From: steve@unixwiz.net (Stephen J. Friedl)
To: abinstock@mfi.com
Subject: Randal Schwartz
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 96 16:47:50 PST

Good afternoon,

Surely you'll get more email on this Randal Schwartz thing than you
care to think about, but perhaps I have a slightly different spin on
this.  Sorry for contributing to the volume, I'll try to keep it
brief.

What I get from this is that Randal is not a very good consultant.
Of course, nobody could possibly question his technical talents, but
doesn't it say something for how he conducted himself with a customer
that they suspected the worst when a question arose?

Intel had been one of his customers in one form or another for several
years, and he apparently had a number of security-related incidents prior
to this one.  Had he spent more of his time building customer confidence
and less trying to be the wizard, surely his customer would have
given him the benefit of the doubt instead of calling the authorities.
Customers rarely like impetuous wizards no matter how smart or talented
or indispensible they are.

I have been a consultant for ten years now, and while I can imagine
slipping up in judgement as he did, I am confident that my customers'
reactions would have been entirely different.

Stephen J. Friedl