Jihad needs scientists

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6ldg$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

In article <es1h1n$89d$2@blue.rahul.net>,
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
[.....]
This is likely a very different matter than the money leaving the account
it was in. When I put money in my bank accound at the "electronic
teller", I punch in the amount in the checks. The bank shows my balance
increased by the amount I entered. They actually give two numbers. The
first is the new balance the second is how much is "available". When I
first started with the bank the available amount would only increase the
next day after they've looked at the contents. These days the numbers are
the same.

Do krw's suggestion and google "check 21". That's what is getting
advertised here which will allow anybody to deposit via a scanner.
Retail and commercial stores are already doing this.

As I pointed out this is more for the deposit end than the withdrawing.
Your bank has to also agree before money can leave your account. You can
pick the bank with the better policies.


[....]

Wait a while, then. All of my monthly bills now say this.

I will take some sort of action if they start any nonsense like that with
me.

I've been trying to tell you that there is no sort of action to take

Yes you've been trying to tell me many things. This is just another thing
that you are trying to tell me that is incorrect. You even followed this
with an example of something else that can be done. Read your own text
below.

other than the strategies I've been talking about in this thread drift.
I fired American Express credit card because this is the only way
they process receipts. Since their check-handling section was
not doing things well, I fired them. I got another credit card
whose data bases have never seen my finiancial key information.

Until another method of payment is developed, that's the way it
is going to stay. Now this approach is not a viable one for
people who workb because it take too much wallclock time to
pay the credit card bill.

[.....]

I thought about having two banks but that won't work in this area.
Banks change their names and merge and split honoring the rules of
musical chairs.

You can move some of your money into a bank at some distance to the little
backwater you live in.

[....]
The Fed is attempting to make the process all electronic. I trust humans
about as little as I trust computers so I don't see much of a change in
security in this. Back when everything was on paper, someone could empty
your account with a fraud. All that has happened is that the tools have
changed a bit.

Not only have the tools changed, but the speed of the transactions
are now in picoseconds and the number of transactions made has
increased enormously/minute.

Those are issues of quantity not quality.

Exactly. Quality is out the window.

[Blame my fingers for that one; I didn't do it.]

Since you didn't put in a real argument against, I assume you are now
granting the point.

In addition, no human is in the middle
of the process so there is nobody to notice if something goes wrong
and push the stop button.

That person in the middle was more likely to make an error than prevent
one,

The sole purpose of having that person in the middle was to slow
the process down. This was a good thing. Eliminating it has opened
all flavors of worm cans.

The person was a major source of error. They slowed it down and increased
the risk. Nothing but a little subjective comfort is gained by having the
person in the loop. Unless you go to the bank hourly, a person is more
than fast enough to completely mess things up while you aren't looking.

a lot of this identify theft in the news is possible because
no human needs to OK transactions. Banking is no longer local
and most of it now is impersonal.

The identity theft crime has been going on from before when there were
computers. The problem is that people allow important information about
themselves to be stolen from obvious places.

Not any more. Eliminating the requirement of human interaction has
caused the rate of incidences to increase astronmically.

I grant that there has been an increase but the tide is turning:

From here:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06026/644909.stm

**** begin



Pittsburgh, Pa.
Identity theft complaints still rising, but rate slows

Thursday, January 26, 2006
By Christopher Conkey, The Wall Street Journal

Businesses, law-enforcement agencies and consumers may be beginning to
turn the tide in the war against identity theft, data from the Federal
Trade Commission suggest.

Identity-theft complaints were up again last year to nearly 256,000, the
FTC said, but that was only 3.5 percent higher than the year before. In
2004, complaints rose by 15 percent and in 2003 by 33 percent.

Complaints about credit-card fraud -- the largest subset of identity theft
-- declined 1.3 percent last year to 67,228, from 68,113 in 2004, and were
also lower than the 2003 level. Total consumer-fraud complaints --
including identity theft -- totaled 686,683 last year, up slightly from
2004.

Industry officials and analysts say the development and widespread
adoption of antifraud technologies are responsible for lower levels of
card fraud. Visa USA Inc. said investments in its risk-management systems
have reduced fraud levels to six cents for every $100 processed, down from
12 cents a decade ago.

Separately, the FTC is expected to announce Thursday tough action against
a company at the center of the personal-data industry. ChoicePoint Inc. is
expected to agree to pay a multimillion-dollar penalty to settle alleged
data-security violations stemming from a yearlong investigation by federal
regulators, according to a person briefed on the matter. ChoicePoint
spokesman Chuck Jones declined to comment.

ChoicePoint, which sells consumer data to financial institutions and
government agencies, last February disclosed that criminals posing as
legitimate businessmen had fraudulently obtained personal information on
145,000 people. That figure was later revised to 162,000 people.

In order to prevent fraud, many companies have turned to real-time
fraud-scoring systems, which -- much like credit-scoring models -- assign
three-digit scores to credit applications based on a variety of data
confirmations and behavioral examinations. Steven Gal, vice president for
corporate development at ID Analytics, a San Diego company that provides
fraud-detection services, says his company screened over 250 million
applications last year for potential fraud, a fourfold increase from 2004.

The FTC figures offer a rare bit of hopeful news for consumers concerned
that the recent string of security breaches at credit-card processors and
banks will place them at risk, and for a financial industry continually
under attack by computer fraud and other scams.

To be sure, identity theft remains a huge threat that costs businesses $50
billion a year and plunges victims into a draining, time-consuming battle
to eradicate fraudulent activity. The FTC will release a survey this
spring, but its most recent figures show that 10 million people, or
roughly 4.6 percent of the adult population, are affected by identity
theft each year, and that victims spend an average of $500 and 30 hours to
clear their records.

