List of Archived Posts

2010 Newsgroup Postings (11/24 - 12/18)

CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
origin of 'fields'?
Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III
The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
origin of 'fields'?
Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III
What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
No command, and control
The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
OODA in highly stochastic environments
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Sandboxing: Understanding System Containment
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Dataspaces or 64 bit storage
64 bit mode disabled
They always think we don't understand
The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
EPO's (Emergency Power Off)
The Scariest Company in Tech
A small amount of Evidence. (In which, the end of banking and the rise of markets is suggested.)
The Mobile Device Is Becoming Humankind's Primary Tool
Philosophy: curiousity question
Cyber-crime: bigger than the drugs trade, and growing
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Outsourcing and COTS
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Language first, hardware second
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Language first, hardware second
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
The Great Cyberheist
The Varieties of Virtualization
Which non-IBM software products (from ISVs) have been most significant to the mainframe's success?
WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
Ratio of workers to retirees
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
The Great Cyberheist
WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
The Great Cyberheist
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Line printers still in use on mainframe-class systems?
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
From OODA to AAADA
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Daisywheel Question: 192-character Printwheel Types
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
No command, and control
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Moody's hints at move that could be catastrophic for US debt
TCM's Moguls documentary series
origin of 'fields'?
Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
From OODA to AAADA
TCM's Moguls documentary series
Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes
Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
TCM's Moguls documentary series
The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series
TCM's Moguls documentary series

CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 24 Nov, 2010
Subject: CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
Blog: Payment Systems Network
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#67 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#82 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#84 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future

EU central banks didn't differentiate between "stored-value" and "electronic cash" ... they were treated as value present in the cards ... and the EU central banks made announcement that interest would have to start being paid on the value in cards (use of term "electronic cash" may have been obfuscation attempt to bypass the interest paying rule).

Several of the operators sponsored internet standard for value transfer (of their products) via internet ... IOTP internet standard was 2801 ... the 2801 abstract happen to mention several such products that it was intended to support. (including geldkart).

The EAL4+ evaluation was because it was done for fully deploy'able operating chip including all the crypto ... as would be used in hands of typical customer. There were lots of "bare" chip evaluations at higher level. I was going for higher than EAL4 ... but NIST pulled the crypto evaluation criteria (for higher level evaluation).

The (trivial to clone/counterfeit chip&pin) YES CARDS apparently started appearing in 1999 (according to cartes2002 presentation) and continued ... secret service made presentations at ATM Integrity Task Force meetings in 2003 including YES CARD activity (based on presentation, somebody observed that billions had been spent to prove that chips were less secure than magstripe)

Trusted computing had trusted computing module (i.e. security chip) ... most of the same vendors doing security chips for financial industry were leveraging the technology for TPM ... trusted computing was integral part of PCs (for intel) and so there was lots of attention being paid at the intel developer's forum (even tho intel wasn't actually producing any such chips). I did do an exercise with taking semi-custom security chip design and doing fully custom (reduce number of circuits by possibly factor of 50 times, slightly faster with nearly corresponding 50times reduction in power & 50 times as many chips per wafer) ... which was also small enough to possibly include in the corner of an existing chip (that might be used in PC or cellphone ... trivially support TPM function at the same time doing x9.59 financial transactions). A couple yrs ago some of the POS terminal vendors looked adding such a TPM feature to their terminals.

In the mid-90s, when it still looked like intel might get into security chips and their people would attend x9a10 financial standard working group meetings. At one point, intel offered to underwrite/subsidize the hardware cost for implementing secure internet transactions (this was before tpm). it seemed to throw the payment industry into decision paralysis ... seemed to be a lot of concern that the existing players would loose control of the industry. when intel changed its mind about security chip business, some went to work in redmond ... but continued to participate in x9 standards activity. There were lots of meetings in Redmond and there is boat loads of detail with regard to business decisions about what to support and not support.

disclaimer: i was con'ed into interviewing for chief security architect in redmond ... it went on for a couple weeks, but never could come to agreement on the terms.

The TPM in POS terminal scenario from a couple years ago were ISOs (independent sales organizations) were placing terminals at merchants for "free" ... and making it up with uplift on per transaction charge. The problem was that other ISOs were coming in and "compromising" the terminal (by reconfiguring it so the transactions were for the pirate ISO). The "pirate" ISOs didn't have to uplift the per transaction charge ... since they didn't have the expense of providing a "free" POS.

PIN nominally is something you know authentication as countermeasure to lost/stolen (something you have) card/token. Basic concept is that multi-factor authentication has higher security given an assumption that the different factors have independent compromises. This has come under attack for pin+magstripe in skimming compromises (both PIN & magstripe are skimmed at the same time, invalidating assumption about independent compromises). In the case, of the counterfeit chip&pin YES CARD, the counterfeit card would always say YES that it was the correct "PIN", regardless of what was entered (as well as always saying YES to offline transaction and YES to transaction within limit).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

origin of 'fields'?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: origin of 'fields'?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:30:11 -0500
Chris Barts <chbarts+usenet@gmail.com> writes:
>Yesterday, upon the stair,
>I met a man who wasn't there
>He wasn't there again today
>I wish, I wish he'd go away...

I think he's with the CIA.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigonish_(poem)


from long ago and far away ... as undergraduate I was doing a lot of system stuff which the vendor would ship in their product ... even getting requests from the vendor to do something or other. I didn't learn about these guys until much later
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml

however, in retrospect, some of the requested items may have originated from such organizations. notice reference in the above about remember/notice the people (above predates vm370, in the days of cp67)

later reference to the "CIA Mods" on the (vm370/cms) "waterloo" tape
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#42 VM/370 Release 6 Waterloo tape (CIA MODS)

some of them were active on vmshare (tymshare provided their vm370/cms based computer conferencing "free" to the user group SHARE starting in aug76) ... archived here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/

in the vmshare archive search ... enter the name from the CIA MODS posting.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Nov, 2010
Subject: Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III
Blog: KrebsonSecurity
Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/05/fun-with-atm-skimmers-part-iii/

US had rather large pilot the early part of this century¦ but it was in the YES CARD period ... 'trivial to clone/counterfeit a card' ... reference to cartes2002 presentation on YES CARD that first appeared in 1999 (original gone 404, but lives on at wayback machine), mentioned at end of page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030417083810/http://www.smartcard.co.uk/resources/articles/cartes2002.html

secret service made presentation at ATM Integrity Task Force meeting in 2003 that included some YES CARD stats & details ... which prompted somebody in the audience to comment that billions were spent to prove chips are less secure than magstripe.

In any case, evidence of the pilot appeared to evaporate w/o a trace. My impression is that it could be some time before it is attempted again ... this time allowing others to thoroughly vet the technology.

POS terminals would ask card 3 questions: 1) is PIN correct, 2) is it offline transaction, 3) is transaction within credit limit. Countermeasure to counterfeit magstripe is to deactive the account so online transaction don't go through. With counterfeit YES CARD, don't need to know correct PIN (everything entered is accepted) and the transactions are always offline, so account deactivation has no effect, and all transactions are accepted regardless of value.

One of the issues of compromised ATMs is, in some cases, been done during manufacturing (no external evidence).

Note the US reluctance to deploy chip technology ... isn't so much the cost of a single deployment (such arguments are frequently obfuscation and misdirection); they've already tried it once and had to back off ... the current situation is possibly concern that there might have to be the cost of a large number of deployments (after already being burned once)

misc. past posts mentioning YES CARD
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#yescard

disclaimer: I use to have several offices and labs at Los Gatos lab ... mentioned here with regard to ATM machines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3624

and managing magstripe standard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Nov, 2010
Subject: The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
Blog: Payment Systems
a prior reference to the '97 UK ibm/safeway trial has gone 404 www-03.ibm.com/industries/financialservices/doc/content/solution/1026217103.html

however, the '97 UK ibm/safeway trial is mentioned here:
http://www-07.ibm.com/solutions/hk/banking/payments/emv/technical.html

and the 404 URL lives on at the wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20061102063039/http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/financialservices/doc/content/solution/1026217103.html

part of the issue in the '90s was a lot of dithering over chips for SDA versus the power-hungry and expensive beasts for DDA. The challenge by the transit industry, in that time-frame, was come up with a chip that was more secure than the "DDA chips" ... while being much cheaper than the "SDA chips" and being able to securely do a (contactless) x9.59 financial standard transaction within the transit turnstile elapsed time and power limitation requirements.

past posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#40 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#46 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#49 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#50 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#51 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#53 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#54 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#56 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#77 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#81 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

origin of 'fields'?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: origin of 'fields'?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 15:34:44 -0500
"Joe Morris" <j.c.morris@verizon.net> writes:
As a note for readers who weren't around in the high days of the mainframe VM community...CIA representatives to SHARE were open about their employment. There was even a bit of humor in CIA's membership in SHARE: its installation code was CAD - as in "Cloak And Dagger". (And before someone asks, the membership lists were published with both names and installation codes, and meeting badges showed both.)

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#1 origin of 'fields'?

in the past decade, had a visit to them (something to do with financial industry); required to make advanced preparations so was on the visitor list out at the front guard bldg. I had assumed that vm use had long been discontinued ... but when checking in at the guard bldg, the visitor list was on computer fanfold paper with vm "separator" page printed on top.

for other drift ... old email mentioning the installation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#email830420
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#57 any 70's era supercomputers that ran as slow as today's supercomputers?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Nov, 2010
Subject: Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III
Blog: KrebsonSecurity
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#2 Fun with ATM Skimmers, Part III

... part of recent post in linkedin payment system thread ...
part of the issue in the '90s was a lot of dithering over chips for SDA versus the power-hungry and expensive beasts for DDA. The challenge by the transit industry, in that time-frame, was come up with a chip that was more secure than the "DDA chips" ... while being significantly cheaper than the "SDA chips" and being able to securely do a contactless x9.59 financial standard transaction within the transit turnstile elapsed time and power limitation requirements.

.... i.e.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#3 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty

nearly all of the chips associated with the paradigm (that YES CARD vulnerability was associated with) were insecure and/or extremely expensive ...with various other shortcomings.

disclaimer: we had been called in to consult with small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; they had also invented technology called "SSL" they wanted to use; it is now frequently called "electronic commerce". somewhat as result in the mid-90s we were asked to participate in the x9a10 financial standard working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for all retail payments (i.e. ALL as in debit, credit, ach, stored-value, POS, unattended, wireless, contactless, high-value, low-value, internet, aka ALL).

I was co-author of the resulting x9.59 financial transaction standard ...that also eliminated the threats & vulnerabilities from skimming, breaches, and harvesting information from previous transactions.

Part of being able to apply x9.59 was then doing a chip that also met all the same requirements (have extremely high security while at the same time have as close to zero cost as possible) and be useable for ALL environments.

x9.59 reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

Basically x9.59 financial transaction transaction is sent to the chip ... which returns a code that is unique to that transaction ... which is added to the transaction before sending off to be processed. The transaction processing includes verification of the unique transaction code as a form of authentication.

Current skimming and breach exploits use harvested (static) information to perform (new) fraudulent financial transaction (basically a form of replay attack, current paradigm, there is no transaction unique information, static information from previous transactions are sufficient) ... usually as far away as possible from the compromised end-point (to maximize compromise ROI).

X9.59 eliminated all such replay attacks (with non-static, unique code for every transaction). As aside, the major use of SSL in the world today is this earlier work for "electronic commerce" to hide transaction details. Since X9.59 eliminates transaction detail information leakage as a vulnerability, it is no longer necessary to hide transactions details (as countermeasure to replay attack fraudulent financial transactions) ... and therefor also eliminates the major use of SSL in the world today (this earlier work we did for "electronic commerce").

X9.59 didn't eliminate exploits where compromised end-point actually performs a fraudulent transaction (as opposed to skimming information to perform a replay attack fraudulent transaction someplace else). However, reducing fraudulent transactions to only the end-points that have been compromised ... does make them much easier to identify and quicker to shutdown.

X9.59 did provide for allowing both the account owner's chip as well as the transaction environment (aka "end-point") to provide unique transaction codes ... so that both the account owner and the end-point can be authenticated on every transaction. This minimizes problem with counterfeit end-points and also helps speedup identification of compromised endpoints (that may be performing fraudulent transactions).

The static data paradigm results in millions of places all over the planet where the information might be harvested. PIN-debit transactions can be done at counter POS terminals (where costs are well under hundred dollars) ... as a point of compromise. Then the static data is used to produce a counterfeit card (along with PIN) that is used at ATM machines (and/or other POS terminals) , which haven't been compromised.

A lot of stories that make into public news are related to things that consumers might actually be able to do something (like recognize overlays). Lots of other exploits rarely make it into the public news.

X9.59 does nothing for armed robberies ... but enormously eliminates the other kinds of financial threats ... and the ROI on credit/debit card armed robberies is drastically lower (enormously more effort per each transaction, with much greater risk to the criminal)

I was tangentially involved in the Cal. state data breach notification legislation having been brought in to help wordsmith the Cal. electronic signature legislation. Several of the participants were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done detailed, in-depth consumer privacy surveys. The #1 issue was identify theft, namely the form of fraudulent financial transactions against existing accounts because of data breaches (another form of static data vulnerability, similar to skimming). There seemed to be little or nothing being done about breaches ... and it was apparently hoped that the press resulting from the notifications would prompt some corrective action.

As a side-note, most security is motivated by self-interest ... protecting ones own assets. In the case of breaches ... it is the account owners that are at risk, and usually unrelated to the entities that experience the breach.

I didn't make it to crypto conference where MD5 break was first presented in rump session ... but somebody in the rump session sent me an email in real time ... asking if I would identify all internet standards that reference MD5 ... so I added it as part of my internet standard index information.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcmd5.htm

Part of the x9.59 and the chip effort was something called parameterised risk management ... which could associate integrity level of all components involved in transaction and, if necessary update it in real time. Transaction can then be evaluated based on whether minimum integrity levels of the components met the requirement for performing the transaction.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 27 Nov, 2010
Subject: What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
Blog: Financial Cryptography
What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001268.html

big part of securitization coming to dominate finance was that the sellers could buy triple-A ratings (when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A); securitization had been used during the S&L crisis to obfuscate the underlying values ... but w/o anywhere near the success that comes with being able to buy triple-A.

there were enormous fees and commissions related to dealing in the securitization transactions ... providing sufficient individual greed motivation to overcome any concern regarding what the transactions might have on the institution, economy, and/or country. The NY comptroller had report that wall street bonuses spiked over 400% during the bubble (lots of subsequent activity to prevent bonuses from returning to pre-bubble levels) and other reports that financial services industry tripled during the bubble (as percent of GDP & providing no positive benefit to society). The report about total of $27T in such transactions during the bubble, easily accounting for the bonus & industry size spike (only part of the total siphoned out of the infrastructure doing the bubble).
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

Sarbanes-Oxley actually included something about having SEC look at rating agencies ... but didn't actually result in anything. In fact, it appeared like SEC was doing little or nothing during the period; as evidence in the Madoff hearings by the person that tried for decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff. Possibly because GAO also didn't think that SEC was doing anything, even after SOX ... GAO started doing reports about audits of public company financial filings showing increase in fraudulent filings and/or audit errors (even after SOX). A question then is 1) SOX had no effect on fraudulent filings, 2) SOX motivated the increase in fraudulent filings, 3) if it wasn't for SOX, all financial filings would be fraudulent.

Don't look at it as the institutional motivation for doing or not doing anything. There was enormous, wide-spread, unbridled, personal greed that totally overwhelmed everything else (even assuming any concern for institution, economy and/or country).

supposedly commodities market were for traders that had substantial interest in the commodity ... to keep out speculators that would result in large irrational price fluctuations ... but after a series of confidential/secret letters allowing major speculators to play ... the market started to have huge fluctuations.

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
https://www.amazon.com/Griftopia-Machines-Vampire-Breaking-America/dp/0385529953

Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility
https://www.amazon.com/Comeback-America-Turning-Restoring-Responsibility/dp/1400068606

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 27 Nov, 2010
Subject: What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
Blog: Financial Cryptography
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#6 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

one of the explanations was that executives could boost their compensation significantly with the erroneous filings and even if they were later restated ... the extra compensation *WAS NOT* reclaimed

'Financial Statement Restatements: Trends, Market Impacts, Regulatory Responses, and Remaining Challenges'
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-138

from above:
While the average number of companies listed on NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex decreased 20 percent from 9,275 in 1997 to 7,446 in 2002, the number of listed companies restating their financials increased from 83 in 1997 to a projected 220 in 2002 (a 165 percent increase) (table 1). Based on these projections, the proportion of listed companies restating on a yearly basis is expected to more than triple from 0.89 percent in 1997 to almost 3 percent by the end of 2002. In total, the number of restating companies is expected to represent about 10 percent of the average number of listed companies from 1997 to 2002.

... snip ...

along with

Financial Statement Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03395r.pdf

and more recent update (2006)

Financial Restatements: Update of Public Company Trends, Market Impacts, and Regulatory Enforcement Activities
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06678.pdf

and:

Financial Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061053r.pdf
and update
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1079sp

from above:
The database consists of two files: (1) a file that lists 1,390 restatement announcements that we identified as having been made because of financial reporting fraud and/or accounting errors between July 1, 2002, and September 30, 2005, and (2) a file that lists 396 restatement announcements that we identified as having been made because of financial reporting fraud and/or accounting errors between October 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006.

... snip ...

with regard to securization, a great deal of the loans were by unregulated loan originators that would have had very little money to lend w/o being able to pay the rating agencies for triple-A ratings for everything they packaged. Since they could immediately sell off everything they wrote regardless of quality as triple-A, they no longer had to care about loan quality or borrowers qualification (only thing limiting their income was how fast they could make loans, and how big they could make them).

Speculators found the no-documentation, no-down, 1% interest only payments extremely attractive ... possibly 2000% ROI in parts of the country with 20-30% real-estate inflation (with the speculation further fueling the inflation). The enormous speculation and inflation help create the appearance that demand was significantly larger than actually existed. This resulted in all sorts of infrastructure investment for demand that didn't exist. When the bubble bursts the effects spread thru-out the economy.

