There are a couple of SOX compliant archival solutions for Exchange that can get the job done just fine. If the SEC can mandate email retention on a 4 person investment banking firm, the White House sure as hell better be able to retain their important communications. I've never understood the Federal government mentality of building everything from scratch. My only exposure to government has been at the city level and they are more than willing to use off the shelf systems to get the job done. What is it about the Feds? Is it because of all the mandates and regulations that they place on themselves that they paint themselves into a corner where the only way to comply with all of those mandates is to write the damn software themselves... I mean, outsource it to contractors.
I've been working in IT since 1996. I spent seven of the last eight years as a consultant. Now I'm a DBA at one of my previous clients. I took this job because it is stable and relatively mindless. I held onto one of my clients from the consulting gig. They are in the waste management business and into all sorts of cool things that are very relevant in day to day life. They have facilities spread throughout the state and are constantly implementing new technologies to keep up with the owner's need for information about his diverse operations. Most of my free time is spent training martial arts though. I found out about six years ago that martial arts and philosophy (specifically Buddhism and Daoism) are what really do it for me. So at this point in my life I organize everything else around that. I'll never be materially rich but I am spiritually satisfied.
People like me? That's rich. I thought my post was kind of funny in addition to touching upon a very real phenomena that a lot of people can relate to. I grew up playing roleplaying games and going to Ren faires and attending user groups and there are definitely overlaps in the various groups. Maybe I should have said something about furry MUckers who wear tails and ears out into the real world instead of "picking on" D&D players and LARPers? The fact of the matter is that the internet has given a venue for personal expression via the form of "avatars" or whatever you want to call them that hadn't traditionally been easily accessible. Those behaviors practiced online have spilled over into the real world and in some instances are even accepted as normal. I remember a guy at 2600 meetings in the 1990s who everyone called Kitty. He was a furry MUcker. Nobody really held it against him.
But how can you categorize this way? What kind of prejudiced person are you?
I'm not making this crap up and I'm not lumping everyone who does a certain activity together. I'm just offering up examples from the real world of what happens when people get too into playing a character and it spills over to become part of their permanent personality.
Anyway, most of us who enjoy LARP, can very well distinguish between a fantasy and a reality and indeed we do get a lot from role playing and it is not a mental illness as you suggest in most cases.
I never meant to suggest that it was a mental illness of any sort. I just offered it up as an example that some people can relate to. If you're into LARP, I'm sure you can relate whether or not you want to. I'm sure that you can remember people in the group who have lived the game to a certain extent. The ones who are constantly shopping for new things "for their character." The ones who are constantly suggesting modifications to the rules because, "that's not how it works in REAL LIFE."
I remember being on the front lines of that fear-mongering. I played D&D with some friends. One of the kids in our neighborhood wasn't allowed to play with us because his parents were afraid he was going to start worshipping Satan. He also wasn't allowed to watch the Smurfs because his mom was convinced that the Smurfs were demons.
I'm not a Christian and I don't have anything against Wiccans. I have been to my fair share of solstice festivals, full moon rituals and other assorted, nature centric events. I'm just responding to this post of yours because it seems that I ruffled a few feathers with the comment I made, not just yours but others who have also responded to this. The essence of what I was saying is that some people play a game like D&D so much that it starts to influence their interests outside of the game and in effect they start to personify their characters. Given that D&D pulled from so many influences, it isn't an off the wall comment to talk about D&D "druids" who get into Wicca and D&D "mages" who get into the occult.
I've heard that response a lot. It was best summed up as, "If I'm going to have to stare at my avatar's backside for days on end, you better believe she's going to be hot."
I'm sure that the stereotype is familiar enough to/.ers. Most of us know those people who have been playing roleplaying games for so long that their personality becomes the character that they play. There are the Vampire players who really believe that they are walking undead. There are the D&D players who eventually get into Wicca and other "majik" kind of stuff to the point where they believe that they can cast spells and talk to spirits. I think it's basic psychology that anybody who spends any significant amount of time pretending to be someone else will eventually manifest behavorial changes.
In this day and age any reasonable person should factor the cost of insurance into any purchase. It seems to me like hardly a year goes by when I don't hear a story about some friend of a friend getting their car stereo stolen. When I ask about the insurance the answer is always the same, "No, it wasn't insured." It's crazy to resort to violence to protect property. Just purchase the insurance and let someone else deal with the theft.
