In 1714, Queen Anne offered a reward for "such person or persons as shall discover a more certain and practicable method of ascertaining longitude", and Parliament organized a prize of £20,000. 1761, John Harrison won with a brilliant answer and a working model of the first true chronometer, which until the advent of radio and GPS, was the only method for accurate navigation.

Last century, there were dozens of aviation prizes offered to push flight to new limits. $25,000 was offered for the first person to fly nonstop from New York to Paris. Charles Lindbergh would not have attempted his flight without it.

Currently, the "X Prize" Foundation is offering $10 Million to "jumpstart space tourism" in the private sector.

But WHERE are some of the prizes we really need?

The Blaster, SoBig, Nimda, Mellisa, Code Red, computer viruses, worms, etc. have cost an unfathomable amount of money and wasted time all over the world, all so someone can "prove" that Microsoft IS soft. The chief executive officer of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer said recently, "In some ways we are humbled by the events of the past few weeks."

Ha.

Mr. Ballmer,

Please put a small chunk of Microsoft's money where its mouth is: Offer up REWARDS for anyone able to prove that there is a security hole in any of your products.

Have a neutral non-Microsoft committee create a rating scale of potential impact, damage and costs then assign a cash prize value for each ($1M for small or obscure up to $10M for "Blaster" impact). Publish this info in a public database and show what's been found, who found it and what was rewarded, then sit back and let the demons work for you. They get the notoriety and cash, you get relatively MUCH cheaper QA and R&D, and the consumer will stop being the lab test monkeys for Microsoft's lack of forethought.

I don't see why anyone would release a harmful virus or worm for "free" when they know they could make millions off of the code, retire and leave us out of their playpen.

~Buz

San Francisco, CA

September 16, 2003