Re: How to Save The World

["Paul D. Robertson" <paul () compuwar net>]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Side note to side note: I recently had the pleasure of watching an ATM
> reboot. I won't mention the bank that it was at except to say that it
> was Chase. Yes, it was, of course, running Windows. It appeared to be
> completely stock Windows, too, given figures like disk consumption and
> the nature of the boot sequence.
>
> It occurred to me at the time that the difficulty of doing Extremely
> Evil Things to the ATM networks of banks that use Windows based ATMs
> is far, far lower than that of the (theoretical) banks running
> something else on their ATMs. That implies, of course, that at some
> point someone is going to victimize the stupid banks, which will
> doubtless produce a scramble among them to use other, safer
> software. I suspect that such mass victimization alone will produce a
> change in their purchasing decisions.

The last couple of major Windows worms that took out ATM nets didn't seem
to change purchasing one bit.  I think we've gone to tactical fixes rather
than strategic fixes in the IT industry, and the war is likely lost at
this point, but we'll keep going into those battles...

It's like a crack addict who keeps telling themselves they'll quit-
corporate IT worldwide is too busy taking hits off the MS pipe to look at
what it's doing to their lives.

Paul
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
paul () compuwar net       which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
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