But, to complete the picture, I simply gave up contributing to that effort. I used Linux as my desktop machine until a few weeks ago. So I'm a little up-to-date on what has changed in those eight years, and it isn't that much, really. Definitely nothing that makes me reconsider my vote on the matter.
What did you replace your Linux desktop with? OSX?
I think that Microsoft has a lock on blueware. It's that special state your computer boots into at only the most opportune moments. A state of complete uselessness.
You're not fooling me. I've seen some of those tools. IIS is two orders of magnitude more of a pain to administer than Apache. Visual Studio's interface is... unusably horrible. ASP reminds me an aweful lot of PHP: it's very easy to slap together a page that mostly works, but maintaining all the code that runs an entire site is an absolute nightmare.
Isn't this kind of an apples to oranges comparison though? You're talking about running a website. I'm talking about developing an application. Nobody in their right mind would use IIS as a serious enterprise webhost. The "strength" of Microsoft's current family of software is the interoperability of it. The tools on their own pretty much suck and nine times out of ten there is an open source or competitor software that will do it better. What Microsoft has are tools that work together to get the job done. They have MSDN and TechNet whitepapers and code examples that anyone with half a brain can follow to create a product that works. It might be full of security vulnerabilities, and it will be succeptible to the forced upgrade cycle, but the framework works.
Head start? You're out of your chair. IIS has a very long way to go to even begin to catch up with Apache, just for instance. And Visual Studio is categorically the worst IDE I have ever laid eyes on.
See my above comment. The headstart I'm talking about is the foundation, the code examples... in essense MSDN and TechNet. It isn't that IIS is better than Apache or that VS doesn't suck. The fact is that a monkey can get Visual Studio and a copy of MSDE and develop an application by following the examples. If the monkey can't figure it out on his own he can go to a community college and take a course that will lay it out for him. He can go to a Microsoft training center and have someone show him how to do it.
Unless you're talking about a head start in _mindshare_ among ISVs. In which case, yeah, they do have that. In spades.
It isn't just mindshare. There are probably more people developing applications for the Microsoft application stack than there are for LAMP. That is just a fact. A critical mass needs to be reached. Some key interoperability issues need to be sorted out and Microsoft is doing everything in their power to make sure that such things never happen. Until the interoperability issues are worked out the ISVs will always be faced with the question.. "Do I develop software that will work with 85% of what is out there, or do I develop software based on a framework that requires my potential clients to rip out good portions of their infrastructure and replace them with my offering?" I'd love to see Linux and OSS thrive in the SMB market. I'd love a Linux equivalent of SBS Server 2003 because SBS Server 2003 is the BIGGEST PIECE OF CRAP EVER. The theory of having everything a small business needs in one box is good. The execution absolutely blows. It would be great to have a "Business Starter Box" or something built on Linux. OpenOffice, some payroll program, an accounting package that does GL, AP and AR... that's all most small businesses need.
I suppose that could be a contributing factor, but then that just raises the question "How does MS get and maintain that kind of mindshare in education circles?"
They pay for it. They print the text books. They print the course materials. They have an entire segment of their enterprise devoted to doing nothing other than teaching people how to use their software. The OSS world doesn't quite have that focus yet because it is still really diverse. MySQL or ProgreSQL? Java or PHP? Apache, TomCat or what have you? Sendmail? Firefox, Opera? All of those are various implementations of various standards. Of course Microsoft's implementation of standards sucks too. Yet they're big enough that they are a standard in and of themselves.
The final point I'll make is who do you hold accountable when your Java app doesn't pull data from MySQL proper
I don't know how Microsoft has achieved this kind of deep mindshare among ISVs. I just know that they have it.
They put out the tools (Visual Studio) and application development platform (SQL server, IIS, ASP, etc) that developers could easily build solutions with. They combined that with the MSDN community to provide usable documentation and TechNet to provide developer support. The LAMP stack and associated technologies are catching up but Microsoft has a huge head start. Combine that head start with community college and graduate level training/education programs that bring people up to speed with the tools and it's pretty easy to see where the mindshare comes from. The Open Source world is catching up but they don't have standardized training yet. An ISV can interview a prospective programmer and take a look at which MS courses they have passed and from that get a pretty good understanding of where they are in their development as a program. What is the equivalent in the Open Source world? "What O'Reilly books have you read lately?"
