There's Security in Obsolescence!

Folks laugh at those of us who still access the Internet with dial-up connections. They especially laugh at people like me, whose work includes editing a legal technology newsletter. My wife and teen-age daughters practically guffawed when I declined to accept a wireless connection to the cable system they installed in our home last year. They stopped guffawing when one daughter’s desktop PC began grinding to a virtual halt (despite the blazing speed of cable access) and the other’s new notebook became so bug-infested it had to undergo techno-brain surgery.

Brett Burney, a Cleveland legal professional writing in the January issue of Law Technology News (“PC Security 101,” Page 8), reminded that “always-on cable or DSL hookup is prime breeding ground for malware.” In the same issue of the magazine, law firm IS manager Wayne Smith warned of “an increasingly hostile Internet” (“IT” column, Page 11).

My personal M.O.: Dial in, log on, do what you need to do, and get the heck offline.