Posts by Jean Barnard

A cacophony of clients

users will drive this not I.T.

3 thoughts:

1) if Business wants to attract best and brightest young minds it will HAVE to adopt solutions that the users want or have become used to in their personal lives and find me one bright young mind below 23 who has not had access to computers for the last 10 years (in their personal lives

2) I.T. decisions are no longer being taken by I.T. .- they are being taken by business as demanded by users. The option that I.T. has is FIFO and needs to uinderstand that its new role is that of facilitator. The success of any VD solution will be measured by the acceptance of the users.

3) I.T. needs to understand and articulate risk and governance and then find elegant solutions that meet users needs with manageable risk.

What the Freetard Photo book tells us

Copyright for professionals ??

Hi

I have to take issue with you on 2 points:

1) copyright is for everyone - not just professionals. The intent behind copyright is to allow you to retain control over how your artistic output is used. You may choose to give away your output for free, but, you maintain the right to choose to whom you give it away and how it is used.

2) I have seen excellent work by gifted amateurs and really c****y work by so called professionals.

Humans, not tech, are the greatest security risk

No Really??

We been telling you this for,what, 5 years - now we have 3 studies being undertaken, costing how much??

First and foremost: educate your users, secondly security boffins: stop behaving like policemen and show your users why strong passwords are important to THEM.

Strong passwords are not that difficult once concepts are grasped - this will stop most of the unsophisticated attacks and risk will be lowered.

Think "real world = virtual world" so physical security and network security concepts are similar. If we remind our users how they behave in the real world and relate this back to the virtual world it is amazing how quickly they grasp the concepts add to this some "tips and tricks" and 90% of risk disappears.

It is as true in the virtual world as in the real world that a determined thief can and will obtain access to the most secure environment. All we can do is lessen the risk by being prudent

A Mac gets whacked, a second survives

Oh the MAC and Linux boys

I love fanatics - you find them in the strangest places!! NEVER, EVER critisise the object of their fanatasism. Much like owners of Porsches,Merc's or BMw's.

May I make the point that vulnerabilities exist in Mac's and Linux software. BUT, who in their right mind would take the trouble to exploit them??

Mac's are run (by and large) by graphic designers and Linux by techno geeks - who have no money. Further, they are in the minority so where's the respect from your fellow hackers for bringing down x gazillion desktops.

Which came first: the chicken or the egg? I suggest that, should Linux or Mac become what M/S already is, should all these advocates make their millions from the adoption of THEIR solutions, in other words, should Linux/Mac become the standard, these same fanatics would become invisible.

So please, please stop whining about "windoze" and understand that there are those of us who are grateful to Bill and the boys for changing the world we live in. This includes all of us that belong to the older generation who remember what the world was like before all the technology you take for granted.

Of course, Microsoft is not perfect, of course Microsoft have not always been intelligent in its marketing, of course Microsoft have been guilty of some extremely short sighted thinking. And, of course, the challenge from Linux is healthy - what you forget is that we have seen this before - when Novell was the standard and M/S the challenger and MY generation of techno-geeks LOVED M/S as the challenger.

But remember, M/S products and strategy was part of what made it possible for you to have an audience today.

In other words GROW UP