OpenLife

IT-security. On 19 September 2002 I will give a speech on liability towards third parties for “bad” IT-security with respect your own or your company’s or organizations’ IT-system, web-sites etc. on a conference dealings with issues of IT-security. The speech will based on an article Den Uforsvarlige Netværksadministrator. Medvirkens- eller undladelsesansvar ved utilstrækkelig IT-sikkerhed (The Negligent Networksadministrator) that I co-authored last year with Bill Reilly. Is it time for networked companies to start suing each other to secure the Internet? The article addresses the potential liability that companies may face to those harmed by the negligent operation of their networks that cause harm to others. The article was published in Revision & Regnskabsvæsen 12/2001 p. 22-24.

Charles Simonyi and M/Y Skat. An article from Berlingske online about the party 20 July 2002 on the Charles Simonyi’s yacht M/Y Skat.

Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins, the author of The Selfish Gene and one of the founders of memetics, suggested when interviewed for an article (7 August 2002) in the Guardian that Mr Bush was just as much of a danger to world peace as Saddam Hussein, adding: “It would be a tragedy if Tony Blair were to be brought down through playing poodle to this unelected and deeply stupid little oil-spiv.” Whoa. Do we see a meme developing here?

Respect from and to BullGuard. Morten Lund’s new venture Bullguard has been launched. There’s is no stopping this Danish serial entrepreneur. Good luck, Morten, you deserve it. I am proud to say that I have made it to the BullGuard respect tabulate.

Wi-Fi enabled PDA. Here’s my latest toy: the Toshiba Pocket PC e740. The e740 is the first PDA with built-in 802.11b connectivity. This little neat thing set me back about DKK 7.500 including VAT. The reason that I have given up on one of my most sacred principles - to stick with the PALM OS - is simply because I had to get a glimpse of the future where we all will access the Internet at Wi-Fi hotspots with our PDA. And it works. At least accessing my home Wi-Fi network was a breeze. I am very disappointed though that the Internet Explorer included in the Pocket PC OS is so primitive: It only allows me to access unsecured web-sites. Thus, I cannot check my web-mail etc. This has to solved.

(Bruce Shows Off His Handwritten CFP 2002 Speech. Photo by Declan McCullagh)

Bruce Sterling. There is a transcript of sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling’s speech - “A Contrarian View of Open Source” - at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention this summer to be found at http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/301-350/00325_open_source_speech.html. This is truly great stuff.

Admiral Gjeddes Gaard. The new web-site for my wife Jeanne’s meeting facilities at Admiral Gjeddes Gaard is at last up and running. Check it out at http://www.admiralgjeddesgaard.dk. Many a kudo to Cathie Jøker Nissen - Mrs. Hans Henrik Højbjerg to-be - for design and other help.