The FTC report, based on data the agency receives from consumers, comes
after a year of high-profile security lapses that exposed personal
information belonging to more than 50 million consumers and familiarized
many people with the crime of identity theft. Just Wednesday,
financial-services provider Ameriprise Financial Inc. announced that the
theft of one of its employees' laptops had compromised the data of some
226,000 clients and current and former workers.

Such breaches have led to an outcry from consumer advocates, and lawmakers
across the country moved to enact stiffer penalties and stronger
protections. Legislation in Congress has stalled, but many states have
enacted laws that force companies to disclose breaches or allow consumers
to shield their credit reports from unauthorized access.

FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras stressed how important it is for
consumers to file complaints when they are victimized, saying they
"provide ammunition that helps law enforcers fight fraud and identity
theft."

When the agency receives identity-theft complaints, they are analyzed,
clustered with similar ones and made available to law-enforcement
officials to assist with investigations and criminal trials. Betsy Broder,
the attorney in charge of the FTC's identity-theft program, says the
agency's database now contains more than one million complaints, which are
used by law enforcement in investigations and criminal trials.

The FTC's complaint data showed that identity theft accounted for 37
percent of total fraud complaints. For the fourth year in a row,
Washington, D.C., was the leader in total per-capita fraud complaints, and
several Western cities led in the category of identity-theft complaints,
including Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, identity-theft complaints surged in hurricane-ravaged
Louisiana, rising 26 percent last year, while Mississippi saw an 8 percent
increase. Complaints related to "government documents or benefits" in
Louisiana more than doubled, however, to 551 from 247, possibly an
indicator of post-Katrina fraud.

Overall, the drop in credit-card fraud complaints was offset by an
increase in complaints about the misuse of government records, and fraud
involving things such as medical records, legal documents and fitness-club
memberships. Bank-, phone- and utilities-related complaints stayed roughly
the same, although complaints about electronic fund transfers rose.

Sophisticated identity thieves are always probing for vulnerabilities. One
troubling trend emerged late last year, when the Securities and Exchange
Commission warned that identity thieves were using keystroke-detecting
programs to drain online brokerage accounts. Similarly, federal banking
regulators have prodded financial institutions to move beyond
"single-factor" authentication, which only requires a user name and
password to gain access to accounts, by the end of this year.

For many consumer advocates, the focus is squarely on financial
institutions to do more to catch identity thieves in the act. Beth Givens,
director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, says "there are some
technology-based tools they can use, and there's some evidence showing
that these tools are having marked effect. But sadly for victims, identity
theft remains rampant."

(John R. Wilke contributed to this article.)
--
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kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6hu9$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

In article <es45mi$fiu$3@blue.rahul.net>,
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
In article <es3r5k$8ss_001@s823.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:
In article <es1hfu$89d$4@blue.rahul.net>,
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
snip

You don't have to have it connected. You just walk into the bank and pay
it by talking to the teller.

It doesn't work that way. Which piece of paper do you fill out
to pay the credit card?

I don't fill out any paper. The bank my mother uses has tellers that you
can just hand your credit card bill to show them some good ID and enter
the PIN number on the little machine and they do the rest.

So there is no hard copy evidence of that transaction? How is she
going to pay if there aren't any tellers?

They give a paper receipt and/or mark it in her bank book.

If there aren't any horses I won't be able to play polo. Since there is
still a polo game, someone will come up with the horses.

Do you include the credit number on
this piece of paper? If you do, now there is a document that will
be scanned into bits that has both your account number and your
card number.

But it never sees your home computer and you have never transmitted the
data electronically your self.

So your vital financial data keys are on somebody else's computer?

Only enough information is on the one bank's computer to do what that one
bank knows about. The information about you has always been stored
somehow at the bank. Back before there were computers there were
signature cards and secret questions.

Why do you feel that this data is secure?

Partly because I don't think you wrote the software (sorry but I just had
to)

The bank has a very strong interest in keeping its information secure.
The market drives them towards security. I worry a lot more about some
sort of inside job at either the bank or some government agency than about
some electronic attack.

There is a large body of science on the subject of sending authentication
without tranfering information. People like banks have been the driving
force behind this research. It allows transactions to happen without
giving away any data.


[....]

Go talk to the bank. Your parents are over 55. There are usually special
programs. You have to ask to get them though.

It's no longer a local bank. Big banks don't give a shit about
piddly small accounts. Or haven't you noticed that yet?

Did you go talk to them yet. The big banks are starting to get interested
again. A few have found out that even CEOs have mothers. Wells Fargo
lost a whole bunch of business accounts because they messed with the small
savers. In this case it was employees not CEOs that they were messing
with. I believe they changed policy. This sort of thing will keep some
level of service available unless all the banks get owned by a small
group.

In the next few years I expect to see some action on this front.

There is somebody in her area trying to start a local bank, but
I haven't heard if they're even getting started.

/BAH

--
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kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6ggr$8qk_003@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

In article <es45pa$fiu$4@blue.rahul.net>,
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
[.....]
If it's a rumor, then the experts believe it, too.

That happens all the time. Lots of people get fooled by good sounding
stuff that they have never really experimented on.

This radio station has experts who know the subject. For example,
and IRS person is on for shows about income taxes. A lawyer for
estate planning. A doctor for medical subjects. Computer geeks
for computer usages. And the people are local which means the
people know each other. This station does a lot of shows
with the retire auld farts in mind. There still is a Santa
Claus in some areas of the US.

