Secure Coding mailing list archives
Administrivia: A note on moderation and thanks
From: "Kenneth R. van Wyk" <Ken () KRvW com>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 17:34:37 +0100
Greetings all, First off, thanks to all that responded privately or publicly to my request for input re an upcoming TechTV interview. FWIW, I also asked a similar question to a group of anti-virus folks that I know and, not surprisingly, got a pretty broad range of answers. (I'm scheduled to be on "Call for Help", taping on 7 April. My TiVo believes that the show will air on 12 April. Should be fun.) Secondly, I wanted to take a moment to say a couple things about the moderating that I do here, which I feel is particularly topical in light of the recent thread on securing a virtual hosted environment. A few of you asked (online and off) what the thread had to do with "secure coding", and I wanted to respond to that. On one level, you're absolutely right -- it has nothing to do with "coding". I do feel, though, that it has much to do with software security in a larger sense. I've long believed that an application isn't secure until it is deployed/integrated into a safe operating environment, and I believe that discussions of "how do I set up my app to run safely in my environment" to be well within the scope of this list. At least to a point, and I certainly realize that that is a somewhat slippery slope... ...which brings me to my last topic (for those that haven't already pressed the delete key ;-). Moderation. As some of you know, I've moderated a couple of discussion groups for some time, having launched the old VIRUS-L/comp.virus group back in 1988. My approach then and now has been to allow people to speak their minds, by and large -- within the fairly broad bounds of the group's charter. For example, when a thread digresses too far (in my view), I prefer to accept the last posting(s) and _ask_ the contributors to let the thread die. I prefer this somewhat light-handed approach, since I like to let people speak up and want to encourage that. I have near zero tolerance for incivility, but that still leaves a whole lot of leeway. As always, I am open to your feedback, good, bad, or otherwise. Cheers, Ken van Wyk -- KRvW Associates, LLC http://www.KRvW.com
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- Administrivia: A note on moderation and thanks Kenneth R. van Wyk (Apr 01)