Dec 95 Opinion Columns

by: Fred Langa

Last month, I revealed some disturbing facts about the security holes in Windows 95's Exchange. To be fair, I should point out up front that Microsoft thinks I'm making a big deal out of nothing. The company tells me its design decisions were intended to make Win95 and its mail client (Exchange, the "universal inbox") easier to use.

My concern--and I think yours, too--is that Microsoft made it too easy to gain access to your system. The default settings of Windows 95 and Exchange enable anyone to walk up to your computer, log on as himself or herself, and gain access to your private e-mail.

If you've been entering a password to start Win95, you might think you're at least somewhat protected. But by default, you're not. Try this next time you boot up: Instead of entering your password, click on Cancel or press Escape. Or, if you have one of the new Win95-style keyboards, press the Windows button. In each case, the result is the same: The password dialog closes, and you end up at your normal desktop just as if you'd correctly entered your closely guarded, secret password.

And, as I explained last month, even though Exchange may ask you for a password when you set it up, that password is cached--written to the hard disk. With default settings, anyone can click on your Inbox icon and gain access to your mail without having to enter a password because Exchange will read your password off the hard disk.

Win95 isn't sold as a secure operating system, and no one should expect it to adhere to NT-like C2 security standards. But there's decent, basic security built into both Windows 95 and Exchange. Your desktop settings, files and e-mail can indeed be password-protected. However, in the interests of "making it easier," Microsoft turned off these features.

Here's how to enable basic security in Win95 and Exchange. There are two pieces to Win95's own security. You can get to the first by clicking on the Control Panel's Passwords icon. Click on the User Profiles tab, and then on the Users Can Customize Their Preferences ... item. This will allow you to set up your log-on to have settings and access privileges separate from the default Win95 log-on.

Next, get your hands on Win95's Policy Editor, a tool that allows you to define what each user of your system can and cannot do. Every log-on can have its own set of privileges, access to different files, and so on. You'll find the Policy Editor on the CD-ROM version of Win95 in the ADMIN\APPTOOL\POLEDIT directory. The Win95 Resource Kit--ADMIN\RESKIT\ HELPFILE\WIN95RK.HLP on the CD--will answer your questions about the Policy Editor and about Win95 security.

If you have the diskette version of Win95, you won't find the Policy Editor or Resource Kit. But you can download them from the World Wide Web by pointing your browser at http: //www. windows

.microsoft.com/windows/software.htm. However you get these files, they'll help you set up Win95 so that the log-on password works the way you expect it to.

Finally, go to Exchange's Tools/Services menu, select the Personal Folder file (or whatever it's named on your system) and click on Properties. Then click on Change Password and enter a password that's different from your system password. Now, finally, both your e-mail and your basic desktop are safe from at least casual snooping.

I applaud Microsoft's intent to make things easier. But I think it was a mistake to include a password dialog in Win95 that, by default, doesn't do anything. I'm willing to bet there are millions of Win95 users who think that because they enter a password every morning when they start Win95, their systems are at least a little protected.

I also think it was a mistake for Exchange to cache the e-mail password. Exchange's default settings are the software equivalent of a car with the keys in the ignition and the windows rolled down.

Again, Windows 95 isn't NT, and we shouldn't expect it to behave like an honest-to-goodness secure system. But neither should we be chumps and depend on the kindness of strangers to keep our data and our desktops safe. If you haven't done so, turn on your Win95 security now.

So what do you think? Am I making a big deal over nothing? Let me know at flanga@cmp.com, the address of my newly secure Exchange inbox.

by: Mike Elgan

Or better yet, imagine being able to use your Windows PC to control your telephone. Wouldn't that be great? This kind of thing is called computer telephony. Sure, you've heard the acronyms: CTI, TAPI, TSAPI, IVR and so on. And you're probably thinking, "Telephony? BFD."

For decades, companies have tried--and failed--to create mainstream telephony products people would actually want to use. But the possibilities are astounding. Think about it: You have a computer on your desk, and it's probably connected to the Internet. (Even if you merely subscribe to an online service or have a corporate gateway to a mail service, you're connected to the Net.) This network of networks gives you access to other computers worldwide. You use your computer to access all of these other computers.

