In the article on Extreme Tech, guess which industry has given their approval, on the last line yet? "'Initial customer feedback from the entertainment industry in general has been very favorable,' Eades added." It is obvious who they are playing to.
In every company I have worked for we paid for software audits, not the software company.
Remember, who ever pays for the audit is who the auditor works for. I agree with Spunk's comments that free software does skew the ratio of cost of software to the cost of audit making the audit look expensive. However the audit would be done anyway.
It is possible that these agencies are paying for the learning curve for the auditors to learn the "new" software so they can audit it. This just means that the "approved" auditors are somewhat remiss in knowing their business.
Yes, it is really ludicrous. Isn't it nice to know that even with the expensive audits, the free software passes.
Been at this now for over 20 years. I still feel like I go to work at my hobby. I started as a Compiler designer and maintainer. Earned my Greatful Dead tee shirt when I put together a make script for a cross compiler on an early version of UNIX. Been working with Sun OS since release 1.1. I always seemed to get "stuck" taking care of the systems for whatever project I was on. Whether it is a SunOS, HP-UX, AIX, SCO, Xenix, Linux, BSD, True64, Dynix, or whatever flavor you work on. I currently work on Sun Solaris servers at work and run a Linux server at home.
Advice:
Make mistakes, admit them but have the fix in hand or already in place.
Enjoy yourself
Experience is as important as certification.
Sun has a good certification for Sys Admins
If I get a Linux Cert, right now I'm not sure which certification I would choose. RedHat's is very pricy and the others aren't too far beyond the first level tests and they have been working on them for years.
SAGE is working on a general SysAdmin certification with beta tests being given at LISA if you can go. That should be a good one (I wish I could go).
Join a SysAdmin group. SAGE is one to look at. If you are Linux specific check out the LUGS that should be in your area.
Have a life. There is life after work.
Learn something new every year if not every day.
It is going to work more in your favor to be more of a SysAdmin generalist than concentrating on a version of UNIX or other OS's. Example: to setup a Samba server, having a working knowledge of NT helps.
Reading User Friendly and Dilbert every day is an absolute requirement.
I see that you currently teach English. That should give you a heads up in the documentation department. When you document, write it at the 6th grade level. That way you have a fighting chance for the PHD's and degree freaks to be able to understand it.
Don't loose your people skills. Your customers are the folks who use your computers.
Have Fun
I can't say it enough to enjoy yourself, if you don't then go back to teaching English.
IE 5.50 - worked
NS 4.77 - worked
NS 6.01 - worked
NS 6.01a on Solaris 2.8 for Intel - worked
Opera 5.12 - did not work no matter what browser I set it as.
I'm sorry, I did not have my box available that has Mozilla loaded. I hope you figure out what your problem is (outside of known problems that MS has).
I received a reply from my member of the House of Representatives.
I am expecting replies from my 2 senators in a couple of weeks.
No matter which one I e-mail. They seem to reply by letter several weeks later. The letter from my representative was written to me about the situation I had e-mailed about. He appreciated the information I supplied and was in agreement on what needed to be done.
Last couple of replies I have received from my senators were similar in scope. When we have disagreed, they have even pointed me to places where information that I did not know about that had information that I had not seen.
The previous representative actually forgot once to send me a reply. When I meat him at some party, he hit his forhead and apologized to me before I could even ask him as he remembered my name, face, and the e-mail. We had a very pleasant talk about the issue. I was amazed as I had only met him once before.
I guess the morals are:
Never give up.
Be patient. The replies may take weeks.
Never be suprised at how much influence you have or don't have.
My degree is in Math (21 years ago). The school did not have a degree in CS although it's program was one of only two in the state that meet the ACM guidelines for a CS curriculum. That was my 2nd try at school, the first being a Music Ed major which I dropped out and went on the road with a band for 7 years.
Here are a few thoughts on what I've seen in schools over the years that cause this problem.
