Re: E-journals

[Mike Taylor <mike@tecc.co.uk>]

> Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 15:05:06 +0200
> From: "Jean-michel BENOIT" <Jean-Michel.BENOIT@gemplus.com>
> 
> I'm not familiar with hacking [...]

Don't worry -- I am!

> [...] but I've heard about it and seen it on the net and I don't
> know of any such people being interested in scientific papers. They
> usually run after more busyness or security matters. They would have
> to understand, first, before knowing what to tamper. I think the
> risk exists but it's unlikely it will happen. I hope.

Absolutely.  Speaking as someone who is now in his fourth decade of
computer programming, let me assure you that the risk of on-line
papers being tampered with is so tiny as to be effectively ignorable
-- on a par with worrying that someone at a paper-based journal will
mess with your paper before it gets to the printer.

If you ever buy books from amazon, or use any other on-line retailer,
then you're running a tiny theoretical risk of your credit-card
details being snarfed from their site by a "hacker".  You ignore that
risk because you trust the professionalism of the people running the
web site.  I'd hope that people running a serious scientific journal
on the web are _at least_ as professional as amazon; if they're not,
then we have more serious problems that hacking!

Off topic: the activity described in this message as "hacking" is
actually "cracking".  Real Hackers -- creative, obsessive and
frequently altruistic programmers -- tend to get very upset over this
confusion.  (If you think that the birds-shouldn't-be-called-dinosaurs
crowd can be touchy, wait 'til you meat the crackers-aren't-hackers
crowd!  :-)  As a courtesy to hackers, and in the name of
nomenclatural accuracy, it would be appreciated if people could say
"crackers" when that's what they mean; or at least, put quotes around
"hackers".  Thanks.  This has been a public service announcement.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor | <mike@miketaylor.org.uk> | www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  Justice for the 96.  It's been too long.