In the US however, merely posting details about a circumvention method (w/few exceptions, such as a scholarly discussion, as in this conversation) is in violation of the DMCA.
They will soon take your DNA, without your agreement.
This is already the case in California. Get charged or simply arrested for a felony, get your DNA added to the dbase. Done deal. Doesn't matter if you're guilty or not. An arrest is all it takes.
If you install XCode 2.0 (free with OSX 10.4) it contains template project code to create your own metadata importers. The OpenOffice people would need to create an importer and stick it in/Library/Spotlight. It's a fairly trivial task.
I guess this would extend to beta releases as well. Possession of a copy of Tiger would now carry a similar penalty as possession of a schedule IV drug.
Also, as I understand it, the write head does not write PRECISELY right on top of the previous sector. Apparently, HD recovery/forensics experts can detect edges of partially written areas on the disk. In other words, if you bumped the hard drive and the head is shifted by some insignificant amount (for normal use), it doesn't completely write over the block it did previously. And if you have sensitive enough equipment, you can apparently detect portions of previous writes.
I think writing zeros makes it even easier to detect because it's the same thing over and over. OS X for example, has a secure erase trash function that writes random junk over the data seven times. This is apparently in accordance with US Department of Defense requirements.
DRM still does nothing about the analog hole in either case, unless you are going to have "trusted speakers", which I believe they are working on.
I wonder how far they will try to take this?
Well obviously next is "trusted eardrums", which will require extensive surgery to implant.
Once that is broken (hopefully the DRM, not the eardrum), there will be "trusted neural bundles", followed by "trusted audio processing lobes" followed by "trusted brains" followed, finally, by "trusted people".
Wouldn't it be nice if they could just skip all those steps and put some trust in people in the first place?
I've been using a Mac for a year or so, and I keep finding that nearly everything that I do is possible, but much slower than on any X-Windows box. It's partly that dumb 1-button "mouse", but there are other problems, too.
Would you please get over this already? Your mac is just as one, two.. three.. four five.. mouse button capable as your Linux box, and the scroll wheel will work too. Just buy one. You'll see.
The simplest example is copy-and-paste. You can always do this. But the X-Windows scheme is quick and simple (and doesn't involve the keyboard at all); just three quick clicks or a click-swipe-release-click. OSX is materially slower, though slightly faster sometimes than Windows.
Why? Swipe over the text, right click, choose Copy. Same thing as in GNOME or whatever. No keyboard needed. (there's no keyboard in pulling down from the menu either)
linux and other X-Windows systems implements focus-follows-pointer
if you install X11 on OS X you'd find it works there too, so you could have the full-on Linux experience right on your Mac. I don't happen to like this behavior. You can change this setting by typing the following in the Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true
Incidentally, if you click on a button in a background window in OS X, not only will the window take focus (which I see as a plus) but the button you pressed will be processed as a regular click as if it were in the foreground when you clicked it.
With Windows or OS X, you have to go through a real song and dance to locate and raise a hidden window (which you often didn't want to hide).
There's exposé, and I know there are other short cuts (alt-tab will bring up other applications.. There's got to be a short cut for cycling through all windows. Though I don't know what it is.)
"Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth."
I've seriously seen the above used to argue that God's divinity is recognized in the Constitution. (counter-argument: names of days and months in the Constitution recognize divinity of ancient Greek and Roman gods.)
I've always felt those "five senses" were an overgeneralization. I mean, taste and smell are basically the same thing, aren't they? As I understand it, smell is basically your nose "tasting" molecules captured from the air. Your sense of taste, meanwhile, is pretty hampered when you plug your nose.
Isn't hearing basically a type of interpreted "feeling"-- your inner ear contains small hairs that feel the compression of air, which are then experienced as sound.
Since people are talking about phantom-limb, I think one might also mention the reverse-- the sense that your body extends beyond its normal self-- ie, that weird feeling that you've 'fused' with a car/game/musical instrument so that they feel like an attachment or extension to you-- that you become so comfortable with them that you don't think of the interface between you and that object.
When I'm driving for long periods of time, I do sometimes feel as though the car has become to some effect an extension of my body. To move the car, I don't conciously think that I need to use my arms to turn the wheel, I just kind of will the car to turn, and my arms do what's necessary. I've had this experience with video games as well. In a way, your brain accepts that you've become part OF that object. Another example-- once I learned to type, I no longer needed to think about the mechanics of typing, the words just kind of flow to the screen as I think them.
I guess one's brain just adapts itself to your physical "hookup" and tries to streamline the input and output streams so that they are as efficient as possible.
