Digital Theaters: Coming Soon?

With regard to the speed with which Michael Hiltzik suggests digital projection will proliferate ("Digital Cinema, Take 2," TR September 2002), I think a point is being missed. Once a theater has digital-projection capability, it can show many products, from rock concerts to corporate presentations. In Great Britain, a recent experiment with digital projection of three Broadway-based shows drew rave reviews and commanded premium ticket prices. There are also some fairly big savings to the studios from not having to deliver prints to each theater. I suspect the theater chains may move to this digital medium more quickly than conventional wisdom thinks.

Jack Rivkin
Amagansett, NY

Simson Garfinkel's column ("Firewall Follies" TR September 2002) should be required reading for upper managers before they sign off on information technology budgets. Firewalls, like other network devices, are not an install-and-forget type of technology. The vast majority of organizations have no idea who made what changes to their network infrastructure or why the changes were made. The poor security methodologies that are standard practice-typically a single, broadly shared password-don't allow for tracking changes. Until this is resolved, the network infrastructure can't be trusted.