if you think computer security is expensive you should look at the costs of not having it.
I'm not of that opinion, though it is certainly valid.
There is a lot of security that is stupidly expensive and absolutely worthless (i.e. TSA) and those should be removed or replaced with better security that is also cheaper. There is a lot of security that is cheap and absolutely necessary, like installing security patches on a regular basis. If you think computer security is expensive, you should look at what you have, determine if it is necessary and worth the risk of not having it, and go from there.
You should never make any decision on anything, security or otherwise, solely based on the cost alone. After all, Sony did replace their security/networking staff with cheaper ones, that brought with them the lack of experience and understanding of basic security/administration principles. Many of the machines compromised did not have the latest security patches...pretty basic system administration 101 type stuff.
IT's called Steam. It's relatively unobtrusive, it's easy to use, it's convenient, and it has incredible sales.
Steam *is* the best DRM out there. If I had to give an award for the best DRM, Steam would take it. But then I'd pull it right back since Steam allows distributors to package their own, far more crappy DRM along-side Steam. I am tired of buying a game only to find SecureROM has been installed! SecureROM just doesn't work with virtualized platforms. It will trigger its "this is a pirated copy" routines when I run it on a VM, and that is pretty much how I roll now unless the game is supported on Linux. I don't want to set up a dual-boot or a dedicated Windows box just to play a game.
But it's still a DRM schema. I don't like that fact,m but I still use it because it's less painful than the other DRM schema out there.
Steam is at most a good distribution platform (though, my cable company would argue with that, since I have to download full versions of the software and full updates from each machine I use...there isn't really a good solid method of mirroring the software/updates so that when I download them to one system, it propagates the changes locally so as to not waste bandwidth. A P2P model for Steam distribution is really needed.
it would be utterly naive to believe the US Government will not target this new CA with court orders.
It is only vulnerable if it is within the jurisdiction of the US government. I wonder if putting the CA on a small satellite or in international waters would make it less vulnerable to court orders (though, at that point, physical security would likely be more of an issue, since they can just blow it up.)
Maybe the answer is to adopt more of a Skipjack approach to CAs, where multiple CAs are involved in generating new certificates, and no single CA can generate a certificate from a CSR. That way, if one CA is compromised, the keys to the castle aren't completely lost. Will mean a lot more infrastructure costs...
Oh, talk about the richest karma in this hack. Sony put out a rootkit getting in to all sorts of places as people played their music off purchased CDs. The irony is indeed delicious.
I was soaking in the karma schadenfreude when Sony Entertainment of America laid off their network and security staff six months before PSN got hacked because they were too expensive. A friend of mine laid off six months before was asked by Sony to come back and help them fix PSN after it got hacked, and he told them to take a long walk off a short pier.
This is just icing on the cake I am already choking on.
Which greatly limits access to the public. Joe sixpack probably doesn't have $2000 to donate for a yearly membership. He probably doesn't have the $4 to afford to rent the document either, what good that will do for him.
If they had a system up where you could get read only access to the entire document without having to know someone or kiss someone's ring, it would be somewhat helpful just for a researcher to even see if the document is something worth buying, but for the public, this is as John said...a very, very tiny step forward that doesn't help the public at all (but might make it a little easier for researchers who know people who have access that can send them links to documents.)
The public benefits greatly. Those who had zero access to this information now have a great deal more.
The public still has no access to the information without paying $4.00 to rent it for 48-hours or buying a subscription.
Those that have a subscription to Nature can share it with others using a limited read-only link to the PDF, which must be sent in order for it to be accessed. If the public doesn't know it exists, and doesn't know a person with a subscription, they still have zero access to the research without paying for it.
Thanks for confirming that you still haven't tried it, but are still willing to criticize it based on information from other people who haven't tried it, either.
I tried it on Windows, using Mozilla Firefox and Chrome (the two applications that were said to work with it.) I usually use Linux, but I have a nice virtual machine set up for crap like this.
It popped up a message to view the PDF, then showed me the first page and popped up a "you have to buy this article to get everything" message, asking for $4.00 to rent it for 48-hours, but not print it or save it.
Open access to research my ass. You only get previews of the first page and then they expect you to pay $4.00 to get the rest. It is still a paywall.
Reading the actual article on Nature, it appears (in the second comment,) that someone who has already paid for the subscription can send the link. How do you expect people to try it if you don't even share a link to allow us to test it on our own?
