> -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of ANDY > HOLT > Sent: 30 October 2015 21:22 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: "Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in > "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran > > From: "Fred Cisin" <ci...@xenosoft.com> > > They literally refused to understand that a dataset could exist that > > would be too large to fit into memory. > > In the UK, the Home Secretary wants to force all ISPs to store and keep > (reasonably) easily searchable logs of all URLs accessed by all their > customers. > This, I think, is an example of "big data" … possibly so big that backup is > impracticable. > When I did daily analysis of the urls accessed by the 2000 or so students at a > University*, that daily database was pushing what I could get into memory > on my desktop system (well specified) … now imagine 20 million users for 365 > days - I'd be doubtful that even todays mainframes and supercomputers > could do that. >
About a year ago, I was asked by my employer to give them a list of the URLs accessed by one member of staff. I sent them a list of the URL's that I had accessed. It was totally useless, mainly because every page these day as is a composite. Add to that allowing Outlook to download the content of an HTML e-mail .. .. its almost a totally pointless exercise.... > * When I questioned the legality (and morality) of doing this the answer was > "we believe it is legal" (and "stop complaining and keep digging"). > > Andy
