Daily Archives: June 17, 2012
Fair use and the Joyce Estate
“When I proposed a James Joyce biography to my publisher, I was aware that the deadliest booby trap on the road ahead was the Joyce estate’s explosive trustee, Stephen James Joyce, the author’s grandson.”
Yesterday was Bloomsday — the first Bloomsday in which Ulysses is in the public domain. The Daily Beast celebrated by publishing a nice piece by Gordon Bowker, the great man’s latest biographer
Missing in action
This blog went missing yesterday, for reasons that were entirely ridiculous, not to say predictable: it was moved to a different server. My web-hosting service had, of course, alerted me well in advance that this would happen but — well, you can guess the rest: the email got swamped in the tide that floods my inbox and…
After I’d reset the DNS pointers, it took 24 hours for the change to ripple through. If you’re a regular reader, please accept my apologies. As usual, incompetence rather than conspiracy provides the best explanation.
Flaming hell: we need a new security paradigm
This morning’s Observer column about the implications of the Flame virus.
The PC security business does offer a degree of protection from the evils of malware, but suffers from one structural problem: its products are, by definition, reactive. When a particular piece of malicious software appears, it is analysed in order to determine its distinctive “signature”, which will enable it to be detected when it arrives at your machine. Then a remedy is devised and an update or “patch” issued – which is why your PC is forever inviting you to download updates – and why IT support people always look pityingly at you when you explain sheepishly that you failed to perform the aforementioned downloads.
So the security companies are always playing catch-up, profitably slamming stable doors after the horses have bolted. Until recently, the industry has tactfully refrained from emphasising this point, and most of its customers have been too clueless to notice.
This cosy arrangement was too good to last, and a few weeks ago the industry’s cover was finally blown…