There's nothing startling about this. Information security is intended to mitigate business risk. If the cost of an infosec FAIL + fines is less than the cost of fixing it, doing nothing makes perfect sense from the standpoint of a board member. Most people are using windows and so are accustomed to computers not working properly. No particular stigma attaches once the headlines have wrapped the chips.
Posts by Mr. Chuck
28 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jan 2011
How exec snatched $6m budget from his infosec team because he couldn't see ROI
Come to Oz for sun, surf, ratting on co-workers and surveillance
Windows XP is finally DEAD, right? Er, not quite. Here's what to do if you're stuck with it
China's CERT blames US for a THIRD of all attacks on Middle Kingdom PCs
Bulls hit city streets after alleged Samsung ad shoot hits the fan
Help a hack: What's in your ultimate Windows XP migration toolkit?
Hmm, seems to be a fair bit of argy-bargy about Windows vs. Linux. Why not throw this over to the corporates who generally make a lot of money out of end users, and get them to give something back?
So here is a challenge for Microsoft, Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, Apple even, and anyone else who wants to have a crack at it; sort this out, for nothing, for the remote communites. 'Best' (fastest migration, most usable, most interoperable, whatever) solution wins. It'd be a PR win at least.
Mozilla takes Windows 8-friendly Firefox out back ... two shots heard
Windows XP market share GROWS AGAIN, outstrips Win 8.1 surge
Big Content wants Aussies blocked from Netflix
Boeing going ... GONE: Black phone will SELF-DESTRUCT in 30 secs

Idiot proof?
This is absurd. You don't need to get into a device to get the contents out. No doubt the US and A will pay Boeing handsomely for them regardless. Another $10,000 hammer anyone?
And I'm betting that smart hackers with plenty of time on their hands will work out how to dismantle it anyway.
Prez Obama cyber-guru: Think your data is safe in an EU cloud? The NSA will raid your servers
Retiring greybeards force firms to retrain Java, .NET bods as mainframe sysadmins

Re: On the benefits of keeping knowledge in your own head
That expertise represents a working lifetime of training, experience and insight. Do you think that would matter to most managers looking to cut headcount or outsource? Not a bit.
There are arseholes in play, but you have failed to identify the right ones. Stick to your .net toys if that gives you pleasure, and let the grownups run the real systems.
I don't think so...
Document and hand over your job so some snot-nose .net dev or code-wallah from India can do it for less?? And, most likely, badly??
Stuff em. I hope the mainframe admins have the sense to make the banks squirm on the hook. You want advanced systems cared for and fed, you pay for it.
Internet fraud still stings suckers
Verizon: 96 PER CENT of state-backed cyber-spying traced to China
Harassed Oracle employee wins case, cops huge legal bill

law vs justice
The legal system is about the law, not about justice, which is quite another thing. Since a civil action is, as mentioned before, about redress and not punishment, if the woman in question refused to settle she was obviously trying to make a point--and if you try that against one of the most famously litiigious and laywered-up corporations on the planet, you only have yourself to blame. Personally I reckon I would have been pretty happy with 85k for some offensive comments, but that's just me. Since I am probably genetically unable to internalise the higher concerns of the sisterhood (being a bloke) I may be all messed up about that.
This is not to say I have any sympathy whatever for the other side, and I've long believed that 10% of all lawyers should be driven into the sea each year (along with marketing departments and politicians) as a warning to all the others. However, no-one seems disposed to adopt this enlightened policy just yet. So, it is what it is. I think she has either been badly advised, or ignored good advice.
BYOD is a PITA: Employee devices cost firms £61 a month

Evolution in action
Let's just imagine that BYOD extended to desktops. Every morning you'd lug in your PC or mac or linux box, loaded with all the crap programs, malware and illegal downloads you and your kiddies have put on it. Somehow your 'fat and old' IT department has to work out a system by which random operating systems at arbitrary revision levels, with random mixes of applications, unknown open and unfixed or badly fixed bugs, can be secured and made compliant with business policy and legal requirements, and by the way perform in a way which you find acceptable.
Now what exactly is the difference between this and a modern mobe, which is no different to a PC you can stick in your pocket?
While you people are happily stuffing around with your phone (the new smoking) in blissful ignorance, your company is well on the way going broke either because of increased costs or decreased security or both, and you will soon be out of a job, and all in pursuit of largely illusory productivity gains. So your problem will soon go away and so will you. Ta ta.
Paul Allen: Windows 8 'promising' yet 'puzzling'
SHOCK: Poll shows Americans think TSA is highly effective

Nourishing the poultry
We used to have a wonderfully dodgy state premier Mr. Bjelke-Petersen who called this sort of thing 'feeding the chickens'. Looks like the chooks are full and replete. If the TSA really wanted to make Americans safer, it should leave the airports and disarm the lot of 'em. But apparently it's OK for Americans to massacre each other by the bushel, as long as no goldurn furriners try to muscle in.
High Schools putting kids off IT careers, deepening skills shortage

