As I read through the SlashDot comments, it becomes clear to me that some people don't understand how newspaper interviews work.
Generally they're conducted by telephone. The reporter calls with a story idea. He's looking for information, background, quotes, etc. He asks a bunch of questions and has a conversation with the interviewee. In this case, the AP reporter was writing a story on licensing computer users, and he wanted to know what I thought about it. I spoke with the reporter for about ten minutes about this idea.
The reporter eventually hangs up. He talks to other people. Then, he writes the story. His job is to string together the facts and quotes into an interesting and entertaining news article.
I never get to see what quote he uses. I never get to approve the context. I never see the story before it appears in print.
People are misquoted all the time. Be careful about judging someone by a single quote they say in print, especially if it's something you wouldn't expect them to say. I'm always aware of the high error rate in news stories, but not everyone is.
This is what will appear in the next issue of Crypto-Gram:
A recent Associated Press story about licensing computer users has some people believing that I am in favor of the idea of licensing computer users.
I'm not. Period.
The idea is that users can potentially do damage with their computers, so why not force them to get licenses as we do for automobile drivers. While this is one potential way to deal with the problem of people having default security configurations and not installing their patches, I think that the damage that would do to the Information Age would be disastrous. And that it is a bad security trade-off.
It's interesting that people are taking this idea seriously, though. I think that the computer industry has painted itself into a corner. On the one hand, it has positioned computers as a mass-market consumer item. Everyone should own a computer. On the other hand, they have made computers so complex to administer that you need significant training to do it properly. One of the results of this is bad security, which we're seeing.
But I don't think the solution is to force computer users to be licensed. When I read my quote it's clear to me that I'm not saying that, but I want to correct the impression of anyone who does.
Slashdot Mirror
As I read through the SlashDot comments, it becomes clear to me that some people don't understand how newspaper interviews work.
Generally they're conducted by telephone. The reporter calls with a story idea. He's looking for information, background, quotes, etc. He asks a bunch of questions and has a conversation with the interviewee. In this case, the AP reporter was writing a story on licensing computer users, and he wanted to know what I thought about it. I spoke with the reporter for about ten minutes about this idea.
The reporter eventually hangs up. He talks to other people. Then, he writes the story. His job is to string together the facts and quotes into an interesting and entertaining news article.
I never get to see what quote he uses. I never get to approve the context. I never see the story before it appears in print.
People are misquoted all the time. Be careful about judging someone by a single quote they say in print, especially if it's something you wouldn't expect them to say. I'm always aware of the high error rate in news stories, but not everyone is.
Bruce
This is what will appear in the next issue of Crypto-Gram:
A recent Associated Press story about licensing computer users has some people believing that I am in favor of the idea of licensing computer users.
I'm not. Period.
The idea is that users can potentially do damage with their computers, so why not force them to get licenses as we do for automobile drivers. While this is one potential way to deal with the problem of people having default security configurations and not installing their patches, I think that the damage that would do to the Information Age would be disastrous. And that it is a bad security trade-off.
It's interesting that people are taking this idea seriously, though. I think that the computer industry has painted itself into a corner. On the one hand, it has positioned computers as a mass-market consumer item. Everyone should own a computer. On the other hand, they have made computers so complex to administer that you need significant training to do it properly. One of the results of this is bad security, which we're seeing.
But I don't think the solution is to force computer users to be licensed. When I read my quote it's clear to me that I'm not saying that, but I want to correct the impression of anyone who does.
Bruce