From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 19 Dec, 2010 Subject: Card Fraud: 'Flash Attacks' and Wireless Transmissions Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and SecurityCard Fraud: 'Flash Attacks' and Wireless Transmissions
from above:
Gartner's Litan says emerging card-fraud schemes such as 'flash
attacks' highlight the need for stronger cardholder authentication and
transactional analytics.
... snip ...
something you have, something you know, and something you are authentication that involves "static data" with skimming/evesdropping/harvesting exploits and some form of replay attacks (reproducing the "static data") has been around for decades.
misc. past posts mentioning 3-factor authentication paradigm
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#3factor
misc. past posts mentioning static data harvesting attacks
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#harvest
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Why we build big computers Newsgroups: comp.arch Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:03:47 -0500nmm1 writes:
Long ago and far away ... one of my hobbies was providing enhanced operating systems to numerous internal datacenters ... including HONE. HONE was (virtual machine based) online system that provided worldwide sales&marketing support (lots of applications, various kinds of wordsmithing for proposal/contract writing, sanity checking that had to be done before submitting customer mainframe orders, etc).
The US HONE datacenters were consolidated in silicon valley in the
mid-70s and approx. 1980 had approaching 40k users (but there were
lots of other HONE datacenter clones in other parts of the
world). misc. past posts mentioning HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
One of my other hobbies was outside information. TYMSHARE (also in
silicon valley and virtual machine based online commerical timesharing
service bureau) started providing (free) online computer conferencing to
the IBM SHARE (customer) organization in aug76. archives are here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/
I made arrangements with SHARE & TYMSHARE to get regular feed of the
VMSHARE information and provide it on various internal online systems
(including HONE). A large stumbling block was getting executive and
legal approval to put up the information because of worries that the
information would "contaminate" employees. misc. old email mentioning
VMSHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare
I also sponsored col. boyd's briefings at IBM in the 80s. The first
time, I tried to have it done through the employee education department.
Initially they agreed, but then reversed their decision and recommend
that I limit the briefings to only employees in competitive analysis
organizations (worried about a form of employee contamination). misc.
past posts mentioning Boyd (&/or OODA-loops)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd1
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 19 Dec, 2010 Subject: "Compound threats" to appear in 2011 ? Blog: Financial Cryptographyre: "Compound threats" to appear in 2011 ?
not only compound ... but also "flash" ... the (OODA-loop) tempo significantly accelerates.
Card Fraud: 'Flash Attacks' and Wireless Transmissions
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/podcasts.php?podcastID=898
from above:
Gartner's Litan says emerging card-fraud schemes such as 'flash
attacks' highlight the need for stronger cardholder authentication and
transactional analytics.
... snip ...
something you have, something you know, and something you are authentication that involves "static data" with skimming/evesdropping/harvesting exploits and some form of replay attacks (reproducing the "static data") has been around for decades
i would contend that capatchas aren't countermeasure to replay attacks ... but trying to slow-down automated attacks (trying to force a real human somewhere in the loop). The attackers are responding with better technologies (w/o human in the loop) and/or semi-automated with some human participation (somewhat analogous to large call center operation).
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 19 Dec, 2010 Subject: Orientation - does group input (or groups of data) make better decisions than one person can? Blog: Boyd's Strategyre:
individuals have self interest ... and experts frequently are narrowly focused (effectively blinders). individual "predictions" would tend to be off when the self-interest is in conflict with the rest of the group and/or blinders limits taking into account significant details. crowds would tend to avg. out individual self-interest and also can provide lacking information. the other side of the coin is that aggregation may lack sufficient motivation to make something happen ("predictions" in terms of whether something happens; where individuals with sufficient self interest can have the motivation to achieve something).
one aspect of "organic design" is to align individual self-interest with that of the group.
a slightly different perspective was observation that for large organization (creativity oriented) about the 90/10 rule; that 90 percent of the productivity comes from 10 percent of the people (the remaining may still be needed to sustain the organization). however management tends to spend 90 percent of their time dealing with the 10percent worst performers (resulting in almost zero effect on organization productivity). The suggestion was that if management would spend 90 percent of their time supporting the 10percent best performers ... it could double their productivity (increasing organization productivity by 1.8 times).
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 19 Dec, 2010 Subject: The Great Cyberheist Blog: Boyd's Strategyre:
response to followup in same blog:
"Compound threats" to appear in 2011 ?
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001302.html
not only compound ... but also "flash" ... the (OODA-loop) tempo significantly accelerates.
Card Fraud: 'Flash Attacks' and Wireless Transmissions
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/podcasts.php?podcastID=898
from above:
Gartner's Litan says emerging card-fraud schemes such as 'flash
attacks' highlight the need for stronger cardholder authentication and
transactional analytics.
... snip ...
something you have, something you know, and something you are authentication that involves "static data" with skimming/evesdropping/harvesting exploits and some form of replay attacks (reproducing the "static data") has been around for decades
i would contend that capatchas aren't countermeasure to replay attacks ... but trying to slow-down automated attacks (trying to force a real human somewhere in the loop). The attackers are responding with better technologies (w/o human in the loop) and/or semi-automated with some human participation (somewhat analogous to large call center operation).
In the early 70s, the company had a "pentagon papers" like scenario ... when a copy of (unannounced) product description made it into the press. copiers had showed up all over the corporation ... and deterrent to future such exploits ... all the corporation copiers were retrofitted with a unique serial number (that would appear on all copies made from that copier).
In the future system period ... there were further measures. future system documentation was made softcopy only, available only on specially secured online systems which would only show the documents on "local displays" (dumb, before PCs & terminal emulation), aka no hard copy. One weekend, I had some test time in a machine room with one of these special systems. Being the brash expert ... they needled me that even I wouldn't be able to access the documents (even left alone in the datacenter; because of all the special security features; aka being considered the brash new upstart that knew everything). It was one of the few times I took the bait ... and said it would take less than five minutes. I first had to disable all non-datacenter access to the system ... and then i did a one bit/byte patch in computer memory (in the password routine, which changed valid password checking so that anything entered would be treated as valid). As end-user display devices have became more sophisticated ... it became much more difficult to prevent such leakage (as recent wikileaks event has shown).
In approx. the same time frame the corporation got a new CSO (common for large corporations in the period was somebody coming background in gov. "physical" security ... in this case, at one time having been head of presidential detail) ... and I was asked to run around with him (providing some orientation on computer security; again brash young know-it-all *and* refusing to participate in the future system activities) ... while some amount of physical security orientation rubbed off.
For the past 20 yrs or so ... as electronic crime has become increasingly prevalent ... there have been increasing comments about the lack of (electronic) orientation among the LEO agencies (with their extensive physical experience/orientation). One of the observations/claims a decade ago ... after one of the federal LEO agencies won the turf war for cybercrime responsibility ... and computer forensics was assigned to their existing (biological) forensics operation; was that the forensics biological contamination procedures increased the cost of computer forensics by a factor of ten times.
Note the comment about computer forensics may or may-not be related to some recent references about federal agency IT appropriations being spent on other things
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 19 Dec, 2010 Subject: Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside Blog: IBM AlumniIn the very early 70s, the corporation had a "pentagon paper" like incident where unannounced product document (370 virtual memory) made into the hands of the press. As a countermeasure the corporation retrofitted all (paper) copiers with unique serial number (that would appear on every page copied).
A little later, in the "future system" effort ... misc. past posts
(died before ever being announced)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
there was an effort to make all documentation softcopy that could only be read on local 3270s from specially secured vm/cms systems (eliminate both being able to make hardcopy and/or softcopy). I was brash young know-it-all (including ridiculing the future system effort) and one weekend had dedicated time in machine room with such a system ... and they taunted me that if I was left alone over the weekend in the machine room ... even I wouldn't be able to access the documents. One of the few times I took the bait ... and replied it would take less than five minutes; most of the time was spent disabling all external access to the system ... before I made a one bit/byte core patch to the password checking routine so anything/everything entered would be accepted as valid.
However, as end-user display devices became more & more sophisticated ... especially as IBM/PCs with terminal emulation became available ... it became nearly impossible to preclude those kinds of information leakage (as recent wikileaks indicated).
For other drift ... I was tangentially involved in the (original) cal. data breach notification legislation ... having been brought in to help wordsmith the cal. electronic signature legislation. Several of the organizations were heavily involved in privacy issues and had done in-depth citizen privacy surveys. The number one issue that came up was "identity theft" ... primarily the form of "account fraud" resulting from leakage of financial transaction details enabling fraudulent financial transactions.
Normally organizations take security measures for threats against the organization. This form of information leakage had no direct threat to the organization (fraudulent transactions was against their customers) and there appeared to be little or nothing done in the area. The organizations appeared to have some hope that the publicity resulting from the breach notifications would motivate countermeasures to such leakage.
Additional issues complicating this form of leakage
• the same transaction detail information that is required in dozens of business processes at millions of locations around the world ... is also sufficient for crooks to perform fraudulent activity (dual-use vulnerability) ... which pretty well precludes plugging all possible leaks
• the transaction detail information is worth the profit on the transaction ... possibly a few dollars to the merchant and a few cents for the transaction processor. The same information is worth the account limit/balance to the crooks. As a result, the crooks may be able to afford to outspend the "defenders" by a factor of 100 to 1000 times.
This form of data leak/breach is what has been the major publicity in the past and the resulting fraudulent financial transactions affect the largest number of people. The real solution to this particular leakage is to slightly tweak the paradigm so crooks can no longer use information from previous transaction details for fraudulent financial transactions (i.e. "static data" paradigm for various forms of replay attacks)
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Off-topic? When governments ask computers for an answer. Newsgroups: comp.arch Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 15:52:22 -0500MitchAlsup <MitchAlsup@aol.com> writes:
that is coupled with increasing reliance on outsourcing and contractors
... which don't necessarily have their objectives aligned with the
agencies they are working for. there was relatively recent article that
the major beltway bandits have evolved a culture of failures being more
profitable than success. past article The Success Of Failure
http://www.govexec.com/management/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:33:21 -0500Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
another flavor of the above
Symbols and Substance
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/12/19/symbols-and-substance/
A Must Read
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/12/a_must_read.html
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 19 Dec, 2010 Subject: XML-based formats vs. ISO8583 Blog: Payment SystemsGML was invented at the science center in 1969 and then morphed into ISO standard SGML nearly a decade later ... and then into HTML after another decade or so (before morphing into XML). some of the HTML history
FSML was originally done to take (financial) bit-field elements and digitally sign them ... transmit as bit-fields (along with digital signature) and then at the destination, re-assemble as FSML for signature verification. Eventually FSML was merged into XML digital signature work.
UK pilot EMV was done by IBM & safeway in '97 .... reference:
http://www-07.ibm.com/solutions/hk/banking/payments/emv/technical.html
I've mentioned before that there was a rather large EMV pilot in the
states in the early part of this century ... it was during the EMV
YES CARD period ... which then seem to disappear w/o a
trace. Current situation is that there may be some additional waiting
before it is attempted again. Some of this was gone over in some
detail in "The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty" discussion in
this Payment Systems Group.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#3 The Credit Card Criminals Are Getting Crafty
For lots of topic drift ... misc. posts about the science center at
545 tech sq (W3 offices at 32 vassar st is just a couple blks from
tech. sq ... although tech sq bldgs have since been remodeled and
renumbered)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
for some additional time-scale ... merchant/acquiring x9.15 wasn't merged until iso8583-2003. as referenced, xml could come into bigger play as financial transactions include more information not covered by traditional 8583 ... like sku-level transaction details. the other approach is just to carry it as purely opaque/appended data
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 20 Dec, 2010 Subject: Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside Blog: IBM Alumnire:
similar post in (linkedin) Boyd Strategy discussion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#3a The Great Cyberheist
but with a cybercrime & law enforcement twist ... references common orientation to physical threats & crime ... & in the 70s ... the company got a new CSO (common in the period for large corporation was somebody that had come from gov. involved in physical security ... in this case, at one time head of presidential detail). being the brash young computer wizard ... I got asked to run around with him ... to help provide a cyber/computer orientation (with some of his physical security orientation rubbing off).
