The Canadian Who Holds the Key To the Internet

Really two different halves by XanC · 2010-07-30 16:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

The story I read said that any four of these seven must get together at one of these bases. That seems to indicate that each one has half of the key. Two of them, if they were the right two, could do it. But having four out of seven guarantees that you have at least one copy of both halves.

Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:22 · Score: -1, Redundant

The story I read said that any four of the seven must get together at one of these caches. That seem to indicate that each one has one half of the moon stone. Two of them, if they were the right two, could do it. But having four out of seven guarantees that you have at least one copy of both halves.
Re:Really two different halves by joeflies · 2010-07-30 16:24 · Score: 5, Informative

The article does state that you need 5 of 7 to restore.
Re:Really two different halves by XanC · 2010-07-30 16:28 · Score: 4, Informative

Looks like you're right; they appear to be using an implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:28 · Score: 0

Not necessarily. They could have 210 encrypted copies of the key, made generally available, without authentication. Being encrypted, it wouldn't matter if they fall into the wrong hands. Each combination of 4 people would result in exactly one of those 210 keys being decryptable, which would yield the actual key to reconstruct it.
Or, maybe they each have a public/private keypair, and all DNSSEC software is simply configured to only accept a complete rebuild if it is signed by any 4 of the 7.
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:29 · Score: 2, Informative

No, if they say 4 of 7, then they probably really in fact mean 4 of 7. You are right that having just 2 pieces and distributing copies of them would get the situation you describe (well, actually, it would require 5 of 7 as 4 people would have one half and 3 would have the other half), but algorithms exist to split a key into any number of a pieces and require any number of those pieces to get a full key. Basically, just make a PAR of the key with the desired amount of redundancy and hand out equal sized chunks of the file. This is probably not exactly what they do, but it would work similarly.
Re:Really two different halves by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2010-07-30 16:30 · Score: 2, Informative

There's no need to split it up so simply. There are ways of splitting up a dataset in 7 such that any 4 can reconstitute it without allowing any handpicked 3 to be able to do so.
An example, where you wanted to require two of three could be accomplished by splitting the key and a random number into thirds. Each party would get 1/3 of the key, 1/3 of the random number and 1/3 of the XOR of the two. Then any two can determine the whole key (assuming they knew which one of their thirds each section was, of course). It's generalizable to 4 of 7.

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Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:31 · Score: 1, Insightful

The article does state that you need 5 of 7 to restore.
So if three of them should happen to suffer an unfortunate "accident", everything is totally screwed?
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:32 · Score: 1, Insightful

The story I read said that any four of these seven must get together at one of these bases. That seems to indicate that each one has half of the key.
Nonsense. Just splitting the key in half would be stupid. There are more systems that really can require at least 4 of the 7 to work and will work with any 4 of the 7. Threshold Cryptosystem.
Re:Really two different halves by cjcela · 2010-07-30 16:36 · Score: 1

Yes, that is what I was thinking too.
Re:Really two different halves by LambdaWolf · 2010-07-30 16:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Or even better, use a cryptographically secure secret sharing scheme, and use the shared secret as a symmetric key to encrypt whatever other data if necessary. Then (if I'm interpreting your post correctly) you wouldn't have to worry about which parties got which segment of the key. In fact, I believe that's just what they're doing. Bruce Schneier had a post on it the other day.

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"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
Re:Really two different halves by JWSmythe · 2010-07-30 16:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yup. Poor disaster planning.
They've never heard of assured continuity. It's a good plan if all other services are ok. If I read it right, the folks need to gather at a known point. That would assume air travel was still viable. We saw that stop during 9/11. Since they're smart cards, I'm assuming it would require the appropriate smart card readers. If the physical locations where they are to assemble aren't accessible, that makes it a bit rough. They mention two US sites as the places to gather, so civil unrest in the US could severely limit travel. While us Americans are very America-centric, I'm sure the rest of the world wouldn't be totally delighted if their Internet services stopped working just because we were having problems.
If it does take 5 of 7 to restore the key, that could be problematic. They named one. I'm sure brute force decryption (i.e., torture) could find out who at least two others are. So if 3 were taken out of the equation, that leaves 4 to carry on. As time goes on, it would be a shame if the cards were lost. Just because you stuck it in the safe doesn't mean that safe will always be the one you use. People move. Offices change. People die. When Joe-key-holder dies, and his coworkers don't realize what the keys are, they could easily end up in a file box marked "Joe's office stuff", and stuck in storage to be forgotten about after a few years of staff churn.
I don't see it as catastrophic. It's about as rough as when we were told "be sure to update your named.root file." Lots of people did it. Lots of people who should have didn't know. Even if you missed it, it didn't really break anything very much.

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Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:Really two different halves by PAjamian · 2010-07-30 17:13 · Score: 1, Insightful

I was thinking something similar to the way RAID6 is implemented, where you have five blocks of data plus two parity blocks so that any two block devices can be missing and all the data can still be reconstructed. This could easily be adapted on a smaller scale to work with key-sharing.

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Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
Re:Really two different halves by PAjamian · 2010-07-30 17:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

No, for everything to be totally screwed, the full key held at the two secure facilities in the US would have to be lost or destroyed plus the keys held by three of the "key-holders" would have to be lost or destroyed as well.

--
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
Re:Really two different halves by EricJ2190 · 2010-07-30 17:16 · Score: 1

They wouldn't even have to torture anyone. All seven identities are known. Bruce Schneier named two in his blog, and all seven can be found in the comments.
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 17:22 · Score: -1, Troll

Yes, that is what I was thinking too.
I was thinking of a nigger joke myself. Fuck that, how about a Jew joke? or two?

Why do Jews have such huge noses? Because air is free.

How was copper wiring invented? By two Jews fighting over a penny.
Re:Really two different halves by thej1nx · 2010-07-30 17:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

As time goes on, it would be a shame if the cards were lost. Just because you stuck it in the safe doesn't mean that safe will always be the one you use. People move. Offices change. People die. When Joe-key-holder dies, and his coworkers don't realize what the keys are, they could easily end up in a file box marked "Joe's office stuff", and stuck in storage to be forgotten about after a few years of staff churn.
I am pretty sure if you are one of the only seven people in the world to be trusted with the responsibility of a certain item, you will just "forget" it when you move.
When you come up with outlandish theories, at least use common sense. It is perfectly possible that the card gets stolen by a burglar who doesn't realizes what it is. And even then it will at least be reported and appropriate measures taken. You seem to have picked up some curious notion that nobody had the foresight to keep a note on the whereabouts and well-being of these individuals("Where are those cards again? I dunno... some dude was supposed to have them. Not sure where they are now, or who they were... we sent them deep undercover you see, to protect them against torture from enemy agents!").
This is just a mere precaution of not keeping their eggs in one basket, since losing the key will indeed be catastrophic to DNSSEC. If anything, it is obviously just one of the many other backups they have.
Re:Really two different halves by MikeFM · 2010-07-30 17:25 · Score: 0

And one ring to control them all? It sounds like the plot to a fantasy novel.
So what would happen if all seven people were eliminated?

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At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Re:Really two different halves by martin-boundary · 2010-07-30 17:34 · Score: 0

Funny how the mind interprets things. To me it sounds more like the beginning of a James Bond thriller.
*pinky to mouth*
Re:Really two different halves by mysidia · 2010-07-30 18:03 · Score: 1

When a key is divided, none of the key bits are revealed. Here's how you divide a key in half: (1) You have an original key (Ks).
(2) You generate a true random number (K1).
(3) You XOR the key by the true random number to give you K2.
(4) You distribute K1 to person 1
(5) You distribute K2 to person 2
Neither person has 'half' of Ks, but both secrets must be known to recover Ks.
Now... how do you divide a key into 7 pieces and require 5 to be present, is trickier, but the concept is the same. Generate 7 random numbers, and distribute to all 7 people additional values derived from combinations of the other 7 keys, such that the original key can be derived for all possible combinations of 5 "key" holders, but no combinations of a smaller amount.
5 of the people holding the RKSH role are required for recovery operations.. recovery operations could be needed, if a hardware security module is destroyed, fails, or can no longer be operated.
The hardware security module itself holds the actual key internally in tamper-resistant packaging.
The RKSH people with smart cards don't possess the key, but possess information that can be used to rebuild the internal key of the HSM.
Re:Really two different halves by syousef · 2010-07-30 18:19 · Score: 1

Looks like you're right; they appear to be using an implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing
That sounds like the Arabic version of the Colonel's 7 secret herbs and spices.

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Re:Really two different halves by Dahamma · 2010-07-30 18:42 · Score: 1

Seven? SEVEN!? No, man, no! 11's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 11 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:11 · Score: 0

Cause you're fired!
Re:Really two different halves by leto · 2010-07-30 19:24 · Score: 1

It's 4 out of 7 to get the key that can decrypt the backup. The backup is not in the hands of the 7,so they cannot do anything by themselves!
Re:Really two different halves by slick7 · 2010-07-30 19:49 · Score: 1

The story I read said that any four of these seven must get together at one of these bases. That seems to indicate that each one has half of the key. Two of them, if they were the right two, could do it. But having four out of seven guarantees that you have at least one copy of both halves.
Don't forget the two complete sets that I have in a shoe box next to my underwear.

--
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Re:Really two different halves by slick7 · 2010-07-30 19:53 · Score: 4, Funny

Yup. Poor disaster planning.
More like typical disaster planning.

