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For the Microsoft product line, ease of use was a hallmark for managers who offered comments. “I like how the tables are set up,” said a Naval Surface Warfare Center computer specialist in Indian Head, Md., adding that his organization plans to standardize its database configuration on Microsoft software. But a Social Security Administration computer specialist in San Francisco said upgrading Microsoft databases was tricky because it causes new bugs in the system. Discussing overall strategies, systems managers who plan to make database changes are looking for ways to make their systems more efficient. “We have too much data duplication,” said an Air Force systems manager in Mesa, Ariz., who plans to consolidate three databases in the next two years to make management easier. Consolidating databases to standardize systems is a goal at the U.S. Pretrial Services Agency in San Antonio, said an IT director. A Federal Bureau of Investigation computer specialist in Washington said his organization was planning to consolidate databases because “fewer are easier to control.” http://www.gcn.com/21_1/knowmgmt/17695-1.html --------- SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - AOL backs anti- Microsoft identity technology. In a move aimed at thwarting Microsoft Corp. dominance of online identification technology, AOL Time Warner Inc. has joined a coalition of companies working to develop a competing platform. AOL announced Tuesday that it would aid the Liberty Alliance Project, a group of almost three dozen companies working on an identity authentication and payment program that will compete with Microsoft's Passport system. Liberty Alliance seeks to allow Internet users to log in once but gain access to various Internet resources that require authentication. Microsoft's Passport system already offers the same capabilities. An AOL spokesman said the company would also continue to develop its own identification system, known as Magic Carpet, but would share programming expertise with Liberty Alliance partners ensure the systems are compatible. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/ 0,14179,2816148,00.html ... Meanwhile, government watchers say a federally sponsored national ID would meet widespread opposition. "It would improve the ability to identify and track people. But I can't identify how much it would improve things," said Bob Inman, who served as director of the National Security Agency and as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "You can persuade Congress to act explicitly when you know what you'll accomplish. But I don't think law enforcement agencies are capable of making a case of what precisely they'd gain from it. And if they can't, they won't get congressional approval." Talk about national IDs has also moved the American Civil Liberties Union to get involved, while doubting the issue will be ad dressed, said Nadine Strossen, ACLU president. "We now have to take it seriously," she said. -------- CNET NEWS.COM - Ellison donates software for U.S. security. Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison said Tuesday that he has donated Oracle software to the U.S. government to create a database for national security. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ellison has championed the need for the United States to create a national standard for identification cards. During his keynote speech at Oracle's OpenWorld customer conference in San Francisco, Ellison said he has delivered Oracle's 9i database management software to a U.S. government agency for national security, but he declined to give further details, such as which agency or for what usage. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-276615.html?legacy=cnet&tag=mn_hd
17 responses total.
What's your point?
that buisnesses should represent high moral values since the government obviously can't? or fuck it, i'ma make a killin offa this.
This article, as positioned against the previous article, is to draw some lines of similarities between things that are occurring now with things that occured in the 1930's. It was a time of economic depression, where people were unhappy and needed someone to blame. It was a time of war and hatred where the people wanted (and needed) a leader desperately to bring them out of their unfortunate way. It made possible for a government to systematically target a specific group of people while business made money without a regard to ethics. I was thinking this would be very obvious.
That's like saying the Earth and Pluto are similar, just because they're both planets, (very) roughly sheroid in shape, and orbit the same sun. Kinda like saying jp2 is like remmers. There may be a kernel of truth, in the statement, but the rest of the story paints rather a different picture.
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I like XiXi's (a pun) juxtaposition of the satanic Micro$oft with IBM in these two items. Even if the assertion about IBM is true and it wasn't merely looking out for shareholder equity motivated its hard to see how the current IBM (among other things the largest micro$oft var/OEM) can even be mentioned in the same breath with that evil empire, Micro$oft. Its not really that much of a stretch to compare Mircro$oft and their regard to other software vendors and that of the nazis. Compare the adulation of hitler with Gates? The tactics are similar as is the goal.
Well, Microsoft and once-upon-a-time IBM are certainly similar in their use of monopolistic power to try to extend their control to new markets. In such an environment, if some dictator is trying to round up people, then he is likely to be using computers, and if he is using computers he is likely to be using products from the current monopolistic computer company and getting technical support from them. It's the nature of monopolies to have their fingers in *everything* that they can get their fingers into. I think the comparison between profiling of Arabs in America and of Jews in WWII Germany is a bit overheated, but I don't see anything amazing about the existance of connections from Microsoft to one and IBM to the other. They were each into *everything*.
The 1920s and 1930s were also a big of big technological
change, perhaps faster than today. It took the goverment to
protect consumers with such things as defining can size for goods
sold in grocery stores (it was a rather new thing)--each canner was
picking different sizes, making it hard to comparision shop to
defining the radio dial for broadcast stations --each station
radio manufacturor wanted exclusive rights to their frequencies.
Mister, we need a man like Hebert Hoover again!
What I don't get about a 'national ID card' is how it's supposed to stop something like 9/11 from happening. Most of the hijackers were in the country *legally*.
Yeah, but darn it, we'd know EXACTLY who they were!
Of course, and then we could find out who's responsible and destroy his country. We wouldn't want to take any action on shakey proof.
uvCAWZnot!
It'll just be stolen, forged, or obtained with false information, like happens to every other ID card we have.
re#9: isn't that 'all' not 'most'?
let's deprt everyone legal. they cant be trusted.
Re #14: Not strictly speaking. A couple of them were on expired visas. However, they'd applied for student visas, and apparently since the INS is so hideously slow and understaffed it was the practice at the time to let people reenter the country before their applications were granted. (I believe that in this case if they had filed the application for renewal the day they got their original visas, the INS *still* wouldn't have processed it by the time the visas expired. That's how bad it is. It's hard to clean up illegal immigration when you're making it impossible to follow the rules through bureaucratic incompetance. I think part of the reason the INS is so underfunded is that practically no one who votes has to deal with it.)
hah exactly! (except the lawyers) ;)
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