Re: Personal Firewall Day?

["Bill Royds" <broyds () rogers com>]

The argument between general purpose computers and specialized ones
parallels the debate between public transit and individual automobiles. One
can easily show that using public transit for most urban transportation
needs would lower pollution, infrastructure costs and increase safety.
  But the flexibility of having your own vehicle (general purpose computer)
versus the efficiency of public transit with sufficient volume to be
convenient is always won by the private car. We even subsidise private
automobiles by having taxes pay for roads while requiring buses to charge
fares. But woe betide any policitican who tries to take peoples cars away
from them.
  Efficiency and security are not compelling arguments for application
specific computers. In our societies, flexibility and freedom are far
greater values than safety and cost.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr () ranum com>
To: "Gary Flynn" <flynngn () jmu edu>
Cc: "Crispin Cowan" <crispin () immunix com>; "Christopher Hicks"
<chicks () chicks net>; <firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] Personal Firewall Day?


Gary Flynn wrote:
> I think we're addicted to general purpose computing because of its
versatility,
> freedom, and associated potential to innovate

Gary has put his finger on the one big outstanding flaw in my
argument. :( Innovation. The kind of computing environment I
think we actually need would dramatically stifle the ability to
innovate. But --- AOL users can't innovate within their AOL-sphere
and don't appear to miss it. But that's probably because they
can apply customizations via the surrounding underlying O/S.

The desire to customize is amazingly powerful and cannot be
discounted. I think it's the main reason we won't shift to the
kind of environment I think we could build that would solve
a lot of our computing problems. :(  Hey - I didn't say I had
all the answers!! Actually, I think I have all the questions! :)

mjr.

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