There have been a number of reports regarding the events leading up to the repeal of Glass-Steagall (including the account in Griftopia mentioned upthread) which eliminated the separation of investment banking and regulated depository institutions. The investment banking operations then participated in the securitization frenzy ... heavily involving those financial institutions in the bubble.

Early last year, I was asked to take a copy of Pecora hearing (which had been scanned the previous fall at the Boston public library), html it, heavily cross-index, and also provide some number of references between what happened then corresponding to what happened this time (apparently in anticipation that the new congress had appetite to do something about it). After putting quite a bit of effort into the project, i got a call saying it wouldn't be needed after all. There is direct relationship between the 20s Brokers' Loans that were at basis of the '29 bubble/crash and the securitized funded loans that were behind this bubble/crash (some $27T in triple-A rated toxic CDO transactions)
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

item from member of Boyd "mafia" (early days of OODA-loop):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_C._Spinney

Wall Street Does NOT Produce Value
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/11/reference-wall-street-does-not-produce-value/

recommending

What Good Is Wall Street? Much of what investment bankers do is socially worthless.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/29/101129fa_fact_cassidy

There is a industry publication that gives detail industry operations ... couple hundred pages, possibly 50-60 lines per page ... the avg for the major regional banks compared to the major (too big to fail) national banks. For whatever reason, just as the bubble was starting, the regional bank operation avgs. were slightly better than the national banks avg (implying that the national banks should have been allowed to get smaller, rather than getting larger).

extract from GRIFTOPIA
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/222206

earlier article by the author
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64796

book by author "What Good Is Wall Street"

How Markets Fail
https://www.amazon.com/How-Markets-Fail-Economic-Calamities/dp/0374173206

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

No command, and control

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 28 Nov, 2010
Subject: No command, and control
Blog: Disciples of Boyd's Strategy
No command, and control
http://www.economist.com/node/17572232

Boyd also talked about reviewing yearly exercises where those in command had spent their time playing golf all year while their staff practiced ... and when it came time for the rubber to meet the road, they didn't perform well (either).

lots of command&control hasn't been about people or ideas but about logistics and stimulus/response, these are areas that technology has had lots of improvement in the last 30 yrs. 30yrs ago technology had enormous limitations on amount of realistic inputs, processing, and output.

trivial example of change ...

USAF officers slammed for pranging Predators on manual
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/29/young_usaf_predator_pilot_officer_slam/

One of the limitations in real-time, realistic (war) gaming is the limitations on processing power. The issue is that computers have been stalled for a couple decades in getting faster and the work-around has to package multiple processors (cores; this in turn scales-up to the massive supercomputers ... which for last 20 years have effectively been increasing aggregations of cores). In the computer programming industry in general ... but also in the gaming industry, a "holy grail" is how to decompose processing into parallel operations. For the most part, the human programmers represent operations as a sequence of serialized tasks ... unable to take advantage of the independent, parallel processing available.

Rapid, agile game development is dependent on very few individuals that are skilled at translating real-world environment into parallel, non-serialized/non-sequential operations (taking advantage of current parallel computational resources) ... with about the only alternative being very painful and time-consuming refinement, attempting to adapt sequence of serialized operations into independent parallel operations (short-cuts have been to utliize specific well-worn constructs that partition well-understood or well-practiced operations).

Some of this is possibly related to the references about effective maximum sized command unit of around 150 ... above that the human processing appears to saturate and is less effective. In the realistic, real-world gaming ... the technology power is there in the form of large number of processing units ... but there is distinct shortage of human skill in being able to represent real-world tasks as parallel operations. There has been 20yrs of floundering around hoping for some automated solution ... that or some technology break-thru that resumes increasing the speed of sequential processors.

I would contend that there is quite a bit of overlap between the limitations of the majority of computer programmers having difficulty understanding (and representing) real-world as parallel operations ... and commanders being able to make sense of large number of concurrent activities.

Blade, Intel Push Parallel Programming, Software's Holy Grail
http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-center/blade-intel-push-parallel-programming-so/229503067

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 28 Nov, 2010
Subject: The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
Blog: IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#83 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

hint ... sunday night and into monday morning ... the floor nets were repeatedly crashing with packet storms.

for somewhat unrelated ... see my rfc index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm

part of it, I use to help Postel with piece of "STD-1"

for other topic drift ... the internal corporate network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until possibly late '85 or early '86.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

I contend one reason was that the internal network effectively had a form of gateway in nearly every node from just about the beginning. The arpanet/internet didn't really get that gateway capability until the great cut-over to internetworking on 1/1/83 ... which was significant factor in the internet catching up with the internal network. The other factor was the internal network restricted workstations and PCs to "terminal emulation" function ... which started to see big explosion in the mid-80s as internet nodes.

Disclaimer: with regard to NSFNET backbone being precursor to modern internet ... we were working with some of the locations that would become NSFNET backbone locations ... some old email from the period
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet

then when the NSFNET backbone RFP came out ... we were prevented from bidding. The director of NSF along with backing from some agency chief scientists, wrote a letter to the company 3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM CEO) requesting our involvement. This appeared to just further inflame the internal politics. References to what we already had running being at least five years ahead of all the RFP responses (to build something new), didn't help.

At Interop '88, I had some stuff in one of the booths ... but it was for a totally different organization (than the one that I was affiliated with at the time). One of the other features of Interop '88 was many of the booths were heavily oriented towards (the gov mandated) GOSIP.

IBM paid for much of BITNET ... which used technology similar to the internal network ... and then for EARN in Europe. Old email from person responsible for setting up EARN in Europe looking for some help:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320

This is reference to HTML evolving from SGML at CERN (GML had been invented at the science center in 1969 ... and then standardized as SGML a decade later)
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/

and then the first webserver outside CERN on the slac vm system
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/earlyweb/history.shtml

Big problem with original HTTP was that it was nearly stateless per transaction run on top of TCP ... which has a minimum seven packet exchange ... with a long tail on closings. There was period as webserver loads started to rampup where servers were spending 90% of their CPU running the FINWAIT list (closing TCP session).

We had been called in to consult with small client/server startup that wanted to do payment transactions on their server, they had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use (its now frequently called "electronic commerce"). As the load on their servers started to pickup (both HTTP & HTTPS), the FINWAIT list problem resulted in them adding more and more servers. They finally installed a large Sequent server which had solved the FINWAIT problem for large commercial installations (predating appearance of problem heavy HTTP using TCP).

I still claim that large missing piece of OSI was gateway and internetworking ... much more like the 60s & 70s networking architecture ... which also reflected single infrastructure "owned" network.

One of the commercialization changes was RFC copyright rights .... I had been very careful with regard to using any material from RFCs after the copyright policy change ... but still had to hire a copyright attorney to talk with ISOC.

I had been on xtp technical advisery board ... which had a reliable transaction with minimum 3-packet exchange ... that would have been much more sensible for (reliable) HTTP/HTTPS transaction if you weren't going to do longer lived sessions.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#xtphsp

I did have final authority on the interface between webservers and the payment gateways (sat on internet and handled interface between the internet and the payment network) and could mandate various things ... however, I could only recommend details on browser/webserver interface. One of the things I mandated for payment gateway was multiple A-record support for establishing connection ... but even given presentations to the browser group had a much harder time getting them to budge (claim was multiple A-record was too advanced, even after I provided them example client code from 4.3Tahoe; I guess it wasn't in some college text). I was still fighting the browser multiple A-record support at the time of Spring96 MDC at Moscone ... and IE had hired some oldtimers that knew about such things.

4.3Tahoe was possible one of the biggest reasons for proliferation of TCP/IP. There are stories about DARPA constantly telling CSRG that they weren't allowed to do networking, CSRG saying "yes, they wouldn't", and then kept on doing it.

There was sequence when VERIFONE bought EIT ... (my impression was VERIFONE looking for expertise to move upstream into e-commerce). Then HP bought VERIFONE, the HP executive that VERIFONE reported to, had us in several times to talk about electronic commerce.

Part of ASN.1 came in from the x.50x stuff, PKIs, and digital certificates. There was annual ACM database conference (SIGMOD) in san jose in the early 90s, and during a large panel session in the ballroom, somebody asked what was this x.50x stuff all about. The response was a bunch of networking engineers attempting to re-invent 1960s database technology.

There were a number of specifications for payment transactions on the internet in the early to mid 90s. One such specification was by the card associations that included appending digital certificates on every transaction. A big issue was that the typically appended digital certificate payload was 100 times larger than the typical payment transaction payload. Somewhat as a result, in their "payment gateway", all the PKI gorp was stripped off and just a flag was turned on (in actual payment transaction) claiming that all the PKI gorp stuff had been done correctly. Later, there was presentation at ISO meeting in europe by card association business person giving statistics on payment transactions with the PKI flag turned on ... and they could prove that no PKI was ever involved (motivation was rules that charged less for "PKI" transactions and/or possibly actual fraud). The other downside (besides the 100* PKI payload bloat), was that it also resulted in something like 100* computational bloat.

Lots of the Internet is pretty hostile environment. Windows networking had come up from closed, safe business networking environments ... w/o any concern for protection and countermeasures. It was relatively straight-forward to technically adapt that platform support to internet environment ... but it opened the way for all sorts of vulnerabilities.

The spring '96 MDC at moscone had all sorts of banners about internet support ... but the constant subtheme was "protect your investment" (visual basic based application stuff); coming from the (safe, closed) business environment ...including programs automatically executing scripts when processing application files. Translating that to the anarchy of the internet opened up all sorts of problems. Up until then, buffer overflows dominated cause of internet exploits (primarily because of characteristic of C programming language; tcp/ip stacks implemented in various other languages didn't suffer such large number of buffer overflow exploits). Automated script execution exploits grew until they passed buffer overflows as major cause of internet exploits.

Also during that MDC, Jim Gray was also holding open house down the street for his new research center.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081115000000*/http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gray/

The payment gateway (for "electronic commerce") was replicated and had multiple connections into different parts of the internet backbone ... with support for advertising different routes to handle various internet failure modes, outages, downtime, etc. During the early payment gateway period, the backbone transitioned to hierarchial routing (pretty much eliminating route advertising) ... forcing fall-back to multiple A-records (with client connection support) as means for masking failures. I could mandate use by webservers (for connecting to payment gateway), but as previously mentioned it was a battle to get the browser group to support it.

One of the big early e-commerce servers was a sporting goods merchant that advertised heavily on Sunday football games ... and was expected heavy traffic during half-times. However, in this time-frame, many of the service providers had several hour outages on sunday for doing router maintenance (before the days of telco provisioning for major service providers). Even though the merchant had multiple connections into different parts of the internet backbone ... w/o browser supporting multiple A-record ... it wasn't possible to mask the outages from lots of end-users.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

OODA in highly stochastic environments

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 28 Nov, 2010
Subject: OODA in highly stochastic environments
Blog: Disciples of Boyd's Strategy
During Organic Command & Control briefing, Boyd would touch on American business heavily suffering from rigid, top-down, command & control structure that the army put in place for WW2 ... i.e. had to field large numbers of inexperienced resources and the rigid structure leveraged the few experienced skills available. Later as many of those young officers left the army and started to populate the American business executive ranks, they tended to replicate that rigid, top-down, C&C (assuming vast numbers of unskilled workers).

Boyd's observation has also been used to explain recent reports that the ratio of US business executive to worker compensation had exploded to 400:1 after having been 20:1 for a long time and 10:1 in much of the rest of the world.

An exception was possibly engineering combat groups. My wife's father had commanded 8th armored 53rd engineering combat battalion. Then in mid-44, he was given command of the 1154th engineering combat group ... engineering combat groups were relatively fluid operations, typically with 3-6 battalions that were attached, detached and moved around as needed. I've done some research on 1154th status reports at the national archives ... from one such:

On 28 Apr we were put in D/S of the 13th Armd and 80th Inf Divs and G/S Corps Opns. The night of the 28-29 April we cross the DANUBE River and the next day we set-up our OP in SCHLOSS PUCHHOF (vic PUCHOFF); an extensive structure remarkable for the depth of its carpets, the height of its rooms, the profusion of its game, the superiority of its plumbing and the fact that it had been owned by the original financial backer of the NAZIS, Fritz Thyssen. Herr Thyssen was not at home.

Forward from the DANUBE the enemy had been very active, and an intact bridge was never seen except by air reconnaissance. Maintenance of roads and bypasses went on and 29 April we began constructing 835' of M-2 Tdwy Br, plus a plank road approach over the ISAR River at PLATTLING. Construction was completed at 1900 on the 30th. For the month of April we had suffered no casualties of any kind and Die Gotterdamerung was falling, the last days of the once mighty WEHRMACHT.


... snip ...

The army divisions had strategic objectives with regard to the enemy. The engineering combat groups were much more fluid operations attempting to dynamically adapt to dealing with environmental conditions.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:35:18 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
I liked handling cards. I hated handling papertape. I would rather have my data in cards than on magtape.

Cards were great; DECtapes were the best.


I got summer job at the univ. doing port of 1401 MPIO to 360 assembler. The univ. had 709 with 1401 front-end for doing unit-record; cards were read to tape on 1401 and the tape moved to 709 tape drive. the 709 did tape-to-tape processing and the resulting output tape was moved to 1401 tape drive for output to printer/punch (MPIO was 1401 program that handle card-to-tape and tape-to-printer/punch).

As part of eventually replacing the 709/1401 with 360/67, a 360/30 was brought in to replace the 1401. While 360/30 had 1401 hardware emulation mode and could run MPIO directly, I got hired to rewrite it in 360 assembler; except for requirement to duplicate MPIO function, i got to design and implement my own program; dispatcher, interrupt handlers, device drivers, error recover, storage management, etc.

The datacenter shutdown at 8am sat. and didn't re-open until 8am mon ... so I had the machine room for 48hr period. I also got other programming jobs ... and in the fall it was little difficult going to monday morning class after not having slept for 48hrs.

The source assembler program eventaully grew to approx. 2000 cards (could still fit in card box). The 360 assembler took a minimum 30 minutes to assemble the source and produce "TXT" deck (i.e. deck of hex cards for execution loading). Since it took so long to assemble ... i got pretty good at duplicating cards & punching patches. The "TXT" deck just had hex "holes" ... no printing across the top and the 026 keypunch was alphanumeric ... to get the correct combination of "hex" holes, had to used "multi-punch" feature ... use keyboard to force combination of holes to be punched. Put the original card in the duplication slot and then duplicate out to the columns for the patch ... multi-punch the new hole combinations and then duplication the remaining columns.

Got fairly good at being able to interpret the hex holes in "TXT" deck ... having to fan the deck to find the card that had the correct displacement in the program (for applying the patch). Was typically able to do patches in much less time than it took to re-assemble.

past post containing format of TXT card (as well as table for hex punch hole combinations):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#69 IBM System/3 & 3277-1

much, much later I was at SJR in san jose and my brother was regional apple marketing rep (supposedly had largest physical region in CONUS). He would come to town periodically and I could go to business dinners with him. Got to argue with some of the mac developers about design ... before the mac was even announced.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:39:48 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
much, much later I was at SJR in san jose and my brother was regional apple marketing rep (supposedly had largest physical region in CONUS). He would come to town periodically and I could go to business dinners with him. Got to argue with some of the mac developers about design ... before the mac was even announced.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#11 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

other random apple trivia ... my brother figured out how to dial into the apple hdqtrs business computer (which was a s/38 at the time) from his apple-II to track manufacturing schedules and deliveries.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Sandboxing: Understanding System Containment

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 30 Nov, 2010
Subject: Sandboxing: Understanding System Containment
Blog: infosec island
re:
https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/9892-Sandboxing-Understanding-System-Containment.html

virtual machine reference from late 60s & early 70s, in addition to "sand box" was "padded room". reference from long ago and far away:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml

... virtual machines provided partitioning and containment ... but still allowed individuals to shoot themselves in the foot. some of the virtual machine based online timesharing service bureaus (an earlier "cloud" paradigm) added features to the virtual machine environment to help prevent their uses from (also) "shooting themselves in the foot."

current genre of mainframes offer both virtual machine operating system and a subset of the virtual machine features supported directly by the hardware (not requiring additional software) called LPARs. Standard production environments (even w/o virtual machine operating systems) are normally configurated/partitioned with environments that are regularly referred to as "sand box" and/or "test".

trivia: some number of the CTSS people went to the science center on 4th flr and did the cp67 precursor to vm/cms (some number then left science center and did some of the early virtual machine based online timesharing service bureaus); others from CTSS went to the 5th flr and did Multics.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

-- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:25:20 -0500
Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> writes:
Payroll systems could be argued to be the hardest part of rocket science. Shooting rockets off only need deal with physical reality, but payroll needs deal with physical reality and acts of Congress and state legislatures not to mention all sorts of government regulations.

i periodically mention the economic conference from a couple years ago where one of the news stations broadcast a roundtable of economists. they said the tax code (that was constantly being twiddled) was 65,000+ pages. The proposal was that going to flat tax would reduce the tax code to 400-500 pages and vastly improve the productivity of the country.

there were statements that lobbying tax code (constant twiddling) contributes to congress being the most corrupt institution on earth. that changing to flattax & 400-500 page tax code would gain something like 6 percent GDP (currently lost dealing with the special provisions). It would also significantly reduce the enormous high-level level of corruption. That 6percent would be much larger benefit offsetting any loss of possible positive benefits buried in those 65,000+ pages.

The roundtable ended with semi-humourous observation that one of those lobbying against the flat-tax change was Ireland ... supposedly some number of the companies relocating to Ireland gave as reason the problems dealing with US tax code.

misc. past posts referencing the (flat tax) roundtable:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#71 Cormpany sponsored insurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#49 Taxes
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#43 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#83 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#20 China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#13 64 Cores -- IBM is showing a prototype already
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#31 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#39 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#48 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#49 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#40 F.B.I. Faces New Setback in Computer Overhaul
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#88 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#37 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#58 History--automated payroll processing by other than a computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#69 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#73 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#59 They always think we don't understand

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:52:07 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#12 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

by comparison ... projected NASA budget for 2011 is $19billion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

this pegs 2011 US GDP at nearly $15T
http://www.forecasts.org/gdp.htm

making NASA budget (rockets) slightly over tenth of a percent of GDP (about 1/50th that of claimed cost of dealing with tax code).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:00:42 -0500
ArarghMail011NOSPAM writes:
I have never found any OCR software that does a decent job on line printer listings. I have quite a few hundred pages of listings that I would love to process.

