> I still don´t see the legitimacy of the US government accessing citizen´s data.
I agree with you. My point was related to a legitimate telecom request, for example to track the telephone of a person declared missing.
208 karma · joined November 9, 2008
I agree with you. My point was related to a legitimate telecom request, for example to track the telephone of a person declared missing.
How about the ramifications of the pipes created for NSA, getting leveraged by other actors?
What happens when a rogue employee hacks the infrastructure created for providing the pipe to NSA?
What if a group of such rogue employees across multiple companies act in concert, may be creating a cartel?
Such things have the potential to remain unnoticed for a pretty long time, ruining lives of innocent people.
Now, let's replace the word rogue with innocent and intelligent but cleverly manipulated by sophisticated player and the scenario reads bleaker.
To believe that such things haven't happened before or aren't happening now, in some part of the world, will be pointless.
Consider a scenario in developing countries: let's say you wrote some piece of code (unrelated to telecom) for a businessman. Let's also say that the businessman runs many companies, one of which provides BPO services to telecom companies. Let's say that the businessman wants to exploit you. He can very well track your location using the network of the telecom company without that company knowing it, let alone the law enforcement officials. He can remain under the radar because the request can be clubbed with other legitimate ones.
This is not just a US problem, it's a global problem.
It is precisely for such reasons, that we need a manifesto about data collection policies, like "Do No Evil" or "The Patent Pledge."
I remember Atul's articles in PC Quest since 1993. He wrote eloquently and passionately.
His most admirable trait was, fighting for what is right. Like, once he wrote a good article about why the value of a BBS is amplified by the discussions that occur over there, and not as a means for file sharing. To quote him from memory, "Imagine that you wrote a great book and made it available for free so that people can make good use of it. Now, if people took your book and used it to wrap _chanas_."
In 1995, PC Quest bundled Slackware Linux with a CD-ROM, a first for any Indian magazine. This heralded a beginning of a generation of Linux enthusiasts in India. During those years, we used to look forward to a copy of PC Quest, in part because of his articles. Otherwise, how would we have known about CompuServe, pobox.com and many other things? He was absolutely right during 90s, about the Internet services being toys.
I could perhaps go on writing an essay, but will wrap with just two examples about his writing style.
On visiting various CompuServe forums, he would say, "...and when I log in to various forums greeted with '11 messages for you', I feel like my daughter yelling at me, 'Papa!'"
On the extremely funny and weird userid scheme for dial up Internet accounts by the only ISP (Govt. owned) in India, "...and when I got an e-mail address, Gautam sent a mail to me 'Welcome _Qaidi_ no. AAQ392021!" (User names used to be like AAQ392021 in 1995.). Sidenote: we have come a very long way since then and things are much better now.
I might as well say that the only other technology writer who impressed me more than Atul during 90s, was Brian Kernighan.
Although Atul has passed away, he will surely remain alive in the hearts of a generation of technologists in India.
Goodbye great columnist, and may your soul rest in piece.
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय् ।
For a portfolio, how much difference does an on-line video make?
Edit: clarity.
Before beginning the Estimation process, it's best to talk with the prospective customer about Cone of Uncertainty first; it helps to set a proper context for later execution of the project:
These days, it feels much better though.
Children normally find it easier to adapt to new things. E.g. "Hole in the Wall" experiments: http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm
Not sure, if this is slightly off-topic, but sometimes users ask pretty interesting questions. Circa, 1997 I visited a computer training institute to meet one of my friends who was a Lab Technician. There was a batch of interesting people: only one of them would sit in front of a desktop and all 38 would line up around him, despite terminals being available for all of them. Now, this guy is trying to type "dir /s" and while hitting the Spacebar a question pops in his mind: "Why do you need to hit the Spacebar with thumb?" I started thinking about how it is more efficient to hit the Spacebar with thumb, the notion of finger travel in miles per annum etc., while my friend replied curtly to that 55 year old student: "Sir, do you start your Scooter by hitting the `kick' by foot or by palm?" He gulped the tobacco he was chewing up.
During that year, I rolled out a desktop application in a smallish organization and was astonished to meet users who were typists-turned-computer-operators. I couldn't grasp as to why they found my code to be so user-friendly. Turned out that a key decision in the beginning of the project helped me: all labels in the application were in Marathi.
Re: parent's post, in the case of ATM machine, if they keep a microphone disguised in the form of telephone handset connected to the machine itself, driven by an AI program (without the press 1 for foo, press 2 for bar type of idiocy) might be of great help.
Even in India (which has 25% of world's Thorium reserves), it is a mystery to many, as to why the Govt. chose not to invest more heavily in Thorium based research, rather than going for traditional ones.
Edit: grammar.
Take a complete break for one full week, before making the next move. That will help you take a better decision on what to do the next. Go and meet deep personal friends, you'll need them while you decompress your mind.
After that, start networking like a maniac, showcase your skills in communicating with {people,computers}. While you're searching for the next job, it is a great help to be a part-time faculty at a computer institute.
Good luck.
Basically, yes, it'll be increasingly out of date.
Edit: clarity.
A developer sitting in another office had written it; I was roped in at the moment the nasty bug was discovered, basically to have a look from a fresh set of eyes. It had to be shipped in a couple of days time.
The neat thing about writing code on paper is the amazing gain in clarity. Of course, like all approaches, it has to be taken with a grain of salt.
It seems to me that the necessity of scrolling on a Laptop screen somehow creates additional cognitive overhead, especially when we want to rapidly jump across sections of code. Perhaps, it forces us being physically away from the machine to reflect more deeply on the problem.
1. With 2+ years of experience, the person should be able to solve a small programming assignment and upload it on GitHub / BitBucket.
2. Evaluating an absolute fresher is a little hard. Puzzle and a simple programming problem helps. Great care has to be taken in designing or even selecting what kind of puzzles to be asked. Also, the puzzles tend to get shared very quickly by candidates who appeared for the interview rounds. This needs to be factored in those puzzles.
To give an idea of how worse the situation was, the fellow would ask the employees to spy on me for mundane things like connecting to internet. Later verbal accounts of people, suggest that he used my caste as a device in manipulating them.
Nevertheless, I'm really grateful to the person for showing true colors so early instead of many years and dollars (or rupees) later.
Throwing out good code after putting 2+ years of time and money was nearly soul crushing. Yet, it turned to be a better decision when I realized that I could create a superior and totally different product. Now, instead of me worrying for getting sued, the fellow who cheated me has to carry that burden all the time. That leaves me more freedom to focus on the real needs of my users.
Besides, with this experience under the belt, OP will surely get a better co-founder if s/he continues to keep working.
Edited: grammar.
XMOS looks interesting.