Also, ways of stopping spyware
People problem
In Daniel Briere’s column, “We interrupt this broadcast…”, he mentions the Alert Retrieval Cache. ARC has been abandoned. It had evolved to ARCTX (Alert Receive/Transmit), but after the tsunami, people lost interest. Instead, it’s being evolved into Mobcasting.
The truth is that these are all partial solutions. The problem isn’t technology. The problem is, as usual, people. So, in my “spare” time while I’m rambling around Latin America, I’m helping with Andy Carvin’s mobcasting concept and trying to come up with a combination of hardware and software that can be implemented almost anywhere, rapidly, and at no cost to the people using it. It will never be done, but I expect that the first evolution of design will be out by the end of this month.
Taran Rampersad
Currently in Panama City, Panama
Stopping spyware
Regarding “10 ways to stop spyware”: Thank you! Finally, someone is beginning to say what I’ve been saying for years about self protection. Personally and for nearly all my clients, I use Mozilla (Netscape), SpyBot-S&D, ZoneAlarm and McAfee ViruScan. In the last 15 years, I’ve not had anyone using all three products with recent updates be infected by anything. Those insisting on Internet Explorer, Outlook and/or Norton have had numerous troubles.
Also, thank you for recommending Linux as an alternative. While it’s not yet for everyone, I am increasingly converting many single-user systems to Linspire or SuSE.
Bob Compton
Independent business consultant
San Diego
Two of the things that were said in the article “10 ways to stop spyware” I found somewhat counterintuitive. First was the recommendation to use AOL. Not to be an AOL basher, but isn’t AOL one big spyware package? Sure, it may block the pop-ups that you don’t want, but it still tracks your cookies, and still presents advertisements that are tied to the sites you visit. Also, by default, AIM installs WeatherBug, which is a notorious spyware application.
As far as the other issue, using the Google toolbar, isn’t the Google toolbar spyware, too? Anecdotally, the volume of pop-ups I got went up after installing the toolbar, and went down after removing it.
I think the key here is that Google and AOL seem to use their products to gain a competitive advantage in advertising by blocking foreign ads/pop-ups, while allowing ads/pop-ups which they partner or outright sponsor.
E. Nicholas Hawley
Information security manager
ABD Insurance and Financial Services
Redwood City, Calif.
Carr trouble
Your article about IT Doesn’t Matter author Nicholas Carr states: “[Carr] studied neither business nor IT as a student, instead focusing on English literature….” That pretty much says it all. This is not to say that outsiders can’t have some insight into our industry that we would never see, but while Carr’s witing style may be excellent, when you analyze what he has to say, you see that there is no basis for what he says. He is writing for other writers.
I don’t know why the tech industry keeps giving Carr any amount of coverage. His ideas, while different, aren’t (from what I can tell) based in any reality. When he gets some understanding of how technology works then maybe he will be worth listening to.
I also have to laugh at Carr’s statement that “Moore’s Law has always been a fabrication — a popular (mis)conception of reality rather than a precise description of reality.” Moore’s Law is fine; it has worked and continues to work. The technology to actually produce the x10 effect every five years changes, but the basic premise is the same. What doesn’t Carr understand? Maybe if he had some education in technology….
Ken Hollis
Tulsa, Okla.
Broadband secrets
Regarding Kevin Tolly’s column, “Broadband service providers keeping secrets?”: In answer to Tolly’s question, yes, they are. The secret is twofold. First, how many other customers are sharing the same segment that you are on? Second, how much bandwidth are they provisioning to you and the other customers? There are probably 250 customers for each 1.5M bit/sec of bandwidth and also the same 250 customers for the segment that you are on.
What broadband providers are really hiding is how much money they are making on the whole process. If you charge $40/month for service and on the back end are only paying $200/month for a T-1 circuit, you are raking in almost $10,000/month for those 250 customers. This sounds like a real moneymaking business.
The broadband service providers are hiding all the money they are making and how they are over-provisioning the service. They have to make money and what you are paying for is service that is “on” 24/7.
Alexander Shaskevich
CEO
Metropolis Data Systems
Houston
Not too smart
Regarding Frank Dzubeck’s column, “Net intelligence a balancing act”: Remember, it was the “stupid” IP network that got us this data revolution. And it was the “smart” circuit-switched telecom network that kept costs rising and limited services — even voice mail and caller ID – which, if you haven’t noticed, come free with most cell phones. So this “smart network” idea can easily get out of hand.
As an example, just look at firewalls – as everything got blocked, everyone just started using port 80. And now firewall usefulness has almost dropped to zero.
Brandon Fouts
Senior systems engineer
Puget Sound Regional Council
Seattle
Frank Dzubeck’s column “Net intelligence a balancing act” presents some innovative insights. However, we have to push the envelope of network intelligence not just to the level of services and standards, but to solutions like application mirroring and business continuity based on networks nodes virtualization.
Exploiting the latest developments in networking and virtualization, we can enhance the reliability of the existing IT applications without rewriting them and preserve the investments.
Shay Bendov
Tel Aviv, Israel
