ActiveX is not a big part of the bugs or of a poor design. It is just a misfeature. Microsoft could overnight throw out ActiveX and be in the same position as Firefox when it comes to those controls, as such it is not a fundamental design flaw.
Actually, (for example) IE implements the XMLHTTPRequest (javascript) object as an ActiveX control. This is a favourite new toy for very spiffy interactive webpages (think AJAX). Examples of things that break if you turn ActiveX off: Gmail, google maps, google suggest.. etc.
This in turn causes users to not turn off ActiveX (the tin-foil-hat crowd would tell you this isn't a coincidence) because it would fundamentally break many really useful websites.
A "server" as you know it, like Karana for example does not translate to a physical box or cluster per se. It's actually run on a per zone basis. For example both Karana and Bertoxx could be running on the same physical machine, or Karana's zones could be split out across 20 physical boxes. It's possible that LDON zones for example are all on the same server cluster independent from the other servers. This is really more of a name-change. They're not going to turn the 18 "servers" off, they are just going to be working some of the zones of the servers that continue to exist.
Also, it was my understanding that this massive merger was announced because the earlier mergers had produced results where the combined server would have more than the combined active population post-merge, meaning the merger brought a lot of people back into the game as their servers were no longer ghost towns.
wow. i had to look 3 times to read what was actually written there. at first i thought, don't those two words mean the same thing?
it's time to go home. looooong day at work.
Re:No boom, you will just scorch the paint
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Port-A-Nuke
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The sentence referred to the ability of the squad itself to move around. But they don't want the whole reactor- only a few 100 pounds of nuclear fuel will be enough.
Yes, yes I was being sarcastic... you know.. funny laugh? The point still holds that they can't easily move that reactor around. It's not like a big box with a lock you break of and grab the fissile material and run. To get to that they need big heavy equipment, specialized training and a good bit of time.
Irrelevant. These people have guns and can threaten the authorized operators. They can own ("pwn") the site for days if necessary.
Are you trying to prove you didn't read the article? These units are self contained and sealed. Noone works there. You CANT JUST OPEN THEM UP. There is noone to take hostage. Here let me help you: (2nd and 3rd paragraph from the article):
The aim is to create a sealed reactor that can be delivered to a site, left to generate power for up to 30 years, and retrieved when its fuel is spent. The developers claim that no one would be able to remove the fissile material from the reactor because its core would be inside a tamper-proof cask protected by a thicket of alarms.
Reactor in a box
Known as the small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor (SSTAR), the machine will generate power without needing refuelling or maintenance...
They can't own the site for days. The reactor automatically calls for help the second someone tries to break in. You can be fairly assured the government/military will not give you a few days time playing with that thing. What they will do if they can't send in a special forces team is probably just drop a very big bomb on it. Kill everone there, minnimal radiation leak if any, just drop off a new reactor later.
It's quite easy. Wilderness borders, such as between the USA and Canada, are not hard to penetrate. Expecting border guards to catch 100 pound weapons is not realistic.
The border between the USA and Canada is a bogous example, because getting the material into Canada in the first place without getting noticed is just as difficult. All border stations have radiation detectors that would go off the scale if you carried a few pounds of fissile material around.
Bringing it directly into a port city by ship works too. Cargos aren't inspected today, although they will be soon- but even when that happens, the inspectors won't visit cargo vessels until they're already inside the port.
First, you don't need to inspect cargo to find radioactive material, especially several pounds of it. A few radioactivity meaters will do just fine, and they are already in use in almost all airports, sea ports, and along highwars and all over major cities. People in New York keep getting arrested after radioactive treatments for cancer when they are trying to use the metro (Google for those stories - make for a funny reading). These systems are in place, and they pick up small changes in radioactivity quite readily.
Wheather the material is in the port is irrelevant (as explained in the portion you decided to leave out in your response). A dirty bomb is still just a regular bomb, the radioactivity has virtually ZERO lethal effect, especially if you're not in a densely populated area (like a sea port). Even then the best you can hope for is to give a few people cancer if you're lucky. IT'S JUST HYPE. The government would hand out iodine pills if something like this happened, and you'll maybe get a situation where the local populations develops a barely noticable higher chance of getting cancer.