Yeah. A lot of the independent software vendors who develop line-of-business software (in the "let us know you're interested and we'll assign a sales team to come out and demo it for you and an implementation manager to put together a proposal" price range) are highly enamored of Microsoft. A have not quite got a handle on *why* they like Microsoft so much, but a lot of them really really do.
As an example of what you are talking about a client of mine was looking for a document imaging solution. They ended up going with docLink from Altec. Altec is the typical ISV that you talk about. They went with docLink because it integrates with everything else that they are running. They hook right into the APIs from the HR package (Abra for Windows), the accounting package (Platinum for Windows), and even the client's semi-custom, industry specific software that was written for Windows. The docLink package runs on an SQL Server 2005 backend with its own monstrosity of a DCOM based client and TIGHTLY integrates with all the other apps. By tightly I mean if you're in the HR software, it will pull up all the records for an employee based on EmployeeID number. If you're in the accounting software it pulls up all of the information for a customer based on CustomerID, Address, Phone Number or a whole slew of other fields.
The above example is why ISVs are enamored with Microsoft. The foundation is there. The foundation itself may be bug ridden and shakey as hell, but it is there and it can be leveraged fairly easily. There isn't the equivalent in the OSS world. Even if there was a kick ass open source document imaging solution that runs on Linux, would it tightly integrate with Office and all the other Windows based technologies? What's the solution? "Just replace" Office with OpenOffice? Just yank out the entire billing system and implement something Open Source and then integrate that with the imaging software? Same thing for the HR system?
Linux is making huge inroads among the IBMs of the world because IBM can devote the R&D time to making it work. Your average small business that only does a couple of million dollars a year in revenue simply can't scrap their entire computing infrastructure and replace it with some OSS marvel. The infrastructure was built up incrementally, one purchase at a time. A server here. Some workstations there. An accounting package. Some time clock software. At each step of the way they probably had a few application and hardware vendors to choose from. The OSS world isn't there yet. You either go with THE solution for a particular business situation, or you pay some programmers to come up with something for you. Most businesses aren't in the business of paying programmers. They need a tested solution that works now with what they have. Not a solution that will work in two years after they replace everything that they currently have.
I think Microsoft is finally getting called out on their "minimum requirement" language. Everyone who has ever used any version of Windows knows that the minimum requirement is what will boot the OS. 99% of the time that isn't good enough for real world use by people who want to do more than use Notepad. However to Microsoft's defense, they are delivering what they promised and what anyone who has used their products should know. The issue at this point is that the vendors were dumb enough to build computers specced to the minimum requirement and then sell them to the public. Now Microsoft is catching flak for it and they should catch the flak. Hopefully they will learn from this and adjust their specs accordingly.
The whole "minimum requirement" issue is an industry wide phenomena. I don't know anyone who will try to run an Adobe product like Creative Suite with the minimum requirements and expect it to run well. I don't know anyone who is going to install any sort of SQL server with the minimum requirements and expect it to hold up in a production environment. The problem for Microsoft is that Vista is an unusable piece of crap even on hardware that exceeds the minimum requirement.
You'd probably get taken aside and held until they verified your identity. You'd have to wait til some guy from the State Department showed up, then you'd have to wait while that guy contacted the French Consulate to verify the fact that you were in fact a member of a foreign government who should receive immunity. The reality of the situation is that all of the diplomatic paperwork is taken care of ahead of time. If you're trying to play the diplomat/foreign agent card at the gate during the search you're calling attention to yourself because you've already failed to go through the proper channels.
It was only a matter of time. I started noticing a few years ago that in television programs it seems like the "good guys" are always using Apples. The people in positions of power are always using Apples. The "bad guys" and the standard extras are always using PCs. I just figured it is the inherent bias of the movie/creative industry because they have been using Avid and Final Cut for so long that they just tend to feature their own tools in prominent positions. It was only a matter of time before Microsoft went for some real product placement to counter the trend. I wonder how long before they come up with a "reality" program where everyone involved is writing and marketing software and they slant the show to make it seem like developing code for OSX is next to impossible while writing code for Windows is super simple.
