They can't seem to beat Apple at its own game, though. I don't see that as a corporate failing, rather the inability to work with an unstable element. (Image, the perception of cool)
There is a largely-held perception that Apple's success is due to slick advertising. Where Apple has excelled is in product management as a function of marketing. They have powerfully identified the feature set and price points people will pay for their products. They have accurately forecast demand so that they can leverage volume purchasing of components to keep the price at those acceptable points while building in a healthy profit margin. They are firing on all cylinders, and even a few cylinders nobody thought existed.
Meanwhile, Ballmer has ignored the trends and innovations of other companies until success in the marketplace forces him to mount a too-late response (Zune, Windows Store, Windows Phone 7, et. al.). Consider this 2007 interview where Ballmer mocked the iPhone's prospects. For him to do that means that he was ignoring competitive intelligence studies that he should have been taking seriously. Even then, his marketing department should have been focus-grouping on the iPhone to determine what the demand was and projecting out where it could go. Had he read what the competitive intelligence studies would have told him, his response would have been to acknowledge the vacuum in existing smartphone technology and hint about forthcoming Microsoft innovations to come in that space.
In years to come, the wikipedia definition for the word "hubris" will contain a link to that video clip.
Seth
....but iPhone 4 does run iOS 5.
I am being horribly pedantic here, but for the sake of providing context to this discussion on older phones supporting OS updates, I'd like to point out that the iPhone 3gs also runs iOS5.1. That device was released in 2009, btw.
seth
watch the attack and start blacklisting IP ranges.
In most cases, your customers are going to exist in one or a few countries. It would be valuable ahead of time to add redirect rules to your iptables for entire ranges of IP addresses located in countries that don't host your customers. Redirect these IP ranges to a sacrificial server on a different pipe to the backbone. That way, when some of your customers are abroad and need access to your services, they can still get some amount of response.
Additionally, you can proactively parse your user accounts for IP addresses and build a whitelist ruleset for your iptables to implement in a defcon 0 situation. Don't use this as a normal operations mode, just when the shit has really hit the fan and you need to block everyone except your known-good account holders.
Seth
I live near a major highway and hear all the time about major drug busts that occurred because less-than-intelligent traffickers got pulled over because of something stupid like speeding.
In truth, a lot of those coincidental pull-overs that result in big drug bust are due to the work of informants and other surveillance. The bust is executed as a routing traffic stop in order to protect the method the police used to learn about the drug operation. This is in order to continue to use that method against the same organization or to protect the life of an informant.
In the case of this iPad, it's very possible that it was planted there by an informant at the request of the police in order to cover the real tracks that led them to the drug cache.
Seth
It's easy to criticize the TSA's policies as being circumventable, but it's not like maximizing security is the only directive (or even the primary constraint) they have to operate under. They have to keep things as secure as possible while at the same time keeping it at least minimally practical to fly, otherwise the entire airline industry would go out of business, defeating the purpose of the exercise.
What you say is true. The point I was attempting to make in my observation is that we're expending non-trivial resources in security implementations that can be defeated by the casual layperson. That fact guarantees our security is ineffective against determined attackers.
Our air traffic is no safer than it was prior to 9/11. My suggestion would be to return to that security model and update it with simple in-air systems that prevent hijackers from controlling an airplane. The TSA's $8.1 billion budget could then be reallocated to covert spying operations to disrupt and prevent future attacks of all kinds.
You've hit the nail on the head by saying maximized security is unfeasible for air travel to exist. However, a hyper-expensive, insecure system is a modern-day Maginot Line that is quite permeable to hostiles:
"The Maginot Line was impervious to most forms of attack, and had state-of-the-art living conditions for garrisoned troops, including air conditioning, comfortable eating areas and underground railways. However, it proved costly to keep, consumed a vast amount of money and subsequently led to other parts of the French Armed Forces being underfunded."
Seth
More to the point, the terrorists weren't afraid to bring box cutters onto an aircraft; the metal detectors were obviously not a deterrent.
At the time of the 9/11/2001 attacks, it was legal to bring a box cutter aboard an airplane.
Another way this security theater is easily bypassed is in the case of liquids. Currently, the TSA will only allow a passenger through the security check with 100ml containers of any given liquid. Want to bring an entire liter of liquid aboard an airplane? Just go through the security checkpoint ten times, each time carrying a single 100ml. You'll have a liter inside security. You could also have ten friends each bring in 100ml and combine it when you get past the security checkpoints. This is all fake. It's all BS masquerading as doing something for the sake of security.
Seth
They told her to contact homeland security. She did and nothing came of it.
Really, the majority of drone strikes are largely undocumented. It works out best for all parties involved.
Seth
How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's a known problem... don't worry about it."
