I strongly object to this bastardization of traditional authentication scheme theory. "Something you are" is a load of crap. It is an attempt to graft biometrics onto existing theory without evaluating how they really work. Biometrics identifiers are just something you have and need to be evaluated on their strengths and weaknesses on that basis.
Actually, the "something you are" idea is older than biometrics. Imagine someone trying to get into an old fortress. You might protect it by requiring that someone know a password before they can enter (something you know). You might require that someone have some sort of token, such as a signet or letter (something you have). It might be that there are guards ordered to only let in people that they already know on sight (something you are).
Arguably, you might say that all three are "things one has". A person might "have" an item, or "have" a physical characteristic, or they might "have" information or knowledge. These distinctions can be a bit fluid, too. A password is typically thought to be "something you know", but if I write it down and forget it, in a certain sense, it has become "something I have". You might have an encryption key on a disk, which is comparable to a very complex password written down, and it also becomes "something I have". I might also know something about the security (something I have or something I am) which allows me to circumvent it, thereby making it an issue of something I know.
Anyway, the point is, security which measures an object I can carry, drop, hide, or loose has different strengths and weaknesses than security which measures a biological aspect to my person, and still different from one which measures my response to some sort of prompt/question. You seem to acknowledge this in your own post. Biometrics have different strengths and weaknesses than carrying some sort of token. It is not an essential difference, but these different strengths/weaknesses that are the justification for defining it as a different sort of security.
I agree, however, that biometrics are often over-hyped due to the cool-factor of them. To hear some people talk, passwords are horrible and never work and a simple thumbprint scanner is foolproof. Of course that's silly. There are plenty of good reasons why passwords have been used for so long (though I won't detail them all here).
I do also think, however, that you'll have a hard time arguing that a security system which measures "something you have" and/or "something you know" wouldn't be strengthened by also requiring some biometric check as well. The best security systems will check for a wide range of things, and take into account the routes to circumvent the system.
Funny, I thought there was a little something in there about, you know, the fact that schools aren't built these days to teach students or even help students learn. Really, the way most schools are heading, they aren't schools/universities anymore. They're:
Research centers
4 year long summer camp for 18-22 year-olds.
Professors don't teach. Teaching Assistants don't teach. Students don't learn anything of value, unless it's self taught, in which case, go buy the text books and teach yourself.
Cheer all you want for the little guy, but a lot of CIOs (and PHBs in general) don't trust anyone BUT "The Man". Redhat being "The Man" represents greater market penetration for Linux, as well as someone else in the "community" who is generating revenue from Linux and who has a financial interest in improving the code and marketing Linux.
But it simply isn't possible for any Linux distributor to "become Microsoft", because unlike Microsoft, anybody who can obtain a copy of Distro X can legally rebrand, recompile, and sell it as Distro Y. Somebody running Distro Z can go through Distro X, figure out any new features, and bring those features to Distro Z.
And this is very important because it means that, in order to keep my business, Distro X must continue to represent a good choice. They must offer reliability, trustworthiness, and good service. Why do people continue to buy Redhat even as CentOS is released? Because they trust Redhat and like Redhat's support.
Open source vendors simply won't make any money unless their customers are happy.
Often, the best game sequels are those which don't try to make a whole new game. If you're going to make a whole new game, make a whole new game. A good sequel should, in essence, smooth out the problem/bugs of the original, remove anything that made the game less fun while accentuating things that made it good in the first place, and add new levels (and a new story, if applicable).
The problem, in fact, comes when the designers aren't content to just do that. They start rearranging things for the hell of it, throwing in new nonsensical features just so they can claim that they've added features, and thereby screw the whole thing up.
Funny, but most of the things you think Palm did right are could also be "things they did wrong". Lacking movie/music playback, Word/Excel document capabilities, and color screens-- I know a lot of people that would count that as a negative.
I've just been in and out of corporate IT helpdesks for... I guess around 7 years now. I've heard a lot of Microsoft-bashers write about how much Outlook stinks, and how all the features Outlook has over a normal mail client is bloat, that no one should need it. Typically these people aren't office workers. If they're in IT, they're freelancers, consultants, programmers, or they're in non-dilbertian environments.
Believe me, I don't like Microsoft either, but people really do use those "bloat" features in Outlook. Shared calendars/contacts, delegation, auto-archiving, GAL and distribution lists, e-mailing appointments and contacts, public folders, journals, tasks, notes, etc.