As mentioned in the above post ... one of the big industry short-comings was dealing with financial transaction information that could be leveraged by crooks to perform fraudulent transactions. An important issue is corporations normally provide security/countermeasures in response to threats to the corporation ... the problem with the majority of the breaches (making the news) was such threats weren't to the corporations ... but to individuals (usually customers). The cal. state breach notification legislation at least possibly introduced a little reputational/image threat.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: EXTERNAL: Re: Problem with an edit command in tso Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 20 Dec 2010 11:36:16 -0800dennis.roach@LMCO.COM (Roach, Dennis , N-GHG) writes:
some number of the CTSS (ibm 7094) went to the science center on the 4th flr of 545 tech sq and first did cp40/cms on a specially modified 360/40 with virtual memory. when 360/67 become available (with virtual memory standard), cp40/cms morphed into cp67/cms. cp67/cms was then installed out at lincoln labs in 1967 and then at univ. where i was undergraduate in the last week of jan1968.
cp67 split off from the science center and moved to the 3rd flr of 545 tech sq ... absorbing the boston programming center ... which had been involved in cps ... interactive basic & pli that ran under os/360. the development group (now working on morph of cp67 to vm370) eventually outgrew the 3rd floor and moved out to burlington mall, taking over the (vacant) SBC bldq (service bureau corporation having gone to CDC in settlement of some litigation).
some of the other CTSS people went to multics project on 5th flr
of 545 tech sq. so some lineage is
ctss -> cp40 -> cp67 -> vm370 (4th flr & 3rd flr of 545 tech sq)
and
ctss -> multics -> unix (5th flr of 545 tech sq)
os/vs2 svs was essentially MVT laid out in 16mbyte virtual memory
... with a little bit of bailing wire that setup the 16mbyte virtual
memory table and interrupt handler for page fault.
The biggest change from MVT to SVS was translating (EXCP/SVC0) channel programs ... i.e. EXCP application channel programs all had virtual memory addresses ... EXCP processing had to duplicate the application channel program, replacing the virtual addresses with real addresses ... along with pining the associated virtual pages to their real addresses (so they wouldn't get replaced while the application channel program was in progress). This started out by borrowing the cp67 CCWTRANS routine (which implemented the channel program translation function for virtual machines) and crafting it into EXCP processing.
online cp67 systems were somewhat the 60s & early 70s flavor of cloud computing ... both inhouse operations as well as public online commercial service bureaus. Early cp67 commericial service bureau spin-offs of science center and lincoln labs were IDC and NCSS. Both IDC and NCSS quickly moved up the value chain providing online financial information. IDC still exists ... providing web-based financial information. NCSS was bought by Dunn&Bradstreet. Another operation providing online commercial (virtual machine based) service bureau was TYMSHARE.
TYMSHARE started providing a "free" version of its online computer
conferencing to SHARE organization in aug1976 ... as VMSHARE ...
archived here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/
probably the largest such operation was the internal (virtual machine
based, first with cp67 and then moving to vm370) HONE system ...
providing world-wide sales&marketing support ... some past posts:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
fairly early ... mainframe orders couldn't be entered w/o having first been run through various HONE applications.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Mainframe upgrade done with wire cutters? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:12:09 -0500Al Grant <algrant@myrealbox.com> writes:
the meter would run whenever the processor was executing instructions and/or there was active/running channel (i/o) programs (and meter would "coast" for 400ms after everything was idle).
in the 60s ... this was major stumbling block for moving to 7x24
(virtual machine based) online timesharing service ... since early on,
offshift & weekend tended to be extremely sporadic ... but at least I/O
channel program had to be active that would accept new terminal
connections (dialup calls). There was eventual hack to come up with
channel program that would accept new terminal connections ... w/o
having the meter run. the other road block for 7x24 was requiring human
operator ... being able to support "dark room" operations also help
reduce off-shift operations cost ... and make it more tolerable leaving
systems available 7x24. misc. past posts mentioning this early online
timesharing period (sort of the "60s" & "70s" cloud)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare
in the early 70s ... it was possible some executive near end of service, helped with converting leases to outright sales ... giving big one-time revenue boost (sort of as a departing gift) ... but resulting in big reduction in subsequent periods (since there was no more re-occurring lease revenue).
in the late 70s ... the really big mainframes was major production to replace, upgrade, install ... requiring lengthy planning and preparation (as well as significant physical facility support). the mid-range machines (both from dec and ibm) was much lower incremental cost ... but also enormously lower planning & prep work. 43xx sold into similar mid-range market as dec/vax and sold in similar numbers involving small number orders. the big difference in 43xx numbers (and dec/vax) were the large corporate 43xx orders of several hundred at a time (this was also somewhat the leading edge of applications leaking out of the datacenter for "distributed" computing ... before appearance of large numbers of PCs).
as part of high-end mainframes partially addressing the competition from
the mid-range ... there were standard high-end mainframes with
slow-downs added to operate at lower capacity (and price) ... however it
didn't do a lot to address the significant physical planning&prep
associated with a large mainframe. by comparison, internally the
proliferation of 43xx distributed machines resulted in shortage of
conference rooms (since large number of departments were installing 43xx
computers in converted conference rooms). misc. past emails mentioning
43xx stuff
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx
The enormous disruptive impact on customers involved with large mainframe updates/switch-overs ... resulted in revisiting the much earlier lease period and being able to install significantly greater capacity than customer contracted for ... and being able to do "upgrades" with little or no physical activity (there is currently some crypto magic that allows for activating additional capacity remotely).
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 21 Dec, 2010 Subject: Card Fraud: 'Flash Attacks' and Wireless Transmissions Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
The speed of the "flash" attacks appear to have increased. Common countermeasure to lost/stolen card as well as fraudulent transactions from skimming, evesdropping, & breaches ... is to deactivate account (so online transactions are declined). The attackers have been increasing the sophistication of countermeasures to account deactivation.
Flash attacks attempts to increase the (OODA-loop) tempo and fraud ROI before the bank countermeasures kick in deactivating an account. In the past, many skimming & data breach attacks went to extremely sophisticated measures to obfuscate the point of compromise (resulting in all possible affected accounts being deactivated).
OODA-loop (& tempo) originated applied to opposing forces in conflict scenarios ... but has spread into MBA programs applied to business in competitive situations. It has also been applied to various scenarios involving crooks attacking systems related to fraudulent financial transactions (can the crooks attacking the systems operate at a faster tempo than the defenders).
That is independent from the current "static data" paradigm becoming
more & more like defenders being in valley floor with no cover and the
opposing forces occupying all the high ground. disclaimer, I sponsored
Col Boyd and his OODA-loop briefings at IBM in the 80s ... some refs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: X-memory POST question Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 21 Dec 2010 09:02:13 -0800hal9001@PANIX.COM (Robert A. Rosenberg) writes:
the initial attempt to get CAS included in 370 was rebuffed because the favorite son operating system in POK claimed that test&set was more than sufficient for multiprocessor operation. the "owners" of 370 architecture then laid down the challenge that to have CAS included in 370, CAS example applications ... other than multiprocessor kernel locking ... was needed.
thus were born a number of example operations for multithreaded
(multiprogramming) operation (not necessarily purely multiprocessor) ...
many of them still are included in principles of operation.
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/A.6?DT=20040504121320
large multithreaded/multiprogrammed DBMS started adopting CAS (to significantly improve thruput) ... initially on IBM platforms and later on other platforms as the instruction was picked up by other vendors.
specific ECB example in recent principles of operation
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/dz9zr003/A.6.3?SHELF=&DT=20040504121320&CASE=
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 21 Dec, 2010 Subject: "Compound threats" to appear in 2011 ? Blog: Financial Cryptographyre:
there has been lots of discussions that financial institution have some interest in preserving fraud ... since significant amount of interchange fees have been fraud "pro-rated". A couple years ago there was report that payment transaction fees account for less then 10% of european institution bottom line but 40% (or in some case more) for US institutions.
specifically with respect to internet fraud ... there were a number of "secure" internet payment products being pushed at the beginning of the century ... with high acceptance rates by the major internet merchants. then came the word that the interchange fees for these products would effectively be an additional surcharge on top of the highest interchange fraud rate. This resulted in major cognitive dissonance among merchants who had been conditioned for decades that fees are proportional to fraud/risk (and had been expecting major fee decrease with the new products).
Plugging the payment transaction fraud ... is also likely to drive the crooks to other forms of attacks ... likely involving "identity theft" form involving opening new accounts (as opposed to payment transactions "identity theft" with fraudulent transactions against existing accounts). This would become purely a financial institution risk (not easily charged off to merchants) and also involves various gov. "know your customer" mandates. Customers have taken some hits by financial institutions (for this kind of "identity theft") ... but an increasing number have involved "synthetic IDs" (where there is no corresponding real person).
One might claim that the institutions are playing a delaying game, maintain the current paradigm for as long as possible (with only small incremental changes) ... since it is so enormously profitable for them. The other issue is the game-changing paradigms in the payment landscape is likely to commoditize the payment business; significantly reducing costs and opening it up to lots of competition (that would come with any significant reduction in risk/fraud).
My other analogy for the current paradigm is occupying a valley floor with little cover and the opposing forces having all the high ground ... resulting in an enormously target rich environment.
this is discussed quite a bit in naked payment metaphor posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#payments
also here in previous financial cryptography naked payment threads:
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000745.html
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000744.html
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000747.html
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000749.html
and recent related discussion in (linkedin) ibm alumni disucssion group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#4 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#8 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 21 Dec, 2010 Subject: Compressing the OODA-Loop - Removing the D (and mayby even an O) Blog: Boyd's Strategyre:
been working my way thru (kindle) "Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist
Reveals How To Think Differently" ... just read the section that
mentioned .2 second response time (i.e. pitched ball takes less than
.5 seconds to cover the distance so there isn't a lot of time for a
batter to respond).
https://www.amazon.com/Iconoclast-Neuroscientist-Reveals-Think-Differently/dp/1422115011
Spring '71(?), there was a corporate technical conference at the old Marriott motel near the virginia end of 14th st (potomic) bridge. The person responsible for the chief/super programmer concept did a presentation, also a human factors researcher from YKT. The human factors person had been doing response time perception studies of his colleagues at YKT (relatively uniform population) ... and found that there was (unaccounted for) variation from just over .1 seconds to just over .2 seconds.
A decade or so later there was some attention being paid to productivity and online (subsecond) system response (did the increase in productivity justify additional resources to achieve "instantaneous" response). About the same time there was an academic report that found individual differences in the speed that signals propagated through the brain (with some speculation that it might correlate with human response time and/or IQ).
The productivity research found that there was no difference between true (zero elapsed time) instantaneous response and the individual's response time threshold perception (which varied between .1+ and .2+ seconds for different individuals). If the system response was more than the person's expected perception, the individual's attention would start to wonder. When the system response finally did occur, it would take about the same elapsed time for the person to re-establish their attention to the matter at hand (as their attention had spent wondering); in effect, lost productivity was twice the system response time delay.
There were some amount of computer system human productivity publicity wars over this in the early 80s ... especially involving computer systems that had extreme difficulty even achieving one second response (not even coming close to .2 second response).
In that early 80s timeframe, YKT had some people publicizing how good their internal online service ... providing hardware and local enhancements to achieve an avg. .24 second system response (even recommending local people for awards for their effort). I then raised an issue regarding a system that I had crafted that with nearly identical hardware and workload, I was achieving .11 second response (or better) for 90 percent of responses (i.e. much better than simple .11 second avg as well as significantly better than avg .24 sec response).
Leading up to mention of the .2 second response time in the Iconoclast book ... there is a discussion of the brain going through all sorts of optimization & shortcuts in visual processing to get to that threshold level (which can be related to training and expectation/assumption).
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:03:29 -0500Canbear <nospam@nospam.com> writes:
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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: TCM's Moguls documentary series Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:06:25 -0500maus <greymausg@mail.com> writes:
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 22 Dec, 2010 Subject: WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
some wikileaks (banking) news from today ...
AllGov - News - As WikiLeaks Prepares for Bank Exposure, Federal
Regulators Cringe
http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/As_WikiLeaks_Prepares_for_Bank_Exposure_Federal_Regulators_Cringe_101222
No, WikiLeaks Has Not 'Confirmed' It Will Target Bank Of America
http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/12/22/no-wikileaks-has-not-confirmed-it-will-target-bank-of-america/?boxes=Homepagechannels
Bank of America Prepares to Get WikiLeaked by Buying Up Negative
Domain Names
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/wikileaks_newest_ally_gorbache.html
The latest on Wells Fargo, Wikileaks, Bank of America
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/blog/jeff-blumenthal/2010/12/the-latest-on-wells-fargo-wikileaks.html
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 22 Dec, 2010 Subject: Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside Blog: IBM Alumnire:
WTF? OMG, LOL! CIA gives WikiLeaks taskforce naughty name
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/22/cia-wikileaks-taskforce-wtf
recent post regarding somewhat better choice (CAD?)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#4
i.e. installation code at (IBM user group) SHARE ... it also shows up
in the SHARE online computer conferencing (provided by TYMSHARE
starting in AUG76), archives here
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/
reference to even earlier period:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml
to go along with this item:
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/journal-cia-wikileaks-task-force-aka-wtf-one-down-from-remf/
reference in the above, responsibility for state dept. cables were moved from cia to dod
and this reference: (old email from 1983):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#email830420
there is now this:
State Department Announces Cybersecurity Post; The position, planned
before the recent WikiLeaks exposure, will report directly to
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and work to prevent data breaches
involving confidential diplomatic information.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229219339
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 22 Dec, 2010 Subject: E-commerce and Internet Security: Why Walls Don't Work Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and SecurityE-commerce and Internet Security: Why Walls Don't Work
from above:
What we're facing is more akin to infectious disease control than it
is to warfare: So how do we design an 'immune system' for global
e-commerce?
