Also, BPL,VoIP,open source,encryption, more
Stay out of IT
Regarding Linda Musthaler’s column, “Get used to competing for jobs”: I am a 30-year IT professional (programmer-analyst, turned computer system analyst, turned business analyst and now finally, QA analyst). What with all the recent problems in the industry plus all the long-term ones (too numerous to list here), I actively and vigorously discourage any young people from entering the field. Indeed, a close friend of mine, also a 30-year veteran, has told his son, about to enter university, that he will cover all expenses in full except if the son takes an IT/computer course, in which case my friend will pay nothing. The good news is that many are getting the message about all the guff in the field and staying away!
Linda Musthaler’s column, “Get used to competing for jobs” goes right to the heart of a key problem in our society: the feeling of entitlement that seems to come with being a modern American. When the poster boy for entitlement is right at the head of the class, who can miss the message? But Musthaler’s point, that we have to try at least as hard as the people in India (or China, or Malaysia, or so on), should not be lost on the CEOs spouting the doctrine. There is nothing about our corporate captains that would keep them, their seven-figure incomes and eight-figure golden parachutes, safe from replacement by sharp and savvy extra-national managers who could do no worse (and would probably do much better) at a far more reasonable salary. What responsible board of directors would keep on a CEO at, say, $6 million a year plus benefits if they could hire an India Institute of Technology grad with 10 years’ executive experience for $600,000 plus incentives? Imagine, saving over $5 million a year by cutting a single salary rather than a department! Once the chain of mutual back scratching is broken, let’s see who’s a real leader and who’s out in the cold. (These are my views and do not represent the positions or policies of my employer.)
Andrew Kass
Partner
Array Technology Group LLC
New York, NY
Robert Topolnytsky
Toronto
BPL not a cure
Regarding “IBM plugs in to powerline broadband trial”: I would like to point out the interference issue is very real and needs to be address in the forefront of any BPL article. This interference is a “BPL show stopper.” Not only does BPL interfere with licensed services on frequencies that BPL is allowed to use as a nonprimary user, but interference is even a bigger problem to the BPL end user. Our tests in Manassas, Va., and other BPL locations have proven licensed services can shut down a BPL connection simply by transmitting within several hundred feet of the BPL line.
What this means to the BPL end user is, a taxi, police, CB’er, Ham operator, virtually any mobile radio operation while driving in the vicinity of the BPL installation, down the road or local base station will shut down the connection and cause either the provider to reset the BPL interface, or reboot the modem to re-establish communication again. This issue can only be assessed with hard filtering.
The interruption to Internet service is one on annoyance. Imagine if there was a live-or-death call being placed using VoIP on BPL (as the BPL providers are pushing), and suddenly the call is terminated by such a transmission. Who would be liable for the outcome of this tragic scenario: the licensed service or the poorly design BPL system?
This ingress into the BPL system is a flaw in the BPL system design. Motorola has recognized this as a problem and has presented a newly designed BPL modem with hard filtering to reduce both types of interference. Hard filtering is something other manufacturers of BPL equipment rejected because this would limit their ability to use any frequency. This of course opens them up to ingress issues. I feel your readers need to understand this side of the BPL “crisis.” The BPL consortium would have you think BPL is the answer to Internet connectivity, but it is far from the communications panacea they push.
George Tarnovsky
Engineer
Target Engineering
Manassas, Va.
Get what you pay for
Regarding the article, “VoIP still lags behind in quality, survey says”: Granted, you are talking about VoIP service providers to home users, but it is still an interesting article, and it does draw some side notes.
To take a different approach, is toll-call quality really that important any more, when you look at the increasing number of home users that have just a cell phone and not a land line anymore? I’d have to say no. And I know VoIP call quality is a lot better then cell phone, and more reliable, too. I think it boils down to what the consumer wants to pay for. Good sound, high reliability and high monthly bills; OK sound, OK reliability and lower bills; or so-so sound, so-so reliability, huge portability and lower bills.
Kim Hansen
Network analyst
City of Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls, S.D.
List more providers
Your article “Branching out” presents a well-balanced picture of open source. While it may not be the right choice all of the time, open source can be the best tool when used on the right job.
The one disappointment I do have is the minimal list of open source providers, even on your on-line version. I use OpenNMS for network monitoring and would rate it among the best network management system (NMS) products, plus there are reasonably priced support options. There are also several other options for NMS products from the open source community.
Chris Lightner
Clifton Park, N.Y.
Tale of the tape
Regarding Joel Snyder’s column, “Tale of the tape: Encrypt date now”: To say encrypting tapes is as easy as flipping a switch is trivializing the problem. Recovery of data and encryption are at odds with each other. The purpose of encryption is to decrease the availability of data. The reason for having backups is to increase the availability of data. Anyone can encrypt backup tapes, but it takes a lot of planning to be able to restore the encrypted data. Those negligent operations managers need to consider significant issues such as key management and conversion of existing plain-text data. Perhaps tapes aren’t even the best alternative.
Comparing VPN session encryption to backup tape encryption is not a valid analogy. You are comparing data in transit over a short period of time to data at rest for what might as well be forever. If encrypting tapes were as easy as turning on SSL, I’m sure everyone would be doing it.
Instead of trivializing the matter, maybe a follow-up article on “how” to encrypt backup tapes would be a bit more helpful.
Kevin Flanagan
Information security architect
Verua
Dublin, Ohio
Stick with one
Regarding “The ABC’s of AMD vs. Intel”: So in other words, AMD is going to cause the price of my Intel products to go up (Intel’s lawyer fees) just because they don’t know how to market a product?
A mixed/competitive market will cost business more. Why? Because technical groups, suppliers and consumers will have then have to spend work cycles testing and evaluation their technologies and services on multiple chip sets. Having one chipset that has been consistently dependable simplifies the technical environment and thus saves money.
Don Rowland
Cheektowaga, N.Y.
Another option
Regarding “Many minds, one goal: Curb bad traffic”: What about extensions to SMTP, which force the sending e-mail server to maintain a copy of the message while sending only a text header? If you want to read the message, you download it from the server, where it is stored. Suddenly the burden of storage is on the sender, and it can be traced. If you don’t want to read the e-mail, delete the otherwise harmless header.
David Paige
Phoenix, Ariz.