I have had the best luck with a very lame brute force program that I wrote, and it's not all that good.


somewhat related to recent post mentioning congress is the most corrupt institution on earth:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#15 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I've mentioned before early last year, I was asked to take the scan of the Pecora hearings (done the previous fall at boston public library) ... HTML them, heavily cross-index, and also provide links between what went on then and what went on this time. This was apparently in anticipation that the new congress had an appetite for doing something. After putting quite a bit of work into it, I got a call that said it didn't look like congress was interested in doing anything real after all.

I was using tesseract to try and improve OCR of the scans ... but still was doing lots & lots of manual fixups (the documents were printed in the 30s and scans were somewhat faded):
http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/

old reference from early last year (hear in a.f.c):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#58 OCR scans of old documents

other past posts mentioning Pecora Hearings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#59 As bonuses...why breed greed, when others are in dire need?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#77 Who first mentioned Credit Crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#23 Should FDIC or the Federal Reserve Bank have the authority to shut down and take over non-bank financial institutions like AIG?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#40 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#56 What's your personal confidence level concerning financial market recovery?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#65 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#5 Do the current Banking Results in the US hide a grim truth?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#22 China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#25 The Paradox of Economic Recovery
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#29 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#40 64 Cores -- IBM is showing a prototype already
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#57 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#35 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#23 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#2 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#20 U.K. lags in information security management practices
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#25 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#53 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#73 70 Years of ATM Innovation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#6 Bookshelves under BookMangler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#68 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#69 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#73 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#74 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#4 Goldman Sachs -- Post SEC complaint. What's next?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#16 Fake debate: The Senate will not vote on big banks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#77 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#7 Seeking *Specific* Implementation of Star Trek Game
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#17 History--automated payroll processing by other than a computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#38 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#8 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#67 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#36 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#59 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 30 Nov, 2010
Subject: What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
Blog: Financial Cryptography
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#6 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

There's Turmoil in the Municipal Bond Market as Cities Struggle; Does this mean municipal bonds are no longer the "safe" investment they once were?
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/11/there-s-turmoil-in-the-municipal-bond-market-as-cities-struggle.html

The municipal bond market had collapsed two years ago when investors realized that rating agencies had been selling triple-A ratings for ($27T?) toxic CDOs and there was huge ambiguity whether any ratings could be trusted. Buffett stepped in at that time to rescue municipal bond market by providing insurance.
Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With 'Fools' Born to Buy Debt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-10-27/evil-wall-street-exports-boomed-with-fools-born-to-buy-debt

The real-estate speculation (because of enormous amount of funds available from securitization which also eliminated any concern regarding loan quality and/or borrower's qualification) problem is with the demand appearing much larger than it actually was, resulted in a lot of additional developments. The increase in developments also resulted in all kinds of borrowing for new infrastructure; commercial loans for stripmalls; muni-bonds for new roads, new water&sewer systems, etc. The municipalities were assuming that the new bonds would be covered by big increase in real-estate collections ... which didn't materialize when the bubble burst.

so besides all the properties that have been abandoned and the cities&towns aren't getting taxes (lots of situations where they were expecting revenue to cover new bonds floated for new infrastructure) .... there are large parts of the country where real-estate appraisals have dropped by 30% or more. Wide-spread drop in appraisals of 30% results in corresponding shortfall in real-estate tax collections (until they get around to increasing the tax rate) affecting ability to cover pre-existing obligations (salaries, other bonds, services, etc).

In the late 90s we were asked to look at all the ways that securitized instruments could be perverted ... since they were on the rise again, after having been used to obfuscate underlying loans during the S&L crisis. However, this century all we could do was watch ... since nothing was being done about it.

then there is the item about the Man Who Beat The Shorts when he raised the issues that securitizing loans and selling them off met that the loan originators no longer had to care about loan quality and/or borrowers' qualifications
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/1117/114.html

As previously mentioned the bubble/crash in the 20s was speculation in the stock market directly attributable to Brokers' Loans ... this time the bubble/crash was speculation in the real-estate market directly attributable to loan originators being able to securitize and sell off all loans (being able to pay for triple-A ratings helped immensely). In many ways, speculators were able to treat the real-estate market similar to the unregulated stock market of the 20s

Unregulated loan originators had unlimited amount of money from being able get get triple-A ratings on all their toxic CDOs (regardless of underlying value/quality). Repeal of Glass-Steagall met that unregulated investment banking arms of regulated depository institutions could buy up trillions in toxic CDOs and carry them off-balance (while putting the regulated depository institutions at risk of collapse).

The disastrous effects of the individual pieces had been understood since the 30s; this time with lots of individuals playing in self-interest ... apparently believing their individual graft&corruption wouldn't be that significant ... however, the combination resulted in nearly a perfect storm (aka systemic).

If any one of the pieces weren't there ... it could have significantly mitigated the aggregate effects ... for instance, if Glass-Steagall hadn't been repealed, it would have cut-back on the money for buying the toxic CDOs (limiting the total amount that would have been sold, and therefor decreasing the number of such loans that would have been made).

At the end of 2008, it was estimated that the four largest too-big-to-fail financial institutions were carrying $5.2T (toxic CDOs) off-balance ... courtesy of their unregulated investment banking arms. Early on, one of those institutions had unloaded something like $60B at 22 cents on the dollar. If the four had been forced to deal with the $5.2T at that price, they would have had to been forced to liquidate and dissolved (lots of claims about large amount of obfuscation going on because they are actually insolvent)
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
>http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home

Bernanke warns on long-term joblessness
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101201/bs_nm/us_usa_fed_wrapup

one metaphor is that there were a lot of regulations keeping the individual pockets of greed and corruption separated and damped-down. This century the regulations were repealed, ignored and/or not enforced, resulting in the individuals pockets of greed and corruption to combine into a firestorm

another methaphor was that all the control rods in the economic reactor were removed and it goes critical with major meltdown. it may take the (economic) environment years to recover from the resulting toxic radioactive mess.

The crash of 2008: A mathematician's view
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/w-tco120808.php

from above:
Markets need regulation to stay stable. We have had thirty years of financial deregulation. Now we are seeing chickens coming home to roost. This is the key argument of Professor Nick Bingham, a mathematician at Imperial College London, in an article published today in Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society.

... snip ...

Federal Reserve's 'astounding' report: We loaned banks trillions; The Federal Reserve offers details on the loans it gave to banks and others at the height of the financial crisis. One program alone doled out nearly $9 trillion.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions

Several times in the past two years ... I've pointed out that with Fed lending trillions at near zero percent ... then it is relatively straight-forward to earn hundreds of billions by relending with spread of four percent of more (.04 of $10T is $400B profit) ... and if it was used to buy Treasuries ... why didn't FED just give the US treasury free money.

Also, rhetoric on floor of congress was that primary purpose of GLBA was: if you were already a bank, then you got to remain a bank and if you weren't already a bank you didn't get to be a bank (this is in addition to repeal of Glass-Steagall and "opt-out" PII sharing). FED gave out bank charters to some number of investment banks (so they could get free money) ... which would appear to be counter to GLBA.

aka massive shell game, take free fed money ... buy treasuries ... the interest on the US treasury easily pay back TARP with interest. auto quotas were to reduce competition, significantly increase profit to be used to totally remake themselves. when that didn't happen and money was spent "business as usual" ... there was call for 100% unearned profit tax.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:41:07 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Sometimes. Think about the listings generated by ribbon ink.

there have been several past threads about 1403 being much better than avg. in print quality. normally 1403 was loaded with (cheaper) fabric ribbon ... but for "finished" copy there was a "film" ribbon that resulted in higher quality output.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/1403.html
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/supplies/supplies_5404PH09.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1403

selectric typewriters (and computer version 2741 terminal) had similar choice of ribbons, fabric ribbons for normal operation and "film" ribbons for higher quality output. this mentions, fabric, film, two-color, and correcting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter

the above mentions that film ribbons were only used once and could have security implications ... being able to reproduce what was typed from old ribbons. the above also mentions 2741 selectric terminal. I had one at home from spring of 1970 until summer of 1977 ... when it was replaced with cdi "miniterm" ... some old photos here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts

lots of corporate documents started off with standard book production ... some old
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/

... however, as some of the documents were moved to CMS script ... there were more and more had characteristic of originating on 1403. One of the earliest such was principles of operation:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/370/princOps/

A major reason for moving principles of operation to cms script was the material was actually a subset of the "architecture manual" (or "redbook" for being distributed in red 3-ring binder). As cms script file ... it was possible to have the "conditional" indicators bracketing the sections that were only in the "principles of operation" ... and then depending on how cms script was invoked, produce the full architecture manual or the PoP/POO subset.

In the mid-70s, installations started getting the 3800 laser printer ... which could produce higher quality output
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV3103.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_printer

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 28 Nov, 2010
Subject: The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
Blog: IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#83 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#9 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

i'm accused of checkpointing everything ... included redundant backup systems for email ... possibly even implicated in some of the extensive backup processes that were part of email products for customers (one possible case that was in the news in the early 80s involved congressional investigations into Ollie's email). I did loose a lot of the stuff from 60s & 70s that had been replicated on multiple tapes ... but in the same tape library during a period when there was operational problem of random tapes being mounted as scratch.

i had gotten blamed for computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s (as previously mentioned the internal network was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85 or early '86. somewhat as a result, a researcher was paid to sit in the back of my office for 9months taking notes on how i communicated; they also got copies of all my incoming&outgoing emails as well as log of all instant messages. Besides being a research report, the material was also used for stanford phd (joint between language and computer ai) as well as some number of papers and books.

for some trivia ... list of corporate locations that had one or more new nodes added during 1983 (when the internal network passed 1000 nodes and when the internet was getting past 256 nodes).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8

one of the differences between the internet and the internal network was that all links had to be encrypted; at one point in the mid-80s, the claim was that the internal network had over half of all link encryptors in the world. one of the big headaches was dealing with various countries .... especially when encrypted links crossed national boundaries.

For my hsdt project, i got frustrated with the cost of encryptors (when available) for higher speed links ... and got involved in designing my own. At the time i was aware of two classes of crypto 1) the kind they don't care about and 2) the kind you can't do; however i found out when i was told that i could build as many boxes as i wanted to ... but i couldn't keep any, they had to all be sent somewhere .... that there is 3rd kind of crypto ... the kind you can only do for them.

In past discussions about 1jan83 cutover from arpanet to internet ... the discussion was arpanet restrained growth (example was internal network was much larger) because 1) lack of router/gateway, 2) cost/availability of IMP, 3) approval required by DARPA. After 1jan83 cutover, internet exploded .. passing internal network sometime late85/early86 (also contributing 4) workstations/PC were becoming their own nodes while internal network restricted to terminal emulation connections to hosts).

this has 1986 CISCO ships first product, tcp/ip router
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Cisco-Systems-Inc-Company-History.html

initial (internet) explosion was already happening w/1jan83 cutover ... so might be considered chicken&egg

we had gotten a "phonenet" email gateway in '82 ... so saw some of the mail distribution about the cutover ... piece of it here from '99 thread on the subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers, aus.electronics, aus.computers
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:42:21 -0500
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
Yup. We had a large production program that I'd patch until the whole thing fell apart - only then would I try to wheedle the 40 minutes of machine time that it took to re-assemble it.

I finally wrote my own assembler. Although it had a number of very nice features that were missing from the stock assembler, its primary goal (which I achieved) was to run twice as fast. It was a bit easier to scrounge 20 minutes of machine time than 40.


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#11 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I had the machine time ... since I got 48hrs straight every weekend ... it was that it was usually faster to patch it than re-assemble.

I had conditional assembly ... one that ran stand-alone ... with its own device drivers, interrupt handlers, etc that assembled in approx. 30 mins ... and the one that ran under os/360 using open/close, read/write and DCB macros that assembled in approx. an hour (on 360/30) ... the DCB macros taking 5-6 mins elapsed time each ... it was possible to see it in the front panel lights when it had hit a DCB macro.

the folklore was that the person doing opcode lookup assembler routine had been told that it had to be done in 256 bytes (or some such) ... so the lookup table was reloaded from disk on each statement. the assembler got much faster when somebody improved opcode lookup (using the memory to keep the table loaded).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Dataspaces or 64 bit storage

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Dataspaces or 64 bit storage
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 1 Dec 2010 14:32:08 -0800
michealbutz@OPTONLINE.NET (Micheal Butz) writes:
Who says I'm developing anything

Dataspaces are more painfully and probably slower then regular storage dataspaces were probably meant to Releive storage constriant


multiple address spaces started in "811" architecture (370/xa appeared with 3081). subset was retrofitted to 3033 as "dual-address" space mode.

os/360 was heavily pointer passing paradigm. in the initial morph to virtual memory, it was basically mvt laid out in single 16mbyte virtual address space (as SVS). In transition to multiple virtual address sapce (MVS), copy of the kernel image was mapped to (half/8mbytes of) every (16mbyte) application virtual address space. The problem was that there were some number of mvt subsystems that now found themselves in their own virtual address space (different from application). In order to support the pointer passing paradigm (with subsystems accessing application parameters), the common segment area (CSA) was created ... applications could stuff their parameters in the common segment, and generate a subsystem call (that required passing thru the kernel to switch to the subsystem virtual address space).

At some larger installations CSA grew to 4-5 mbytes (leaving only 3-4 mbytes for application execution), some installations were facing prospect of CSA increase to 6mbytes (leaving only 2mbytes in every virtual address space for application execution).

dual-address space mode allowed for parameter pointer to be passed to a subsystem and the parameters list could be access in the application virtual address space w/o requiring CSA (starting to cap the explosion in CSA size growth).

Some of the larger MVS internal shops were chip design with large fortran applications that were seven mbytes that required carefully crafted MVS systems that kept CSA to 1mbyte max. There was a period when some of these internal MVS premier shops were facing being forced to vm370/cms ... since they could get nearly the full 16mbyte virtual address space for their application execution (it was rather odd some of the hold-outs since in this period, vast majority of the internal mainframes were vm370).

misc. past posts mentioning common segment &/or dual-address space:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#41 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#81 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#75 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#76 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#36 16:32 far pointers in OpenWatcom C/C++
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#83 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#2 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#10 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#13 OS/400 and z/OS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#16 Region Size - Step or Jobcard
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#68 PL/1 as first language

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

64 bit mode disabled

From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: 64 bit mode disabled
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 2 Dec 2010 07:43:43 -0800
Tom.Harper@NEON.COM (Tom Harper) writes:
I'm not so sure. Many CICS shops have pointed out to me that they are forced to run hundreds of CICS regions for the simple fact that 2G is not enough address space to contain all of their programs. This requires them to spend an inordinate amount of time managing regions for the sole reason of address space exhaustion.

There is no question that there are other consumers of address space in the CICS regions, but many of these are buffers which have to be duplicated in every region, and in any case are not the limiting factor.


I always thot that the hundreds of CICS regions sprouted up from when CICS lacked multiprocessor support ... the only way to get execution on more than one processor was to go to multiple regions. Then there was problem of inter-application corruption ... lots of regions was method of partitioning/fencing off problems ... somewhat akin to having test/sandbox LPARs.

CICS multiprocessor support is relative recent in mainframe timeframe ... and it would take major motivation for large installation to make any significant change in production environment.

recent post on the subject:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#80

with these references (that have gone 404 but live on at the wayback machine):

The Evolution of CICS: CICS and Multi-region Operation (1980)
https://web.archive.org/web/20040705000349/http://www.yelavich.com/history/ev198001.htm

The Evolution of CICS: CICS and Multiprocessor Exploitation (2004)
https://web.archive.org/web/20041023110006/http://www.yelavich.com/history/ev200402.htm

... disclaimer: I was undergraduate at univ that had gotten ONR grant to do univ. library online catalog ... used part of the money to purchase 2321 datacell ... and also selected to be betatest site for cics product ... and I got tasked to support/debug CICS. I found/fixes some CICS bugs related to univ. library selecting different set of BDAM features (than had been in use at original CICS site).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

They always think we don't understand

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 02 Dec, 2010
Subject: They always think we don't understand
Blog: Greater IBM

https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#59 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#61 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#62 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#63 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#64 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#65 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#66 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#69 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#71 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#72 They always think we don't understand

Federal Reserve's 'astounding' report: We loaned banks trillions; The Federal Reserve offers details on the loans it gave to banks and others at the height of the financial crisis. One program alone doled out nearly $9 trillion.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions

Several times in the past two years ... I've pointed out that with Fed lending trillions at near zero percent ... then it is relatively straight-forward to earn hundreds of billions by relending with spread of four percent of more (.04 of $10T is $400B profit) ... and if it was used to buy Treasuries ... why didn't FED just directly give the US treasury free money.

Also, rhetoric on floor of congress was that primary purpose of GLBA: if you were already a bank, then you got to remain a bank and if you weren't already a bank you didn't get to be a bank (this is in addition to repeal of Glass-Steagall and "opt-out" PII sharing). FED gave out bank charters to some number of investment banks (so they could get free money) ... which would appear to be counter to GLBA.

aka massive shell game, take free fed money ... buy treasuries ... the interest on the US treasury easily pay back TARP with interest. auto quotas were to reduce competition and significantly increase profit to be used to totally remake themselves. when that didn't happen and money was spent "business as usual" ... there was call for 100% unearned profit tax.

misc. recent posts mentioning TARP:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#37 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#61 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#23 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#48 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#51 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#53 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#4 alphas was: search engine history, was Happy DEC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#13 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#52 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#74 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#37 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#51 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#62 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#69 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#40 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#48 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#29 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#32 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#40 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#45 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#50 TARP Bailout to Cost Less Than Once Anticipated
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#59 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

misc. past posts mentioning 100% unearned profit tax
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#41 Reason Japanese cars are assembled in the US (was Re: American bigotry)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#43 Economic Factors on Automation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#52 The SOB that helped IT jobs move to India is dead!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004h.html#22 Vintage computers are better than modern crap !
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005s.html#2 Internet today -- what's left for hobbiests
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006.html#23 auto industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#14 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#17 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#20 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#49 The Pankian Metaphor (redux)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#88 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#11 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#24 IBM Unionization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#28 As Expected, Ford Falls From 2nd Place in U.S. Sales
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#39 competitiveness
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008.html#84 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#77 Tell me why the taxpayer should be saving GM and Chrysler (and Ford) managers & shareholders at this stage of the game?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#22 Is Pride going to decimate the auto Industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#63 Have you told your Congressman how to VOTE on the auto bailout?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#18 What next? from where would the Banks be hit?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#20 Five great technological revolutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#57 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#20 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#2 China-US Insights on the Future of the Auto Industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#75 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#22 60 Minutes News Report:Unemployed for over 99 weeks!

