How come I can't leave a comment on entry 519 telling you what a pompous buffoon you are for bragging about getting a job? What are comments sections for, if not that? ;-)

Isn't the 'close to comments' option in MoveableType fun? ;)

Besides, I wasn't bragging, or at least trying not to. Just closing a story. Geez, I guess I should stick to less contentious issues, like politics.

Tokyo eh? One part of the world I'd love to get to at some point but have never had the courage, somehow Istanbul and Taipei seemed less overwhelming. Congrats on the job, it always is the applications/letters that you personalize and specifically target that get you in the door!

Cheers!

You can get onenote at www.edu.com for $49.00 and if you find 4 other people that want it (I'd be one) you can get it for $20 a seat.

Aren't MS per-seat licenses limited to one organization?

But thanks--cheaper is definitely better.

Congrats on the job. And also off-topic is this.

Have you seen this Calpundit post about a Washington Post article discussing the Senate "Memo-gate" imbroglio?

From the Post article:
In addition to faulting the two aides, Pickle's report noted the "systemic flaws" in the Senate Judiciary Committee's computer security practices and recommended steps to improve them. But the report said the flaws did not contribute to the downloading and dissemination of the Democratic files by the two GOP aides.
...
According to Pickle's report, Lundell learned how to access the files by watching a systems administrator work on his computer. Miranda guided Lundell in his accessing endeavors, the report said. In addition, the probe found "a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence implicating him," the report said.

That rather changes the whole discussion you & I were having about this all a few weeks ago, doesn't it? Of course, as Kevin Drum notes, the explanations of what all went on remain maddeningly vague, but it does seem to point to a much more serious interpretation of the GOP folks' behavior.

I'd sign up, for $20/seat. I think I ordered something from that site last semster...

OneNote looks super cool. do you know anyone that has used it? i think i'd love it with my Tablet PC.

TJ:

Actually, I'll be posting about that before the day's out. I've read through the redacted SAA report, and it doesn't change anything.

The explanations aren't 'maddeningly vague': the report has the specifics of the computer setup I've been wondering about for ages. As for 'watching the Sysadmin', this seems to have been looking at the screen as the SysAdmin double-clicked 'My Computer', then went through a list of completely unprotected fileshares.

Actually, it's worse than I'd expected, because I thought the SA had just screwed up some group fileshares. No, it seems the man had completely failed to protect all the new home directories he'd created, because Leahy hired someone straight out of college and then was too cheap, lazy, or incompetent to get his new flunky properly trained. I'd be polite, but I'm enraged about that: this is basic, basic, basic stuff, and any SA who didn't get it right should be made to set in a corner of the Capitol building in a pointed dunce hat facing the corner.

Doesn't change the analysis at all--the staffers were still 'authorized' in a Systems Administration sense, because if you're not authorized to see something on a server, you can't see it--but Leahy should have egg all over his face on this one. No one, and I mean no one should ever have a systems adminstrator with that pathetic level of ignorance on their staff, and he should bear the full burden for it.

Hold on. What about this:
"Pickle's report noted the "systemic flaws" in the Senate Judiciary Committee's computer security practices and recommended steps to improve them. But the report said the flaws did not contribute to the downloading and dissemination of the Democratic files by the two GOP aides."

The flawed security practices did not contribute to the GOP staffers' memo-grab.

It really does sound like it was something more than simply double clicking on My Computer--and further, if it was that obvious, why did the GOP staffer need to look over the SysAdmin shoulder to figure out how he hacked it.

I haven't read the redacted report yet--but note it is redacted. Where did you find it?

Jim:

I'm posting on it in an hour--wait until then. ;)

The Post is full of it, though, and so's Calpundit. The only way you can read the SAA's report as saying that is if you're completely ignorant of the mechanisms involved, and trust me, the Post's reporting shows that ignorance. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here. You wouldn't need to look over the SysAdmin's shoulder to find this problem, Jim--that's an assumption CalPundit made and you swallowed. The fact of the matter is that this error is so dumb that you wouldn't think of trying it unless you'd seen the SysAdmin do it right in front of you.

Well, I'll be out of town for most of the weekend, so I'll have to read it when I return. Oh, and I found a link to the report in two parts--no thanks to the Senate site, which I found absurdly un-user friendly.

Anyhow, will be interested to see what you have to say.

Chris,
Believe me, Turkey isn't that 'bizarre'. When I first came here, I thought that I would come to a cool-where-the-east-meets-the-west country. But, after a few weeks, you just feel yourself in a traditional country where the first topic people talk about is how to save the country and the second one is futball(soccer)*.

*They actually did a study about what people talk about and they got this results.

visit my cool website:
http://2lawschool.blog-city.com and you will get some stories about my life in Turkey.