Time for an e-mail call

THE INFOWORLD Test Center lab didn’t move to San Francisco on my back, but that’s how it feels after three weeks of unpacking. I’m not sure which is tougher, shaking my newfound addiction to extra-strength aspirin or reading a few months’ worth of e-mail.

Granted, in this line of work there’s no such thing as hate mail — even the people who disagree with me are more likely to be disappointed than scathing. Of course, a reader’s comments may get me thinking, and because that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with my columns, it’s nice to have the favor returned. This was the case with an e-mail from Forrest Landreth who attacked my “digital Pearl Harbor” column of a few weeks back (see ” Parallel worlds “).

He notes: “You make the fundamental and oh-so-common mistake of basing your arguments on the assertion that this ‘realm’ of ‘cyberdom’ is in any way real. It isn’t.

“Men at Pearl Harbor bled and died. Nobody will bleed and nobody will die in a cyberattack: only information might [be hurt].

“Ships were sunk and aircraft destroyed during the attack on Pearl Harbor. No THING will be damaged or lost in any cyberattack. The realm of information is all potential without physical reality.”

Unfortunately, the 500 words I’m allotted per week isn’t enough to permit a debate on the nature of reality, or as I like to put it, “meatspace versus cyberspace.” I just hope that Landreth is right about the lack of physical damage from a cyberattack, unless injuries caused by slamming body parts into drywall out of pure frustration count.

What should have been a fairly uncontroversial column on requiring firewalls to be installed with broadband connections drew an interesting batch of responses (see ” Firewall stall “). Most of your letters were fairly predictable, sharing your own ISP horror stories. One nitwit employee of an ISP actually wrote in to justify the “no support for firewalled connections” policy. I would publish his name, but I actually feel sorry for him, seeing that he works on the helldesk.

A couple of you drew blood by questioning my logic and debate skills, but I had twice as many replies in my favor, so you’re outvoted. Then there were the political complaints; some of you think I’m too liberal, while others view me as a dangerous fascist. The truth, of course, is that I’m a monarchist: Elvis is my King.

A few of you pointed out that it would be fairly easy to solve the firewall problem by adding a simple, NAT (Network Address Translation)-based “fireshield” to the router, set-top box, or what-have-you, and I couldn’t agree more. The cost might drive some smaller ISPs out of business, but since when are there guarantees for entrepreneurs with marginal business plans?

The cost would be passed along to the consumer, but as a consumer I’d rather have the cost buried in my per-month charge — or in the price of my hardware — at wholesale than make yet another purchase decision and pay retail.