You meant our new billion dollar magic invisibility cloak doesn't work and you can still see our cars?
I suspect a far better solution for them would have been the $100 car cover that is available down at the auto-parts store, had they not been so cheap as to not buy them. Sure, people would have been suspicious of hundreds of cars in the parking lot covered by car covers, but very few would have looked underneath.
Well, technically, it's the insurance company who comes calling. This is one of the reasons why you are required to carry comprehensive insurance in order to get financing. But your point stands.
IANAL, but I suspect reporting the vehicle stolen to the insurance company when it is seized by the police (regardless to whether it was a legal seizure or not,) would probably qualify as insurance fraud. Telling the insurance company that it was illegally seized probably won't get you much of anywhere, though they might be able to provide you with a reference to a good lawyer.
I'm guessing that generally, the answer is "no" because it was only stolen from the point of view of common sense, not from the point of view of the law.
It might have also been stolen from the point of view of the law too. Certainly in this case, where the stop was questionable (would love to see how they articulated the reasonable suspicion for the stop, especially when the officer admitted they didn't think drugs were present.) Last time I checked, carrying money wasn't grounds for reasonable suspicion for a stop.
For some reason my regaional cable carrier has a conscience. This means I have great service, and even better, genuinely fast broadband (At least 25+ Mbps easy).
Mine isn't *bad*, relatively speaking. I've got friends with TWC that have all sorts of lovely stories that make me count my blessings.
They say that they upped my bandwidth recently to 100+ Mbps, so I am getting about 12-16 Mbps (yes, Mbps...not MBps,) on average now. Still not even close to their advertised "up-to" limit, but at least now I am getting pretty close to what they promised I was before. With 12-16 Mbps average, I can watch Netflix at SD quality on most days and see no issues. Now if only they raised the cap, I'd be a little happier (but as it is, I only hit their 300GB/mo cap once a quarter now instead of every month.)
I am happy with my service, but if there was more than one viable competitor, I'd be even happier because it would force them to fix some of the stupid stuff they aren't currently fixing in order to keep customers.
People volunteer for worse things than lawsuits to protect their societies, you know.
For life and death cases, yes. Other than that, I can't think of anything worse than to volunteer to pay everything you have ever or will ever own over to a lawyer with the very real probability that it won't be enough to cover the jury award that isn't in your favor.
Frankly, volunteering for carrying a gun into battle for your country is somewhat safer, since they usually have Geneva Conventions to prevent the type of abuse you will likely see in the courts. At least the worse you can get in battle is the loss of your life and/or permanent, life-changing injury.
As citizens, we should be demanding a court system that is for justice and protection of the innocents, not a private tax system for those get-rich-quick lawyers that couldn't make it chasing ambulances or working as high-priced divorce attorneys.
Didn't you consider buying their "stop sending me a cable signal" package? I heard it's very affordable.
Unfortunately, that usually has to be done through a very lengthy and difficult process as well. But once you're done, it is a worthwhile expenditure of time and effort. Just wish I had more than one viable option for internet.
I am trying to teach as many people as possible that it is a far better expenditure of time and effort to not hit the crack-pipe they call Cable to begin with... I just need to figure out a way to do it with a cute girl, a frying pan, and eggs and I think I've got it.
"If these are the trucks being given away, these are the truck being implemented into law enforcement service. If someone thinks their tax dollars are better served letting these assets rust away or be given to foreign armies, maybe their cash is greener than yours or mine."
Perhaps we should demand that our tax dollars are not being wasted on generating military equipment that our military doesn't need/want/desire.
The problem is that it is our elected representatives telling the military that they want more of these then they actually need because the factory that makes them is in his constituency and he'll get elected next time for keeping his citizens employed building stuff we don't need.
Perhaps Mr. ToneDeaf also missed the several veterans who pointed out that many police officers are better outfitted than those on the actual frontlines of ACTUAL military operations.
It costs more to send this stuff overseas where we will eventually just leave them for the countries we use them in to use. Much easier to ship them to Hicktown, USA than to a foreign country. And so much the better that the actual citizens get to see what their tax dollars are going to, regardless to whether they are in front of these weapons or not.
In all seriousness though, I agree. There is a fundamental shift away from community policing and towards an "us-vs-them" mentality that most police departments seem to be adopting. All in the name of "War on Drugs/War on Terrorism." If we stopped calling them "Wars" (and got rid of a few of them, ala War on Drugs,) we'd be a lot safer since wars involve two enemy combatants and when you are considered an enemy combatant even when you aren't doing anything wrong/illegal/aggressive, then everyone loses.