Chances are you also have a telephone on your desk, and it's connected to an even bigger network: the international phone system. This network lets you use your telephone to access other telephones worldwide.

With a few exceptions, you can't interact with the phone system from your PC, or interact with your PC from a telephone. But uniting these networks is the highest use of telephony. PC-based telephony would allow you to apply the graphics, power and control of your Windows PC to your telephone. And it would make your Windows PC as easy to use, familiar and available as the nearest phone.

Imagine, if you will, the phone ringing. Your PIM or contact-manager entry on the caller pops up before you can pick up the receiver.

Imagine letting your computer call a busy number until it connects, then having it alert you when the call is about to go through.

Imagine receiving faxes, voice mail and e-mail from the Internet and various online services, all in the same e-mail inbox. Of course, you'd be able to save, forward and--most importantly--delete faxes and voice mail just as you do e-mail.

Imagine setting up conference calls by dragging names from your address book and dropping them on an icon.

Imagine having an interactive voice response system for your small business that sounds and feels to customers like a Fortune 500 PBX. (Don't own your own business? How about a PBX instead of an answering machine in your home? "Hi, we're on vacation in Mexico! Press 1 to leave a message for Janet. Press 2 to leave a message for Steve. If this is an emergency, press 3 to be forwarded to Janet's cell phone.")

Imagine being able to call your PC from your cell phone and asking it to read your e-mail and faxes over the phone.

Imagine--and this one might be a stretch--actually being able to use all the features of your company's PBX.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, stop imagining and start planning. You can do all of this easily and inexpensively right now. Over the past few years, Microsoft has been working hard on five projects designed to thrust computer telephony into the mainstream, and these projects are just now starting to bear fruit.

First, Microsoft built TAPI into Windows 95. TAPI is designed to do for telephony what Windows 3.0 did for printing. Remember printing before Windows? Every printer manufacturer had to create a proprietary driver that talked directly to the hardware, so driver incompatibility was a huge problem. Windows 3.0 changed all that by allowing printer drivers and hardware to communicate with each other through the operating system.

Likewise with telephony and Win95. Until now, telephony vendors had to write custom, proprietary software for specific hardware vendors and service providers. TAPI unifies and standardizes all this by allowing both hardware and software makers to create products that will work on every Windows PC and with other hardware and software written to the standard.

The second piece of the puzzle is voice recognition. This is crucial because it allows you to use any telephone to access and give voice commands to your PC. Microsoft is now pushing a new four-letter acronym: SAPI, or Speech Application Programming Interface. SAPI provides a standard interface for any hardware or software vendor that wants to support voice commands.

Third, the company's Speech Software Development Kit is currently in late beta. Both SAPI and the Speech SDK, though useful for nontelephony applications, are targeted at telephony apps.

Fourth, Microsoft recently announced it will build ISDN support into all future versions of Windows. And this month the company will give away the ISDN Pack, which is essentially the code that integrates ISDN support into Win95. This ISDN support will increase bandwidth to homes and small businesses, making communications richer and faster.

Last but by no means least, Microsoft is working on a secret telephony application that includes voice-recognition technology, which it expects to release in 1996.

In short, Microsoft believes in telephony. It's doing everything it can to make the world safe for computer/telephone integration and to make Win95, Windows NT and TAPI the driving forces behind widespread adoption of integrated voice, fax, e-mail and telephony services on the desktop. The company is providing the operating system, programming interfaces, bandwidth and even an application to make telephony hardware and software standard equipment on Windows PCs.

Because of the efforts of Microsoft and hundreds of other companies, some say Win95 telephony is the hottest application area in computing today--Win95's "killer app." Telephony is so hot, they say, that widespread implementation will happen within just one year. I'm less optimistic. Though the technology is finally here--and the power is incredible--people will be slow to adopt Win95 telephony.

