From: Tom Whore (tomwhore@inetarena.com)
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 16:49:11 PDT
<rant>
We make war, we tear things down, then we build them up and charge each
other large sums of cash to bask in its glory.
Its all been done and said before.
Make it.
We make a system, we break a system. Copernicus hacks the earthcentric
folks system, quantum mechs bust enisteins balls, martin luther gives shit
to the pope, 3d realms/id gives away free versions of thier games ( the
first few levels) and screw with the Pay-thru-your-nose model of biz...
Make it break it.
MS makes a collection of spit wads and tinsel , slaps marketking hype on
it, and millions of people use it. Some one does somethign with it that
breaks it. Shocked and amazed? hardly. Its been happening for years.
What i think pisses so many people off about the love bug is that it
exploits something that any user worth thier salt, ie any user who takes
the time to learn about the fast moving and potentialy dangerous device
they are relying on , knew that to allow the autolaunching of apps from a
mail reader was dead wrong.
Who did this app harm? Lookaround. Folks using insecure mail readers and
who dont know enough abouth thier loaded gun systems to make sure not to
point it at thier own faces loaded each time they read a mail message
from a stranger.
Now look ahead to more distrib based systems, oses, apps. You think with
layer after layer of complexity, auto judgement based rule sets, orbs
floating around making lunch apointments with munchkins,
increasing seperation of user from responsibility to know the systems they
use...given all this do you not see a clear and open future that will be
ripe for more and better exploits?
The real trick in making a robust system semms not shoting for pristine
perfectness, the crystal spheres of code, rather it seems by being
flexable enough to morph around a problem, roll with the punches, patch
yourself up, and mend the breaks when, and they will , happen.
Thats why i love to watch gnutella. An imperfect protocol spat out in a 24
hour perdiod, orpahned by circumstances and taken up by a horde of folks
who saw in it the openess and robustness to do what they want. Shit, most
of the dev folks have never seen the source code for the original thing,
just the protocol specs backwards engs by Capn Berry.
Its why freenet is growing as it is. Its why the flow of USE is moving
away from the standard constraints and making its way to the areas where
the flow goes better.
Sound familar, your packets are soaking in it..:)-
Make a system break a system make a system better.
So some little kiddeis wrote a half clever vbs to take advantage of some
wide open and well known problems. Wowsers, public enemy number one. Not.
There is a three line .reg cure for the whole vbs problem over on
wsmf.org. There is also another sure way to cure it, its called pine.
Using your computer should not be akin to wearing a hospital gown...no
matter how you wear it somethings always exposed. Dress for sucsess
</rant>
[---===tomwhore@ []wsmf.org []inetarena.com []slack.net===---]
WSMF's web site ----http://wsmf.org
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