If you had google, I'd suggest you google on "N rays"

*** begin insert ***
RenĂŠ Prosper Blondlot (1849-1930) was a French physicist who claimed to
have discovered a new type of radiation, shortly after Roentgen had
discovered X-rays. He called it the N-ray, after Nancy, the name of the
town and the university where he lived and worked. Blondlot was trying to
polarize X-rays when he claimed to have discovered his new form of
radiation. Dozens of other scientists confirmed the existence of N-rays in
their own laboratories. However, N-rays don't exist. How could so many
scientists be wrong? They deceived themselves into thinking they were
seeing something when in fact they were not. They saw what they wanted to
see with their instruments, not what was actually there (or, in this case,
what was not there
**********

This sort of thing goes on all the time. Even experts have biases and
fool themselves all the time. Some do so more than others. For example
Rummy was supposed to be an expert on things military. Can you think of
anything he got right?

--
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kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <bbdd5$45e64f23$4fe74e3$22224@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
nonsense@unsettled.com <nonsense@unsettled.com> wrote:

Ken Smith wrote:
In article <8ab6a$45e5c387$4fe73b0$13095@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
nonsense@unsettled.com <nonsense@unsettled.com> wrote:

Ken Smith wrote:

In article <es3v6k$8qk_001@s823.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

There exists a Murphy's Law corrollary that guarantees each time
a file is opened an error will be introduced.

This is simply bogus BS.

Any time you open a file in a writable mode an error may
be introduced.

The "in a writable mode" makes this a very different statement.

Now consider your linux system. Every time access any file,
changes are written. Believe it or not, an error may be
introduced. Knowing Murphy as intimately as I do, some
significant number will end up introducing an error. When
it is, in my case, the error will be important.

That is a case where the file has been modified not merely opened for
reading.

ls -lu

I assume you had a point.

[....]

BAH's career included a requirement that she be paranoid
about all things that can go wrong. There's no sense arguing
these issues because in the different worlds you live in
each of you is right.

Her's must be some other planet.

Your definition of planet and mine differ.

Therefor yours is wrong.



--
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kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6h92$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

In article <es5i08$ujr$3@blue.rahul.net>,
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
[....]
The "in a writable mode" makes this a very different statement.

Each time you copy, the file has been in a writable mode.

The output side must be writable but not the input side. This means that
there may be an error in the copy you make but you don't change the source
file. When the copy process does the verify, the error will almost
certainly be detected.

[.....]

That is a case where the file has been modified not merely opened for
reading.

Has the date changed? Then some part of the overhead of the
file has changed. If you are saving this file to a backup tape,
you are writing that file to another device. If you have
an OS that keeps track of written blocks, then the list of
those blocks can be changed, especially if a bad spot forms
on the device.

This is only a problem with this copy of the file and not with the one we
were backing up. You have also ignored the verify step which is always
done.

Those are only a few of the things that can go wrong. There
is always the midnight editor. On a network? There are lots
of opportunities to get a file modified without your knowledge.

None of this changes the fact that you mixed up back up, restore and
repair. The whole reason you do a back up is because files can be changed
when they shouldn't. This is not a question we have been arguing.

"Reliable" systems are defined by a threshold in the number
of errors/some_number of operations. But you knew that, no?

Yes, I knew that but it appears that BAH doesn't understand about the
difference between making a back up, doing a restore and repairing damage.

I do. I simply posed the situation where the problem that caused the
mess is also on the backup. Doing a restore will restore the
mess maker.

As I pointed out, this is exactly what a restore would do. It puts the
files back as they were on some date in the past. If the files are not
right on that date, those incorrect files are exactly what you want a
backup to have on it. You have mixed up the question with one of repair.
That is a different topic.

--
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kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Phil Carmody]

jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:

Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
- Running Task A
- Task A does a page fault on the real memory
- OS gets an interrupt
- Perhaps some checking is done here
- OS looks for the page to swap out

Swap out from where?

Main memory, obviously. That's what we're talking about.

No, Ken is not talking about main memory. He is talking about
"swapping" when the RAM's data is to be written out.

Now define precisely and unambiguously what you on planet BAH
mean by "RAM", and "main memory".

This will be funny. Or painful. Either way it will demonstrate
the complete lack of clue that you have about all things technical.

If the CPU architecture has write-through
cache you don't have to move the contents of the page you need
to remove in order to fetch the page that Task A needs from
memory.

Wrong. If it's not moved onto the swap medium, it's lost.
My kind of computing doesn't like losing data, yours might,
but as we know BAH computing is BAD computing.

You do not lose "data" if you never modify the EXE. There were
good reasons to slap user's fingers if they tried to self-modify
their code. Sharable code was not writable in our scheme.

You bloody fool. You can swap out more than just the executable
pages - you can swap out user data too. In my example, with 1GB of
user data on a 512MB machine, you'd be mostly swapping out user
data. However, you have already demonstrated your complete inability
to understand even that simplest of examples, so I'm not surprised
you basically, yet again, don't have a freaking clue what you're
talking about.

You really are an embarassment to yourself. Just shut up, turn away,
and we'll stop picking on you for your pronouncements from abject
ignorance - it's as simple as that.

Phil
--
"Home taping is killing big business profits. We left this side blank
so you can help." -- Dead Kennedys, written upon the B-side of tapes of
/In God We Trust, Inc./.

 

[Phil Carmody]

kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) writes:

ls -lu

I assume you had a point.