Who provides your Internet service? The cable company? Guess what, you have not cut the cord, the money you pay the cable company just goes in a different pocket.
Not everyone uses the cable company for internet. Last time I checked, cable didn't provide DSL/FIOS/LTE (though those companies may, or may not, provide Cable TV.)
However, regardless to who you pay for internet, so long as they don't restrict your access to internet, it is a completely different model (and usually cheaper than cable TV.) On cable TV, the broadcaster decides when and what I watch (or at least, until the DVR time-shifts it.) On the internet, I decide when and what I want to watch, so long as I can find a provider to provide it.
So yes, we may still pay money into the cable companies pockets for internet, but we aren't paying them for Cable TV.
Mythbusters is (or was -- I haven't checked recently) available on Netflix.
Only the shows that have been released on DVD (or the last time I looked.) The DVDs are still several years behind (2009 is the latest shows released/available on DVD.) Streaming of Mythbusters is not currently available, and I don't think it has ever been available (I've been watching for it on streaming, and if it is available, it isn't available where I live in the United States.)
As an older person, I also can't see the incredible value of traditional cable television. Perhaps because it's the exact opposite of an "incredible value".
Exactly. When I cut the cord, the only thing I missed was Mythbusters. I used to religiously watch that show, and used to buy the DVDs. After cutting the cord, I cared less and less about missing that one show (since they don't offer it anywhere...except on Discovery.) Now, after several years, I don't even buy the DVDs. Had they been available on Hulu (like the new Cosmos,) I would have continued to watch and continue to support...but without them I moved on.
Sadly, when looking at my cable bills for the several years before I realized the only reason I was buying cable was to support 1 show, I realized that for the cost I could buy about 30 copies of the DVD each year and still have plenty of money to spend on other entertainment options.
Like Taylor Swift's brain-fart of leaving good money on the table because she is greedy...had Discovery made Mythbusters available through other methods (for reasonable cost, say $5/mo), I would have continued being interested in supporting them. But $140/mo is an awful lot of money to spend on one TV show.
If you've watched the ads recently, ALL wireless services throttle their "unlimited" data plans after 2 to 3 GB in a month. Every - single - one.
Uhm.. no. All services throttle their "unlimited" data plans, but not all of them throttle after 2 to 3 GB. T-Mobile throttles at 5GB* (though not for certain services.) Sprint throttles at 5GB as well. AT&T doesn't even throttle until 5GB on their LTE unlimited plans.
What is interesting, is that I had a T-Mobile 3G data device which never got throttled (it wasn't fast, but it never dropped in speed.) It wasn't until I got the 4G device, after my 3G device met an untimely end) that I started seeing the limits, and only after I passed 5.5 GB in a month.
Wow, so much for teaching kids about financial responsibility by having them open bank accounts.
There was a program set up in the local schools around here about 10 years ago where students were taught to manage money by setting up bank accounts and depositing their allowance in it. They worked out a deal with a local bank to set up accounts for the students and their parents. I believe the first year, the accounts were free, but after the first year, the bank changed the rules without telling anyone and required a fee of $6/mo unless there was $3,000 in the account (like most banks charged.) Since $6/mo was quite a bit of money when allowance was concerned, most of the students ended up paying all of their earned money to the bank. Taught kids really quickly that managing their money meant not using a bank unless you could afford it, which was the wrong message those who implemented the education wanted, and it was shut down pretty quickly.
I think it taught a pretty good lesson though, that unless you take an active role in the management, you can pretty much bet that you will be screwed. It also taught that even the best intentions can be corrupted by pure greed (on the part of the bank, which valued ridiculous "subscription fees" over long-term goodwill and future customers.
On the post: Apparently We Need Porn Filters To Safeguard The Healthy Erections Of Young Men
Re: Re: Pry
You can't? Maybe if you stop looking at the porn on your monitor long enough you could ;-).
On the post: That Huge Sony Hack May Have Been North Korea Retaliating Against James Franco And Seth Rogen
Re: Re: Re:
I'm not of that opinion, though it is certainly valid.
There is a lot of security that is stupidly expensive and absolutely worthless (i.e. TSA) and those should be removed or replaced with better security that is also cheaper. There is a lot of security that is cheap and absolutely necessary, like installing security patches on a regular basis. If you think computer security is expensive, you should look at what you have, determine if it is necessary and worth the risk of not having it, and go from there.