... snip ...
two of the people mentioned in this post (about jan92 meeting in
ellison's conference room) later show up at small client/server
startup responsible for something called commerce server.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
we were then brought in as consultants because they want to do payment transactions on the server; the startup had also invented this technology called "SSL" they wanted to use; the result is now frequently called electronic commerce.
this is recent thread about payment/commerce transaction security
http://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001302.html
the above references several threads from a few yrs ago which refers
to the "naked payments" metaphor ... some of the posts also archived
here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#payments
rather than infectious disease ... it is more like going out the airlock in deep space w/o a spacesuit (or other protection).
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From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Mainframe upgrade done with wire cutters? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:14:30 -0500isw <isw@witzend.com> writes:
past posts mentioning possibilty of offering a half capacity 3380 disk
at a higher price (via controller microcode feature) as a
high-performance option (for installations where the technical people
weren't able to convince management that not fully populating a disk
drive was actually more cost effective)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#42 Fix the shuttle or fly it unmanned
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#14 Xah Lee's Unixism
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005l.html#41 25% Pageds utilization on 3390-09?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007k.html#62 3350 failures
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008e.html#60 z10 presentation on 26 Feb
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008l.html#65 Crippleware: hardware examples
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young called to account -- should Audit firms be investigated for their role in the crisis? Blog: Financial CryptographyErnst & Young called to account -- should Audit firms be investigated for their role in the crisis?
as been referred to many times, the person that had tried for a decade to get SEC to do something about Madoff, testified in congressional hearings that tips turn up 13 times more fraud than audits.
also as has been mentioned several times in the past, congress passed
Sarbanes-Oxley in the wake of Enron ... in theory requiring stricter
audit requirements. However, possibly because GAO didn't believe it
had any affect, GAO started doing reports of public company financial
filings ... showing uptick in fraudulent filings even after SOX; so
SOX (audits)
• have no effect on fraudulent filings
• encouraged the uptick in fraudulent filings
• if it hadn't been for SOX, all filings would be fraudulent
There were comments that motivation was fraudulent filings enabled
significant boost in executive compensation and even if filings were
later corrected, the executive compensation wasn't reclaimed.
SOX also had provision that SEC look at the rating agencies ... who played pivotal roles in the financial crisis. One of the comments during the fall2008 congressional hearings into the role played by rating agencies, there was comment that the rating agencies could blackmail the federal gov. into taking no punitive action with the threat of credit rating downgrade.
There are recent news items that the rumors about new wikileaks (giving substantial information about US financial institutions activity leading up to the crisis), has federal agencies "apprehensive", since it could also expose the lack of agency diligence.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: Who hasn't caused an outage? What is the worst thing you have done? Blog: MainframeZoneIn my resource manager ... I periodically did some complicated calculations along with "running" values for lots of different kinds of activity ... this used a time-base of approx. 30 minutes. It turns out that if somebody had pushed the (processor) stop button (or did compare stop; on the front panel) ... and it happened to be within the calculations .... and the stop last for more than 30 minutes ... the kernel would crash with a divide check when the start button was resumed.
decade earlier ... cp67 had been installed at the univ. & included 1052 & 2741 terminal support ... done in such a way that it did automagic terminal identification (including dynamically switching to the correct port scanner in the 2702 using the "SAD"). The univ. had a number of TTYs/asciis terminals and I had to add TTY support ... and did it in such a way that it preserved the dynamic identification (and dynamic port scanner switch with the 2702 SAD command). Because TTY terminal was limited to 80 chars ... I did some stuff that only used one byte arith. This was picked up and shipped in the standard product.
Later somebody at MIT installation changed some of the TTY code to
support 1200 char line-lengths (to support some sort of ASCII plotting
device down at harvard) ... but didn't fix the fiddling with one bytes
... which resulting in buffer overrun and 27 crashes in single day
... reference here:
https://www.multicians.org/thvv/360-67.html
for a little drift ... it turns out short cuts had been made with the
2702 and being able to dynamically change port scanner ... while I
could switch any port scanner to any port ... the line speeds were
hard-wired (couldn't actually run a 2741 on a port with 110 baud hard
wired). this somewhat was motivation to start clone controller project
based on Interdata/3 (reverse engineering the channel interface and
bldg channel interface board for the Interdata). This later got
written up blaming four of us for the clone controller business.
some past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
The clone controller business has also been written up as motivation
for the (failed) Future System effort ... that almost took down the
corporation and cast a shadow over the company for decades. some
past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
the latest wikileaks ... business tv interview from yesterday
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40787717/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in_security/
and some more on buying up negative domain names:
Wow! Bank Of America Bought "Sucks" And "Blows" URLs For Like Everyone
At The Company
http://www.businessinsider.com/wow-bank-of-america-bought-sucks-and-blows-urls-for-like-everyone-at-the-company-2010-12
total aside ... we were called in to consult with small client/server company that wanted to do payment transactions on their server; the company had also invented this technology called "SSL"; the result is now sometimes called "electronic commerce".
Part of that effort including something called a "payment gateway"
(handled payment transactions between merchant webservers and
acquiring payment networks). Part of that internet activity included
registering a number of domain names and their variations in the
various domain name hierarchies.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
For other topic drift ... the person responsible for originally creating the domain name system ... a decade earlier had done a stint at the science center (4th flr, 545 tech sq)
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
not this is any way new, Lehman, Ernst & Young references from last spring
Lehman autopsy throws Ernst & Young into spotlight
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/lehman-autopsy-throws-ernst-young-into-spotlight-2010-03-12
from above:
Ernst & Young came under fresh public scrutiny after a report on the
Lehman Bros. collapse alleged that the accounting firm's audit failed
to challenge transactions that essentially hid $50 billion of the
investment bank's assets.
... snip ...
a few others
Lehman, Ernst & Young and accounting
http://insider.accountancyage.com/2010/03/lehman-ernst-yo.html
Will Ernst & Young Survive The Lehman Fiasco?
http://www.businessinsider.com/will-ernst-and-young-survive-the-lehman-fiasco-2010-3
Ernst & Young faces legal action over Lehman collapse
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article7059469.ece
Lehman Fraudulently Cooked Its Books, Accounting Giant Ernst & Young
Helped, Geithner and Bernanke Winked and Slapped Them on the Back
http://www.prisonplanet.com/lehman-fraudulently-cooked-its-books-accounting-giant-ernst-young-helped-geithner-and-bernanke-winked-and-slapped-them-on-the-back.html
and from Dec2008:
Corporate Fraud and Misconduct Risks Driven by Pressure to do
'Whatever It Takes'; Fewer episodes reported by companies with ethics
and compliance programs
http://www.informationweek.com/financialservices/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215801487
from above:
Of more than 5,000 U.S. workers polled this summer, 74 percent said
they had personally observed misconduct within their organizations
during the prior 12 months, unchanged from the level reported by KPMG
survey respondents in 2005. Roughly half (46 percent) of respondents
reported that what they observed "could cause a significant loss of
public trust if discovered," a figure that rises to 60 percent among
employees working in the banking and finance industry.
... snip ...
With overall industry avg. of 46% ("could cause a significant loss of public trust if discovered") and the financial industry specific avg. of 60%, which should place the non-financial industry avg. below 40%. That would make the financial industry avg. somewhere between 50% and 100% worse than other industries.
misc. past posts mentioning KPMG study
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#27 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#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#36 What is the top security threat prediction of 2009?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008s.html#47 Executive pay: time for a trim?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#11 Amid Economic Turbulence, Mainframes Counter IT Cost-Cutting Trend
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009b.html#17 Fraud -- how can you stay one step ahead?
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#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#73 What can we learn from the meltdown?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009d.html#75 Whistleblowing and reporting fraud
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#36 Architectural Diversity
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009e.html#37 How do you see ethics playing a role in your organizations current or past?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010h.html#41 Profiling of fraudsters
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: Economic espionage discussed Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securitythree decades ago there was civil legal action brought against a company for theft of disk trade secrets ... for a couple billion dollars. this was the difference in sales being able to ship a clone on the same day the original product was shipped ... vis-a-vis the six month delay that clone maker would take to reverse engineer and build clone product from scratch.
the judge had some ruling that trade secrets were analogous to swimming pool for minors ... that people couldn't be blamed for stealing stuff worth enormous amounts of money (anymore than minors could be blamed for going swimming in a swimming pool). The company had to show that security measures had been taken that were proportional to the value of the trade secrets (security proportional to risk) ... analogous to swimming pools having fences to keep out neighborhood children (otherwise any child drownings would be considered the fault of the swimming pool owner; aka people around valuables can be considered no more responsible than minors around swimming pools). Significant layers of security were required as well as lots of repeated employee education and reminders.
misc. past posts about getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: Who hasn't caused an outage? What is the worst thing you have done? Blog: MainframeZonere:
on the other side ... if you were extremely diligent and avoided any kind of outage for an extended period of time ... the executives and users would start to believe that it wasn't actually that difficult to provide dataprocessing services.
with regard to the 4341 ... it wasn't the 4341 power-units ... it was the whole computer. it was one of the issues that created problem with the high-end POK ... since it was possible to have a cluster of 4341s that had better price/performance than 3033, higher aggregate thruput at lower price with much less physical & planning requirements.
There was big explosion in the mid-range starting in late 70s ... both DEC/VAX and 43xx. 43xx and dec/vax sold similar aggregate numbers in the small number of machine orders ... the big difference for 43xx (compared to dec/vax) was the multi-hundred machine orders from large corporations. these were the leading edge of distributed computing (before PCs). internally, it contributed to scarcity of conference rooms ... since depts were installing vm/4341 systems in converted conference rooms. This also contributed to big explosion in size of internal network in the first half of the 80s (internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until late '85 or early '86)
misc. old email with 43xx references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx
misc. old email with internal network references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vnet
old post with decade of dec/vax numbers (similar to 43xx numbers if
the large corporate orders were removed):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 24 Dec, 2010 Subject: WikiLeaks' Wall Street Bombshell Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
related forbes article: Merrill Story Has Fresh Dirt On Wall Street's
Shell Game
http://blogs.forbes.com/steveschaefer/2010/12/23/merrill-story-has-fresh-dirt-on-wall-streets-shell-game/?boxes=Homepagechannels
which references:
The 'Subsidy': How a Handful of Merrill Lynch Bankers Helped Blow Up
Their Own Firm
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-subsidy-how-merrill-lynch-traders-helped-blow-up-their-own-firm
note that the NY comptroller published some numbers that aggregate wall street bonuses spiked over 400% during the period (in large part based on such dealings) ... and there has been lots of effort since the crash to try and keep their bonuses from returning to pre-bubble levels.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 24 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young called to account -- should Audit firms be investigated for their role in the crisis? Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
with financial industry serious misconduct possible twice as bad as other US industries ... it is little wonder that there are articles like:
Reference: The Fraud-Based US Economy
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/12/reference-the-fraud-based-us-economy/
and
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/
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 25 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
In the wake of ENRON, in theory, Sarbanes-Oxley supposedly significantly increased accountability & audits ... but as previously mentioned nothing seemed to have changed (if anything, it got worse) ... some background.
Phil Gramm's Enron Favor
https://web.archive.org/web/20080711114839/http://www.villagevoice.com/2002-01-15/news/phil-gramm-s-enron-favor/
from above:
A few days after she got the ball rolling on the exemption, Wendy
Gramm resigned from the commission. Enron soon appointed her to its
board of directors, where she served on the audit committee, which
oversees the inner financial workings of the corporation. For this,
the company paid her between $915,000 and $1.85 million in stocks and
dividends, as much as $50,000 in annual salary, and $176,000 in
attendance fees,
... snip ...
People to Blame for the Financial Crisis; Phil Gramm
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877330,00.html
from above:
He played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the
1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated
commercial banks from Wall Street. He also inserted a key provision
into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted
over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation
by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Credit-default swaps took
down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far.
... snip ...
Gramm and the 'Enron Loophole'
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17grammside.html
from above:
Enron was a major contributor to Mr. Gramm's political campaigns, and
Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, served on the Enron board, which she joined
after stepping down as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading
Commission.
... snip ...
