[mso] Re: exe files
- From: Katherine Driskell Felts <subscriptions@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 10:58:43 -0500
At the risk of beating the dead, off-topic horse to death. Here's my 2
cents (I'll trust Ray with the conversion). Being a non-profit professional
in with a bunch of techies, I'm sure 2 cents is all the market rate for my
computer opinions is worth. :)
Legions of businesses and computer users use their computers, their palms,
their servers and other technology "solutions" for something other than
technology's sake. We have businesses to run, work to do, a world to make a
better place (non-profit ideals, remember?). In order to be efficient and
productive, we use technology. Then we get frustrated.
Things don't interface like they were promised. For some dang reason one
program on our computer doesn't like sharing space with another program on
our computer, and we can't figure out which ones can't get along. We
naively sign up for a "free" email account and believe them when they offer
to sign us up for "useful" information from the "partners". Then we get
disgusting porn. I'm sorry, I don't have erection problems, or a balding
pate. I don't need any of that. We started, finally to join last century,
this century and put all our financial info on our computer.
Then. Viruses. So we buy the virus protection and feel safe, then we
figure out "oh. Definitions" Damn, gotta remember to update. Oh I can
schedule updates, but now I have to remember to keep the computer on on
Wednesday nights at 2 am. We have enough problems keeping the water
softener to stay on--and the smell of iron in water reminds us!! There's no
early warning system with virus infection--just near disaster.
Okay. So we survive our first virus infection. (Haven't had one yet, I use
the superior OS :)). Then we start hearing about worms (you mean someone is
sending that crap on my name and I can't do ANYTHING about it ??!!?) and
trojan horses (No, I root Bruins!) and spoofers and crackers and all these
things that don't make any damn sense.
See, when we walked down this road, we bought our technology "solutions"
because we wanted to get our work done more efficiently. We wanted to bring
our work home so we could be home more with our kids. We want to work on
our porch while our 6 year old rides his bike (we're so proud!) so we have
wi-fi and oh GOD what's that gonna open us up to?
Now, we're spending our Saturday mornings with our kids watching WAY too
much TV because we are freaking out about getting thousands of emails
containing viruses, and more alarmingly, bounced messages telling us the
virus we sent is undeliverable. We, who just wanted to do our non-tech jobs
more efficiently, to be able to access information on client sites, to bring
our work with us when we went on vacation (so we could go on more vacations
with our kids), suddenly are beholden to this @$$holes with too much time on
our hands. It may cost big business billions of dollars, but the 3 days I
get knocked offline REALLY hurts.
I don't know what 3/4 of the stuff my hosting company offers on my control
panel is! And truly, I refuse to have to spend way too much of my time
figuring what the #&!! SQL or Agora or whatever else it is.
So, in order to protect our dear productivity, we have to spend all this
time educating ourselves not only on how to use the
easy-to-use-user-friendly business "solution", but also on how to protect
ourselves from malicious meanies.
And, then, think of this. If your lawyer and or doctor is as bad at
technology security as he is bad at being a business person, or as bad as I
am at tech security, or, God FORBID as bad as the regular internet user
(which is worse than me, by the way), what sensitive information you is out
there vulnerable?
So, I vote, err on the side of extreme caution and have the ability to turn
parts off for people who know what they are doing. I shouldn't have to have
a tech degree to run my business raising money and improving programs for
non-profits. I should be able to spend my time marketing and improving my
job-related skills.
Chaos theory seems to be the BIGGEST threat to my business, and I think it
is the responsibility of the people whose software I liscense to do their
best to prevent their software from screwing up my business. Patches should
be rare--and they should be seen as an admission of failure to properly make
a product in the first place. I can't possibly know enough on my own to
keep me totally safe. dian and her husband, for gods sake are getting
victimized by these jerks and their idiotic unwilling co-conspirators. I
don't think its ignorance on my part as much as the tech world delegating
way too much of their responsibility to me.
I mean, jeez, we're all signed up for an email list to help us use some of
the most widely used programs out there! There is too much ELSE we have to
keep up with.
The hackers and crackers and spammers are smarter than me in the tech arena.
The providers of my software need to realize that it is their duty to keep
their software as difficult to be abused by these jerks as possible. And I
should run virus software and not open or forward stupid email jokes and
attachments and shun those who do. I think I follow due diligence--but
faster than my machine becomes obsolete, so does my tech knowledge.
programmers are the content experts, and THEY are largely responsible.
I applaud MS for preventing exe files from being sent, and for their patch
releases. They just seem to have to send these patches too often. Maybe if
the came out with a WHOLE new whatever program less often and spent more
time making it closer to perfect before they did, we wouldn't all have these
stupid problems (as often). Maybe it would incrementally encroach on the
profit margin, but again I say to you Couple million dollars to the big guys
is nothing compared to a few days or a week of lost work for me.
Kathie
--
Katherine Driskell Felts
kdfconsulting
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