I think his point is that access time is part of the metadata
that accompanies the file. Technically true in UFS-based fs's,
but whether it's valuable and actually useful data is another
matter.

Consider that an archiving tool either changes the last access
time, or doesn't. And that if it does, then it either stores
the new access time, or it doesn't.
So we have 3 cases:
- If it doesn't change the last-accessed time, then the "last-
accessed time" is in fact a falsity;
- If it changes the last-accessed time and stores the new access,
then the restored file will not be what it was a backup of;
- If it changes the last-accessed time but doesn't store the new
time, then the file in the backup is not identical to the
filesystem that it is a backup of.
All three of these are unsatisfactory. Therefore I contend that
this field is indeed not a useful field when it comes to considering
the behaviour of backups.

So his point wasn't worth getting.

Phil
--
"Home taping is killing big business profits. We left this side blank
so you can help." -- Dead Kennedys, written upon the B-side of tapes of
/In God We Trust, Inc./.

 

[krw]

In article <es6g5o$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...

In article <MPG.204fae3c3b2b61c298a019@news.individual.net>,
krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
In article <es160h$8qk_005@s924.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
In article <MPG.204cc17fb115629c98a000@news.individual.net>,
krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
In article <erul1i$8qk_008@s965.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...

So far, I haven't been
able to develop any process that people, such as my parents, will
be able to use.

How about PayPal, or the equivalent?

Doesn't that involve online-edness?

Likely. I don't know if there is a way around this.

The more I investigate, the more I'm finding that there is no way.
Depending on power and networks being up just to eat is not
my idea of self-sufficiency.


I smell a bad odour w.r.t.
PayPal because it's name is being used as spam for gathering
financial data.

I've never seen any evidence of either, other than the billions
phishing attempts. ...just don't bite the bait!

Right. But if you're doing this paypal stuff for your financial
business, how in the hell are you going to distinguish between
fishing and acutal business? This is an area that nobody seems
to be addressing...at least I can't smell a whiff of it looking
at it from the outside.

Simple: If email is from PayPal it's a phishing attempt Email from
eBay has your username embedded in it (a simple mail filter puts
those phishing attempts where they belong).

I haven't studied PayPal yet. My mother is
quickly coming to the conclusion that checks are not a Good Thing.
They do everything checks, including buy groceries. I don't
like her carrying cash because of the gangs that have been
imported from Viet Nam and Mexico.

Credit cards are likely the most secure, personally.

She has never had a credit card.

It's time to get her one. Just make sure it's paid on time.

My next experiment is to investigate debit cards that you buy
outright and have no information embeded that can tie the
transaction back to a personal bank account.

Watch out for the scam where the numbers are copied off the rack
where they're displayed.

I first have to find the rack. This would have been a job for
super-JMF to go hunting for me .

They have (or had at Christmas) them in the grocery stores here.
You might also try your bank for Cisa/MC logoed ones.

I'm beginning to think that my approach is going to be the best
way. Dump some cash into the coffers of the biller twice a year.
That's what I'm doing at the moment and it seems to work for
everything but credit cards. Congress passed some law that
edicts any 6-month positive balance has to be sent back to
the credit card user.

Really? I've had a positive balance on my corporate Amex for
years. Can't figure how to get rid of it.

Oh, and my water bill. Their software
can't handle funcking negative amounts; it drops the negative sign.

I can believe it. They likely think $0.00 is a positive balance
due too (queue story about the check written for $0.00 to pay the
$0.00 balance due, threatened with collections).

I will have to commit a miracle to convince my mother to pay
ahead, though.

I think a payment from an account set up specifically for the
purpose would be good enough.

--
Keith

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6jgg$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:
[....]

No, I am right. See how when I do understand what you mean I discover
that it is fact wrong.

I am talking about actual times when this happened. In one case,
the sources were gone for five years before a certain corporation
discovered the problem. It was one of the most important programs
of that company's business. There have been other instances
where sources disappeared that I know about. These were the
ones that became elevated to firefight. A firefight is when
the customer has such a severe problem that bit gods have
to drop everything they're doing and work on the customer
problem.

This is almost certainly the result of a bad procedure followed by the
humans and not something a computer did unless there was a serious bug in
the code.

When humans muck things up, the situation can be nonrecoverable. There
are procedures in most companies that try to prevent humans from making
trouble but like software, there are sometimes bugs in them.

BTW: Calling the source an asset of the company, makes quite a difference.


[....]

No this is simply wrong. Mere compilation only proves that something that
didn't generate error messages is there. You need to then compare the
results with what you got last time from the compile. Even this is not
100%. You have to make sure there weren't any object files on there.

We were talking about missing files. I'm talking about the case when
files go missing and are never missed.

If you have the object file and not the source, the "make" process will
still make a result.

We weren't just talking about files being gone. We were talking also
about damaged files and all the other reasons backups are made.

If your app runs for years
without any problems, and suddenly the OS world changes out from
underneath it, you might have to change the code.

We are currently porting some stuff for exactly this reason. Yes, we had
the sources on the backups and also on the "source". Now that Vista is
becoming standard, we are going to stop chasing the Windows changes and
port over to Linux for our internal stuff.

That is when
you get the source, diddle them, rebuild the app, and type RUN
to the EXE. It is highly likely that, if you haven't had to build
that app over the last five years, you'll not have the sources.
And the backup scheme doesn't save all backups over the last five
years.

Mine does. Like I said before, I have source that started out on 8 inch
floppies. Last year I did a major copy to new media on a bunch of it.


[....]