Greenspan Slept as Off-Books Debt Escaped Scrutiny
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&refer=home&sid=aYJZOB_gZi0I
from above:
That same year Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and SEC
Chairman Arthur Levitt opposed an attempt by Brooksley Born, head of
the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to study regulating
over-the-counter derivatives. In 2000, Congress passed a law keeping
them unregulated.
... snip ...
Born must have been fairly quickly replaced by Gramm's wife, before she then left to join Enron (and the Enron audit committee)
misc. other recent posts mentioning the above:
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
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 25 Dec, 2010 Subject: IBM Historic computing Blog: IBM Alumnirecent post in mainframezone mentioning 43xx & vax mid-range
some old email mentioning 43xx
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#43xx
decade of vax numbers in this old post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#0
old post about even older report comparing 360/67 operation with 3081
operation
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31
based on some performance and disk related work I was doing in the 70s.
for other topic drift ... misc. posts about getting to play disk
engineer in bldgs. 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
I had been making comments about relative system disk thruput
declining by an order of magnitude over a period of time (system
thruput getting much faster than disks were improving). This upset
some disk division executives who assigned the division performance
group to refute the comments. After a period, they came back and
essentially said that i had somewhat understated the issue. Eventually
the analysis was reworked and turned into SHARE presentation
recommending how to configure disks for better system thruput (b874 @
share 63) ... recent post ("the naked mainframe") on the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#1
for semi-related old ibm systemsmag article (some stuff slightly
garbled)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190524015712/http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/stoprun/Stop-Run/Making-History/
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 25 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
possibly because GAO figured that neither SOX nor SEC was having any effect:
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 report that mentions public listed companies declined by 20%
between 1997 and 2002 while the number of financial restatements
increased by 165%
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-138
as previously mentioned, an explanation for the fraudulent filings was to significantly increase bonuses ... and any subsequent restatements wouldn't recover earlier compensation.
It is pretty sad comment that auditors would feel the need to agree to questionable practices because it is business as usual for the industry (and they would otherwise loose business to competition).
past posts mentioning the GAO reports:
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
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 26 Dec, 2010 Subject: IBM Future System Blog: IBM Historic ComputingEffort was to completely replace 370 ... but failed before even being announced. Overview here
IBM Future System (FS) - 1970s
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
above references this memo on FS description & plans
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
it also mentions various and sundry postings I've made over the years
on FS:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
a recent post discussing FS in (linkedin) Boyd Strategy group (I had
sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM in the 80s):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#77
the dark shadow of the FS failure hung over the corporation for decades
The folklore is that some number of the FS people retreated to Rochester and did the S/38.
Some folklore drift ... my brother was a regional marketing rep for Apple (having the largest physical area in CONUS) ... and figured out how to dial into the corporate hdqtrs datacenter to track machine build and ship ... which was a s/38.
The follow-on to S/38 was going to be the AS/400.
After FS ... there was 801/risc effort ... I've periodically claimed
that it was (at least partially motivated) to go to the opposite
extreme of FS. Staring around '80 ... there was an effort to replace
the large variety of internal microprocessors with 801/risc (iliad)
risc chips ... follow-on to 4331/4341 would have Iliad microprocessor
(i.e. 4361 & 4381), the as/400 would have iliad microprocessor
... lots of controllers would be 801/risc. some past 801 related email
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#801
for various reasons, the iliad strategy floundered and there was a
round of CISC microprocessor instead ... including AS/400 quickly
doing a CISC chip. A decade or so later, AS/400 finally did move to
801/risc (power/pc variant). misc. past posts mentioning 801, risc,
romp, iliad, rios, power, power/pc, etc
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#801
recent posts mentioning that somewhat in response to having copies of
(unannounced) 370 virtual memory leak outside the company ... there
was effort to make a lot of the FS document softcopy only that could
only be read on local 3270 terminals (no hardcopy and no way to make
take-away computer copies).
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#3a
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#4
as mentioned in some of the previous references ... during the FS period ... nearly all competition was killed off ... allowing 370 software & hardware product pipelines to go dry. when FS was killed ... there was mad rush to get hardware & software products back into the 370 product pipeline. In parallel with starting 370/XA (known for awhile as "811"), there was also Q&D effort to turn out 303x machines.
They took the integrated channel microcode from the 370/158 to make a 303x channel director. A 3031 was a 158 engine with the 370 microcode (and w/o the integrated channel microcode) coupled with a 158 engine with the integrated channel microcode (and w/o the 370 microcode). The 3032 was a 168 with different panels and reworked for the 303x channel microcode. The 3033 started out as the 168 wiring diagram map to chips that were 20% faster (but also with ten times the circuits per chip, mostly went unused). During the 3033 product cycle (somewhat in response to clone processor competition), parts of the 168 logic was redesign to better use the higher circuit density and 3033 eventually came out about 50% faster than 168.
A couple posts/quotes that one of the prime motivations for FS was
clone controller (also mentions that I bucked the conventional
corporate wisdom at the time and would ridicule the FS effort)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#47
For slight PLS/FS tie-in ... some past posts mentioning original
relational/sql (System/R) implementation was using PLS ... and
problems when FS also killed off PLS support discussed in
"MIPENVY". .... old email reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016
... above mentions Jim palming off bunch of stuff on me when he left
for Tandem (writing MIPENVY was part of the departure). Copy of one of
the MIPENVY versions in this post (about Jim having gone missing),
including PLS reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#17
The MIPENVY post also mentions "Tandem Memos" (and IBM Jargon file). I
had gotten blamed for computer conferencing on the internal network
(larger than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until
possibly late '85 or early '86) in the late 70s and early 80s. When
the executive committee (chairman, ceo, pres, etc) was told about
computer conferencing (and the internal network), the folklore is that
five of six wanted to fire me. misc. past posts mentioning internal
network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
For other FS drift ... past posts mentiion seminar that Amdahl gave in large MIT auditorium in the early 70s. One of the questions from the audience was what justification did he use to get funding for his clone processor startup. He replied something about customers already having hundreds of billions of investment in 360 software and even if IBM were to completely walk away from 360/370 (might be considered a thinly veiled reference to FS), there was enough of that software to keep him in business through the end of the century.
As previously mentioned, clone controllers has been given as major motivation for FS ... however FS (and killing off 370 products) is considered as allowing clone processors to get foothold in the mainframe market.
Now unbundling announcement was 23Jun69 ... in response to various
litigation ... which started charging for software, services,
maintenance, etc. However, they did make the case for keeping kernel
software "free". However, it appeared that the mad rush to get
products back into the 370 product pipeline and also respond to the
clone processor competition, the decision was made to start charging
for kernel software ... and then later to start moving to
object-code-only. Misc. past posts mentioning unbundling
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle
Now, I've mentioned that I continued to work on 370 stuff (and
somewhat ridicule the FS effort) ... so after FS was killed and the
mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipeline ... there was
decision to start shipping some amount of stuff I had been doing. One
of the things was my "resource manager" (a lot of the dynamic adaptive
resource management that I had done as undergraduate was picked up and
shipped as part of cp67 ... but much of it was then dropped in the
morph from cp67 to vm370) ... which was also selected to be ghe guinea
pig for starting to charge for kernel software. As a result, I got to
spend some amount of time with business and legal people about
policies and pricing for kernel software. misc. past posts mentioning
dynamic adaptive resource management
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#fairshare
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 26 Dec, 2010 Subject: IBM S/360 Green Card high quality scan Blog: IBM Historic ComputingI have several green cards, s/370 yellow cards, hasp song book, (old) ibm song book and a 360/67 "blue" card (along with bunch of other stuff). I've also done a quick & dirty conversion of the green card ios3270 file to HTML .... available here (I tried to match the background color to real green card):
I've also been trying to SHARE permission to put scan of LSRAD report
up on bitsaver in the ibm section. LSRAD report was published in dec79
... the copyright law had changed slightly earlier ... otherwise the
copyright would have expired and it wouldn't be necessary to get
permission.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lsradcover.jpg
ibm document section at bitsavers
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/
some random gcard ios3270 topic drift ... the service processor for the 3090 started out being 4331 running a highly modified version of vm370 release 6 and all the service panels done in cms ios3270. by the time 3090 shipped, the service processor had been upgrade to a pair of redundant 4361s (running vm370 release 6).
some old email mentioning ios3270
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#email781010
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#email781011
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#9
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 26 Dec, 2010 Subject: VMSHARE Archives Blog: IBM Historic ComputingTYMSHARE was virtual machine based commercial online service bureau. Starting in aug1976, the provided their online computer conferencing function for free to SHARE organizations.
old email mentioning vmshare (&/or making vmshare files available on
various internal corporate machines
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare
one of the big problems I had on getting copies of vmshare files up on internal machines was internal legal & executives worried that it might "contaminate" IBMers.
An earlier instance of that was a report that CERN presented at SHARE in 1974 ... describing a bake-off/comparison they had done of vm370/cms and MVS/TSO. There was significant corporate concern about the findings in the report that copies available internally were stamped "IBM Confidential -Restricted" ... aka available on a "need-to-know" basis only. There was concern (especially by the favorite son operating system in POK) that IBMers might find it in conflict with the official party line.
misc. recent posts mentioning vmshare
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#10 Happy DEC-10 Day
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#87 "The Naked Mainframe" (Forbes Security Article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#98 "The Naked Mainframe" (Forbes Security Article)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#46 Mythical computers and magazine reviews
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#85 Apple iPad -- this merges with folklore
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#2 Apple iPad -- this merges with folklore
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#27 HONE & VMSHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#57 Adventure - Or Colossal Cave Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#65 Adventure - Or Colossal Cave Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010d.html#84 Adventure - Or Colossal Cave Adventure
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#29 HONE & VMSHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#31 Terse for PC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010f.html#72 Subpools - specifically 241
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#9 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010g.html#53 Far and near pointers on the 80286 and later
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010j.html#75 What is the protocal for GMT offset in SMTP (e-mail) header
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#13 Idiotic programming style edicts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010k.html#25 Was VM ever used as an exokernel?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#22 Old EMAIL Index
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#28 Mainframe Hacking -- Fact or Fiction
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#73 Mainframe hacking?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#1 origin of 'fields'?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#1 Why we build big computers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#9 EXTERNAL: Re: Problem with an edit command in tso
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#18 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 26 Dec, 2010 Subject: VMSHARE Archives Blog: IBM Historic Computingre:
For little humor ... large, long-time mainframe customer ... a
reference to its SHARE installation code (that also shows up in
various vmshare postings)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#4
installation also mentioned here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#1
much earlier reference (extracted from Melinda's history ... Melinda's
history URL pointer at the VMSHARE archives page):
https://web.archive.org/web/20090117083033/http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/list-archive/0409/8362.shtml
for other (historical) drift ... one of the issues for providing 7x24 commercial online service was the processor meter. these computers used to all be leased and the mainframe leased charges were based on the processor meter (sort of like electric company utility meter). The meter would run whenever the processor was executing instructions and/or any channel had an active I/O channel program. In the early days ... off-shift usage tended to be "light" ... with the use charges (online service charging their users) not covering the lease charges.
The challenge was to come up with an I/O channel program ... that allowed the processor meter to stop ... but still allowed accepting new incoming connections and characters (from terminals, typically dialup). The other challenge was to move as much as possible to "dark room" operation ... not needing full human operator coverage during the offshift period (also reducing offshift operating costs when actual use could be extremely sporadic).