You're right. Looking back at the course of the conversation I'm the one who used the aphorism in the first place. My point still stands. You don't want to believe it and that's fine with me. You want to live in an ideal world where legislators can be trusted to use moderation when they legislate. I think it's fairly well documented that just the opposite is the status quo.
Now you want me to limit my responses to "agencies that actually might be responsible for securing the internet," in effect making me choose DHS, FBI, or NSA. Your argument keeps shifting. If you want to restate and refine your initial argument, then who knows, maybe I'll even agree with it.
I am refining the argument. The article was making a correlation between high seas piracy and crime on the internet, and then suggesting that the government be responsible for dealing with internet crime like they were responsible for dealing with high seas piracy. I made the point that here on/. we often see articles bemoaning the invasive nature of the government. I made a statement to the effect of, "If you task the government with securing the internet, they are going to regulate the hell out of it under the guise of securing it." That statement still stands because regulation is what the government does, and 99% of the time they OVER-regulate whatever they are given domain over. You can take it or leave it. I'm done, but feel free to respond. Maybe you will find some other people who agree with you and you can continue the conversation with them, minus the slippery slopes of reality getting in the way.;)
NASA and the Post Office aren't in charge of regulating anything in the capacity of having regulatory oversight of the private sector. I don't think the department of the interior is either, beyond resource rights for Federal land. Lets look at agencies that actually might be responsible for securing the internet. DHS? Huge new agency that is growing by leaps and bounds. The FBI? Violating the Constitution and over reaching left and right. The NSA? Those guys haven't stopped growing.
The "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" is the analogy that you've come up with and that you're using. My point still stands. You can't expect the government to assume responsibility for detering crime on the internet without having them regulate the hell out of it.
It's easy to say the point doesn't stand. I challenge you to find a Federal government level institution that has been around for more than 20 years that hasn't expanded its responsibilities and oversight capabilities. Find me a department that still has the same number of employees and hasn't been absorbed by another department that was expanding its own influence.
You say I'm using a slippery slope argument. I'm making the assertion that ever expanding governmental regulation is the way the government works. It isn't a logical device that I'm using as an argumentative technique. It is reality.
The system is setup in the following way. The banks "loan" money based on the amount of "debt" they have on their books. So if they send you a credit card with a $5,000 limit and you max it out then they suddenly have $5,000 to lend to someone else. We will never see any real regulation of consumer credit because consumer credit is what keeps this fucked up economy of ours going.
I completely agree with all of this. The unfortunate reality of the world in this day and age is that the government is simply a tool of the banks because the government is dependent on the banks to function. If you have the ability to do so, read The Creature from Jekyll Island for a very good overview of the dynamics between the Federal Reserve and the governments of the world (including the United States government).
You are correct that there is no reason that the government can't have a small set of regulatory powers. In theory I could have a driveway made of milk chocolate. When looking at the REALITY of how the government functions, if you give them an inch they will take a mile. The point still stands... you can't on one hand gripe about the government not doing enough to fight internet "crime" and then on the other talk about wanting the government to take a hands off approach to the internet. The government works based on the assumption that if you want "security" you give them power to "regulate" what you demand that they secure.
Either the government stays out of regulating and securing the internet or they don't. Which one do you really want? Do you want the government to be responsible for internet security enough to give them free reign to the point where they have control over all content? Or do you want to hold private industry responsible for securing their business transactions?
I'm of the opinion that the government should be there to hold private industry liable for any breaches of personal data that leads to fraud. If someone steals my credit information and makes purchases with them, the credit card company should be on the hook for not verifying the identity of the person who made the purchase. The merchant should be on the hook for not verifying the identity of the purchaser. The whole system needs to be changed. Instead of giving out free credit, they need to only give credit to those who ask for it. Turn it from a push to a pull system and validate the hell out of the puller.
On an only semi-related tangant, I'm waiting for the explosion in fraudulant health care claims. The health care cards themselves are simple pieces of paper. It is easy to get a picture idea with your picture and someone else's name on it. With the cost of health care skyrocketting in this country it is only a matter of time before people start getting health services under someone else's name. And I already know what is going to happen... the person whose name got abused is going to be liable for it, not the health providers who okayed the procedure in the first place.
It's easy to leave the country. The problem is getting back in. Have you been down to the US/Mexico border lately? You can walk right across it into Mexico and nobody is going to stop you.
