Assume for a moment that there were an open-source Facebook-like application available on the Opera Unite platform.  Since the application was open-source, and since it has no centralized system, it wouldn’t need to have any advertisements ever (no ongoing infrastructure costs to support).  If users have the choice between two similar services, and one of them doesn’t exploit their content for profit, would users ever not pick that one?

Thus, I believe that the Opera Unite platform or something similar may give rise to serious open-source web competition to commercial websites, particularly commercial social networking or collaboration sites (Flickr, Facebook, Google Docs, etc.)

The purpose of information security is to slow down a break-in or use of stolen information to the point where the perpetrator can be captured in the act.  In the case of falsified access credentials, security systems slow down the perpetrator from generating fake access credentials as fast as if the security were not present.

Thus, hackers attempt to find any faster way to generate falsified credentials.  Even if their method is just a tiny bit faster, exploting this speed difference vs. the assumed speed to compromise credentials can buy the savvy hacker time to get away with their crime.

Information Technology security professionals must remain aware of the time necessary to break security, especially in the case when a new form of instant access is discovered (0-day exploits, for example).  Instant access means that a hack attempt would most likely go entirely unnoticed until at least some time after the important data/etc was stolen, and depending on the intrusion method, the most severe of exploit-based intrusions may be entirely undetectable.

The most dangerous buried assumptions occur in the following loop:

1.  Changing project requirements at any time after the estimate is made will not cause an overage.  This is the most obvious assumption and yet it remains buried to most customers because of the second most dangerous buried assumption.changes.

2.  Customers or clients develop a false sense of security about the severity or processes necessary to implement change requests.  Without spreading FUD, information technology directors and management must make efforts to give customers accurate information about how long certain changes may take, and the authentic impact expected to the schedule as a result.  Attempting to cover up for slips in the schedule from events in #1 will only increase the effect of any actual timeline slippage on customer retention and satisfaction.

3.  The false sense of security from the customer’s side reinforces the creation of new project requirements outside of the original estimation.  As customers become more confident that their needs can be met at any time, they continue to pile onto everyone’s now unrealistic expectations with more fuel for the fire in the form of additional changes.  These additional changes cause the timeline buried assumptions to loop again starting at #1.

Without a hardline approach that may cost some initial customer satisfaction, the long-term outcome of this loop is to geometrically grow the cost and delays involved in future projects until the point of repeated project delivery failures (once funds and time are exhausted).

Are there effects we can’t achieve no matter what process we specify? (p.4)

Sometimes a program or process can look like it is working during development, but then more and more signs emerge that the process is somehow flawed and it will ultimately fail.  Being able to point these out in advance as processes that simply will not work using the available tools is a critical skill required to avoid costly and futile CS efforts.

1.   Do the controls already exist somewhere else on the page?   If so, consider why you need two sets of controls for the same thing.   For example, Gmail has two sets of controls, one at the top and one at the bottom of the mail list.   Is this truly necessary?
2.   If there are GUI considerations being made, why not allow users to make some GUI decisions themselves?   If I’m an expert user and I want to cram all the controls into the corner, and there’s nothing preventing me from doing so, why not make it an option?   It’s not going to hurt me, and anyone else can just leave it off and use it the regular way.   In the gmail example, I should be able to hide the controls I’m not using — not just with the sidebar widgets that expand and collapse, but with the rest of the screen’s controls.

// uncommented: X might not be less than zero when condition ABC happens in module 123
if X<0 then ...

From one of my Indian friends:

I totally agree with you Devin. Saying “no” to your boss in India is considered as asking for trouble.