In some sense ... these operations were the 60s & 70s flavor of modern
day "cloud computing" ... misc. past posts mentioning virtual machine
based commercial online services
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare
Note one of the earliest of these was the internal HONE system. It was
originally created to give branch SEs "hands-on" experience to
operating systems running in (remote) virtual machines. However, the
science center had also ported apl360 to cms for cmsapl ... and there
started being a growing number of marketing and sales support
applications. The APL marketing and sales support applications came to
dominate all HONE activity (with the guest operating system use
disappearing). Eventually all mainframe orders had to be first
processed by a HONE application. misc. past posts mentioning HONE
(&/or APL)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
The US had consolidated the HONE datacenters in silicon valley during
the mid-70s (actually not too far from TYMSHARE) ... but there were
HONE "clones" also sprouting up all over the world. The US HONE
operation by the late 70s was possibly the largest single system image
operation in the world at the time (large number of SMP processors
sharing large "DASD" farm with load-balancing and fall-over capability
across the cluster). In the early 80s, the US HONE operation was
replicated first in Dallas and then a 3rd in Boulder ... for
availability (countermeasure to cal. earthquakes). A couple posts from
last year in thread titled "From The Annals of Release No Software
Before Its Time"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#43
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#46
A couple of earlier (cp67) virtual machine based online service
bureaus were spin-offs in the 60s from the science center and lincoln
labs; IDC and NCSS. Both IDC and NCSS quickly moved up the value chain
to providing online financial services information. NCSS was
eventually bought by dun&bradstreet. IDC still operates ... providing
online financial information over the web. a few recent posts
mentioning IDC and/or NCSS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#54
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#55
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#58
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#66
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#21
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#26
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 26 Dec 2010 08:44:20 -0800joarmc@SWBELL.NET (John McKown) writes:
wiki references articals from july2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/06/golman-sachs-computer-codes-stolen
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFeyqdzYcizc
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2GvteRoihQE
above references that typically there is very little information about
trading activities. for other topic drift ... recent thread about
efforts to try and obtain trading information (possibly in conjunction
with showing illegal naked short sales):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#43
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#48
above is part of thread about possible future wikileaks involving large
financial institutions. to somewhat bring it back to mainframe ... this
discussion about past leakage issues involving corporate mainframe
(unannounced products) information (in linkedin ibm alumni group
discussion)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#4 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#8 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#18 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
and another corporate mainframe trade-secret theft discussion (in
linkedin financial crime risk, fraud and security group)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#25 Econimic espionage discussed
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2010 12:08:02 -0500re:
oh ... and in the early 90s ... when we were doing ha/cmp product and talking to some number of trading operations (including SIAC which ran datacenter operations for NYSE) ... with respect to what would the impact of an outage be. One computer in tall skyscraper in LA supposedly earn more money in 24hr period than the aggregate annual salary of everybody that worked in the bldg ... plus the annual lease on the bldg. there was another instance when a trading operation had an environmental outage and the NYSE traffic volume was down 1/3rd that day.
misc. past posts mentioning ha/cmp
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
I had coined the terms geographic survivability and disaster
survivability (to differentiate from disaster/recovery) when I was out
marketing ha/cmp. I had also been asked to write a section for the
"corporate continuous availability strategy" document ... however the
section got pulled after complaints from both Rochester and POK
(basically at the time, they weren't able to meet the
requirements). misc. past posts mentioning availability
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#available
semi-related ... misc. past posts mentioning assurance
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
for a little other mainframe "available" topic drift ... long ago and
far away ... my wife had been con'ed into going to POK to be in charge
of loosely-coupled architecture ... while there she did peer-coupled
shared data architecture ... misc. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata
which, except for IMS hot-standby, saw very little uptake until sysplex. Both because of the little uptake (focus on tightly-coupled multiprocessing at the time) and constant battles with communication group (insisting loosely-coupled operation needed to use SNA ... there were temporary truces where she could use anything she wanted within walls of the datacenters ... but SNA had to be used for everything that crossed walls of the datacenter) ... she didn't remain long in the position.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: Looking for a real Fortran-66 compatible PC compiler (CP/M or DOS or Windows, doesn't matter) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:36:00 -0500"Dave Wade" <dave.g4ugm@gmail.com> writes:
the company then started the Future System effort, somewhat motivated by
clone controllers ... but it failed w/o even being announced. During
Future System ... much of the other activity was killed off ... allowing
the 370 hardware&software product pipelines to go dry ... then when
Future System was killed ... there was mad rush to get stuff back into
the 370 hardware&software product pipeline. recent post mentioning
Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#33 IBM Future System
shutting down 370 "competition" for FS and then having a dry 370 (hardware) product pipeline (when FS was killed) is credited with clone processors getting a foothold in the market.
Rushing to get stuff back into the 370 product pipeline ... and facing the clone processors is possible motivation for the transition to starting to (also) charge/license kernel software (as well as the transition to object-code-only).
above Future System post also references these web page:
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/fs.html
and
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
as well as other past posts mentioning FS
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 26 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMIt would be nice if somebody convinced the spammers.
In the mid-to-late 90s, I was on a business trip and was having dinner in a mexican restaurant in scottsdale "old town" (near phoenix). A man and a couple came in and sat behind me and the man proceeding to tell the couple how he could produce an enormous amount of spam advertising their business ... as well as the mechanisms he had in place to make sure the spam kept flowing (to deal with ISPs shutting down his accounts as complaints flowed in). There were also some number of recommendations about how to configure their webserver so all the email complaints addressed to them would be ignored (i.e. no email server or other functions, have everything performed as web forms).
It made me think that person might be associated with the Green Card
spam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman Blog: Financial Cryptographyre:
Note a similar excuse was brought up during the fall2008 congressional hearings into the pivotal role that the rating agencies played in the financial mess; selling triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs (when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew that the toxic CDOs weren't worth triple-A rating) .... aka that the seller would just go to one of the other rating agencies to buy a triple-A rating (if they didn't sell/give a triple-A). One of the other comments made during the hearings was that the rating agencies might blackmail the gov. to not taking any punitive action (with the threat of downgrading the gov's credit rating).
misc. past posts mentioning rating agencies & giving triple-A ratings
on toxic CDOs:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008g.html#44 Fixing finance
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#8 Global Melt Down
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#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#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#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#6 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#39 'WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN'
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#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#65 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#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#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/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#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.)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#69 Moody's hints at move that could be catastrophic for US debt
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: Old EMAIL Index Blog: IBM Historic ComputingOld EMAIL Index
The email index also has a couple of pictures ... including home terminal setup ... but not home 2741 from spring 1970 ... but does have 2741 APL typeball.
this refs converting my cp67 modifications to vm370 base (during the
future system period) ... some amount had been previously shipped in
cp67 (and dropped in the morph of cp67 to vm370) and others were
purely internal
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750102
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#email750430
it also mentions doing "csc/vm" ... i.e. one of my hobbies was building and supporting my own operating system release for internal datacenters. In part because of the mad rush to get stuff back into 370 product pipeline (after the distraction of Future System), some amount of the mentioned changes were picked up and shipped in vm370 release 3. Some number of the other changes were packaged for release in my "resource manager".
The science center was on 4th flr of 545 tech sq (and by 1975, the
vm370 group had outgrown the 3rd flr and moved out to old SBC bldg. in
Burlington Mall; aka the development group had previously split off
from the science center and moved to the 3rd flr, taking over the
Boston Programming Center); some old posts mentioning science center
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
csc/vm (&/or sjr/vm) posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#cscvm
Some number of the CTSS (ibm 7094) people had gone to the science
center on the 4th flr, but others had gone to Multics project on the
5th flr. In the spirit of friendly competition, I would sometimes
chide the Multics people that at one time, I had more internal CSC/VM
installations than the total number of Multics installations that had
ever existed.
https://www.multicians.org/sites.html
later ref to doing internal SJR/VM distribution ... after transferring
to SJR:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email830705
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email830709
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#email830711
Part of SJR/VM was body of integrity changes that I had done for the
disk engineering labs. At one time they had tried doing disk
"testcell" development testing under MVS and found MVS MTBF was 15
mins (crash and/or hang requiring reboot). I had done a bunch of
changes for I/O supervisor to never crash/hang. misc. past posts
getting to play disk engineer in bldgs. 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: Who hasn't caused an outage? What is the worst thing you have done? Blog: MainframeZone
sort of the opposite ... DASD "testcell" development testing ran
"stand-alone", mainframe processor dedicated scheduled time (being
scheduled 7x24 around the clock). They had once tried running under
MVS, but found MVS to have 15 min. MTBF (in that environment), aka
crash &/or hang requiring reboot. I undertook to rewrite i/o
supervisor to make it never hang, never crash .... so they could do
on-demand, multiple, concurrent testing. that got me sucked into
playing disk engineer ... being periodically asked to diagnose/analyze
issues. misc. past posts getting to play disk engineer in bldgs 14&15
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 27 Dec 2010 09:36:00 -0800Howard Brazee <howard.brazee@cusys.edu> writes:
as previously referred to, high-speed computerized trading can turn enormous profit (easily justifying the best people that money can buy; easily being worth more than top sports players).
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 27 Dec 2010 11:34:17 -0800tlk_sysprog@YAHOO.COM (Thomas Kern) writes:
considering lots of the other stuff going on ... absolutely honesty might not be a top requirement ... there was fair amount of obfuscation and misdirection in the financial mess about computer software being involved ... until the stories about business people were directing the risk & computer people to fiddle the inputs until the business people got the desired outputs (GIGO).
there is past folklore about large financial institution in manhatten outsourcing y2k remediation to lowest bidder ... they didn't find out until later that it was front for a criminal organization
there has been some amount about high-frequency trading with huge
amounts of other peoples money (available at zero or near zero cost)
... being able to rack up fraction of percent profit every day
... resulting in enormous annual profits. some of it may have also
involved illegal naked short selling (could almost be considered a form
of pump&dump ... but sort of in reverse). some of related discussion in
linkedin fraud groups:
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/2010q.html#24 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
I mentioned in the above that prior to NSCC & DTC merging, I had been
asked by NSCC to look at improving integrity of trading transactions.
After putting some amount of effort into the project, it was called off
with some comment that a side-effect of the integrity work would have
been significantly improved transparency and visibility (apparently not
a highly desired quality in the industry). The DTCC wiki page mentions
fight over making transaction details public ... which could possibly be
used to show illegal naked short selling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Trust_&_Clearing_Corporation
one of referenced posts includes quote from 2008 KPMG survey that found 60% of employees in banking and finance industry personally observed misconduct that "could cause a significant loss of public trust if discovered" (a rate possibly twice that of other industries).
misc. other posts in the discussions
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#28 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#29 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#31 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
I had gotten blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal
network in the late 70s and early 80s ... nearly all of it email
based. The folklore is that when the executive committee was informed
(about online computer conferencing as well as the internal network),
five out of six wanted to fire me. Various old email referenced here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html
Most of my email (and lots of other stuff) prior to 1977 was lost ... it was on triple replicated tapes in the Almaden tape library ... but was "lost" in the mid-80s when their operations went thru a period with random tapes being mounted for scratch.
I periodically mention the difficulty with reading email back in the states from Paris ... when I was asked to go over in the early 70s and help with a datacenter install that was part of EMEA hdqtrs moving from the states to Paris.
Univ BITNET/EARN networks (significantly funded by IBM) got a form of
email-based online computer conferencing with LISTSERV ... wiki page
mentions "first" ... but it was preceded by stuff on internal network
... LISTSERV reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISTSERV
and
http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv-history.asp
misc past posts mentioning BITNET &/or EARN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
old email from 1984 about setting up EARN
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#email840320
Note that in this period, "online" was much more analogous to today's "cloud" computing (online at home since Mar1970).
with regard to PROFS; there was a very early pre-release 1.0 internal email client that was distributed widely internally ... along with source. that very early source was picked up by the PROFS group and used within the PROFS infrastructure for email handling. at one point the original author offered to upgrade PROFS with a significantly enhanced version. The PROFS group came back and claimed that they had developed everything themselves and then tried to have the original author fired. The original author pointed out that every PROFS email carried his initials in a non-displayed control field. Part of the PROFS issue apparently was there were awards given for having "written" the original code. After that, only three of us had copies of the source code.
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
some number of the CTSS people went to the science center on 4th flr
of 545 tech sq (where they did virtual machines, cp67, cms, bunch of
other stuff). CMS script somewhat started out as a port of CTSS
runoff. GML was invented at the science center in 1969 and GML tag
processing added to CMS script. Nearly a decade later an international
(ISO) standard was made as SGML (late 70s). And a decade after that
(two decades after GML was invented), SGML was morphed into HTML at
CERN. some discussion of the SGML to HTML morph:
http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/
the first webserver (outside cern) was on the SLAC vm/cms system
https://ahro.slac.stanford.edu/wwwslac-exhibit
misc. past posts mentioning GML and/or SGML
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#sgml
misc. past posts mentioning science center at 545 tech sq
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: IBM S/360 Green Card high quality scan here Blog: IBM Historic Computingre:
old email related to using vm370 release 6 in the 3090 service processor
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861031
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#email861223
I had helped out when the project first started ... but it carried on for so long ... along with people turn-over ... people involved lost track that I had been involved helping when it first started.
The email references an internal problem & dump analyzer that I had implemented ... and the service processor people wanted to pick up responsibility. I had originally done the implementation in the very early days of REX(X) ... wanted to help demonstrate that REXX wasn't just another pretty scripting language. The demonstration was to take the existing assembler implemented IPCS program ... and working half-time over 3 months ... re-implement the function in REXX with ten times the function and running ten times as fast.
I had originally figured that it would be shipped to customers as an IPCS replacement ... which never happened ... however, it did become the dominate tool internal and also in use by nearly all the PSRs.
