The printed media obviously fears that the Internet business model will hurt the printed business model. We all thought this in the dotcom days and it will happen but most likely not anytime soon.
However, according to this article about NYTimes.com the online readers are not the same as the print subscribers.
The paper's typical reader is 45, while the site's average reader is 35, said Calder. And while 85% of the website's users come from outside the New York designated marketing area, 44% of the daily's readers are inside the area.
Furthermore:
Since January, NYTDigital has been examining the overlap between site users and the newspaper's readership and found that only 8% of site users are also print subscribers.
It saddens me that the news media do not seem to get that the Internet is a way to expand their business model. A study would most likely show that the newsboster readers are new readers.
I do not really know how to describe this book with its strange mixture of fact and fiction. 2/3 of the book are stories of social engineering in all forms and shapes. That gets a bit long and tedious long before you have finished the 245 pages of it.
The rest of the book consists of recommendations for raising the bar. A long list of things to do if you want to tighten security at your company.
So does social engineering really work? Yes, my guess is that most people will not know what hit them even if you ask them afterwards.
At the very least you should be convinced by Mitnick talking Steve Wozniak into writing the foreword (Kevin Mitnick is one of the finest people I know) and Wiley Publishing, Inc. into publishing what I consider a weak book on security. There are of course a few good points but they are too few and too far apart.
The leading Danish financial newspaper, Børsen, wrote that it should be required reading for people with an IT security responsibility. I can only say that if you have an IT security responsibility and still need to read this book you are most likely in deep trouble.
You should only bother reading The Art of Deception if you know next to nothing about the human aspect of security and then only if you really think you are safe.
When RMS was keynote speaker at Guadec2001 he pulled the following stunt:
Seeing this text on the conference folder:
The GNOME project is building a complete, user-friendly desktop for Unix and Linux that is freely available for everyone.
He insisted (threathening not to give his talk) on having the text changed to this:
GNOME is the GNU desktop project, building a complete, user-friendly desktop for GNU and GNU/Linux (and Unix), so that all computer users can have freedom.
He then went on to personally paste this text on every single conference folder (about 500 of them).
It is not that I don't see his point. I just don't share his views.
My point is that he is a loose canon. You cannot count on him behaving rationally. And you definitely cannot expect other people (outside the (GNU)/Linux environment) to take his seriously. He is harming the cause with his theatricals.
Decrem: That's the beauty of it. That's the importance of Mozilla and StarOffice. Those are kind of mission-critical applications, and as you switch to those, the operating becomes all but irrelevent. That's the beauty of the Internet, frankly. It commodifies the operating system to a large extent.
This is an very interesting point. MS Office is the MS cash cow so Microsoft needs to take this issue very seriously. The intelligent way to do this is to port MS Office to Mac OS X and wait until there is a move into Linux by the market. Does anybody know the status of MS Office on Mac OS X?
Good user interface designers follow a more prudent policy. They make as limited assumptions about their users as they can. When you design an interactive system, you may expect that users are members of the human race and that they can read, move a mouse, click a button, and type (slowly): not much more. If the software addresses a specialized area, you may perhaps assume that your users are familier with its basic concepts. But even that is risky.
Which lead to the following design principle:
User Interface Design principle Do not pretend that you know the user; you don't
For instance this from one of the slides from the talk:
Linux compromises dominate - nearly 4 to 1 over Windows
Commercial Unix compromises usually rare
Windows/Unix compromises are 2 to 1
MacOS compromises do not occur (before OS X)
The slides are still interesting even after two years
Linux on the desktop is a matter of ambition
on
Alan Cox Interview
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The desktop is more challenging
The is nothing I would like more than to see Linux take over the desktop. But I cannot see that happening any time soon.
Right now Linux can fill the basic requirements for the desktop - even though it might be a little challenging setting it up just right if you not a techie.
However, as soon you want to do anything remotely advanced like knowledge or document management (that is integration between office products and content management systems) I see no real alternative to MS Office on a Windows platform.
You can do really amazing things integrating Word, Outlook and Internet Explorer into a content management system. On Linux we are still waiting for StarOffice 6 to be released.
I have used StarOffice 6 beta and I am impressed, but on the Windows platform we are talking advanced systems integration and not just regular word processing or emailing.
That is why I think that the question of using Linux on the desktop is a question of ambition. You can use Linux all you want, but you will not be able to integrate you work processes any time soon like you can on a Windows platform.
Instead of saying "Linux had more bugs than Windows in 2001" it should say "Linux *fixed* more bugs than Windows in 2001". Simply becuase those Windows bugs haven't been found yet does *NOT* mean tha they are not there waiting to be exploited (or are already being exploited).
So what you are saying is that closed source software is more secure because it is closed and the bugs can't easily be found?
