[NTLK] Love Notes to Newton

[Steven Frank]

Gotta add to the chorus -- I just watched the film last night and it was really great putting faces to all the names on here.  Really excellent work.  I hope people who aren't long-time NewtonTalkers get as much out of it.  :)

One part that resonated was when someone (I forget who!) described how the shared data storage of the Newton enabled some truly innovative applications -- because there were no walls between them and your data and each other and the OS -- and how that's literally just impossible today with always-connected devices because you have to assume you are under attack by malicious forces at all times, and firewall everything appropriately.

It's something I already knew, but something about the way they phrased it really crystallized it for me.  Newton embodies the last gasp of a golden era of trust in computing -- right before the internet went mainstream -- that is gone forever.  A time when engineers didn't build security safeguards into software because... why would we need them?  What kind of insensitive clod would do something malicious with a computer?  It doesn't make sense, especially if you have any kind of engineering mindset.

But the threats today are real, numerous, and severe, and appropriate safeguards must exist, especially if we are to be online at all times, and those come at the cost of a Newton-like way of doing things.  Everything must be more complex, more rigid, less elegant, if we are to keep our data secure.  The garden walls are sturdy and keep out all but the most dedicated baddies -- but they also keep us inside.

Sorry, rambling,

Steven