September 17, 2004

Sun - Power Rangers Licensing Deal

From the latest issue of Sun Net Talk - arrived in my inbox 9/17/04:

OS Security: Solaris 10 Breaks New Ground

Dear Wes Kussmaul,

Keep the bad guys out; let the good guys in. No operating system does it better than Solaris and with the upcoming release of the Solaris 10 OS, the bad guys might want to think about a new line of work…

My response:

Dear Scott McNealy,

Keep the bad guys out? Let the good guys in?

Gee, Scott, things must have changed since the last time I visited a Sun Microsystems building. I recall seeing subdivided office facilities, allowing different groups and individuals to have access to only the information they needed. But according to the new Sun view of things you must have switched to one big undivided open space, with desks and files accessible to anybody wearing a good guy badge.

So you have only good guys inside your buildings, and as we know good guys can be trusted with anything. Sun Microsystems is just one big, happy family. Just before someone leaves the family to become a bad guy, do they erase everything in their head that should only be accessed by good guys? (Scott, have you been getting management tips from Rev. Moon?)

Let’s face it, Scott, the same things that make for secure physical facilities should be used to make secure online facilities: licensed architects and contractors, building codes, occupancy permits. In the physical world, you know, where open outdoor highways connect to bounded spaces called buildings, architects are licensed by public authorities rather than by commercial enterprises trying to foist security technotrinkets on FUD-jaded CIOs. Licensed architects design facilities around the idea that people having specific roles in specific groups have needs for specific categories of information.

Most important: architects take direction from an enterprise’s management, which after all knows what kinds of facilities are needed. An architect would never try to tell a CEO that since she doesn’t understand the technology of construction materials she cannot make decisions about what kinds of facilities are needed.

Scott, since you have solved the security problem by reliably identifying good guys and bad guys, I know how you can increase your sales volume in firewalls, intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, and other such good guy – bad guy stuff (where you don’t sell much now.) Here’s the idea, free of charge: license the Power Rangers characters and put their images on your products. I can tell you for a fact that all of the four year olds in my neighborhood have yet to buy their first intrusion detection system. If you put the Power Rangers characters on your latest model it would fly off the shelves at Wal*Mart! You’d own Check Point before they knew what hit ‘em!

When will vendors stop selling the naïve and downright silly Power Rangers view of security? The answer is simple. It will happen when customers start realizing that facilities are facilities and highways are highways, whether physical or online. All of the “guys” driving vehicles (packet vehicles or wheeled) and entering buildings (in physical space or online space) are both good and bad. It’s the way life is. Have your facilities designed and built accordingly.

And whatever you do, don’t have a construction materials vendor design your building.

Read about the how online space should work like physical space at www.village.com.

Posted on September 17, 2004 at 08:05 PM

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