--
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Re:Really two different halves by JWSmythe · 2010-07-30 19:55 · Score: 2, Funny

But, that's half the fun. Damn.

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Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:Really two different halves by crossmr · 2010-07-30 20:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

if their Internet services stopped working
This wouldn't happen.
While Domain name resolution would stop working, if there was some kind of emergency situation, lists could be published of ip addresses for each site.
Domain name resolution is convenient it isn't required for operation.
The government of the country in question could also fire up their own DNS system and publicly publish the address for it so that citizens could use it.
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 21:00 · Score: 0

5 would be more correct, you have 4 of the same halves and 3 of the same halves, with 4 you could still have only half the key.
Re:Really two different halves by Lennie · 2010-07-30 21:23 · Score: 1

It all doesn't matter, if the current keys are lost, all that is needed is to generate a new key for the root.
This whole system is only in place so root-key-upgrades can happen without nameserver-administrators needing to do manual changes.

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New things are always on the horizon
Re:Really two different halves by Lennie · 2010-07-30 21:24 · Score: 1

everything works are before if you turn on the DNSSEC-extensions on your nameserver. Just the validity checks will be off, so you would able to trust the DNS-infrastructure as much as you do now.

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New things are always on the horizon
Re:Really two different halves by maxwell+demon · 2010-07-30 21:25 · Score: 3, Funny

Of course they should instead have chosen a system where you need 7 of 9 to restore!

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:Really two different halves by Lennie · 2010-07-30 21:26 · Score: 1

If they keys are lost, you just disable the DNSSEC-extensions on all recursive nameservers and everything will work as it currently does. DNSSEC only adds a crypto-validity-check to DNS.

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New things are always on the horizon
Re:Really two different halves by Lennie · 2010-07-30 21:27 · Score: 1

Nothing will be screwed, everything will keep running, you just need to disable the DNSSEC-validity-checks and you'll have DNS just like before DNSSEC was introduced.

--
New things are always on the horizon
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 21:33 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Oh look, the JEWS are telling us that the 'internet' could collapse and never come back, due to an 'accident' or 'catastrophe'...
I wonder what the JEWS could possibly be afraid of? Their 'cattle' finding out the truth about their Jewish 'masters'?
Google 'The Money Masters' and watch the video. Wall to wall JEWS have been destroying YOUR country for hundreds of years.
Re:Really two different halves by d3vi1 · 2010-07-30 21:55 · Score: 4, Informative

Nope. It's common practice in the PKI world to use an HSM which calculates the private key upon startup. The key is not stored anywhere. It's calculated when you start the HSM. It's a function with 7 intersection points with the X axis. Knowing any 4 of the 7 intersection points is enough to calculate the function parameter. That in turn is the actual private key.
RAID has nothing to do with this. The HSMs operate under the presumption that the safest guard for the private key is not to have it at all, encrypted or not. You calculate it only when needed. If the HSM goes down you need a new key migration ceremony in a worst case scenario, and in the best case scenario, just the administrator and operator smart cards to unlock the security world.
This is what is being done at any public CA installed in your browser and at any Publicly signed Enterprise CA.

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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
Re:Really two different halves by DrXym · 2010-07-30 23:55 · Score: 1

The story I read said that any four of these seven must get together at one of these bases. That seems to indicate that each one has half of the key. Two of them, if they were the right two, could do it. But having four out of seven guarantees that you have at least one copy of both halves.
The attacker would have to make sure to kill 3 of them (or the cards they carry) to defeat this scheme.
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 03:13 · Score: 1, Insightful

Both the secure sites are in the US.
In the event of an emergency, I can imagine that the US will be distrustful of foreigners trying to enter the country,
Especially if the person has a name which is even slightly Islamic sounding or has a slightly darker skin then a caucasion.
That has been happening since 9/11 - I doubt it will change anytime soon.
If any of the key holders are as I described, they may end up being blocked from entry and "rebooting" the dns.
The captha I got was "paranoia".
How ironic.
Re:Really two different halves by Provocateur · 2010-07-31 03:25 · Score: 1

It's not as serious as you make it out to be, as long as one of the seven is Morgan Freeman.
Haven't you learned anything?

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WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Re:Really two different halves by Dr.+Evil · 2010-07-31 03:44 · Score: 1

All these guys know one another and probably share tips on running private companies, including which banks offer the best safe deposit boxes. They all travel a lot, so they'd be crazy to keep stuff in a personal safe.
I bet all 7 keys are within 5 meters of each other at the 200 Bay office of RBC in Toronto.
Re:Really two different halves by SerpentMage · 2010-07-31 05:55 · Score: 1

Is it me, or have they missed the most obvious point? I mean even the entire slashdot seems to have missed this point.
Let's say for the moment a bomb or cyber attack does happen. And let's say for the moment they have to reboot. So off they go and the folks from the Pacific have to travel to the US... Yes the US because it appears they have to be there physically.
Does anybody REALLY think that planes will be flying after a bomb or cyber attack? Remember 9/11 folks? Three days or such no plane went into or out of North America. So how will these folks from the Pacific, or Europe travel to the US to do a reboot? Magic carpet?
My point is not that they have to travel to the US, they could travel where ever they wanted. My point is that after an attack NOTHING, NADA, ZIP is going to move in the sky without being shot down. And EVEN if it was only a cyber attack, don't you think that planes, and travel agencies use the Internet to transfer data?
Sure they could go back to plain vanilla DNS, but that then takes the "zing" out of the five people have to get together to reboot the Internet. Actually makes all of this kind of lame... And frankly after having been a techy dweeb who moved to more business seeing that again techies fell in love with the idea without actually seeing the trees...
So people am I missing anything? Maybe I am not seeing the trees?

--

"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Re:Really two different halves by david_bandel · 2010-07-31 06:07 · Score: 1

Wait a sec... Oh I see what you're saying. You're just announcing to the world that you can't see how that's mathematically equivalent to Shamir's Secret Sharing. Gotcha, you're just bad at math. (just say that from the start next time.. spare us a wall of redundant text)
Re:Really two different halves by d3vi1 · 2010-07-31 06:30 · Score: 1

These Ultra Secure Environment things are usually governed by a clear set of policies created for each such project uniquely. The keys are usually not allowed by policy to be in the same geographical area unless so requested by the policy creating authority.
For such an op (strictly speaking it's a ceremony), you should schedule the arrival in advance and securely send all the documentation detailing the process to all participants with time to spare. If the information is valuable enough, the participants should be housed at different hotels and should travel on different dates with different airlines through different hubs.
In some scenarios, no more than 3 people are allowed to be in the same country at the same time for any reason, personal or else, unless so requested by the policy creating authority or an approved operations committee.
What actually surprises me at this article is the fact that the list of countries as well as the identity of at least one of the persons is public. In some environments, even this is a security breach.
After kidnapping this guy, you are 3 persons away from being able to recreate the root DNS signing key. Imagine that in some small countries such as CZ and BE it's quite easy to identify the persons with a bit of detective work (IT guys 200000, IT members of the local TLD 100, IT workers trustworthy of such a secret: 10/country). Considering that the scope of the global DNSSEC private key is worth a hefty budget to any hostile party, this disclosure should be treated as a security risk or a policy failure.
Getting the necessary 4 keys would take at most USD 1M for the detective work, easily achievable for a hostile entity and with an identical operation at a trusted CA or a signed enterprise CA you can easily create valid EV certs for paypal, amazon and ebay and transparently replace DNS for a given geography.

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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever ones.
Re:Really two different halves by JWSmythe · 2010-07-31 06:37 · Score: 1

No, I think you pretty much got it, except I didn't quite go into the disaster scenarios. If some idiot screws up the current keys, these guys get a free vacation to the US to rebuild the key. If it's anything worse we'll (oh my gosh) go back to plain old unsigned DNS.

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Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:Really two different halves by iluvcapra · 2010-07-31 07:26 · Score: 1

What actually surprises me at this article is the fact that the list of countries as well as the identity of at least one of the persons is public. In some environments, even this is a security breach.
If we're all going to be using and trusting the information these people and organizations validate, some transparency is advised. Otherwise DNSSEC is just a cabal. The idea is to create a system that is MORE trustworthy than the present system, secrecy is the means to the trust, not the end in itself.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Re:Really two different halves by barberousse · 2010-07-31 10:10 · Score: 1

I don't get it. Could you explain it?
Re:Really two different halves by lamber45 · 2010-07-31 11:57 · Score: 1

Well said, although there are exceptions. In the U.S. we don't ask our congressmen to be anonymous, but juries and grand juries are, and so are C.I.A. agents. In both cases there's someone accountable and publically known they report to: a judge or the President.
Re:Really two different halves by lamber45 · 2010-07-31 12:05 · Score: 1

Well... if it's worse, .mil will still be signed by the US Military, .cn will still be signed by the Chinese government, and .ru will still be signed by the Russian government. I guess it'll just be those pesky .orgs and .nets that will have trouble?
Re:Really two different halves by baegucb · 2010-07-31 12:22 · Score: 1

http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/07/28/seven-security-experts-get-the-key-to-reboot-the-internet/ has all the names/pictures.
Re:Really two different halves by SerpentMage · 2010-07-31 21:17 · Score: 1

Thanks for confirming... Its a media hype job then

--

"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Re:Really two different halves by JWSmythe · 2010-07-31 21:34 · Score: 1

Yup. Media hype based on nerds mental masturbation. Just like most of the tech news that makes it to the mainstream media. :)

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Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:Really two different halves by jesset77 · 2010-08-01 10:53 · Score: 1

If they keys are lost, you just disable the DNSSEC-extensions on all recursive nameservers and everything will work as it currently does. DNSSEC only adds a crypto-validity-check to DNS.
Unfortunately, the moment root to tip DNSSEC becomes available on .com domains, it will begin to be loaded with every security asset under the sun. Businesses will stop paying Verisign for SSL certs and start certifying their keys via DNSSEC. Organizations will start certifying their VPN keys in DNSSEC.
We'll no more be able to go back to unsecured DNS than appleTV users will be able to go back to dialup.