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 03 Dec , 2010
Subject: The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
Blog: IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#83 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#9 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#19 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

yes, i was simplifying ... cutover from host/ncp (from original arpanet) to internetworking more detailed discussion in
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm

from '99 ... which includes quotes here from IEN: 111 (and other IEN documents) ... in this specific post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm#3 Internet and/or ARPANET?

also here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#38 20th anniversary of the internet

includes copy of Braden's email on the 20th anniversary of the internet.

misc. other old email from the period regarding switchover
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#email821122 22nov82
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#email821230 30dec82
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002p.html#email830109 09jan83
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#email830202 02feb83

for slight topic drift, the 30dec82 email mentions 250 hosts on arapnet. this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#7

includes ARPANET newsletter mentioning growing to 100 nodes (aka IMPs) by 1983 (hosts distinct from nodes on ARPANET). By comparison this old email from 1983
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#email830422

is about getting ready to celebrate 1000th node on the internal network. As previously mentioned, this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#8

has list of corporation locations with one or more new nodes added during 1983 (as well as samples of periodic new network node notifications).

https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/vnet1000.jpg

1000th node globe --
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 03 Dec, 2010
Subject: CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
Blog: Payment Systems Network
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#67 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#82 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#84 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#0 CARD AUTHENTICATION TECHNOLOGY - Embedded keypad on Card - Is this the future

in the mid-90s the x9a10 financial standard working group had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for ALL retail payments ... and came up with the x9.59 financial transaction standard. There was need to do detailed end-to-end threat & vulnerability studies for the various environments, debit, credit, stored-value, ACH, POS, internet, wireless, contact, contactless, high-value, low-value, transit turnstyle, internet, aka ALL. One of the things done in x9.59 was eliminate PAN as sensitive data ... as well as eliminating skimming and data breaches exploits as threat (i.e. didn't do anything to prevent them, just eliminated crooks being able to use the information for performing fraudulent financial transactions).

Part of the standard clearly differentiated data elements (like PAN) needed for standard business processes (at millions of locations around the world) from authentication. Once there was clear distinction between other business processes and authentication ... then it was much easier to support a large variety of authentication mechanisms as part of the same standard (enabling security proportional to risk, parameterised risk management as well as person-centric). Then it was trivial for x9.59 to work with institutional issued cards as well as things like person-centric card or cellphone ... as well as the identical card/cellphone to work w/o PIN at transit turnstyle and with PIN (or other authentication) for higher-value transactions.

x9.59 standard reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

EPO's (Emergency Power Off)

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: EPO's (Emergency Power Off)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 4 Dec 2010 05:00:58 -0800
PaulGBoulder@AIM.COM (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
The CDC mainframes were liquid cooled. I don't know how the jurisdictional disputes were resolved. 308x must have had similar conflicts.

past posts mentioning cdc6600 doing thermal shutdown every week at the same time ... turns out to have been loss of water pressure when break between class happened to coincide with lawn being watered.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#96 A Blast from the Past
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#72 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing

misc past posts mentioning initially not having flow sensor on external liquid flow; by the time thermal sensors recoqnized heat rising it was too late (wasn't enough volume of liquid on the inboard side to accommodate the heat) and fried all the TCMs (all installations were retrofitted with flow sensors on the outboard liquid cooling side of heat exchange)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#36 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#13 IBM Mainframe at home
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#41 IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#43 What was old is new again (water chilled)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#71 taking down the machine - z9 series

misc past posts mentioning visiting datacenter with new PDUs. They had hired leading engineeering firm to work with PDU company on improving the design (PDU used from switching between external power, battery backup, and local generation). in the tour, they said they just provided it gratis to the PDU company since they needed the improved PDU operation (and at the time of the tour ... the company had already shipped 1000 of the new PDUs just to datacenters in the DC beltway area).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#85 Mainframe power failure (somehow morphed from Re: write rings)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#61 Where do the filesystem and RAID system belong?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#62 ibm icecube -- return of watercooling?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#63 Little bit OT IBM & Air NZ outage report to stay Top Secret
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#78 Software that breaks computer hardware( was:IBM 029 service manual )

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Scariest Company in Tech

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 04 Dec, 2010
Subject: The Scariest Company in Tech
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#11 The Scariest Company in Tech
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#16 The Scariest Company in Tech

earlier in thread, I mentioned that first time I sponsored Boyd's briefing, I attempted to do it through employee education. This is old post from 2007 ... where I include a few old emails regarding/announcing briefings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#25

SJR is the IBM research facility on the west coast (San Jose) and YKT is the IBM research facility on the east coat (Yorktown).

re: email/online culture ... the internal network was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85/early '86. Here are several posts in the (linkedin) IETF (internet standards) group discussing early arpanet and cutover to internetworking 1jan83
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#83 IETF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#9 IETF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#19 IETF
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#24 IETF

Oh, and for a slight tie-in between Oracle history article and Japan ... where it mentioned that Oracle nearly went bankrupt 1990. This was in the era when Japan was taking over the world ... the country had economic policy to move heavily into information technologies and told their "hard industries" that they had to invest something like 5% of their profits (or it would be taken in taxes; as lower-paid manufacturing jobs moved off-shore they had to be replaced with higher paying technology jobs). In any case Oracle had reached an agreement to be bought by Nippon Steel ... and then it signed a 6000 seat enterprise license with Shell Oil that allowed them to back out of the deal. There was significant amount of VC money in the (US) high-tech industries from "hard industries" in Japan through the '90s.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

A small amount of Evidence. (In which, the end of banking and the rise of markets is suggested.)

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 04 Nov, 2010
Subject: A small amount of Evidence. (In which, the end of banking and the rise of markets is suggested.)
Blog: Financial Cryptography
re:
https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001299.html

I had gone back yesterday and was reading "Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown"
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Trillion-Dollar-Meltdown-Rollers/dp/B002CMLQVQ/

from early '2009 ... Kindle edition is only $2.88 ....

and theme is quite complimentary (with quite a bit more detail) to above (even tho it didn't have details of how much money FED has been pumping in).

some past posts in previous item in this series:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#6 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Mobile Device Is Becoming Humankind's Primary Tool

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 04 Nov, 2010
Subject: The Mobile Device Is Becoming Humankind's Primary Tool
Blog: Greater IBM
Note that (effectively bottom) 1/3rd of the counry is considered "unbanked". One analysis is that the financial services industry has extremely high markup and that the bottom 1/3rd of society's financial activity is under the profit margin of the financial industry.

In the 90s, walmart used the argument for getting into the financial services business. Walmart is famous for doing end-to-end supply chain analysis and doing significant optimization ... drastically reducing the cost of doing business ... and was looking at doing something similar for financial services (and making financial services for the "unbanked" profitable).

As countermeasure, the financial industry got Bank Modernization act passed in 1999; rhetoric on the floor of congress was that the primary purpose of the bill was if you were already a bank, then you got to remain a bank, but if you weren't already a bank, then you didn't get to become a bank (specifically calling out walmart and microsoft). The (GLBA) act also repealed Glass-Steagall (which played a role in the current financial mess) and "opt-out" information privacy sharing (somewhat as federal preemption of the california legislation "opt-in" that was in progress).

There are several items in some of the linkedin financial related groups regarding other parts of the world leveraging wireless devices to provide financial services to those where it wouldn't otherwise be possible (or profitable). As a result, there is something of an angst in financial sector that has been accustomed to financial transactions being tied to institutional issued cards. Enabling cellphones and other devices for financial transactions may contribute to them loosing control of the payment business.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Philosophy: curiousity question

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler)
Subject: Re: Philosophy: curiousity question
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
Date: 4 Dec 2010 10:36:53 -0800
jcewing@ACM.ORG (Joel C. Ewing) writes:
I've always felt it was a bad idea to have installation mainframe documentation too far separated from the mainframe platform itself or dependent on any other server platforms, under the general premise that in a DR situation if we have recovered the mainframe we want to be sure we have access to all documentation needed to operate it.

Some documentation was just kept as monocase or dualcase text files on MVS, with links from ISPF screens. Before DCF/Script became too expensive, some large documents were maintained as separate chapters in DCF SGML using DCF to build text and pdf versions of the document. Afterwards those SGML documents were converted to use docbook tools with docbook document source on MVS, building multi-html, single-html, and pdf version with free tools on a workstation and then porting various forms either back to MVS or to media that went off site for DR.


when rexx was very young, internal use only and before released as product ... I wanted to demonstrate that rexx wasn't just another pretty scripting language ... and chose as demonstration to rewrite IPCS ... idea was in six weeks of effort, re-implement from scratch ... make it run ten times faster than original (assembler) implementation, with ten times the function. I somewhat naively believed it would eventually be released to customers, replacing the existing product ... and since it was during the start of the OCO-wars period ... it had the added advantage of needing to ship all the source (since there wasn't any object code). While it became the standard internally as well as used by nearly all the PSRs ... for some reason it was never shipped to customers.

However, one of the features ... that I included softcopy of messages&codes (GML) manual ... and do formatted online display of the related information.

some related posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Cyber-crime: bigger than the drugs trade, and growing

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 04 Nov, 2010
Subject: Cyber-crime: bigger than the drugs trade, and growing
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
Cyber-crime: bigger than the drugs trade, and growing
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-cyber-crime-bigger-drugs.html

from above:
Until Eoin Blackwell arrived at his Sydney home from a Christmas party, he had no idea his bank account had been emptied from half-a-world away.

... snip ...

I had posted a similar news item in this group Jun2009 ("Cyber crime 'more profitable than drugs'"), archived here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#47

I mentioned (in above) that something similar was said in a speech given Nov2005 ... which reverberated in news around the world. I got an email that night from the speaker asking if I could find public sources supporting the statement.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:47:37 -0500
hancock4 writes:
In terms of working with representatives from IBM vs. other companies, my own experience has been (overall) that the IBM mainframe folks were the most talented and prepared*. They always have their homework done and come in ready to roll. The reps from other companies weren't as well trained.

i was told a similar comment by an independent person that was at the gov. antitrust trial regarding all those that testified (in this case corporate executives as opposed to corporate reps).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Outsourcing and COTS

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 26 Nov, 2010
Subject: Outsourcing and COTS
Blog: IBM co/ex workers independent group
Outsourcing and COTS can be viewed as two facets of same business; basically the costs to have inhouse proprietary operation along with its possible competitive benefit vis-a-vis reduced costs of operation that may be a lot more cost/effective in specific area with high skills that are shared across large number of operations. If the area is critical competitive area of the business, then it may justify have proprietary in-house operation; however lots of COTS & outsourcing movement is potentially enormously reduce costs in areas with less competitive contribution (and to better use the saved money in other areas; also applies to "wasting" executive attention in areas that aren't directly a competitive factor)

Downside is it can result in totally loosing control over organizational operations. a trivial case from few years ago was all day meeting with dozen people from large system integrator. they had modest contract with several scores of people working on it. at the end of the day, there was some consensus that what they where doing ultimately wouldn't work. however, they had just started this three year contract and said they didn't want to leave the money on the table; possibly considering doing something different when the current contract ran out.

another example is a couple years ago we participated in defining and pushing an industry implementation, sponsored out of an industry consortium. after putting quite a bit of work into the effort, the major industry players decided that the area was a critical competitive area and they would individually do their own proprietary implementations.

in the early 90s when the corporation went into the red and the appeared to be lots of preparation to break up the different divisions into separate companies, a lot of internal chip design tools were transferred to external company (form of COTS).

lots of big software houses are form of COTS starting in the late 70s ... operations going to (usually) higher quality implementations (specialized, more higher skilled resources than possibly could be justified for purely internal operation).

Some part of motivation for POSIX was theoretically it free'ed applications from being locked into particular vendors' proprietary offering; drastically simplifying being able to move applications between platforms ... to whatever is most cost/effective at the moment. TPC benchmarks can be viewed similarly (some assumption about easily moving application between platforms with best benchmark number).

disclaimer: I know the person that originated the term COTS and played large role in gov. migration to COTS

misc. past posts mentioning COTS:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#44 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#47 Al Gore and the Internet (Part 2 of 2)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#32 How Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Systems make society vulnerable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#38 How Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Systems make society vulnerable
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#4 markup vs wysiwyg (was: Re: learning how to use a computer)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#80 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#82 Al Gore and the Internet
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002l.html#15 Large Banking is the only chance for Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002m.html#55 Beware, Intel to embed digital certificates in Banias
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#80 "Super-Cheap" Supercomputing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#26 Good news for SPARC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004i.html#12 New Method for Authenticated Public Key Exchange without Digital Certificates
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004m.html#3 Specifying all biz rules in relational data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005d.html#20 shared memory programming on distributed memory model?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html#40 IBM 610 workstation computer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#14 Year-end computer bug could ground Shuttle
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#35 Friday fun - Discovery on the pad and the software's not done
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#41 Fast and Safe C Strings: User friendly C macros to Declare and use C Strings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#16 Newbie question on table design
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#15 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007l.html#57 How would a relational operating system look like?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#1 nouns and adjectives
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#34 IBM 8000 ???
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#36 Future of System/360 architecture?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#61 (Newbie question)How does the modern high-end processor been designed?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#37 COTS software on box ? to replace mainframe was Re: Curious(?) way to ZIP a mainframe file
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#41 COTS software on box ? to replace mainframe was Re: Curious(?) way to ZIP a mainframe file
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#43 more on (the new 40+ yr old) virtualization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#49 Linux zSeries questions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#87 Berkeley researcher describes parallel path
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#51 was: 1975 movie "Three Days of the Condor" tech stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#87 Is IT becoming extinct?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#6 It's Too Darn Hot
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#37 Virtualization: The IT Trend That Matters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#77 CLIs and GUIs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#89 Fraud due to stupid failure to test for negative
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#33 Making tea
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#55 Can outsourcing be stopped?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#12 Lack of bit field instructions in x86 instruction set because of ?patents ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#19 Top 10 Cybersecurity Threats for 2009, will they cause creation of highly-secure Corporate-wide Intranets?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#21 IBM forecasts 'new world order' for financial services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#77 Korean bank Moves back to Mainframes (...no, not back)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#71 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#54 PL/I vs. Pascal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#3 When will MVS be able to use cheap dasd

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2010 14:57:25 -0500
hancock4 writes:
In those days there seemed to be a deep schism in the I.T. world-- mainframers and anti-mainframers. People working in the business world who had to get out paychecks and invoices on time week after week tended to be more mainframe centric.

But high school and college students and their teachers and hobbyists tended to be anti-IBM and pro-mini or pro-micro computer. I think they felt that way mostly since it was easier to purchase or get time on a mini or micro computer than it was on a corporate mainframe, plus they could freely experiment which wasn't allowed on the mainframe. Further, the mainframe architecture dated from 1964 and was oriented toward batch processing and multi-tasking while they had a different orientation.


a lot of the mainframe "architecture" was specific software implementations ... as opposed to hardware architecture. some deficiencies were listed in 360 for interactive and time-sharing ... as referenced in melinda's discussion of the early days of science center and virtual machines (bidding on follow-on to ctss, etc) ... can be found here:
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist

small extract from article also found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml

part of the educational issue was that with the litigation (by gov. and others) in the 60s ... which resulted in the 23jun69 unbundling announcement (starting to charge for software and other services) ... some posts here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

there was also big cutback in educational discounts ... which saw a lot of institutions moving to other platforms for a whole variety of reasons.

in the late 70s ... there was big jump in price/performance of mid-range machines ... saw big explosion in vax machines as well as (midrange mainframe) 43xx machines. 43xx had similar volumes to vax in the small orders ... place where 43xx really differed was the multi-hundred orders by large corporations.

in large corporations, the mid-range machines were finding their way out into departmental supply rooms and converted conference rooms ... in part because the datacenters were starting to burst at the seams (as well as improved price/performance and lower environmental requirements). this was somewhat the leading edge of distributed computing. misc. old email mentioning 43xx
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx

internally, the explosion in 43xx (distributed) machines was contributing to scarcity of conference rooms ... as well as big explosion in the number of internal network nodes; internal network was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometime late '85/early '86. recent posts in an IETF (linkedin) discussion:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#83 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#9 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#19 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#24 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

the 4361/4381 were the next generation in the mid-80s, and they were expecting similar explosive growth ... however by that time, the mid-range was starting to be taken over by larger PCs and workstations ... as can be seen in this old post of a decade of VAX numbers:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0 Computers in Science Fiction

the 43xx numbers were similar to the VAX numbers except for the addition of the large multi-hundred machine orders by larger operations ... like this old reference to AFDS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers

The move of distributed computing to non-mainframes contributed to large amount of data leaking out of the datacenters in the late 80s. The communication division had a large install base of terminal emulation that it was trying to protect; in the early days of personal computers; terminal emulation contributed significantly to the uptake in machines (could get an IBM/PC for about the same price as an already justified 3270 terminal ... and in single desktop footprint do both 3270 terminal emulation as well as local computing). misc. past posts mentioning terminal emulation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation

The disk division had attempted to bring out a number of products that would have made the mainframe significantly more friendly to disitributed computing environment ... but was constantly being shotdown by the communication division (who owned "strategic" responsibility for everything that crossed the datacenter walls). Finally, one of the senior disk engineers got a talked scheduled at the annual, worldwide, internal communication conference .... and opened his talk with the statement that the communication division was going to be responsible for the demise of the disk division (because of the distributed computing unfriendly strangle-hold that the communication division had on the datacenter).

