Short Story Redux

11:30 AM -- A couple of weeks ago, I asked the readers of Dark Reading to do their best impressions of Ernest Hemingway, who once wrote a short story in just six words. I asked you to tell me a story about IT security in as few words as possible, and I promised to post the best entries in my blog.

Well, several of you pulled the bottle of scotch out of your desks, grew gray beards, and wrote stories that would've made ol' Ernest proud. So here, without further adieu, are the Hemingways for IT security short stories.

The winners for shortest story length:

The Hemingway for the most enthralling entries -- and most entries overall -- goes to our old PR friend Aline Kaplan. Aline's entries:

Aside from these standouts, there were several others worthy of a Hemingway:

We had planned to collect all of these stories and publish them in a hardback edition, but we couldn't find a printer who knew how to bind a single page to a book jacket. Maybe we'll just have the thing laminated and put it up on the door of the local library.

Thanks for playing. We'll have another contest for you in the not-too-distant future.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading