Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[Scot Mcintosh]

According to the literature I got from the DoD Center
for Software Reuse, I should be able to telnet to
134.152.8.22 and login as GUEST for purposes of
browsing the database. It doesn't work. Anyone know
if the guest browse capability has been disabled?
If so, I have a few uncharitable thoughts regarding
DoD's inept marketing of the language, of which this
is but one example.

-- 
----
Scot McIntosh
Internet: psm%helios.nosc.mil@nosc.mil
UUCP:     I have no idea

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[cis.ohio-state.edu!udecc.engr.udayton.edu!blackbird.afit.af.mil!dsacg3.ds]

>From article <1993Jan19.223357.24513@nosc.mil>, by psm@nosc.mil (Scot Mcintosh
):
> According to the literature I got from the DoD Center
> for Software Reuse, I should be able to telnet to
> 134.152.8.22 and login as GUEST for purposes of
> browsing the database. It doesn't work. Anyone know
> if the guest browse capability has been disabled?
> If so, I have a few uncharitable thoughts regarding
> DoD's inept marketing of the language, of which this
> is but one example.
> 
> -- 
> ----
> Scot McIntosh
> Internet: psm%helios.nosc.mil@nosc.mil
> UUCP:     I have no idea



The Center for Software Reuse Operations (CSRO) Customer Assistance
Office (CAO) has disable the guest account due to security issues.
If you need to get in to contact with them the following information
is pertinent:

Address: 500 North Washington Street, Suite 101
	 Falls Church, Virginia 22046
	 (703) 536-7485 [voice]
	 (703) 536-5640 [fax]
         (703) 285-5418 [modem access]
	 134.152.8.22   [DDN access]

The POC at the CSRO for security issues would be : Ginny Parsms

I hope this helps you !!!!

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Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[Gregory Aharonian]

>The Center for Software Reuse Operations (CSRO) Customer Assistance
>Office (CAO) has disable the guest account due to security issues.

This pathetic excuse for shutting down an entire reuse operation reminds
of the secrecy crap at the Software Engineering Institute.  I was there
a few years ago, went to the entrance, and asked to see if I could use
the SEI library.  The guard at the front desk informed me that no one could
walk unescorted throughout the SEI building.  I suppose like CSRO that some
parts of the SEI building had classified stuff, but with all of the money
they have to waste, in both cases, it is pure incompetency to have to
completely restrict access to the entire facilities.

After all, I can get into my car, drive to Hanscom Air Force Base, and
walk completely unescorted into the headquarters of the Electronic Systems
Division, which funds all of these efforts, and which has more classified
stuff onsite than either CSRO or SEI.

In thes cases, control access is less for security and more for incompetence
covering.  That none of the DoD reuse efforts have managed to figure out
or cared to use anonymous ftp and USENET to circulate Ada codes just shows
the levels of incompetence attained (given that 1000s of times more C and
C++ software is readily available over the Internet).  As I have heard too
often for middle level DoDer's, "all we have to do is spend our money.
What's done with the money is irrelevant as long as it is legal".

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization

-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[darwin.sura.net!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!zaphod.mps.oh]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Jan22122826@world.std.com>, srctran@world.std.com (Gregor
y Aharonian) writes:
|> 
|> >The Center for Software Reuse Operations (CSRO) Customer Assistance
|> >Office (CAO) has disable the guest account due to security issues.
|> 
|> This pathetic excuse for shutting down an entire reuse operation reminds
|> of the secrecy crap at the Software Engineering Institute.  I was there
|> a few years ago, went to the entrance, and asked to see if I could use
|> the SEI library.  The guard at the front desk informed me that no one could
|> walk unescorted throughout the SEI building.  I suppose like CSRO that some
|> parts of the SEI building had classified stuff, but with all of the money
|> they have to waste, in both cases, it is pure incompetency to have to
|> completely restrict access to the entire facilities.

I can't resist mentioning that the primary benefit of this rule is to
eliminate theft of computer equipment, of which we have a lot!  Imagine the
(accurate) charge of "incompetence" that would be levied if we were regularly
ripped off!  (People do enter the building and use the facilities unescorted
once they have been vouched for by someone on the staff.)

John B. Goodenough					Goodenough@sei.cmu.edu
Software Engineering Institute				412-268-6391

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net]

John Goodenough comments on my comments about excessive SEI and CSRO secrecy:

>I can't resist mentioning that the primary benefit of this rule is to
>eliminate theft of computer equipment, of which we have a lot!  Imagine the
>(accurate) charge of "incompetence" that would be levied if we were regularly
>ripped off!  (People do enter the building and use the facilities unescorted
>once they have been vouched for by someone on the staff.)

This is still a pathetic excuse.  In my efforts to track all of the
government's resuable software (over 20,000 programs at latest count,
not that anyone really cares about the government's software) I have
visited most of the DoE, NASA, and many DoD facilities such as Argonne
National Laboratory in Chicago, Ames Research Center at Moffett Field,
Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Air Force Geophysical Library at
Hanscom field, as well as many universities such as MIT, Berkeley, UCSD,
Rice, and Department of Commerce Facilities such as NIST in Gaithersburg.
At most, all I ever have to do is sign in (name and address) to get 
pretty much free access to all of the facilities (except of obviously
secret offices or laboratories with complex equipment setups).  At all
of these places, I have access to all types of equipment, especially
much more expensive stuff than that at SEI.  So this equipment protection
excuse is very lame.

