Erlang Solutions will be providing the support structure for this, you can look at the packages offered here: http://www.erlang-solutions.com/section/84/support-plan-overview.

The tool just teaches you how to redistrict - but has absolutely no real-life outcome. "It's full of smoke-filled back room dealmaking by political insiders with little public input" - highly doubtful that this will ever change.

It's like watching Man vs Wild.

All your base are belong to us.

"The intruders do not appear to have stolen passwords of Gmail users, and the company quickly started making significant changes to the security of its networks after the intrusions."

"Does not appear" falls kinda short of a satisfactory statement. Considering the intruders took two days to get the source code, one wonders what else they were up to in that period of time. I'm changing my gmail password now..

From TFA: "By clicking on a link [sent on Microsoft Messenger] and connecting to a 'poisoned' Web site, the employee inadvertently permitted the intruders to gain access to his (or her) personal computer and then to the computers of a critical group of software developers at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Ultimately, the intruders were able to gain control of a software repository used by the development team."

I don't know about you, but I'm quite shocked at how an innocuous thing like this can lead to the theft of "one of Google's crown jewels". Are their security practises that lax over there in Google China? And, considering that this happened to Google - a leading Tech-savvy company - how many other corporations and conglomerates have already been hit by a similar attack? Banks? Military? Oil and Gas? Heck, MSFT?? After all, TFA reported that it was a "lightning raid that lasted less than two days".

And yeah, while TFA sounds like Luddite fear-mongering, I think it's a valid concern for everyone.

TFA says "The person was able to play with it and see the iPhone 4.0 features. Then, Apple remotely killed the phone before we got access to it."

It's interesting that Apple has this killswitch -- looks like a good security feature to have. I wonder if regular iPhones have it, and if it's available as a 'value-added-service'. Previously, the killswitch was only there to disable apps on the device.

As a side note, Apple builds in a bunch of other phone-home elements in their prototype/developer devices. They get cellphone operators who offer the iPhone to do a lot of field testing for them. Where I work, one of the dev people said pretty much everything you do on that phone gets reported back to Apple. Maybe that's how it is with other companies' products as well.

In TFA, JWZ said "It was ridiculously difficult, because I refused to fork the MacOS X code base: the desktop and the phone are both supposedly within spitting distance of being the same operating system, so it should be a small matter of ifdefs to have the same app compile as a desktop application and an iPhone application, right?"

FLAMESUIT ON
At the risk of being shot down by every MacOS/iPhone hacker here... There are two main points that JWZ makes which are quite interesting:

1) I refused to fork the MacOS X code base
2) the desktop and the phone are both supposedly within spitting distance of being the same operating system

So the beef he has, while totally valid is because of:

a) refusal to fork the codebase
b) assumed that both iPhone OS == MacOS X

Hmm. I understand the refusal to fork the codebase, but if that's what's _required_ then that's what needs to be done to have the app on the iPhone. And what's the other bit about "assume" making an ass out of you and me? Ditto for the OpenGL/OpenGLES rant...
FLAMESUIT OFF

I used to work as a helpdesk consultant -- this was waay back 13 years ago -- and part of my duties was to lug bigass monitors for the company from one workstation to another (they were a publishing house with a lot of DTP guys). One day I lifted a monitor the wrong way, and long story short -- the back pain stayed with me right up until a couple of months ago.

Used to be I couldn't lie face-down for more than 10 minutes before my back would start hurting. And I couldn't carry my kids much. One day the pain got so bad I went to a chiro, and the guy did manage to straighten out my back. Hurt like heck when he "realigned" my spine, but that 13-year-injury is no longer there.

So yeah, I used to think they're bogus. But now I dont. YMMV.

I don't know about you, but I've become somewhat jaded when it comes to standards like these. Usually, there's one or more parties who stand to gain financially if the standards are implemented (naturally). But when those who benefit are those that impose the standards themselves, doesn't it become somewhat of a slippery slope?

Where I work, there was this company XXX who was touting some kind of solution to protect mobile phone users; if your phone is stolen, and you report it to the operator, there was some mechanism in place that would lock the phone when it was powered up. This could be done because each phone has a unique identifier, kind of like a MAC address. Problem was, the technical platform was supposedly half-baked and too pricey, so many of the operators rejected it. But then, they got the idea to approach the government - and lo and behold, the powers-that-be came up with some regulation and standards that all operators had to comply to. Best of all -- we had to use Company XXX's technology!

So the question is -- do the members (or more likely, ASHRAE's Technical Committee members) stand to gain financially by implementing this? I would think so, since ASHRAE's made up of persons in the HVAC and other related fields. Members will gain access to "many opportunities to participate in the development of that technology"

After skimming that report, and comparing it with what's on the Cryptohippie website - it looks to me that the document is more of a marketing tool to promote their company. Am I the only one who thinks this?

Here's what the group claims to do: "Cryptohippie USA, Inc. exists to protect individuals and organizations against attacks on privacy by agents of industrial and competitive espionage, organized crime, oppressive governments and even hired hackers. We do this with the best of encryption technologies and a closed group of highly protected networks - for your peace of mind and safety."

Here's what the report posits:

* "In an Electronic Police State...[every electronic flotsam you produce is] criminal evidence, and they are held in searchable databases, for a long long time."
* "Whoever holds this evidence can make you look very, very bad"
* The State knows everything you do, a-la Big Brother

They are trying to frame this paranoia into a neat little package, which sets you in the right mood to accept what they have to sell - which is protection against attacks on your privacy.

Classic marketing technique? Sorry, it just looks like another insurance agent to me.

From TFA: "Now, I realize this is a far stretch from a working model to predict epidemics. But, it sure does look cool. I also I think it will be a good base for some more interesting work."

Yes, you are right. But I don't think we should be dissing the chap for trying something new. Yes, maybe the the author was trying to up his coolness factor, but kudos to the guy for putting the two disparate pieces of technology together to visualize something about H1N1.

Two years of work experience will do more for you in the long run. Plus, you could always take the masters at some later point in time.

Also, if you're up to it, there's plenty of colleges that'd let you do your MBA on a part-time basis, or at least schedule your classes around your work requirements.

Back when I was doing my Bachelor's degree (full-time course), I also had a regular 40-hour-per-week day job, and was also raising a baby daughter at the same time.

Two words: time management.