On 01/04/2014 05:21 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote: > On 05/01/2014 02:42, walt wrote: >> On 01/04/2014 03:44 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote: >> >>> FAT was designed for MS-DOS where you put a floppy in the drive and you >>> had full access to everything on it. There was no need to implement >>> security. >> >> I think the operative phrase is "there was no need" back when Gates and >> Allen trained the world to accept failure as good enough. >> >> >> >> > > > I don't think so. This was back in the early 80s remember and PCs were a > new novelty. The thing to compare them to was paper records and we all > know bits of paper have no inherent security attributes. If you want to > secure them, keep them in a space with a lock. To secure a PC and it's > floppies, store them in a space with a lock. > > And then there's the hardware, those things ran on 8086 chips. Not bad > for the time, but not exactly heavy on cpu grunt. > > You can't seriously be pushing the line that MS promotes failure. gates > and Allen had the balls to get a working pc to market that put one on > every office desk and made computing ubiquitous. Sure, if they didn't do > it someone else would have, but they are the guys that did when no-one > else had managed. Think Amstrad, Sinclair, early Commodore. Even the > Beeb, awesome as it was, tanked completely. > > It's all very easy for us to sit back today and play monday morning > fullback but in those days hardly anyone had a clue about security or > how to do it. The guys who did know were the mainframe and mini guys, > and that model didn't translate to what the PC was meant for. > > Hey, I like to bash MS as much as the next guy (IE6 is a crime that > shall never be forgiven)
LOL! > but I do think we should bash MS for things > they deserve, not so much for things they don't. Okay, okay, you're absolutely right about the early-early days. I'm thinking about the era when GM's CEO complained that if GM made cars the way Bill made software (I paraphrase) then tow-truck drivers would be millionaires. For several years the IT people where I work have been making hundreds of lives a living hell because failure is greeted every day with a shrug and a hostile apology, I *do* blame M$ for setting the bar that low, though not in the early days, I agree.