Mail does work with exchange servers... for mail. The issue is, what about calendars? What about contacts? what about public folders?
Some of this functionality can be handled by the Mail/Address Book/iCal combination, but even that is not sufficient as an "Outlook replacement".
Unless you've worked in one of these corporate environments, you might not quite understand the importance of Outlook. People send around meeting invitations all the time. Admin Assistants manage executives' calendars and contacts. There are businesses that are pretty much *run* through outlook, and the lack of an Outlook equivalent has been a big problem for putting OSX machines in these environments. Mail/AddressBook/iCal may be as good as Entourage X, but it still just doesn't cut it.
Someone here, though, mentioned Entourage 2004 SP2 (which just came out about a week ago). I tried that out, and it pretty much works. So much for loosening Microsoft's strangle-hold on corporate America.
It's certainly interesting, but I wouldn't say it's even competitive with Thunderbird in terms of being an exchange client. It still seems not to support Exchange, but also its keyboard shortcuts are all wrong. Any OSX mail client where command-Q brings up a new e-mail is already out of the running for real use.
What about "patch our closed-source clients to break the usability of the open-source server"? In some ways, server software will be easier. You don't necessarily have to give it a nice GUI, strong cross-platform support, it doesn't have to look pretty. However, a completely functional groupware server isn't going to do you much good displacing Exchange until you have a strong, pretty, cross-platform client that will connect to it.
I think if ANYONE would port Evolution to OSX, you'd see it capture a decent share of whatever OSX machines are in corporate settings (for what that's worth). Entourage seriously stinks. Microsoft didn't even release Exchange connectivity until Apple started providing limited support through their "Mail".
Even then, Exchange support is pretty well crap. They've just cobbled together the IMAP support and LDAP support so that you can set them both up with one "Account settings" wizard. Gee, thanks. I still have to manually clear out my keychain every now and then to keep Entourage from locking my Windows account.
And don't get me started on Palm. So much potential, they even bought out Be, and they haven't done jack. Their new models bump up the RAM a little. Wowwie! I with they'd get a clue, toss the Hotsync method of transferring files, get rid of their Palm Desktop software (like you said), support OSX properly, and make a useful product for once. Open-source BeOS while you're at it. Instead it looks like they're just going to move to Windows Mobile and compete directly with Axims and iPaqs.
Well, the great power of a "weblog" (I hate the word "blog") is that it allows a normal, lowly, everyday human being to share his ideas and voice his opinions. The great failing of weblogs is that they allow normal, lowly, everyday human beings to share their ideas and voice their opinions.
Actually, that's been the power and failing of the internet all along. Anything which gives power to the common man, letting us hear his good ideas, unfortunately also gives power to the common man, giving us access to his incessant prattle. Really, what do you want? Do you want some large media company sifting through and deciding what's good?
I'd rather have access to weblogs, at least so long as they are distinguished from spam in one factor: they aren't showing up in my inbox uninvited. Say as much as you want for however long as you want in your own weblog, and as long as I have to actively choose to read it, fine by me.
If you don't like my weblog, there's a simple solution. Don't visit it.
It's probably not an "excuse". There aren't any real drop-in replacements for Outlook's functionality in Windows.
What's even worse is the situation on the Mac side. Microsoft doesn't even make a real OSX Exchange client. There's Outlook 2001, which only runs in OS9/Classic, and then there's Entourage, which is buggy, unstable, doesn't work properly, and generally stinks. Otherwise, you're stuck with webmail or a normal IMAP client.
In short, there is not a single OSX application that properly supports Exchange. Public folders are near useless. You can't share mailboxes, calendars, contacts, etc. Meeting requests don't even work properly.
On linux, at least you have Evolution. Evolution is a pretty good Outlook replacement, but the Windows port isn't done, and Novell hasn't announced any plans for an OSX version (as far as I know).
...until you replace the server we are all at the mercy of Microsoft and their usual patch it to break it mentality.
The "patch it to break it" could just as easily be applied to the client end. The fact is, the client end is extremely important-- large businesses are slower in migrating servers to new software than to experiment with client-side solutions. Outlook and Exchange reenforce each other. You can't use all of Outlook's features with Exchange, and Outlook doesn't work well with anything else.
It'd be easier to make a new server-end system if you already have a client in place which will connect to it.
I thought a calendar was already available for Thunderbird as a plugin.
It is, and yet Thunderbird still isn't a suitable replacement for Outlook in corporate environments. From what I understand, Lightning aims to fix that.
being a blatant slashvertisment (I mean, there's not even an article about it, it's just a link to OQO's website), this doesn't really seem all that impressive.