If your summary is correct I don't see what the problem is. The agent got bum information from his boss about which tool to use to obtain the educational records. He then went back and used the right tool (the subpeona) and got the information that he needed. The important thing to recognize is that the agents were using the tools and their disposal and used them appropriately.
Despite all of the complaints I see around here, it seems like the system is still somewhat working. The jack booted storm troopers aren't barging into buildings and stealing information. They are being held accountable to a process even if the process itself is flawed. Even a flawed process produces some sort of audit trail. That audit trail is available to protect the innocent. In my experiences with the legal system and law enforcement agencies, it seems to me like more often than not what happens it that people who really do break the law end up getting off because the police failed to properly follow their procedures and the defense lawyers get key pieces of the evidence thrown out of court.
The potential for abuse is there, but it hasn't happened yet. I've been associated with some fairly socially disruptive individuals and none of them have disappeared yet. I hate to sound cynical, but it is too complex for the government to make people disappear. It's much easier to have someone murdered in some "random" street violence or other sort of low tech solution. Look at what happened to MLK, JFK and RFK. Those guys weren't brought down by intelligence gathering operations that drew the curtain back on their shady secret lives. They were just straight up assassinated when they got too uppity. In all seriousness, if people want to bring about social change then they probably want the FBI and the NSA snooping on them. They should want to be the "victim" of all of the evils that they are trying to fight so that they can show people exactly what is going on. They should want to be the light shining in the darkness and illuminating all of the perceived problems... the perception of government being used as a tool by powerful interests to oppress the people. Go on out there, be oppressed and show how bad the oppression is so that others can relate to it.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a couple of SOX compliant archival solutions for Exchange that can get the job done just fine. If the SEC can mandate email retention on a 4 person investment banking firm, the White House sure as hell better be able to retain their important communications. I've never understood the Federal government mentality of building everything from scratch. My only exposure to government has been at the city level and they are more than willing to use off the shelf systems to get the job done. What is it about the Feds? Is it because of all the mandates and regulations that they place on themselves that they paint themselves into a corner where the only way to comply with all of those mandates is to write the damn software themselves... I mean, outsource it to contractors.
I've been working in IT since 1996. I spent seven of the last eight years as a consultant. Now I'm a DBA at one of my previous clients. I took this job because it is stable and relatively mindless. I held onto one of my clients from the consulting gig. They are in the waste management business and into all sorts of cool things that are very relevant in day to day life. They have facilities spread throughout the state and are constantly implementing new technologies to keep up with the owner's need for information about his diverse operations. Most of my free time is spent training martial arts though. I found out about six years ago that martial arts and philosophy (specifically Buddhism and Daoism) are what really do it for me. So at this point in my life I organize everything else around that. I'll never be materially rich but I am spiritually satisfied.
But how can you categorize this way? What kind of prejudiced person are you?
I'm not making this crap up and I'm not lumping everyone who does a certain activity together. I'm just offering up examples from the real world of what happens when people get too into playing a character and it spills over to become part of their permanent personality.
Anyway, most of us who enjoy LARP, can very well distinguish between a fantasy and a reality and indeed we do get a lot from role playing and it is not a mental illness as you suggest in most cases.
I never meant to suggest that it was a mental illness of any sort. I just offered it up as an example that some people can relate to. If you're into LARP, I'm sure you can relate whether or not you want to. I'm sure that you can remember people in the group who have lived the game to a certain extent. The ones who are constantly shopping for new things "for their character." The ones who are constantly suggesting modifications to the rules because, "that's not how it works in REAL LIFE."
I remember being on the front lines of that fear-mongering. I played D&D with some friends. One of the kids in our neighborhood wasn't allowed to play with us because his parents were afraid he was going to start worshipping Satan. He also wasn't allowed to watch the Smurfs because his mom was convinced that the Smurfs were demons.
I'm not a Christian and I don't have anything against Wiccans. I have been to my fair share of solstice festivals, full moon rituals and other assorted, nature centric events. I'm just responding to this post of yours because it seems that I ruffled a few feathers with the comment I made, not just yours but others who have also responded to this. The essence of what I was saying is that some people play a game like D&D so much that it starts to influence their interests outside of the game and in effect they start to personify their characters. Given that D&D pulled from so many influences, it isn't an off the wall comment to talk about D&D "druids" who get into Wicca and D&D "mages" who get into the occult.