You should never make any decision on anything, security or otherwise, solely based on the cost alone. After all, Sony did replace their security/networking staff with cheaper ones, that brought with them the lack of experience and understanding of basic security/administration principles. Many of the machines compromised did not have the latest security patches...pretty basic system administration 101 type stuff.
On the post: Nature Drops Its Paywall... But Replaces It With Insane, Anti-Research Proprietary DRM
Re: Re: Re: Begging AC's pardon
Steam *is* the best DRM out there. If I had to give an award for the best DRM, Steam would take it. But then I'd pull it right back since Steam allows distributors to package their own, far more crappy DRM along-side Steam. I am tired of buying a game only to find SecureROM has been installed! SecureROM just doesn't work with virtualized platforms. It will trigger its "this is a pirated copy" routines when I run it on a VM, and that is pretty much how I roll now unless the game is supported on Linux. I don't want to set up a dual-boot or a dedicated Windows box just to play a game.
But it's still a DRM schema. I don't like that fact,m but I still use it because it's less painful than the other DRM schema out there.
Steam is at most a good distribution platform (though, my cable company would argue with that, since I have to download full versions of the software and full updates from each machine I use...there isn't really a good solid method of mirroring the software/updates so that when I download them to one system, it propagates the changes locally so as to not waste bandwidth. A P2P model for Steam distribution is really needed.
On the post: Will New Free Certificate Authority Help Or Hinder Online Security?
Put the CA out of reach...
It is only vulnerable if it is within the jurisdiction of the US government. I wonder if putting the CA on a small satellite or in international waters would make it less vulnerable to court orders (though, at that point, physical security would likely be more of an issue, since they can just blow it up.)
Maybe the answer is to adopt more of a Skipjack approach to CAs, where multiple CAs are involved in generating new certificates, and no single CA can generate a certificate from a CSR. That way, if one CA is compromised, the keys to the castle aren't completely lost. Will mean a lot more infrastructure costs...
On the post: That Huge Sony Hack May Have Been North Korea Retaliating Against James Franco And Seth Rogen
Re:
I was soaking in the karma schadenfreude when Sony Entertainment of America laid off their network and security staff six months before PSN got hacked because they were too expensive. A friend of mine laid off six months before was asked by Sony to come back and help them fix PSN after it got hacked, and he told them to take a long walk off a short pier.
This is just icing on the cake I am already choking on.
On the post: Nature Drops Its Paywall... But Replaces It With Insane, Anti-Research Proprietary DRM
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's wrong today, Mike?
Which greatly limits access to the public. Joe sixpack probably doesn't have $2000 to donate for a yearly membership. He probably doesn't have the $4 to afford to rent the document either, what good that will do for him.
If they had a system up where you could get read only access to the entire document without having to know someone or kiss someone's ring, it would be somewhat helpful just for a researcher to even see if the document is something worth buying, but for the public, this is as John said...a very, very tiny step forward that doesn't help the public at all (but might make it a little easier for researchers who know people who have access that can send them links to documents.)
On the post: Nature Drops Its Paywall... But Replaces It With Insane, Anti-Research Proprietary DRM
Re: Re: Re: What's wrong today, Mike?
The public still has no access to the information without paying $4.00 to rent it for 48-hours or buying a subscription.
Those that have a subscription to Nature can share it with others using a limited read-only link to the PDF, which must be sent in order for it to be accessed. If the public doesn't know it exists, and doesn't know a person with a subscription, they still have zero access to the research without paying for it.
On the post: Nature Drops Its Paywall... But Replaces It With Insane, Anti-Research Proprietary DRM
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Begging AC's pardon
I tried it on Windows, using Mozilla Firefox and Chrome (the two applications that were said to work with it.) I usually use Linux, but I have a nice virtual machine set up for crap like this.
It popped up a message to view the PDF, then showed me the first page and popped up a "you have to buy this article to get everything" message, asking for $4.00 to rent it for 48-hours, but not print it or save it.
Open access to research my ass. You only get previews of the first page and then they expect you to pay $4.00 to get the rest. It is still a paywall.
Reading the actual article on Nature, it appears (in the second comment,) that someone who has already paid for the subscription can send the link. How do you expect people to try it if you don't even share a link to allow us to test it on our own?
