Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
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What a week it's been.
NASA are still licking their wounds in the wake of last weekend's shuttle
disaster, system administrators are still kicking themselves after the
Slammer worm spread itself around the world and infected thousands
of machines in less than 15 minutes, and yet another critical security
patch has been released for IE.
What's the common thread binding all these events together?
Could it be that, for all its power and strength, the more complex
the technology we use, the more easily it is brought crashing down
by the tiniest imperfections.
Check Out The Aardvark PC-Based Digital
Entertainment Centre Project
Updated 2-Dec-2002
The shuttle is a good example of the problem faced by virtually all highly advanced
technology: by the time it's near-perfect enough to use safely and
reliably, it's already out of date.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that the bigger the project, the longer it
takes to get all the bugs out -- but until all the bugs are out it may
be very risky to use.
Take Microsoft Windows for example.
By the time Windows matured from version 1.0 way back in the 1980s, to
Win 98SE a decade later, it was almost stable and a lot more functional.
Unfortunately, it was also outdated and unable to take full advantage of
the hardware on which it ran.
Now we have Windows-XP and its family of tools such as Internet Explorer.
XP and IE 6 are vastly superior products to the old Win98SE, but they're still the
subject of regular security patches designed to fix those lingering
bugs.
Right now, if you choose to use these products, you have to accept that there
are probably dozens of other yet undetected security holes that could expose
your valuable data to exploitation while you're on the Net.
Apart from the tragic loss of life, the only real difference between the space
shuttle and Microsoft Windows however, is that when the shuttle crashes, all
other shuttle flights are halted as a precaution and a full investigation is
launched to ensure that there won't be a repeat of the problem. With Windows
you just reboot and cross your fingers.
What's even more interesting is that even though the code which drives the shuttle
and all its onboard systems is incredibly complex -- the shuttle has only
crashed twice, and neither of those two events were software related.
If you want to read a little more about programming for the space shuttle I
recommend this page.
Maybe it's time that Microsoft hired some of the people who wrote the shuttle
code -- or perhaps they could give all their programmers a copy of
this book
published by ... err, oh dear... Microsoft
As the shuttle software proves, writing reliable, secure code is possible but
in the commercial world, it will only happen if customers demand it rather than
simply hitting the reset button.
Lighten Up
If you think the web is just three billion pages of verbal diarrhoea
then you might be right. Check out
this site and plug in your favourite
URL to see what I mean.
Last week I revealed that George W. Bush was still learning the ropes over
their in the White House. Today you can see
George W. Bush unmasked
(Flash required).
And from the "you can't keep a good man down" department, news about the
tragic death of
the inventor of pop-up windows.
Yes, You Can Donate
Although the very kind folks at iHug continue to generously sponsor the
publication of Aardvark, the bills still exceed the income by a fairly
significant amount. It is with this in mind therefore that I'm once
again soliciting donations from anyone who feels they're getting some
value from this daily column and news index. I've gone the PayPal
way of accepting donations because the time involved in processing a bunch
of little credit-card billings sometimes exceeds the monetary value they
represent. Just click on the button to donate whatever you can afford.
NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally donate twice
what you were intending :-)
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in this column. If you'd like your comments published here then please
be sure to use this form and select For Publication.
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are also invited to contact me.
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