For important software, the code is often treated as an important drawing
or religious text is. If well designed systems are in place, the
documents will be maintained.

I'm not talking about documents. Those can be "saved" longterm
in hard copy. I'm talking about source code. If you don't pay
a babysitter, the files will disappear and nobody will miss them.

Some of the source still exists on printouts. There is a babysitter. The
babysitter gets questioned from time to time too.

[....]

The only way to do this is to make the usage of them a part of
daily computing life.

No, you can do it once a year once the software has stopped changing.

I don't know how to point out how you are wrong in this case. I'm
not talking about source that have been under active development.
I'm talking about sources whose functionality has not been broken for
a long time.

You are trying to say that I am wrong but unable to explain because you
know that I am in fact right. The copies get made even of things that
haven't changed. It isn't all that much extra storage to have the exact
same files from every year since 1980. Since the media gets denser with
time, it doesn't pile up all that much.

You are wrong again.

I am thinking long-term scenarios. You are not.

Yes, I am. You just haven't picked up on the truth in what I am telling
you. You have somehow gotten a wrong idea in your head and it is stuck
there.

And that's why
you keep thinking I'm wrong. Yours is correct for very short
term bit storage; it is not for long term bit storages of the
same set of bits.

Do you call 198X long ago? I have source code from then. It hasn't
changed. Do you call 1996 long ago? I have source code from then too. I
now have Quite a few copies of the exact same thing on each.


[....]

If you keep no record in the file that people have been accessing
it every day, then the system can reach a conclusion that the file
is no longer used and can be expunged.

No, if you have no record of access, a properly designed system will
assume that the file is needed every day and make sure it is always there.
Having information about read accesses can cause you to do the wrong
thing.

And what if the breaking was done by something that is on those tapes?
Whenever you restore the tapes, the system proceed to break again.

You are constantly confusing restoring with repairing.

No, I am not.

They are two very
different things. As long as you keep confusing the two you will not be
able to see your errors on this subject.

I can't conjure a different of explaining the problem so that you
can understand what I'm talking about.

You have explained it quite well. You are merely wrong that is all.

[....]

Yes, you can. You need to read up about redundant information.

In order to verify that a file hasn't changed over the long term,
you have to have something that is five years old for comparison.

No, not really. Read up on redundant information. You can have a new
copy of said redundant information and still know that the file is
different than it was 5 years ago.


[...]

You can only lower the odds of having it be wrong. One chance in one
googleplex is low enough odds to be considered safe.

Your odds are off. Never underestimate Murphy's Law.

A mild over estimate to make a point.

There exists a Murphy's Law corrollary that guarantees each time
a file is opened an error will be introduced.

This is simply bogus BS.

Nope. It is similar to the situation where a spelling correction
to a post contains a spelling error. I don't why this seems to
happen; it's on my list of life's mysteries to solve.

It is still bogus.


--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[krw]

In article <0sccu2tencv0vqes1nru8uec7if9e8f4cm@4ax.com>,
MassiveProng@thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org says...

On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 15:02:48 -0500, krw <krw@att.bizzzz> Gave us:

In article <97v6u2hhdaf437oki5ujqt4q3gkjghn3dv@4ax.com>,
MassiveProng@thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org says...
On Mon, 26 Feb 07 12:36:17 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com Gave us:


The wrinkle to the new process is that the checks have stopped
traveling.


Bullshit. My landlord gets a check, and his bank submits it to my
bank who has it ON FILE RIGHT NOW, I get an image of the check in my
mailed monthly statement, and can look up a full size image of all my
checks online.

Dumber-than-a-dim-bulb, you're wrong.

No. You are. I can even request the return of the check.

Not if it's been cleared via "check 21". The check paper check is
turned into bits and the hard copy destroyed. Learn something for
once, will ya?

Walk into a large department
store.

Fuck you.

No thanks. I wouldn't touch anything as filthy as you talk.

More often than not they will scan your check and hand it
back to you.

There are only a couple places where I use a check. One is my
landlord. ANY place where submitted checks get deposited at the end
of the day as opposed to a retail store with live registers, the check
ends up back at the bank it originated from.

Wait a few months. Banks are dropping clearing houses like the
plague. They're expensive! My guess is that by the end of the
year no bank will clear paper checks.

The money is withdrawn from your account before you
leave the store.

Since I do not use checks there... no, it doesn't.

You said above that you do. Liar! (nothing new to see here folks,
move along)

IF I buy via debit card, it is an immediate transaction. IF I use
that SAME CARD, and buy as a VISA/MasterCard, the transaction may not
debit my card for up to a week later. Usually within three days,
however.

....and that is somehow relevant to the point being made, dimbulb?

The paper check goes nowhere.

Depends on the circumstance.

Sure, it depends on whatever the two banks have implemented check-
21 yet. All will soon enough.

AGAIN, you ignore all facets of a given situation. You must be
famous for being so fucking stupid.

No, Dimbulb. That would be you. Read other's opinions of your
stupid rants here.

You are CLUELESS.

Oh, most clueless one,

Why yes, you are.

Google on "check 21". Paper checks are as
dead as your brain.

You're an idiot.

I'm the idiot because you haven't a clue what you're talking about
(again, nothing new to see here folks...)

--
Keith

 

[John Barrett]

"krw" <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in message
news:MPG.2050c846d665a64098a02e@news.individual.net...

In article <es6g5o$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
In article <MPG.204fae3c3b2b61c298a019@news.individual.net>,
krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
In article <es160h$8qk_005@s924.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...
In article <MPG.204cc17fb115629c98a000@news.individual.net>,
krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
In article <erul1i$8qk_008@s965.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com says...

