I received an account statement for my Chase Platinum Visa credit card today and was shocked to discover new charges. It is surprising, because this credit card has never been used for purchases. There was one balance transfer that was done at the opening of the account to take advantage of a 0% APR for a year promotion. Since the opening of the account in September 2004, I have only made payments with a consistent value. During this statement period, fraudulent purchases were made at various online retailers. My statement had charges that totaled approximately 800USD, and after I contacted Chase Visa, I learned that there were additional charges made since the statement was printed that totaled an additional 2000USD.
This is the second time that I have been a victim of credit card fraud in the last two years. The other credit card that was compromised was a Fleet Platinum Visa card. I also opened that account with a balance transfer (this is actually the same balance that I transferred to Chase), but the credit card was compromised before I even received the physical credit card through the mail. Basically, two balance transfers were done on my credit card, one that was actually mine and another to credit an unknown person’s account.
There was an instance where Discover credit card actively contacted me to verify purchases that I made at a city that was approximately 35 miles from my home. Those purchases totaled less than 100USD, but Discover became concerned because I used my Discover credit card at several places in a city that I previously had not frequented. Obviously, the Discover representative did not give me special attention nor continually watched my account throughout the month. The representative was most likely alerted by a software application.
Apparently all the computational power that Chase possesses could not detect the drastic change in spending behavior that credit card companies are known to track. I had a purchase history with Chase: I have never made a purchase on their card. Yet, their systems did not alert a representative when the credit card balance exceeded my credit limit and expensive purchases were made at an alarming rate within a very short time interval. The change in purchasing behavior is so obvious, I would expect even a piece of poorly written security software to have detected it. I can only hope that Chase’s resolution is more timely than that of Fleet.
I am simply amazed at the things GNU/Linux can now do, especially with regard to IP networking. I use pf under OpenBSD, a Unix-like operating system that is not Linux, to keep untrusted wireless access traffic from my trusted wired network at home. Lately, I have been working with Linux operating systems in a corporate environment and needed packet policing. It feels good to be able to get similar features to a Cisco device without the need to make a 4500USD purchase.
An ingress policy can decrease the amount of incoming traffic, but it depends on well-behaved TCP/IP stacks and a transport protocol that supports throttling on the sending hosts. The following commands install an ingress queue to eth0 and applies a filter that applies a policy rate of 512kbit.
tc qdisc add dev eth0 handle ffff: ingress
tc filter add dev eth0 parent ffff: protocol ip prio 50 \
u32 match ip src 0.0.0.0/0 police rate 256kbit \
burst 10k drop flowid :1
tc qdisc add dev eth0 root tbf \
rate 256kbit latency 25ms burst 10k
“I’m going to fucking kill Google,” Steve Ballmer has been credited with saying. Ballmer allegedly included this statement in his exchange with Marc Lucovsky when Lucovsky declared his intent to leave Microsoft to join Google. In defense, Ballmer stated that Lucovsky’s decision to leave was disappointing and that he attempted to persuade Lucovsky to stay. Obviously, Ballmer’s efforts were ineffectual despite Ballmer allegedly throwing a chair across a room.
The article at smh.com.au also describes Kai-Fu Lee’s offer. Google put a 2.5M USD signing bonus, a 1.5M USD bonus for staying a year, 250K USD annual salary, and some stock and stock options on the table. I have had earlier thoughts about the Kai-Fu Lee ordeal.
It is obvious that Google understands the potential contributions that these individuals can provide. Google also seems capable of making offers that Microsoft cannot match. There are at least three things Microsoft can do: increase compensation, increase job flexibility so that developers do not feel limited to or forced to specialize in certain projects, enhance company image so that Microsoft attracts industry researchers and innovators. Surely, if Microsoft matched Google’s offer and provided an environment that is similar to or more appealing than the one that Google provides, it would be more difficult for other companies to lure its employees away. After all, these candidates recognize the risks they take when entering a new company, and they surely measure the benefits gained from the new company over the loss of tenure at their former one before they make their decision to leave.
The choice to risk little for a lot of gain is obvious. To keep employees, companies need to make the gains that they provide to their employees equitable or competitive to the gains offered to their employees by their competitors.
ABC News brings the notion of what I call job insourcing to the mainstream with this article. There are many displaced computer workers who would be willing to accept a lower nominal salary if that salary can afford them a good life, even if it meant relocating them to a place with a low cost of living. I would rather hear an American working Dell’s customer service lines than hearing about the US national unemployment rate being greater than five percent. I hate knowing that unemployment is greater than ten percent in some communities. Foreign companies, like certain Japanese car companies, have built facilities to manufacture goods in America that are intended to be marketed within America. It is only fair that a company that intends to sell a product also provide a means for their targeted consumers to purchase that product. Many US-based companies should have considered the insourcing alternative before leaping into the cheap labor markets. They should consider helping the economy of the country that provided an environment where their businesses were allowed to flourish.
Checking out university course descriptions and syllabi is one way I remain sharp and competitive within the computing industry. They serve as a great resource on what books to purchase for recreational reading. They sometimes also validate other books I bought after some cursory reading at traditional bookstores. I have always questioned why otaku fascinate themselves with science fiction literature. Wouldn’t being intrigued by information science theory be better?
Text Retrieval and Mining: CS276A at Stanford
Parallel Programming: CS233A at UCLA
Artificial Intelligence: 15-381 at CMU