardware is generally auctioned off. don't they do this in the states?
storing stuff in warehouses for 10 years is gonna leave them with virtually worthless machines that not many people will want. at least if they dump stuff while it's still half-useful, they can get back some cash...
Re:Can't sleep, clown will eat me. (Score:1)
Re:RIP Stile (Score:1)
At least, that's how I want it to be. If there is an afterlife, I hope all the pain he was feeling is gone.
Donate all the stuff to Echelon (Score:1)
Well ya know what I'd do (Score:1)
_____________________
step one: place
mmmmm (Score:1)
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
Things that scare me, #320983794: Absolutely none of the first or second year students in the CS program at my school, modulo me, even know who Alan Turing is. Why someone who didn't even recognize the name would go into CS is utterly beyond me. It'd be like a second-year math undergrad not knowing who Isaac Freaking Newton was.
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"HORSE."
A Suggestion (Score:1)
Why not use it all for research of some sort? I'm sure there's tons of people out there who could think of tons of legitimate uses for the equipment that could actually HELP people.
They could adopt some sort of system similar to the one that gets used to decide who gets to do what with the Hubble Space Telescope, where the best proposals submitted get to use the equipment as they see fit for a pre-arranged block of time. Now that of course leaves open the debate of who exactly is deciding what use of the equipment would be in the public interests, but the Hubble people seem to be doing a decent job.
I'd put my vote on the Human Genome project going first, they're so close (comparitively speaking) to sequencing the entire human genome, which just has some incredible applications for the future, and that sort of horsepower could certainly help them.
Or,if any of you have seen the little video clip that ships with BeOS of all the Be guys tossing the old macs off the roof of the office, something like that would be pretty cool too :)
Part of the plan? (Score:1)
Bwuckatah bwuckatah bahhh, bwuckatah bwuckatah bahhh!
Re:Open Source CyberCourt (Score:1)
All kidding aside, we can either whine about how corrupt and mean the govt. is or we can participate in improving it (read replacing it a bit at a time rather than ripping the whole thing apart and hoping to profit from the ensuing chaos).
another take on another weblog (Score:1)
Re:Donate all the stuff to Echelon (Score:1)
What I don't get is... (Score:1)
Why wouldn't the Govt quietly just get rid of all of these wonderful plasma screens just like they got rid of the Ark of the Covenant ?
Just seems fishy to me that they would brag about all of this power, now.
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Re:send the stuff to me (Score:1)
The moderators are going overboard. You criticize them and you get burned!?!?!?
There is no command bunker (Score:1)
make a difference (Score:1)
Re:They kind of splurged (Score:1)
"can we have toys like that in here?"
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Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
But would they pass a Turing test? If they don't then ignore them, they are not worth your time.
Nate Custer
Re:They kind of splurged (Score:1)
clear things up (Score:1)
Re:They kind of splurged (Score:1)
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
Re:Trolling ENHANCES bad moderation.. (Score:1)
What is M2? Does that stand for meta-moderation?
I have emailed CmdrTaco before about bad moderation without success so now I usually append a message to my thread pointing out that I believe the moderation to have been done incorrectly. As we all know these things are very subjective so I can see why CmdrTaco is reluctant to change someone else's mod.
I think what happened is that I posted at +2 and was mod'd down to +1 Troll and then, after making my argument, some kind soul took me back up to +2 by giving me an under-rated mod.
About meta-mod'ing, I have had a perfectly reasonable post with straight-forward argumentation, analysis, and links to other pages with more info, downgraded as Over-rated (from +1 to 0) even though *no* moderation had yet taken place on the post. That is a way to get around being penalized for bad moderation, because, AFAIK, meta-moderators do not have any consequences for mis-meta-moderating.
For the record, I did not Troll and do not consider the above a Troll by any stretch of the imagination. Conjecturing on governmental conspiracy concerning SETI infastructure use may offend a few who cannot see another way of looking at things as having value. I thought what I wrote was a fun, and intentionally paranoid, extension of the post I was responding to. I cannot call that a Troll.
Re:NooooooOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!!! (Score:1)
THE SR-71 IS OLD AND THE CAPITAL CLASS SHIP IS... (Score:1)
Donate those computers (Score:1)
One word... (Score:1)
Re:I'll take it (Score:1)
Around here the local big University (UW-Madison) has a warehouse where they send all their old stuff. Every Friday they open it to the public (Wensdays and Thursdays if you work for the state). I once got a full tower w/a 300 W power supply, 486 DX, floppy drives, and a 10 MB/s network card for $5. I gutted everything and sold just the case and power supply on eBay for $50 :) I kept the rest as spare parts for my Linux box.
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Re:send the stuff to me (Score:1)
Why was the last post scored "0: Flamebait"? Oh yeah, because moderators set it there ;-)
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Re:And may I ask: What is the halting problem ? (Score:1)
Don't worry about that.... I'm 16
Here's quite a good web page [maths.org.uk] about it...
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Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
Don't worry about monitoring from the Y2K center.. (Score:1)
There's likely not any terribly specialized monitoring equipment in there, and if there is, it likely wouldn't be sufficiently hardened or sophisticated for the use people expect or fear. Besides, most of it's probably nearly 18 months old, anyway.
And though it's likely to be in every post, I feel compelled to add that they can always ship some to my place if they run out of ideas.
I heard a lot of cults are bummed over this... (Score:1)
Just for the sake of irony, not that it wasn't obvious to most of us anyway.
Ask someone who should know! (Score:1)
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:1)
Re:you're ignorant (Score:1)
Gov't Ponders Future of Y2K Bunker (Score:1)
Re:Gov't Ponders Future of Y2K Bunker (Score:1)
I know (Score:1)
Re:They kind of splurged (Score:1)
Re:NooooooOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!!! (Score:1)
I'll take it (Score:2)
Please send all the computer stuff to:
Erich P.