So far, I haven't been
able to develop any process that people, such as my parents, will
be able to use.

How about PayPal, or the equivalent?

Doesn't that involve online-edness?

Likely. I don't know if there is a way around this.

The more I investigate, the more I'm finding that there is no way.
Depending on power and networks being up just to eat is not
my idea of self-sufficiency.


I smell a bad odour w.r.t.
PayPal because it's name is being used as spam for gathering
financial data.

I've never seen any evidence of either, other than the billions
phishing attempts. ...just don't bite the bait!

Right. But if you're doing this paypal stuff for your financial
business, how in the hell are you going to distinguish between
fishing and acutal business? This is an area that nobody seems
to be addressing...at least I can't smell a whiff of it looking
at it from the outside.

Simple: If email is from PayPal it's a phishing attempt Email from
eBay has your username embedded in it (a simple mail filter puts
those phishing attempts where they belong).

I haven't studied PayPal yet. My mother is
quickly coming to the conclusion that checks are not a Good Thing.
They do everything checks, including buy groceries. I don't
like her carrying cash because of the gangs that have been
imported from Viet Nam and Mexico.

Credit cards are likely the most secure, personally.

She has never had a credit card.

It's time to get her one. Just make sure it's paid on time.

My next experiment is to investigate debit cards that you buy
outright and have no information embeded that can tie the
transaction back to a personal bank account.

Watch out for the scam where the numbers are copied off the rack
where they're displayed.

I first have to find the rack. This would have been a job for
super-JMF to go hunting for me .

They have (or had at Christmas) them in the grocery stores here.
You might also try your bank for Cisa/MC logoed ones.

I'm beginning to think that my approach is going to be the best
way. Dump some cash into the coffers of the biller twice a year.
That's what I'm doing at the moment and it seems to work for
everything but credit cards. Congress passed some law that
edicts any 6-month positive balance has to be sent back to
the credit card user.

Really? I've had a positive balance on my corporate Amex for
years. Can't figure how to get rid of it.

Oh, and my water bill. Their software
can't handle funcking negative amounts; it drops the negative sign.


I can believe it. They likely think $0.00 is a positive balance
due too (queue story about the check written for $0.00 to pay the
$0.00 balance due, threatened with collections).

I will have to commit a miracle to convince my mother to pay
ahead, though.

I think a payment from an account set up specifically for the
purpose would be good enough.

--
Keith

Most banks offer visa debit cards tied directly to the account, most
utilities will auctomatically debit a bank account via EFT/ACH, or will link
to the bank debit card, banks offer free automatic bill pay so you can set
up recurring fixed payments (I use that for my rent and student loan), and
with direct deposit, I know the cash will be in the account to cover the
bills without my having to worry about it

I havent written a check in 10 years or more... I dont order checks when I
open a new account ... I do it all electronic, and I have a paper trail
every time I use my card because I keep reciepts (you can still keep a check
register if you like -- probably a good idea actually -- since the card is
electroncally no different than a check -- there must be cash in the account
!!)

Someone tries to forge a check on my account -- I can show clearly that I
have every check in my possesion that the bank ever issued to me, and that I
have never ordered checks for the account... makes check fraud kinda obvious
And the bank offers fraud protection for misuse of the card so I'm
covered that way

Your bank representative should be happy to help you set all this up without
you having to have a computer at home or an internet account -- there have
been a couple of times I've been in a crunch and used the computers at a
bank branch to get online and make a change or a funds transfer -- no sweat
at all -- I bank with washington mutual -- you go into a branch and its not
at all like the usual bank -- just a bunch of computers and a couple of
ATM-like cash dispensing machines -- you talk to the agent -- they key the
data and had you a reciept with a code -- you go to the machine, key the
code and get cash

its all electronic at some point no matter what you do -- might as well go
electronic all the way.

 

[krw]

In article <PSDFh.4217$854.1426@trnddc04>, ke5crp1@verizon.net
says...

"krw" <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in message
news:MPG.2050c846d665a64098a02e@news.individual.net...

<snip>

I think a payment from an account set up specifically for the
purpose would be good enough.

--
Keith

Most banks offer visa debit cards tied directly to the account, most
utilities will auctomatically debit a bank account via EFT/ACH, or will link
to the bank debit card, banks offer free automatic bill pay so you can set
up recurring fixed payments (I use that for my rent and student loan), and
with direct deposit, I know the cash will be in the account to cover the
bills without my having to worry about it

Sure, but debit cards aren't very secure. Sure, you have the same
"rights" with a Visa branded debit card as a credit card, but the
difference is that the money in play during a contested charge is
yours, not theirs. The responsibility is also not statutory. This
was the reason I suggested a separate account for this sort of
thing (transfer only the money immediately needed).

I havent written a check in 10 years or more... I dont order checks when I
open a new account ... I do it all electronic, and I have a paper trail
every time I use my card because I keep reciepts (you can still keep a check
register if you like -- probably a good idea actually -- since the card is
electroncally no different than a check -- there must be cash in the account
!!)

Why not use a credit card? They're more secure and you can get
money-back deals. We still use quite a few checks (I write them to
get cash and use that) and a Debit card heavily so I don't follow
my own paranoia. ;-) BAH is more paranoid than I though.

Someone tries to forge a check on my account -- I can show clearly that I
have every check in my possesion that the bank ever issued to me, and that I
have never ordered checks for the account... makes check fraud kinda obvious
And the bank offers fraud protection for misuse of the card so I'm
covered that way

The point is that they don't need a paper check, only the bank
routing and account numbers (or debit card number).