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People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
Re:Really two different halves by cgpirre · 2010-08-01 20:04 · Score: 1

How is it "poor disaster planning"? It's a perfectly planned disaster!
Re:Really two different halves by Anonymous Coward · 2010-08-02 03:52 · Score: 0

He's always there when times get tough, or as a member of a secret clan that can get things done. At least, in most American movies
Re:Really two different halves by Lennie · 2010-08-02 22:41 · Score: 1

OK, the other alternative is: replace the key with a new key when the keys are lost.

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New things are always on the horizon

Not good by countertrolling · 2010-07-30 16:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

The internet is supposed to be able to repair itself. You know, route around damage and stuff? This all sounds as fragile as our transportation system when merely threatened with an explosive device, bringing it to a complete halt. Is our entire food supply this flimsy?

--
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone

Re:Not good by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-07-30 16:27 · Score: 1

Is our entire food supply this flimsy?
Nothing is immune from attack. Some attacks might take more thought, but are no harder to pull off.

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"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Re:Not good by Barny · 2010-07-30 16:30 · Score: 3, Funny

Think about it, if walmart lost their supply chain, probably 1/3 of Americans would die of malnutrition within a week, or gain 50kg from the take out consumed.
To be honest, the "internet" would keep going, and does indeed route around damage, but the "web" would have the computer version of a stroke if you dropped the root DNS.

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...
/me sighs
Re:Not good by Ethanol-fueled · 2010-07-30 16:32 · Score: 1

Eh. And nothing of value was lost anyway. 'Cept for trollin' Slashdot.
Re:Not good by nacturation · 2010-07-30 16:34 · Score: 5, Informative

The internet is supposed to be able to repair itself. You know, route around damage and stuff?
The internet will continue to work fine. This only impacts DNSSEC and the ability to rebuild based on the private key distributed on those smartcards. If all 7 get assassinated and their smart cards hacked to bits with no backups, we can still revert to plain old DNS.

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Re:Not good by rolfwind · 2010-07-30 16:38 · Score: 3, Funny

Think about it, if walmart lost their supply chain, probably 1/3 of Americans would die of malnutrition within a week, or gain 50kg from the take out consumed.
Walmart is nutritious AND less calories than take-out?! BTW, Americans don't gain kg, pounds or lbs, sure, but not kg.
Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:41 · Score: 0

All you base are belong to us, eh.
Re:Not good by Tubal-Cain · 2010-07-30 16:49 · Score: 1

Walmart is nutritious AND less calories than take-out?!
What food is available at your Wal-Mart? There are only two kinds at my local one: McDonald's, and ordinary grocery.
Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 17:40 · Score: 0

Eh. And nothing of value was lost anyway. 'Cept for trollin' Slashdot.
What, you don't have Slashdot's IP address memorized?
Re:Not good by vlueboy · 2010-07-30 18:07 · Score: 1

If all 7 get assassinated and their smart cards hacked to bits with no backups, we can still revert to plain old DNS.
That makes sense. It is obvious that people would have problems with that, though. Some people prefer to fully "handle" a crisis even if there was none to begin with. Yet we tend to drown in a papercup instead of implement such solutions until a lasting one can be applied. For example: Y2K missile launches becoming imminent? turn back your clocks for a while; a bad clock can be fixed easier than you can give back lives lost.
Re:Not good by PitaBred · 2010-07-30 18:35 · Score: 1

And the ordinary grocery is as cheap as it gets. Try comparing nutrition contents between generics and the name-brand sometime. It's amazing how different they can be.

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Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:02 · Score: 0

Remember a while back when Sam's Club forgot to order rice and ran out and people flipped the fuck out thinking that it was the end of the world and we're all going to starve?
Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:20 · Score: 0

Is our entire food supply this flimsy ? Yes - It all depends on water (fresh / saltwater)
Re:Not good by j_sp_r · 2010-07-30 19:46 · Score: 1

Never saw brand name cauliflower
Re:Not good by Vahokif · 2010-07-30 20:19 · Score: 2

This is like all the phone books in the world going up in flames. The network would still work, but you wouldn't know people's numbers.
Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 22:05 · Score: 0

Yes, most of your systems are very vunurable and extremely hard to protect. The only thing that keeps you safe is that not enough intelligent peoply actually want to harm you.
Don't go around irritating people because your safety depends on the fact that most of the people you don't know don't want you any harm.
Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 22:45 · Score: 0

I believe they gain mass not force, thus kg is correct.
Re:Not good by hitmark · 2010-07-30 23:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

that is a feature of IP, not a feature of DNS. The article is about DNS, or more specifically, about DNSSEC.
very few today use straight up IP addresses to access a service (heck, a lot of services are potentially housed under a single IP, but you get the one you want thanks to the browser telling the server what domain name you entered), and DNSSEC puts a extra layer of verification that you get the correct IP when you enter a domain name.

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comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Re:Not good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 01:31 · Score: 0

Dole branded cauliflower...sold right here at walmart even!
Re:Not good by blueg3 · 2010-07-31 12:43 · Score: 1

Honestly, if everything went terribly wrong with the system they're talking about, we'd be exactly where we are, more or less, right now -- without DNSSEC. However, "keys to reboot the Internet in case of disaster" is a better headline.

Note that this has to do with by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:29 · Score: 0

the *crypto signing* of the zone, not the *contents of the zone*, which are, of course, all over the place.

That would mean... by Anachragnome · 2010-07-30 16:29 · Score: 1

That would mean that any successful attack on the system would have to include the kidnapping/assassination of at least six of these people. Plan for seven hits--the attackers could completely botch one attempt and still be successful. Pretty good odds.

Nice of them to provide names.

Re:That would mean... by Martin+Blank · 2010-07-30 17:04 · Score: 1

Plan for seven hits--the attackers could completely botch one attempt and still be successful.
It's a 4-of-7 recreation set. You only have to knock out four to prevent the key being rebuilt. You also don't have to kill them -- just prevent them from remembering their passwords.

--
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Re:That would mean... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 17:07 · Score: 0

The passwords are probably 1-2-3-4-5, and written on a post-it note on the monitors of their home computers...
Re:That would mean... by JWSmythe · 2010-07-30 17:08 · Score: 1

Assassination is cheap. Kidnapping is expensive.
All a working assassination takes is one nutjob with a gun. He doesn't even have to escape, if he's crazy enough. It really doesn't even require a gun, but it's much easier to pop a person than to do it in a whole variety of manual ways. Of course, people look at movies and think of all the other options. "We could plant a pound of C4 under his car, and detonate it with a cell phone." Ya, good luck there, First you have to get the C4 and detonator. Then you have to convert a cell phone to be a trigger. Then there's testing. If you don't test your trigger, how do you know it'll work when the time is right? We all get spam phone calls. One call offering you a free trip to Disney ruins the whole plan. Then you, of cours,e have to plant the charge undetected, and pray that the whole thing works. Way too many places for it to mess up. You'll probably get caught trying to buy the C4 on Craigslist anyways. :)
Kidnapping takes significant planning. You have to get your guy in, and then both of them out without being detected. Then you need somewhere to store him. You gotta feed him, keep him healthy, etc, etc. A dead hostage isn't worth anything. An escaped hostage is not only not worth anything to you, but he'll point the cops right back to you. You have to keep the hostage alive and in custody to make it a viable plan.
All in all, it's easier to let them keep their silly keys and their silly plan. For as much planning as that would take, you could hit the central depository for any major bank chain in a major city, and make a whole lot more profit. Those are a lot easier to find too. Follow the armored trucks. If you're feeling really ballsy, there are the federal reserve banks, and gold reserves. Bring big trucks though if you want the big score, The US has 12 reserve banks, and there are about 8,100 tonnes of gold in them, along with all kinds of other fun commodities. I'd give any plan on those about a 0.1% chance of success. :)

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:That would mean... by tylernt · 2010-07-30 17:44 · Score: 1

I'm a little worried that you are so familiar with these topics. Please wait, police are enroute.

--
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Re:That would mean... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:42 · Score: 0

You just wrote the lead-in to a Burn Notice script!
Hi. I'm Michael Westen. And if you need to get someone out of the way...
Re:That would mean... by icebraining · 2010-07-30 20:07 · Score: 1

Then you have to convert a cell phone to be a trigger.
Well, supposing you buy the detonator along with the C4, you just need an electric charge, right? Just get the phone's ringer or vibration motor and cut the wires.
Maybe it's more difficult, but many of the people who have used it where not electrical engineers by any means, so it must not be terrible difficult.

We all get spam phone calls. One call offering you a free trip to Disney ruins the whole plan.
Oh, that I know how to solve.
1) Get a cheap Nokia.
2) Configure default ringtone to silent
3) Create new contact group
4) Set that contact group's ringtone to anything else
5) Add the number(s) who are supposed to control the detonation to the group
6) Profit?