Slightly green card related ... there was option to display storage locations as instruction sequences (with symbolic opcodes). There was another option that allowed for specifying a MACRO DSECT ... and it would display storage using the specified DSECT from the macro library.
misc. past posts mentioning DUMPRX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 27 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just
about the beginning until possibly late '85 or early '86. the first
big change in internet size came with the big switch-over to tcp/ip
(technology basis for modern internet) on 1/1/83. some past posts on
the subject
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/internet.htm
one of the big issues about internet overtaking the internal network
... was that on the internet PC & workstations became nodes while on
the internal network, PCs & workstations were limited to terminal
emulation ... part of communication group attempting to preserve the
terminal emulation install base. this became so severe that in the
late 80s, a senior disk engineer got a talk scheduled at the internal,
world-wide, annual communication group conference ... and opened the
talk with the statement that the communication group was going to be
responsible for the demise of the disk division (while terminal
emulation saw early uptake for PCs ... later on it represented severe
bottleneck strangling the datacenter participation in the distributed
computing environment ... and all sorts of data was starting to flee
the datacenter to other platforms). misc. past posts mentioning the
terminal emulation issues
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation
My HSDT effort was involved with several of the entities that would
participate in the NSFNET backbone (operational precursor to modern
internet) and we expected to be involved. However, some internal
politics prevented us from bidding. The director of NSF wrote a letter
to the corporation asking for participation (copying the CEO) ... but
that just aggravated the internal politics ... as did comments like
what HSDT already had running was at least five years ahead of all
NSFNET backbone bid submissions (to build something new). misc. past
posts mentioning HSDT effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
misc. old email related to NSFNET
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#nsfnet
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 28 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
@Paul ... trivia question, what does "GML" stand for? "G", "M", and "L" started out as the first letters of the three peoples' last names at the science center that invented GML in 1969.
Somewhat as the result of being blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s ... a researcher was paid to sit in the back of my office for nine months, taking notes on how I communicate; they also went with me to meetings, got copies of all my incoming & outgoing emails and logs of all instant messages. The result was research report and a stanford phd thesis (joint between language and computer AI) and material for various books and papers. A later book
Knowledge Machines: Language and Information in a Technology Society
(Language in Social Life Series)
https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Machines-Language-Information-Technological/dp/0582071313
misc. past posts mentioning "computer mediated communication"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#cmc
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 28 Dec, 2010 Subject: I actually miss working at IBM Blog: Greater IBMre:
1992 was the year the company went into the red, executives were looking at selling off all the pieces as independent operations, there were jokes about would the last person to leave POK, please turn off the lights; excess vacation days were going to start evaporating and there was the last really good program paying people to leave. Since I had a year of accumulated vacation that was about to start evaporating ... I elected to take the paid departure (with extra years bonus for the accumulated vacation).
after having done things like ridicule the Future System project (from just about the start) and being blamed for online computer conferencing ... I was repeatedly told that I had no career in the company (promotions, etc). The paid departure started with "leave of absence" (with no possibility of return), bridging to 30 yrs. The day after my last day at work (and the first day of my leave of absence), I get a letter at home saying I had been promoted ... effective the first day of my leave of absence.
recent post in "future system" discussion in the "IBM Historic
Computing" Group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#32 IBM Future System
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 28 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
lot of the company got their EMAIL via HONE (world-wide sales and
marketing support, effectively an early "cloud" computing
service). HONE started out after 23jun69 unbundling announcement as a
way of providing SEs with "hands-on" operating system experience
running in CP67 virtual machines. misc. past posts mentioning 23jun69
unbundling announcement
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundling
After the initial 370 was announced (before 370 virtual memory, but
still with a few additional instructions that weren't in 360), cp67
(running on 360/67) was enhanced to provide "370" virtual machines via
simulating the new 370 instructions. HONE was one of the internal
installations installing this specially modified cp67. misc. old email
mentioning HONE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#hone
the science center had also ported apl360 to cms for cmsapl ... and
there started to be a whole lot of sales & marketing support
applications being made available on HONE. Eventually the sales &
marketing (APL) activity came to dominate all HONE activity (with the
"hands-on" guest operating activity disappearing). I frequently
mentioned that one of my hobbies was highly enhanced operating systems
that I would distribute and support for internal datacenters ... and
HONE was one of my long-time customers. recent post on the subject in
"Old EMAIL Index" discussion in (linkedin) "IBM Historic Computing"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#41
One of my other hobbies was making external information available on
internal systems ... like VMSHARE ... recent posts is "VMSHARE
Archives" discussion in (linkedin) "IBM Historic Computing"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#34
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#35
This is old email from brance office rep in Kuwait asking about some
information he saw in (HONE copy of) VMSHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#email830227
and another email from somebody in Helsinki
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#email830112
old email mentioning VMSHARE
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#vmshare
i got a 2741 at home in mar1970 ... i don't have any pictures of that
2741 ... but there are a couple pictures of 2741 APL typeball (that I
still have) here:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#oldpicts
--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 28 Dec, 2010 Subject: I actually miss working at IBM Blog: Greater IBMre:
Kingston had (at least) the VM group, engineering & scientific lab, and the supercomputer group.
I had done various things off & on over the years with the VM group in Kingston.
As part of my HSDT effort, I worked with the person running the E&S
lab dataprocessing to have an "HSDT" node in his lab. misc. past posts
mentioning HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
This is reference to jan92 in ellison's conference room on cluster
scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
in conjunction with our HA/CMP product, misc. past posts
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hacmp
and old email about cluster scale-up
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/lhwemail.html#medusa
the last item in the above is possibly only hrs before the effort was transferred to IBM Kingston and we were told we couldn't work on anything with more than four processors. This also contributed to decision to take the lump sum payment and leave.
this is past post that mentions sequence leading up to the above
... starting with the retirement of senior executive in oct91:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#71
The guy doing the E&S lab dataprocessing ... I had previously worked
with on HSDT project when he was in Boulder supporting the IMS folks
there. The IMS people in STL & Boulder got moved to offsite bldgs
... and were being faced with remote 3270 support back to
datacenter. I did the support for "channel-extension" that allowed
them to have "local 3270" channel-attached at the remote sites back to
their respective datacenters. Misc posts mentioning effort for Boulder
IMS:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#23
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#137
This is unrelated to when Jim left and palmed off various DBMS related
stuff on me ... including DBMS consulting to the IMS group ... misc
old email reference:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801006
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801016
in this post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#1
the above email also mentions being on the east coast when Jim departed, teaching a VM scheduling & performance class to the VM development group.
And another reference to Jim (going missing)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#4
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#6
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007d.html#8
total unrelated trivia ... two of the other people at the meeting in ellison's conference room
later show up at a small client/server startup responsible for
something called the "commerce server"; we get brought in as
consultants because they want to do payment transactions on the
server. The startup had also invented this technology they call "SSL"
they want to use; the results is now frequently called "electronic
commerce". Some past posts mentioning part of the effort for
"electronic commerce" ... the "payment gateway" that handle financial
transactions forwarding between the internet and the payment networks.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#gateway
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 28 Dec 2010 12:54:51 -0800rfochtman@YNC.NET (Rick Fochtman) writes:
note that sarbanes-oxley, in the wake of enron ... specified increase in
audits of financial statements of public companies (and oversight by
SEC) ... possibly because GAO didn't think SEC was doing anything
... they started looking at such financial statements and found uptick
in fraudulent filings ... even after SOX ... recent post with (GAO) references
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#31 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
references about ENRON (leading up to SOX) and Time article about
people responsible for recent financial mess (and ENRON mess)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010l.html#38 Who is Really to Blame for the Financial Crisis?
there were also fall2008 congressional hearings into pivotal role played
by rating agencies in the financial mess ... recent reference
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#40 Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman
at the time, there were comments that the rating agencies could blackmail the federal gov to avoid punitive action with the threat of downgrading the govs. credit rating.
note that SOX also had item having SEC look into the rating agencies ... but there was nothing except a SEC report; reference in the post on "blame for financial crisis".
The "blame" post also mentions that early 2009, I was asked to take the recently scanned Pecora hearings (senate hearings into the Great Depression), html'ize them with heavy indexes ... as well as URLs between what happened then and what happened this time (apparently some expectation that the new congress might have an appetite for doing something similar). After putting quite a bit of effort into it, I got a call that nobody was really interested after all.
with respect to greed and temptation ... recent post referencing 30yr old
legal action regarding industrial espionage and theft of (DASD) trade
secrets:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#25 Economic espionage discussed
slightly related post getting to play computer security sidekick to
new CSO (one time had been head of presidential detail, long ago and
far away):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#3a The Great Cyberheist
similar post in (linkedin) IBM Alumni thread:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#8 Plug Your Data Leaks from the inside
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 28 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
semi-related HONE post from last year From The Annals of Release No
Software Before Its Time
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#43
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#46
mentioning that the US HONE datacenters in the mid-70s were consolidated in silicon valley ... where "single image" cluster support was done (loosely-coupled load-balancing and fall-over with large DASD farm) ... possibly largest in the world at the time. Now, 30 yrs later something similar was being released in the product.
Above posts also mentions something similar regarding the ha/cmp cluster scale-up work (nearly 20 yrs later).
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 28 Dec 2010 15:54:53 -0800mike.a.schwab@GMAIL.COM (Mike Schwab) writes:
i.e. commodity trading required that players had to have significant interest in the commodity in order to play ... because speculators resulted in wild irrational price swings ... then there were 19 "secret letters" allowing specific entities to play.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: Microsoft Wants 'Sick' PCs Banned From The Internet Blog: Information Security Networkre:
The threat & vulnerability model is that the PCs are at risk ... instead of looking for physical correspondence ... look at it from security aspect along with what is at risk. In the physical traffic model ... it is relatively clear that the autos & people are both is what is traveling as well as what is at risk.
One of the issues in today's security landscape is frequently knee-jerk reaction to "point" events ... failing to do comprehensive, detailed, end-to-end threat and vulnerability study. In the internet scenario ... while the IP packets are the things traveling ... that IP traffic is putting the PCs at risk (threat and vulnerability).
There is significant analogy between earlier days of personal automobiles and personal computers ... with things like traffic fatalities being blamed on the operator/driver. However, there has been lots of human engineering to both compensate for human limitations as well as mitigate the severity of accidents: safety glass, bumpers,. crash zones, speed limits, traffic lights, traffic law enforcement, guard rails, safety belts, air bags, change in highway engineering, collapsing crash zones around sign posts and other fixed obstacles (bridges). All of these countermeasures have drastically reduced the accident rate as well as accident severity.
A few years ago, I took a pass at doing a taxonomy of the CVE database
(at the time managed by Mitre) ... attempting to profile and
categorize the CVE entries (effectively would be part of any detailed
threat & vulnerability study for developing comprehensive
countermeasures). The CVE entries turned out to be quite free-form and
difficult to categorize. Talking to the Mitre people at the time
... their response was that it was hard enough to get the vendors to
do any kind of report .... that trying to get the vendors to follow
any sort of organized methodology might inhibit them from doing
anything at all. old post with some of the summary of that effort
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004e.html#43 security taxonomy and CVE
followup post referencing above (the following also draws some of the
similarities between highway traffic and internet ... from a threat &
vulnerability standpoint)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004f.html#20 Why does Windows allow Worms?
posts from the following year about NIST report on threats &
vulnerabilities ... showing similar conclusions to my investigation
the previous year
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#20 Buffer overruns
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#28 Buffer overruns
followup summary (in same thread) with some of the info from CVE
entries
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#32 Buffer overruns
later post referencing articles about Mitre working on CVE
categorization
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#20 Hackers Attack Apps While Still in Development
for somewhat unrelated topic drift ... post referencing an old friend
badgering me into interviewing for chief security architect in redmond
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#7
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 28 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
It isn't so much obsolete stuff ... it is if there is something having
entrenched position and has significant existing use ... it is hard to
displace. small x-over from the "I actually miss working at IBM"
thread ... also archived here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#52
two of the people mentioned in this jan92 cluster scale-up meeting
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#13
... later showup at small client/server startup and we get brought in as consultants because they want to do payment transactions on their server. The startup had also invented this technology called "SSL" that they wanted to use; the result is now sometimes called "electronic commerce".
Part of organizing "SSL" for use in "electronic commerce" were several
requirements for how it would be deployed and used. For various
reasons, immediately several of those requirements were violated
... opening the way for all sorts of compromises. Once the conventions
became entrenched it is now nearly impossible to change them ... even
tho it allows/enables a wide variety of exploits. for other topic
drift ... msic past posts on the subject of "assurance"
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subintegrity.html#assurance
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@GARLIC.COM (Anne & Lynn Wheeler) Subject: Re: Programmer Charged with thieft (maybe off topic) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main Date: 29 Dec 2010 10:10:00 -0800hal9001@PANIX.COM (Robert A. Rosenberg) writes:
when I was undergraduate at the univ. ... the datacenter got a new head ... happened to have been a graduate student of & part of the team that went to Las Vegas to demonstrate the techniques ... and then had lifetime ban from playing at their tables.
in the case of greed and my reference to 30yr old case of industrial espionage and theft of (DASD) trade screts, the judge effectively said that individuals can't be held accountable for stealing extremely valuable items if insufficient countermeasures have been taken (security proportional to risk) ... analogy is minors and swimming pools w/o fences (owners can be held responsible for any drownings, people & greed are no more responsible than minors and swimming pools).
early in the days of SOX there was big deal made that the (onerous) additional auditing would prevent most of the public company fraudulent reporting ... along with SEC oversight and the additional provisions for sending executives to jail.
