RE: [fw-wiz] You'll never get fired for recommending IBM - sorry - Microsoft

From: Marcus J. Ranum (mjr_at_ranum.com)
Date: 12/17/03

  • Next message: Shimon Silberschlag: "[fw-wiz] OSPF on Firewall" 
    To: MHawkins@TULLIB.COM, breno@gamebox.net
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 23:44:43 -0500

    MHawkins@TULLIB.COM wrote:
    >What do you call a monolithic representation of a predominantly identical
    >membership within a group?

    Depends on the group, doesn't it? If it's beans, I might say it's a "monoculture."
    If it's computer desktops I might call it "dominant desktop." If it's socks, I
    might say "they're all from the same brand." The point is that terminology
    can enlighten and terminology can deceive - intentionally or otherwise. I
    think we can talk about the technological implications of Microsoft's
    dominance in desktop computing without using analogies that distract us
    from the actual discussion.

    More succinctly, what about, "Microsoft's dominance in desktop computing"
    was unclear? I think my choice of words is not bad, there, and leads us to
    other questions such as:
            "Are there security ramifications to ...?"
            "Are there system management ramifications to ...?"
    there's no need to bring pseudo-scientific biological analogies into the
    discussion.

    Now at this point in the discussion it would be expected for me to begin
    rattling off specific arguments about the flaws in the "monoculture"
    analogy. I'm not going to do that because then we're back to arguing
    about an analogy! :) The whole point is that we already have a rich
    enough vocabulary in computer security that we don't need to make up
    loaded analogies. The paper I gave the URL for earlier has some specific
    comments in which I attempt to demonstrate how the analogy is
    invalid - so I'll avoid them here.

    mjr.

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