The vast majority of professors don't have a clue about what is in use in business. A good number started teaching in college without ever having worked in a CS or IT or MIS position for a company. For those that have (like the professors I had at the college I went to), thank you and give them your experience.
The "Liberal Arts" is always defined differently depending on what class you are taking, who is teaching it, and the bias of the school.
Business basics and business courses appear to be taught by folks who have never run, worked for, or owned a business.
CS mechanincs (programing languages, styles, methodologies, etc) being taught seem to be the "old" stuff. My son (who is now in college) was told to take Pascal or Basic (old style non-structured basic, not even VB) as "the language" for his CS degree. It was only when I sent a note to the advisor asking why, when these are not used much, especially in the area he was studying for (Web based applications) that he was "approved" to take C. Jave at the time was out of the question as was VB. Heaven forbid the mention of Perl, Python, or Expect.
It has been a real drag over the last 22 years or so to have to spend 3 to 6 months unlearning the useless information and retraining folks so that they can become useful and productive.
Thanks to any and all of the schools that do teach the currently in use languages and even some of the ones that are starting to be used.
I have to admit, my problem has not been with the liberal arts education part. The problem has been with professors that teach only what they "have to". There is quite a difference in a course that is taught "by the book" and one that teaches the "book" and continues on to what is current today. African history was much more interesting when we learned about the Zulu's history and then went and discussed where they are today and what is happening in that same area. This made it a lot easier to talk to the folks from a company that has their home office right in that area. Who would have guessed that an African History course would have helped in understanding what was needed for the functional specifications for a programming project?
Remember to send your letters to your members of the US Senate. They should get first crack at stopping this. Here is what I sent to the senators in Texas. In the actual e-mail I included my address and phone numbers for work and home as well as my e-mail address. That way they know that I am in Texas and a voter.
To the Honorable Phil Gramm and the Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchinson;
It has just come to my attention that there is a bill going to be introduced titled "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act". It is being written by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.). A draft copy can be found at: http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/sssca-draft.pdf and a partially transcribed copy can be found at: http://216.110.42.179/docs/hollings.090701.html. The text is 19 pages long. A good thread on how this legislation is being perceived in the programming community can be found at: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/08/023820 0&mode=thread
I have several problems with this piece of legislation:
1. This proposed legislation will restrict research into security both computer and otherwise. To start with, the proposed law begins with: "In General -- It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security system standards adopted under section 104." Why would you care if a device did not have the "certified" technology. This does not allow for better technology. With security alarms, the first methods to turn them on were outside key switches. What if that was the certified method. Then the inside timeout control panels would not have been allowed, or would have been slowed down due to "legal issues" since they were not certified. Let's not stifle the computer and other security related industries.
2. Although it is well meaning, any new security measure that would be introduced would be illegal under this law until certified. This poses a problem in that the most effective means of testing security is to put it out under public scrutiny and examination which would not be allowed until it is certified. Look at the effectiveness of the RSA and DSA encryption methods. They are publically available in books and still are extremely hard to break or require extensive computer time and equipment that far exceeds the value of the code being broken. Those algorithms were tested publically with their source publically available. Compare this with the DVD encryption that is only protected by the DMCA and can be broken with 6 to 8 lines of code in real time on a slow PC.
3. Software and systems will not have the option to choose whether they are certified or not.. A lot of good software and hardware people will choose not to be certified and we will lose their needed input because of a law that should never have been written.
4. It is highly probable that some of the best software may not be certified since it is in the public domain. This would cause a real problem. In the case of software like Linux or BeOS which are public software and maintained by programmers who volunteer their time might actually become illegal to use. Personally I cannot afford to use anything but the "Free" software. I use Linux for new machines at my home. I have Windows 98 on 2 computers, and Windows 2000 on a laptop, and even Sun Microsystems Solaris on one machine (it also is free). I use Sun's Star Office for a word processor (also chosen by the DOD). I can't afford to upgrade the computers to the new version of MS operating system. It is good that I now have an alternative. I can switch them to Linux if the Windows 98 gets too slow. Please realize that I have 5 sons. That is one of the reasons I have a network at my house.