On the post: Employee Fired After Posting Pictures Of DHS Vehicles Parked In Hotel Parking Lot
Re: The Emperor's New Cars
I suspect a far better solution for them would have been the $100 car cover that is available down at the auto-parts store, had they not been so cheap as to not buy them. Sure, people would have been suspicious of hundreds of cars in the parking lot covered by car covers, but very few would have looked underneath.
On the post: Tennessee Drug Interdiction Officers Stomp All Over Traveling Couples' Rights En Route To Seizing Nothing At All
Re: Re: Re: Incompetent cops
IANAL, but I suspect reporting the vehicle stolen to the insurance company when it is seized by the police (regardless to whether it was a legal seizure or not,) would probably qualify as insurance fraud. Telling the insurance company that it was illegally seized probably won't get you much of anywhere, though they might be able to provide you with a reference to a good lawyer.
I'm guessing that generally, the answer is "no" because it was only stolen from the point of view of common sense, not from the point of view of the law.
It might have also been stolen from the point of view of the law too. Certainly in this case, where the stop was questionable (would love to see how they articulated the reasonable suspicion for the stop, especially when the officer admitted they didn't think drugs were present.) Last time I checked, carrying money wasn't grounds for reasonable suspicion for a stop.
On the post: Comcast CEO Still Pretending His Company's Horrible Satisfaction Ratings Are Just A Normal Part Of Being So Huge
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Mine isn't *bad*, relatively speaking. I've got friends with TWC that have all sorts of lovely stories that make me count my blessings.
They say that they upped my bandwidth recently to 100+ Mbps, so I am getting about 12-16 Mbps (yes, Mbps...not MBps,) on average now. Still not even close to their advertised "up-to" limit, but at least now I am getting pretty close to what they promised I was before. With 12-16 Mbps average, I can watch Netflix at SD quality on most days and see no issues. Now if only they raised the cap, I'd be a little happier (but as it is, I only hit their 300GB/mo cap once a quarter now instead of every month.)
I am happy with my service, but if there was more than one viable competitor, I'd be even happier because it would force them to fix some of the stupid stuff they aren't currently fixing in order to keep customers.
On the post: Patent Troll Kills Open Source Project On Speeding Up The Computation Of Erasure Codes
Re: Re: Re: People need to show some backbone
For life and death cases, yes. Other than that, I can't think of anything worse than to volunteer to pay everything you have ever or will ever own over to a lawyer with the very real probability that it won't be enough to cover the jury award that isn't in your favor.
Frankly, volunteering for carrying a gun into battle for your country is somewhat safer, since they usually have Geneva Conventions to prevent the type of abuse you will likely see in the courts. At least the worse you can get in battle is the loss of your life and/or permanent, life-changing injury.
As citizens, we should be demanding a court system that is for justice and protection of the innocents, not a private tax system for those get-rich-quick lawyers that couldn't make it chasing ambulances or working as high-priced divorce attorneys.
On the post: Comcast CEO Still Pretending His Company's Horrible Satisfaction Ratings Are Just A Normal Part Of Being So Huge
Re: Re:
Unfortunately, that usually has to be done through a very lengthy and difficult process as well. But once you're done, it is a worthwhile expenditure of time and effort. Just wish I had more than one viable option for internet.
I am trying to teach as many people as possible that it is a far better expenditure of time and effort to not hit the crack-pipe they call Cable to begin with... I just need to figure out a way to do it with a cute girl, a frying pan, and eggs and I think I've got it.
On the post: Veteran Police Officer Defends Law Enforcement's Use Of Military Vehicles Using Condescension And Baseless Claims
Re:
Perhaps we should demand that our tax dollars are not being wasted on generating military equipment that our military doesn't need/want/desire.
The problem is that it is our elected representatives telling the military that they want more of these then they actually need because the factory that makes them is in his constituency and he'll get elected next time for keeping his citizens employed building stuff we don't need.
Perhaps Mr. ToneDeaf also missed the several veterans who pointed out that many police officers are better outfitted than those on the actual frontlines of ACTUAL military operations.
It costs more to send this stuff overseas where we will eventually just leave them for the countries we use them in to use. Much easier to ship them to Hicktown, USA than to a foreign country. And so much the better that the actual citizens get to see what their tax dollars are going to, regardless to whether they are in front of these weapons or not.