I've heard that response a lot. It was best summed up as, "If I'm going to have to stare at my avatar's backside for days on end, you better believe she's going to be hot."
I'm sure that the stereotype is familiar enough to /.ers. Most of us know those people who have been playing roleplaying games for so long that their personality becomes the character that they play. There are the Vampire players who really believe that they are walking undead. There are the D&D players who eventually get into Wicca and other "majik" kind of stuff to the point where they believe that they can cast spells and talk to spirits. I think it's basic psychology that anybody who spends any significant amount of time pretending to be someone else will eventually manifest behavorial changes.
In this day and age any reasonable person should factor the cost of insurance into any purchase. It seems to me like hardly a year goes by when I don't hear a story about some friend of a friend getting their car stereo stolen. When I ask about the insurance the answer is always the same, "No, it wasn't insured." It's crazy to resort to violence to protect property. Just purchase the insurance and let someone else deal with the theft.
What did you replace your Linux desktop with? OSX?
I think that Microsoft has a lock on blueware. It's that special state your computer boots into at only the most opportune moments. A state of complete uselessness.
To find fault with the sin and not the sinner...
Isn't this kind of an apples to oranges comparison though? You're talking about running a website. I'm talking about developing an application. Nobody in their right mind would use IIS as a serious enterprise webhost. The "strength" of Microsoft's current family of software is the interoperability of it. The tools on their own pretty much suck and nine times out of ten there is an open source or competitor software that will do it better. What Microsoft has are tools that work together to get the job done. They have MSDN and TechNet whitepapers and code examples that anyone with half a brain can follow to create a product that works. It might be full of security vulnerabilities, and it will be succeptible to the forced upgrade cycle, but the framework works.
Head start? You're out of your chair. IIS has a very long way to go to even begin to catch up with Apache, just for instance. And Visual Studio is categorically the worst IDE I have ever laid eyes on.
See my above comment. The headstart I'm talking about is the foundation, the code examples... in essense MSDN and TechNet. It isn't that IIS is better than Apache or that VS doesn't suck. The fact is that a monkey can get Visual Studio and a copy of MSDE and develop an application by following the examples. If the monkey can't figure it out on his own he can go to a community college and take a course that will lay it out for him. He can go to a Microsoft training center and have someone show him how to do it.
Unless you're talking about a head start in _mindshare_ among ISVs. In which case, yeah, they do have that. In spades.
It isn't just mindshare. There are probably more people developing applications for the Microsoft application stack than there are for LAMP. That is just a fact. A critical mass needs to be reached. Some key interoperability issues need to be sorted out and Microsoft is doing everything in their power to make sure that such things never happen. Until the interoperability issues are worked out the ISVs will always be faced with the question.. "Do I develop software that will work with 85% of what is out there, or do I develop software based on a framework that requires my potential clients to rip out good portions of their infrastructure and replace them with my offering?" I'd love to see Linux and OSS thrive in the SMB market. I'd love a Linux equivalent of SBS Server 2003 because SBS Server 2003 is the BIGGEST PIECE OF CRAP EVER. The theory of having everything a small business needs in one box is good. The execution absolutely blows. It would be great to have a "Business Starter Box" or something built on Linux. OpenOffice, some payroll program, an accounting package that does GL, AP and AR... that's all most small businesses need.
I suppose that could be a contributing factor, but then that just raises the question "How does MS get and maintain that kind of mindshare in education circles?"
They pay for it. They print the text books. They print the course materials. They have an entire segment of their enterprise devoted to doing nothing other than teaching people how to use their software. The OSS world doesn't quite have that focus yet because it is still really diverse. MySQL or ProgreSQL? Java or PHP? Apache, TomCat or what have you? Sendmail? Firefox, Opera? All of those are various implementations of various standards. Of course Microsoft's implementation of standards sucks too. Yet they're big enough that they are a standard in and of themselves.
