I have been to a Pat Helland great sesssion about the analogy between SOA and the Metropolis (I know others have seen that a long time ago, but I have been busy last spring and summer speaking and learning new stuff). It was overall a great session, but it did introduce a concept that I believe is totally new (to me at least)... it can summed up with the acronyme S.O.D. which littreally means "Slide Oriented Delivery"... I have delivered somwhere around 100 presenttions since January 2004, but I still think it is a totally weird thing to have over 70 slides in a one hour presentation... I don't mean to criticize, but still, BOA was a good shot, HST wasn't a bad joke, but SOD certainly doesn't work...

I have many other remarks, but If I told you any of the confidential info, I would very simply have to shut you up, which usually would implicate killing you... (unless you are under the right NDA, but then you probably have access to me by other means)

A last word : I advocate SOA, I accept thinking BOA, I tolerate DOD, but I certainly refuse to cope with SOD...

good night

   It is not easy in these days to have a coherent and sensible opinion about world affairs. Today, I heard some excerpts of an interview of "Bachar Al Assad". I was amazed to hear him say that the violence going on in Iraq is a legitimate resistance, except for the acts that kill civilians ...

   What does resistance mean in the current situation in Iraq? What could be its objectives? To get the US soldiers out? that is the stupidest thing that can be done, for that will simply make things worse in Iraq, and make the world even more open to terrorism that it is today. The US war on Iraq was wrong, and it should never have happened. But now that there is no longer any order or stability in there, if the US leaves, it will simply make the place worse, and let the criminal terrorist groups think they can do as they wish all around the world. The responsible attitude would be to try and bring back some legitimacy to the situation, and work on a mid term stability plan that will leave Iraq at the end free of foreign forces. That needs to include an increasing international involvement, especially by the Arab and Muslim countries, and a smooth slow process of democratizing the country so that it can stand up by itself again.

   Another issue I see as total madness is that of the war on Terror. There are quite a few issues there that are simply dealt with in a totally stupid manner. The very first of those is to think that unorganized, spread all over the place gangs can be fought in a war... I have no military experience, but I simply think there is some analogy to a situation where an army is fighting against a militia that has spread all over a desert. Does it sound sensible in that situation to airbomb each individual militia person? The right way to go about it is to cut the ties between the militia and the population, so that they find no support and they can then be fought by all... The same applies to the Terrorists. I don't believe that anybody in the world really supports the acts of those groups, and that the main issue is that a big part of the world is feeling targetted, so they think that it is a good tactic to ally with those that are fighting their enemy... The only way Terrorism is going to be defeated is to fight the root issues that make the arabs and muslims feel targeted today. The war on Iraq was a huge mistake, in that it made sensible people feel their families are not safe. The main conflict that had prepared the world to the current madness is the Israeli-Palestinian situation. If the world was to deal with that situation in a just manner, there would be very little animosity among the muslims against the US, and the terrorists would have no hatred to build upon. The war on Iraq, at the same time as the Israeli government is trying to violently crush the palestinians with full support from the US has only made everything worse.

   I think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a very difficult one to solve, but that it simply cannot be solved by trying to impose a resolution from the US. The Jews and the Arabs are cousins, and they both belong to that land. The only way anyone can be of help there is for him to be distant and neutral, mediating so that the cousins start talking real talk... It is never the job of the mediator to start saying who is right and who is wrong, and it is never from the outside to even form a knowlegeable opinion about what is really happening. The mesiator has also to be acceptable to both parties, and to be that, he needs to be totally neutral, not an ally of one side.

   Instead, the US has the exact opposite behavior, which makes the muslims feel as if the US is against them, and thus they view it as their enemy that needs to be defeated. When both the Isrealis and the Palestinians will understand that they just have to talk with each other and find some way to live together (I don't care if it is in the same country or in two separate countries, they still need each other, and will never survive unless they get their differences sorted out), then the situation will be much better in the whole world.

   What the US can do for their Israeli and Arab friends, is to have a longer term vision, and understand that being against Israel today can mean helping them solve the problems they are facing. The US should use its influence in takin a position against all parties until they sort out the problem, so that they all feel compeled to make a courageous effort. As long as the Israelis think they are in a stronger position than the Palestinians, and that the Palestinians think that their weak position doesn't allow for a just solution, the Israelis will try to use their force to kill the problem, and the palestinians would use hopeless means - including terror - the same way a hopeless person can commit suicide...

   Both parties should be brought to think that it is equally impossible to win by violence, and that none has any advantage. Then they will both think seriously about peace, and that is all that is needed to solve the problem.

