full-disclosure - Support the Sasser-author fund started

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From: chows at ozemail.com.au (Gregh)
Subject: Support the Sasser-author fund started 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stormwalker" <bruen@...t49.duncable.cust.sover.net>
To: <full-disclosure@...ts.netsys.com>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 2:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Support the Sasser-author fund started

> On Thu, 13 May 2004 Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu wrote:
> > On Thu, 13 May 2004 14:33:25 +0200  said:
>
> >  You don't HAVE to use Microsoft, you know..
>
>   This assertion is not true. There are many instances requiring the use
> of MS products. It is only recently that Open Office has started to change
> this.

To start off with, let me say I don't disagree with the above point.

I do want to raise a spin-off point from the above, though.

We say, right now the way things are, things like "Some users are so dumb,
they cant find their way to their rear end without a road map, a bottle of
prune juice and a real lot of luck so trying to get them to do the right
thing with virus releases, spyware problems etc is a real problem" and as we
know, currently the majority of the world uses MS products at home and in a
real lot of businesses. Right now we have your "back yarder" who can also
fix a lot of those problems easily.

My point is, then, that as we diversify, users are going to go into more
unfamiliar territory, cause more problems and have less people available for
a low fee to fix them. What then, for the computer industry? Are we ALL
going to have to know every brand of OS that runs on a PC and products that
run on that OS and how to fix it's problems? There may be quite a few gifted
people who can do that right now. As we get used to the proliferation of
different OS's (if that happens), I am of the belief that there will be more
people with more problems and less people capable of fixing them.

MS did home users, at least, one real favour. It spawned a lot of people
able to fix MS problems who honestly DO know what they are doing. As there
ARE a lot and especially as things over where I live are getting worse for
I.T. people thus they are losing their big pay packet jobs and doing what
the "back yarders" do, prices are competitive. It isn't unusual for someone
doing those things, with an I.T. diploma of REAL value, to be charging $30
an hour to fix problems and earning less than $15,000 a YEAR in Australian
dollars or a little over 66% of that if converted to US dollars right now.
You cant live on that in Australia so people are moving out of I.T.
altogether or if they have enough savings, are doing the low paid income,
draining their resources and hoping to find another I.T. job in an
overcrowded market.

If I.T. industry needs improve so these people can get the jobs they are
qualified for, that still leaves a lot of "back yarders" capable of fixing
users' problems. If we diversify without thought, we may end up wishing for
the days of the MS security holes!

Greg.