The fine amount may seem very very low. If Amazon had not voluntarily disclosed their violations to OFAC and had been caught, the maximum fines they faced would have been in the hundreds of millions or billions.

Given that, and how drastically the fine was reduced, Amazon has a very high incentive to self-report its violations (which it did) and to institute changes that ensure this will not happen again (only the future knows). OFAC wants companies to self-police and build compliance into their regular operations. It does that by reducing the fines.

It is also worth noting that, small fine aside, Amazon has to admit to the world that they sent goods to parties and countries they shouldn't have and had inadequate controls to prevent that from happening. When is the last time you read an article where a company admitted its guilt? Almost all the time it comes to a lawsuit with a big fine but no admission of guilt. This is the opposite. If sometime down the road we find out that whatever it was Amazon moved to those sanctioned countries is used for nefarious purposes (e.g., used in a terrorist attack, used in government scandal, or similar), it makes Amazon look complicit. That's also a really bad look for them. It may not affect Amazon long-term, but you could imagine how that could permanently harm a smaller business.

My organization a while ago saw significant issues with untested fixes being deployed and similar bad practices (undocumented configurations, lack of integration testing, etc.). The thing that did it for us was seeing our up-time drop below 99% in production systems. It became downright embarrassing and started costing us real $.

So our then-CIO froze all production changes for 90 days. In that time, we instituted a change review board. They now approve all production changes. Without the culture change that came with the culture freeze, the new process might have failed. But we bought into it. And by putting them in as the gate-keeper, we now require documented QA approvals.

So in your case, a Change Management process like this would help. But you'll also need to change the way people care about your production environment. You'll need both, but take heart - it can be done.

In other news...

This just goes to show that getting cryptography right can be just as hard for the bad guys as the good guys. There are so many ways to get it wrong. Just ask Bruce: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.schneier.com%2Fessay...

We have our legacy system "Theseus" that has been running since the early '80s. Sure the hardware it runs on has changed three times and we've re-written it four times, but it's still the same legacy system we've always had.

The article is more of an ad for FLYHT's product than addressing the problem area of capturing black box flight data.

In deciding to cut a new path with Unity, Ubuntu had some good reasons to break with Gnome as its primary UI layer. Gnome caused about as much stir with its initial 3.0 release as Ubuntu did with Unity. If Gnome, KDE, or other UI technologies are able to fix the issues that drove Canonical to create Unity, would they get more official, supported status than they now have? In other words, would Canonical ever consider moving away from Unity?

I like the sound of this initially. One drawback to current App stores is they are locked to a single platform (ie. OS). Apple's App store only works on Apple devices. Android's various marketplaces only work on Android devices. the Windows App store apps will work only on Windows devices.

Here Steam has the chance to let the same apps work on any OS you want as long as the app developers will support it. Login to your Steam account anywhere and install that must-have-software on any machine no matter where you are or what you have. And if your application can be easily distributed through one channel to all your users, so much the better for you! I hope Steam finds success here.

While I'm not an expert in fashion for males or females, you don't have to look far to notice that there are lots of tech CEOs that just throw a sports coat or blazer on top of their t-shirt and jeans. No one questions their authority or style, and it projects the confidence of a real owner. You already have the jeans and t-shirt, so I'd suggest picking up a few sport coats or blazers to wear with them. It adds that aura of authority, and is easily removed/swapped.

What I want to know is how will the Obama Administration actually pick the top 2,500 or 10,000 teachers for the program. What criteria or measurements will they use to select them? Is it a subjective measure? We've had fights in all 50 states about measuring teacher performance, But the Obama plan seems to gloss over that problem. I could see whatever process used to select the cream of the crop also used to justify salaries for the n - 2500 teachers.

My guess is the lender. And in the vast majority of cases these days, the lender is the government. The school doesn't have an incentive to hurt the success of their alumni, and the only party gaining from forcing (former) students to pay up is the government.

Sounds like Universities are now becoming lackeys for the Federal government. These days, the vast majority (80% - 90%) of student loans come directly from the Federal government. Private lenders were taking advantage of students, so the government stepped in and pretty much owns the market. And the government won't generally let you off the hook for these loans -- even through bankruptcy. The government wants its money back.

The same government that subsidizes student loans also sends grant money to the Universities. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the government is willing to put the squeeze on universities to find some way to force students to pay. It shouldn't surprise anyone to find out that the Feds might withhold funding from Universities if their students don't pay back loans.

Like the summary, and others, have pointed out: there's no good incentive for Universities to not send transcripts for students behind on their loan payments. So why else but pressure from the Federal government would Universities do something that harms their alumni and their reputation?

I've also lost a lightsaber in the past.

I had a fight with my dad, and it got pretty heated. He ended up cutting off my hand, and I dropped it. I felt really shafted. It was a traumatic experience for me. It worked out in the end, as it turned out it was his lightsaber anyway, and I built my own shortly thereafter. I also got a new hand (you can't really build a lightsaber with just one hand -- I should know!)

--Luke S.

Anecdote:

My wife was allowed to take her yogurt through security in her carry-on, even though it was more then 3oz of yogurt. The reason was she had put it in the freezer before the trip. Since it was still frozen, it didn't count as a liquid, and therefore wasn't subject to the usual rules.

Your TSA experience may vary, since there's certainly inconsistency in how rules are applied.