--
Dilbert RSS feed
Re:That would mean... by JWSmythe · 2010-07-30 20:20 · Score: 1

Oh, I'd love to write for someone like them. :) I can come up with all kinds of fun conspiracies, and ways criminals can do things. Talking to friends, I've worked through all kinds of different scenarios for crimes. Not that I'd do them, because I know my luck and I'd get arrested on the way to committing it. :) In the fictional contexts, it doesn't matter if the bad guy gets away or gets caught, I'm still free, and no one gets hurt.
I'd get bored though. Not with writing conspiracies and spy thriller action, but when the bosses come in and say "This episode must include ....", and it's boring as shit, I wouldn't want to do it. Nifty thief steals an expensive painting/statue/jewelry from some uber-secure museum. Boring. They come in through an underground passage. They sneak in through a skylight dangling on ropes. They hide in the building until it closes, steal it, and then walk out in the morning like nothing happened. Like I said, it's all been done before. As it is, I already spot huge plot holes in Burn Notice. No good story should have a MacGuffin, Deus ex machina, pathetic plot device, etc, etc, just to make the plot work. "The robber steals the painting, runs out the side door, and someone happened to have left a Bugatti/Ferrari/Lamborghini with the engine running just outside the door. Or worse, a Mini Cooper, and the robber escapes making impossible maneuvers and then ditching the police in a narrow alley.
And dear god don't make me write in where a hacker has to break into a computer to steal some classified information, and the password is the target's dog's name or the name, the name of their kids favorite stuffed animal, or the ex-girlfriend that he's been pining over for years.
And .. no fucking stopping the bomb that's going to destroy the city or all of humanity, at 1 second before detonation by cutting a random wire. No, no, no, no, no and fuck that.

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:That would mean... by JWSmythe · 2010-07-30 20:28 · Score: 1

Actually, if I know C4 and it's detonators right, the electrical charge goes to the small primer explosive, which detonates the whole package. I'd assume the vibrator motor could provide sufficient power, but it may need to trigger a relay to provide power from a larger power source (like a pack of D cell batteries). It makes "what wire do I cut" a lot easier. :)

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:That would mean... by grumling · 2010-07-31 01:59 · Score: 1

Nicky Santoro: [voice-over] A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all frekin' night.

--
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Re:That would mean... by jd2112 · 2010-07-31 03:30 · Score: 1

Nice of them to provide names.

When the Hope Diamond was moved from from South Africa to England they made a big deal about it, sending a whole fleet of Royal Navy ships to protect it.

Only the diamond wasn't on any of the ships. It was sent parcel post through standard shipping channels. The fleet was just a diversion.

This guy may be one of the ships protecting the DNSSec key...

--
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Re:That would mean... by perlchild · 2010-07-31 04:56 · Score: 1

And then you have to engineer some reason for the current key to be expired early.
Re:That would mean... by TheLink · 2010-07-31 05:22 · Score: 1

> The US has 12 reserve banks, and there are about 8,100 tonnes of gold in them
Hmm that's about 310 billion US dollars, or about 26 billion per bank.
I think the investment bankers help lose a lot more money than that ;).
The Federal Reserve also secretly loaned out more than that:
http://www.google.com/search?q=+site:www.bloomberg.com+federal+reserve+trillions
So I think there are ways to make a huge profit and do it far more safely and legally[1] than robbing banks.
[1] Yes there's some relativeness - even if it's illegal, do it right and you won't do as much time :).
--
- Too many replies beneath your current threshold
Re:That would mean... by JWSmythe · 2010-07-31 06:41 · Score: 1

Yup, the real secret is to become a bank, and then take gov't money for your bank.

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:That would mean... by blueg3 · 2010-07-31 12:44 · Score: 1

No, three. You need 5 out of the 7 key parts. And you don't need to assassinate them, just steal or destroy their key.

so we know who the 7 key holders are... by Adult+film+producer · 2010-07-30 16:30 · Score: -1

wouldn't it be easy enough to just kill each of them and then launch an attack? I dont suppose these card holders wander around wearing body armor and drive in armored limos.

If all seven get together do they become Voltron? by Pezbian · 2010-07-30 16:38 · Score: 2, Funny

Or do they summon Captain Planet? ...or Wilford Brimley?

--
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.

This reminds me of something. by Adaeniel · 2010-07-30 16:40 · Score: 0

When your powers combine, I am Captain Internet!
Wait. That's not right.
Also, a question, which key holder is Ma-Ti?

seven? nine? three? by chub_mackerel · 2010-07-30 16:41 · Score: 5, Funny

Ritchie was recently chosen to hold one of seven smartcards that can rebuild the root key that underpins this system' called DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions).

I thought the dwarves got seven cards. And, the humans got nine... and the elves three. Or, am I mixing something up?

Re:seven? nine? three? by ducomputergeek · 2010-07-30 17:10 · Score: 1

And Al Gore got one to rule them all? Hmmm....whiskey and slashdot don't mix well....

--
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Re:seven? nine? three? by frosty_tsm · 2010-07-30 19:54 · Score: 1

I came to post something like this. I'm glad someone did it already (and did it well).
Re:seven? nine? three? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 20:44 · Score: 0

We are the dwarves
Re:seven? nine? three? by Odin's+Raven · 2010-07-31 00:45 · Score: 1

Ritchie was recently chosen to hold one of seven smartcards that can rebuild the root key that underpins this system' called DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions).

I thought the dwarves got seven cards. And, the humans got nine... and the elves three. Or, am I mixing something up?

No no, you've got it right. It's just that, well, Ritchie's not all that tall, and he's got a beard...

--
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Re:seven? nine? three? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 01:31 · Score: 0

Didn't I see another story on slashdot today that mentioned dwarfs? I think it was something about energy subsidies (they must mine coal as well as gold)
Re:seven? nine? three? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 04:52 · Score: 0

Hmmm....whiskey and slashdot don't mix well....

You're doing it wrong!
Re:seven? nine? three? by R2.0 · 2010-07-31 07:49 · Score: 1

Aren't computer types always accused of working in their mother's basements or the bowels of a data center? Sound like caves to me.
Oh, and read John Ringo's The Council Wars - it's a sort of retelling of the Silmarillion with sex and violence (and violent sex) replacing erudition and pretension. In the books, the rings are represented by cryptographic keys.

--
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson

You might want to look up Dan Kaminsky by gearloos · 2010-07-30 16:49 · Score: 1, Interesting

I just heard a pretty good talk on DNSSEC at Blackhat and it wasn't quite like this... I'll leave it at that.

--
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"

Re:You might want to look up Dan Kaminsky by Wandering+Idiot · 2010-07-30 21:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

Thanks for "leaving it at that"! God forbid you provide any basic information on what you're talking about or why anyone should be interested.
Re:You might want to look up Dan Kaminsky by leuk_he · 2010-07-31 00:40 · Score: 2, Informative

Dan Kaminsky got a key,
Paul Kane got one,
the others well geograpically distributed make the international resque team complete.

007 by tsa · 2010-07-30 16:49 · Score: 2, Funny

I see a new James Bond movie in the making here...

--

-- Cheers!

Re:007 by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 05:55 · Score: 0

I see an Austin Powers in the make!

Hey! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:50 · Score: 0

I have that same combination on my luggage!

We don't live in the movies by Sycraft-fu · 2010-07-30 16:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

The world is not full of evil organizations who are thoroughly evil, yet well funded, that run around doing evil for its own sake. The likelihood of someone blowing up both facilities and kidnapping the people who hold the cards just to try and take down DNSSEC is pretty unlikely. I think this is more likely protection against hacking (which is much safer) or a gigantic mistake. Always good to ask the question "If everything fails, how are we going to rebuild it?" That's what this is.

Please remember that vast kidnapping conspiracies and so on require a lot of people acting in concert. That is hard to keep hidden. What's more in this case you'd be talking about something all over the world. You are also talking about something that would draw the wrath of the most powerful nations out there. The US (who holds the facilities), the UK, China, etc. It doesn't work like in James Bond where the baddies contact the government and they have to knuckle in unless a lone agent can bring them down. What happens is the governments send in hundreds of heavily armed, highly trained, soldiers that will kill or capture anyone who is involved, or perhaps just as likely simply destroys the building they are in with a well placed smart bomb from a bomber you cannot see.

The idea here seems to more be a final redundancy against a systems failure, but one where a single person can't go rogue and cause a problem.

So please, stop with the paranoid movie plots.

Re:We don't live in the movies by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:58 · Score: 0

Hey now, Bush did 9/11. Crazy plots CAN happen when there is enough money involved for Blackwater/Halliburton/Arbusco.
Re:We don't live in the movies by ducomputergeek · 2010-07-30 17:03 · Score: 1

12-21-2012, the World wide intertubes crashes and now an international team of super hackers/spies must quickly move to find and safely bring together the seven cards before The Inventor (Al Gore) allows one ACTA to rule them all
hmmmm.......me thinks I should open up Celtx and start writing...

--
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Re:We don't live in the movies by Jeremi · 2010-07-30 17:08 · Score: 2, Funny

So please, stop with the paranoid movie plots.
You have to admit this does provide the basis for a pretty good movie plot... I predict that Jason Bourne (or Robert Langdon, or Richard Stallman) will be trying to save at least 5 of these people on screen within a few years.

