If we read through history, we will find a lot of things that people thought couldn't be done. Many discoveries, inventions, etc. proved that much of what we thought we couldn't do, we really could. What is most frightening to me now is not that we are talking about things that "can't" be done. This is about things that we think "wouldn't" be done. Are we really so confident in ourselves to believe that just because controlling traffic lights and pacemakers from the Internet seems like a bad idea, that we really won't? I find it very believable that we could see that happening in the not too distant future.
Here we have a prominent government official providing a vision of a believable future. And I am willing to bet that he has access to a lot of information that tells him the things he is talking about are very possible, even plausible. Perhaps we should stop for a minute and listen. Then, we can begin asking informed questions:
- How do we prevent this? - If we can't prevent this, how to we protected ourselves?
etc., etc....
Raging against the government, and against Microsoft, and any connections they may nor may not have, will not change anything. We, as developers and software engineers, need to be educated enough, and prepared enough to deal with just such issues as Howard is describing.
Once upon a time, I would have been surprised, too. But even if that were the case, imagine a light that just randomly changes? Some drivers would be better at handling that than others. Or suppose the light patterns just change enough to cause massive traffic jams, with traffic backed up for long stretches along major roads and arterials?
And even if right now the traffic lights aren't directly connected to the Internet, the computers that control them are. Is there really much of a difference? And worse yet, much of the control systems are old 'X' applications that could easily be controlled remotely. It doesn't take much to connect the dots.
I hate to spoil the party, but traffic lights are already controlled via TCP/IP networks. And although these may not, technically, be "public" networks, they can still be hacked into. Have you ever taken a look at how advanced some of the ITS (Intelligent Traffic Systems) are these days? I happen to work at a state agency on their ITS system, and I can assure you that we are already on the edge of that very thing.
I guess I don't see it as quite that simple. The base premise behind this is that people initially purchased cell phones for their OWN convenience. That's a convenience they ageed to pay for.
If you reverse the situation, you make everyone with cell phones happier ("Hey, my cell phone bill just went WAY down!") but you anger all the non-cell phone users ("What are all these extra charges on my bill?").
Since I have no control over, or awareness of, the type of phone the other party has or the charges associated with it, I would have no way of knowing beforehand what my bill was going to be for that call if I had to pay for making the outbound call. If I call a non-cell phone, the call is covered by my monthly "rent" of the phone line. It seems reasonable that any non-long distance call should also be covered by that same "rent" of the line, since that's the line that I'm using. If the receiving party chooses to use a mobile service, they should pay the premium for that privilege, and not penalize someone else. I shouldn't have to pay more money for my call, because someone else decides to use a more expensive service. They should pay the difference.
It's days like today that I wish we could all discuss the issues productively, and not get so emotional about things.
I have to agree, unfortunately, that Linux still is not as easy to setup and use as Windows. But it really does come down to a personal experience thing. Windows is the same way, except that the variations are just less. I've taught people who were unfamiliar with computers how to use Windows, and believe me, it's a real chore. But it's still easier than Linux. Windows has such a hight market share, because 90% of the time it does work. It may not be as secure, or as stable, but it installs and runs without much hassle MOST of the time.
As I see it, the real issue isn't teaching people who don't know computers how to use Linux. The real job is converting people who are ALREADY comfortable with Windows. That's much harder because, even if something isn't really that hard, it's different, and that makes it seems hard.
Take Red Hat 7.3, for example (which I have running on one of my computers at home). It installs with Mozilla 0.9.9 or something like that. So, I say to myself, "let's upgrade!" So, I download the RPM, and run the installer. But does mozilla 1.0 replace the icon on my applications menu in KDE with the new one? Of course not. It installs it along side the old one, and my KDE applications menu still launches the previous version. Try running the installer in Windows, and it replaces the old version with the new one. That's what people are used to.
Is this easy to fix? For me, not too bad. For Joe Schmo who is used to how Windows works? It's a nightmare. And this is just one example. Reading back through previous posts, we can get a feel for how many such issues there really are.
Having 5 people who don't know squat about OS's using Linux is hardly more solid evidence than someone else saying he knows 5 (or however many) people who have had problems. For Linux to gain market share, we don't need to "prove" that Linux is easier to use. Ease of use is an opinion. And people who are so accustomed to using Windows are, in general, going to have a hard time using Linux. It's different.
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Here we have a prominent government official providing a vision of a believable future. And I am willing to bet that he has access to a lot of information that tells him the things he is talking about are very possible, even plausible. Perhaps we should stop for a minute and listen. Then, we can begin asking informed questions:
- How do we prevent this?
- If we can't prevent this, how to we protected ourselves?
etc., etc....
Raging against the government, and against Microsoft, and any connections they may nor may not have, will not change anything. We, as developers and software engineers, need to be educated enough, and prepared enough to deal with just such issues as Howard is describing.
And even if right now the traffic lights aren't directly connected to the Internet, the computers that control them are. Is there really much of a difference? And worse yet, much of the control systems are old 'X' applications that could easily be controlled remotely. It doesn't take much to connect the dots.
If you reverse the situation, you make everyone with cell phones happier ("Hey, my cell phone bill just went WAY down!") but you anger all the non-cell phone users ("What are all these extra charges on my bill?").
Since I have no control over, or awareness of, the type of phone the other party has or the charges associated with it, I would have no way of knowing beforehand what my bill was going to be for that call if I had to pay for making the outbound call. If I call a non-cell phone, the call is covered by my monthly "rent" of the phone line. It seems reasonable that any non-long distance call should also be covered by that same "rent" of the line, since that's the line that I'm using. If the receiving party chooses to use a mobile service, they should pay the premium for that privilege, and not penalize someone else. I shouldn't have to pay more money for my call, because someone else decides to use a more expensive service. They should pay the difference.
I have to agree, unfortunately, that Linux still is not as easy to setup and use as Windows. But it really does come down to a personal experience thing. Windows is the same way, except that the variations are just less. I've taught people who were unfamiliar with computers how to use Windows, and believe me, it's a real chore. But it's still easier than Linux. Windows has such a hight market share, because 90% of the time it does work. It may not be as secure, or as stable, but it installs and runs without much hassle MOST of the time.
As I see it, the real issue isn't teaching people who don't know computers how to use Linux. The real job is converting people who are ALREADY comfortable with Windows. That's much harder because, even if something isn't really that hard, it's different, and that makes it seems hard.
Take Red Hat 7.3, for example (which I have running on one of my computers at home). It installs with Mozilla 0.9.9 or something like that. So, I say to myself, "let's upgrade!" So, I download the RPM, and run the installer. But does mozilla 1.0 replace the icon on my applications menu in KDE with the new one? Of course not. It installs it along side the old one, and my KDE applications menu still launches the previous version. Try running the installer in Windows, and it replaces the old version with the new one. That's what people are used to.
Is this easy to fix? For me, not too bad. For Joe Schmo who is used to how Windows works? It's a nightmare. And this is just one example. Reading back through previous posts, we can get a feel for how many such issues there really are.
Having 5 people who don't know squat about OS's using Linux is hardly more solid evidence than someone else saying he knows 5 (or however many) people who have had problems. For Linux to gain market share, we don't need to "prove" that Linux is easier to use. Ease of use is an opinion. And people who are so accustomed to using Windows are, in general, going to have a hard time using Linux. It's different.
But BOTH are variations of democracy.