In the early 90s, the disk division was doing a lot of VC investment in distributed computing friendly external corporations ... attempting to side-step the internal corporate politics with the communication division ... however, it obviously wasn't sufficient.

The mid-range had already introduced distributed computing ... which by the mid-80s was starting to move to large PCs and workstations (which resulted in the 4361/4381 not having same explosive growth as the prior 43xx generation). The datacenter was already starting to feel those effects. However, senior corporate executives were claiming that the mainframe business would continue to explode, doubling corporate revenues from $60B to $120B. In that time-frame, executives had huge buildout of mainframe manufacturing capacity ... in support of that projected demand increase. I've mentioned before that at the time, it wasn't a very career enhancing move to be showing that the mainframe business was actually moving in the opposite direction (kill the messenger).

A trivial example (of communication division protecting its terminal emulation product base) involved the communication division's 16mbit T/R microchannel card for the PS2. The workstation division had done its own 4mbit T/R for the PC/RT. The RS/6000 had microchannel and the workstation division was directed that they couldn't do their own cards, but had to use PS2 cards. The 16mbit T/R card had a terminal emulation design point, with 300 or more PCs, sharing common 16mbit ... and as a result it had lower per card thruput than the PC/RT 4mbit T/R card.

Another trivial example was the mainframe TCP/IP product that effectively used a variation of communication division controller, getting 44kbytes/sec using nearly whole 3090 processor (very processor intensive with not very high thruput). I did the RFC1044 enhancements to the product and in some tuning work at Cray research got mbyte/sec thruput between 4341-clone and Cray (basically 4341 channel media speed, using only modest amount of the 4341 ... approx. 500 times improvement in bytes/instruction). misc. past posts mentioning rfc1044
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Language first, hardware second

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Language first, hardware second
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:04:57 -0500
MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> writes:
The RISC generation of machines were primarily designed to execute the <semi>portable assembly language known as C. To this end, they execute C well. In this context, every name and every operator are supposed to be represented in the final assembly code as an instruction. Due to the way C-pointers have been defined, and then due to the way arrays are mapped onto pointer arithmetic, C has an unsolvable aliasing problem, and to a large extent this precludes optimizing the resulting code (much).

slight nit ... the original generation of (801) RISC (70s) was designed to execute PL8. There were explicit statements that the lack of 801/RISC sophistication would be compensated by sophisticated optimization in PL8. There were also other hardware/complexity trade-offs that were supposed to be compensated by compiler and (closed) operating system (CPr) ... one such was no (hardware) protection domain.

later migration of (801) risc to unix ... involved having to add things like hardware protection domain (between kernel/supervisor & application) as well as moving a lot of the PL8 compiler optimization to C (and/or doing C front-end to PL8 backend).

misc. past posts mentioning 801/risc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2010 20:46:47 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#34 TCM's Moguls documentary series

the company tried to come back in the education market starting in the 1st part of the 80s with ACIS (academic information systems) ... it started out with something like $300m that it was suppose to distribute to academic institutions. $25m went to mit project athena (matching $25m from DEC) and $50m went to cmu project andrew. out of athena came several efforts including X and Kerberos (authentication technology on several platforms including underlying in windows). andrew produced andrew filesystem, camelot, and mach. mach was picked up by a number of platforms ... including NeXT ... which then went on to be used at Apple.

From UCLA, they picked up Locus (another unix-like) and morphed it into aix/370 and aix/386.

there was also quite a bit of money pumped into bitnet (& earn in europe) ... misc. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet

misc. past posts mentioning ACIS:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#35a Drive letters
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#37 What is MVS/ESA?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#64 Old naked woman ASCII art
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#1 Anybody remember the wonderful PC/IX operating system?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#9 IBM says AMD dead in 5yrs ... -- Microsoft Monopoly vs. IBM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#52 Question about Unix "heritage"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003h.html#53 Question about Unix "heritage"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#19 RISCs too close to hardware?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#20 RISCs too close to hardware?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004n.html#30 First single chip 32-bit microprocessor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005j.html#26 IBM Plugs Big Iron to the College Crowd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005q.html#49 What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006b.html#8 Free to good home: IBM RT UNIX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#56 Ranking of non-IBM mainframe builders?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#21 SNA/VTAM for NSFNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#19 NSFNET (long post warning)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#14 How many 36-bit Unix ports in the old days?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#82 Migration from Mainframe to othre platforms - the othe bell?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#66 How did the monitor work under TOPS?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#18 Another one bites the dust
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#9 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#15 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#39 someone smarter than Dave Cutler
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#39 Friden Flexowriter equipment series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#63 Big Iron — The Mainframe Story

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Language first, hardware second

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Language first, hardware second
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 09:21:35 -0500
"Del Cecchi" <delcecchi@gmail.com> writes:
Wasn't that PL.8 or PL/.8 ?

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#35 Language first, hardware second

for the fun of it, random reference to writing it as PL8 ... from long ago and far away:
Date: 07/05/79 10:22:40
From: wheeler
To: somebody in endicott microcode

attempting to convert to release 6. Ran DELTA between release 5 and release 6 and came up with an UPDTR6 updatew that when applied to release 5 turns it into release 6. We are now going thru everything in the system to merge UPDTR6 under all our updates (and COMMON and SEPP).

We seem to have the engineering labs running resonably well. SJRL replaced the VM 158 with a 168 about 4 weeks ago and the Engineering labs are scheduled to replace one of the VM 3031s with a 3033 next month.

When we get release 6 somewhat stable I will be getting more serious about decompiling CP source. I would like to take a module thru a round trip back into a TEXT deck and attempt to merge it into the production system. The PL8 and PASCAL compilers don't appear like they will be ready for that soon. I guess I will attempt it with PLS3 (at least for one module) to see how much manual work will be involved. I still haven't been able to create DO WHILE structures but I do have IF/THEN/ELSE down.

I still haven't obtained a copy of CMS BSEPP. When I get a copy, i will have to see about modifying the new files system to support PAM disks. It is time to start work on shared nucleus subsystem extension.


... snip ... top of post, old email index

The IF/THEN/ELSE reference was to a PLI program I had written that read 360/370 assembler listings and tried to generate a program that resembled PASCAL. The issue was could I take production software run it thru decompile, compile the results and then being able to have it operate correctly.

This was in the days when the corporation was looking at replacing internal microprocessors with 801/Iliad (including low & mid range 370s, the as/400 follow-on to s/38, lots of others). I had previously worked with the Endicott microcode group moving parts of the vm370 into microcode ... ECPS ... some old reference here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#21 370 ECPS VM microcode assist

The issue in this case ... was to at least semi-automate some of the process by converting assembler kernel routine into PL8 and then having PL8 generate the (801) "micrcode" directly. misc. past posts mentioning 801, risc, iliad, romp, rios, power, etc:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801

I had originally done paged map filesystem support in cp67/cms, which included things like being able to share pages/segments based on image of records (usually executable) in the filesystem. Latest level of CMS introduced a mechanism that allowed for dynamic adding to CMS nucleus/kernel ... the reference above was to support subsystem extension being shared. past posts mentioning doing paged mapped filesystem
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#mmap

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:48:38 -0500
Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> writes:
I use an Epson Perfection V350 which works well, but you do have to sit by it and feed slides manually (it has an automatic negative feed though). Cheap-ish and cheerful. Not tried it under Linux, but I'm told there's a working driver. Post-processing is done with the Gimp, of course...

I've used 2480 epson with sane (gimp/xsane) ... old reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#29

... needed to get driver
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportIndex.jsp?cookies=no&oid=-10244&infoType=Overview

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:19:13 -0500
Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:
ROFL. That was my first and immediate thought. Systems whose standard fault recovery procedures are Restart, Reboot, Reinstall are hardly suitable for core financial systems.

post from couple years ago ... related to modern financial dataprocessing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#27

& formulizing transaction semantics provided basis for financial auditors to (better) trust computer records.

on the other hand ... I've mentioned before that one of the major/national financial institutions had outsourced Y2K remediation of some its core financial systems (atm transaction backend) to the lowest bidder ... later they found out it was a front for a criminal organization (they possibly felt that they could have even paid the bank for the privilege ... since they were planning on making it up with fraudulent financial transactions).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Great Cyberheist

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 06 Dec, 2010
Subject: The Great Cyberheist
Blog: Boyd Disciples
The Great Cyberheist
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001294.html

from above:

Here's my bet: the ease of this overall approach and the lack of real good security alternatives (firewalls & SSL, anyone?) means there will be a pause, and then the professionals will move in. And they won't be caught, because they'll move faster than the Feds. Gonzalez was a static target, he wasn't leaving the country. The new professionals will know their OODA.

... snip ...

I had made some quip about possibly infecting some of the financial community with OODA-loops (especially those dealing with information security and fraud countermeasures). I got a private response back bemoaning the fact that there hasn't been more uptake of OODA-loops in gov. agencies that also deal in such stuff.

and from the same source: (not directly Boyd) "What caused the financial crisis. (laying bare the end of banking.)"
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001268.html

Javelin tends to have annual reports on various aspects (although they can be slanted)
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/Javelin-Identity-Fraud-Report/

there is recent news item that cybercrime is worse than drug crime: (in financial crime risk, fraud and security linkedin group) ... archived here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#31

as mentioned in the above ... there was similar item in same group summer of 2009 ... archived here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#47

the above references that there was a speech nov2005 in the middle east that made similar statement and reverberated around the world; that night I got email from the person that made the statement asked if I could find public sources supporting the statement. Nearly all law enforcement related sites around the world had drug crime information publicly available ... but everyone of them had cybercrime information requiring authorized access. It was interesting task to turn up cybercrime data.

Some amount of OODA-loop references is ongoing race between those putting up defenses and the attackers. Part of the problem is many of the countermeasures that have been done are strictly point solutions my analogy with defenders in valley with little cover and the other side holds all the high ground (the financial cryptography ref is the crooks have been easily/constantly out-maneuvering the defenders).

Lots of the account fraud involves ACH, credit card, debit card, ATM transactions, etc ... involve something I call "dual-use paradigm" ... that account number is used for dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world as well as just knowing the account number is sufficient authentication.

Having done "electronic commerce" for small client/server startup (that had also invented "SSL"), in the mid-90s, I was asked to participate in x9a10 financial standard working group which had been given the requirement to preserve the integrity of the financial infrastructure for *ALL* retail payments. The result was x9.59 financial standard which eliminates nearly all existing account fraud exploits (skimming, data breaches, etc). misc. x9.59 financial standard ref:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959

Some of this discussed in (linkedin) payment systems thread ... most recent archived here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#25

this is part of another payment systems thread ... about possible reason for not a lot of bank motivation to correct the current situation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#6

for retail POS card transactions ... financial institutions charge the merchant for fraud ... plus profit margin. As referenced in the above, some large US financial institutions have had 40-60% of their bottom line coming from those fees. Eliminating that form of fraud potentially reduces those fees by order of magnitude with corresponding hit to the banks bottom line (by comparison, comparable European banks get less than 10% of their bottom line from such fees). The other downside with elimination of POS/retail fraud, the crooks are likely to move to fraud involving opening new accounts, which is strictly a bank issue and can't be charged off on the retail merchants (at a profit).

part of 2007 thread in crypto mailing list about lack of incentive because so much profit comes from fraud related fees (along with some number of fraud news items):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#39 and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#40 and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#43

This recent item
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#18
references the financial industry PD63 meetings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_infrastructure_protection
and major concern was that any financial industry ISAC wouldn't be subject to FOIA
http://www.fsisac.com/

note that the original SSL/electronic-commerce had some requirements how SSL was deployed and used at merchant websites ... those requirements were almost immediately violated ... creating the way for lots of the existing online fraud. however, SSL only really hid the transaction information while it was being transmitted.

the x9.59 standard work eliminated harvesting/skimming card detail, transaction detail, account number as a vulnerabilities; the major use of SSL in the world today is this earlier stuff we had done for electronic commerce for hiding transaction detail ... x9.59 eliminates the need to hide such detail and so eliminates the major use of SSL in the world today (in addition to eliminating the financial fraud threat from the majority of data breaches).

part of the OODA-loop combat between the defenders (security vendors) and attackers (crooks) has been the various point solutions like the signature-based anti-virus paradigm ... with the attackers constantly coming up with new ways around the defenses.

Much of the current desk/home network computing was adapted from closed, safe, small business/office LANs. Lots of automated scripting features were added to all sorts of business applications ... which helped provide visually appealing additions in the safe business/office LAN environment.

The spring '96 MDC at SF Moscone had all sorts of banners about supporting Internet ... but the constant theme in every session was "protecting your investment". The "investment" was large body of VB programmers and the scripting they had written for the safe/closed small business LANs. Taking that network paradigm and plugging it into the internet would be like pushing somebody out the airlock into deep space w/o spacesuit (a metaphor that I've frequently used in the past) ... no countermeasures for the hostile anarchy of the internet.

A friend that I had worked with in the 70s ... had recently established a research center in SF ... and was holding open house during Moscone MDC. Later we were co-keynotes at this NASA dependable computing meeting:
https://web.archive.org/web/20011004023230/http://www.hdcc.cs.cmu.edu/may01/index.html

Later ... before he disappeared, he con'ed me into interviewing for the position of chief security architect in redmond ... the interview went on over a few weeks ... but we could never come to terms. A reference to his disappearance.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#27

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Varieties of Virtualization

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 07 Dec, 2010
Subject: The Varieties of Virtualization
Blog: The Perils of Parallel
The Varieties of Virtualization
http://perilsofparallel.blogspot.com/2010/12/varieties-of-virtualization.html

long ago and far away ... a large premier research organization made some public statement about their virtual machines predating the science center's implementations (cp40, cp67, etc). it turns out they were referring to one of the other flavors of virtualization.

this glosses over some of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_M44/44X

and the above has some Denning references ... Gray dragged me into big dustup ... some detail in this post:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#46

Note that the commercial time-sharing service bureau CP67 spin-offs (60s&70s genre of cloud computing) would go on to severely restrict the virtual machine capability for their general customer. In that sense, cp67 become somewhat a microkernel platform for delivering online services (as opposed to strictly virtual machine).

Hennessy was thesis adviser and there was big festouche in the academic community over a PHD thesis that looked at global LRU (as opposed to the true religion). for awhile the exchange from both sides were up on the net. a more recent post given some additional background
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#85

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Which non-IBM software products (from ISVs) have been most significant to the mainframe's success?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 07 Dec, 2010
Subject: Which non-IBM software products (from ISVs) have been most significant to the mainframe's success?
Blog: MainframeZone
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#17 What non-IBM software products have been most significant to the mainframe's success
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#20 What non-IBM software products have been most significant to the mainframe's success
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#21 What non-IBM software products have been most significant t

support for hasp/jes2 had moved to gburg (crabtree went to gburg) ... initial conversion of MVT to virtual memory was SVS. my wife did stint in gburg group ... one of the things was "catcher" and documentation for ASP turning into JES3. She also worked on JESUS ... JES unified system ... that merged JES2 & JES3 ... but there was too much politics. a couple recent JESUS refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#61 and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#3

Simpson went to Harrison where he had group doing RASP ... a "new" virtual memory operating system somewhat from scratch. He then left and went with Amdahl in Dallas ... redoing RASP from scratch. There was some litigation involved verifying that it was totally "clean room" and no copied code.. Some recent RASP thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#44

CPS was done by the boston programming center on 3rd flr of 545 tech sq (science center that did virtual machines, cp40, cp67, invented GML, bunch of interactive stuff was on 4th flr). Much of CPS implementation was done under contract by Allen-Babcock ... recent joint post with a.f.c. & ibm-main (with various references ... including ptr to scan of Allen-Babcock CPS document):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#14

above also mentions trivia that Jean Sammet was member of BPS on 3rd flr.

CP67 development group split off from science center and moved to the 3rd flr, absorbing the boston programmming center (some of the people did a flavor of CPS that ran on cms). The group was growing rapidly working on the morph of cp67 into vm370 ... and eventually outgrew the 3rd floor ... that was when they moved out to the old SBC bldg. in burlington mall.

Lots of univ. where convinced to get 360/67s to run tss/360 ... when tss/360 ran into all sorts of problems ... some number of univ. just dropped back to running in 360/65 mode with os/360. some number installed cp67.

UofMich did MTS (virtual memory system) ... recent post with refs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#67

Stanford did Orvyl/Wylbur (with wylbur later being ported to os/360). a couple recent posts with refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#79 and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#82

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 08 Dec, 2010
Subject: WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/11289_wikileakswallstreetbombshell

from above:
With Assange's next release apparently targeting Bank of America, traders fear a subprime lending scandal will be exposed. Charlie Gasparino talks with someone who has read the leaked files.

... snip ...

not directly related ... but a couple older articles on such subject:

A Wikipedia Conspiracy and the Wall Street Meltdown
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/10/05/201205.shtml
Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia's naked shorts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/01/wikipedia_and_naked_shorting/
The Register Exposes More Wikipedia Abuse
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/12/07/1434221.shtml?tid=153
CRAMER REVEALS A BIT TOO MUCH
http://nypost.com/2007/03/20/cramer-reveals-a-bit-too-much/
The Man Who Beat The Shorts
http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/1124/042.html

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Ratio of workers to retirees

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 08 Dec, 2010
Subject: Ratio of workers to retirees
Blog: Facebook
Baby boomers are four times the previous generation and nearly twice the following generation (that is why they are called baby boomers). As the baby boomer population bubble moves thru the economy there are all sorts of side-effects. During their peak earning years it is relatively easy to siphon off money to pay for the prior generation retirement. As baby boomers move into retirement, the ratio of workers to retirees decreases by factor of eight times (ignoring all other effects).