The final point I'll make is who do you hold accountable when your Java app doesn't pull data from MySQL proper
They put out the tools (Visual Studio) and application development platform (SQL server, IIS, ASP, etc) that developers could easily build solutions with. They combined that with the MSDN community to provide usable documentation and TechNet to provide developer support. The LAMP stack and associated technologies are catching up but Microsoft has a huge head start. Combine that head start with community college and graduate level training/education programs that bring people up to speed with the tools and it's pretty easy to see where the mindshare comes from. The Open Source world is catching up but they don't have standardized training yet. An ISV can interview a prospective programmer and take a look at which MS courses they have passed and from that get a pretty good understanding of where they are in their development as a program. What is the equivalent in the Open Source world? "What O'Reilly books have you read lately?"
Yeah. A lot of the independent software vendors who develop line-of-business software (in the "let us know you're interested and we'll assign a sales team to come out and demo it for you and an implementation manager to put together a proposal" price range) are highly enamored of Microsoft. A have not quite got a handle on *why* they like Microsoft so much, but a lot of them really really do.
As an example of what you are talking about a client of mine was looking for a document imaging solution. They ended up going with docLink from Altec. Altec is the typical ISV that you talk about. They went with docLink because it integrates with everything else that they are running. They hook right into the APIs from the HR package (Abra for Windows), the accounting package (Platinum for Windows), and even the client's semi-custom, industry specific software that was written for Windows. The docLink package runs on an SQL Server 2005 backend with its own monstrosity of a DCOM based client and TIGHTLY integrates with all the other apps. By tightly I mean if you're in the HR software, it will pull up all the records for an employee based on EmployeeID number. If you're in the accounting software it pulls up all of the information for a customer based on CustomerID, Address, Phone Number or a whole slew of other fields.
The above example is why ISVs are enamored with Microsoft. The foundation is there. The foundation itself may be bug ridden and shakey as hell, but it is there and it can be leveraged fairly easily. There isn't the equivalent in the OSS world. Even if there was a kick ass open source document imaging solution that runs on Linux, would it tightly integrate with Office and all the other Windows based technologies? What's the solution? "Just replace" Office with OpenOffice? Just yank out the entire billing system and implement something Open Source and then integrate that with the imaging software? Same thing for the HR system?
Linux is making huge inroads among the IBMs of the world because IBM can devote the R&D time to making it work. Your average small business that only does a couple of million dollars a year in revenue simply can't scrap their entire computing infrastructure and replace it with some OSS marvel. The infrastructure was built up incrementally, one purchase at a time. A server here. Some workstations there. An accounting package. Some time clock software. At each step of the way they probably had a few application and hardware vendors to choose from. The OSS world isn't there yet. You either go with THE solution for a particular business situation, or you pay some programmers to come up with something for you. Most businesses aren't in the business of paying programmers. They need a tested solution that works now with what they have. Not a solution that will work in two years after they replace everything that they currently have.
I imagine that ISVs are still dealing wi
The whole "minimum requirement" issue is an industry wide phenomena. I don't know anyone who will try to run an Adobe product like Creative Suite with the minimum requirements and expect it to run well. I don't know anyone who is going to install any sort of SQL server with the minimum requirements and expect it to hold up in a production environment. The problem for Microsoft is that Vista is an unusable piece of crap even on hardware that exceeds the minimum requirement.
You'd probably get taken aside and held until they verified your identity. You'd have to wait til some guy from the State Department showed up, then you'd have to wait while that guy contacted the French Consulate to verify the fact that you were in fact a member of a foreign government who should receive immunity. The reality of the situation is that all of the diplomatic paperwork is taken care of ahead of time. If you're trying to play the diplomat/foreign agent card at the gate during the search you're calling attention to yourself because you've already failed to go through the proper channels.
It was only a matter of time. I started noticing a few years ago that in television programs it seems like the "good guys" are always using Apples. The people in positions of power are always using Apples. The "bad guys" and the standard extras are always using PCs. I just figured it is the inherent bias of the movie/creative industry because they have been using Avid and Final Cut for so long that they just tend to feature their own tools in prominent positions. It was only a matter of time before Microsoft went for some real product placement to counter the trend. I wonder how long before they come up with a "reality" program where everyone involved is writing and marketing software and they slant the show to make it seem like developing code for OSX is next to impossible while writing code for Windows is super simple.
Now you want me to limit my responses to "agencies that actually might be responsible for securing the internet," in effect making me choose DHS, FBI, or NSA. Your argument keeps shifting. If you want to restate and refine your initial argument, then who knows, maybe I'll even agree with it.