In all seriousness though, I agree. There is a fundamental shift away from community policing and towards an "us-vs-them" mentality that most police departments seem to be adopting. All in the name of "War on Drugs/War on Terrorism." If we stopped calling them "Wars" (and got rid of a few of them, ala War on Drugs,) we'd be a lot safer since wars involve two enemy combatants and when you are considered an enemy combatant even when you aren't doing anything wrong/illegal/aggressive, then everyone loses.
On the post: CD Projekt Red Goes All DLC For The Witcher 3...But It's Completely Free And Doesn't Require Pre-Order
Re: DLC news - now Free Advertising (super effective)
And for those who are unfamiliar with Wil Wheaton's famous rule (Wheaton's Law,) it is "Don't be a dick."
On the post: Broadcasters And Cable Companies Trying Harder Than Ever To Annoy Paying Customers With Ugly Public Contract Disputes
Re:
Not everyone uses the cable company for internet. Last time I checked, cable didn't provide DSL/FIOS/LTE (though those companies may, or may not, provide Cable TV.)
However, regardless to who you pay for internet, so long as they don't restrict your access to internet, it is a completely different model (and usually cheaper than cable TV.) On cable TV, the broadcaster decides when and what I watch (or at least, until the DVR time-shifts it.) On the internet, I decide when and what I want to watch, so long as I can find a provider to provide it.
So yes, we may still pay money into the cable companies pockets for internet, but we aren't paying them for Cable TV.
On the post: Broadcasters And Cable Companies Trying Harder Than Ever To Annoy Paying Customers With Ugly Public Contract Disputes
Re: Re: Re: Not just the youngsters
Only the shows that have been released on DVD (or the last time I looked.) The DVDs are still several years behind (2009 is the latest shows released/available on DVD.) Streaming of Mythbusters is not currently available, and I don't think it has ever been available (I've been watching for it on streaming, and if it is available, it isn't available where I live in the United States.)
On the post: Broadcasters And Cable Companies Trying Harder Than Ever To Annoy Paying Customers With Ugly Public Contract Disputes
Re: Not just the youngsters
Exactly. When I cut the cord, the only thing I missed was Mythbusters. I used to religiously watch that show, and used to buy the DVDs. After cutting the cord, I cared less and less about missing that one show (since they don't offer it anywhere...except on Discovery.) Now, after several years, I don't even buy the DVDs. Had they been available on Hulu (like the new Cosmos,) I would have continued to watch and continue to support...but without them I moved on.
Sadly, when looking at my cable bills for the several years before I realized the only reason I was buying cable was to support 1 show, I realized that for the cost I could buy about 30 copies of the DVD each year and still have plenty of money to spend on other entertainment options.
Like Taylor Swift's brain-fart of leaving good money on the table because she is greedy...had Discovery made Mythbusters available through other methods (for reasonable cost, say $5/mo), I would have continued being interested in supporting them. But $140/mo is an awful lot of money to spend on one TV show.
On the post: FTC Sues AT&T For Selling 'Unlimited' Data Plans That Were Actually Throttled
Re: Re:
Uhm.. no. All services throttle their "unlimited" data plans, but not all of them throttle after 2 to 3 GB. T-Mobile throttles at 5GB* (though not for certain services.) Sprint throttles at 5GB as well. AT&T doesn't even throttle until 5GB on their LTE unlimited plans.
What is interesting, is that I had a T-Mobile 3G data device which never got throttled (it wasn't fast, but it never dropped in speed.) It wasn't until I got the 4G device, after my 3G device met an untimely end) that I started seeing the limits, and only after I passed 5.5 GB in a month.
On the post: IRS Also More Than Willing To Steal Money Under The Pretense Of Crime Fighting
Re:
There was a program set up in the local schools around here about 10 years ago where students were taught to manage money by setting up bank accounts and depositing their allowance in it. They worked out a deal with a local bank to set up accounts for the students and their parents. I believe the first year, the accounts were free, but after the first year, the bank changed the rules without telling anyone and required a fee of $6/mo unless there was $3,000 in the account (like most banks charged.) Since $6/mo was quite a bit of money when allowance was concerned, most of the students ended up paying all of their earned money to the bank. Taught kids really quickly that managing their money meant not using a bank unless you could afford it, which was the wrong message those who implemented the education wanted, and it was shut down pretty quickly.
I think it taught a pretty good lesson though, that unless you take an active role in the management, you can pretty much bet that you will be screwed. It also taught that even the best intentions can be corrupted by pure greed (on the part of the bank, which valued ridiculous "subscription fees" over long-term goodwill and future customers.
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