   The madness needs to stop, and the people of earth need to realize how stupid all of this is. I for myself feel that countries have no meaning, and that race, religion, borders, and all other stupid means of making a person think he is different than the next guy is dumb, and that it is making life worse for us and for our children. I dream of a day when there will be no more nations, no more races, but just a happy crowd of humans living in peace all around the globe.

When Madrid suffered the worst, I was calling for a clear and unambiguous message condemning all terror, and full action to fight it. While all arabic countries have condemned the act, most have left some ambiguity, in that they have, in the same message when they condemn terrorism, talked about Israel, Iraq and the other issues that can put shades into their condemnation.

Yesterday, on a plane coming back home from Tunis, I saw on a newspaper that there were street protests in Rabat against "the israeli terrorist act of killing Ahmed Yassine, and all other forms of terrorism". I strongly think that the murder of Yassine is a very bad act, and that it is certainly no way a state should deal with issues, I fail to see how that act is worse than the Madrid attack (and as far as I can see, there was no mass street protest in Morocco against the Madrid bombings).

I think that Arabs are simply lacking any sense of communication, for I don't think they are any different than the rest of the good people of earth, and that their intellectuals are against all the violence and terror that is taking place. They simply need to express their positions and feelings in ways that can be understood :

- They need to separate their political views from their positions taken on basic principles, and say loud and clear that they are opposed to any form of terrorism, including those that might seem in tune with their political objectives. I think they should condemn clearly the "Al Qaeda" acts, the palestian suicide attacks on Isreali civilians, the israeli attacks on palestinian civilians, and any other form of organized attack on civilians as being all of the same category.

- They should distinguish between resistance in occupied land, which can take the form of a war if necessary, which is historically legitimate, and the terrorist acts that hit civilians. Resistance doesn't justify attacking civilians ... and therefore, occupied people attacking civilians, even in the occupiers terroritory, are guilty of Terrorism

- Expressing an opinion on terrorism is not enough, everyone should act to stop it

- Fighting terrorism is not the same as agreeing with bush on everything ... Arabs should fight terrorism, but at the same time defend their own interests and political objectives. However, they need to do a lot to make their official politics reflect the opinions of the people and defend the people's best interest. There is no excuse to dictatorship, not even the current cruisades of Bush and his administration.

   What happened yesterday in Madrid was terrible, and I feel the same I felt when there were terrorist attacks in Casablanca, New York and Washington, Istambul, ...etc. While the sorrow is the same, I found it ridiculous when the media started discussing who did it, and commented on the possibility of it being an "Al Qaeda" attack as being a "retalliation" for the war in Iraq... Some even went to discuss whether Spain had ennemis in the Arabic or Islamic world...

   I don't care if it was ben laden and his psychopaths that did it, or if it is the criminals of ETA ... Those guys have killed innocent civilians, and that is not what an "ennemi" does. It is, however, exactely what criminals and psychopaths do... I don't care what nationality were the people that were killed or hurt, I only need to know they are innocent civilians taking the subway to work, walking in the streets. I feel the same when israelis are hurt while on a bus or in a coffe shop, when palestians die at home because someone who is targeted by the israeli army lives next door or was driving on the street near by, when Turkish people are hurt while walking by a bank, Australians while sunbathing in a beach resort, Americans while at work, Moroccans while they are entering a Hotel, ...etc.

    This doesn't mean I agree with what politicians and militaries around the world are doing. I believe that zionism is bad (the same way any movement that bases itself on ethnicity or religion is bad), that the actual American government is totally wrong in what it is doing around the world (it is not democratic by any criteria to decide what the whole world should do and be elected by a single part of the world. That divides the people of the world and highers hatred between nations). I believe that the British, the Spanish and Italian governments were wrong in their support of Bush for the war in Iraq, and that at the same time Saddam Hussein needed to be ousted, but the way it was done was wrong (Saddam should either have ousted by his people, or by the whole world). But I fail to see any realtion between whatever is done wrong by those politicians and the terrorists acts. I believe that humans are, in their majority, good people. I also believe that that is true of the majority of any single group of people, whether we look at geaographies, religions, ethinicity or whatever other criterium. The small groups of mentally insane people (whether they are politicians, activists or criminals) should very simply be fought by peaceful means, and the goodness of the majorities will always win in the end.

    Those who try to "put these acts into context" have better start thinking what all this means... Terror is terror, no matter what motivates it, and nice people don't kill innocent ones... No religion tolerates this, and no land wants it... We should all fight it, starting by not being silent, and by not tolerating anybody advocating any form of violence, be it for political, "patriotic", or religious excuses...

