PC#1 complete. PC#54 (still infected) re-infects PC#1. Even if you turn them all off and only put them back on the network after they are wiped: are you sure you found *every* PC with the infection? Are you sure they won't get reinfected again (is your baseline immune to the infection vector?)

Being completely naive and giving them the benefit of the doubt: someone suggested they planned a replacement cycle anyway (so had a budget approved) with w7 machines already - this expensive fix may have bought them a year more on one-foot-in-the-grave hardware. We're also assuming they had the staff/skill to do the work (unlikely) or to oversee the contractors and have the skill to verify the contractors did the job 100% correctly (unlikely). Plus everyone has to sign up to the risk of "we should spend heaps and if this happens again or something similar happens we all look like morons.."

W7 may not have been immune to the infection but given everything I've read in this thread, I'm leaning more towards speeding up replacement as the simplest approach here. But looks terrible as a news headline.

In Canada, I've read that doctors who are retiring often 'sell' the records they've kept over the years to the new doctor who takes over the practice - no wonder they'd prefer not to give patience full access. Years ago the values I'd heard mentioned was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for these records.. in a way not too different from estimating the value for intangible 'goodwill' when selling a business.

Arguing on the "positive" side of preventing access: personally, I document things differently if it's customer facing vs. internal notes. Selling the records does give the older doctors a little more financial security in their retirement. Giving people full access will probably cause a few headaches for the doctors - imagine if someone wrote "5th visit, all tests came back negative, issue may be psychosomatic.. patient however became almost when this was listed as a possibility."

While transparency doesn't fix all problems, I'd prefer if the records were open: if we're avoiding the hard talks/arguments because 4% flip out when a reference is made to a mental condition or unpopular diagnosis is made, if doctors are relying on selling records to supplement retirement income because they don't have enough (really??)... I think these are problems to try and fix; not sweep under the rug. These medical records are literally life and death: I'd say open them up. Maybe if everyone had more access, we could possibly find the level of care improving in different ways. It's certainly worth a trial somewhere.

I'm no expert, but I have to call bullshit on this.

We've deployed an internet-facing Sharepoint (not MOSS, v3) server that can be used on any random PC. You do need domain credentials for access though, if you've restricted access. It does take more work to set it up this way.

And the search feature in v3 is currently the quickest search we have. With a few hundred documents, we get search results in around a second - it takes longer to render the page - Google / Windows Desktop Search are a bit slower on searches.

I'm not a Sharepoint pro, but I support a few v2 sites and use a couple v3 ones.

This seemed a bit high to me, and I think the $585M is the total amount charged to all conspiring companies to date:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41689/118/

$31M seems a little low but a) they plead guilty and b) they assisted in building the case against the other companies. Still, for a $70B (2006) market, even if they were a small player they seemed to have gotten off a bit easier than I'd expect.

Aha - free karma, although pointless, is mine today!

Source: http://xkcd.com/502/

I haven't posted to Slashdot in ages... but wow. This is one of the best analogies I've seen on here (despite the lack of cars). It moved me.

Roland engaged with the world and you're exactly right, he added colour to it. People who tore him down (IMHO rightfully when he lifted large amounts of text, less so when he cleaned up his act) never contributed in that way. The Roland-haters actually bothered me far more than he did and made slashdot less enjoyable to read.

RIP Roland.