It wasn't 8 times as many people in boomer generation ... it was that the boomer population bubble was 4 times the previous generation and nearly twice the following generation. the change is in the ratio of baby boomers in prime working years to previous retired generation compared to the ratio of the following generation in prime working years to retired baby boomers (baby boomers increase retirees by factor of four ... since there are four time as many baby boomers and the number of workers in prime working years are nearly cut in half ... since there are only half as many of them ... a factor of eight change in ratio of workers in prime working years to retirees)

note that the side effects of the baby boomer population bubble isn't just general ratio of workers to retirees changes by factor of eight times ... but also things like the ratio of geriatric health care workers to retirees is also likely to change by factor of eight times (four times as many retirees, half as many workers)

following generation is actually closer to 2/3rds ... calling baby boomer population bubble nearly twice ... simplified math for change in worker:retiree ratio ... actual reduction is more like six times (than 8 times). One conspiracy theory is that lobbying to effectively ignore illegal immigrants volume over the last 25yrs is trying to backfill as the baby boomer bubble moves thru economy.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#99 The Workplace War for Age and Talent
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#1 The Workplace War for Age and Talent

other recent posts mentioning baby boomer population bubble
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#24 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#59 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#72 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#69 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#72 They always think we don't understand

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:00:54 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Sure, this will work until the first politician begins to think in single-term election years. Debt next term will be someone else's problem. Your assumption is that people will care about 5 years from now. Once this "short-term" thinking starts, people will rationalize away all long-term thinking. If you want an example that's occurring now, look at the US in banking, insurance, and Congress.

the shortterm "personal" magnitude spike over the past decade was so large ... that it appeared to totally swamp any concern about downside to their institution, economy, and/or the country.

I just finished "The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown" on kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Trillion-Dollar-Meltdown-Rollers/dp/1586486918

some of the examples were recent reverse-IPO buyouts ... with cost of borrowing at near zero ... they could borrow for the buyout ... while taking big commission and fees ... and then borrow more on the company books ... for their own "reward" ... and then re-IPO the company ... with the new company taking all the "debt" incurred during the process. Rather than claim that the process creates value ... it showed how the process just sucked enormous wealth out of the infrastructure ... going to a few individuals.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:46:00 -0500
Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
The FDIC didn't originally insure the bank, it insured the depositors. If the banks' investments went sour, the bank would be closed and the executives would be looking for work and not get their bonuses, just the depositors would get their money back.

little topic drift in this

A small amount of Evidence. (In which, the end of banking and the rise of markets is suggested.)
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001299.html

in this series

What caused the financial crisis. (Laying bare the end of banking.)
https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001268.html
What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001297.html

in any case in the above, one of the refs was to all the money that FED has been doling out (significantly larger than what was done by the treasury in TARP), including various auto companies:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions
and
http://jalopnik.com/5704575/

I've been doing quite a bit of pontificating in the series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#6 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#28 A small amount of Evidence. (In which, the end of banking and the rise of markets is suggested.)

... and in the latest ... point out ILCs were given loop-hole (used by all sorts of institutions):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_loan_company

previously mentioned in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#77 Financial Regulatory Reform - elimination of loophole allowing special purpose institutions outside Bank Holding Company (BHC) oversigh

and old post mentioning (also) BMW getting ILC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007v.html#58 folklore indeed

other old posts mentioning ILCs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#42 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#47 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#62 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#7 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#11 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#12 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#25 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#65 Banks failing to manage IT risk - study
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#19 Does anyone know of merchants who have successfully bypassed interchange costs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#1 Is it possible to have an alternative payment system without riding on the Card Network platforms?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#70 Post Office bank account 'could help 1m poor'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#32 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#62 blasts from the past -- old predictions come true
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#63 Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#28 The Durbin Amendment Ignites a Lobbying Frenzy on Capitol Hill
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#38 Google scares Aussie banks

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Great Cyberheist

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 08 Dec, 2010
Subject: The Great Cyberheist
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#40 The Great Cyberheist

small x-over with this reference by Fred Leland
http://redteamjournal.com/2010/11/death-by-a-thousand-cuts/

the scenario is that enormous resources are being devoted to huge vulnerability landscape ... a lot of which is actually possible to eliminate from the playing field ... with possible motivation that there are lots & lots of large stakeholders with vested interest in the status quo.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 09 Dec, 2010
Subject: WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#43 WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell

Note that DTCC referenced in the wiki reference on (illegal naked) short selling ... there has been legal action trying to get DTCC to release transaction details (that apparently could be used to prove instances of illegal naked short) ... which does show up in the DTCC wiki reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Trust_&_Clearing_Corporation

Before NSCC & DTC merged, I had been asked by NSCC to look at improving the integrity of transactions ... but after working on it for some time, the effort was called off ... with some references to my work on improving the transaction integrity would have side-effect of increasing transaction transparency.

misc. past posts mentioning DTCC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#41 DEC and news groups
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#63 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#35 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#65 What can agencies such as the SEC do to insure us that something like Madoff's Ponzi scheme will never happen again?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#80 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#1 Audit II: Two more scary words: Sarbanes-Oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#47 Bernard Madoff Is Jailed After Pleading Guilty -- are there more "Madoff's" out there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#63 Do bonuses foster unethical conduct?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#75 Whistleblowing and reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#15 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#53 Are the "brightest minds in finance" finally onto something?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#45 Artificial Intelligence to tackle rogue traders
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#67 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#29 Transparency and Visibility
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#23 Why are z/OS people reluctant to use z/OS UNIX? (Are settlements a good argument for overnight batch COBOL ?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#57 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#47 Audits VII: the future of the Audit is in your hands
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#33 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#43 What was old is new again (water chilled)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#56 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#54 Trust Facade
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#69 Idiotic programming style edicts

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Great Cyberheist

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 09 Dec, 2010
Subject: The Great Cyberheist
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#40 The Great Cyberheist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#47 The Great Cyberheist

for x-over with wikileaks, OODA-loop and lack of visibility (observe in "fog-of-war") ... this is part of posts from the (linkedin) Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#43 WikiLeak's Wall Street Bombshell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#48 WikiLeak's Wall Street Bombshell

some background to the above ... somebody from NSCC had been attending the X9A10 financial standards meetings (that resulted in the X9.59 financial transaction standard); they were interested in "internet trades" ... including internet financial transactions as part of settlement. I was then invited into NSCC to look at doing something analogous for trading ... as had been done in X9.59 for financial transactions. As mentioned in the above, it was then called off with references that a side-effect of the integrity work would have been visibility and transparency.

I just finished the free kindle sample version of "Knowledge Creating Company" (x-over from the Compressing the OODA-Loop discussion) ... one of the areas it dwelt on was economic market knowledge ... there is significant effort that goes on to maintain a lot of smoke (obfuscation) on the playing field (lack of visibility and transparency).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:37:39 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Wouldn't that destroy the commodity trading? That would mean that the foodstuff biz disappears. The food you eat depends on futures.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#28 A small amount of Evidence. (In which, the end of banking and the rise of markets is suggested.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#45 TCM's Moguls documentary series

in addition to the other descriptions ... there was snipet about commodities market not allowing those w/o significant position in the commodity (basically also from 30s like Glass-Steagall that separated safe, regulated epository institutions from risky, unregulated investment banking). speculators (w/o significant position) resulted in wild irrational swings in prices ... which then happened recently after there were 19 "secret" letters that allowed specific speculator entities to play

and then there is recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#49 The Great Cyberheist

referencing:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#43 WikiLeak's Wall Street Bombshell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#48 WikiLeak's Wall Street Bombshell

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Line printers still in use on mainframe-class systems?

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Line printers still in use on mainframe-class systems?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:15:23 -0500
hancock4 writes:
A few years ago I ordered something via the Internet. When it arrived I was surprised that the packing slip was an old fashioned custom form (sprocket feed, with carbons) and printed by a line printer. I figured a firm using the Internet to take orders would have modernized the print end, too. But the form was pre-printed in colored lines which made it contrast well with the variable information the computer generated--much easier to read than the monochrome generated by laser printers.

some number of internet companies are pure shell ... everything is outsourced/subcontracted to other (frequently existing) entities (back room, order fullfilment, transaction processing, possibly even the hosting and operation of the webserver).

it was a major problem for acquiring credit card operation. the issuing (customer) financial institution takes liability for the customer and the acquiring (merchant) financial institution takes liability for the merchant (and there are contractual obligations between issuing and acquiring financial institutions).

typical acquiring financial institution would sign-up (take-on financial obligation/liability) for a merchant ... in the worse case outstanding credit card liability (during billing period) was less than merchants tangable assets (could be attached to meet the acquiring institutions financial liability).

many "internet" merchants had/have effectively no assets, being purely shell operations ... so there is little or nothing that acquiring institution could seize in case of merchant defaulting (to cover possible 4-8 weeks of credit card receipts).

early days of e-commerce it was a major problem getting acquiring banks' risk management departments to approve signing up "internet" merchants (that lacked any assets).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:31:50 -0500
Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> writes:
Railroads are extremely capital intensive, and by law everything must be depreciated over 30 years (in the US). This does tend to make (smart) management take a longer view of how things are run. There is no point in trying to run a purchasing department that squeezes the suppliers too much: You need your suppliers to stay in business so they can fix the stuff you bought 20 years from now.

in the 50s & 60s ... out west, i remember seeing track maintenance crews come thru every summer. on the east cost in the 70s, i remember seeing tracks that hadn't any maintenance for possibly 20yrs; there was some article that possibly late 50s some of the east coast train operators were deferring track maintenance and using the money for executive bonuses and stock dividend (one or two yrs possibly didn't make a lot of difference ... but it builds up quite a deficit if done for decades). outside boston there was stretch of track near acton ... where the tracks were so bad that freight train speed limit was 5MPH and it was still known as the boxcar boneyard ... because of large number of derailments.

part of the change in the east was possibly the interstate system ... making heavy trucking more competitive with railroad ... effectively heavy trucking got their track maintenance nearly for free.

old threads about road design and maintenance is almost totally related to heavy trucking lifetime use (i.e. ESAL ... axle load) ... with other vehicles almost playing no factor (spreading highway gasoline tax across all vehicles is enormous subsidy for heavy trucking).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#41 Transportation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#5 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#6 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#10 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#12 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#15 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#19 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#24 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#26 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#32 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#35 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#46 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#48 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#49 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#50 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#51 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#52 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#53 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#54 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#56 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#57 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#59 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#60 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#61 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#62 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#0 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#5 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#6 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#11 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006h.html#23 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#2 Overweight truckers stopped by tech checks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#97 Loads Weighing Heavily on Roads
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#21 Horrid thought about Politics, President Bush, and Democrats
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#55 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#48 fraying infrastructure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#68 Historian predicts the end of 'science superpowers'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#25 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#36 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#37 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#54 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#41 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#61 Idiotic cars driving themselves

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 10:24:47 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
But they are going to rich (I'm not using the Democrats' definition of rich) for a moment. When the nation goes bankrupt, its money is worthless. So what if gold is $1000K/ounce? You won't be able to buy your annual food for an ounce of gold.

there is hostile scenario ... that an organization with a significant amount of money could use 90% of it to buy up large amount of stock ... and then start dumping the stock ... precipitating a stock market crash. then they could use the remaining 10% to pretty much buy everything. modeling is whats the minimum "significant amount of money" needed to play the game.

the cyclic bubble conspiracy scenarios are related ... possibly not quite the extreme highs & lows ... but basically a pump&dump play ... on much larger scale than the penny-ante players at the low end (that sometimes show up in the news as criminals). pump&dump is sort of the reverse of the illegal short sales referenced in previous post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#50 TCM's Moguls documentary series

a different scenario is that non-friendly foreign govs. holding so much of the country's debt, wield significant power.

the "congress is the most corrupt institution on earth" scenario ... would then conclude that most of the political party rhetoric is just distraction for the populace ... akin to roman games.

misc recent posts referencing the most corrupt institution on earth
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#40 F.B.I. Faces New Setback in Computer Overhaul
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#88 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#36 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#58 History--automated payroll processing by other than a computer?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#69 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#14 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#16 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:32:54 -0500
D.J. <pongbill127@cableone.net> writes:
Actually, it was the removal of government rules, checks, and balances that created the crisis. By Bush.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#46 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#50 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#53 TCM's Moguls documentary series

predated bush ... was congress ... federal reserve was already doing some stuff before GLBA (bank modernization act) and then commodity trading modernization act.

enron then happened ... and congress responded with sarbanes-oxley ... but even what regulation there was ... appeared to have no enforcement; evidence the Madoff congressional testimony by the person that tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff ponzi scheme.

the whole institutional infrastructure is involved ... political party rhetoric is just there to misdirect the public (facade of any substantial difference between the parties)

misc past posts mentioning the gramms' involvement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#39 'WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#46 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#48 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#53 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#55 Who will give Citigroup the KNOCKOUT blow?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#65 is it possible that ALL banks will be nationalized?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#10 Who will Survive AIG or Derivative Counterparty Risk?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#28 I need insight on the Stock Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#61 Quiz: Evaluate your level of Spreadsheet risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#63 Do bonuses foster unethical conduct?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#0 What is swap in the financial market?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#13 Should we fear and hate derivatives?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#29 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#51 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#7 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#17 REGULATOR ROLE IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT FINANCIAL SCANDALS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#84 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#77 Now is time for banks to replace core system according to Accenture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#38 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#36 Idiotic programming style edicts

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 10:43:28 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Of course. The Democrat leadership since the late 80s has been trying their damnedest to open the gates to the barbarians while we watch those games. Even in the 80s, some of them were doing things which I would judge as treason in their attempts to "win" against the Republicans.

but with no substantive difference between the parties ... the party politics is just part of misdirection & distraction for the populace (purely staged facade). jaundiced view is when the parties rachet up the rhetoric in public ... wonder what is actually going on in the backrooms (the more that the populace gets involved in the public party political rhetoric ... they less they are likely to pay attention to what is actually happening)

old post on illegal aliens and (1980s) amnesty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#61 Horrid thought about Politics, President Bush, and Democrats

above references earlier post about effective net "costs" of illegal aliens to the country; something like $10k/annum/illegal ... which can also be considered per head annual subsidy to businesses that employ them
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#18 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies

past posts/threads here in a.f.c.

side-point is that with all the periodic rhetoric on the subject ... i couldn't find congress had bothered to ask GAO to do any updates on the subject (since 1995) ... allowing lots of hot air and rhetoric with nobody really wanting it based on actual facts.

old post/thread on major food transportion going west-to-east, the east coast has some food transportation/supply vulnerabilities.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#6 medium term future of the human race
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#21 Spam Bomb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#55 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#59 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#65 China overtakes U.S. as top Web market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#40 dollar coins

(relative) cheap oil, cheap transportation & cheap food ... might be considered analogous to "bread & circuses" analogy from roman times.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

From OODA to AAADA

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 11 Dec, 2010
Subject: From OODA to AAADA
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
re:
http://www.lesc.net/blog/OODA-aaada-%E2%80%95-cycle-surviving-violent-police-encounters

I always considered orientation included anticipating (variation on situation awareness), i.e. part of integrating latest observation into the context of what is happening (and whether latest observation correspond with earlier expectations).

I had done something similar in 60s & 70s ... with dynamic adaptive computer resource control algorithms ... including calculating difference between actual observed and previous prediction.

Orientation including anticipating as well as adjusting based on whether earlier anticipation corresponds with actual observation .... potentially requiring real-time adjustment of whatever basis is being used for the anticipating (any assumptions about the environment may turn out to be completely wrong).

I've periodically repeated the joke I played on the community w/regard to dynamic adaptive and language/context. I had done all this work on dynamic adaptive and prior to one of the product releases ... some hdqtr type did a review and concluded that all the "modern" resource control algorithms included large number of human set'able parameters (to adapt algorithm to specific environments/workloads). My counter was that I spent a decade implementing automated processes that eliminated the need for such stuff ... which fell on deaf ears (in most cases, environment and workload would dynamically change in real time ... which statically set parameters wouldn't deal with).

So I put in some number of human setable static parameters, published detailed document on the formulas and description of operation, along with all the code. In the area of "Operations Research" there is something about "degrees of freedom" with regard to control parameters.

Most low level/kernel computing has (computer) language and orientation of "state" at any particular time ... frequently ignoring how things are changing over time (4th dimension). It turns out the "degrees of freedom" allowed the static setable parameters were less than the "degrees of freedom" that I allowed that dynamic adaptive operation (in effect the dynamic adaptive would always be able to compensate for any statically set parameter. The dynamic adaptive included calculating the difference between most recently observed and previously predicted, as part of orientation).

Over period of a couple decades ... nobody appeared to have ever realized the "joke" ... potentially because most of the people that dealt with the subject were so focused on state at any particular point in time ... and "change over time" wasn't part of their world view.

Tactical orientation may be more concerned with the other side is trying to obfuscate what is going on (and observe/orientation is attempting to divine/overcome the fog). Part of strategic should at least include testing whether the assumptions are valid (in part, do previous predictions correspond with what is actually being observed). The tactical can be problems with both observation and orientation ... the particular strategic case can be a deficiency in orientation. Agile adaptation needs to recognize that viewpoint can be wrong (possibly unduely influenced by past experience) and/or things are actually changing (or both).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 14:18:46 -0500
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
That's what they said about hedge funds, too, and it seemed to make sense. The hedge fund basically took the other side of a bet - betting a price would go down when everyone else assumed it would go up, and visa-versa. This should have led to price stability. It didn't.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#50 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#53 TCM's Moguls documentary series

i.e. suppsoedly the justification for only allowing those with significant position in the commodity to play in commodity futures market (as countermeasure to wild, irrational price swings). The point was that after the 19 "secret letters" allowing speculators to play in the market ... it radically affected commodity price stability with irrational wide swings.

the other scenario is something like "portfolio churning" and/or gambling houses stack the deck ... not particularly caring about any particular win/lose ... but because of the way the market is slanted ... the insiders will always win ... as long as they can keep everybody else playing.

part of the speculation wild swings is heavy leveraging at up to 100:1 ... where 1% change can precipitate a wipe-out of the original investment (resulting in various cascading effects) or relatively minor upswing create thousand percent ROI.