--

I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Re:We don't live in the movies by Dhalka226 · 2010-07-30 18:41 · Score: 1

I think this is more likely protection against hacking (which is much safer) or a gigantic mistake. Always good to ask the question "If everything fails, how are we going to rebuild it?" That's what this is.
Eh, maybe. That's perfectly reasonable of course, and they should have exactly that planning. But they're taking some strange precautions if that's all they're guarding against. Why physically separate the cards? That's just going to make any effort to restore after a gigantic mistake take even longer, which is highly undesirable. Why not a few safes, or a few safety deposit boxes or some such? "Hey Bill. We fucked up, we need your combination" is much faster than "we need you to fly down here." Especially if it's really some sort of disaster situation that destroyed the facilities to begin with, and it still limits the damage one rogue individual could do.
So the facility housing the cards could blow up -- fair enough. Two copies. Three. Twelve. Backups of the backups, so to speak. Have one set of copies per facility. Now if something happens to both sets, we really are talking some epic disaster or conspiratorial plot. And if not, again, so much easier to get things back on track.

Please remember that vast kidnapping conspiracies and so on require a lot of people acting in concert. That is hard to keep hidden.
Perhaps. And yet a number of frankly more complicated various terrorist attacks have succeeded, especially when they take place somewhere we're not expecting. It would be much harder to kidnap these people as some sort of blackmail plot, of course, but for anybody who's content with the damage they caused being reward enough, who wants you to panic and spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to stop them from doing it again, it's much easier. How many billions did the US spend after 9/11? How many more billions were lost as the entire airline industry almost went under from sheer, baseless panic? It's not like the hijackers got rich; actually they got dead. Their damage was their reward.
Seven cards on seven guys takes, oh, about seven bullets. Doesn't even have to be the same time, though it's obviously easier if it is. How hard is that, really? Send some guys out, give them a date -- or hell, just tell them to keep CNN on until they see news that the facilities just got blown up. It would take some extra work to figure out where they keep the cards, I suppose, but the average person is going to keep them in a handful of potential locations. And even if you don't get it, you still greatly delay the rebuilding process.
The facilities themselves are the bigger trick. I know nothing about them so I can't even posit a guess as to how hard they might be to destroy in any meaningful way.

What happens is the governments send in hundreds of heavily armed, highly trained, soldiers that will kill or capture anyone who is involved, or perhaps just as likely simply destroys the building they are in with a well placed smart bomb from a bomber you cannot see.
Which is, no doubt, exactly what would happen. But that didn't deter bin Laden, did it? Nor did it catch him. Oh, we toppled a few governments who may or may not have been actually involved in ANY tangible way (much less directly with what happened) because, well, we like to blow shit up when something bad happens and governments and buildings and things we can clearly see from satellites are nice, easy targets. But the people who did it, by and large, have escaped.
Blackmail is a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, but again, people who consider the damage they cause to be payment enough are an entirely different story. The majority of this post-9/11 stuff is security theater not because it's an inappropriate thing to try or even because of how much we spend relative to the actual risks, it's theater because of how ridic
Re:We don't live in the movies by interkin3tic · 2010-07-30 19:56 · Score: 1

The world is not full of evil organizations who are thoroughly evil, yet well funded, that run around doing evil for its own sake.

Alternatively, one or more of these evil-for-evil's-sake, well funded organizations do exist, and have just convinced you that they don't exist. Had you been wearing my tinfoil hat, that wouldn't have happened.
Re:We don't live in the movies by JWSmythe · 2010-07-30 20:24 · Score: 1

So please, stop with the paranoid movie plots.
I love writing paranoid movie plots. I can give the fun details, without having to drag it out to be a feature length film, or even a single television episode.
In my next episode, the secret evil government agency will start kidnapping Slashdot users with low UID's (see, you're safe), and post disinformation on their plans here, so anyone who thinks they know something about a secret government conspiracy can be written off as it being read on Slashdot first. :)

--
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:We don't live in the movies by DMiax · 2010-07-30 21:24 · Score: 1

Then it would be easier to simply give it to Jason Bourne from the beginning, don't you think? On the other hand Stallman would crack it open and distribute a GLv3 clone of the content so he may not be a wise choice.
Re:We don't live in the movies by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 22:33 · Score: 0

The world is not full of evil organizations who are thoroughly evil, yet well funded, that run around doing evil for its own sake.
They are called governments, they are funded by taxes and every country has one.
Re:We don't live in the movies by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 23:41 · Score: 0

The world is not full of evil organizations who are thoroughly evil, yet well funded
Sure it is, Oracle, BP, Enron, and The multitude of Branches of the American Gov't.
Re:We don't live in the movies by isorox · 2010-07-31 00:23 · Score: 1

What happens is the governments send in hundreds of heavily armed, highly trained, soldiers that will kill or capture anyone who is involved, or perhaps just as likely simply destroys the building they are in with a well placed smart bomb from a bomber you cannot see.
Caught Bin Laden yet? Stopped Al-Qaeda yet?
Re:We don't live in the movies by RobertLTux · 2010-07-31 03:16 · Score: 1

The trick is we have 2 concerns
1 disaster recovery (the hot copy gets destroyed)
2 ensuring security
If anybody wants to somehow compromise the system they would need to somehow gets hands on the keyset. Given that these persons are "targets of opportunity" i would bet that various TLAs know exactly where each of these folks are at any given time.
So we have the possibility that in an attack Norm Ritchie goes missing then depending on the lag time every TLA in the area gets their hands on the other six on a "MY OFFICE YESTERDAY" basis.

--
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Re:We don't live in the movies by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 09:50 · Score: 0

Why not a few safes, or a few safety deposit boxes or some such?
SAFE. DEPOSIT. BOX.
Not "safety deposit box".
*plonk*
Re:We don't live in the movies by Alcoholist · 2010-08-01 13:44 · Score: 1

Yeah, but it could still make for an interesting movie plot, you have to admit. People were all over the Bourne movies, yes?
I happen to have the phone number for a Mr.Les Grossman and I'm calling his office right now.

--
Bibo Ergo Sum.

Condescending by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 16:51 · Score: 0

Really tired of these summaries which assume we're morons and don't know what DNS/DNSSEC are.

Re:Condescending by Lord+Kano · 2010-07-30 18:39 · Score: 1

You may know. I may know. Most of us may know. There are still a lot of people out there who don't understand how any of this works. To them it's just like magic.
LK

--
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Re:Condescending by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:01 · Score: 1, Insightful

Except this is Slashdot, as low as the standard is if you look at other articles (such as the Science ones) there is this expectation that the reader isn't an idiot and knows something about the field already. If we wanted watered down crap we'd go to Digg.
Re:Condescending by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 04:36 · Score: 0

Kind of like, when I open up a newspaper and read about sports. The headline is about Beckham and something about goals, how am I supposed to know that it is an article about hockey. Sure they mention a couple of players, some team names and offside. They do not explain what this offside is.
I think it is the side that the other teams goal is, but they never mention the onside.

Trust by countertrolling · 2010-07-30 16:52 · Score: 1

I sure hope these guys have a good reputation

--
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone

I'm sorry.... by ducomputergeek · 2010-07-30 16:52 · Score: 1

but this reads like an intro to a bad cyberpunk novel/movie....

--
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.

Seven Individuals by slater86 · 2010-07-30 16:57 · Score: 1

Haven't I seen this before somewhere?

http://www.zeldawiki.org/Sage

--
When people ask if I'm an optimist, I say "I hope so". --Bill Bailey

Seven, heh ? by zzyzyx · 2010-07-30 17:04 · Score: 5, Funny

One Card to rule them all, One Card to find them,
One Card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Re:Seven, heh ? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 06:05 · Score: 0

One Card to rule them all, One Card to find them,
One Card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
What card is this? Mastercard?
Re:Seven, heh ? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 12:08 · Score: 0

I was waiting for this obvious reference. I have no life, the jar broke and it escaped.

Article Omega by Da+Cheez · 2010-07-30 17:06 · Score: 2, Funny

The truth is, these keys are really just a safe guard in case /. ever posts Article Omega, bringing about the systematic slashdotting of the ENTIRE INTERNET!!!

Re:If all seven get together do they become Voltro by Megahard · 2010-07-30 17:39 · Score: 1

Maybe the seven combine to form the soul of Lord Voldemort.

--
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.

Wait, wut? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 17:41 · Score: 0

I thought the whole point of the Internet was that there was no "there", there.

Forget this high tech stuff, I am gonna order some cheap knives and canned goods while the Internet still works.

This, Jen, is the internet by dangitman · 2010-07-30 17:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Jen: What is it?
Moss: This, Jen, is the Internet.
Jen: What?
Moss: That's right.
Jen: This is the Internet?
[Moss is nodding his head]
Jen: (suspiciously) The whole Internet?
Moss: (agreeably) Yep. I asked for a loan of it, so that you could use it in your speech.
[Roy enters the room.]
Roy: (irritated) Hey! What is Jen doing with the Internet?
Jen: Moss said I could use it for my speech.
[Roy speaks to Moss in an edgy way.]
Roy: Are you insane? What if she drops it?
Jen: I won't drop it, I'll look after it.
Roy: No. No, no, no, no, Jen. [Takes the box back from Jen.] No, this needs to go straight back to Big Ben.
Jen: Big Ben?
Moss: Yep. It goes on top of Big Ben. That's where you get the best reception.
Jen: I promise I won't let anything happen to it.
Roy: No, Jen, I'm sorry. [Jen becomes woeful.] The elders of the Internet would never stand for it.

--
... and then they built the supercollider.

