[Scottish] The Future of the LUG

[Willie]

On Friday 12 December 2003 17:01, ed wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:06:03 +0000, Willie
>
> <willie at itscotland.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >On Thursday 11 December 2003 10:11, Colin.Speirs at scotland.gsi.gov.uk wrote:
> >> As an IT person working in IT for the Scottish Executive I'm saying
> >> nothing. However I think your chances of getting anything done in the
> >> short term considering there has just been a massive Microsoft based OS
> >> roll-out are minimal to say the least.
> >
> >In the short-medium term, we aren't asking them to junk the MS desktops,
> > we want them to consider
> >(1)using the .RTF file formats
>
> Ha. Ha Ha. ha Ha Ha ha ha Ha ha.
>
> You've never met our users, or dealt with our policy makers.
Did I say this was going to be easy?
>
> The only way this will happen if there is a POLITICAL decision to do
> this, but I suspect most of you know this. From a technical point of
> view you ain't gonna persuade the people in charge.
Thats a pity, but at least we now know how the land lies.

> Thanks to a "Head's up" from a pal (his wife's company had had their US
> operations hit) I gave our security people advance warning of ILOVEYOU.
>
> 11 days later the network was open and vulnerable when it hit. Most of
> the guys making decisions started in MVS days, hell I did COBOL and JCL
> in the early 1990s there, and they are still geared to a dumb terminal
> mentality.
I had a similar experience with a major bank when Melissa happened. Reasonable 
amount of fore warning (thanks to El Reg IIRC) but zilch action from Those 
With The Power. They reacted by shutting down email entirely for 10 days and 
only a kick in the rear from The Board got it opened up again. 
>
> >Maybe we should start putting together a list of IT-savvy politicos. 
<snip>
>
> You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment.
Oh go on, you know you want to
> Try Annabel Goldie as well, she is, or was, a Psion user and had to deal
> with the Parliamentary mob not wanting to allow Psions or Palms
> connecting to their networks.
No great love for the feisty Annabel. Reminds me too much of a former 
headmistress. And she's a tory too. But I'll defend her right to use a Psion 
or whatever. That is just crazy.
I doubt she is/was the only PDA-dependent MSP either. Of course its not only 
the MSPs that are hamstrung by this, its their support staff as well. 
Looks like the Civil Service Mentality is alive and well. Bet their pensions 
are safe though. And the head of dept will get his/her gong on retiral too.
Don't get me started. Ooops, looks like I already have.........

> 
Best Regards
Willie Fleming