Why? It's easier to create a new communications paradigm than it is to get people to adopt it. And getting people to change the way they use telephones will be tough. We're trained since infancy to use telephones unintelligently. We find a telephone number in a personal phone book, in the yellow pages, by calling information or by fumbling for that napkin it's scribbled on--and then we commit the number to short-term memory. Finally, we make the call. If the line's busy, we just keep dialing the number. If there's no answer, we call back later or leave a message, which often results in a frustrating game of phone tag.

We're in the habit of using telephones for manual-dial, voice-only, real-time, one-to-one communication. But by, say, the end of this millennium (and that's just four years off), everyone will be doing PC-based telephony. And that means most people will use telephones for automatic dial, voice-and-data, real-time or asynchronous, one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many communication.

That's why you should look into Win95-based telephony now. By being an early adopter, you'll gain a serious advantage over your competition. You'll cut costs, waste less time, communicate with more customers, colleagues and clients, and impress the world.

I wanted to list all the Win95 telephony products and vendors in this column, but there are just too many. Check out "The Explorer" topics on America Online, CompuServe, and the Microsoft Network or my page on the WinMagWeb for the complete list.

by: Fred Davis

Over the past decade, Microsoft has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into its dream of profiting from networks the way it does from desktops. Despite its clout--after all, it is Microsoft, it has spent big bucks and its network stuff has been fairly decent--its campaign went bust. With Windows NT

Server and with LAN Manager before that, Microsoft waged an all-out war against Novell and lost miserably, failing to gain more than a single-digit share of the LAN server market.

Now, thanks to the popularity of the Internet--something Microsoft had nothing to do with--NT Server has finally hit the jackpot. Even the wise young sage of Redmond, Bill Gates, admits he didn't see the Internet coming. Now that it's here, Microsoft seized the opportunity to use NT Server to ride the coattails of Internet-mania. But in its classic fashion, Microsoft is not only riding the coattails, but trying to rip the coat right off the back of UNIX, the outergarment's current wearer and tailor.

Sure, you can use Windows NT Workstation as an Internet server, but the Server version provides some important features--server management, for example, and the ability to dynamically create IP addresses on the fly. Also, a new generation of World Wide Web tools will adhere to more of a client/server model, creating another advantage for using NT Server over NT Workstation.

The Internet was developed on UNIX, which remains the Net's dominant operating system--at least for now. That's why Sun, a leading UNIX vendor, currently enjoys a 56 percent share of all Internet servers, according to a recent survey. And SGI, another big UNIX shop, is the second biggest player. But watch out, UNIX: NT Server is racing up from the rear.

It's always been hard to displace a server operating system like UNIX or Novell's NetWare. After all, what MIS director wants to face the hassles and risks of messing around with such a critical component of the company's information architecture? That's why Microsoft always knew it would have to invent a new use for NT, something like "application server." In this scenario, a company would add an NT Server to its existing network to run a specific application. Microsoft's main pitch, which met with limited success, was to use NT Server as a big database engine running SQL Server and Access.

Suddenly, the Internet has emerged from obscurity to become the center of the world's information universe. Vast bodies of human knowledge and culture are being converted into HTML and other formats compatible with the Internet. At the current rate of digital conversion, it shouldn't be long before the Net is far and away the world's largest information storehouse. Every business I deal with, from my local realtor to the pizza parlor down the street, seems to be putting up a Web server.

This rapid rise to world prominence has created a vibrant new market for everything Internet. And Web servers have quickly eclipsed Lotus Notes as the primary workgroup software system. How else could Netscape go from nowhere to a frenzied stock offering that wound up valuing the company at $2.7 billion, less than two years after its inception? In this vast realm of cyber-opportunity, Microsoft finds that its underachieving operating system, Windows NT, may actually emerge as a technology hero.

NT Server will do well in the UNIX-dominated world of the Internet for three reasons: security, ease of use and software availability. UNIX was around long before anyone started working on Windows NT, so Microsoft was able to learn from UNIX in its design of NT. As a result, NT has made more important evolutionary gains over UNIX than either Windows 95 or Windows 3.x.

