Posts by Doctor Syntax 40485 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"My institution is blocking access to webmail, and there are strict rules against storing material on the hospital system"
Two networks, a secure one and one with internet access. I've worked on such a site - not medical but the production network had data that had to be secured, the office didn't.
"The bottom line was that the Doctors put their convenience above everything else and they were supported in this by the senior management."
And what about the letter that you asked them to sign? The one that started "I confirm that I have been warned that..." and ends "I have evaluated the risks and have taken the deliberate decision not to act. I accept complete and personal responsibility for the consequences of any IT security breaches including, but not confined to temporary or permanent damage to equipment, breaches of the Data Protection Acts and patient privacy and injury to or loss of life of patients. I agree that this letter may be produced in evidence to any subsequent inquiry including Coroners' courts.". The one you offered along with the draft of an affidavit that you'd made an appointment with your solicitor to swear out if they didn't sign.
"That would need the government to find a very large sum of money to buy it from the pension funds that mostly own it today."
And that's only the start. The government would have to find funds for all Openreach's investments. After a while all the whiners presently calling for it to be nationalised would then be wanting some further change on account of the lack of investment.
Those who can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In this case, queue up for your party line. And that's not a political term.
"a cramped and unpleasant 16:9 screen"
Aspect ratio snobbism.
A wider aspect screen allows me to compare two documents side-by-side. It's also a help in transcribing very wide documents. Just because it doesn't fit your use case doesn't mean it doesn't work for others.
SWMBO prints out multiple copies of handouts for her patchwork class every week although, to be fair, it's mostly a case of me photocopying them as she insists on writing them by hand.
This is accomplished on an HP 3020, years old, still going strong. If I'd been tempted to replace it by a colour version I'd be put off by the experience of my daughter's work-supplied all-in-one HP with its paper tray which jammed partly in after she took it out to refill. It was difficult to believe that the two machines were built by the same company.
BTW, when I looked at the pre-release W10 last year it didn't, at that time, have a driver for the 3020. But the HP site had a W8 version which worked OK.
HP seems to be an odd hybrid. It used to build stuff really well and at least some of that old stuff is still supported but new stuff reminds me of some of the domestic appliances of the '70s - well enough built to get out of the factory door.
"And if you are altering the schema often enough for that to be an issue, you have other problems."
This is the problem with the code first, design* later approach.
However you should have taken whoever told you that to one side & explained views - although it sounds like the sort of shop where that approach could lead to a tangle all on its own.
*Design? You should be so lucky.
Woda had better be sure that his site really is secure now and that it stays that way. For a couple of reasons. Firstly, any subsequent visitors who find security holes aren't going to be the sort who report them back to him. Secondly by raising a bit of controversy he's painted a target on his back.
"But why? If to make this system work you need the bulk of a wireless keyboard and mouse, you might as well carry a stick-shaped Linux computer."
Different use cases I suppose:
1. Keep the big peripherals at home and use the phone as a phone elsewhere.
2. Carry a keyboard & mouse in luggage. Trade-off keyboard size vs convenience* to personal taste.
3. Hot desking - a keyboard, mouse & monitor will be available in a remote office & carrying a phone is more convenient than a laptop.
There are probably takers for each of these. You might not be one of them, it doesn't mean everyone has to follow you.
*I used to have a Nokia Communicator, a clamshell tending to the size & weight of a brick. The keyboard was quite tichy and so was the 80x24 screen but back then you could get away with hanging a modem off the back of a computer so I did remote admin with that with no real problems. Eventually I replaced it with the next generation wich was smaller - big mistake. But for some reason I can't really get along with on-screen keyboards, even on a tablet.
"UIs are important."
Quite. The best approach seems to be that undocked you have a phone interface, docked you have a desktop interface. One of the things about Unix-based systems is that the UI is an additional layer on top of most of the rest of the system and the interface between the layers is clean enough to swap UIs as needed. Of course if you then try to run an application that needs the desktop interface when undocked you're in a hole of your own digging.
Having said that Ubuntu decided that what they really needed was an app-centric interface on the desktop to prepare the way for use on the phone and got it out even ahead of W8. I don't think it's proved as popular as the more traditional desktops.
It's not about the legitimate rights of the criminals. It's about the legitimate rights of everyone else anywhere who owns any sort of device on which they might need to keep personally or professionally private data. Because that's what the FBI is putting at risk. They're out to create a legal precedent which would be employed in any legal system that follows common law principles and a practical precedent anywhere else where a bit of government leaning might be applied.
And please don't trot out the "nothing to hide" tale. Not unless you're prepared to publish all your bank access details, all your other online access details, your credit card details and so forth (and remember also that in most if not all cases you're contractually obliged to keep those confidential. Of course you've got stuff which you quite properly need to hide.
@ Semtex451
Don't forget what's not in this week could be in next week and you won't be able to say no. Go & read the T&Cs for yourself. Don't take anyone's word but Microsoft's for what they allow themselves, or rather what you agree to allow them. But read carefully. Note what's not there in terms of restrictions.
@ Lee D
Go and read the M/S T&Cs. Look for anything that limits what they can grab under your agreement with them. It looks reasonable that they'd need your login credentials with themselves. But do they restrict themselves to saving those or do they include the right to capture anything else such as your bank login creds, your Amazon creds, your eBay creds....? Last time I looked there was no limit to what you'd have to agree to. Same thing about transactions: it's reasonable they'd keep their transactions with you but the language doesn't limit them to that. If they capture all you bank transactions, there'd be no problem because you'd agreed to that as well.
"Comply with the lawful order of a court within the jurisdiction you do business, or face the consequences."
Which court? This is only at the magistrates level. It can, and probably will, be appealed right up to the US Supreme court. Only if and when Apple lose at that level do they have to comply or face the consequences.
"This is not a criminal trial regarding the presumption of innocence. This is a case about justice and duty of the citizens."
Quite so. The FBI are not looking for evidence to prosecute the phone's user. They're going on a fishing expedition and they want to set a precedent for having Apple help them so that the presumption of innocence can be breached in the future.
"In this case the court issued an order for assistance in carrying out a search warrant that nobody claims is not lawful. Whether it requires Apple to create something new might be something reasonable people could disagree about."
The place in which to settle those reasonable disagreements isn't going to be the court of first instance.
There's also the little matter of compensation. Not the compensation for doing the work but the much larger compensation for loss of reputation amongst potential customers.
"There might be a case somewhere, but it is not here."
The case is setting a precedent to order a manufacturer to breach the security it has built into its own product.
We have a peculiar situation in that a commercial company is more trusted than its government. This is a very unusual and alarming situation. The government needs to rebuild trust. In the longer term backing off here in order to contribute to that might be a wiser choice than the one it's taking.
"Trouble is, unobtrusive ads don't get noticed and thus get ignored and are, to the ad men, wasted."
That's not really a problem to the actual advertisers. If they're not noticed they don't lose potential customers in the same way that a flashy, jumpy, autoplaying ad sticking it's fingers into the user's ears and eyeballs would.
"Destruction of shareholder value on this scale over this period of time should be considered criminal incompetence."
The shareholders employ the board. If they don't rock up to the AGMs & vote the directors off the board then they must be going along with what the board's doing. Ultimately the board & management are doing what the shareholders want, even if they only want it by default as it were.
"annotating, editing and of course, proofreading."
You can't beat 14" wide listing paper with 80 character lines for listing long programs. No the rest of the width isn't wasted. And it's a lot easier to work out what's really happening compared to a piddling little screen (all screens are piddling compared to a 4" thick stack of paper).
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