It this bill gets introduced please fight to get it overturned.
I have supported both you over the years. We haven't always agreed on issues, but I highly respect both of you and appreciated both of your wisdom.
If the bill looks like it will be pushed through no matter what, see if they can add something like is being considered in Europe where public software licensed so that people can review the source code (GPL or copyleft as we call it) and even have input into the program are automatically certified. Only programs that want to remain closed source have to pass the public scrutiny tests. Those tests should include public review of algorithms and code. Otherwise how can you check them out?
There is nothing idealistic about the reverie. This is very practical. Just because some of the folks ignore you doesn't mean they all will.
I used to think that writting your congressman was useless until I talked to several congress men and women from both the state and national level. They do listen. It is their choice to pay attention. One of them made comment that if they don't hear from us as to what is important to us, then they are making their decisions in a vacum. If we give them input and they ignore it, then we find a better candidate to vote for the next election. One retired member of the US House told me that he and his staff assumed that for each piece of information that a person sent to them, no matter what the form, there had to be at least a 100 people that felt the same way in the same area that person was from. It's simple math, nothing realy idealistic about it.
If I thought this was the only thing to do, I would be deluding myself. If I was in the area around where the hearing was taking place, I would be there. That not being the case, I will do what I can.
As an editorial comment that is not meant to offend, if you are a US citizen and are old enough to vote but are not registered to vote or don't vote, please register to vote and vote. End of editorial comment.
I'm afraid my quote stands. I wasn't quoting a Kaiser, I was quoting a red neck from souther Georgia (from around Brunswick, I think). I'm sorry, I can't remember his name.
It is said that if you like law or sausage don't watch either one being made.
The following will work best for those of us that are citizens of the US and are registered to vote.
A technique that works to find out if your lawmakers are listening to you is to write them a letter (snail mail) or to e-mail them.
The US House of Representatives has a page where you can send your memeber an e-mail and even help you find out who your representative is. The URL is:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
The Senate does not have as much information about writting your senator as the House pages do but at least it is a way to contact them.
To assist them in replying to you always include your e-mail address, home address, and if you feel like it a phone number. If you know what precinct, parish, or whatever the number of your voting district is in your state/county/parish or whatever include that as well. Be brief but thorough enough to get your thought across. No more than a page and shorter if possible.
They do like to hear from you and I have yet to have my representative or senators abuse me giving them my information. Using the system when possible at least gives it a chance to fail and who knows, it might actually help.
To start with, I thought you were innocent until proven guilty. Other reasons include most of which have been mentioned in other posts but I haven't seen them posted this way.
Problems with copyright law and the DCMA. What is legal with one is a felony in the other. Which law takes precedence?
Freedom of speech. Three words that don't seem to mean much any more unless the person is saying what you like.
He wasn't selling his program here. Why is being treated like a heroin dealer?
I was under the understanding that DEFCON was supposed to be a "neutral zone" for folks on both sides to come together safely. It was after the conference is over that the "black hats" start singing "Give me three steps" because the safe haven is no more (until the next DEFCON, if there is one). It looks like the FBI forgot that.
Slashdot Mirror
In the article on Extreme Tech, guess which industry has given their approval, on the last line yet?
"'Initial customer feedback from the entertainment industry in general has been very favorable,' Eades added."
It is obvious who they are playing to.
In every company I have worked for we paid for software audits, not the software company.
Remember, who ever pays for the audit is who the auditor works for. I agree with Spunk's comments that free software does skew the ratio of cost of software to the cost of audit making the audit look expensive. However the audit would be done anyway.
It is possible that these agencies are paying for the learning curve for the auditors to learn the "new" software so they can audit it. This just means that the "approved" auditors are somewhat remiss in knowing their business.