Your bank representative should be happy to help you set all this up without
you having to have a computer at home or an internet account -- there have
been a couple of times I've been in a crunch and used the computers at a
bank branch to get online and make a change or a funds transfer -- no sweat
at all -- I bank with washington mutual -- you go into a branch and its not
at all like the usual bank -- just a bunch of computers and a couple of
ATM-like cash dispensing machines -- you talk to the agent -- they key the
data and had you a reciept with a code -- you go to the machine, key the
code and get cash

Well, my "bank" is 200 miles form here, so it's kinda hard dropping
in on them. ;-)

its all electronic at some point no matter what you do -- might as well go
electronic all the way.

If available.

--
Keith

 

[Tony Lance]

Big Bertha Thing burster
Cosmic Ray Series
Possible Real World System Constructs
http://web.onetel.com/~tonylance/gammaray.html
16K Web Page
Astrophysics net ring access site
Newsgroup Reviews including sci.astro.seti

Gamma Ray Bursters

v1.0
01 feb 2000
Greg Goebel
public domain

Contents List:-
1.THE DISCOVERY OF GRBS
2.PINPOINTING A GRB
3.CAUGHT IN THE ACT
4.COMMENTS, SOURCES, & REVISION HISTORY


Big Bertha Thing publication

The statistics for Big Bertha Thing postings published
on sci.astro are as follows:-

20 No. 50K primary postings (out of 26)
2 No. 600K ditto (out of 4)
12 No. off-topic postings (out of 200)
4 No. 50K secondary postings (out of 26)
20 No. 4K ditto (out of 26)
20 No. 2K ditto (out of 26)
24 No. astronomical postings (out of 2000)

There was almost zero response to the above, which were
spread over 28 days, at the rate of two days per week.

Book-burners deleted the archive of Net Access Policy
postings prior to 2nd November 1998. Bertha saved those,
with the exception of replies and published 12.

The above were also posted to the Onenet conference
Astronomy & Space. Here days 18, 19, 20, were minimal
keep-off-the-grass days and on days 27 and 28 they
broke ranks. The on-topic filibuster of sound-bite
journalism ended, at 42 days old.
(The beginning of the end of spam.)
Thank you,
Tony Lance
judemarie@bigberthathing.co.uk


From: Tony Lance <judemarie@bigberthathing.co.uk>
Newsgroups: swnet.sci.astro,sci.chem
Subject: Re: Big Bertha Thing warlord
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:21:24 +0000

Saturday, November 15, 1997 12:40:38 PM
Message
From: Tony Lance
Subject: Re(2): Fwd(3): Outlandish Request for Volunteers
To: Carol Yeats
Cc: Rick Holyomes
George Ho-Yow
FC Mods Discussion
Philip Sims
Big Bertha Thing 6(with apologies for use of CTRL R)

Please accept my apologies for troubling you. It will not of course be repeated.
However 3 mods have responded to my call to help out on the Conf. by volunteering.
In emergency situations, needs must. You and your fellow mods number 3 I see.
Mods have broad shoulders and thick skins and I trust compassion.
Thank you,
Tony Lance.


Big Bertha Thing 7

By way of light relief, a similar general apology, to the one
above, would bring solace and comfort, to the victims of such
well intentioned postings. Please put it in a Big Bertha and
address to CP Conf., Mods Conf. and Philip Sims. That of course,
would be the end of spam.

 

[nonsense@unsettled.com]

Phil Carmody wrote:

kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) writes:

ls -lu

I assume you had a point.

snip blather

So his point wasn't worth getting.

Every time you touch a file it is written to.

Touching a file is sufficient to introduce error.

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <87fy8paqu8.fsf@nonospaz.fatphil.org>,
Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) writes:
ls -lu

I assume you had a point.

I think his point is that access time is part of the metadata
that accompanies the file.

It is not stored into the data part of the file. The file's sectors are
not rewritten so there is no change to that part. I believe that it is
the time you close the file and not the time you opened it that actually
ends up stored BTW. None of this matters to the backup method I
suggested.

So we have 3 cases:
- If it doesn't change the last-accessed time, then the "last-
accessed time" is in fact a falsity;
- If it changes the last-accessed time and stores the new access,
then the restored file will not be what it was a backup of;
- If it changes the last-accessed time but doesn't store the new
time, then the file in the backup is not identical to the
filesystem that it is a backup of.
All three of these are unsatisfactory. Therefore I contend that
this field is indeed not a useful field when it comes to considering
the behaviour of backups.

No, this is all silly. The backup I have been refering to is not cover in
the cases in your list. What I suggested was a complete image of the
drive. This would store the times as they were at the time archive was
made and not change anything about any of them

The only times that matter for backup are the time of creation and the
last modification. It doesn't matter when the last access happened.


--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <5685e$45e760f9$4fe7431$8325@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
nonsense@unsettled.com <nonsense@unsettled.com> wrote:

Phil Carmody wrote:

kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) writes:

ls -lu

I assume you had a point.

snip blather

So his point wasn't worth getting.

Every time you touch a file it is written to.

Touching a file is sufficient to introduce error.

The backup method I have been suggeting has no such problem. Making an
image of a drive does not risk changing its contents.

BTW: Since the time is not stored within the body of the file, the
sectors that contain the body of the file are not written. It is only the
directory information that is updated. You can have an error in that
sector.


