Dear Sage of Digital Column-land,

As for the security through obscurity analogy, I thought carrying my wife's diamond ring home in the grocery bag while leaving a decoy box in the jewelry store sack I was also carrying through a more or less rough neighborhood was kind of clever. Darn....

Anyway, back to COFEE. It seems to this irregular that Microsoft is merely continuing a long held policy of selling anything they can get away with selling. Back when Win 95 debuted (in the "before times" of the stone age, I know) there were all those "made for Windows 95" packages that everyone just HAD to buy, even though it could be argued that the principal difference was perhaps nothing more than a re-compilation using a real 32-bit compiler and changing the splash screen at sign in.

So, what makes this instance of this tired object class any different? Well, let's ponder. Oh yeah, now I remember. In the 21st century, people can't even seem to use a bathroom without doing something on-line related to whatever function they are undertaking, or downloading a new ring tone for their toilet seat: "can you flush me now?" or fiddling with their, um, MP3 player, or doing something else that is digital. Hence, the exploitable for profit paranoia about on-line security, just like the 911 pundits want us to have it. FEAR, the ill-fated commander of the first Death Star tells us, will keep the local systems in line so that the emperor can maintain control without the local bureaucracy. FEAR, of yet another security breach. FEAR, of lacking yet another pay to play tool that may be of marginal value, since it seems likely the hacker audience already has something at least as good.

Geez. Once I was a trend setter. Now, I feel like a luddite curmudgeon. The LESS I put on-line, the better I feel. The MORE I have stored on non-removable media on networked systems, the LESS anxious I become.

If only I could find a decent IP stack and a web browser for my Osborne One...

Caffeine-ately yours.