human-nets@ucbvax.ARPA (11/05/84)
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator) <Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers>
HUMAN-NETS Digest Sunday, 4 Nov 1984 Volume 7 : Issue 70
Today's Topics:
Query - Copyright Laws,
Computers and People - Killed ED topic again? &
USIA Satellite TV Broadcasting &
To Read or not to Read (Email),
Computer Networks - Cancelling Electronic Mail,
Computers and Education - 'Cute' bugs and social loss
Information - CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE -- 1985
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Date: Thu 1 Nov 84 14:18:12-PST
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: copyright laws
There's a Stanford law professor (whose name I forget, but ...) asking
for input on the following issue. He is in touch with some lawyer who
works for the relevant Senate Subcommittee, so the input may actually
be heard. You can reply to me as TREITEL@SUMEX (or E.EEYORE@LOTSC)
and I will take some note of your response, or you can flame.
Now: the sellers of software are bummed out about Locksmith and
similar programs, which they claim are costing them sales. They want
Congress to change the law so they can sue the locksmith makers.
Right now they can't, because although by default it is against the
law to help someone copy a piece of copyrighted material, the present
law allows you to make backup copies of software which has been sold
to you, even if it is copyrighted and encrypted, so the locksmiths can
argue that their program has legitimate uses.
OK, so how much copying goes on? Just who is copying just what?
Would they pay sticker price for it if they couldn't get it this way?
Are there better ways to protect software? Is the problem going to
fade away in a few years due to new advances? Are there differences
(for this purpose) between game software and business software? What
if software sellers were reasonable about giving you backup copies?
Are they? and so on. There's more I could say, but I want to keep
this msg relatively short.
- Richard
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Date: 1 Nov 1984 0240-PST
From: Rem@IMSSS
Subject: Killed the topic again?
Reply-to: REM@MIT-MC
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 84 17:30:00 EDT
From: Charles <mcgrew@rutgers>
Subject: Electronic Democracy discussion moves to Poli-Sci
The recent discussion on what we have come to call 'Electronic
Democracy' has been most interesting, but it really belongs on the
Poli-Sci digest (which was originally a spinoff of HN to handle
political issues, after all).
Shit. When this issue arose several years ago I was eager to continue
discussion, but as soon as the POLI-SCI list spun off everybody else
on the new list except me switched the topic from electronic democracy
to general bullshit flaming, i.e. it changed from Political SCIENCE to
POLITICS despite retaining the POLI-SCI name as a facade. I tried to
keep the electonic democracy subject going but nobody on that
garbage-eating list was interested. After a few weeks of nothing but
political trash and virtually nothing on the topic that caused the
spin-off in the first place, I dropped off. I don't want to get back
on that cruddy list unless it gets back to this original topic and
omits the politics trash. If Human-Nets won't discuss, and Poli-Sci
won't either, then there seems to be no forum for it at all, as was
the situation for the past several years until it revived on
Human-Nets momentarily.
Would somebody on Porta-Com like to open a conference for this
specific topic so we can discuss it and not get the POLI-SCI [sic]
nonsense overwealming it totally?
[Ed. Note: Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I stand by my
decision.]
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Date: 1 November 1984 04:56-EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: effects of USIA satellite television broadcasting
To: KIRK.TYM @ OFFICE-2
Cc: Kahin @ MIT-MULTICS
Isn't there a little something wrong with your analogy? US satellites
and TV stations broadcasting into other countries is NOT like one
person in the class with a megaphone. Megaphone prevents you from
hearing anyone else. You are concerned that these poor
unsophisticated third world people won't listen to anyone else because
their own country and culture cannot compete with Proctor and Gamble
and Soap Opera and Dallas and the like.
It may or may not be true. It may well be that we ought
not broadcast any such thing to third world countries; but
surely our using one channel to broadcast USIA programs does not
prevent anyone from using other channels to broadcast their own,
does it?
The universal declaration of human rights rather
pretentiously probclaims the right of every person to send,
receive, and obtain information from any source. Of course that
was drafted in a less nationalistic era.
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Date: 24 Oct 84 13:41:10 EDT
From: Mike <ZALESKI@RU-BLUE.ARPA>
Subject: Electronic mail
Electronic mail: I used to like it, but now I try to avoid it.
I have found that going and talking to the person (who I typically
want to do something) has a faster and more positive response
rate. If I am working at home, I'd phone or write (TALK to DEC
people) to them on their terminal. Mail is a last resort.
The manager who bragged to one of his employees about a backlog
of 300 computer messages was probably trying to make a point to
his employee: If it's really important, get in touch personally.
-- Mike^Z Zaleski@Rutgers [allegra!, ihnp4!] pegasus!mzal
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Date: 30 Oct 1984 21:51-PST
Subject: Cancelling electronic mail.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <Geoff@SRI-CSL.ARPA>
As long as "the message" has not departed the users home system
domain (meaning his file directory or other mail queue file
pickup directory), I think it is well and good to offer the user
the ability to cancel mail. I have canceled mail a few of times
over the years, since Tenex stores queued mail in a directory as
[--UNSENT-MAIL--].User@Host files or (more recently)
[--NETWORK-MAIL--] files which have the address contained within.
