User: khasim

Yes, it would.

On: "Security Engineering" Is Now Online

The book wouldn't exist in the first place without the middleman.

Yes, it would. Strangely enough, books were written before "publishers" were invented.

To say that they are not serving the author's interests is not true; the author had the choice not to sign the contract with the publisher. Contract negotiations are a give and take; the author both got something and had something taken away.

Contracts do not always "serve" both party's interests. As in the case of the author's previous work no longer being published. How does that server the author's interests?

Your interests are irrelevant to this business decision except as part of a potential market, and if the publisher thinks they can't make money in that potential market, they won't try.

Maybe you aren't familiar with the term "middleman"?

The "middleman" is between (in the "middle") the producer and the consumer. The author is the producer, I am the consumer. So my interests are a factor.

You may not like it, but it's the same business decisions that made the book available in the first place.

And it is "business decisions" such as that that are driving the changes in the market.

Which is why so many of the "middlemen" are fighting to keep extending the copyright period. They want to re-write the laws to artificially create barriers between the producer and the consumer.

You got it. Change the circumstances.

On: "Security Engineering" Is Now Online

#1. Putting the password in your wallet is taking a less secure process (written password) and encasing it in a more secure container (your wallet).

#2. Change the login process to lock out the account for 15 minutes after 3 failed login attempts. That way, less random passwords can be used (and easily remembered). As long as there is a real person monitoring the logs and watching for attacks so that action can be taken.

#3. If it is something that can be cracked off-line (secret message), store the really long password on a USB key or something. Then put that key in your wallet (#1).

A single approach is NOT sufficient for every scenario.

Can we change the roles a bit?

On: "Security Engineering" Is Now Online

I just don't get the 'cut the middleman' mentality. What exactly do you think the publishers aren't contributing that the authors could do themselves?

For me, the "cut the middleman" mentality is because the middleman is not serving my interests nor the author's.

I cannot buy the books I want because the middleman owns the book and refuses to publish it anymore.

I cannot buy the book from the author because the author doesn't have the rights to sell it to me.

How about the middleman actually behave like a middleman?

Sell me anything I want to buy that you have purchased the rights to. Otherwise, get out of the way of my dealing directly with the author. Don't try to increase your profits by constructing an artificial choke-point between the producer and the purchaser.

Re:furchin is Out of the Office Today

On: When Can I Expect an Email Response?

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Not following the "logic".

On: Apple and Windows Will Force Linux Underground

Despite the way most professional and commercial buyers see it, Linux is, as a colleague helpfully reminded me, a kernel, not an application platform. Linux is a backplane for device drivers, file systems, protocol stacks and low-level programming interfaces. It is a substructure for application services.

And that is different from any other OS ... how?

Apple's UNIX (who knows what it'll be called by then) will overtake commercial Linux in rate of revenue growth by the end of 2007. By mid-2008, Apple's sales of systems with factory-installed Apple UNIX will exceed the total combined sales of x86 systems factory-shipped with commercial Linux. At the end of the decade, we'll find that Apple UNIX has overtaken commercial Linux as the second most popular general client and server computing platform behind Windows.

Why?

You're making "predictions" without explaining the "logic" behind them. Why will all those countries / governments / cities currently deploying Linux drop it?

If they don't drop it, why will other ones go with Apple?

I believe Big Software vendors such as IBM and Oracle will use Linux to give unwieldy enterprise solutions the George Jetson treatment: Push a button, you've got an enterprise database, configured, loaded with sample data and listening for connections. Want a J2EE server with that? Flip this switch, it'll unpack itself, sniff out that database you installed and mate with it.

And this will fail to drive Linux adoption ... why?

If anything, that would seem to me to be something that would drive Linux adoption.

Hate them! Hate them! Hate them!

On: A New Kind of OS

This sort of "adaptive learning" for applications has already been done, albeit in a limited and utterly frustrating way courtesy of MS Office and their magical hiding menus.

Yes! And I am somewhat annoyed with them.

One of the FIRST things I do is go and turn of "Use personalized menues".

Hunting for the widget the FIRST time was annoying enough. Why would I want to hunt for it a SECOND time? I have already learned where it is the first time.