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 19:05:57 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
the other scenario is something like "portfolio churning" and/or gambling houses stack the deck ... not particularly caring about any particular win/lose ... but because of the way the market is slanted ... the insiders will always win ... as long as they can keep everybody else playing.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#57 TCM's Moguls documentary series

an ultimate insider scenario ... $12T some of it

The Wall Street Pentagon Papers: Biggest Scam In World History Exposed: Are The Federal Reserve's Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?
http://pubrecord.org/nation/8622/pentagon-papers-wall-street/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:34:39 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
an ultimate insider scenario ... $12T some of it

The Wall Street Pentagon Papers: Biggest Scam In World History Exposed: Are The Federal Reserve's Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?
http://pubrecord.org/nation/8622/pentagon-papers-wall-street/


re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#57 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#58 TCM's Moguls documentary series

... another in a series

Mervyn King calls us to the Old Lady's deathbed?
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001298.html

above also references:

How Glass-Steagall Could Make A Backdoor Comeback
http://blogs.forbes.com/steveschaefer/2010/12/06/how-glass-steagall-could-make-a-backdoor-comeback/?boxes=Homepagechannels

recent post mentioning the Gramms, repeal of Glass-Steagall, bank modernization act, and commodities futures trading modernization act
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#54 TCM's Moguls documentary series

misc. recent posts mentioning Glass-Steagall (&/or Pecora hearings)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#28 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#52 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#68 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#73 Our Pecora Moment
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#34 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#62 blasts from the past -- old predictions come true
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#63 Wal-Mart to support smartcard payments
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#7 Seeking *Specific* Implementation of Star Trek Game
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#18 Personal use z/OS machines was Re: Multiprise 3k for personal Use?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#29 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#43 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#38 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#40 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#60 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#66 the Federal Reserve, was Re: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#68 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#69 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#8 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#29 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#33 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#35 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#36 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#52 Who are these people who think cybersecurity experts are crying wolf?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#38 Google scares Aussie banks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#53 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#59 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#65 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#76 e-commerce smackdown as PCI standards revised
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#16 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#23 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#29 The Mobile Device Is Becoming Humankind's Primary Tool

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Daisywheel Question: 192-character Printwheel Types

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Daisywheel Question: 192-character Printwheel Types
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:56:38 -0500
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
A few of IBM's manuals were typeset conventionally, like System/360 Principles of Operation. Many were reproduced from printout on a TN print train.

most of the manuals started out normal typeset ... there was some transition with cp67 moving documents into (cms) script (cp67/cms morph of ctss runoff) ... with output to 1403 TN print train used as master for printing (usually using "film" ribbon, rather than standard fabric ribbon). Some number of "smaller" documents were done using 2741 as output (instead of 1403, using selectric "film" ribbon). recent post mentioning film ribbon (and 3800 laser printer)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#18 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

principles of operation was one of the first (outside the cp67 group) to move to cms script; (as mentioned before) because of being a subset of the "architecture manual". moved to cms script ... the full document was the architecture "red book" (named for being distributed in red 3-ring binder). using script command line options, it was possible to print only the "principles of operation" subset (w/o all the internal-only stuff ... like engineering notes and/or discussions of things like alternatives and trade-offs). recent post mentioning "red-book"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#11 Happy DEC-10 Day

GML was also invented at the science center (in 1969) and gml "tag" support was added to script processing (in addition to "runoff" controls). decade later GML morphed into ISO SGML standard (another decade then saw SGML morph into HTML). recent post mentioning ctss runoff, script, gml, sgml, html, slac vm/cms having 1st webserver outside cern, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#55 GML

advent of laser printers (like 3800) eliminated the (1403/impact) computer output characteristic

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:11:24 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#57 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#58 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#59 TCM's Moguls documentary series

another on the subject (especially lack of transparency and visibility)

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives; On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/business/12advantage.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

along with x-over from
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#43 WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#48 WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#49 The Great Cyberheist
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#50 TCM's Moguls documentary series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:51:05 -0500
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> writes:
You ai'nt kiddin. Here in New York we recently had a near bankruptcy by the New York State Racing Association, that runs Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga. Just last week New York City Off-Track Betting just went broke and had to shut down. How the heck could gambling operations go bankrupt? The house *always* wins. Obviously the pols were using these organizations as their personal piggy-banks.

comment here about they have to keep the customers coming in and playing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#57 TCM's Moguls documentary series

when we were doing ha/cmp in late 80s/early 90s ... misc past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp

... one of the early adopters was big new casino in conn. on indian reservation. being so much closer to NYC ... it was going to take a lot of atlantic city. ha/cmp was being used for several critical casino business operations (went live feb92). a couple past threads:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#11 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#16 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#11 Unfair taxes

wiki page mentions it operates the world's largest resort casino
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashantucket_Pequot_Tribe

and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxwoods_Resort_Casino

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 11:47:14 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
FYI, last night, Coast to Coast was advertising that tonight's guest will explain what happened and "name names". Based on previous shows with this guest, none of it will be true and all will probably be "justified" by referring to "scenitists". However, it will give a clue about which direction these talk show people want to point the next riot.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#58 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#59 TCM's Moguls documentary series

similar to the way that DTCC has been fighting release of its records (potentially would be used to show rampant illegal naked short selling) ... ref
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#43 WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#48 WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#49 The Great Cyberheist

the federal reserve had been fighting court orders for release of information about how it was aiding the financial institutions ... well beyond anything in TARP. I've mentioned numerous times over the past couple of years that this was somewhat sparked when they were going to take the $700B in TARP funds and buy toxic CDOs being held off-balance ... but they then found out that just the four largest too-big-to-fail financial institutions were carrying something like $5.2T off-balanace (the appropriated TARP funds would have barely been able to make a dent the real problem).

Previous references that there were a number of early "selling" involving tens of billions of the off-balance toxic CDOs that went for 22cents on the dollar ... but then FED stepped in and started paying 98cents on the dollar (if everything was to go for 22cents on the dollar, the four largest too-big-to-fail would have all been shutdown) ... 22cents on the dollar posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#44 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#67 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#70 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#26 Fraud due to stupid failure to test for negative
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008m.html#95 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#24 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#11 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#10 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#29 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#55 Who will give Citigroup the KNOCKOUT blow?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#65 is it possible that ALL banks will be nationalized?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#67 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#0 PNC Financial to pay CEO $3 million stock bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#23 Should FDIC or the Federal Reserve Bank have the authority to shut down and take over non-bank financial institutions like AIG?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#50 TARP Bailout to Cost Less Than Once Anticipated
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

four largest too-big-to-fail institutions w/$5.2T in off-balance toxic CDO posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#40 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#79 The $4 trillion housing headache
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#77 Financial Regulatory Reform - elimination of loophole allowing special purpose institutions outside Bank Holding Company (BHC) oversigh
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#35 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#69 64 Cores -- IBM is showing a prototype already
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#62 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#74 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#40 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#29 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#33 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#40 Idiotic programming style edicts

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:03:17 -0500
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
Given that all levels of government here (federal, provincial, and local) are getting a cut from the casinos, they care very much.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#62 TCM's Moguls documentary series

govs get percentage on the operations and then income tax on the winnings.

gov. get even bigger percentage of gov. lotteries (and of course income tax on the winnings). Income tax on weekly lotto winnings could be analogous to portfolio churning. past posts mentioning gov. lottos
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#12 Progress? (was Re: Way up north in Alaska ...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002e.html#30 Progress? (was Re: Way up north in Alaska ...)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#3 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006g.html#11 The Pankian Metaphor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#43 what does xp do when system is copying
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#44 what does xp do when system is copying

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 01:03:18 -0500
$144 Billion in Wall Street Bonuses: How Much Is That, Really?
http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/144-billion-dollars-in-wall-street-bonuses-how-much-is-that-re/19670583
50% Bigger Bonuses For U.S. Employees In The Financial Sector
http://www.metrolic.com/50-bigger-bonuses-for-u-s-employees-in-the-financial-sector-138292/
Is Wall Street on Track for Record Pay?
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/wall-st-pay-said-set-to-hit-a-record-144-billion/
Wall Street to Spend $144 Billion in Pay and Bonuses -- Record High
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/12/wall-street-to-spend-144-billion-in-pay-and-bonuses-record-high/

I guess if they can place bets with $12T or so of FED money ... then they figure that they keep a percent or two.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#58 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#59 TCM's Moguls documentary series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

No command, and control

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 14 Dec, 2010
Subject: No command, and control
Blog: Disciples of Boyd's Strategy
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#8 No command, and control

related to command&control ... item from steele today

Search: leadership thinking models
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/search-leadership-thinking-models/

Predictive Modeling Isn't Magic
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/26886/?p1=BI

actually there are quite a few wallstreet stories (not so humorous) about GIGO ... the risk departments and business modeling were repeatedly told to change the inputs ... until the business people got the results they wanted (GIGO). in this case, pointing the finger at modeling has been used as misdirection and to obfuscate what was really going on (in large part, bonuses, fees, commissions, etc for the business people on the transactions swamped any possible consideration as to the side-effects that the transactions might have on the institution, economy and/or country)

How Wall Street Lied to Its Computers
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/how-wall-streets-quants-lied-to-their-computers/

past posts referencing the article:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#49 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#52 Technology and the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#53 Your thoughts on the following comprehensive bailout plan please
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#56 VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#65 Whether, in our financial crisis, the prize for being the biggest liar is
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#69 Another quiet week in finance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#72 Why was Sarbanes-Oxley not good enough to sent alarms to the regulators about the situation arising today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#78 Isn't it the Federal Reserve role to oversee the banking system??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#80 Why did Sox not prevent this financal crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#82 Fraud in financial institution
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#15 Financial Crisis - the result of uncontrolled Innovation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#18 Once the dust settles, do you think Milton Friedman's economic theories will be laid to rest
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#19 What's your view of current global financial / economical situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#26 SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), is this really followed and worthful considering current Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#28 Does anyone get the idea that those responsible for containing this finanical crisis are doing too much?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#34 The human plague
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#75 In light of the recent financial crisis, did Sarbanes-Oxley fail to work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#82 Greenspan testimony and securization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#83 Chip-and-pin card reader supply-chain subversion 'has netted millions from British shoppers'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#8 Global Melt Down
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#70 Is there any technology that we are severely lacking in the Financial industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#49 Have not the following principles been practically disproven, once and for all, by the current global financial meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#50 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#58 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#64 Is This a Different Kind of Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#8 Top financial firms of US are eyeing on bailout. It implies to me that their "Risk Management Department's" assessment was way below expectations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#9 Blind-sided, again. Why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#23 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#29 Let IT run the company!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#55 Is this the story behind the crunchy credit stuff?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#62 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#14 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#63 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#80 Are reckless risks a natural fallout of "excessive" executive compensation ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#36 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#65 What can agencies such as the SEC do to insure us that something like Madoff's Ponzi scheme will never happen again?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#4 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#28 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#16 The Formula That Killed Wall Street
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#18 HSBC is expected to announce a profit, which is good, what did they do differently?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#30 I need insight on the Stock Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#36 Bernanke Says Regulators Must Protect Against Systemic Risks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#40 Bernanke Says Regulators Must Protect Against Systemic Risks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#59 Quiz: Evaluate your level of Spreadsheet risk
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#1 Future of Financial Mathematics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#31 OODA-loop obfuscation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#29 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#38 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#49 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#21 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#87 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#40 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:49:53 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
"Us" won't have any because there won't be grocery stores. It will take over a year for people to grow their annual food and preserve it. And that's assuming those people will know how to do that kind of work; most don't.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#55 TCM's Moguls documentary series

i remember stories in the early 70s about people on social security being forced to buy canned dog food at the grocery store ... and realizing that they had no idea about food value (canned dog food being extremely bad food economics). past post mentioning it being an ignorance issue:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006p.html#20 news group maintenance: SPEC CPU2006 announced

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:45:46 -0500
Bernd Felsche <berfel@innovative.iinet.net.au> writes:
The main difference between small business and a corporation is that those running the small business put their "sweat" into making their customers happy. Corporations are run by people obsessed with the bottom line and maximising income by screwing the customers in more ways than described in the Karma Sutra.

or executives just fiddling the corporation financial statements to spike their compensation:

Financial Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061053r.pdf
and update
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-06-1079sp

from above:
The database consists of two files: (1) a file that lists 1,390 restatement announcements that we identified as having been made because of financial reporting fraud and/or accounting errors between July 1, 2002, and September 30, 2005, and (2) a file that lists 396 restatement announcements that we identified as having been made because of financial reporting fraud and/or accounting errors between October 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006.

... snip ...

earlier

Financial Statement Restatement Database
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03395r.pdf
Financial Restatements: Update of Public Company Trends, Market Impacts, and Regulatory Enforcement Activities
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06678.pdf

one of the points was that even if the financial statements were later restated the spiked compensation wasn't reclaimed (claw back).

then there is this about $144B
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#65 TCM's Moguls documentary series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Moody's hints at move that could be catastrophic for US debt

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 14 Dec, 2010
Subject: Moody's hints at move that could be catastrophic for US debt
Blog: linkedin
Moody's hints at move that could be catastrophic for US debt
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2010/0316/Moody-s-hints-at-move-that-could-be-catastrophic-for-US-debt

from above:
Moody said Monday that it would consider downgrading its triple-A rating for US Treasury Bonds if Washington continues to pile up record deficits. The move would make it significantly harder for the US to finance its debt by borrowing from other countries.

... snip ...

doing the fall2008 congressional hearings into the role that the rating agencies played in the economic mess (selling triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs when they knew they weren't worth it), there was speculation that the rating agencies could blackmail the fed gov. into not taking any punitive action with the threat of rating downgrade.

past post mentioning rating agencies threatening fed. gov.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#8 Global Melt Down

misc. other rating agency refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#4 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#12 Translation of IBM Basic Assembler to C?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#87 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008d.html#10 Toyota Sales for 2007 May Surpass GM
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#44 Fixing finance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#68 lack of information accuracy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#71 lack of information accuracy
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008k.html#23 dollar coins
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008n.html#23 Michigan industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#39 The human plague
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#52 Why is sub-prime crisis of America called the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#68 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#71 Why is sub-prime crisis of America called the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#75 In light of the recent financial crisis, did Sarbanes-Oxley fail to work?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#78 Who murdered the financial system?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#80 Can we blame one person for the financial meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#3 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#9 Do you believe a global financial regulation is possible?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#47 In Modeling Risk, the Human Factor Was Left Out
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#60 Did sub-prime cause the financial mess we are in?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#70 Is there any technology that we are severely lacking in the Financial industry?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#11 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#12 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#19 Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#20 How is Subprime crisis impacting other Industries?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#49 Have not the following principles been practically disproven, once and for all, by the current global financial meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#50 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#54 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#58 Obama, ACORN, subprimes (Re: Spiders)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#69 if you are an powerful financial regulator , how would you have stopped the credit crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#4 Basel Committee outlines plans to strengthen Basel II
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#10 Blinkylights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#35 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#58 Blinkenlights
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008r.html#64 Is This a Different Kind of Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#8 Top financial firms of US are eyeing on bailout. It implies to me that their "Risk Management Department's" assessment was way below expectations
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#9 Blind-sided, again. Why?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#20 Five great technological revolutions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#23 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#24 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#30 How reliable are the credit rating companies? Who is over seeing them?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#35 Is American capitalism and greed to blame for our financial troubles in the US?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#55 Is this the story behind the crunchy credit stuff?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#59 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#60 Garbage in, garbage out trampled by Moore's law
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#14 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#15 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#21 Banks to embrace virtualisation in 2009: survey
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#32 What are the challenges in risk analytics post financial crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#42 Lets play Blame Game...?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#52 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#53 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#57 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#73 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#74 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#77 CROOKS and NANNIES: what would Boyd do?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#79 The Credit Crunch: Why it happened?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#1 Are Both The U.S. & UK on the brink of debt disaster?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#25 The recently revealed excesses of John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, while the firm was receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds makes me sick
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#37 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#38 A great article was posted in another BI group: "To H*** with Business Intelligence: 40 Percent of Execs Trust Gut"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#49 US disaster, debts and bad financial management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#51 Will the Draft Bill floated in Congress yesterday to restrict trading of naked Credit Default Swaps help or aggravate?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#52 What has the Global Financial Crisis taught the Nations, it's Governments and Decision Makers, and how should they apply that knowledge to manage risks differently in the future?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#53 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#54 In your opinion, which facts caused the global crise situation?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#57 Credit & Risk Management ... go Simple ?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#59 As bonuses...why breed greed, when others are in dire need?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#78 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#79 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#80 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#1 Audit II: Two more scary words: Sarbanes-Oxley
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#4 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#6 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#10 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#16 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#28 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#39 'WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#45 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#51 How to defeat new telemarketing tactic
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#61 Accounting for the "greed factor"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009c.html#65 is it possible that ALL banks will be nationalized?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#0 PNC Financial to pay CEO $3 million stock bonus
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#22 Is it time to put banking executives on trial?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#28 I need insight on the Stock Market
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#37 NEW SEC (Enforcement) MANUAL, A welcome addition
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#42 Bernard Madoff Is Jailed After Pleading Guilty -- are there more "Madoff's" out there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#62 Is Wall Street World's Largest Ponzi Scheme where Madoff is Just a Poster Child?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#73 Should Glass-Steagall be reinstated?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#77 Who first mentioned Credit Crunch?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#8 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#15 The background reasons of Credit Crunch
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#30 Timeline: 40 years of OS milestones
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#53 Are the "brightest minds in finance" finally onto something?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#70 When did "client server" become part of the language?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#31 What is the real basis for business mess we are facing today?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#41 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#49 Is the current downturn cyclic or systemic?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#51 On whom or what would you place the blame for the sub-prime crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#65 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#7 Just posted third article about toxic assets in a series on the current financial crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#27 Flawed Credit Ratings Reap Profits as Regulators Fail Investors
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#29 Transparency and Visibility
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#33 Treating the Web As an Archive
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#37 Future of Financial Mathematics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#52 Future of Financial Mathematics?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#53 We Can't Subsidize the Banks Forever
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#22 China's yuan 'set to usurp US dollar' as world's reserve currency
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#23 Consumer Credit Crunch and Banking Writeoffs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#40 Analysing risk, especially credit risk in Banks, which was a major reason for the current crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#1 IBM to Build Europe, Asia 'Smart Infrastructure'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#57 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009i.html#60 In the USA "financial regulator seeks power to curb excess speculation."
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#12 IBM identity manager goes big on role control
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#38 what is mortgage-backed securities?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#13 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#17 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#20 UK issues Turning apology (and about time, too)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#47 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#62 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009n.html#68 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#23 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#47 Is C close to the machine?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#47 Audits VII: the future of the Audit is in your hands
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#37 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#48 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#4 alphas was: search engine history, was Happy DEC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#8 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#52 LPARs: More or Less?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#54 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#76 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#81 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#22 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#31 In the News: SEC storms the 'Castle'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#58 S.E.C. Moves to Tighten Rules on Bonds Backed by Consumer Loans
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#4 Goldman Sachs -- Post SEC complaint. What's next?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#7 The Enablers for this "Real Estate Crisis"- Willful Blindness, Greed or more?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#34 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#48 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#49 "Fraud & Stupidity Look a Lot Alike"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#79 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#12 Warren Buffett faces hearing over ratings agencies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#6 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#29 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#38 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#40 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#6 Five Theses on Security Protocols
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#8 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#9 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#72 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#29 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#33 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#35 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#50 TARP Bailout to Cost Less Than Once Anticipated
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#8 PCI: Smaller Merchants Threatened
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#24 What Is MERS and What Role Does It Have in the Foreclosure Mess?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#37 WHAT, WHY AND HOW - FRAUD, IMPACT OF AUDIT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#6 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:23:39 -0500
Morten Reistad <first@last.name> writes:
Gazprom, Crysler, Bechtel, Toys "R" Us, IKEA, LEGO and Bosch are privately held companies.

there have been some number that have gone thru reverse-IPO and then are in the process of being re-IPO'ed ... as soon as they suck out as much value as possible ... aided by flood of cheap money over last decade:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#45 TCM's Moguls documentary series

a few other recent refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#80 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#23 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#46 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

wiki ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_takeover

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

origin of 'fields'?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: origin of 'fields'?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:59:03 -0500
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
this doesn't even take into account baby boomers living longer, reguiring more tax collections. it also doesn't take into account that the following generation has lower education, lower skills, and facing better educated foreign competition (so total, inflation adjusted taxable income rather than half ... because half as many workers, it may only be 1/4th). the combination of factors, may require further uplift of the tax rate to meet required tax collection ... say to 300%.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#75 origin of 'fields'?

on tv business news show just now:
china spends as much on supplemental education as they spend on housing and transportation ... compared to US which spends 25 times more on housing and transportation as it does on supplemental education

stock markets in US, europe and japan use to account for more than 90% of total world markets ... it is now down to almost 60% and heading for 1/2.


