A quick follow-up to the challenge MySpace is serving up to Apple with their music service, as I wrote about previously (reference: http://www.thereformed.org/2008/04/07/myspace-gambles-big-on-lost-cause/). As I stated before, I don’t believe MySpace will be able to capture a significant market share in an industry which is experiencing innovations per quarter from the company who established and arguably perfected the vary model industry leaders are salivating to get bigger a piece of and the major economic downturn (an obvious recession.. if it looks like a duck…) which is hitting consumers in the pocketbook. What this brief article addresses is the sheer, implausible numbers game that a small fish such as MySpace is facing in a private pond thats home to a big hungry shark. Continue reading ‘Apple Wins by the Numbers’
Archive for the 'opinion' Category
MySpace has matured the social networking portal more than any other provider, but how will they fair in the media market - specifically their venture in MySpace music? They’re going after the hallowed ground of Apple’s iTunes and I suspect that we might not necessarily see a failure (because MySpace’s user-base is so very large it can take the hit), but we can forsee that no notable, sustainable gains will be made - Apple’s loyalists will benefit from it extremely however. Why? Continue reading ‘MySpace Gambles Big on Lost Cause’
First article of the new year is in regards to the flourishing WebAppSec community and it’s guidance effort targeting developers and consumers alike. The threat of web application vulnerabilities is now a common-place theme in this new day. Over the last ten years, the advent of the information security community, something previously overlook, has been it’s gradual embracing of the need for web application security as data, handling and formatting become more dynamic. The community has turned itself 180-degrees from reactive to proactive, albeit without a widely adopted standardization in responsiblity / disclosure (which in itself has led to a significant uprise in baseless, malicious disclosures by the 13-year-old next door, savvy with his laptop and his illegitmate copy of AppScan). Continue reading ‘WebAppSec and Consumer Ignorance’
Is Anyone Safe Anymore?
One might say that the U.S. justice system's accountability practices might be in danger in this generation, where relative, but separate incidents could be contributed to the delinquency of another individual. Such is the case involving a 'high-speed police chase' between Christopher Jones and the Phoenix, Arizona police department ( http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/27/helicopter.crash/index.html ), wherein the course of the chase, two CIVILIAN news agency helicopters collided in mid-air and went down. Preliminary reports by the NTSB estimated that the collision occurred due to the close proximity of the helicopters to one another, but have not determined whether it was any sort of avionics issue, such as a defective rotor system, that may have caused either to lose control.
There are grave inconsistencies in the implementation of secure communications that have left the consumer at great odds with a new generation of talented, albeit immature, data thiefs. Catching a segment of traffic out of the air or through a piggy-back of a stream of packets brings concern to this scene veteran's mind.
Food for thought, something I would like to get feedback on, enviromental detachment from prosecuted activity. What do I mean by this? With the advent of technologies that we have today, it is becoming increasingly more standard/popular to telecommute taskings than to jointly, in communion, attack a project as a sole group of integrated professionals. Where does this lead us? Is everyone to become a 'freelance'… anything? Can a whole-team concept be effectively transmitted and sustained across wires, electrical circuits, fiber optics, microwaves and light energy for any extended period of time? Does this shift us into the next step in evolution of the wired/connected generation? Do the consequences gain as dramatic an impact when business decisions are corrupted, poorly executed or erroneous? Continue reading ‘Environmental detachment, what is it gaining us?’