IT != programming. The quicker everyone gets this idiotic notion out their heads the better. Teach clear thinking, communication (not marketing speak and spin, but the gathering and dissemination of actual information), teamwork leavened with initiative, systems and application architecture, and a bit of some (ANY) programming language--they're all interchangable as far as I can tell over the last 25 years--for basic techniques, and there you go.
Fashions in programming and platforms change, but the basic business problem never does, i.e. I have these requirements, what will I need to get there?
What won't come without hard yakka is how to interpret business requirements in the first place, how to evaluate myriad competing products and environments, how to focus effort and resources and on what, how to set expectations, how to position technology in a business context and make it valuable as opposed to expensive, and all the other things where IT typically FAILS. Technology itself can be cool and fun, but that's hardly the point in the real world.
Anyway if the facetube generation don't get it, all the more work for old bastards like meself until I get sick of it and retire. Thank you very much, invoice follows.
Oz sysadmin says Windows 8 not ready for business
The moment a computer crash nearly caused my car crash

Too much apparatus
Modern cars are getting more and more complicated. It's a rearguard action to save a failing technology--private road transport--that is collapsing under the weight of emissions, congestion and fuel prices. You want cars, you'll have to put up with it. A car is not an appliance however much the makers might pretend otherwise.
Incidentially, I have a Mk2 Jag and while it has other problems, this sort of rubbish isn't among them. I use it infrequently and for pleasure, and with a few simple modifications it's reliable enough. For commuting, I prefer to travel by motorbike (also no computer) as city traffic here has become pretty much unfeasible. In peak hour you're lucky to do 10 km/h in a car.
Since I work with computers and programmers, I don't want either involved with my personal transport thank you very much.
Navy pays 2x purchase price to keep warship docked for 5 years

View from the colonies
Several interesting aspects to this.
1. Who else tendered for the contract, and for how much?
2. How does it compare to past maintenance contracts/annual costs?
3. Why does Lewis hate BAe so very much?
As with many media articles, this piece raises more questions than it answers.
As for the other comments about the modern Royal Navy, well, you chaps have about as much as you need and can afford these days don't you?
Windows XP and iPod: A tale of two birthdays

A tale of several operating systems
I'm still using XP. I like it. If you turn off all the useless graphic cruft it performs quite well and is reliable. I've used Vista and win7, can't stand either of them, principally due to the nagware or outright refusal to do what I want. Also the visuals look like they're designed for retarded nine year olds, or possibly Americans.
I didn't have to start using a windows desktop until 2004 luckily, so have some perspective on this, not being totally immersed in Redmond Kool-Aid as some people obviously are.
Hint: use a good uninstaller like Revo.
Some points arising from other comments:
--security. Forget it, it's windows. MS engineers themselves don't know what some of it does any more. Use linux or a unix instead if you care that much, and turn on rbac. Windows based firewall? A joke, surely?
--the windows registry. What a crap idea. SPOE: Single Point of Evil. When they ditch this, they might have something.
--applications. Most people use maybe 30% of the functionality in office, and not much else on a business PC. Why pay more tax? If your app base doesn't lock you in to MS, you should be looking at alternatives, especially for workstations. There are plenty. They work. You'll save money. If you are locked in, bad luck.
--Evolution. A lot of this reminds me of the built-in obsolescence in the car industry. I run the latest Solaris on an Ultra 10 which it nearly 15 years old. It works well enough for file service and a little browsing and doc processing, and is reliable, stable and secure. And yet people are happy to submit to the M$ upgrade treadmill year after year, decade after decade. Ballmer is laughing all the way to the bank. And for what? New eye candy and more nagware.
Wake up you lot.
Police ROBOT attacks and BURNS DOWN HOUSE
Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes

Epic fail nuclear
Why does this mag love nuclear fission so much? It's an old hat 40's technology looking for a question. Unless you want blow something up fast, it's expensive, complicated, unreliable and inefficient.
With any luck no-one in school now will be insane enough to want to go into the nuclear industry anyway (any problems? Then YOU'RE DEAD), and the whole sector wil just dry up and blow away--like fallout.
Now if we were clever enough to get fusion working, that'd be another story, but we're not, so get off it.
When one oligopoly screws another

Let market forces prevail
Writing from AU here...retail gross margins here are typically of the order of 100% yet most small business people I know are not rolling in money. Who gets it then?
--Their landlords--robbers like Westfield and other assorted gangsters aka property developers, the scum of the earth. Commercial rents here are mental, mainly to prop up many years of property speculation and uncontrolled land banking. This is a huge country but remember, there are only seven things in it: the capital cities (Darwin and Canberra = 0.5 each)
With all this space we have nonetheless managed to create overcrowded cities with enormous pressure on real estate prices. It's an epic policy fail at all levels of government, and it's getting worse.
--Their banks--the four large banks here have a very cosy setup here since they are big enough to have bullied successive governments for decades. Real interest margins (lending rate - deposit rate) and bank fees are the highest in the world. If you can get a loan at all. The other scum of the earth, and another epic policy fail.
--Other overheads--staff, energy, council rates and charges etc etc, which everybody has.
The internet exposes worldwide pricing to Australian consumers, who have been ripped off forever. Long live the grey market and to hell with distribution chains that add cost and no value.