So, yeah, I agree that the 5 senses idea seems kind of over-simplified. I suspect that whatever your nerves are wired to, after along enough your brain will adapt enough to accept it as a source of "input". I'm sure this has been tried. Does anyone know of an experiment like this one where a person's senses were "extended" via hardware?
And what about that creepy-- and often annoying-- feeling that someone's reading over your shoulder? That "feeling" that you're being watched? What's that all about? Which of the five senses is used to describe THAT?;)
Well that's a bummer. Well, I guess I was misremembering exactly how it worked. I knew someone would correct me;) So it's not brute forcing the keyspace itself.. but isn't the effect the same?
Please explain how a quantum computers "breaks" AES. Please
Caveat: I'm not an expert, and this is just my understanding.
Basically, to crack AES using a brute force method, you have to try every potential key in the keyspace in a linear fashion-- ie, you start at the beginning and pile down the list. ("Not this one. Not this one either. Not this one.." etc.) Of course you can distribute the effort across many computers and each does a portion, but every possible solution must be independently tested.
Quantum computing, again as best as I understand it-- and I know someone will correct me if I'm wrong here-- works totally differently than a normal computer. Rather than stepping through an instruction serially, many potential outcomes can be evaluated simultaneously, in parallel. How is this possible? Well, a "bit" in regular computing may hold the result of one attempt to find an answer (0 or 1), but a "qubit" in quantum computing can hold many, many potential solutions all at once.
The result is what was a linear process is turned on its side and every solution is processed with a single quantum operation. With a quantum calculation, the "right" answer is arrived at quickly. What would take thousands or millions of years to run through serially can be done in a fraction of the time, as in minutes, as trillions of potential solutions are checked in one fell swoop.
How this is done sounds like magic to me. It has something to do with reading the "superposition" state of a qubit and then using probability to narrow through the possible solutions until you arrive at the correct one. I've heard it described as a simultaneous evaluation of multiple universes where each universe has a different, known solution, and then figuring out which universe we happen to be in.
The overall point is that any encryption algorythm which can be cracked by doing the same operation over and over until the key is found (but relies on the practical impossibility of doing that) is succeptable to quantum computers' massively parallel computations.
I don't know if this made any sense (I haven't read about quantum computing stuff for a few years so it's getting a little hazy), but this page is a good introduction to these concepts.
On the other hand, a future which offers quantum computing may also provide unclonable encryption and quantum key distribution, which I understand is more secure than current encryption methods.
At least that's what I've read. It didn't show up in a quick trademark search for "hollywood sign" Has any other city landmark (Eiffel tower, etc.) been trademarked like this?
I've only had these problems with the 1.0 version. The beta was more stable it seems. In general, wen it works, it works great. I imagine whatever the problem is will be ironed out quickly.
W
PS: Sounds like a good deal. As soon as I sell off this bridge I bought in Manhattan and the swamp land I bought in FL, I should have enough...;)
Nope. Not that I've found, and I've been using the betas for both Linux and OS X up to the release today. Both work pretty well, and I get the feeling that Skype is pretty clueful as far as spyware goes. I mean, they encrypt communication by deafult.
I have noticed some problems though with both the 1.0.0.1 release of Linux and OS X's 1.0.0.0. I would think it's my machine only, but testing Skype requires (okay there is that echo account for testing, but you know what I mean) others, and others ahve been having problems too.
In Linux, I've had problems getting conferencing working properly, when using a USB headset (/dev/dsp1), rings are not heard on the/dev/dsp as set in the preferences. Also, I had a weird thing happen where the skype screen is only half-drawn.
In the 1.0 Mac version, someone who I was talking to suddenly cut out. Turned out Skype crashed on 'em. I also had some conferencing issues on my mac.
Overall however, skype is great. The fact that you can do conferencing + IMs and voice chat is encrypte is a big plus. the sound quality is great as well. Congrats Skype!
Slashdot Mirror
In the US however, merely posting details about a circumvention method (w/few exceptions, such as a scholarly discussion, as in this conversation) is in violation of the DMCA.
See UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC. v. SHAWN C. REIMERDES, et al. (ie, the DeCSS case, where 2600 magazine was told they couldn't even link to DeCSS.)
W
a code translation system that can re-map system calls on the fly as well as do very fast optimized recompilation of native code.
Like Speed Doubler did for PPC/68k code back in like 1996.
W
"Ginormous?" "ESPN-onage"?
Rich Hall must be rolling in his grave right now. That is, if he's dead.
If not, surely his career is rolling in its grave...
W
In this sample image it's explicit enough they had to block it out.
W
Well, that was prop 69, not 62. It passed with 62% of the voters. My mistake. Still scary.
W
They will soon take your DNA, without your agreement.