GAO reports shows that there has been actual increase in fraudulent reporting after SOX ... with apparently little SEC oversight and nobody sent to jail.
There have been a few multi-hundred million fines reported ... but it had little effect on the individuals or corporations involved, i.e. 1) low probability of fine or other punitive action, 2) individuals getting multi-hundred million compensation didn't have to return the money (or go to jail), and 3) many cases corporations involved multi-hundred billions ... so even in the rare cases of a fine ... the fine could be considered a very small percent cost of doing business.
There have been jokes about "RICO" may be necessary, in combination with
high precentage of activity actually being prosecuted ... i.e. executives
actually going to jail and three times the money involved be confiscated
(instead of a rare cases involving fines that are very small percentage
of the actual money).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
of course when they are systemic important, too-big-to-fail institutions
... that the gov. is already leaning over backwards to keep afloat, it
can become awkward i.e. the four largest had aggregate $5.2T in toxic
assets being held "off-books", a few deals with several tens of billions
had gone for 22 cents on the dollar; TARP wouldn't have dented the
problem ... so they had to re-purpose the TARP funds; after a lot of
legal action, FEDRES has recently been forced to divulge some of what it
has been doing, including quietly buying up these toxic assets at
98cents on the dollar. recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#17
mentioning old article about the $5.2T (toxic assets held "off-book")
Bank's Hidden Junk Menaces $1 Trillion Purge
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akv_p6LBNIdw&refer=home
and some of the recently divulged FEDRES activity
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions
there was recently some cases of DEA following money trail (used to buy
planes involved in drug smuggling) to some of these too-big-to-fail
institutions. Rather than throwing the executives in jail and shutting
down the institutions (for criminal activity), they effectively asked
the institutions if they would please stop. recent post
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010m.html#24
a few of the news items:
Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal - Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
Wall Street Is Laundering Drug Money And Getting Away With It
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zach-carter/megabanks-are-laundering_b_645885.html?show_comment_id=53702542
Too Big to Jail - How Big Banks Are Turning Mexico Into Colombia
http://www.taipanpublishinggroup.com/tpg/taipan-daily/taipan-daily-080410.html
Banks Financing Mexico Drug Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/06/28/bloomberg1376-L4QPS90UQVI901-6UNA840IM91QJGPBLBFL79TRP1.DTL
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: Boeing Plant 2 ... End of an Era Blog: Greater IBMre:
In the 60s, I did stint in the corporate hdqtrs bldg next door, helping with the startup of Boeing Computer Services (although official company website says that it wasn't officially formed until the following year)
When I came in, corporate hdqtr datacenter was a 360/30 that was used for company payroll. The machine room was extended for a 360/67 "simplex" and I setup & supported CP67 virtual machine ... for online "service bureau" operation. I was among the initial dozen or so "BCS" employees.
That summer, the 360/67 "duplex" in Boeing Huntsville was also moved to Seattle. I also got to periodically visit the Renton datacenter ... at the time, I thought to be the largest in the world. They claimed something like $200m-$300m in IBM equipment. 360/65 orders were arriving faster than they could be installed. All summer there appeared to always parts of 2-3 360/65 sitting around in the hallways (outside the datacenter) waiting to be installed.
747 "3" could be seen periodically flying certification flts in the Seattle skys. Boeing was also in the process of planning for replicated the Renton datacenter up at the new 747 plant. There is a disaster scenario where Mt. Rainier warms up causing a huge mud slide that takes out the Renton datacenter (some estimate that the loss of the Renton datacenter for a week costs the company more than the cost of replicating the center).
In the 80s, I sponsored Boyd's briefings at IBM ... and more recently
one of Boyd's biographies mentions that he did a stint in charge of
"spook base" (about the time I was at Boeing) ... and "spook base" was
a $2.5B windfall for IBM ($17+B in today's dollars). I've commented
that windfall would have help offset the enormous losses of the failed
"Future System" effort. misc. past posts mentioning Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
misc. past posts mentioning Boyd
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
I had tripped across this description of NKP (aka spook base)
... which has since gone 404 ... but lives on at wayback machine
https://web.archive.org/web/20030212092342/http://home.att.net/~c.jeppeson/igloo_white.html
mentions sophisticated dual 360/65 (and some number of other pieces of IBM equipment) ... by itself, it couldn't account for $2.5B
and for 747 trivia ... the cockpit was above to allow for nose door opening & loading/unloading for freight. also the tour of the passenger version mockup .... part of the presentation was that there was so many passengers that 747 would always be serviced by at least four jetways (when was the last time you saw four jetways for a plane?)
posts from earlier this year on 747 freight version
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#54 Favourite computer history books?
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010i.html#55 Favourite computer history books?
including this reference:
http://www.airways.ch/files/2005/0805/001/boeing-airbus-freighter.htm
from above:
The 747 was originally conceived as a freighter for the USAF and that
when Boeing lost, to the Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, it took the losing
design and turned it into a passenger airliner -- which is why the 747
has a nose-door, and why the cockpit is perched on the top of the
fuselage, where drag, cockpit-noise and visibility are at their worst
... snip ...
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: I actually miss working at IBM Blog: Greater IBMre:
There were a number of "fast-track" positions .... as previously mentioned ... I would never have been considered for any of them (having been repeatedly told over the years that I had no career in the company), however I would be periodically asked if I had any recommendations for fast-track positions. These were typically middle to upper management position where somebody would be placed for 6-12 months before being moved to the next position. It turned out to frequently be a disaster for the organization that would have its upper level management designated as "fast-track" position (with the frequent churn of people w/o experience passing thru the position)
with respect to "fast track" ... it was at least going on in the '80s
and numerous of the accounts of the Future System was that the failure
cast a dark shadow over the corporate culture that lasted for decades.
misc. past posts mentioning Future System
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys
I mention in the "Boeing Plant 2" discussion about Boyd, "spook base",
"$2.5B windfall for IBM", "Future System" and having sponsored Boyd's
briefings at IBM in the '80s.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#59 Boeing Plant 2 ... End of an Era
This is quote supposedly from the dedication of Boyd Hall, United
States Air Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. 17
September 1999
"There are two career paths in front of you, and you have to choose
which path you will follow. One path leads to promotions, titles, and
positions of distinction.... The other path leads to doing things that
are truly significant for the Air Force, but the rewards will quite
often be a kick in the stomach because you may have to cross swords
with the party line on occasion. You can't go down both paths, you
have to choose. Do you want to be a man of distinction or do you want
to do things that really influence the shape of the Air Force? To be
or to do, that is the question." Colonel John R. Boyd, USAF 1927-1997
The To be or to do has somewhat turned into a theme. Note however,
the Air Force had pretty much disowned Boyd while he was alive and it
was the Marines that were out in force at Arlington in 1997 ... and
Boyd's papers and effects went to the Marine library at Quantico.
misc. past posts mentioning Boyd:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html
"water under the bridge" may be my middle name ... I was accused of
spending too much time on it in the days of the internal network
.... and then afterwards on public networks. This is profile from ibm
systems mag ... although some of the info is slightly garbled
https://web.archive.org/web/20190524015712/http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/stoprun/Stop-Run/Making-History/
and then there is this that is slightly related (gone 404)
https://web.archive.org/web/20110727105535/http://www.mainframezone.com/blog/mainframe-hall-of-fame-four-new-members-added/
full list
https://www.enterprisesystemsmedia.com/mainframehalloffame
Boyd is credited with battle plan for Desert Storm and in the more recent conflicts there have been comments that a major problem is that Boyd had died in '97. Boyd's is one of the few "shrines" in the lobby of the library at Quantico. There was a two day "Boyd" meeting in Oct at the "university" across the street from the library. Quite something for an air force fighter pilot.
Within a couple months of joining IBM I was asked to take a management position. I asked to read the manager's manual and then told them that my supervisor experience was based on being foreman on construction crew and resolving issues in the parking lot. I was never asked again to take a management position.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: Compressing the OODA-Loop - Removing the D (and maybe even an O) Blog: Boyd's Strategyre:
Little digression with respect to "Iconoclast" and the example of feynman, o-rings, and the challenger disaster. There was article at the time with theme that how o-rings operated was obfuscation and misdirection. It had a parody with influential member of the Queen's court convincing her that columbus ships should be built up in the mountains (where the trees were) and then be sawed into three pieces for transportation to the harbor; where the three pieces were glued back together (reference that congressional influence played a part in choice of company doing booster rockets, which required them to built in sections because of transportation limitations between the Rockies and launch pad ... as opposed to alternatives that would be built as single unit).
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From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: Is email dead? What do you think? Blog: Greater IBMre:
Part of the issue was that VTAM & NCP didn't support networking (layer, ala OSI model) and distributed ... it was basically mainframe terminal controller.
In some sense HASP/JES2 "networking" was much more analogous to the
pre-tcp/ip arpanet. The JES2 networking had evolved from HASP
networking ... the source of which tended to included the four letters
"TUCC" out in cols. 68-71. Part of the issue is that HASP/JES2 job
control was intermixed with networking fields ... as a result, traffic
that originated at a site at different release level from the
receiving site ... would frequently result in the receiving site
crashing. On the internal network this resulted in JES sites be
restricted to boundary nodes with special VM370 nodes in front. The
VM370 networking had much more cleanly separated the function ... and
as a result a whole body of non-VM370 drivers grew up for VM370
networking to support talking to HASP/JES. Over time, these vm370
"NJI" drivers would contain code to convert NJI specific fields into
canonical form and then the vm370 NJI driver directly talking to a
receiving JES host ... would convert into format specific for that JES
release (otherwise the whole MVS system comes crashing down). misc.
past posts mentioning internal network
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
There was infamous case of new JES release installed in San Jose
resulting in crashing MVS systems in Hursley ... and the Hursley VM370
systems being blamed because they hadn't be adequately modified (to
prevent the Hursley MVS systems from crashing). some past posts
mentioning HASP/JES
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#hasp
For political correctness ... in the 80s on BITNET & EARN ... the
VM370 product moved to just shipping the HASP/JES NJI compatible
drivers (even for vm370 to vm370) .... even tho they had much less
thruput and performance than the native vm370 drivers.
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet
For other topic drift ... at one time I had tried to get a project
going that took SSCP/NCP (pu4/pu5) emulation implemented on Series/1
and turn it out as product; the Series/1 implementation simulated NCP
w/cross-domain to host VTAM ... and carried SNA RUs within a real
networking infrastructure (resources were actually owned within the
outboard network). I was planning on quickly moving the Series/1
implementation to RIOS ... further enormously increasing performance,
price/performance and function. Old post with part of
presentation that I had made in '86 to the SNA architecture review
board ... this alternative had enormous advantages (including an
underlying infrastructure that has real networking)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#67
and
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#70
the resulting politics would be something out of truth is stranger than fiction.
... other trivia from outcome of being blamed for online computer
conferencing (on the internal network) in late 70s and early 80s
... was a corporate "task force". brought in as consultants were two
NJIT professors that were authors of "The Network Nation"
https://www.amazon.com/Network-Nation-Human-Communication-Computer/dp/020103140X
The reference to alternative to vtam/ncp ... it is possible that the
communication group already didn't care for me ... part of it may have
been HSDT ... which was T1 & higher speeds ... misc. past posts
mentioning HSDT
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
recent post with reference to an old announcement from communication
group about new "high-speed" online discussion group
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#6 When will MVS be able to use cheap dasd
this historical document "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
refers to major motivation for FS being clone controller business
... quote here
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#47 origin of 'fields'?
one could reasonably conclude that a major motivation for the
convoluted design of VTAM & NCP was motivated by clone
controllers. The above post also mentions as undergraduate being
written up as one of four people responsible for producing clone
controller and subsequent clone controller business. other past posts
mentioning clone controllers
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#360pcm
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: VMSHARE Archives Blog: IBM Historic Computingre:
Melinda's virtual machine history ("VM and the VM Community: Past,
Present, and Future", much of original is in VMSHARE ... but also can
be found here:
https://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda#VMHist
also at the above: "Development of 360/370 Architecture: A Plain Man's View" and "What Mother Never old You About VM Service"
Some other Tymshare references (including both IBM and non-IBM system
offerings):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
Tymshare's online vm370 service was in competition with (at least
other virtual machine online services) NCSS and IDC. Some that is
mentioned here with respect to NOMAD, RAMIS and Focus:
http://corphist.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=stories&id=139&PHPSESSID=ccd241...
and
http://corphist.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=stories&id=160&PHPSESSID=ccd241...
also mentioned here:
http://www.decosta.com/Nomad/tales/history.html
Tymshare also had developed its own IBM 370 operating system "GNOSIS"
and when Tymshare was sold to MD in 1984, GNOSIS was spun off to Key
Logic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOSIS
I was brought in to do audit/review of GNOSIS as part of the spin-off to Key Logic (and still have the original documentation).