Not to mention that I'm usually doing at least 3 different tasks at once.

If you want to improve the OS "of the future", then START with a reduced set of commands and allow the user to choose what level s/he is comfortable with. Do NOT move items once they've been learned.

Not necessarily.

On: Star Trek PhD Thesis Wins Academic Prize

A myth is just a story that explains something.

Myths are also used to pass on the culture, norms, values, mores and ethics from one generation to the next.

And to reinforce those in each generation.

Myths tell us what is "good" and what is "bad".

"no value".

On: Heroic IT Dept Less Likely to Steal... Lunches?

His point was that the bagels have essentialy no value at all to the CxO, which means that they may not even understand why they'd pay for it.

Which is why I was pointing out that if that was correct, you'd expect to see $20 bills in the tin from the CxO's.

A bagel has no real value to a CxO because the CxO earns so much.

A $20 bill has no real value to a CxO because the CxO earns so much.

So the CxO picks up a bagel (no value) and drops in a $20 bill (no value). But that does not happen.

That doesn't work with the muffin example.

On: Heroic IT Dept Less Likely to Steal... Lunches?

It it came down to how much you could afford, wouldn't you see the CxO's putting $20 bills into the tin?

It's called a "search warrant".

On: The Story of the Pedophile-catching Hacker

I'd rather have private hackers do it than the government.

If it is going to be done, then it should be by the government and they should be required to get a search warrant.

Otherwise, anyone in ... say Russia for example, can crack your computer and search for child pornography ... and credit card numbers.

Oops. Sorry. Those credit card numbers were accidentally leaked, along with your Social Security Number and such.

But at least those Russian "hackers" know you weren't collecting kiddie porn.

Marketing is not "bad".

On: Novell Story Site Launched

It is only "bad" when it is based upon lies of FUD.

This attempt at "viral marketing" is stupid because your chance of winning anything DECREASES as it spreads.

Not to mention that they really need different levels of participants. If Linus enters his story, but all the prizes go to people who "evangelize" Linux .... yeah, that's dumb.

To phrase it another way ...

On: Vista the Last of Its Kind

In other words, there's nothing wrong with shipping a kernel and a firewall on the same disk, but the firewall shouldn't be in the kernel!

To phrase it another way ... There is a problem when the firewall software causes the kernel development to be delayed.

Which is what is happening at Microsoft.

Big time.

On: Microsoft Changes Office 2007 Interface Again

And it's not just the OS changing.

The keyboard shortcuts change whether you're doing something in the OS interface or an application interface.

So someone learning ctrl-b in one app is confused when their focus is on a different app and a different function is invoked.

EVERYTHING else on the market has an interface specifically designed for it. Only computer systems use the keyboard/mouse interface for every application.

Maybe not the governments ... maybe Google.

On: ICANN OKs Tiered Pricing for .org/.biz/.info

Google has the brightest people and the technology.

Could Google redesign DNS and move it to a more neutral platform? I'm sure they could.

If Google handles this right, Google becomes the new center for DNS and ICANN is abandoned when they start ratcheting up the prices.

At the very least the threat from Google keeps ICANN from changing their pricing structure.

Chess is incredibly violent.

On: Harvard Phd Vs. About.com over Gaming

From her comment:

As we have noted in our papers, people can reasonably disagree with us, but we did not believe that it was consistent to not count this as violence even though it is quite abstract.

No. It is the abstraction that removes the "violence" from the loss.

Violence is only violent if there is some aspect of realism.

By her "logic", chess is an incredibly violent game.

Still not buying the KillerNIC story.

On: Slashback: Moon Footage, KillerNic, ZFS Leopard

In TCP/IP world, CPU utilization has been known to be dramatically reduced by offload technologies, but the biggest benefits of Killer come from its unique 'hardware network stack'. This literally bypasses the Windows network stack and uses hardware interrupts to get data directly to the game, skipping tons of queuing, and 'software interrupts' that are common with the operating system's network stack.

Yes, that is your claim.

