After being so upset with his cheating class, why does the professor offer a large time period to re-take the test? It seems like he is baiting the students to cheat again. Can't he set it during a normal class period where everyone takes it at once?
You act like TSA agents came up with the idea to grope and body scan everyone in the airport. This is a huge pain the in ass for them, and they know that it poses a health risk for themselves. However, this is their job, and they are carrying out orders from their superiors. So there's no reason to make snide remarks to the agents.
> However, this is their job, and they are carrying out orders from their superiors.
I fundamentally oppose this reasoning as justification for doing something you think is wrong.
> So there's no reason to make snide remarks to the agents.
Saying this as you out opt isn't snide: "I'm a little concerned about the radiation myself but I can't imagine what it's like for you to stand near this machine all day. It must be worrying".
I would argue that many of these people are told that the machines are perfectly safe and don't even consider that they are being exposed while standing outside.
Exactly. Personally I wish that, legally, using the Nuremberg ("just doing my job") Defense would get you a much more severe sentence. If no one were willing to do evil things because "it's their job" most of the biggest atrocities we can think of couldn't have been committed and we would have never heard of many of the most evil people in history. None of them could have accomplished anything all by themselves.
While this opinion is clearly unpopular, to a certain extend I agree with the johnglasgow. I hope that I would quit if I were in a similar situation as the TSA employees, but I'm fortunate to have finished college and actually have an interest in a relatively lucrative field (computer programming, natch).
While, technically, they might use the Nuremberg defense, I think bringing that up is a little harsh. Some of the TSA workers probably do disagree, but some of them also have been working in this job since before the scanners were introduced, or before other less controversial practices were introduced. If you have a stable job and not too many other prospects, it is particularly difficult to leave, due to human inertia etc... I know how this can be as I'd like to find a new job right now too, because I really hate using CVS where I work now :)
In addition, if they are less educated, they might genuinely believe that what they are doing is helping prevent terrorism. I'm sure there is plenty of mild to heavy indoctrination done during training, and I doubt that many of the TSA agents at the gate are reading Bruce Schneier.
I think it would behoove HNers to have a little more compassion for these people, it is highly likely that they are less fortunate than most of HN.
Needless to say, I disagree with the TSA policies. And actually I think "snide" remarks about the possible health dangers, and educating other passengers similar to a story posted yesterday, is great. Unfortunately, I think comments about the safety of the machines are probably pretty infrequent, and that the agents probably get a lot more incoherent flak than that about all the inane procedures.
"There is no point having the optimal colo between TSE and NYSE because they have no overlapping hours nor do they have anything that trades on both and is fungible."
There is tremendous overlap amongst various stock exchanges, OTC's, dark pools (12% of US trading), and of course there's Forex which is 24/7.
Quantitative trading companies are spending more and more money to trade faster, because the barrier to entry continues to plummet. For example, they used to install software programs on computers, now they actually hard-wire programs directly to motherboards to shorten the execution time. As the article mentioned, trading firms are investing heavily into expensive fiber optic lines instead of traditional internet. For these reasons and many more, the fraction of a penny that each trade earns them also continues to grow smaller as the arbitrage that they trade on grows smaller because every firm is investing into the same expensive strategies.
The users are not at fault here. Even a SSH or VPN will leave them vulnerable to attacks. Companies (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have to increase their own security, because they are the only ones that can fix this problem.
Sure, but there are about a million times as many people able and motivated to do the wifi-neighbor attack than the stalker-ISP-gnome attack. And as people with true identities in a stable position of authority at as service provider, the gnomes are easier to find and hold accountable.
This difference -- from random anonymous stranger whose only invested in software, to physical infrastructure with paid staff -- is also one reason bank phishing attacks happen via websites and not actual storefronts made to look like real banks.
If the only threat to Twitter and Facebook users was ISP-gnomes, the websites could put off fixing the issue for another decade.
I absolutely agree on fault. My initial recommendation was for them to refrain from using Facebook at Starbucks until that happens -- regardless of fault, users are the ones that are vulnerable.
Let's say I go to the mechanic with a light on in the dashboard, and he'll immediately notice the gas cap isn't tightly secured so it set off a car sensor. He probably went back to his mechanic friends, told them the story, and everyone laughed.
The computer and everything about it is our profession/hobby/passion and that is the main reason we know so much more than everyone else about it.
Arrington notes at the bottom of the post that this WSJ article was published after the TechCrunch article and "was supposed to be published earlier this week, and wasn’t". He goes on to say (and it certainly seems likely to be the case) that it probably would not have been published at all had he not written this post.
Another explanation is just that the article was going to be delayed for some non-sinister reason. Then WSJ pushed it out the door in response to the TechCrunch article because, had they published it in (say) a week, it would have looked like they wrote the whole article to answer TechCrunch (as opposed to now where is just looks like the released it to answer TechCrunch).
An IPO for Facebook would mean losing all of their top engineers who are hanging around until they can cash out. Everyone will leave for the next hot startup and to work on their own projects. Zuck is smart for dragging the process out.
Who?
Do you know this or is it simply conjecture. Do you know for sure that Joe Hewitt is there just for the IPO?
Also, if the contracts were created correctly there should be an earnout to prevent just such a thing if it was a serious risk.
Many companies have been through an IPO with out losing their top talent, perhaps you should look at GOOG and see how detrimental the IPO was to that stock.