Unrelated to IBM hardware, at the time of the sale to MD, Engelbart
was at Tymshare ... and I sat up interviews for him at IBM, trying to
get IBM to make him an offer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 29 Dec, 2010 Subject: IBM Future System Blog: IBM Historic Computingre:
from same person that brought one of the above FS descriptions ... a
description of IBM ACS machine:
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_technical.html
the above web page has a lot of hardware detail comparisons for various IBM (and clone) processors. Sowa's FS reference mentions 3081 had (relative) enormous number of circuits ... also mentioned in above.
more ACS
https://people.computing.clemson.edu/~mark/acs.html
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> Subject: Re: They've changed the keyboard layout _again_ Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:07:13 -0500jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
from the person that brought you
EBCDIC and the P-Bit (The Biggest Computer Goof Ever)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM
other computer history articles
https://web.archive.org/web/20180513184025/http://www.bobbemer.com/HISTORY.HTM
past posts mentioning bob bemer
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#26 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#27 Origins of EBCDIC
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#39 Mainframe Utility for EBCDIC to ASCII conversion
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#41 Disksize history question
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#63 CAPS Fantasia
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#4 Happy DEC-10 Day
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 23 Dec, 2010 Subject: Ernst & Young sued for fraud over Lehman Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and Securityre:
Consequences are somewhat countermeasures/deterrent to greed and corruption ... however start of the century has been the moral hazard decade ... individuals and much of wall street realizing that there is little or no consequences to their actions (reminds me of old book "Robber Barons" about the early part of the last century) something from summer 2009:
The Baseline Scenario; What happened to the global economy and what we
can do about it; Secrecy and Moral Hazard
http://baselinescenario.com/2009/08/31/secrecy-and-moral-hazard/
includes references to FED fighting court order to divulge what it has
been doing ... some of it finally showing up more than year later:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1201/Federal-Reserve-s-astounding-report-We-loaned-banks-trillions
mentioned in this post (in ibm mainframe group) ... regarding
effectively ignoring various activities of too-big-to-fail
institutions:
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#58
more recent "baseline" mention of too-big-to-fail:
Bankers' Pay On The Line Again
http://baselinescenario.com/2010/12/23/bankers-pay-on-the-line-again/
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 30 Dec, 2010 Subject: ibm 2321 (data cell) Blog: IBM Historic computingThe univ. library (where i was undergraduate) got an ONR grant to do online catalog ... and some of the money went for a ibm 2321 data cell ... some pictures and further 2321 details
Some of the old-timers are passing on, one of the original CICS people
had extensive information at his webpages. Now he has gone, the pages
have gone 404 ... but they still live on at the wayback machine
... i.e.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070216111715/http://www.yelavich.com/
CICS information
https://web.archive.org/web/20050407233731/www.yelavich.com/4100cont.htm
CICS history
https://web.archive.org/web/20050409124902/www.yelavich.com/cicshist.htm
some of my past posts mentioning CICS (and/or BDAM)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#cics
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 30 Dec, 2010 Subject: My Funniest or Most Memorable Moment at IBM Blog: Greater IBMre:
In the very early 70s, I used to have regular weekend and evening (dedicated, stand-alone) time on the science center's 360/67. The science center was on the 4th flr of 545 tech sq ... but the machine room was on the 2nd flr. The machine room had exterior class along two walls .. and a wall of offices along another wall. One of the offices was effectively a small tape library ... which I had to periodic access for "backup" tapes ... to restore system to previous production version (after I had built some new flavor for testing).
The tape library door would sometimes be locked ... so I would have to go up and over the wall through the ceiling tiles. One weekend, it was late at night and I found the door was locked. I was tired and not feeling like going over the top ... so I kicked the door once right next to the door knob. Now these were solid heavy wood doors ... but the wood split from the top to the bottom along the edge ... and opened. It turns out it was no longer the tape library ... which had been moved to another location in the machine room ... it now held the center's personnel records.
Monday, the door was removed and "tape" was placed across the opening. The "old" door was taken to the 4th floor and used to create a "memorial" table (laid across two, two drawer file cabinets) ... in hallway at one-end of the science center area (stayed there for years, I guess as a reminder to me to not kick a door).
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 30 Dec, 2010 Subject: No command, and control Blog: Boyd's Strategyre:
for other unrelated drift ...
The Brainy Learning Algorithms of Numenta; How the inventor of the
PalmPilot studied the workings of the human brain to help companies
turn a deluge of data into business intelligence.
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/26811/?p1=BI
some related to previous post (some amount of the stuff is coming from what has been learned from past decade MRI studies of the human brain and how it operates)
New Cognitive Robotics Lab Tests Theories of Human Thought
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101230114808.htm
a lot of more recent technlogy projects are possibly by people w/o the
needed experience and/or motivation ... recent reference to growing
culture of failure (including finding that there is more money in
failures than in successes). recent post in computer architecture
(including lots of processor engineers) discussion group (about former
gov. employees showing up in silicon valley):
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#5
including this reference to Success of Failure article
http://www.govexec.com/management/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/
possible major difference between many of the failed efforts and the more successful ones ... is people with necessary experience in the actual subject.
there are a numbers of forces at play. one of the reports in the wake of the 1990 census claimed half the 18yr olds were functionally illiterate, another report from the same period said that foreign auto makers setting up in the US had to require junior college degree in order to get workers with high school education. recent reports are that the quality of us math and science education ranks 52nd.
also in the 90s there a number of gov. organizations claiming that they were replacing their large mainframes with commodity consumer desktop technology ... because they had open vacancies for extended period of time, that they were unable to fill (sort of leading edge of experienced baby boomer retirements) ... only people coming in for interviews were much lower skilled and educated.
one of the major national financial networks in the 90s attributed (we
had periodic meetings with the person running the operation) having
100% availability for extended number of years to
• ims hot-standby
• automated operator
hardware and software had gotten to point that failures and outages
were primarily 1) environmental and 2) human mistakes
environmental were things like power outages, earthquakes, floods, etc. ims hot-standby provided replicated operation at geographically separated locations.
automated operator replaced a large number of manual operations (eliminating human mistakes).
the peson running the operation periodically claimed that the (remaining) #1 risk to the operation was looming retirements of the experience people (their houses were paid for and all the children were through college)
old presentation from 1984 about outages increasingly shifting to
environmental and human error (with advances addressing the other
kinds of failure modes)
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/grayft84.pdf
there is somebody that i've worked with in the past that had been in ARPA and claimed credit for much of COTS. In theory, COTS was to free up money so that be used more effectively ... didn't turn out as expected.
a lot of outsourcing activity is similar to what has happened with COTS. there is instance of major national financial institution that "outsourced" much of the Y2K remediation for critical infrastructure to the lowest bidder. They found out much later that the operation was front for criminal organization (when they found extra special surprises left in the software)
,,, and a couple other past posts from earlier this year mentioning
the federal gov. Success of Failure culture
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#19 STEM crisis
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010p.html#78 TCM's Moguls documentary series
as an aside, in Boyd briefings ... he would mention being accused of supporting "technology for the sake of technology" (things like heavy use of supercomputers as part of F16 design) ... and gave as counter example his early opposition to F16 heads-up-display. It wasn't so much the HUD technology ... but the people behind the HUD technology had no concept what a fighter pilot was about ... and the information being displayed turned out to be more of interference/distraction than a help. It wasn't until people that understood about being a fighter pilot became involved ... that the HUD information became useful.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 30 Dec, 2010 Subject: VMSHARE Archives Blog: IBM Historic computingre:
I would periodically drop by Tymshare for one reason or another. One
of the visits they demo'ed/talked about a new game. They got it off
Stanford PDP machine and put it up on their PDP machine and also
ported it to vm370/cms. They told story that when Tymshare executives
first heard about customers "playing" games on CMS ... they said that
games should be removed because they weren't business
professional. Then they told the executives that game playing had
grown to 30%(?) of their revenue ... and the executives changed their
mind. adventure history ...
http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/a_history.html
I then started looking to get a copy of the source ... faster than
waiting for Tymshare to send me a tape. I finally got a copy from an
IBM location in UK ... where somebody walked the copy from customer
machine over to the IBM machine. A couple old emails
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#email780405b at 8:08 am (west coast time)
response
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#email780405 at 9:36
I then made executable available on a number of machines and made it available for distribution on the internal network ... and said that I would send the source to anyone that demonstrated that they had finished the game with all points.
Some number of internal locations had issue with apparent employee mania for playing the game
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 31 Dec, 2010 Subject: Domain Name of Russia's Largest Online Payment Processor Hijacked Blog: Financial Crime Risk, Fraud and SecurityDomain Name of Russia's Largest Online Payment Processor Hijacked
note that this is actually one of the things that SSL was designed to deal with ... although there is vulnerability that hijackers (once they've hijacked the domain) could followup getting a valid digital certificate from one of the Certification Authorities.
What you missed: A major Internet security hole was finally plugged
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/032311-fraudulent-certificates-issued-for-major.html
some of the DNSSEC related proposals included countermeasures to
Domain Name Hijacking ... which would help close exploit involving
certificate authorities giving valid digital certificate to the
hijackers ... misc of past posts mentioning that it could represent a
catch-22 for the industry
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#catch22
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 31 Dec, 2010 Subject: Mainframe discussion with lots of CP67 & VM370 mention Blog: z/VMx-over from some other linkedin discussion groups about cp67 at boeing
while at Boeing, I made several CP67 enhancements, including
• kernel "BALR" linkages ... previously all internal kernel calls were via SVC, the change significantly reduced a lot of "remaining" CP67 overhead (I had previously done significant kernel pathlength reduction). This was picked up and shipped in cp67
• pageable kernel ... reducing the fixed storage kernel footprint ... more significant on the 512kbyte and 768kbyte storage sizes. this didn't show up in product until vm370
• symbolic loadmap ... as part of doing pageable kernel ... the kernel build software received control from loader routine ... which actually passed in registers its internal symbol table used for loading & resolving symbols. I appended this to the end of the pageable kernel image written to disk. This was available for symbolic use during live execution and also as part of dump processing. This didn't ship in VM370
... later I did make the "symbolic loadmap" changes available for
internal vm370 datacenters ... and used it (if available) in my IPCS
replacement ... DUMPRX ... misc. past posts mentioning DUMPRX
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#dumprx
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
From: lynn@garlic.com (Lynn Wheeler) Date: 31 Dec, 2010 Subject: zLinux OR Linux on zEnterprise Blade Extension??? Blog: Mainframe Zonefor the fun of it ... recent post in (linkedin) "Greater IBM" group ("Is email dead"?) discussion
mentions JES2/NJI on the internal network as well as SNA (vtam/ncp) not being "real" networking (along with trying to get out real networking product that simulated NCP to boundary VTAM mainframe nodes).
The original mainframe tcp/ip was on vm370 implemented in pascal/vs ... and could be crippled in various ways. I then added the RFC1044 support to the product and in some tests at cray research ... between 4341 and cray ... got channel media speed thruput with aporox. 500 times improvement in number of instructions executed per byte moved. misc. past post mentioning RFC10444 support
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#1044 The base VM TCP/IP was made available on MVS by coding a simulation for VM diagnose function.
The Greater IBM support also mentions that convoluted/baroque pur/pu5 support could be considered furthering the "future system" objectives and countermeasure to clone controllers.
Calling it SNA networking is somewhat oxymoron. In the early days of SNA ... my wife was co-author of AWP39 ... basically real network ... but since communication group was referring to large "terminal control" infrastructure as networking ... AWP39 had to be differentiated by calling it "peer-to-peer networking" (which is nominal assumed in other environments).
Later she was con'ed into doing a stint in POK in charge of
loosely-coupled achitecture ... and produced Peer-Coupled Shared Data
architecture ... which saw little uptake, except for IMS
hot-standby, until sysplex. There were also periodic battles with the
communication group over mandates to implement loosely-coupled
controls with SNA; there would be temporary truces where she could use
anything she wanted within the datacenter ... but SNA had to be used
when crossing the walls of the datacenter. Lack of update and battles
over SNA contributed to her not remaining long. misc. past posts
mentioning Peer-Coupled Shared Data
https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#shareddata
for random drift ... some context about AWPs ... much later APPN was AWP164.
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virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970