Your argument seems to suggest that opening the source compromizes your security. Which by the way is what Microsoft have been saying all the time.
When David Axmark, one of the creators of MySQl, gave a talk in Denmark in December he commented on MySQL versus Oracle.
He said you should use MySQL when you wanted a simple solution to your problem. You should never try to use MySQL as an enterprise solution. If you wanted 24x7 availability with no margin for error you should absolutely use an Oracle database. While MySQL would threaten smaller commercial databases in the near future there would be no contest when it comes to Oracle for at least the next 5 years.
what about Redmond, Washington?
why don't some of you clever tech guys get together and crack the flight path
there is zero chance of getting cought since it doesn't seem unlikely that the Russians could miss the Pacific
what about Redmond, Washington?
why don't some of you clever tech guys get together and crack the flight path
there is zero chance of getting cought since it doesn't seem unlikely that the Russians could the Pacific
in a sense we are all idiots we all have our own stupid ideas that makes us an idiot in the eyes of everybody else with a different stupid idea look at eric raymond. i have immense respect for the man but he is also a gun nut which to must europeans makes him an idiot by definition
sure bush is an idiot but so am i - and you - and everybody else - and especially everyone older
Dell: The question really is does Linux create new users or does it take users away from Sun or Microsoft. I'm not sure I'd know the answer. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I really care, as long as they use Dell.
Slashdot Mirror
Music (not so good to makes one want to hear the music instead of working, neither something so bad that breaks concentration)
In Peopleware DeMarco and Lister writes about a series of test at Cornell on the effects of working with music in the 1960s:
The result was that groups with and without music performed about the same in speed and accuracy of programming.
However, the output data was to be manipulated about a dozen times. The net effect of the operations left output number equal to its input number.
The overwhelming majority of people who figured it out came from the group working without music.
If the right brain is busy listening to music the opportunity for a crative leap is lost.
So if programming is a crative art do not listen to music.
The printed media obviously fears that the Internet business model will hurt the printed business model. We all thought this in the dotcom days and it will happen but most likely not anytime soon.
However, according to this article about NYTimes.com the online readers are not the same as the print subscribers.
The paper's typical reader is 45, while the site's average reader is 35, said Calder. And while 85% of the website's users come from outside the New York designated marketing area, 44% of the daily's readers are inside the area.
Furthermore:
Since January, NYTDigital has been examining the overlap between site users and the newspaper's readership and found that only 8% of site users are also print subscribers.
It saddens me that the news media do not seem to get that the Internet is a way to expand their business model. A study would most likely show that the newsboster readers are new readers.
Schneier's Secrets & Lies is indeed excellent.
For another excellent but more technical book on security I would recommend Building Secure Software.
Building Secure Software has a foreward by Schneier in which he writes: "Read it; learn from it. And then put its lessons into practise."
Chapter 4 in the book is "On Open Source and Closed Source".
A most own book if you are interested in software security.
I also read The Art of Deception
I do not really know how to describe this book with its strange mixture of fact and fiction. 2/3 of the book are stories of social engineering in all forms and shapes. That gets a bit long and tedious long before you have finished the 245 pages of it.
The rest of the book consists of recommendations for raising the bar. A long list of things to do if you want to tighten security at your company.
So does social engineering really work? Yes, my guess is that most people will not know what hit them even if you ask them afterwards.
At the very least you should be convinced by Mitnick talking Steve Wozniak into writing the foreword (Kevin Mitnick is one of the finest people I know) and Wiley Publishing, Inc. into publishing what I consider a weak book on security. There are of course a few good points but they are too few and too far apart.
The leading Danish financial newspaper, Børsen, wrote that it should be required reading for people with an IT security responsibility. I can only say that if you have an IT security responsibility and still need to read this book you are most likely in deep trouble.
You should only bother reading The Art of Deception if you know next to nothing about the human aspect of security and then only if you really think you are safe.
When RMS was keynote speaker at Guadec2001 he pulled the following stunt:
Seeing this text on the conference folder:
The GNOME project is building a complete, user-friendly desktop for Unix and Linux that is freely available for everyone.
He insisted (threathening not to give his talk) on having the text changed to this:
GNOME is the GNU desktop project, building a complete, user-friendly desktop for GNU and GNU/Linux (and Unix), so that all computer users can have freedom.
He then went on to personally paste this text on every single conference folder (about 500 of them).
It is not that I don't see his point. I just don't share his views.
My point is that he is a loose canon. You cannot count on him behaving rationally. And you definitely cannot expect other people (outside the (GNU)/Linux environment) to take his seriously. He is harming the cause with his theatricals.
Decrem: That's the beauty of it. That's the importance of Mozilla and StarOffice. Those are kind of mission-critical applications, and as you switch to those, the operating becomes all but irrelevent. That's the beauty of the Internet, frankly. It commodifies the operating system to a large extent.