I think you mean, "It doesn't seem all that practical"? Certainly it's impressive and neat to have a full-blown computer in a tiny package, right? It's just not practical, but cutting-edge devices often aren't.
So, sure, for most people and in most circumstances, it will be more effective and cost efficient to buy a desktop+PDA combo. For now. Give it a couple years, and who knows.
I think it is great not only because I like some of the stuff Campbell has done, but also that Raimi still manages to get him into his movies.
I like the fact that you say that as though it's really really hard. "Raimi still manages to get [Campbell] into his movies." Now, do you think it would be hard because Campbell is so busy that he would normally refuse a part in a huge blockbuster?
Or do you mean to imply that it'd be hard to slip him past the security guards who've been ordered to keep him off the studio lot?
What if Sony pandered to Linux or OS X or just the PS3 market? Plus Sony has clout with the media distributers...
Sony is a media distributer. I can't think of any reason to believe they would pander to anyone looking for DRM-free media. If anything, they're notorious for pushing their own proprietary formats.
Actually, doesn't Microsoft offer to replace lost/broken media (for the price of shipping and handling), so long as you have proof of a license? I thought they did.
If not, they used to, and should again. When you buy Windows, that $200 goes mostly towards the license, and almost none of it is for the medium. If you have a license to install/use Windows, what should they care where you get the medium?
Of course, that's not the same as suggesting that anyone should be able to distribute Windows media on their own terms, but Microsoft and other software vendors should provide (and I thought did provide) replacement media.
In fairness, though, it's not Adobe's (or your) place to judge that. I've had periods of time, myself, where I was reinstalling my system from scratch on a fairly regular basis. I had my reasons.
Really, it happens all the time. Paint chipping off is a little less common in general, but I've seen tons of consumer electronics where the outer layering is colored one way, and as time passes, it gets worn-through to plastic colored differently. In fact, the fact that it's "chipping" rather than "wearing through a plastic layer" is an issue Apple uses metallic casings while other manufacturers use shoddy plastic. But that's just one example.
Another example is the "battery life" issue. People complain that some powerbooks experience unexplained battery problems. Is this at-all unique to powerbooks? Are you seriously telling me that no one has experienced battery problems with Dell, Sony, HP, or IBM laptops? Cell phones? PDAs? Or that no other computer manufacturers have sold systems with defective motherboards or video cards? Other OS vendors haven't shipped operating systems with security holes or usability bugs?
Really, this happens all the time. I'm not saying, "shut up and take it". I'm not saying Apple products are perfect, and no one should ever complain. However, when someone asks, "Why do Apple customers stand for defective products?" the answer is, "For the same reason Dell, IBM, HP, Toshiba, and Creative customers do." No one is making perfect devices which never break or scratch or suffer from defects. You just hear more about the chipped paint on Powerbooks because Apple customers are more likely to freak out if they have a little chipped paint on their laptop.
Microsoft has managed to convince the masses that their operating system and their office suite are the "normal" (i.e. regular, non-weird, default) way of doing things. Therefore, when someone uses something other than Microsoft, Microsoft's marketing has them convinced that their is something strange about that practice. To use anything other than Microsoft for normal day-to-day computing amounts to "singling Microsoft out" and punishing them. Why? Because that's the "normal" software, and why wouldn't you use it, unless you had a beef with MS?
I'm not saying this is true. I doubt even Microsoft thinks it's true. However, as long as the masses are convinced of it, Microsoft will use/abuse this for marketing and PR. Every time someone uses Linux or OOo, Microsoft will paint them as fanatics and crazy people, out to get Microsoft.
Might I suggest that the problem isn't that the OS is complicated, but that it's of poor quality? It doesn't really matter how many features or how complicated the device is, it's how well the features are implemented and whether the software is well coded.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the "something you are" idea is older than biometrics. Imagine someone trying to get into an old fortress. You might protect it by requiring that someone know a password before they can enter (something you know). You might require that someone have some sort of token, such as a signet or letter (something you have). It might be that there are guards ordered to only let in people that they already know on sight (something you are).
Arguably, you might say that all three are "things one has". A person might "have" an item, or "have" a physical characteristic, or they might "have" information or knowledge. These distinctions can be a bit fluid, too. A password is typically thought to be "something you know", but if I write it down and forget it, in a certain sense, it has become "something I have". You might have an encryption key on a disk, which is comparable to a very complex password written down, and it also becomes "something I have". I might also know something about the security (something I have or something I am) which allows me to circumvent it, thereby making it an issue of something I know.
