December 21, 1999
Cross Talk
By Operator No. 9
It's Not The End Of The World As We Know It
Am I the only one who thinks this year-2000 thing is going to be the biggest nonevent of the millennium? If I'm wrong, all you people who've been stocking up your bomb shelters will get the last laugh. I admit I've rechecked the earthquake supplies we store in the metal garbage can in our gardening shed to make sure we have plenty of water, canned goods, batteries, flashlights and other sundry items. My favorite thing in the can, though, is not Y2K-related. It's a little pocket guide that details what to do in problematic situations: The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: How to Escape from Quicksand, Wrestle an Alligator, Break Down a Door, Land a Plane . . . Sold by Chronicle Books for $14.95, it was out of stock when I checked. My favorite is the bit - with diagrams - on how to land a plane. "Stay calm and breathe" is not among the step-by-step instructions.
Y2K Night Shift: A Rousing Good Time
Being on hand for the 2000 rollover is just part of the job description for many network operations personnel. But that does not mean it will be all business Dec. 31. Covad Communications, a Digital Subscriber Line service provider in Santa Clara, Calif., will host an on-site celebration for the 15 or so engineers holed up in the command center. "It's not ideal. But weekends and holidays is when we do a lot of our work anyway, to minimize disruptions," says Lisa Perkins, director of applications support at Covad, who leads the provider's Y2K projects. Covad has invited staffers' significant others to the fete, where sparkling cider, not champagne, will be served. Perkins hopes the most serious Y2K problem encountered is procuring munchies: "We have yet to find a caterer who will deliver on New Year's Eve," she says. Unfortunately, Kozmo.com doesn't deliver to Santa Clara. Maybe grocery services Peapod or Webvan Group can drop off some TV dinners?
Sun Stroke
Sun Microsystems has an extremely harsh network security policy, according to one former Sun engineer. The ex-Sunner says company guidelines state that any employee caught dialing up an Internet service provider from a machine that is also connected to Sun's internal network - thereby compromising the network's security - is subject to immediate dismissal. "That's the first thing human resources tells you when you get there," the engineer says. "They're really paranoid about security over there." Sun representatives aren't returning calls requesting information on the policy.
Toy Wars
The battle at online toy sites is not just being waged over who sells the most toys. A protest group, RTMark, made headlines last week when it announced an online campaign to "destroy" eToys. The group called for boycotts of the toy site and urged hackers to interfere with its traffic counts and server operations.
RTMark is protesting a trademark infringement suit eToys is waging against a European conceptual art group called Etoy. A Los Angeles judge last month issued a preliminary injunction ordering the award-winning art group to stop using the domain name www.etoy.com or risk fines up to $10,000 per day. What has raised the ire of protesters, RTMark spokesman Ernest Lucha said, is the fact that 5-year-old Etoy registered the domain name in October 1995, two years before eToys registered its domain name in the U.S.
"Our aim is to destroy the company," Lucha says, admitting the tactics of his 8-year-old group may seem extreme. "We're trying to call attention to what's going on and make it clear that a lot of people are not happy with the case and what it represents. . . . It fits into a long tradition of corporate bullying, where big corporations are able to use the court system to maintain their power."
The next court hearing in the trademark infringement suit is set for Dec. 27, but there's word that Etoy and eToys are trying to play nice and settle.
And I Feel Fine
I plan on being as far away from my computer as possible when the clock strikes 12. But to all of you who are working the night shift on New Year's Eve, my colleagues and I here at Inter@ctive Week wish you happiness, an error- and virus-free screen, and a mighty huge holiday bonus.
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