Common language? [was re: black hat .cn networks]

Thu May 10 06:42:17 UTC 2001

On Wed, May 09, 2001, Clayton Fiske wrote:

> Nor should you have to learn how to patch and maintain a webserver
> to surf the web. But we're not talking about end users, we're talking
> about admins. Do admins -have- to learn English? No, but I don't think
> it's an unreasonable request when they will be operating a server in
> a network where it's the most common language spoken by their fellow
> admins, particularly when their machine is in a position to pose a
> security risk to others' machines and networks.

"fellow admins" ? What, the admins they:

* hang out with in their city?
* on irc?
* in a newsgroup?
* through IM type clients?

> But I guess wanting to be able to deal with operational issues in a
> common language, whether it's English or not, makes me USA-centric...

no, that doesn't make you USA-centric. Wanting people to speak English
because its the "standard language" .. what "standard language" ?
Wanting people to speak English because the internet and computing
in general was invented by Americans - well, guess we're all going
to have to speak Chinese since they invented gunpowder.

You want a globally-self-regulating internet, yet you want English to
be the "standard language" ?

A common language for internet operations would be a good thing.
Now, how do you encourage people to learn and speak it?

As a fun thought experiment - imagine for a moment how you'd feel if
you had to learn Chinese (and you obviously didn't speak it!),
but you couldn't move to Chinese. Everyone around you still speaks English
(so you don't get the practice/exposure needed) but you get net-related
emails in Chinese. Some of your software is written in Chinese, but
all the modern stuff has an English option.

Welcome to planet earth. please enjoy your stay.

This is my last post on the topic.

Adrian

-- 
Adrian Chadd			"How could we possibly use sex to get
<adrian at creative.net.au>	  what we want?
			 	   Sex _IS_ what we want!" -- Fraser