Anyway, the point is, security which measures an object I can carry, drop, hide, or loose has different strengths and weaknesses than security which measures a biological aspect to my person, and still different from one which measures my response to some sort of prompt/question. You seem to acknowledge this in your own post. Biometrics have different strengths and weaknesses than carrying some sort of token. It is not an essential difference, but these different strengths/weaknesses that are the justification for defining it as a different sort of security.
I agree, however, that biometrics are often over-hyped due to the cool-factor of them. To hear some people talk, passwords are horrible and never work and a simple thumbprint scanner is foolproof. Of course that's silly. There are plenty of good reasons why passwords have been used for so long (though I won't detail them all here).
I do also think, however, that you'll have a hard time arguing that a security system which measures "something you have" and/or "something you know" wouldn't be strengthened by also requiring some biometric check as well. The best security systems will check for a wide range of things, and take into account the routes to circumvent the system.
Professors don't teach. Teaching Assistants don't teach. Students don't learn anything of value, unless it's self taught, in which case, go buy the text books and teach yourself.
Cheer all you want for the little guy, but a lot of CIOs (and PHBs in general) don't trust anyone BUT "The Man". Redhat being "The Man" represents greater market penetration for Linux, as well as someone else in the "community" who is generating revenue from Linux and who has a financial interest in improving the code and marketing Linux.
And this is very important because it means that, in order to keep my business, Distro X must continue to represent a good choice. They must offer reliability, trustworthiness, and good service. Why do people continue to buy Redhat even as CentOS is released? Because they trust Redhat and like Redhat's support.
Open source vendors simply won't make any money unless their customers are happy.
The problem, in fact, comes when the designers aren't content to just do that. They start rearranging things for the hell of it, throwing in new nonsensical features just so they can claim that they've added features, and thereby screw the whole thing up.
Funny, but most of the things you think Palm did right are could also be "things they did wrong". Lacking movie/music playback, Word/Excel document capabilities, and color screens-- I know a lot of people that would count that as a negative.
Believe me, I don't like Microsoft either, but people really do use those "bloat" features in Outlook. Shared calendars/contacts, delegation, auto-archiving, GAL and distribution lists, e-mailing appointments and contacts, public folders, journals, tasks, notes, etc.
Some of this functionality can be handled by the Mail/Address Book/iCal combination, but even that is not sufficient as an "Outlook replacement".
Unless you've worked in one of these corporate environments, you might not quite understand the importance of Outlook. People send around meeting invitations all the time. Admin Assistants manage executives' calendars and contacts. There are businesses that are pretty much *run* through outlook, and the lack of an Outlook equivalent has been a big problem for putting OSX machines in these environments. Mail/AddressBook/iCal may be as good as Entourage X, but it still just doesn't cut it.
Someone here, though, mentioned Entourage 2004 SP2 (which just came out about a week ago). I tried that out, and it pretty much works. So much for loosening Microsoft's strangle-hold on corporate America.
I was so disappointed when Entourage 2004 came out, but at least this shows that Microsoft is willing to put forth some effort.
It's certainly interesting, but I wouldn't say it's even competitive with Thunderbird in terms of being an exchange client. It still seems not to support Exchange, but also its keyboard shortcuts are all wrong. Any OSX mail client where command-Q brings up a new e-mail is already out of the running for real use.
I don't want to disregard the efforts made to bring the port to OSX, but I'm afraid X11 won't cut it for most users (including mine).
What about "patch our closed-source clients to break the usability of the open-source server"? In some ways, server software will be easier. You don't necessarily have to give it a nice GUI, strong cross-platform support, it doesn't have to look pretty. However, a completely functional groupware server isn't going to do you much good displacing Exchange until you have a strong, pretty, cross-platform client that will connect to it.
Even then, Exchange support is pretty well crap. They've just cobbled together the IMAP support and LDAP support so that you can set them both up with one "Account settings" wizard. Gee, thanks. I still have to manually clear out my keychain every now and then to keep Entourage from locking my Windows account.
And don't get me started on Palm. So much potential, they even bought out Be, and they haven't done jack. Their new models bump up the RAM a little. Wowwie! I with they'd get a clue, toss the Hotsync method of transferring files, get rid of their Palm Desktop software (like you said), support OSX properly, and make a useful product for once. Open-source BeOS while you're at it. Instead it looks like they're just going to move to Windows Mobile and compete directly with Axims and iPaqs.
