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Slashback: Letters, Time, Revision
Pardon me, do you have the time? Several months ago, we featured a short piece about investigations into clockless computing. Reader xenophrak writes with an update: "Sun Microsystems announces new technology that lets processors run various components of their internals in an asynchronous fashion. The 'FLEETzero' (warning, PDF) chips do not abide by a global clock pulse, and see lower power requirements and heat due to this new feature.
From the web page: 'At the ASYNC 2001 conference, Sun Microsystems Laboratories described FLEETzero, a prototype chip with raw speed roughly twice that of today's chips. Where today's chips use 'synchronous' circuits with a global clock to manage activity, the new, faster FLEETzero chip uses radical new circuits with low-power, asynchronous logic elements that produce timing signals only where and when needed.'
This could have some good impacts on embedded devices, and total processor throughput."
As usual, not so simple. On Saturday you read about Brian K. West, an ISP employee who claimed to be facing unfair threats of prosecution from the FBI for doing nothing more than accidentally discovering a security hole in a local newspaper. A followup posting at Politech indicates that the story isn't quite that simple. Specifically, the FBI's interest in West seems to stem more from alleged attempts at cracking into the violated site than from a simple "found a problem" report. If what the FBI says is true, it changes the story quite a bit.
Time to get a yardstick near the refrigerator ... f97hs writes "Yepps. Delayed almost a week due to regression bugs, the awaited bug-fix release is finally here. Unfortunately, it seems it still can't compile the KDE ARTS-lib (due to, I think, problems with virtual baseclasses). Worth noting is that in order to speed the compiler up, the default to -finline-limit has been lowered. This sometimes leads to considerably slower resulting code, so use -finline-limit=5000 if you compile something you want to be FAST. The mirrors are here and the official release letter from Mark Mitchell might also be worth a read."
Security gurus are fond of likening this kind of crime to analogous physical crimes, such as trespassing or breaking and entering. That bears closer examination.
Consider the situation where somebody forgets to lock their front door. Negligent, but not an excuse for entering the house in their absence. On the other hand, trying a door to see if your neighbor remembered to lock it is not considered a hostile act -- as long as you don't enter.
Pushing the simile a little further: suppose you notice that somebody's smashed open your neighbor's front door with a sledge hammer. I suppose it's still technically trespassing, but who would fault you for entering the house to make sure nobody needs help?
So consider the actions of Brian West, and other people like him, are analagous to the above. When is it like just trying the door, and when is it like entering the house uninvited. I don't think the analogies are obvious, though people seem to find it convenient to assume they are.
A, "hey, I noticed your door's unlocked," from any Joe Schmoe I can appreciate, but what doesn't deserve my thanks is a, "hey, for the past few hours I tried breaking & entering into your place and finally discovered that your backdoor is vulnerable to the XYZZY-lockpick exploit -- you're most welcome...Oh, and btw, nice porn collection you've got there under your bed. Might I suggest a safe?"
Maybe Brian considers himself a kind of Neighborhood Watchman... whose only crime is making damn sure your doors are properly locked, and that a midget thief can't squeeze in through your doggy-door. ;-)
Power to the Peaceful