But the "network stack" is a bit more complex than you seem to be implying. I'm sure that most people here are familiar with the old OSI model:

Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data Link
Physical

Now, explain how those "hardware interrupts" substitute for the processing that needs to happen.

I'm not saying that the Windows TCP/IP stack could not stand some optimization. I'm sure that it could.

I just don't see how claiming "hardware interrupts" are the solution is an answer if you don't explain how those "hardware interrupts" handle the processing and where/when they are called.

Tried as an adult or juvenile?

On: Microsoft Puts Police Link on Messenger

Remember, the majority of these reports will probably be coming from teen and pre-teens.

In the US, there are differences in how we handle crimes committed by adults and those same crimes committed by juveniles.

And that why I thought it was stupid.

On: Snakes on The Net Fail to Put Butts in the Seats

Though I might have thrown it away after following the map or the creek and repeatedly coming across the same tree. It was pretty obvious by then that the map was useless because they were in a cursed wood.

And that's the problem. Once you introduce magic of that caliber into the movie, it end the "suspension of disbelief".

They were already lost before that one idiot threw out the map, the others were just in denial, so I don't see how that's part of the setup.

That depends upon your usage of "lost". They were already doomed, but they knew where they were. Which gets back to the "lost in the woods" fear.

There wasn't any "lost in the woods" fear. They weren't "lost in the woods". They knew where they were and how to get out. They were trapped by evil magic.

And that's just not that scary.

That's what I said.

On: Who are CIOs Planning to Hire Next?

No one said you had to unlearn anything. ... Most people tend to forget things they don't use.

That's what I said.

Are you going to spend the time keeping your tech skills up to date or are you going to let them atrophy while you build business skills?

Like I said, "Ubermensch".

On: Who are CIOs Planning to Hire Next?

you are not balancing a character sheet here.

You can maitain your '8' in tech AND raise you business skills.

No, you cannot. There are only so many hours in the day, so many days in the week, etc.

Like I said, everyone would love to hire the guy who is great at everything.

The reality is, those people don't exist. Which is why Dilbert cartoons are so popular.

Ubermensch

On: Who are CIOs Planning to Hire Next?

I've harped on this for almost two decades. Technical skills keep you employed. Business skills get you promoted.

And the bestest employee would have great tech skills and great business skills. Everyone wants to hire the superman. That's a given.

Now, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 low, 10 high) how far down can your tech skills go to bring up your business skills?
(5 being average for that sector, not for the public)

If you stay employed because your tech skills are an "8", but you want to be promoted and your business skills are only a "4" ...

Is it acceptable to drop 4 points in tech to gain 4 points in business?

Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

On: HP Announces Support for Debian Linux

I feel very, very bad for the poor folks answering the help line in 3-4 years when there are hundreds of small companies without someone who knows what they are doing. You think helpline support for Windows is bad? Wait until you've got to help someone who's only ever used Windows with their Debian install. And no, you can't tell them to RTFM.

In my experience, working through the boot process of a Linux box is incredibly simple compared to Windows.

Remember, this won't be troubleshooting Apache/SSL or anything. This will be determining why the OS doesn't like the hardware and whether it is an OS problem or hardware problem.

Mod parent (and grandparent) up!

On: Biometric Terrorist Detector

Physical characteristics are NOT effective when profiling a terrorist.

The real terrorist will put the weapon on a non-profiled person and then run some of his buddies through the security system to make sure that any available security personel are used up checking his clean friends.

The end result is that the weapon is onboard the plane and so is the terrorist.

It's far better to just randomly search passengers. At least then you have some small chance of finding the weapon.

The testing process.

On: Botnet Herders Attack MS06-040 Worm Hole

It would almost as stupid for a company to deploy patches without testing them as it would be to never patch at all.

So there will be a delay between a patch being released and that patch being deployed on production systems.

And going into "crisis mode" for 2 weeks, starting the second Tuesday of every month is a bit much to expect of people.

What an excellent article.

On: Hoarders vs. Deleters- What Your Inbox Says

Let's take people from two different extremes and generalize statements about non-extreme people from that.

I have 1,215 messages in my inbox and all of them have been answered. I keep them because it's a "paper trail" for when someone asks me about it again in 6 months.