25 January 2002

Judgement Reserved On Tuesday, Bill Gates sent an email to all Microsoft staff, in which he calls for reliability and security to be made a new priority, in particular above features and early shipping(!).  He calls the overall goal 'trustworthy computing': "Trustworthy Computing is computing that is as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony..." "Every week there are reports of newly discovered security problems in all kinds of software, from individual applications and services to Windows, Linux, Unix and other platforms. We have done a great job... but as an industry leader we can and must do better." This is important stuff. These changes of direction in the Microsoft juggernaut come only once every two years or so, so this could conceivably indicate an extraordinarily welcome sea change. However, I'm sure I'm not alone in giving enormous weight to the opinions of Bruce Schneier, the computer security specialist. And he's just as sceptical about whether this change will happen as I'm inclined to be. Here he politely suggests we wait for some concrete evidence that the seismic shift in priorities necessary to make a difference within Microsoft, has really occurred: "Microsoft is going to have to say things like: "We're going to put the entire .Net initiative on hold, probably for years, while we work the security problems out." They're going to have to stop all development on operating system features while they go through their existing code, line by line, fixing vulnerabilities, eliminating insecure functionality and adding security features." Hmmm. "On hold for years" Do you have as much trouble imagining that as I do? At least Schneier is sure that there will soon have to be measurable signs of change in Microsoft's behaviour, if this is for real. Meanwhile, jury's still out. (By the way, Crytogram, Schneier's monthly free newsletter on computer security, is one of the best things to come into my inbox.) 4:04:11 PM

Countering Rhetoric with Reason That's the tagline of Spinsanity, an exceptional site which is fighting to keep US pundits honest. Its remorseless evenhanded disection of misleading argument, on both the right and the left, is teaching me to read better and more critically: "On the other side of the aisle, the Wall Street Journal sprang to Bush's defense on Monday with some deceptive rhetoric of its own. In an editorial "imagin[ing] what revelations will come next if Enron really is another Whitewater," the Journal constructs an elaborate set of inflammatory comparisons between the Whitewater scandal and Enron. The piece concludes with a mechanical example of the application of public relations tactics to politics: Rather, the ultimate lesson may turn out to be that Enron was able to play fast and loose in a financial boom and Clintonian moral climate, and was called to account in a recession when the moral climate has turned Ashcroftian. The strategy is a simple one: create a negative association of Enron with Clinton, then create a positive association with the actions of the Bush administration. Of course the Journal can't be bothered to make a serious argument about exactly how the company's financial misdeeds were the result of a "Clintonian moral climate" just as it cannot explain exactly how the company's financial unraveling was the result of a "moral climate that has turned Ashcroftian." 3:37:13 PM

OSX - To Mac or not to Mac? Apple's new operating system, OSX, built on top of Unix, is sounding all kinds of positive noises around the net. Our man, Doc Searls has taken the plunge and ditched OS 9.2: "Marc Andreessen famously insulted Microsoft a few years back by calling an operating system "just a device driver." With that in mind, I think it is fair to say Apple is pushing out the device driving envelope with OS X... for the first time in my long experience with laptops, everything works, and keeps working, with no downtime, and no surprises. I am, for the first time in my life, expecting it to keep working." Of course, saying that brought on the jinx, and he had some problems, but the broad tide of experience he and many others report is very upbeat. So I'm wondering, what's a confirmed PC man to do? Even for a rank amateur, a mere enthusiast like me, to have access to the power of a command line interface, opens up all kinds of exciting (although dimly perceived) possibilities. And of course, how wonderful to leave Window's utilitarian GUI behind, for an experience in which aesthetic values count for something. And all this on an OS that barely ever crashes. Let's say I start easy, with a Mac at home, and avoid tackling for the moment the difficulties of getting a Mac into the office. So I'm looking at spending between two and three times as much as the commodity PC box I'd otherwise get, for the pleasure of experiencing the Unix Mac path less travelled. And the box is only the start. Then there's a whole raft of software to acquire, as of course none of what I've got will cross platforms without buying it over. And yet, OSX does beckon, doesn't it? 10:20:21 AM