This is already the case in California. Get charged or simply arrested for a felony, get your DNA added to the dbase. Done deal. Doesn't matter if you're guilty or not. An arrest is all it takes.
W
Well there's always going the donation route.
W
If you install XCode 2.0 (free with OSX 10.4) it contains template project code to create your own metadata importers. The OpenOffice people would need to create an importer and stick it in /Library/Spotlight. It's a fairly trivial task.
Try NeoLight.
W
In TFA it's called Revenge of the Screen Savers.
It may be now, but I hear an original "Return of the Screen Savers" poster is worth a lot of $ on ebay...
W
I guess this would extend to beta releases as well. Possession of a copy of Tiger would now carry a similar penalty as possession of a schedule IV drug.
W
Also, as I understand it, the write head does not write PRECISELY right on top of the previous sector. Apparently, HD recovery/forensics experts can detect edges of partially written areas on the disk. In other words, if you bumped the hard drive and the head is shifted by some insignificant amount (for normal use), it doesn't completely write over the block it did previously. And if you have sensitive enough equipment, you can apparently detect portions of previous writes.
I think writing zeros makes it even easier to detect because it's the same thing over and over. OS X for example, has a secure erase trash function that writes random junk over the data seven times. This is apparently in accordance with US Department of Defense requirements.
W
...from the good folks that brought you the hilarious
Parents Primer to Computer Slang.
Now you and your family can be l33t together.
W
DRM still does nothing about the analog hole in either case, unless you are going to have "trusted speakers", which I believe they are working on.
I wonder how far they will try to take this?
Well obviously next is "trusted eardrums", which will require extensive surgery to implant.
Once that is broken (hopefully the DRM, not the eardrum), there will be "trusted neural bundles", followed by "trusted audio processing lobes" followed by "trusted brains" followed, finally, by "trusted people".
Wouldn't it be nice if they could just skip all those steps and put some trust in people in the first place?
W
I've been using a Mac for a year or so, and I keep finding that nearly everything that I do is possible, but much slower than on any X-Windows box. It's partly that dumb 1-button "mouse", but there are other problems, too.
Would you please get over this already? Your mac is just as one, two.. three.. four five.. mouse button capable as your Linux box, and the scroll wheel will work too. Just buy one. You'll see.
The simplest example is copy-and-paste. You can always do this. But the X-Windows scheme is quick and simple (and doesn't involve the keyboard at all); just three quick clicks or a click-swipe-release-click. OSX is materially slower, though slightly faster sometimes than Windows.
Why? Swipe over the text, right click, choose Copy. Same thing as in GNOME or whatever. No keyboard needed. (there's no keyboard in pulling down from the menu either)
linux and other X-Windows systems implements focus-follows-pointer
if you install X11 on OS X you'd find it works there too, so you could have the full-on Linux experience right on your Mac. I don't happen to like this behavior. You can change this setting by typing the following in the Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true
Incidentally, if you click on a button in a background window in OS X, not only will the window take focus (which I see as a plus) but the button you pressed will be processed as a regular click as if it were in the foreground when you clicked it.
With Windows or OS X, you have to go through a real song and dance to locate and raise a hidden window (which you often didn't want to hide).
There's exposé, and I know there are other short cuts (alt-tab will bring up other applications.. There's got to be a short cut for cycling through all windows. Though I don't know what it is.)
W
Of course, the background check part is a bit dumb -- they should have people audit the code, and run background checks on them.
Now THAT'S just silly. What they should do is have background checks on whoever hires the auditors...
W
Down at the bottom... (bold is mine)
I've seriously seen the above used to argue that God's divinity is recognized in the Constitution. (counter-argument: names of days and months in the Constitution recognize divinity of ancient Greek and Roman gods.)
Today is George Washington's bday.
W
I've always felt those "five senses" were an overgeneralization. I mean, taste and smell are basically the same thing, aren't they? As I understand it, smell is basically your nose "tasting" molecules captured from the air. Your sense of taste, meanwhile, is pretty hampered when you plug your nose.
;)
Isn't hearing basically a type of interpreted "feeling"-- your inner ear contains small hairs that feel the compression of air, which are then experienced as sound.
Since people are talking about phantom-limb, I think one might also mention the reverse-- the sense that your body extends beyond its normal self-- ie, that weird feeling that you've 'fused' with a car/game/musical instrument so that they feel like an attachment or extension to you-- that you become so comfortable with them that you don't think of the interface between you and that object.