Yes, it is really ludicrous. Isn't it nice to know that even with the expensive audits, the free software passes.
Advice:
I can't say it enough to enjoy yourself, if you don't then go back to teaching English.
Regards
I checked the following browsers:
IE 5.50 - worked
NS 4.77 - worked
NS 6.01 - worked
NS 6.01a on Solaris 2.8 for Intel - worked
Opera 5.12 - did not work no matter what browser I set it as.
I'm sorry, I did not have my box available that has Mozilla loaded. I hope you figure out what your problem is (outside of known problems that MS has).
I am expecting replies from my 2 senators in a couple of weeks.
No matter which one I e-mail. They seem to reply by letter several weeks later. The letter from my representative was written to me about the situation I had e-mailed about. He appreciated the information I supplied and was in agreement on what needed to be done.
Last couple of replies I have received from my senators were similar in scope. When we have disagreed, they have even pointed me to places where information that I did not know about that had information that I had not seen.
The previous representative actually forgot once to send me a reply. When I meat him at some party, he hit his forhead and apologized to me before I could even ask him as he remembered my name, face, and the e-mail. We had a very pleasant talk about the issue. I was amazed as I had only met him once before.
I guess the morals are:
My degree is in Math (21 years ago). The school did not have a degree in CS although it's program was one of only two in the state that meet the ACM guidelines for a CS curriculum. That was my 2nd try at school, the first being a Music Ed major which I dropped out and went on the road with a band for 7 years.
Here are a few thoughts on what I've seen in schools over the years that cause this problem.
CS mechanincs (programing languages, styles, methodologies, etc) being taught seem to be the "old" stuff. My son (who is now in college) was told to take Pascal or Basic (old style non-structured basic, not even VB) as "the language" for his CS degree. It was only when I sent a note to the advisor asking why, when these are not used much, especially in the area he was studying for (Web based applications) that he was "approved" to take C. Jave at the time was out of the question as was VB. Heaven forbid the mention of Perl, Python, or Expect.
It has been a real drag over the last 22 years or so to have to spend 3 to 6 months unlearning the useless information and retraining folks so that they can become useful and productive.
Thanks to any and all of the schools that do teach the currently in use languages and even some of the ones that are starting to be used.
I have to admit, my problem has not been with the liberal arts education part. The problem has been with professors that teach only what they "have to". There is quite a difference in a course that is taught "by the book" and one that teaches the "book" and continues on to what is current today. African history was much more interesting when we learned about the Zulu's history and then went and discussed where they are today and what is happening in that same area. This made it a lot easier to talk to the folks from a company that has their home office right in that area. Who would have guessed that an African History course would have helped in understanding what was needed for the functional specifications for a programming project?
Remember to send your letters to your members of the US Senate. They should get first crack at stopping this. Here is what I sent to the senators in Texas. In the actual e-mail I included my address and phone numbers for work and home as well as my e-mail address. That way they know that I am in Texas and a voter.
To the Honorable Phil Gramm and the Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchinson;
It has just come to my attention that there is a bill going to be introduced titled "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act". It is being written by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.). A draft copy can be found at: http://gnu-darwin.sourceforge.net/sssca-draft.pdf and a partially transcribed copy can be found at: http://216.110.42.179/docs/hollings.090701.html. The text is 19 pages long. A good thread on how this legislation is being perceived in the programming community can be found at: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/08/02382
I have several problems with this piece of legislation:
1. This proposed legislation will restrict research into security both computer and otherwise. To start with, the proposed law begins with: "In General -- It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security system standards adopted under section 104." Why would you care if a device did not have the "certified" technology. This does not allow for better technology. With security alarms, the first methods to turn them on were outside key switches. What if that was the certified method. Then the inside timeout control panels would not have been allowed, or would have been slowed down due to "legal issues" since they were not certified. Let's not stifle the computer and other security related industries.
