Re: How to Save The World (was: Antivirus vendor conspiracy theories)

["Paul D. Robertson" <paul () compuwar net>]

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004, Adam Shostack wrote:

> So, I totally agree with what you're saying.  But I'm curious:  Are
> they really morons, or is there a better explanation?

I'm voting A.

> Is it easier to get budget for cleanup than prevention?  (Ie, are
> their bosses the morons?)

It's a culture issue- we've got too many people in IT who don't understand
technology.  We've shifted from technologists to bureaucrats and time
managers who have no initiative to control their own technology future,
and who believe what the vendors tell them the solutions are.

> Are they taking kickbacks that affect their decision making
> process?  (Me, I need more industry t-shirts, because I've been doing
> a lot of paining lately, and they make great drop-cloths.)

It's worse, they don't *know* any better.

The US is in probably the worst position- we've neutered technology in our
government to the point that for the most part, the government is full of
contract managers, not technologists.  In most companies, "administrator"
means "guy who knows where in the GUI to click, but has no clue of how it
works."  Corporate America is happily following down the COTS software
line, in full belief that the government's done the right thing.

The people who either know better, or want to learn aren't in the right
positions to influence the decisions.

I had hopes for the "technology track" career things that were happening
during the bubble, but alas they didn't work out as well as they might
have.

It's too bad only technology companies have technical advisory boards and
it's probably too difficult to make insource the buzzword of the month[1.]

Paul
[1] But we could all start using it positively and see if it catches on.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
paul () compuwar net       which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
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