When I'm driving for long periods of time, I do sometimes feel as though the car has become to some effect an extension of my body. To move the car, I don't conciously think that I need to use my arms to turn the wheel, I just kind of will the car to turn, and my arms do what's necessary. I've had this experience with video games as well. In a way, your brain accepts that you've become part OF that object. Another example-- once I learned to type, I no longer needed to think about the mechanics of typing, the words just kind of flow to the screen as I think them.
I guess one's brain just adapts itself to your physical "hookup" and tries to streamline the input and output streams so that they are as efficient as possible.
So, yeah, I agree that the 5 senses idea seems kind of over-simplified. I suspect that whatever your nerves are wired to, after along enough your brain will adapt enough to accept it as a source of "input". I'm sure this has been tried. Does anyone know of an experiment like this one where a person's senses were "extended" via hardware?
And what about that creepy-- and often annoying-- feeling that someone's reading over your shoulder? That "feeling" that you're being watched? What's that all about? Which of the five senses is used to describe THAT?
W
Now that's funny. ..and not funny at the same time ;)
W
Well that's a bummer. Well, I guess I was misremembering exactly how it worked. I knew someone would correct me ;) So it's not brute forcing the keyspace itself.. but isn't the effect the same?
W
Please explain how a quantum computers "breaks" AES. Please
Caveat: I'm not an expert, and this is just my understanding.
Basically, to crack AES using a brute force method, you have to try every potential key in the keyspace in a linear fashion-- ie, you start at the beginning and pile down the list. ("Not this one. Not this one either. Not this one.." etc.) Of course you can distribute the effort across many computers and each does a portion, but every possible solution must be independently tested.
Quantum computing, again as best as I understand it-- and I know someone will correct me if I'm wrong here-- works totally differently than a normal computer. Rather than stepping through an instruction serially, many potential outcomes can be evaluated simultaneously, in parallel. How is this possible? Well, a "bit" in regular computing may hold the result of one attempt to find an answer (0 or 1), but a "qubit" in quantum computing can hold many, many potential solutions all at once.
The result is what was a linear process is turned on its side and every solution is processed with a single quantum operation. With a quantum calculation, the "right" answer is arrived at quickly. What would take thousands or millions of years to run through serially can be done in a fraction of the time, as in minutes, as trillions of potential solutions are checked in one fell swoop.
How this is done sounds like magic to me. It has something to do with reading the "superposition" state of a qubit and then using probability to narrow through the possible solutions until you arrive at the correct one. I've heard it described as a simultaneous evaluation of multiple universes where each universe has a different, known solution, and then figuring out which universe we happen to be in.
The overall point is that any encryption algorythm which can be cracked by doing the same operation over and over until the key is found (but relies on the practical impossibility of doing that) is succeptable to quantum computers' massively parallel computations.
I don't know if this made any sense (I haven't read about quantum computing stuff for a few years so it's getting a little hazy), but this page is a good introduction to these concepts.
W
On the other hand, a future which offers quantum computing may also provide unclonable encryption and quantum key distribution, which I understand is more secure than current encryption methods.
W
Try including a shot of the Hollywood Sign in a motion picture. Turns out, it's is not just a city landmark, but a trademarked brand owned by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which cannot be included in a distributed film without paying licensing fees.
At least that's what I've read. It didn't show up in a quick trademark search for "hollywood sign" Has any other city landmark (Eiffel tower, etc.) been trademarked like this?
W
I've only had these problems with the 1.0 version. The beta was more stable it seems. In general, wen it works, it works great. I imagine whatever the problem is will be ironed out quickly.
;)
W
PS: Sounds like a good deal. As soon as I sell off this bridge I bought in Manhattan and the swamp land I bought in FL, I should have enough...
Nope. Not that I've found, and I've been using the betas for both Linux and OS X up to the release today. Both work pretty well, and I get the feeling that Skype is pretty clueful as far as spyware goes. I mean, they encrypt communication by deafult.
/dev/dsp as set in the preferences. Also, I had a weird thing happen where the skype screen is only half-drawn.
I have noticed some problems though with both the 1.0.0.1 release of Linux and OS X's 1.0.0.0. I would think it's my machine only, but testing Skype requires (okay there is that echo account for testing, but you know what I mean) others, and others ahve been having problems too.
In Linux, I've had problems getting conferencing working properly, when using a USB headset (/dev/dsp1), rings are not heard on the
In the 1.0 Mac version, someone who I was talking to suddenly cut out. Turned out Skype crashed on 'em. I also had some conferencing issues on my mac.
Overall however, skype is great. The fact that you can do conferencing + IMs and voice chat is encrypte is a big plus. the sound quality is great as well. Congrats Skype!
Gentoo users-- 1.0 was in ~arch this morning!
W
Whoops. That wasn't supposed to be anonymous.
W