From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Sun Feb 02 2003 - 14:37:12 MST
Michael M. Butler wrote:
> http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5088004.htm
>
> He had plenty other cringeworthy things to say, but this one popped
> my bogometer's fuse so hard that it set off my apartment's smoke
detector:
>
> <<
> Gates argues that starting from scratch doesn't make software more
secure.
> ``Evolution has never started over,'' he said. ``So the best programming
> process known built upon its earlier work every step of the way.''
"Best" being subjective. Certainly, the human body - and most other
products of biological evolution - can be and are "hacked" by a number
of virii on a regular basis, some of which are quite damaging.
> Quiz: is Bill Gates:
>
> D. in desperate need of having his prescriptions adjusted
Metaphorically, perhaps. True, that would be a way to make sure all the
neat little features Windows has built up over the years don't have to
be recreated (or forgotten entirely), but it places somewhat less of a
value on security than most readers of this list do. ("Security? Sure,
it'd be nice, but if someone hacks into a system once in a while, we can
live with it." vs. "By doing things this way, we can make sure no one
ever gets unauthorized access save by social engineering, which means we
can trust our lives to these machines in some cases - for instance, when
everyone with access knows their lives *do* depend on not giving
unauthorized access to their pacemakers et al, and what that entails.")
> Next week, Bill Gates will explain why rubbish heaps are actually
superior
> to art galleries, because nothing is ever thrown out of a rubbish heap.
> "They're the sum total of our civilization", sources report he will say.
To be fair, most archaeologists interested in serious study of what a
culture was actually like would rather find a Roman trash heap than a
Roman art gallery, for pretty much that reason.
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