This is an very interesting point. MS Office is the MS cash cow so Microsoft needs to take this issue very seriously. The intelligent way to do this is to port MS Office to Mac OS X and wait until there is a move into Linux by the market.
Does anybody know the status of MS Office on Mac OS X?
To quote Bertrand Meyer from his monumental book Object Oriented Software Construction:
Good user interface designers follow a more prudent policy. They make as limited assumptions about their users as they can. When you design an interactive system, you may expect that users are members of the human race and that they can read, move a mouse, click a button, and type (slowly): not much more. If the software addresses a specialized area, you may perhaps assume that your users are familier with its basic concepts. But even that is risky.
Which lead to the following design principle:
User Interface Design principle
Do not pretend that you know the user; you don't
Gene Spafford gave a very interestring talk on Why Open Source software only seems more secure at LinuxForum 2000.
It was a real eye opener for all of us who had read The Cathedral and the Bazaar
For instance this from one of the slides from the talk:
Linux compromises dominate - nearly 4 to 1 over Windows
Commercial Unix compromises usually rare
Windows/Unix compromises are 2 to 1
MacOS compromises do not occur (before OS X)
The slides are still interesting even after two years
The desktop is more challenging
The is nothing I would like more than to see Linux take over the desktop. But I cannot see that happening any time soon.
Right now Linux can fill the basic requirements for the desktop - even though it might be a little challenging setting it up just right if you not a techie.
However, as soon you want to do anything remotely advanced like knowledge or document management (that is integration between office products and content management systems) I see no real alternative to MS Office on a Windows platform.
You can do really amazing things integrating Word, Outlook and Internet Explorer into a content management system. On Linux we are still waiting for StarOffice 6 to be released.
I have used StarOffice 6 beta and I am impressed, but on the Windows platform we are talking advanced systems integration and not just regular word processing or emailing.
That is why I think that the question of using Linux on the desktop is a question of ambition. You can use Linux all you want, but you will not be able to integrate you work processes any time soon like you can on a Windows platform.
How did that happen? $401k in 8 months? Am I missing something here?
If he worked in their accounting department the answer would also reveal why he lost his job.
Instead of saying "Linux had more bugs than Windows in 2001" it should say "Linux *fixed* more bugs than Windows in 2001". Simply becuase those Windows bugs haven't been found yet does *NOT* mean tha they are not there waiting to be exploited (or are already being exploited).
So what you are saying is that closed source software is more secure because it is closed and the bugs can't easily be found?
Your argument seems to suggest that opening the source compromizes your security. Which by the way is what Microsoft have been saying all the time.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dndotnet/h tml/deicazainterview.asp
Linux 0.01 was released on September 17, 1991.
When David Axmark, one of the creators of MySQl, gave a talk in Denmark in December he commented on MySQL versus Oracle.
He said you should use MySQL when you wanted a simple solution to your problem. You should never try to use MySQL as an enterprise solution. If you wanted 24x7 availability with no margin for error you should absolutely use an Oracle database. While MySQL would threaten smaller commercial databases in the near future there would be no contest when it comes to Oracle for at least the next 5 years.
the key question here is how are we going to fund such a programme?
4 weeks ago Alan Cox spend a weekend i Denmark and Sweden giving talks in Stockholm and Lund to the local LUG
he speeks very well!
what about Redmond, Washington?
why don't some of you clever tech guys get together and crack the flight path
there is zero chance of getting cought since it doesn't seem unlikely that the Russians could miss the Pacific
what about Redmond, Washington?
why don't some of you clever tech guys get together and crack the flight path
there is zero chance of getting cought since it doesn't seem unlikely that the Russians could the Pacific
in a sense we are all idiots
we all have our own stupid ideas that makes us an idiot in the eyes of everybody else with a different stupid idea
look at eric raymond. i have immense respect for the man but he is also a gun nut which to must europeans makes him an idiot by definition
sure bush is an idiot but so am i - and you - and everybody else - and especially everyone older
There isnt an infinite number of consumers who want one, after all.
New functionality equals new sales
the only way for Sony and others to stop napster is to make their music accessible online
wake up, Heckler, and join the 21st century
when the world is online, the music must be online
although I can't help wondering what they really think is in it for them?
are they seeing the light or is it just payback time?
There are no 9-to-5ers in the Open Source community
the code should do the talking not the hours
it is about working smarter not harder!
Dell: The question really is does Linux create new users or does it take users away from Sun or Microsoft. I'm not sure I'd know the answer. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I really care, as long as they use Dell.
not much of a true believer is he?
why do we need to be able to play games on BSD ?
isn't that what we have wintendo for?
let's try and keep BSD clean!