Actually, that's been the power and failing of the internet all along. Anything which gives power to the common man, letting us hear his good ideas, unfortunately also gives power to the common man, giving us access to his incessant prattle. Really, what do you want? Do you want some large media company sifting through and deciding what's good?
I'd rather have access to weblogs, at least so long as they are distinguished from spam in one factor: they aren't showing up in my inbox uninvited. Say as much as you want for however long as you want in your own weblog, and as long as I have to actively choose to read it, fine by me.
If you don't like my weblog, there's a simple solution. Don't visit it.
What's even worse is the situation on the Mac side. Microsoft doesn't even make a real OSX Exchange client. There's Outlook 2001, which only runs in OS9/Classic, and then there's Entourage, which is buggy, unstable, doesn't work properly, and generally stinks. Otherwise, you're stuck with webmail or a normal IMAP client.
In short, there is not a single OSX application that properly supports Exchange. Public folders are near useless. You can't share mailboxes, calendars, contacts, etc. Meeting requests don't even work properly.
On linux, at least you have Evolution. Evolution is a pretty good Outlook replacement, but the Windows port isn't done, and Novell hasn't announced any plans for an OSX version (as far as I know).
The "patch it to break it" could just as easily be applied to the client end. The fact is, the client end is extremely important-- large businesses are slower in migrating servers to new software than to experiment with client-side solutions. Outlook and Exchange reenforce each other. You can't use all of Outlook's features with Exchange, and Outlook doesn't work well with anything else.
It'd be easier to make a new server-end system if you already have a client in place which will connect to it.
It is, and yet Thunderbird still isn't a suitable replacement for Outlook in corporate environments. From what I understand, Lightning aims to fix that.
I think you mean, "It doesn't seem all that practical"? Certainly it's impressive and neat to have a full-blown computer in a tiny package, right? It's just not practical, but cutting-edge devices often aren't.
So, sure, for most people and in most circumstances, it will be more effective and cost efficient to buy a desktop+PDA combo. For now. Give it a couple years, and who knows.
I remember when laptops weren't practical.
I like the fact that you say that as though it's really really hard. "Raimi still manages to get [Campbell] into his movies." Now, do you think it would be hard because Campbell is so busy that he would normally refuse a part in a huge blockbuster?
Or do you mean to imply that it'd be hard to slip him past the security guards who've been ordered to keep him off the studio lot?
Sony is a media distributer. I can't think of any reason to believe they would pander to anyone looking for DRM-free media. If anything, they're notorious for pushing their own proprietary formats.
If not, they used to, and should again. When you buy Windows, that $200 goes mostly towards the license, and almost none of it is for the medium. If you have a license to install/use Windows, what should they care where you get the medium?
Of course, that's not the same as suggesting that anyone should be able to distribute Windows media on their own terms, but Microsoft and other software vendors should provide (and I thought did provide) replacement media.
In fairness, though, it's not Adobe's (or your) place to judge that. I've had periods of time, myself, where I was reinstalling my system from scratch on a fairly regular basis. I had my reasons.
Another example is the "battery life" issue. People complain that some powerbooks experience unexplained battery problems. Is this at-all unique to powerbooks? Are you seriously telling me that no one has experienced battery problems with Dell, Sony, HP, or IBM laptops? Cell phones? PDAs? Or that no other computer manufacturers have sold systems with defective motherboards or video cards? Other OS vendors haven't shipped operating systems with security holes or usability bugs?
Really, this happens all the time. I'm not saying, "shut up and take it". I'm not saying Apple products are perfect, and no one should ever complain. However, when someone asks, "Why do Apple customers stand for defective products?" the answer is, "For the same reason Dell, IBM, HP, Toshiba, and Creative customers do." No one is making perfect devices which never break or scratch or suffer from defects. You just hear more about the chipped paint on Powerbooks because Apple customers are more likely to freak out if they have a little chipped paint on their laptop.
I'm not saying this is true. I doubt even Microsoft thinks it's true. However, as long as the masses are convinced of it, Microsoft will use/abuse this for marketing and PR. Every time someone uses Linux or OOo, Microsoft will paint them as fanatics and crazy people, out to get Microsoft.
Might I suggest that the problem isn't that the OS is complicated, but that it's of poor quality? It doesn't really matter how many features or how complicated the device is, it's how well the features are implemented and whether the software is well coded.