... snip ...

didn't catch any defintion they had for "supplemental". this mentions US not ranks 52nd in quality of science and math education
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#27 60 Minutes News Report:Unemployed for over 99 weeks!
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#60 They always think we don't understand

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 14 Dec, 2010
Subject: Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
i've seen it go both ways ... huge amount of information exceeding single person that has to be processed ... versus the line about camel is a race horse designed by committee (possibly attempting to address too many objectives and view points).

i gave a talk on chip design i had done at assurance panel in the trusted computing track at intel developer's forum. person running trusted computing chip design was sitting in the front row ... so i quipped (in part because of extreme KISS of design) that 1) it could (also) meet all the (important) requirements for TPM and 2) it was nice to see that the TPM chip design had begun to look more and more like my chip. The guy running TPM quipped back that I didn't have a committee of 200 people helping with my chip design.

URL has gone 404 ... but lives on at way back machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20011109072807/http://www.intel94.com/idf/spr2001/sessiondescription.asp?id=stp%2bs13

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

From OODA to AAADA

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 Dec, 2010
Subject: From OODA to AAADA
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
I mentioned that I really liked feedback loops ... because I started doing them as undergraduate in the 60s as part of dynamic adaptive computer resource management algorithms ... old Boyd post from 1994 mentioning
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#8 scheduling & dynamic adaptive ... long post warning

the vendor was even picking up my work and shipping it as part of standard product ... reference here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#1 origin of 'fields'
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#13 Sandboxing: Understanding System Containment

which mentions these customers (tho I didn't learn about until much later)
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml

this x-over thread post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#72 Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
has reference
https://web.archive.org/web/20011109072807/http://www.intel94.com/idf/spr2001/sessiondescription.asp?id=stp%2bs13
that mentions a couple people from the above organization.

in any case, one of the things I had to do in the 60s, was make changes all over the system as part of measurement for the "observation" input into the feedback controls ... and then make changes all over the system ... eliminating all sorts of implicit resource control decisions ... and making them explicit, integrating them all into dynamic adaptive mechanism.

this post mentions that as part of the whole thing there was predictions about what effect any changes in control should have ... and then calculatons the next cycle whether what was predicted to happen corresponded with what did happen (earlier in this thread)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#56 From OODA to AAADA

lots of feedback implementations are somewhat more free-wheeling ... don't even bother to check whether expectations of changes in previous cycles actually correspond with actual results.

In the late 70s and early 80s there were some involved in the gov COTS movement (including the person that coined the term COTS) ... old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers
with email mentioning AFDS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#email790404b

As well as appearance of COTS email on COTS platform in number of gov. agencies (I've mentioned before being blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in that period; the internal network was larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until late '85 or early '86). This mentions that obsession with backup/archive (including for email) may have contributed to some troubles that a marine had in the early 80s.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#19 The IETF is probably the single element in the global equation of technology competition than has resulted in the INTERNET

I had sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM in the early 80s. This post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#25 Special characters in passwords was Re: RACF - Password rules

has several emails announcing Boyd's briefings including
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email830516

These posts mentions attempting to get employee education to back the 1st such briefing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#11 The Scariest Company in Tech
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#27 The Scariest Company in Tech

During Boyd's briefings in the early 80s ... one of his examples were various large-scale war games ... where the staff had been practicing in war rooms all year (while the generals and admirals played golf) ... and then when the generals and admirals came in ... they had very little finger-feel for the arriving information (effectively poor observation as well as ability to orientate).

I've been involved in some number of high-availability products ... where there might be all sorts of possible failure modes that had to be anticipated (including results of various kinds of purposeful events). One past example is stuff that is now frequently called "electronic commerce" ... where traditional high integrity software development processes had been used. I then did a matrix of most of the components that might be involved (from user browser thru webserver to backend payment transaction systems) and a large array of things that might affect correct processing. The requirement was that infrastructure needed to automatically handle any of the problems and/or trouble desk could do 1st level problem determination within five minutes.

Lots of things are done starting from the standpoint of creating countermeasures to anticipated problems; another starting point is to methodically go thru every possible failure, disaster and/or attack ... before starting to considering countermeasures; slightly related to difference between (attacking) red & (defending) blue teams.

I've tended to like titles like this ...
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Most-Things-Fail-Extinction/dp/0375424059

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:00:05 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
That's the business model of the 90s. Companies only buy the startups who have a successful product. These companies don't have to fund research and development, taking the risks that most of the attempts won't produce a money making product.

in addition, R&D spending shows up as expense ... buying a company shows up as value on bottom line ... it is possible to spend 10-100 times more for the exact same results (by buying a company), but it shows up better in the financial reports (as an asset rather than as an expense). another way that current public corporate infrastructure has severely distorted business operations.

also shows up in the push for flat-tax ... part of the inefficiency of the 65,000 some pages in the current tax code has all sorts of special provisions that results in unnatural acts by corporations in order to take advantage of the special provisions. recent posts mentioning the flat-tax push
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#88 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#14 Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

some of this also shows up in "the knowledge-creating company" ... comparing Japanese & US companies (and culture) in various ways.
https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Creating-Company-Japanese-Companies-Innovation/dp/0195092694

recent posts mentioning public company fraudulent financial filings (part of the business distortions of the current infrastructure)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#36 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#81 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#33 The 2010 Census
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#15 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#16 The Revolving Door and S.E.C. Enforcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#67 The Python and the Mongoose: it helps if you know the rules of engagement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#84 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#46 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#38 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#35 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#68 TCM's Moguls documentary series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 Dec, 2010
Subject: Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
a little x-over from OODA to AAADA thread
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#73

with respect to some of the other people in the 2001 IDF panel ... in the mid-90s, I had semi-facetiously said I would take a $500 mil-spec part, aggressive cost reduce by 2-3 orders of magnitude while making it more secure. In addition to needling the head of the TPM committee, I also needled some of the guys on the panel that the chip was as secure as anything they were producing (in-house). I also had opportunity to cross swords with GSA in the 90s regarding the chips that would be used in the CAC-card
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Access_Card

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 16 Nov, 2010
Subject: The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-difficulty-of-proving-financial-crimes/

from above:
Prosecutors face considerable obstacles in proving criminal charges if they have only sketchy evidence of an executive's involvement in questionable decisions and the applicable legal standards are vague.

... snip ...

another view on prosecuting financial crimes (I've always been a sucker for lots of Boyd & OODA-loop references)

Reference: The Fraud-Based US Economy
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/reference-the-fraud-based-us-economy/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 17 Dec, 2010
Subject: Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
Blog: Boyd's Strategy
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#72 Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#75 Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?

couldn't resist ... posting (not mine) this morning in comp.arch (mostly chip & computer hardware design) in ongoing thread "Why we build big computers"
• Plain stupid is "eyes wide open but can't see".
• Self-deception is "eyes tightly shut for fear of seeing".
• Lying is "seeing perfectly, but refusing to tell".


... snip ...

above partially in response to reference upthread mentioning IBM and its massive "Future System" effort from the early 70s. One of the accounts of FS mentions that IBM staked so much FS project (absolute dollars as well as killing off all alternatives) that if it had been any other company, they would have gone out of business. For some Boyd tie-in. one of Boyd's biographies mentions his '70 stint at "spook base" and "spook base" was a $2.5B windfall (nearly $20B in today's dollars) for IBM (which would have partially covered the massive amount sunk into the FS project). misc. past posts mentioning FS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

I mentioned several times that during the FS effort, I would draw comparisons with a continuously playing cult film down in (cambridge) central sq (king of hearts, analogy reference to inmates being in charge of the institution). There was also some analogy with Boyd's story about air force air-to-air missile used during Vietnam ... highly skilled engineers with no practical experience in missiles. Several accounts of FS mention that the failure had enormous impact on the IBM culture that it took decades to recover from (although many of the people involved remained in positions of responsibility). misc past posts mentioning Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd1

paper by former IBM exec that participated in FS ... took nearly two decades after FS failure for the company to go into the red (Crisis And Change; The Rise And Fall Of IBM)
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm
https://www.ecole.org/en/session/49-the-rise-and-fall-of-ibm

this is recent post with a quote from the above
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#47

this is old post with quote from Ferguson and Morris 1993 IBM book ... with quote about after FS failure the culture was replaced with one of sycophancy and make no waves
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#33

leading up to the FS failure there was growing sense of Emperor's New Clothes parable aspect to the whole thing.

reference to king of hearts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Hearts_%281966_film%29

one of the analogies I drew regarding the FS project (from just about the beginning; at the time, I was at the science center ... just a couple blks down the street from theater that had been playing it nearly continuously since it was released in the US; the wiki article even references the central sq theater).

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:09:58 -0500
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
Now track the people who create those startups and sell to the highest bidder. Then they create another startup and sell to the highest bidder. that's how software is developed these days.

re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#74 TCM's Moguls documentary series

as mentioned previously during the internet bubble ... large portion involved investment bankers (some of the same ones that possibly had been involved in S&L crisis and in the more recent financial troubles this century) churning startup/IPO mill .... it was even beneficial for previous IPO'ed companies to fail ... since it left the playing field open for the next startup IPO; they made more money from (succession of) hardware & software that would fail.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#7 What banking is. (Essential for predicting the end of finance as we know it.)

there was similar theme about the culture of failure and the big beltway bandits making more money from gov. projects that fail ... than from those that succeed.

the various entities have tended to always be somewhat parasites ... sucking extra blood here & there. an important issue is that parasites keeping their appitite under control to avoid killing the host ... however, the past couple decades of managed failures is on the way to doing in the host.

old article The success of failure
http://www.govexec.com/management/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

a few past posts mentioning the Success Of Failure article (about large beltway bandits on gov. contracts)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#25 Opinions on the 'Unix Haters' Handbook'
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#41 U.S. house decommissions its last mainframe, saves $730,000
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#19 STEM crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#26 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#38 F.B.I. Faces New Setback in Computer Overhaul
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#18 taking down the machine - z9 series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes

From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler)
Date: 17 Nov, 2010
Subject: The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes
Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Security
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#76 The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes

an article from today on the subject

Wall Street Whitewash
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=2&src=twrhp

and one of the refs in the above ...

"Washington and the Regulators Are There To Serve the Banks"
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/12/17/washington-and-the-regulators-are-there-to-serve-the-banks/

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:10:00 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#74 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#78 TCM's Moguls documentary series

a few recent related articles on the subject:

The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-difficulty-of-proving-financial-crimes/

from above:
Prosecutors face considerable obstacles in proving criminal charges if they have only sketchy evidence of an executive's involvement in questionable decisions and the applicable legal standards are vague.

... snip ...

another view on prosecuting financial crimes (I've always been a sucker for lots of Boyd & OODA-loop references)

Reference: The Fraud-Based US Economy
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/reference-the-fraud-based-us-economy/

and then from today

Wall Street Whitewash
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=2&src=twrhp

and one of the refs in the above ...

"Washington and the Regulators Are There To Serve the Banks"
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/12/17/washington-and-the-regulators-are-there-to-serve-the-banks/

other posts in this thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#32 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#34 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#36 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#38 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#39 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#45 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#46 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#50 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#52 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#53 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#54 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#55 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#57 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#58 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#59 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#61 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#62 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#63 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#64 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#65 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#67 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#68 TCM's Moguls documentary series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#70 TCM's Moguls documentary series

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:57:45 -0500
maus <greymausg@mail.com> writes:
Analogy was made one between software and a sea-assault in the Pacific during WWII.

First wave of assault troops, heavy casulties, some units succeed. ->There are lots of good ideas, a few with potential

Second wave consolidate captured positions, bring supplies ashore. -> Startup-guys get backing, get venture capital.

Main push inland, take over island, mop up last resistance. ->People brought in to debug problems too boring for initial developers to deal with. Large inflow of cash.

Small force left behind, main force moves on to next Island. -> Code maintainers remain, top people move on to next project.


there have been some past references to Halsey (marines) and MacArthur (army) in competition to see who could kill the most US solders

the other scenario is that application is developed at customer location (either directly by the customer and/or in conjunction with vendor employees) ... vendor then creates organization (called development group ... i.e. "name/title inflation") that takes over maintenance and support of the application. a few past refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#27 IBM SHRINKS by 10 percent
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003c.html#59 When/why did "programming" become "software development?"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#13 What is timesharing, anyway?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#38 Facilities "owned" by MVS

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

Refed: **, - **, - **
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:23:33 -0500
re:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#74 TCM's Moguls documentary series

past posts mentioning study of successful silicon valley startups ... common characteristic was that they had all completely changed their business plan at least once within the first two years:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004k.html#15 I am an ageing techy, expert on everything. Let me explain the
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#39 Agile Workforce
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#84 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#70 Compressing the OODA-Loop - Removing the D (and maybe even an O)

a couple of the references are in Boyd-related discussion groups focusing on OODA-loops and agility ... however Boyd also had his To Be or To Do choice ... quoted in the "Agile Workforce" post; for a little topic drift ... To Be or To Do example from today
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/12/18/why-citigroup/

past posts mentioning Boyd and/or OODA-loops
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd1

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

TCM's Moguls documentary series

From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:48:14 -0500
maus <greymausg@mail.com> writes:
Or Marines?.. Yes, another thread...

some tie-in between Marines and Boyd ... one of the "shrines" in the lobby of the Marine library at Quantico ... is for Boyd
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1776007&l=142bf5f95d&id=1101890183

some tie-in between Boyd and IBM ... recent post referencing Boyd doing stint command of "spook base" in 1970 ... one of Boyd's bios mentions "spook base" was $2.5B windfall for IBM (getting close to $20B in today's dollars) ... recent post/reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#77 Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can?

past posts mentioning "spook base" was $2.5B windfall for IBM (would have helped with the enormous amount poured down the FS hole):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#22 Old Computers and Moisture don't mix - fairly OT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#23 Old Computers and Moisture don't mix - fairly OT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005m.html#24 Old Computers and Moisture don't mix - fairly OT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005t.html#1 Dangerous Hardware
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#37 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006q.html#38 Was FORTRAN buggy?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#49 Where can you get a Minor in Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#50 Where can you get a Minor in Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006u.html#51 Where can you get a Minor in Mainframe?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006x.html#18 The Future of CPUs: What's After Multi-Core?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#13 The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#4 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#69 Lean and Mean: 150,000 U.S. layoffs for IBM?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#60 Scholars needed to build a computer history bibliography
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008b.html#36 windows time service
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#43 Current Officers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008c.html#58 Current Officers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008h.html#38 Boyd again
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#0 Has anyone got a rule of thumb for calculation data center sizing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#74 Is SUN going to become x86'ed ??
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009.html#43 Evil weather
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#15 System/360 Announcement (7Apr64)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009f.html#21 Opinion: The top 10 operating system stinkers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009h.html#5 mainframe replacement (Z/Journal Does it Again)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#16 comp.arch has made itself a sitting duck for spam
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#37 Young Developers Get Old Mainframers' Jobs
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#33 Survey Revives Depate Over Mainframe's Future
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#60 MasPar compiler and simulator
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#38 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#14 "Portable" data centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009r.html#18 "Portable" data centers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#76 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#33 SHAREWARE at Its Finest
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#43 Boyd's Briefings
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#20 Would you fight?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#63 Handling multicore CPUs; what the competition is thinking
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#20 How many mainframes are there?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#33 45 years of Mainframe
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#16 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#18 taking down the machine - z9 series
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#51 Mainframe Hacking -- Fact or Fiction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#61 Mainframe Slang terms
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#59 z196 sysplex question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#65 They always think we don't understand
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#69 They always think we don't understand

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970




previous, next, index - home