We have these things called paper archives, I bet I can still find you.

Find me? Who cares? I'm not hiding.

I'm guessing that you're a product of the digital era. Paper is notoriously difficult to manage, easy to lose, easy to destroy and comparatively speaking, difficult to produce and search so there's less of it. Additionally, paper is expensive to retain and well run organizations have scheduled document destruction dates. Almost nothing is kept more than 7 years. Watching someone go into a dusty basement and pull out some useful shred from 30 years ago is mostly just movie fiction.

If you want to keep a secret, don't digitize it.

"If something is private, keep it off the net."
Yea, right. Didn't take long for those people trying to disappear off the grid to get found.

There's a huge difference between having information that has never been digitally transcribed and having information that was once and was then "removed". You can't ever "remove" anything.

The only way to keep anything private is to not keep in on a computer, anywhere.

so how will you be controlling who sees what, unless you're planning to make everybody register on your site, which doesn't really work anyway?

You can never control "who sees what."

If something is private, keep it off the net.

By "vendor," I don't mean that guy on the sidewalk who sells you pirated copies of Windows.

Who the hell would pirate Windows? That's like stealing a broken film camera.

Because designers know that it costs time and energy to make a good font, and want to show respect for that. You really shouldn't get riled up about typography without learning about it first from the perspective of the people who actually do it.

Hmmm. Where have I seen other software that's works beautifully, was written by skilled people and is free?

<cough>Slashdot</cough><cough>Postfix</cough><cough>Linux</cough>

By your reasoning, software shouldn't be free either.

Has anybody noticed that the fonts reside on Monotype's servers and the user's browser needs to go fetch them, and unlike all the standard browser fonts, these require a licence in order to use. The licence is currently free, however that doesn't mean it won't be $100,000 tomorrow.

And if their server goes down or you decide you don't want to pay, your site looks like crap.

Pardon my scepticism, but I'll stick to fonts that exist in the browser or even better CSS @font-face and download a freely distributable font from the client's site.

The part that's astonishing is that there are still companies that charge money for fonts. Why (how) are they still here?

Have you ever worked in a secure IT environment? Actually, have you ever worked in IT?

Unless your first computer came as a pinout diagram for a 4-bit processor, a soldering iron and an idea, I've been doing it longer than you have. I've been in banking since punch-cards and magnetic tape, UUCP over dial-up, thorough mainframes, dumb terminals, terminal emulators, PCs and the beginning of the web, then moved into web and application support for the federal government before starting my own company to go after mid-range businesses.

And as nostalgic as it makes me feel, my experience is irrelevant here. There was nobody in the entire city that he was willing to give the passwords to, which makes him a dick (and now a felon) not a conscientious employee.

For what it's worth, I blame his boss and his boss's boss as much as our pet head-case. They needed to have access restoration policies and procedures in place for exactly this situation. What did they plan on doing if he was hit by a bus or dropped dead from Burger-King and Jolt Cola? One guy holds all the keys? That's just stupid.

Your right... Childs thought the network was "his"... he was wrong. The passwords are intellectual property and as such he isnt allowed to keep it. He is however allowed to "forget" the passwords. Then there would have been nothing they could have done to him.

What possible up-side could there be to "forgetting" the passwords, except pissing everybody off and making it really hard to get another job?

I just don't see an up-side in that action for anybody. The city would be need to pay to have their passwords reset, he'd still be out of work (although probably not in jail), but would be publicly known as "the guy who boned his employer when given the chance".

Honestly, I'd hire someone who went to jail for his beliefs long before I'd hire someone with a "scorched earth" policy for job changes.

I would never hire anyone for a technical role who would give a password to an unauthorised person, including their boss (assuming they're not authorised to receive it).

That's nonsensical. If you're not required to do what your boss says, he's not your boss.

In any case, you're making an irrelevant distinction. If the boss wants the password, you give it to him. If the boss then blows up the network or sells the password to the Russians, that's his problem not yours. When law enforcement comes by, you say "It blew up right after my boss demanded the password"

Childs has ego issues. He was just an employee, not Superman, and was not tasked with saving the universe, just with keeping the hardware running. Keeping the password safe from hackers is prudent. Not giving it to his boss even after the city demanded it was just being a dick.

Rule #3. "Don't be a dick."

The three cardinal rules if IT would have protected him:

1. Remember: It's not your hardware, network or data. You just work there.
2. When your boss asks you for the password, give it to him.
3. Don't be a dick.

IMO, he got what he deserved, and nobody else has anything to worry about unless they plan on breaking the above rules. (Especially #3)

The original SCO is now Tarantella, who is now owned by Oracle.
This current litigious incarnation is what is left of Caldera.

It's actually really funny they chose that name, since a Caldera is actually the remains of a formerly-functional volcano. They occasionally emit smoke, but that's about it.

Ahhh, I finally got it, you win. IHBT. Congrats! Doesn't often happen.

Thanks! I even got points for it. 8-)

Actually I like video, although I do have a problem with Big Business whoring the internet and technology in general. People have been getting screwed for so long they don't actually understand that they've been used like the last girl in the bar at closing time.

My all-time favorite is that text messages are sent using empty space in network management packets that need to be sent anyway and cost nothing, but are billed as if they were made from bigfoot hair and moon rocks.

Oh well.

I remember those days. Finding websites was a nightmare because I mostly relied on user-built (and easily broken) webrings or link pages. All user maintained because no one was being paid for it, so maintainers could fall off the web and you were out of luck.

Actually, the links generally worked just fine, and if you couldn't find something, you could <GASP>"ask someone."

And they've got dozens of hours of full motion video, and a back archive of articles and forum posts going back years?

Who gives a crap about full-motion video? It's just a lead-in for extracting more of your money. Pay your cell phone company for a "data plan", pay you internet provider for a faster connection, pay the content provider, watch advertising, buy the crap they're shilling. Same shit, different day.

Archives are great, however. I've got stuff that goes back to the late 70's

And how does the business pay for the people who do the work that brings the people to the site?

By selling actual products and services, not just made-up internet nonsense.

You see, if enough people take up a site's bandwidth without generating ad impressions, the ad companies pay less for their ad-space, and each visitor, on average, produces less income for the site.

Shh. If you listen carefully, you can hear me playing sad music on the world's smallest violin

I know that most of you weren't even born yet, but there was a time when the internet had no advertising. And it did just fine.

"Monetizing your assets" is marketing bullshit-speak for "fleecing stupid people and annoying the rest". In fact, I own several websites right now that contain no advertising and get traffic. Any business that performs a service that's worth more than a pile of post-horse-oats can afford enough hardware and bandwidth to support thousands of users for less than they spend on getting the mats by the front door cleaned. And anybody who wants a personal site can do the same for less than the cost of a "value meal" at McDonalds.

And as bizarre as this seems, I could even post original content and have user interaction just like The Escapist and still charge nothing.

Not only do I recommend ad-block to my friends, I install ad-blocking proxy servers for businesses, because nowhere in the world is wasted time, money and bandwidth more apparent than in businesses that actually measure expenses and productivity. Employee wants to spend a little while looking for a new recipe for hummus? Great! Employee gets distracted and spends a half our down the rabbit hole with punch-the-monkey ads, not so great.

They can advertise all they want, but nobody is going to tell me that I have to:

• Watch
• Give a crap about blocking it
• Feel guilty about denying anybody ad-revenue.