--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6hje$8qk_002@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

In article <87y7mhb0fx.fsf@nonospaz.fatphil.org>,
Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
[........]
- OS looks for the page to swap out

Swap out from where?

Main memory, obviously. That's what we're talking about.

No, Ken is not talking about main memory. He is talking about
"swapping" when the RAM's data is to be written out.

Please don't try to tell him what I was saying he fully understood the
post I made. The term to "swap out" has a meaning when talking about VM
systems. He obviously knew this meaning and was trying to explain it to
you.

--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[nonsense@unsettled.com]

Ken Smith wrote:

In article <5685e$45e760f9$4fe7431$8325@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
nonsense@unsettled.com <nonsense@unsettled.com> wrote:

Phil Carmody wrote:


kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) writes:


ls -lu

I assume you had a point.

snip blather


So his point wasn't worth getting.

Every time you touch a file it is written to.

Touching a file is sufficient to introduce error.


The backup method I have been suggeting has no such problem. Making an
image of a drive does not risk changing its contents.

BTW: Since the time is not stored within the body of the file, the
sectors that contain the body of the file are not written. It is only the
directory information that is updated. You can have an error in that
sector.

So directory all errors are of no concern to you then.

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <87y7mhb0fx.fsf@nonospaz.fatphil.org>,
Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[.... swapping ...]

Wrong. If it's not moved onto the swap medium, it's lost.
My kind of computing doesn't like losing data, yours might,
but as we know BAH computing is BAD computing.

This is almost exactly right. The write to the swap volume is only needed
if the page is dirty (ie: has been written to)

This is part of the "complex issues" skipped to keep the list short.


--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge

 

[Ken Smith]

In article <es6mqn$8qk_001@s985.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:

In article <es0bs3$joa$1@blue.rahul.net>,
kensmith@green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote:
[....]
Where in the anual report? I can't find any such statement in there.

Intel is divided into divisions. Compare each division. The one
that has the controller product line does more business than the
one that has the PC product line.

I still can't find it. I searched the PDF version of the report for word
"division" and nothing like that came up. Do you have a page number?

[....]

Lots of copies of Windows got installed too. Your code only needs to be
no worse than the other's to get used.

People who used our products are still in mourning because we no
longer actively develop them. Now, for that to happen, we
must have done something very right in all our product lines.

No, you just need to be better than the others. There is a major
difference.


[....]

If you restore the file that caused the problem, you have restored
the problem and have to start all over again.

Now we can perhaps start to talk about repairing a system. Problems are
often like cancers. A problem with a file can cause a database to get
worse over time. If you back up to the one where the damage is limited,
you can then repair the file at fault and start working forwards. You
also have the option of going back to an even earlier version and starting
there.


[....]

They may both need to be done but they are two different subjects. You
need to be able to get from the broken system to the situation as it
should be.

Now, consider the case that no backups have the system saved in the
state that it should be. This is not an unusual situation. My guess
is that this is the normal situation with any Micshit software under
a EULA and update agreement.

For a Microsoft system, the only option that works is a bit by bit image
of the hard drive made by some non-Microsoft code. The OS refuses to let
you back up some of the important stuff. Since it is Windows and not
Linux, we know that the system was not in the state it should be for the
get go. The best you can do is put the mess back the way it was.

On a Windows system, you always want to keep your data on a different
drive than the OS. This make backing up the good stuff much easier.

When a Microsoft system goes very bad the first thing to try is restoring
to the previous image. This doesn't mean that you have really fixed the
problem but it does let you see if the previous version would work at all.
You may have one of those rare cases where the hardware has failed.

Very often you are forced to reinstall a bunch of software and then copy
the data back in from the backup.

[....]

You may be able to do this without doing a restore if
redundent information exists. If you can't do that, the first step
is usually to step back in time to where the problem hadn't happened yet.

What if you can't pinpoint when the problem started?

Do you mean when the data's logical structure was first damaged? If you
have old backups, you can always step back to a very early version. This
is rarely needed because you can loopback and mount different versions to
compare them.

What if it
is a problem that you can't control?

What do mean by that? Assuming you mean some bit of software that simply
takes it in its head to mess things up from time to time, there are still
things that you can do. All such things are very ugly.

You can then step forwards repeating the transactions.

And what if the transactions carefully save on backup tapes are
incorrect? Consider monetary exchange rates and changes.

This is why you make more than one copy of things.

[...]

How exactly did it become more complex? All the issues that exist today
existed in the past.

No it didn't. We did not have the technology to do millions of
transactions/minute.

This doesn't increase complexity. It only increases speed.

Most of the time we could hit the
panic button and physically shut down a runaway system.

That was always a near useless option. You need to make sure this is
never used. The odds of trouble being made by humans is greater than that
it is made by the computer. When you put a "panic button" on something
you are admitting defeat.

There may be a lot more data to deal with but the
same situations still come up.

It is the rate; they come up faster and can happen a hundred
million times in the same second that could only complete one.

You said "complex". That word means something. Go look it up.

[....]

You are simply wrong in this. You must have another source of information
to make the correction. If you don't have a source of information to make
the corrections with, it is completely imposible to make the corrections.
There are no if ands or buts about it.

You are not thinking about scheduling airplanes with the subset
of scheduling passengers.

What the heck are you talking about now! You either have information or
you don't. If you have the needed information you can make the
corrections if you don't have that information you can't.

There are lots of problems and you aren't even aware of most of them.

Name 2!

oh, jezusfuckinghchrist. Go back and read the posts.

Like I thought. You don't have 2.

--
--
kensmith@rahul.net forging knowledge