NT made perhaps its biggest improvement over UNIX in the critical area of security. If you've been diligent about reading the paper or watching the news lately, you've seen stories on a rash of computer security problems. The more nefarious hackers (as opposed to good hackers) love UNIX because it offers many weak spots and back doors--all easy to access for the commission of evil deeds. Though NT does have some weak spots (for instance, NT's built-in ftp server by default gives root access to the disk volume selected for sharing), it was built with a much tighter security model than UNIX, which makes it more difficult to hack. A small example: Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del is a hacker's easy way into a DOS or Windows system, making it simple to cut through the password on your screen saver. Try that on NT, and you'll bring up the computer's security module, which asks for your user name and password.

The second big advantage Windows NT has over UNIX is ease of use. Just try to set up a UNIX box and configure it as a World Wide Web server if you want to experience true suffering and waste a lot of time. On the other hand, it takes relatively few mouse clicks to get an off-the-shelf Pentium up and running with Windows NT Server and Netscape Commerce Server. After installation, the NT system is far easier to administer and maintain, especially if you are one of the 80 million people who already run Windows.

What seals NT's fate as a successor to UNIX on the Internet is its superior software selection. The warring UNIX camps have divided into Balkanized states. To the end user, this means you pretty much can't run a UNIX program designed for one type of system on a UNIX box from a different vendor--it's as if Compaq, IBM, Packard Bell, Dell, Gateway 2000 and Micron all sold slightly different versions of Windows and you had to buy special software for each of these variants. When Novell bought the main UNIX standard from AT&T a couple of years ago, it looked as if the squabbling competitors might finally unite around a common standard. But they didn't, leaving Microsoft to reap the benefits.

NT attracts mainstream software developers because it has inherited many applications that run with Windows 95 and Windows 3.x. It also has netted a decent supply of native applications, especially those related to the Internet. One of the leading apps on the Internet is the Netscape server software, which was originally sold only for UNIX. But this fall, a Windows NT version became available that offers all the functionality of the UNIX version. Making it even more of a lure is its price: The NT version costs $1,495, compared with $5,000 for the UNIX program.

Megabyte for megabyte, an NT Server system costs less to construct than a UNIX system. NT is also cheaper to configure with the critical software you need to run a World Wide Web server. Sure, UNIX boxes maintain a slight performance edge, but that will dissolve quickly thanks to parallel processing, the Pentium Pro, the Alpha and the PowerPC.

To further solidify NT's position as an Internet server, Microsoft is currently working on three server products of its own, code- named Gibraltar, Catapult and Merchant. These new server products would run only on NT and would include special tie-ins to Microsoft BackOffice to fortify that software bundle as well.

Gibraltar is a Web publishing server that works with both standard HTML documents and special Web applications created with Blackbird, the code name for Microsoft's online publishing tool. Catapult is a firewall server for Gibraltar that keeps customer records separate, and Merchant is a commercial-transaction server that provides security with a protocol developed in conjunction with Visa.

If Sun and SGI aren't shaking in their shoes, they should be, because if I know Microsoft, it will force its competitors to lose their shirts. Those shoes may be all they'll have left.

by: Cheryl Currid

If you're a manager, you may be tempted to tear out this page and burn it before anyone else gets hold of it. "Is Currid crazy?" you sputter. "Spend company money on techie toys? Doesn't she know I have to budget carefully for everything I buy?" Before you reach for that lighter, hear me out.

In my years helping businesses find technology solutions, I've noticed a recurring theme: People work hard, not smart. They spend money on basic desktop computer gear and software, then neglect to buy those oh-so-helpful utilities, gadgets and gizmos. I'm talking about small purchases that sneak beneath the $500-to-$1,000 radar screen companies use for capital expenses. Despite these items' low prices, they provide lots of productivity benefits.

Properly used, a good gadget or gizmo can pay for itself in the time it takes to write a purchase order. They help root out inefficient, time-killing behavior so you can begin to wise up--and ease up.

Still reading? Then allow me to present my 1995 corporate gift list. I have something for just about everyone in your organization.