I am refining the argument. The article was making a correlation between high seas piracy and crime on the internet, and then suggesting that the government be responsible for dealing with internet crime like they were responsible for dealing with high seas piracy. I made the point that here on /. we often see articles bemoaning the invasive nature of the government. I made a statement to the effect of, "If you task the government with securing the internet, they are going to regulate the hell out of it under the guise of securing it." That statement still stands because regulation is what the government does, and 99% of the time they OVER-regulate whatever they are given domain over. You can take it or leave it. I'm done, but feel free to respond. Maybe you will find some other people who agree with you and you can continue the conversation with them, minus the slippery slopes of reality getting in the way. ;)
The "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" is the analogy that you've come up with and that you're using. My point still stands. You can't expect the government to assume responsibility for detering crime on the internet without having them regulate the hell out of it.
You say I'm using a slippery slope argument. I'm making the assertion that ever expanding governmental regulation is the way the government works. It isn't a logical device that I'm using as an argumentative technique. It is reality.
The system is setup in the following way. The banks "loan" money based on the amount of "debt" they have on their books. So if they send you a credit card with a $5,000 limit and you max it out then they suddenly have $5,000 to lend to someone else. We will never see any real regulation of consumer credit because consumer credit is what keeps this fucked up economy of ours going.
I completely agree with all of this. The unfortunate reality of the world in this day and age is that the government is simply a tool of the banks because the government is dependent on the banks to function. If you have the ability to do so, read The Creature from Jekyll Island for a very good overview of the dynamics between the Federal Reserve and the governments of the world (including the United States government).
You are correct that there is no reason that the government can't have a small set of regulatory powers. In theory I could have a driveway made of milk chocolate. When looking at the REALITY of how the government functions, if you give them an inch they will take a mile. The point still stands... you can't on one hand gripe about the government not doing enough to fight internet "crime" and then on the other talk about wanting the government to take a hands off approach to the internet. The government works based on the assumption that if you want "security" you give them power to "regulate" what you demand that they secure.
I'm of the opinion that the government should be there to hold private industry liable for any breaches of personal data that leads to fraud. If someone steals my credit information and makes purchases with them, the credit card company should be on the hook for not verifying the identity of the person who made the purchase. The merchant should be on the hook for not verifying the identity of the purchaser. The whole system needs to be changed. Instead of giving out free credit, they need to only give credit to those who ask for it. Turn it from a push to a pull system and validate the hell out of the puller.
On an only semi-related tangant, I'm waiting for the explosion in fraudulant health care claims. The health care cards themselves are simple pieces of paper. It is easy to get a picture idea with your picture and someone else's name on it. With the cost of health care skyrocketting in this country it is only a matter of time before people start getting health services under someone else's name. And I already know what is going to happen... the person whose name got abused is going to be liable for it, not the health providers who okayed the procedure in the first place.
It's easy to leave the country. The problem is getting back in. Have you been down to the US/Mexico border lately? You can walk right across it into Mexico and nobody is going to stop you.
Despite all of the complaints I see around here, it seems like the system is still somewhat working. The jack booted storm troopers aren't barging into buildings and stealing information. They are being held accountable to a process even if the process itself is flawed. Even a flawed process produces some sort of audit trail. That audit trail is available to protect the innocent. In my experiences with the legal system and law enforcement agencies, it seems to me like more often than not what happens it that people who really do break the law end up getting off because the police failed to properly follow their procedures and the defense lawyers get key pieces of the evidence thrown out of court.
The potential for abuse is there, but it hasn't happened yet. I've been associated with some fairly socially disruptive individuals and none of them have disappeared yet. I hate to sound cynical, but it is too complex for the government to make people disappear. It's much easier to have someone murdered in some "random" street violence or other sort of low tech solution. Look at what happened to MLK, JFK and RFK. Those guys weren't brought down by intelligence gathering operations that drew the curtain back on their shady secret lives. They were just straight up assassinated when they got too uppity. In all seriousness, if people want to bring about social change then they probably want the FBI and the NSA snooping on them. They should want to be the "victim" of all of the evils that they are trying to fight so that they can show people exactly what is going on. They should want to be the light shining in the darkness and illuminating all of the perceived problems... the perception of government being used as a tool by powerful interests to oppress the people. Go on out there, be oppressed and show how bad the oppression is so that others can relate to it.