Also, in tracking all of the government's software (and building a process
to do so, again not that any of the tax wastinf reuse people care), I have
had access to a variety of computer systems at these facilities, much over
the Internet through anonymous FTP.  For all of these computer systems, my
access to their systems was restricted to the public areas they controlled,
a small price to pay to get access.  They protect what they want to protect,
they make available what they want to make available.  So the CSRO excuse
about taking their systems off line for secrecy reasons is also pathetic.

It borders on criminality all of these DoD reuse efforts that have been
unable to make use of the Internet to provide easy access to reusable Ada
software, either through a service like NETLIB, postings to alt.sources.ada,
or anonymous ftp.  It's one of the reasons (not that anyone cares) that
C and C++ are leaving Ada in the reusable dust.  There is hundreds of 
megabytes of C/C++ software floating over the Internet everyday, without
needing the millions of dollars flushed down the drain of Ada reuse efforts.


Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
617-489-3727   (call I can't bite you over the telephone!)
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!e]

>Perhaps they recognized you.
>P Rogers

Well, if you mean that the guards recognized someone approaching them
who was cataloging all of the government's software and who wanted to
include whatever was floating aroung SEI, guards who knew that like
the rest of the DoD reuse efforts one SEI goal is to make it as difficult
as possible for the public to get at reusable defense software, well
then I suspose your explanation of the guard's behavior makes sense.

Then again, it might have been the fumes from all of those plush new
rugs at SEI that clouded the minds of the guards who didn't let me in.
(this is a jibe solely for the pleasure of anyone fortunate enough to
have worked at the Quonset hut facilities at Argonne National Labs).

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[Pat Rogers]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Jan25124952@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
>>Perhaps they recognized you.
>>P Rogers
>
>Well, if you mean that the guards recognized someone approaching them
>who was cataloging all of the government's software and who wanted to
>include whatever was floating aroung SEI, guards who knew that like
>the rest of the DoD reuse efforts one SEI goal is to make it as difficult
>as possible for the public to get at reusable defense software, well
>then I suspose your explanation of the guard's behavior makes sense.
>

[other text deleted]

>Greg Aharonian

Greg, if you are going to quote me, please do so completely (or get
a sense of humor). What I said was:

>>Perhaps they recognized you.  :)

Note the smiley.  Is your net software not acquiring the entire text?

P Rogers

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[Mr. Kenneth Rowe]

Greg,
Two questions:
     Have you thought about calling DSRO to apply for an account?
(Because of Export Controlled material there needs to be individual
accountability)  [703-536-6900].
     Because everyone else does it differently, does that make them right?

Ken.

Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse

[Gregory Aharonian]

>Two questions:
>     Have you thought about calling DSRO to apply for an account?
>(Because of Export Controlled material there needs to be individual
>accountability)  [703-536-6900].
>     Because everyone else does it differently, does that make them right?
>
>Ken.

Ken,
	Your questions reflect why reuse is so screwed up in the DoD.
Reuse is a technology transfer problem.  For those of us who try to
earn a living on reuse and techtran, the key is marketing, marketing,
marketing.  I have to go out and find customers and sell, sell, sell.
They are not going to come to me, I have to go to them.  I shouldn't
be calling DSRO - DSRO should be calling me and everyone else pushing
their reusable software.  DSRO, like all of the prior funded DoD
reuse efforts, are groups of people in a business who don't want to
be in a business.  The result is the endless Santayana disasters that
always repeat the prior mistakes.

    Sure there are different ways of doing things.  The problem with
DSRO, ASSET, RAPID, etc is that they never learn from the mistakes of
previous efforts, nor do they seek out those who have succeeded with
reuse.  I know of half a dozen or so substantial reuse efforts in other
branches of the government who have never been contacted by any of the
DoD reuse efforts.  What kind of incompetence does this show?

    For example, I am always seeking out collections of reusable software
to add information on to my databases, a very active process.  Not once
has any DoD reuse effort ever contacted me to arrange to get at my
information, or my techniques for tracking all of the government's software
output on a budget of $2000 a year, or my knowledge of the locations of
thousands and thousands of defense computer programs available publicly
in source code form.  What does this say about DSRO's real interest in
reuse, as opposed to their real interest in spending whatever money they
have been budgeted?

    If DSRO has to exist as a stand alone business, with no government
support, with its current management and business practices, where users
had to pay for access to reusable software, DSRO would be bankrupt in
six months.  If DSRO showed its user interface to their components library
at any trade show or conference, they would be laughed off the stage
(and having once seen the source code to the interface, a well justified
laugh).    What this means is that contractors don't like to spend
money on reuse, and that efforts like DSRO are just another welfare
subsidy to defense contractors too long coddled with blank-check
government contracts, and a place to prepare resumes.

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization


-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178