Sunday, February 23, 2003

Advice to MS regarding...software ...Digging in against open source commoditization won't work - it would be like digging in against the Internet, which Microsoft tried for a while before getting wise. Any move towards cutting off alternatives by limiting interoperability or integration options would be fraught with danger, since it would enrage customers, accelerate the divergence of the open source platform, and have other undesirable results. Despite this, Microsoft is at risk of following this path, due to the corporate delusion that goes by many names: "better together," "unified platform," and "integrated software." There is false hope in Redmond that these outmoded approaches to software integration will attract and keep international markets, governments, academics, and most importantly, innovators, safely within the Microsoft sphere of influence. But they won't...more [Synthesist.net] Facinating piece from a recently retired Micorsoft employee. Microsoft is it's own worst enemy, which is why Gates should have accepted the breakup proposal. As a large monopoly, it will lose in the end. Unless it acts in an illeagal manner, the market will move around it. Hubris is the downfall of many of the mighty...mj hu·bris [n. greek] Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance: "There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris" -- McGeorge Bundy 12:57:50 PM

Hacking democracy? Computerized vote-counting machines are sweeping the country. But they can be hacked -- and right now there's no way to be sure they haven't been. During the past five months, Bev Harris has e-mailed to news organizations a series of reports that detail alarming problems in the high-tech voting machinery currently sweeping its way through American democracy. But almost no one is paying attention. Harris is a literary publicist and writer whose investigations into the secret world of voting equipment firms have led some to call her the Erin Brockovich of elections. Harris has discovered, for example, that Diebold, the company that supplied touch-screen voting machines to Georgia during the 2002 election, made its system's sensitive software files available on a public Internet site. She has reported on the certification process for machines coming onto the market -- revealing that the software code running the equipment is seldom thoroughly reviewed and can often be changed with mysteriously installed "patches" just prior to an election. And in perhaps her most eyebrow-raising coup, she found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used to run the company that built most of the machines that count votes in his state -- and that he still owns a stake in the firm...more [Salon] In this day and age of rampant Microsoft security failures, virus nightmares, and corporate funny stuff, who can say that a black box system is truely secure...mj 12:33:46 PM

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