2. Although it is well meaning, any new security measure that would be introduced would be illegal under this law until certified. This poses a problem in that the most effective means of testing security is to put it out under public scrutiny and examination which would not be allowed until it is certified. Look at the effectiveness of the RSA and DSA encryption methods. They are publically available in books and still are extremely hard to break or require extensive computer time and equipment that far exceeds the value of the code being broken. Those algorithms were tested publically with their source publically available. Compare this with the DVD encryption that is only protected by the DMCA and can be broken with 6 to 8 lines of code in real time on a slow PC.
3. Software and systems will not have the option to choose whether they are certified or not.. A lot of good software and hardware people will choose not to be certified and we will lose their needed input because of a law that should never have been written.
4. It is highly probable that some of the best software may not be certified since it is in the public domain. This would cause a real problem. In the case of software like Linux or BeOS which are public software and maintained by programmers who volunteer their time might actually become illegal to use. Personally I cannot afford to use anything but the "Free" software. I use Linux for new machines at my home. I have Windows 98 on 2 computers, and Windows 2000 on a laptop, and even Sun Microsystems Solaris on one machine (it also is free). I use Sun's Star Office for a word processor (also chosen by the DOD). I can't afford to upgrade the computers to the new version of MS operating system. It is good that I now have an alternative. I can switch them to Linux if the Windows 98 gets too slow. Please realize that I have 5 sons. That is one of the reasons I have a network at my house.
It this bill gets introduced please fight to get it overturned.
I have supported both you over the years. We haven't always agreed on issues, but I highly respect both of you and appreciated both of your wisdom.
If the bill looks like it will be pushed through no matter what, see if they can add something like is being considered in Europe where public software licensed so that people can review the source code (GPL or copyleft as we call it) and even have input into the program are automatically certified. Only programs that want to remain closed source have to pass the public scrutiny tests. Those tests should include public review of algorithms and code. Otherwise how can you check them out?
Thank you listening.
There is nothing idealistic about the reverie. This is very practical. Just because some of the folks ignore you doesn't mean they all will.
I used to think that writting your congressman was useless until I talked to several congress men and women from both the state and national level. They do listen. It is their choice to pay attention. One of them made comment that if they don't hear from us as to what is important to us, then they are making their decisions in a vacum. If we give them input and they ignore it, then we find a better candidate to vote for the next election. One retired member of the US House told me that he and his staff assumed that for each piece of information that a person sent to them, no matter what the form, there had to be at least a 100 people that felt the same way in the same area that person was from. It's simple math, nothing realy idealistic about it.
If I thought this was the only thing to do, I would be deluding myself. If I was in the area around where the hearing was taking place, I would be there. That not being the case, I will do what I can.
As an editorial comment that is not meant to offend, if you are a US citizen and are old enough to vote but are not registered to vote or don't vote, please register to vote and vote. End of editorial comment.
I'm afraid my quote stands. I wasn't quoting a Kaiser, I was quoting a red neck from souther Georgia (from around Brunswick, I think). I'm sorry, I can't remember his name.
It is said that if you like law or sausage don't watch either one being made.
The following will work best for those of us that are citizens of the US and are registered to vote.
A technique that works to find out if your lawmakers are listening to you is to write them a letter (snail mail) or to e-mail them.
The US House of Representatives has a page where you can send your memeber an e-mail and even help you find out who your representative is. The URL is:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
For the Senate go to:
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
The Senate does not have as much information about writting your senator as the House pages do but at least it is a way to contact them.
To assist them in replying to you always include your e-mail address, home address, and if you feel like it a phone number. If you know what precinct, parish, or whatever the number of your voting district is in your state/county/parish or whatever include that as well. Be brief but thorough enough to get your thought across. No more than a page and shorter if possible.
They do like to hear from you and I have yet to have my representative or senators abuse me giving them my information. Using the system when possible at least gives it a chance to fail and who knows, it might actually help.