Don Norman, former VP of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group, posted a comment on TedBlog about a common failure of Apple designs:

But now let me tell you my pet peeve: the on-off switch of both the regular iPods and the Shuffle. Historically, one thing Apple has always gotten wrong – on all products, big and small — is the power switch (I even wrote a book chapter about this once). The iPod on-off is a mystery to behold, a mystery to explain to others. The Shuffle is even worse. You have to slide a very-difficult-to-slide slider down some unknown amount. It has two settings, but no marking to let you know where you are. Actually, it has markings but they have zero correspondence to the switch setting. You know, this is NOT a tradeoff. Having a little mark on the sliding part and corresponding labeled terms on the fixed case would be trivial to do. Make usage smoother and easier. Cost no money. Bah.

Why is the slider so hard to slide? Their Industrial Designers seem not to have heard of friction — the fingers slip over the nice smooth surface, while the switch remains stationary. Finally when I finally squeeze really hard, the slider does move, but too far, to the wrong position. And those blinking lights. Secret codes that mean who-knows-what. It sometimes takes me 5 minutes to get my Shuffle to start playing, me continually sliding the switch up and down, pushing various buttons, watching lights go on, blink on, flash, turn various colors. All meaningless.

Just the other day I was reviewing racks of servers with bright warning lights. “What does that indicate?” I asked the admin responsible to see if they could decipher the code. Unfortunately, I was told something similar to what Don might have guessed, “no idea, but they seem to come and go.”

All the way from the personal mp3 player to the datacenter, the sole LED has become a cornerstone of messaging and yet no one seems to be very worried about learning how to interpret its meaning. The old-school hex number codes were one thing, but it seems like an amber or green light blinking erratically is almost guaranteed to be ignored.

To be fair, Don could have mentioned that Apple does provide an iPod shuffle reference card to break the codes.

I like the Check battery code: if you do not see a light, there is no charge. Ah, yes, and if your shuffle is wet, it must be raining.

Corante has an interesting warning about Podcasting security. It seems that if you’re not careful, someone else might be registering your podcast for you and (as a man-in-the-middle) waiting for an opportune moment to turn off their link and then blackmail you.

Ease of adoption strikes again. Authentication of an RSS feed might be a good idea, even if it adds a moderate amount of flexibility. Podcast certificates anyone?

NEC has announced a new laptop that has no hard disk drive, perhaps with the intention of preventing any loss of confidentiality if a powered-off system is lost or stolen:

Local storage resides in the computer’s RAM, which is cleared when the machine is switched off, thus removing any potential security risk from data theft but also requiring a backup before the computer is switched off. This can be done with a central server or, should a network not be available, to a USB memory device, [a spokesman for the Tokyo company] says.

It’s a piece of mind for many, I’m sure, but most attacks still happen when the computer is still switched on and connected to a network. Just a few more thoughts:

1) This could be a glimse of the future when online security becomes so strong that remote attacks become truly remote, meaning the physical security of traditional PCs with massive local storage (80GB and more) may be the weak link of tomorrow.

2) Saving files to USB doesn’t seem like it provides any real consolation unless the USB device is encrypted or has some other controls (pill-format that can be easily swallowed?) to prevent loss. Not to mention USB fobs tend to be volatile and have the annoying habit of wiping themselves without warning, so I wouldn’t exactly rely on them without some kind of extra assurance.

3) This is likely to be transformed into something a little more practical such as an Internet cafe system, or public kiosk. Restart the system and you know it is clean. That type of environment would easily justify the extra expense. I don’t see the cost being justified in a personal laptop sense (yet) for the prior two reasons.

4) Personally, I would love to have an instant-on thin client interface at home, which would rely on a centralized redundant array of inexpensive disks. Nothing in the market is really there yet for the home user. Yet, the NEC system suggests we could be nearing an age when a true thin-client and server-like solution could be in every home (“honey, I think we need to upgrade the datacenter”). And then we could talk about home security in a similar manner to large corporations (layers and defense-in-depth) instead of a random smattering of desktops littered around a household trying in vain to share files and migrate profiles without excessive self-exposure.

Have to give NEC some credit for pushing the envelope on security. The last thing I saw from them was a massively-redundant 4U server that promised better than five nines (less than 5 minutes of down-time per year). See? You put that thing in your basement with HVAC conditioning and a few of these laptops around the house…as soon as the price comes down to earth I’m on it.

Cool company.

Yet another development in the Sony DRM saga. Looks like Sony might have moved rather slowly after they were first alerted to a serious risk to consumer safety. BusinessWeek has a fascinating update called “Sony BMG’s Costly Silence”:

Sony BMG is in a catfight with a well-known computer-security outfit that became aware of the software problem on Sept. 30 and notified the music company on Oct. 4 — nearly a month before the issue blew up. F-Secure, a Finland-based antivirus company that prides itself on being the first to spot new malware outbreaks, says Sony BMG didn’t understand the software it was introducing to people’s computers and was slow to react.

“If [Sony] had woken up and smelled the coffee when we told them there was a problem, they could have avoided this trouble,” says Mikko H. Hypponen, F-Secure’s director of antivirus research.

Sony BMG officials insist that they acted as quickly as they could, and that they expected to be able to go public and offer a software patch at the same time. However, Russinovich posted his blog item first, forcing Sony BMG to scramble to contain the crisis.

Indeed, I think it fair to say Sony BMG’s response was scrambled. To make matters even worse, the Attorney General in New York very recently found the rootkit still being sold on music shelves in his state. More from BusinessWeek:

Spitzer’s office dispatched investigators who, disguised as customers, were able to purchase affected CDs in New York music retail outlets — and to do so more than a week after Sony BMG recalled the disks. The investigators bought CDs at stores including Wal-Mart (WMT), BestBuy (BBY), Sam Goody, Circuit City (CC), FYE, and Virgin Megastore, according to a Nov. 23 statement from Spitzer’s office.

This is not only a “cautionary tale for other entertainment companies hoping to make use of copyright-protection software” but a horrifying lesson in how NOT to handle incident response.

My question is why Wal-Mart, BestBuy, SamGoody, Circuit City, FYE and Virgin Megastore are not taking action. Are they liable for selling known malware from their shelves? I mean if you are a retailer and you get a notice (or read the news, for pete’s sake) that something is harmful to consumers, are you at fault if you keep selling it?

“It is unacceptable that more than three weeks after this serious vulnerability was revealed, these same CDs are still on shelves, during the busiest shopping days of the year,” Spitzer said in a written statement. “I strongly urge all retailers to heed the warnings issued about these products, pull them from distribution immediately, and ship them back to Sony.”