Re: I can be an IT manager too! (March 9)
Just finished reading this. It certainly is consistent with my experience. Great piece.
Robert Howard
Project Consultant
IT
Associates
Re: Copyright proposals put security firms into panic mode (March 8)
It is an accepted scientific principal that researchers must be able to test the claims of those proposing scientific achievements. If the claims cannot be tested then they are nothing more than snake oil — and the pharmaceutical industry knows, to its peril, just how unwise and unsound it is to make extravagant and inaccurate claims.
As a simple example, in the Digital Rights Management (DRM) marketplace, the Russian company Elcomsoft was prosecuted (through one of its founders) for demonstrating that the Adobe content protection was, to put it mildly, less than was claimed at the time, even though Elcomsoft is a Russian company and outside the jurisdiction of the U.S.
There are significantly broader issues of public policy to consider, however, than just the ability of researchers to investigate and responsibly report upon the accuracy of claims about the security mechanisms used by companies.
We should not go down this road. It is anathema to those who have an understanding of either scientific or legal principles. I can only trust that the Canadian government will not be seduced by the arguments of the entertainment industry.
Peter Ratcliffe
Re: The unusual suspects (March 8)
Why don’t you stick to IT? I don’t need to read your bull in an IT magazine. Obviously you are sympathetic to the plight of Arar, although he has admitted that he attended an Al-Qaida camp. You are right that he has not been proven guilty, but where there is smoke there is fire.
Eloi Robichaud
Re: Intel tunes processors for 64-bit computing transition (March 2)
Have you ever heard of Sun Microsystems? They apparently have been running a 64-bit OS for some time now and I see no mention about this company as one of the potential competitor or alternative to the 64-bit players in your article. Any reason?
Paul Roussin
Re: U of T researchers take flexible displays to market (Feb. 28)
On one side of the coin you have Academics publishing articles and holding symposia to deter the future introduction of technology into society without some sort of bureaucratically-oversized regulation that would start with people that have no clue how the real world is operating (see: Academics fear societal impact of future technologies). On the other side you have the same types of people publishing articles and promoting even more advanced technologies to the public (See: U of T researchers take flexible displays to market). What a ridiculous contradiction in terms!
These guys need to get with the program and stop living in their ivory towers of self and shameless promotion of nothing but an empty and pre-supposed understanding of the unreal world! Whether academics believe it or not, IT as it currently stands in the real world actually can be used to create more economic momentum than any academic’s theoretical view of an economy they have no control over! No money has ever been generated by simply sitting above the rest and thinking about the way it should be done, because as has been proven time and again by simpleton business factions, you make money by actually doing something about it! Surprise, surprise!
In short, their fear of not being able to control us is wasted on the rest who do control the IT world!
Peter Hall
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