Georgia Tech Station
Atlanta, GA
30332
They could even write it off on their taxes, maybe.... oh, wait, they're the government.
Seriously, though, most of the time when government stuff stops being used it goes into a warehouse, in case another department needs it... that's what it's like here in Georgia, anyway. There's this depot with unused 286's, NeXTStations, Sparc IPCs, 20meg 5.25" RLL drives, and so on... I think they keep stuff for like 10 years. It's sort of absurd, nobody is going to use some of that stuff. Oh well. That's government for you.
Re:And may I ask: What is the halting problem ? (Score:2)
Google [google.com]
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Re:RIP Stile (Score:2)
Keep it for future rollovers... (Score:2)
Or maybe they should set aside the equipment until then. They could put it all in the same warehouse in which they're storing the Ark of the Covenant.
Conspiracy theory... (Score:2)
Indeed, Washington is in the midst of a close self-examination over how it can protect the country's critical computer networks -- such as power, communications and banking systems -- from electronic assaults, technical failures or natural disasters.
The Y2K monitoring network, which won high praise among participants, appears an obvious element of that plan.
Hmmm... could it be that this was the original intent all along?
I am only half joking. I have zero trust in this administration's respect for citizen rights.
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Rent it out for LAN parties... (Score:2)
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SR-71 is in service...and mothballing is practical (Score:2)
This is common stuff to do for the government when you don't see a need for a while for equipment. The WWII era battleships of the Iowa class have spent a lot of time since WWII in dry dock, however they have been brought out and refitted a couple times -- notably to shell the city of Beruit and for the Gulf War. It would have been inpractical to keep these ships in service during peace time, when instead they can just be retrofitted with modern equipment and brought into service when the need arises.
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Re:I'll take it (Score:2)
I suppose all of the paperwork is enough of a deterrent to keep it out of the hands of people who might actually use the hardware, though. It would be nice to see some of those old IPC/IPX's or NeXTStations put to good use again, like automating PennDOT's drivers license centers or something silly like that.
Re:I'll take it (Score:2)
heres an idea... (Score:2)
nah... too easy...
Re:SR-71 is in service...and mothballing is practi (Score:2)
You can do this with weapons. Afterall a big metal projectile is still a big metal projectile. The effectiveness doesn't really decrease, unless there's some revolutionary advance in weapondry (say modern steel versus cast-iron => cannon versus modern artillery). Also ALOT of money goes in to simply making a ship a ship, rather than a weapon system. Remove the gun turrets add a floor to them and flood them, and you got a cruise ship (albiet a very industrial luuking cruise ship)
You can't exactly do that with a computer. Trying to use a 6 year old computer is pretty painful. (Yes, it was upgraded 486SX-25 -> AMD 5x86-100. 4ram -> 20ram. Hell, I even cut out a hole in the top of the case to exteriorly mount two 3gig HDDs (my personal favorite hack).) I say simply fold them back in to the rest of the government. I'm sure someone needs new stuff.
Of course I would like to own one of those plasma displays. (Yeah it looks like photogenic equipment was one of the requirements for this.)
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:2)
any links on your research?
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They kind of splurged (Score:2)
Was this stuff really necessary? Also, couldn't a plasma screen be easily used in another place? The time zone maps, those were probably made especially for Y2K, which is just wasteful.
beowulf blocking (Score:2)
Cyber Courts for Cyber Law (Score:2)
The right and timely thing to do would be to turn it into a civil courtroom where a Dept. of Commerce Administrative Judge would be able to hear/view/browse evidence, hear arguments and render judgment regarding things like domain name disputes, peering agreements gone wrong, and all the other administrivia that a functional marketplace and public forum need to have sorted out by a court, so that everyone knows where they stand.
In other words a cyber court for cyberspace.
The Governments' role in enabling a functional exchange economy has always been primarily one of adjudicating disputes rather than laying down the law. And I certainly think that an Online court dedicated to disputes that occur over Internet related issues makes a lot of sense.
Certainly, only a court that is online can hope to react with the speed demanded by the environment.
Re:Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bun (Score:2)
The problem is that while these techniques produce a good solution relatively fast, they aren't guaranteed to find the optimal solution.
Finding the perfect solution ultimately means checking all the combinations, which could take a rather long time.....
Re:NooooooOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!!!!!! (Score:2)
Government Involvement in the Net (Score:3)
Walt
Political ignorance is the real problem (Score:4)
The most serious problem, however, is that politicians and policymakers here in Washington do not grasp even the most basic technical ideas propelling the information revolution.
In other words, the conspiracy theorists who long believed that the government would use Y2K (and the Y2K "bunker") as an excuse to dismantle American institutions had it backwards: we are not in danger of elite or intelligence government agents making decisions, we are in danger because the government is financially and technologically muscular, but philosophically and intellectually malnourished.
A. Keiper [mailto]
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society [tecsoc.org]
Top 10 things to do with an old Y2K command bunker (Score:5)
Anyway, here are the top ten things you can do on a Y2K-command-center-cum-Beowulf-cluster:
10. Solve the 50-city travelling salesman problem
9. Solve the halting problem
8. Run a Gameboy emulator within an C64 emulator within a Mac emulator within DOS installed within a VMWare partition on Windows NT installed within a VMWare partition on Linux
7. Calculate all the digits of pi
6. Find the first occurance of the current Linux source in those digits
5. Compile Mozilla in less than 8 hours
4. Trounce team Slashdot on distributed.net
3. Forget "globally coordinated" - DoS Yahoo to its knees all by yourself
2. Open up a Quake cafe
1. Execute a while(1) { } loop in six seconds