RE: DMZ, defined.

["Paul D. Robertson" <proberts () clark net>]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, graham, randy wrote:

> Very good response (and civil, thank you).  I don't have sufficient

I'm slipping ;)

[snip]

> _MUST_ make some allowances for their vocabulary.  If they are using a term
> wrong and you want to correct them, fine.  But at least try to give some
> room for their definition.

Normalization of common terms is important.  Sometimes though, people get 
stuck in personal nitpick mode.  For instance, I *still* correct people 
about 50% of the time when they try to tell me a 56kbps modem is a 56k 
*baud* modem.  Popular usage has completely negated the meaning and value 
of the term baud.  It's no longer (if it ever was) very critical to know 
the true baud rate of a modem, so the "value" of my correction is 
normally pretty low.  In firewalling though, a misunderstanding by 
someone, especially someone with little experience can be rather 
dramatic.  

I don't know if modem engineers now use a different term to 
mean what baud meant, if they just look down their noses at their 
marketing departments when they misuse the term, or if they won't talk to 
people in the elevators if they misuse the term.  A lot of people have 
missed an oppertunity to have their curiousity piqued by the mismatch in 
bps and baud rates and dig in and learn something about a technology they 
depend on.  

Technical and common usages can differ, and in a technical forum, I'd 
expect to be corrected for applying common usage (even if I didn't know 
the difference.)

Besides bringing up a new way to bore folks at dinner, pointing out that 
1200 and 2400 bps modems have the same baud rate can serve to give some 
insight into how an important part of most of our infrastructures function.  
When I don't want to bore the rest of the table, or if I know the rest of 
the table has heard it a bazillion times before, I'll just say "bps not 
baud dammit!"  It's not very civil (there go all my dinner invitations!), 
and it may not even have a great deal of value to the person speaking, 
but every once in a while it'll spark some interest in someone to 
actually learn about the lower-layer protocols they're using, and that 
makes it a good thing (to me -but probably not to many other people.)

> If you do take your car to your mechanic and tell him you think the spark
> plug wire is bad, and then explain or point out the him what you really
> mean, he will correct you.  He won't afterwards go off and change the spark
> plug wires to see if that fixes your problem.  He knows now what you were
> referring too, he has corrected your use of the term, and he has moved on to
> the real problem.  He doesn't work on the wrong thing just because you used
> the wrong term, __provided__ you communicated in less/non-technical terms
> and he understood what you really meant.  You've learned something, he's

This, or course depends on your mechanic's motivations ;)  However, in 
this case the issue is that he won't make allowances for your usage of 
the term "spark plug wire" outside of normal convention (and sometimes 
it'll cost you more to get your repairs done.)

> original poster was close to saying "You're using the term wrong, and I
> won't work with you because you're a dummy" to the first person who made
> incorrect use of the term.  I doubt that is how he intended to come across,
> but he might want to lighten up a little to avoid that impression.

That's pretty much a fact of life on the Net.  It's also why some of the 
best-reasoned people out there can't sell really good, fairly well-designed 
security to a large portion of the population.  Since I tend to be 
equally dismissive at times, I don't think I can offer any criticism in 
that regard, but I find it helpful to think of the intent rather than the 
tone of posts.  Rather than getting stuck on the tone, be happy with the 
fact that the response turned up enough interest to give everyone a 
chance to air their views and maybe learn a little (even if it's just 
about human nature or who not to invite to dinner.)

> Oh, and I don't think anyone would call any part of the network Grape
> Kool-aid, but I could be wrong   :-)

Hmmmmm:

[root@gargoyle /root]# nslookup 10.1.1.0
Server:  gargoyle
Address:  0.0.0.0

Name:    grape.kool-aid
Address:  10.1.1.0

Oops!

(Yes, I really did that)

Paul
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
proberts () clark net      which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
                                                                     PSB#9280