The Big Switch

Cloud computing is all the rage. According to Nicholas Carr, one of the unstoppable drivers is the economics of cloud computing. Carr uses the history of the electric industry to explain the historical forces that are in play today in the information technology market and that will move Information Technology to more and more of a utility computing model.

There is an informative description of companies such as YouTube who generate tremendous value by providing a platform with a small number of employees that millions of people add value to for free. This viral model has been used a number of times in the Internet space and is one of the forces that is negatively affecting traditional industries such as newspapers.

Carr also covers a number of the social changes that are occurring, including the loss of privacy, which in some ways was the opposite effect that early Internet pioneers predicted.

This is book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the major forces that are moving the Information Technology field.

Buy The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
from Amazon now.

Adobe Reader is Vulnerable Again

Back in May we first discussed the vulnerability in Adobe Reader. Once again, an issue has cropped up. I ask the question again, why doesn't Adobe release a standard verison of the reader without Javascript? Sure, it would disable some forms, but the bulk of users in the world want to read documents safely and not use forms. They could certainly have a Premium Reader with Javascript support for those people that need it.
Here is the statement from them, "Adobe has confirmed a critical vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.2 and earlier versions that could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. Adobe recommends customers follow the mitigation guidance below until a patch is available.

Adobe plans to make available an update to Adobe Reader and Acrobat by January 12, 2010 to resolve the issue."

Here is a link to the security advisory.

Who Stole Those Emails

I have started writing a column for Infonomics, the publishing portion of AIIM. The first column covers the basics of Information Security. Here is a link to The Article.