   S'il y a un sujet que je traite systèmatiquement avec les développeurs quand je suis sur des projets, workshops ou formations, et que je n'utilise jamais pour défendre une plateforme contre une autre, c'est la sécurité. Seulement, souvent, j'ai dans mes audiences des personnes qui vont arguer que tel system est plus sûr que tel autre, que Windows (que j'aime beaucoup pour diverses raison, mais que je ne recommande pas systèmatiquement car il y a aussi bien des situations ou ce serait idiot de penser qu'un passage à Windows améliorerait les problèmes, et il y a même des situations où Windows n'est pas le mieux placé - même si je reste convaincu qu'en entreprise ces situations sont rares) est bien plus vulnérable qu'un Linux ou qu'un Unix.

   Pour moi, c'est idiot de penser une telle chose, car les vulnérabilité sont nécessairement là. J'aimerais savoir comment il peut en être différement, vu qu'une vulnérabilité on ne peut sérieuse arrive facilement avec un buffer overrun, qu'un buffer overrun ne nécessite qu'une seule ligne de code mal écrite... Alors j'aimerais encore trouver l'équipe formée exclusivement de "Super Programmeurs" capable d'écrire quelques millions de lignes de code sans jamais laisser dérrière un buffer overrun ...

   Durant le dernier mois, on a commencé à reconnaitre un peu cette vérité chez les Linuxiens, avec deux vulnérabilités très sérieuses dans le noyau, et s'applicant à toutes les distributions de Linux dans le monde ... La première découverte lors d'un hack qui a touché le projet "Debian" (principale distribution non commerciale), et qui a exploité un buffer overrun qui existe dans toutes les versions du noyau antérieures à la 2.4.23, l'autre découverte cette semaine par un groupe de recherche polonais (ISE), s'applique à toutes les versions du noyau (y compris la 2.6)  ... l'une et l'autre des ces vunérabilités permet à un utilisateur quelconque d'exécuter du code en tant que "Root", et donc de prendre possession complète de la machine ...

   Si je ne suis la personne pour surfer sur de telles misères et dire que Linux est donc moins bon que d'autres, je pense tout de même qu'il est grand temps qu'on arrête de dire que tel ou tel système d'exploitation est plus sûre qu'un autre ... On peut préférer un système ou une plateforme pour toutes les raisons du monde, sauf pour celle de la sécurité ... Windows, Linux, Unix, ou autres, c'est le même combat ...

La mode des sites Web battait son plein, partout, il y a quelques années. Au fait, peu importe quelle actions, petite ou grande, doit avoir son propre site Web. Ce qui n'était peut être pas une si bonne chose : il suffit d'aller sur le moteur de recherche de votre choix, et de taper n'importe quel mot, pour se retrouver avec des milliers de résultats. Même dans une même entreprise, on peut facilement ne plus s'y retrouver quand il y a un nombre de sites très élevé (j'en connais qui en ont des centaines).

Au Maroc, que dieu nou preserve d'une telle situation, il y a encore un manque d'information bien concret. Il m'est beaucoup plus facile d'avoir toute l'info que je veux sur Sydney ou Tokya, mais pas grand chose sur nos propres villes, sur nos administrations et entreprises ... Et il se trouve que beaucoup d'administrations (beaucoup moins d'entreprises) se sont mise à créer des sites Web il y a quelques années. Le problème est la quantité d'information et leur nature. Mais, on ne peux qu'être satisfait de cette orientation, même si nous autres accroc du online, on dira toujours, pas assez, pas assez vite, pas assez bien.

Le problème, au fait n'est pas dans la création des sites Web, mais dans la logique qui préside à leur création (le plus souvent). Par example, le projet E-Gov (si je peux me permettre de parler de projet), semble être compris comme une question de sites Web, et les administrations en créent pour mieux être dans l'ère du e-gov ... Une remarque très simple cependant peut montrer la betise d'une telle approche :

• Ce qui fait que l'administration n'est pas très performante, peut-il être réglé par des sites Web ? Si on diagnostique la lenteur de l'administration même au niveau le plus superficiel, on se rendra compte que si les formulaires et autre paperasse remplie par le citoyen peut prendre un peu de temps et de dérrangement (par exemple un déplacement de laayone à Rabat) ce qui prendra disons jusqu'à 2 jours, le traitement des dossiers lui, et dans beaucoup de cas peut prendre des temps autrement plus longs (plusieurs mois, voire des années). Donc, si on veut augmenter la performance, et ce que la solution est de réduire les 2 jours ou les mois de traitement ... Pour ma part, je trouve que ce qu'il faut à l'administration, c'est automatiser les processus (gain de temps, de papier, de productivité et d'efficacité).
• Une fois que nos systèmes sont capable de traiter les processus, l'information enligne deviendra une affaire simple (les données existent, il suffit de choisir l'analyse à en faire et d'exposer les résultats voulus)

Alors, attention à une mode qui peut s'avérer onéreuse, et finalement sans grand résultat notable ...