The part that I find most interesting as a former enterprise systems administrator from the 90's is that the employer owns the device but does not have a pass code for it. Is this the normal IT policy for these kinds of devices?
It's bad security to tell your manager your passcode/passwords, even for accounts they can get into through admin channels. The risk isn't the manager, the risk is that someone overhears you telling them the password, finds the piece of paper it's written on, etc.
I always wondered if the problem with the shaped charge was that the battery served to keep it from somehow being mechanically detonated rather than the battery being used to provide power for detonation. Seemed like the kind of red herring this bomb maker would use but I can't imagine how that would be hidden from x-rays.
As a small business owner, my main concern is that there are no assurances that my competitors large and small will not be able to see my contracts/suppliers/budgets/sales/processes at some point due to this ambiguous 'disclosure' mentioned or perhaps through some flaw that allows access to the data collected from the computers used in my small business.
I must be missing something here since I know Microsoft wants Windows to be used for businesses and the privacy of this information is vital to that.
I'll get the popcorn ready while waiting to see what hospital IT have to say about this.
They have already banned use of Microsoft's new mobile Outlook apps (iOS,Android,Win Phone) when they found out that these are actually thin clients to a cloud service that performs MITM on the hospital Outlook server to download, store and processes all email (the cloud servers aren't even fully Microsoft--they became Microsoft's via acquisition). And of course it stores usernames and passwords in order to accomplish this (confirmed by common sense, obtuse fine print and deceptive non-denials by Microsoft support). The penalties in HIPAA and HITECH aren't jokes (and now include jail time).
I received the request to sign this recently and while I think it is good, I was concerned about its effect on the ability to pursue research into creating autonomous weapons that seek and destroy autonomous weapons. I don't know where to draw the line. Unlike nuclear and chemical WMD the barrier to entry in this may be pretty low in the near future. Therefore my greatest concern is for defense. Though I don't want the machines made at all, that won't stop others from making them. It's a tough one.
Most private investigators make all their money gathering evidence on worker's comp fraudsters for big insurance companies. My dad's been a licensed PI for over 25 years now and domestic cases are few and far between (maybe 1-2 per year) because Mrs Smith pissed off about her cheating husband doesn't have the cash that Bigco Insurance does and PIs charge by the hour. The insurance company has the cost of hiring a PI for 3-4 days so they can win fraud suits with the video evidence built into their cost structure. Unless the payout from a prenup is really big, it's not going to be worth hiring a PI to follow your husband around after work for a week.
(Sidenote: If you're ever dumb enough to try to commit worker's comp fraud, you'd better keep up the act everywhere. Don't limp pathetically to and from your car at the doctor's office, then get home and work on your car or jump on the trampoline you have in your backyard. True story.)
As to the sidenote, it must suck for the people who have periodic pain bad enough for them to be unable to hold a manual labor job but who can still have bouts of living a normal life. Either they have to forgo the moments of freedom they receive or risk losing any disability.
Eh, it's not longterm disability cases that the insurance companies hire PIs on. Hiring a PI is expensive. The insurance companies don't do it until they are already positive the person is defrauding them. The percentage of cases my dad's worked where the claimant was not very obviously faking is vanishingly small. Like less than 0.5%.
By the time the PI is involved, the insurance company is already ready to sue, they just want extra evidence to solidify their case. They're nearly all acute injury cases - "I slipped and fell at work, and now my back's out and I can't work for six months" and they hobble their way into the doctor's office leaning on a cane when less than an hour ago they were doing heavy yard work (or jumping on said trampoline!) with no difficulty.
Believe me, I have sympathy for people with chronic pain/invisible illnesses. I have fibromyalgia, my mom has myasthenia gravis. We are not the kind of people that wind up with PIs following them around with a camera.
Wow! Derek has been entertaining me online for nearly thirty years now and instead of that realization making me feel old, it actually makes me feel kind of young.
The parts without the words "I" or "me" sprinkled all over them made it an insightful article from someone who's opinion is based on substantial knowledge of this subject. Good or bad.
Hi Derek, I know you must be reading these :)
I have tried for two years to monetize my programming blog without making $100 in that entire time while I make a nice living from ads on my other sites.
I save RAW hard drives via a post I wrote 2 years ago. It's not really a programming post on my programming blog but like forums, you have little control over the demographic that ends up flocking to your blog. Especially if it is eclectic like mine.
There are thousands of visitors daily to the post and I get emails and try to answer comments everyday.
Ads, affiliate links, Amazon, eBay, Adsense, BSA, direct ads, CPA, CPM, nothing works on my programming blog with thousands of visitors each day. Extensive a/b testing is inconclusive due to lack of actions.
So now I only have a bitcoin address in that particular post and hope one day to get something from that :)
Ads do not work for all niches on the internet. Unless, of course, you want to deceive your users and trick them into clicking on something that is not what they think it is. That always works, for awhile at least.
In the meantime, I'll keep helping the people who end up there for free as best I can because in the end, that is in line with what I have hoped the internet would be.