Re:This, Jen, is the internet by buchner.johannes · 2010-07-30 19:21 · Score: 1

The elders of the Internet would never stand for it.
--
... and then they built the supercollider.
Your signature actually makes sense here.

--
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Re:This, Jen, is the internet by dominious · 2010-07-31 00:44 · Score: 1

holy crap I could hear in my head the exact voices while I was reading it!
Re:This, Jen, is the internet by dleewo · 2010-07-31 00:51 · Score: 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAUyaELfwBo

Al Gore? by antdude · 2010-07-30 17:46 · Score: 0, Offtopic

So Al Gore has a key! :D

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

My first thought... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 17:56 · Score: 5, Funny

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!

It'd be awesome if they yelled that out as they each scanned their cards.

Re:My first thought... by Dogers · 2010-07-30 22:15 · Score: 4, Funny

com! net! org! tv! biz!
Captain DNS and the Resolveteers!

--
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Re:My first thought... by internettoughguy · 2010-07-31 00:08 · Score: 1

Yes!, I was totally waiting for someone to reference that.
Re:My first thought... by camperdave · 2010-07-31 02:42 · Score: 1

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!

So, you're saying love is the fifth element?

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:My first thought... by Provocateur · 2010-07-31 03:47 · Score: 1

Oh and Ritchie, you get to wear this. When you're on duty, that is.
"Do I have to?!"
Shall we go over this again? It happens at every Secret Session.
"'Secret session?' Just call them meetings, for cryin out loud!"
In an abandoned underground bunker somewhere, the Captain mentally goes to his quiet place...

--
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Re:My first thought... by The+Archon+V2.0 · 2010-07-31 05:58 · Score: 1

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! So, you're saying love is the fifth element?
Actually it's more like communing with animals. (Insert preemptive "getcher minds outta the gutter" here.)
Re:My first thought... by roman_mir · 2010-07-31 07:30 · Score: 1

So that is what the Fifth element was all about, restoring DNSSEC, NOW I get it.
Is one of the people a hot redhead chick?

--
You can't handle the truth.
Re:My first thought... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 11:30 · Score: 0

I like to imagine them more like Voltron.

Sensei by lawnboy5-O · 2010-07-30 17:59 · Score: 1

Look eye Daniel-son, Look eye!

Sure, there are seven of them now... by Angst+Badger · 2010-07-30 18:00 · Score: 1

...but there can be only one.

--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.

And where are the mexicans? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 18:11 · Score: -1, Troll

Why didn't they choose a Mexican as a TCR (Trusted Community Representative).

That exclusion is highly discriminative...

Re:And where are the mexicans? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 18:32 · Score: -1, Troll

Where is he supposed to keep his flash memory? On the back of his goat?

Seven by fahrbot-bot · 2010-07-30 18:57 · Score: 1

The one authenticated map of the Internet.
Were it to be lost ... it could be recreated by seven individuals spread around the globe.

Here are the first three things I though after reading this. None are good...

--
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .

Why the fuck are we being told this? by Fantastic+Lad · 2010-07-30 19:21 · Score: -1, Troll

I've been seeing this idiotic story floating around now for a couple of days.

What kind of retarded system is this? They don't have tape back-ups? Why would it have to be a "Everybody turn your super-secret key on five, four, three. . ."

Fuck this.

I'm REALLY getting tired of having the fear button punched in my brain. Fuck off. The internet is vulnerable. The planet is vulnerable. Everything is vulnerable. Oooooh. I'm really scared now. I'll let you scan my retinas at airports and x-ray my kidneys and I won't complain when you blow 1.4 billion dollars on police for a fake burning cop-car G20 bullshit summit. Just fuck off already.

Key cards to re-boot the internet? FUCK OFF!!! That's the dumbest TV movie plot device I've ever heard. It's as fucking retarded as that Lone-Gunmen plot where they flew planes into the world trade center. You know? The one with Bruce Willis. Do they think we're all trailer-park retards who can't tell reality from bad scripting?

So please, for the love of all that is good, FUCK OFFFFFFFF!

-FL

Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2010-07-30 21:00 · Score: 1

Why the fuck are we being told this?
Some of us like to remain informed.

--
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by Fantastic+Lad · 2010-07-31 05:50 · Score: 1

Some of us like to remain informed.
Except this is only "information" in so far as it is the latest plot device made real by the idiots in charge. That means this is a social engineering exercise, (a variation on basic propaganda).
Learn to spot the difference. It's important.
In any case, the delivery needn't be couched in endless, pedantic terms of "Terrorist Attack". I can hardly believe people haven't figured out yet that they're being manipulated. How stupid does a person have to be to not get that simple fact at this late date?
-FL
Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2010-07-31 15:34 · Score: 1

Except this is only "information" in so far as it is the latest plot device made real by the idiots in charge. That means this is a social engineering exercise, (a variation on basic propaganda).
Learn to spot the difference. It's important.
Information is information, and given a choice of it being repressed and being made available, I'll almost always choose the latter. This is a real decision made by "the idiots in charge", and if nothing else, the information that this decision was made is information about the quality of leadership.

In any case, the delivery needn't be couched in endless, pedantic terms of "Terrorist Attack". I can hardly believe people haven't figured out yet that they're being manipulated. How stupid does a person have to be to not get that simple fact at this late date?
They couch their delivery in pedantic terms of "Terrorist Attack" for the same reason that you couch your delivery in pedantic terms of "Government Attack". Think about it.

--
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by Fantastic+Lad · 2010-08-01 04:13 · Score: 1

Information is information, and given a choice of it being repressed and being made available, I'll almost always choose the latter. This is a real decision made by "the idiots in charge", and if nothing else, the information that this decision was made is information about the quality of leadership.
This is certainly a valid approach, but it's not where we started from and it's not what I was complaining about. I don't want silence from the media. I want responsible reporting, but above all, I want a cessation of manipulative tactics designed to keep a population fearful. Fear and anxiety are the keys to population control; they are incredibly effective. And now we are told the following. . .
A. That the entire internet is in danger of being destroyed by bad people. (Even a small and unlikely danger noted registers deeply in the brain; for instance, "birthday serial killers" scare populations far out of proportion with the actual threat level because the subconscious isn't good at probability maths. This is why we can spend hours worrying about things which never happen. This is well understood in the persuasion sciences. Also understood, is that when jolted by fear or anxiety, the associated message lodges far more deeply in the brain than otherwise. There is SO much understood about how to manipulate humans and this article is dripping with it. Journalists, of all people, should have at least a passing understanding of this stuff.)
B. That our fearless leaders have taken spy-thriller steps to ensure our safety rather than opting for far less dramatic redundant back-up systems. This is due to our having been programmed by films and television. Even while consciously aware that a Bruce Willis film is fundamentally silly, the emotional programming remains, so when we are presented with similar patterns in the real world, we have the same gut level reactions. It's very hard to prevent that. Again, more psych science.
C. By extension, the world is full of awful things, that there is the real danger that our lives might be interrupted by terrorism at any moment. I don't know what you think of the whole 9/11 fiasco, but the digging and examination of the facts and events of that day hasn't stopped, and the picture is today more clear than ever. Thinking people who make the effort to inform themselves rather than believe the sanctioned media and elected representatives have come to the conclusion that it was a giant sham event driven by manipulative forces for political purposes. It's well-worth reading everything you can get on that subject, weeding out the junk and doing comparative analysis to determine the key features. Essentially, the whole charade was perpetrated by Nixon era psychopaths and their proteges, and pushed over the top by Israel.
D. By unspoken extension, when a further power grab and erosion of civil liberties comes around every two weeks, we all understand that it is just a small step with good reason. After all, Bad People could attack us at any moment, right? I mean, as proof we only need to look at our leadership; they carry spy-movie key cards to re-boot the internet in case of spy-movie attack! And if that's a real possibility then we really MUST be in the middle of the new cold war! It's self perpetuating "truth"; a fiction created at the top and sold to us through the media, duly reported on Slashdot and defended by ignorant hobbits who don't realize that they are fighting to protect the very forces keeping them under thumb in some population-wide expression of Stockholm Syndrome.
And THAT whole menu is the bullshit I reject. The psychology is well-understood. We know who has studied the mind-game mechanics of it, who endorsed and invested in it as policy. We know many of the names, the places, the dates. Why? Because THAT is information. Real information. By contrast, the newspaper informing us of the next stupid thing to be afraid of is not the same kind of thing. A lie is technically 'information', bu
Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2010-08-01 06:12 · Score: 1

This is certainly a valid approach, but it's not where we started from and it's not what I was complaining about. I don't want silence from the media. I want responsible reporting, but above all, I want a cessation of manipulative tactics designed to keep a population fearful. Fear and anxiety are the keys to population control; they are incredibly effective.
So, what, the crazy sect of the libertarian movement got jealous, and decided to muzzle in on the action? People are going to be afraid of what they fear. Any government not seen to be addressing those fears is seen as weak and unfit to rule. It's really not a difficult concept to grasp.

Even a small and unlikely danger noted registers deeply in the brain; for instance, "birthday serial killers" scare populations far out of proportion with the actual threat level because the subconscious isn't good at probability maths.
The danger is unlikely, but the danger is critical. Minimising chances of death is typically a healthy and rational response. Then there's the opportunity cost: negative infinity times by a vanishingly small probability equals negative infinity.

our fearless leaders have taken spy-thriller steps to ensure our safety rather than opting for far less dramatic redundant back-up systems.
Hmm. I'm withholding judgement until I actually see the given reason for using this system, rather than just assume someone I hate did something for a stupid reason. That's how stupid, one-eyed outlooks are born.