However, once a mailer has touched and delivered any recipient of
a queued message file the ability to retract such a message is
about zero.
Consider, for example, an electronic mail address which in turn
produces a hardcopy message? Or one which perhaps gets broadcast
via a one-way means, say, to a persons alpha-numeric display
pager/beeper? Or that perhaps get forwarded across some type of
`occasional' gateway link which is unavailable at the time you
desired to send the cross-net cancel order?
Other issues which might further complicate the canceling would
be, using the Tenex case as a real world example, local users
whose mail files which are directly appended by the senders user
agent, while the other recipients in network land, are routed
thru the mailer.
If we all lived on one giant time sharing computer and/or all our
mail was stored in big database on one central main frame, it
could be done. However, in our current world of disconnected and
distributed nets the ability to technologically cancel mail is
nearly impossible I figure.
Moral being: count to 10 before you ^Z.
g
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Date: 28 Oct 1984 0933-PST
From: Rob-Kling <Kling%UCI-20B@UCI-750a>
Subject: Cute bugs, unreliable software and social loss
Cc: neumann@SRI-CSL, nancy@UCI-750A
Recently someone inquired about "cute" bugs. The bugs usually
discussed as "cute" are often logically cute, but can lead to system
failures which cost lots of money or human lives.
Peter Neumann at Stanford Research International has been
keeping tracking of failures in high-risk systems for some time.
Accounts appear in a Software Engineering Notes, a newsletter
published by the ACM. I've attatched Peter's annotated bibliography of
these system failures. For brevity, SEN= Software Engineering Notes.
The current level of *routine* education about these matters
is in a sorry state in universities and in the society at large. Many
of the "good" computer science departments regularly offer courses in
software engineering where students may be exposed to the problems of
designing highly reliable systems (inlcuding, but not limited to
software). However, these courses are usually elective, and while they
may be well attended, are taken by a minority of students graduating
with CS degrees.
Every year, tens of thousand students enter industrial
software development careers with CS degrees. Many more begin software
work with good backgrounds in engineering, bio-sci, physical sci, or
mathematics, and even less exposure to key ideas in software
engineering. While many are "savvy about systems," a significant
number are probably enchanted with the belief in perfectable systems.
Fortunately, a very tiny fraction of the computer-based
systems developed place human lives or large $$$ at risk. And an even
tinier fraction, mostly military weapons-related systems, can place
thousands or millions of lives at risk when there are gross failures.
However, we are moving toward a period where more and more vital
social activities, including financial transactions, run on
computer-based systems.
I think we would all be much better off if software
specialists learned the art and limits of reliable software design the
way that "modern medics" learn about proper hygene in hospitals. While
these examples from Software Engineering Notes are more cautionary
than rich in prescriptive measure, we would be better off if they were
simply common knowledge for software specialists.
Rob Kling
University of California, Irvine
kling.uci-20b@uci OR
kling@uci (from ARPAnet or CSnet),and/or
ucbvax!ucivax!kling (from UUCP)
[Ed. Note: Rob included Peter Neumann's file, which has already been
made available to human-nets readers, so I didn't include it. If you
would like to see the file, it is the second half of
<mcgrew.human-nets>famous.bugs, and can be gotten by anonymous FTP
from Rutgers, or by mail from me(human-nets-requests@rutgers.)]
------------------------------
Date: 3-Nov-84 21:33 PST
From: William Daul - Augmentation Systems - McDnD
From: <WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS - CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE -- 1985
Conference On Softway Maintenance -- 1985
Wahsington, D.C., Nov. 11-13
The conference will be sponsored by the Association For Women in
Computing, the Data Processing Management Association, the Institute
for Electrical & Electronics Engineers, Inc., the National Bureau of
Standards and the Special Interest Groups on Software Maintenance in
cooperation with the Special Interest Group on Software Engineering.
Papers are being solicited in the following areas:
controlling software maintenance
software maintenance careers and education
case studies -- successes and failures
configuration management
maintenance of distributed, embedded, hybrid and real-time systems
debugging code
developing maintainance documentation and environments
end-user maintenance
software maintenance error distribution
software evolution
software maintenance metrics
software retirement/conversion
technololgy transfer
understanding the software maintainer
Submission deadline is Feb. 4, and 5 double-spaced copies are
required. Papers should range from 1,000 to 5,000 words in length.
The first page must include the title and a maximum 250-word abstract;
all the authors' names, affiliations, mailing addresses and telephone
numbers; and a statement of commitment that one of the authors will
present the paper at the conference if it is accepted.
Submit papers and panel session proposals to: Roger Martin (CMS-85),
National Bureau of Standards, Building 225, Room B266, Gaithersburg,
Md. 20899
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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