For the administrative support staff, put a big red bow around Visioneer's PaperPort Vx (800-787-7007, 415-493-9599, $369 street price). This scanner, which comes with seamless Windows software, is a great way to feed just about any printed material into your computer. You can scan and manage business cards, make copies by outputting directly to your printer and translate scanned documents into editable text. Just got a fax from George that you need to send to Harry, who's on the road? Scan it with the PaperPort, drop it onto your mail icon, address it to Harry and voil‡!--it's in his e-mail. What about that 12-page proposal that came in the overnight mail from XYZ Company? Pop it onto the document feeder and read it into your own software.

For Rachel in research, present a package that includes the Primax Electronics DataPen (800-338-3693, 408-364-2800, $299). With a wave of this wand-like scanner, she can capture lines of text from printed documents. Let's say she just spotted some interesting news in The Wall Street Journal. She can pull out her DataPen, scan the important passages and read them into her word processing package, e-mail message, Notepad or any other Windows application. Setup is easy, as DataPen quickly hooks up to a parallel port. Hard workers like Rachel who deal with lots of printed material will be thrilled when hours of toil shrink to minutes.

You can also send Rachel Rosebud from Magee Enterprises (404-446-6611, fax 404-368-0719, $39.95 introductory, plus $8.95 shipping). Rosebud, for use on CompuServe, filters and retrieves news from all wires--not just Executive News Service--based on pre-selected criteria. It runs in the background, and its automated and smart searches save online connect charges. Rosebud retrieves information on demand or at selected intervals based on flexible scheduling. "Red flags" alert Rachel when an event has taken place.

If Archie in the art department is still struggling with sluggish first-generation picture editing software, give him Micrografx' Picture Publisher for Windows 95 (800-676-3110, 214-234-1769, part of the ABC Graphics Suite, $299.95 street price). This revamped 32-bit app comes with all the high-tech tools to touch up, mask, edit, rotate or contort just about any image. Picture Publisher takes full advantage of the operating system's features, so Archie can get much faster response time when he's working on complex images. It also uses a model of layered objects that makes image editing easier.

Send Terry the telecommuter the latest all-in-one printer/fax/copier. Multifunction units like Hewlett-Packard's OfficeJet LX (800-HP-HOME8, 415-857-1501, $699 street price) and Lexmark's Medley (800-358-5835, 606-232-2000, $799 street price) provide Terry with a money- and space-saving helper. Most multifunction products come with easy-to-use software that lets you queue faxes, save them to disk and convert fax images to text.

Wrap up a CD-940 from Exp Computer (800-exp-6922, 714-453-1020, $329) for Richie the road warrior. This diminutive 2.8-pound 2x CD-ROM drive lets Richie run any standard data or audio CD. It comes with a Type I PCMCIA card and installs in seconds. By drawing juice from its notebook host, the CD-940 is able to shed its power supply and stay svelte.

This gift will spare Richie hours of floppy flipping because he can load and set up software from a CD. Plus, with all the new multimedia software available only on CD-ROM, the CD-940 will let him create more powerful presentations, complete with video, audio and high-quality graphics.

Another great gift for Richie is Panasonic's sleek new KXL-D720 portable CD-ROM player (800-742-8086, 201-348-7000, $399). If he doesn't want to use the power supply that comes with it, he'll need six AA batteries. It doubles as a Walkman-style audio player for times when Richie wants to rock.

If you're looking for the perfect gift for a whole department, consider color printers. For low-volume use, check out Hewlett-Packard's nifty CopyJet (800-752-0900). This printer-copier creates a whole new category of quality machines that sell for less than $3,000. That's more expensive than my other gizmos, but the CopyJet's average per-copy cost of 7 cents makes it a real winner compared with the $1 per sheet you pay at an outside copy center.

More demanding users will appreciate Tektronix's Phaser 340 (800-835-6100, 503-627-7111). This color printer starts at around $5,000, but it delivers excellent quality on plain paper or transparencies. And it hooks up to a network in a flash.