By extension, the world is full of awful things, that there is the real danger that our lives might be interrupted by terrorism at any moment. I don't know what you think of the whole 9/11 fiasco, but the digging and examination of the facts and events of that day hasn't stopped, and the picture is today more clear than ever. Thinking people who make the effort to inform themselves rather than believe the sanctioned media and elected representatives have come to the conclusion that it was a giant sham event driven by manipulative forces for political purposes. It's well-worth reading everything you can get on that subject, weeding out the junk and doing comparative analysis to determine the key features. Essentially, the whole charade was perpetrated by Nixon era psychopaths and their proteges, and pushed over the top by Israel.
And that's how stupid one-eyed outlooks grow and thrive. There are far easier, far safer ways to control a population. Besides, did the population really need controlling? Was there about to be a revolution before 9/11?

By unspoken extension, when a further power grab and erosion of civil liberties comes around every two weeks, we all understand that it is just a small step with good reason. After all, Bad People could attack us at any moment, right? I mean, as proof we only need to look at our leadership; they carry spy-movie key cards to re-boot the internet in case of spy-movie attack! And if that's a real possibility then we really MUST be in the middle of the new cold war! It's self perpetuating "truth"; a fiction created at the top and sold to us through the media, duly reported on Slashdot and defended by ignorant hobbits who don't realize that they are fighting to protect the very forces keeping them under thumb in some population-wide expression of Stockholm Syndrome.
And THAT whole menu is the bullshit I reject. The psychology is well-understood. We know who has studied the mind-game mechanics of it, who endorsed and invested in it as policy. We know many of the names, the places, the dates. Why? Because THAT is information. Real information. By contrast, the newspaper informing us of the next stupid thing to be afraid of is not the same kind of thing. A lie is technically 'information', but it is false and misleading information.
Ah, it's starting to fall into place now. You want "responsi

--
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by Fantastic+Lad · 2010-08-01 07:20 · Score: 1

There are two types of people who question authority. Those who question authority, listen to what they say, and make a judgement accordingly, and those who question, and simply ignore the answer, believe exactly what they want to believe, and remain terminally ignorant and uninformed. Did ever even occur to you that there might be an alternative reason behind the implementation of this scheme, aside from the one you cooked up about the movies?
Has it occurred to you that I might actually know what I am talking about? When I question things, I listen exceptionally well. I ask a lot of questions and I listen to everything I can get my ears on. If my resulting judgments seem odd to you, then perhaps that is only because you haven't got enough information.

And that's how stupid one-eyed outlooks grow and thrive. There are far easier, far safer ways to control a population. Besides, did the population really need controlling? Was there about to be a revolution before 9/11?
Wow. Those are some very ignorant questions. You really are in the dark, aren't you? This isn't the forum to try to educate you on such huge, basic realities; it's a big, deep subject, and frankly, I'm not convinced you're worth the effort. -A common belief people labor under is that they are somehow entitled to knowledge without having to work for it. You have eyes and a brain, but you have chosen not to use them to explore. Why should I labor to put material in front of your nose when it has been freely available for years? It sounds very much to me that you are already invested in rejecting it without thinking anyway. Sounds like a big waste of time to me.

Yeah, I go for quality rather than quantity when it comes to a topic. A hundred hours of this B-movie dreck passing through your head is probably worth about half an hour's consideration by just about anyone else here on slashdot. Myself included.
Translation: "I am uninformed and proud of it."
You say, "probably worth"? Exactly. You don't know. Yet you call something dreck without having the knowledge necessary to render such a judgment.
THINK: How can you possibly know high quality information from a hole in the ground if you don't bother to explore enough samples to establish pattern? Pretending that you know based on doing as little research as possible is common laziness.

You know what really strikes me about your post? The complete failure to use logic, or make a convincing argument. I mean, you really haven't made a single convincing point. Not even one. You try to couch your post in logic, and you use the phrases "proof" and "by extension", but you show no indication that you actually understand what they mean. All you do is string together a bunch of absurd claims holding little to no basis in reality.
You say I have not made a single convincing argument? It only seems that way to you because you are unfamiliar with the material I am referencing. I've referred to objective realities which any responsible individual will have already taken the time to become informed regarding. Many of these items are no longer even points of debate; they are established facts and I'm not going to waste my time bringing you up to speed.
Your level of awareness is your problem, not mine.
Now go away and do some reading and some critical analysis and stop wasting my time.
Bye now.
-FL
Re:Why the fuck are we being told this? by TheVelvetFlamebait · 2010-08-09 01:14 · Score: 1

Eh, I was going to ignore you, but I'm going to respond out of boredom.

Has it occurred to you that I might actually know what I am talking about?
Not once. Still no.

When I question things, I listen exceptionally well. I ask a lot of questions and I listen to everything I can get my ears on. If my resulting judgments seem odd to you, then perhaps that is only because you haven't got enough information.
Yet another claim that doesn't seem to hold up to the slightest scrutiny. Out of all the actual content in my largely content-free post, you've seemed to avoid the actual points I made, or at least dismissed them ("Wow. Those are some very ignorant questions.") in a fashion that tells me either you haven't actually understood them, or you are deliberately trying to avoid actually answering them.
Plus, you've arrived at some absurd conclusions. I have talked to informed, uninformed, intelligent, stupid, informed, and thoroughly ignorant people in my time, and in a vast majority of cases, there is something in their arguments that is food for thought, has some basis in reality, or at least managed to have some kind of pseudo-logical structure. I am bewildered that you've managed to provide me an argument lacking in all three.
Basically, you've managed to cobble together some kind of argument from bravado, put-downs, and abundant claims of superior knowledge and information. But, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and, unfortunately, having one does not put you half way there.

You say, "probably worth"? Exactly. You don't know. Yet you call something dreck without having the knowledge necessary to render such a judgment.
Oh that is priceless! You think that if you don't sound absolutely certain on all points, your arguments will be seen as weak. This pretty much explains your entire style of argument, and also why it actually doesn't work on people who are remotely intelligent.
Oh, and I call it dreck, because it's dreck directly out of movie. Evil government comes up with yet another absurd scheme to enslave the masses for no clear reason (typically something about power, but no reason what benefits such power actually provides). Now, it's really quite funny that you pull me up on "...call[ing] something dreck without having the knowledge necessary to render such a judgment," if you think about it. I observed that your opinions sound a lot like a cliched movie plot, and concluded (fallaciously) that you ripped the scheme off a movie. This was done deliberately to draw parallels to your own original argument, when you noticed that the "internet key" scheme, invented by the politicians, is suspiciously like a different cliched movie plot. You made the same fallacious argument, except with deadpan sincerity.
I wasn't anticipating you'd get it. It was more for my own personal amusement, plus for any smart and observant /. readers who might stumble across this thread while perusing the archives. I am, however, anticipating that you'll now claim that you do get it after all, and that the reason why I did not realise this is that I haven't done enough research to claim that you haven't. I'm only kind of joking.

--
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.

East & West coasts only by jmcvetta · 2010-07-30 19:24 · Score: 1

One secure sight in Culpeper, VA; the other site in El Segundo, CA. These sites both seem rather exposed to attack, compared to the vast interior of America. Why no secure site in the empty, hard-to-bomb middle of the country?

Also, check out the googlemap of El Segundo -- it's right next door to a buttload of chemical (gasoline?) storage tanks. I've heard there's a risk of those things going "boom" in a real real nasty way, if some smallish explosion sets them off. Seems like a kinda shitty spot to locate critical internet infrastructure.

Re:East & West coasts only by Dahan · 2010-07-30 19:54 · Score: 1

Also, check out the googlemap of El Segundo -- it's right next door to a buttload of chemical (gasoline?) storage tanks.
Well, I don't think ICANN is running their operations out of a Good Stuff restaurant. Try this map instead.
Re:East & West coasts only by jmcvetta · 2010-07-30 20:36 · Score: 1

Okay, so that's about a mile away from the storage tanks. Any idea what the blast radius on one of those things is, should it get ignited?
My basic point is: c'mon, put this stuff somewhere isolated & easy to protect. At least the Culpeper site looks to be in the middle of BFE, which has to be kinda useful from a security perspective.
Re:East & West coasts only by Dynedain · 2010-07-31 06:12 · Score: 1

Any idea what the blast radius on one of those things is, should it get ignited?
Minimal. Gasoline doesn't explode the way cars do in movies.

--
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....

Re:I don't care if you are from Iran by AfroTrance · 2010-07-30 19:26 · Score: 2, Informative

The key holders are the Elders of the Internet.

The real question.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:32 · Score: 0

The real question is why we would trust a dirty Canadian with a key! They don't even lock their doors! All the more evidence that Canadians are really giant mutated beavers bent on world domination.

A power so great... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-30 19:43 · Score: 0

It rivals even that of the Sword of a Thousand Truths. Did Salzman in Accounting also foretell this prophecy? Is this person in fact his heir?

Re:If all seven get together do they become Voltro by CharlyFoxtrot · 2010-07-30 20:39 · Score: 1

Or do they summon Captain Planet? ...or Wilford Brimley?

Gozer of course. "Are you the keymaster ?"

--
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

Seven to the Canadians in their Halls of Snow by Arancaytar · 2010-07-30 20:53 · Score: 4, Funny

(But in secret, another smart-card was made - one that could rule all the others...)