Shop early for the best selection--computer stores will be busier than ever thanks to Win95. Happy holidays!

by: Kirkpatrick Sale

I'm not sure which came first, but I think they were pretty much simultaneous, and each feeling reinforces the other. I suppose it's possible to be personally opposed to something without getting involved politically. I confess I know self-proclaimed Luddites who decry technology, yet actually enjoy desktop publishing or flying to meetings around the world. Conversely, I'm sure there are people repelled by VCRs and square tomatoes who never think about the political effects of technology writ large.

But it's easy to despise technology from both a political and a personal perspective when you can back up the queasy feeling you get at the sight of those corset-shaped nuclear-plant towers with a rational argument against the dangers of nuclear power. Or when you can show that computerization eliminated at least 500,000 manufacturing jobs in 1994 and contributed to the alarming gap between rich and poor. Or when you learn that a friend's hands are incapacitated by carpal tunnel syndrome developed by laboring at a computer keyboard all day.

I don't have a computer--that is, a microprocessor, keyboard, monitor and what-all it takes to wire oneself to the cybersphere. I acknowledge that my electricity, my telephone and my radio all have computers (and other high-techery), but I staunchly resist the machine that would make me complicit in a world I find so odious.

I know I'm not going to convince you, dear reader. But here's how I feel about it.

Start with the fact that computer manufacturing involves highly toxic chemicals that have caused pollution problems for both workers and the environment--despite regulations and precautions. The EPA has identified at least 30 sites contaminated by computer production.

Add the sweatshop labor that computer manufacturers typically employ. The work is arduous, dangerous and low-paying. Conditions are bad enough in the United States and worse still in Southeast Asia, where most computer hardware is made.

Add the health problems associated with computer use--some only suspected, such as cataracts, miscarriages and birth defects, but many confirmed, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and other bone and muscle ailments.

Add the effect of computers on the workplace--turning so many jobs into stations on an electronic assembly line under the ceaseless supervision of a machine that records everything, and "de-skilling" many other jobs until they become almost mindless.

Add the vast number of jobs lost to the computer, reckoned to be something like 7 million over the past 10 years, with another 42 million at risk (according to the Carnegie Institute in 1992) over the next few years. Nobel economist Wassily Leontief has predicted that the role of human beings in production will diminish in the same way the horse's role has in agricultural production.

Add the increasing capacity for surveillance and the increasing invasion of privacy that computers allow or actively encourage. This has already given both corporate and government agencies and individual hackers considerable ability to intrude into, keep track of, even manipulate the most intimate areas of our lives.

Add the industrial corporations' continually increasing power in the world. Computer technologies have enabled these mega-corporations to mold our cultural lives, reorder our economy, rewrite our laws, invade our schools, shape our marketplaces, pervade our landscapes and take ever more control over private and public life around the globe.

Then put all that aside. The two overriding reasons to regard the computer age as an awful, malignant peril, and its machines as loathsome agents, are these:

First, in the hands of government bureaucracies (largely military) and the private corporate states that created them, computers have allowed those segments of society to serve their own interests of power and profitability with more speed, scope and efficiency than anything designed before. That has meant a world of growing economic disparity, where the rich become richer and the poor more numerous; a world of social inequity and instability; a world of environmental degradation and collapse. It's no accident that the most computerized nation on Earth has the greatest number of criminals, and virtually every global life-support system is imperiled. It's not unreasonable to suppose such a system will self-destruct within the next generation at terrible cost to--or even the extinction of--the human species.

Second, computer technologies interpose into and separate the human and the natural realms. Computers are capable of producing their own "real" nature through biotechnology and genetic engineering, and their own "virtual" nature beyond that. The resulting technosphere is vast and omnivorous. It devours and defiles biospheres everywhere and distances human society from the natural world. It shreds the intimate ties connecting humans to the earth since the Pleistocene. No wonder we're despoiling and obliterating our world so quickly.

Next to that, whatever any individual may gain or lose from the use of a computer--getting a doctor's diagnosis from half a world away, connecting with a kiddie-porn stalker, finding the answer to Fermat's last theorem, losing whole days to computer games--is irrelevant, trivial. It's not what we do, it's what they do.

This is why I live in the woods, where my only windows look out on grasses, flowers and trees.