Re:Seven to the Canadians in their Halls of Snow by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 00:23 · Score: 0

And One Canadian to rule them ALL

A British key-holder giving and interview by Cougem · 2010-07-30 22:04 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10781240 Not the best interview, but relevant.

not a smart backup move by vampirbg · 2010-07-30 23:20 · Score: 1

This doesn't strike me as a smart backup solution... First, both facilities are in the US... Second thing is that in case one of them gets destroyed due to the terrorist attack, there would be no air travel... Also, what happens if both of them are destroyed? Since they both are in the USA there's no borders to cross which makes planning and coordinating attacks easier... If one one of them were, for example, in Europe or Puerto Rico (in case the US needs to control them both) it would be much harder to coordinate the attacks as the international lines are more heavily monitored and usually there are less legal hurdles to snoop on other countries... Of course if one of them gets destroyed in a terrorist attack this guy from Canada will hardly be able to help since the borders are likely to be closed...

Odd Man Out? by SkyDude · 2010-07-30 23:35 · Score: 1

Seems I've heard something like this before.

--
== First cross river, then insult alligator.

Trinidad & Tobago by denzacar · 2010-07-30 23:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

The one from Trinidad & Tobago, duh.
Gi is from China, Kwame is from Burkina Faso, Linka is from Czech Republic and Wheeler is from USA.

But, adding Paul from UK and Ritchie from Canada is a bit Anglo-centric and ridiculous.
Those are not even two different countries, let alone continents.

--
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Re:Trinidad & Tobago by Mashiki · 2010-07-31 02:40 · Score: 1

Wait. Canada and the UK aren't separate countries, and let alone on different continents. Man the drift has really been warming up this year, and running backwards.
Be right back, walking across the atlantic pond.

--
Om, nomnomnom...

Photograph of Norm Ritchie by maestroX · 2010-07-31 00:48 · Score: 1

Sorry, only got a partial here.

nice guy by potaz · 2010-07-31 00:57 · Score: 1

I used to work with/under Norm (he was my boss) and he's a great guy! When I worked with him he wasn't a Keeper of the Key but he was still pretty cool

--
dinosaur comics

hmmm... by dan_barrett · 2010-07-31 01:40 · Score: 1

So, if DNS breaks we can blame Canada?

You couldn't just find everyone? by Toad-san · 2010-07-31 02:08 · Score: 2, Interesting

Perhaps I don't have a grasp on how the Internet, TCP/IP, etc. work.

But it seems to me, if you turned loose a spider that wandered around (from 000.000.0000 to 999.999.9999) and queried EVERY IP out there ... wouldn't you end up with a complete structure of which IPs were active, which were not, and some sort of identification for each and every one of them? And what was connected to what (to rebuild routing tables. Especially if the IP host actually responded with some sort of ID?

For that matter, that identification could be done after the fact, ne? "Dude, if you're an active IP, send an email to this site with your IP and this completed DNS form. You won't be on the active list until you do."

Bidda boom, bidda bing.

Besides, this is just a plain old database anyway, isn't it? Just back up the damned thing.

Re:You couldn't just find everyone? by rickb928 · 2010-07-31 03:01 · Score: 3, Informative

1) Yes, you could.
2) When you have a workable method for sending a postcard to every IP address, let me know. Mapping IP address to street address is a neat trick if you can pull it off. Just don't rely on WHOIS, for obvious reasons.

--
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:You couldn't just find everyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 03:14 · Score: 0

Yes, you don't have a grasp on how the internet works. I'd suggest you just to shut the fuck up.
Re:You couldn't just find everyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 07:19 · Score: 0

By the the time you scanned all the IP addresses, it's likely many of them would have changed their state. [Citation Needed]

Highlander by PlasmaEye · 2010-07-31 02:19 · Score: 1

I foresee going badly as each card holder systematically tries to kill the other 6. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Sigh for ISO 8601 Re:We don't live in the movies by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 02:52 · Score: -1, Troll

12-21-2012

What the HELL kind of date format is that? The only one I'm familiar with that uses hyphens is ISO 8601 (yyyy-MM-dd). To be sure, year 12 never had 21 months, and the nonexistent 21st month did not have 2012 or more days.

Odometers don't put the decimal wheel in the middle. Thermometers don't put the fractions of temperatures in the middle of the thermometer (only to be read between 69 & 70 f or 19 & 20 C). Even actual physical calendars display the days as a sub-element of the month and the month as a sub-element of the year. Who would rationally put the day in between the month and the year? I mean really.

Even Arabic, which reads right to left, uses the numerals in a left to right positional notation. It's 10 years since Y2K and we've apparently learned nothing.

press blows it, film at 11. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 03:55 · Score: 0

The press gets this wrong on so many levels it's not even funny.

The Recovery Key Share Holders (RKSHes) hold crypto cards for decrypting the backup of the hardware security module. HSMs are deliberately de-ruggedized, and if they even *think* they're being messed with (brownout, temperature extremes, being jostled a little bit), they'll lose their memory. So this is insurance against all four HSMs losing their cookies at the same time. It is not insurance against nuclear armageddon, simultaneous destruction of both sites, Cthulu ascendant, rampaging /b/tards, or Godzilla.

They do not hold fractions of the root KSK. Stealing the cards from 5 of the 7 RKSHes doesn't gain a bad guy anything, since they still need to (without detection) get to the encrypted backup of the root KSK, which is inside a safe, inside a cage, inside a vault, on the far side of a mantrap, in a secure building, on a secure campus.

If you do not understand how M of N crypto works, please do not post comments saying "if the right two" or anything like that, because you're wrong.

You're invited to read https://www.iana.org/dnssec/icann-dps.txt as well as data at http://www.root-dnssec.org/ and join the group of us boggling at how badly the press mangled the story.

Whooosh! by denzacar · 2010-07-31 04:26 · Score: 1

Well, it IS rather obvious for most of us that Canada is just pretending to be a separate country from the rest of the British Empire just to keep the pea soup eaters from revolting.
Ridiculous I know, but stranger and more pointless things have been done by British monarchs before.
Like that time they decided to just give up on the entire lower part of the North America - over a couple of cups of tea.

And despite that old saying that the Sun never sets on the British Empire, that does not make it a continent.
A time zone maybe, but not a continent.

--
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Really Stupid Idea by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2010-07-31 04:40 · Score: 1

This is a Really Stupid Idea. 5 people from 5 different countries have to all get together in the same place to restore the signing key to restart a trusted Internet. If civilization has truly gone down the tubes otherwise, just getting to the next town, let alone across an ocean, just isn't likely. This is all just a PR puff-piece of something unlikely to ever actually work out as intended in practice.

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

Re:Really Stupid Idea by blueg3 · 2010-07-31 12:47 · Score: 1

Or they have to mail the smart card containing the key part. Or they have to encrypt the bits on the smart card and send them to a common location. If public-key encryption or the ability to send bits from point A to point B are broken, then restoring DNSSEC isn't really going to do much for you.

LOTR by Shadyman · 2010-07-31 04:58 · Score: 1

One Card to rule them all, One Card to find them,
One Card to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Canada where the Shadows lie.

Wheeeeeh! by sgt_doom · 2010-07-31 05:23 · Score: 1

I am soooooo glad you explained this.

I had just been handed the assignment, from the World Domination Society, to plan the covert murders of all seven. Now I realize it won't be necessary.....at least not at this time.

[Amerika is Skynet]

Just store it in Poland.... by sgt_doom · 2010-07-31 05:26 · Score: 1

...no one will ever find it there. (Czech Republic has the best looking women!)

Five of seven to recover by symbolset · 2010-07-31 08:04 · Score: 1

Five of seven required to recover means three of seven to block recovery of the key.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.

Re:Sigh for ISO 8601 Re:We don't live in the movie by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 09:32 · Score: 0

Have you noticed the all the movie trailers for the last nine years that ended with a big bold font displaying something like "04.07.06"? It's the Universally Ambiguous Date Format. Of course GP couldn't even get that right....

Uh by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-31 17:08 · Score: 0

Why so few???? And why is it secret???? Why not have 3000 copies? Don't we have that many trustworthy people?

Devised by Tolkien by erik.martino · 2010-08-01 05:04 · Score: 1

This sounds like something from Lord of the Rings or Silmarillion. I hope they don't have the same corrupting power.

Re:Really FOURTEEN different halves = 7 ? by aqk · 2010-08-01 16:21 · Score: 0

The article does state that you need 5 of 7 to restore.

So if three of them should happen to suffer an unfortunate "accident", everything is totally screwed?

YES! But I say we get all seven, just to be sure!
And, perhaps Al Gore also, for starting this jimcrackery in the first place.

Frankly, I'm tired of this interweb nonsense with all its tubes.
I would like to get back to my productive REAL-WORLD job. (Fashioning grapplegrommets out of laminated chickenfat)
Hey- the interweb was fun, but it (and this slashdot jibber-jabber) has gone on long enough, don't you think?

Time to get back to work, ladies!
I'm buying a plane ticket to Ottawa shortly. I suggest that any of you /.ers that know something about those other six loose-loafer poseurs, track 'em down respectively. And let's do the job RIGHT this time.

--

.
- aqk
F U /. illiterates.

If the phonebooks ignited... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-08-03 16:07 · Score: 0

5% of all monitors in the US would fall over.
(based on actual observation)

Re:A British key-holder interview by Anonymous Coward · 2010-08-03 16:52 · Score: 0

He uses a CRT monitor?

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The Canadian Who Holds the Key To the Internet

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