Relative to other portable WMD, nuclear devices are easier to detect, but they're all pretty low.
A dirty bomb is NOT a nuclear device. It is not a WMD. It's just a bomb. Radioactive material in any significant quantity is very readily detected, especially material that can be used for a reactor. It is still inherently not very dan
Re:No boom, you will just scorch the paint
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Port-A-Nuke
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· Score: 1
Heh I had to laugh when I was thinking about a squad of militants moving a 500 ton piece of equipment "rather freely.". Plus they are completely or partially burried. That would take a lot of time and some very heavy equipment that for one isn't readily available to your squad, and even if they got their hands on it, those huge cranes and tractors move so slow and are so hard to hide on satelite images, we'd have a special forces team waiting at the reactor for them when they get there. Aside from the fact that they have GPS transmitters/receivers keeping track of their location and a alarm system that detects tampering. I'm sure they aren't going to make it easy to get into them either. Your philips head screwdriver only helps unmantling nuclear devices in movies.
And then to top it all off, let's assume they manage to get past all these obstacles. Now they have a few pounds of some radioactive material. They still need to deliver it, and bringing radioactive material into the country is by no means easily done. And then, even if they did manage to do that, all a dirty bomb is going to do (beyond the explosion of the conventional explosive) is disperse a small amount of radioactivity, maybe even give a handful of people thyroid cancer (also remember that those radioactive materials are just metal. They mostly don't explode into dust if you just put some explosives next to it. It would probably break into a few large chungks that get hurled a few hundred feet and that's about it). I think we all learned that there are much better ways that terrorists have found to kill much larger number of people with say airplanes for example. The only real impact a dirty bomb would have is everybody freaking out because they see a nuclear symbol on their over-hyped news.
In conclusion, your concern isn't invalid, but they thought about that when they created this project, and the risks are very managable.
Sure, but that's a very general use of the word "radar" in the sense that they are only referring to electromagnetic waves. I can guarantee you they are in a different frequency than the actual radar as in the system that sends electromagnetic waves just to read what bounces back (because else you'd never be able to receive the signal due to interference). My point was just that the "radar" as we commonly use the term referring to measuring the relative position to objects that reflect electromagnetic waves is commonly in the same frequency range as the OP's wireless entwork, and therefore interference and thusly loss of connectivity is expected.
I'd also wager that most larger planes and especially military aircraft have their own active radars for one for collision avoidance and two especially near airports for computer assisted landing aproach (I know that larger airports send sort of a beam of radar in the direction of the perfect landing approach angle from the runway and planes can tell if they are in that "path" or not, but I still think planes have their own radar assisting with this). I'm not someone with lots of knowledge about aircraft though, was just pointing out that the most commonly used radar for planes is right in the same spectrum as the wireless network the OP was talking about.
That's actually not really a "signal" they are broadcasting. Your average radar is right around 2.4Ghz, same as the phones, microwaves and your wireless network. But with enough power/interference to make communication in the same spectrum nearly impossible. Very effective jamming... I'm pretty sure they use a completely different spectrum for communication with air traffic control - for much the same reason.
While you're probably right, the game is so old, that I highly doubt there is any financial loss for Microprose caused by this activity - quite to the contrary this may actually re-generate some interest in the game and cause some sales.
So while you're right, they may be betting on Microprose realizing they only have to gain from it.
If a virus can infest their system, (especially one that exploited a known and easily patchable vulnerability) they weren't taking care of it. The same holds true for any OS. You don't apply patches and fixes and _maintain_ your system, you will eventually run into problems like this. This has nothing to do with the choice of OS. A competently administered Windows box is fine in most scenarios.
"that is an oxymoron.. or actually in reality is' exceedingly rare to find a smart criminal."
That's not an oxymoron.
If they were easy to find, they wouldn't be smart criminals. You don't hear / find / see many smart criminals because they don't brag about it, have careful planning, and often don't get cought.
Here is my favourite (partial).vimrc config for editing html/php:
set nocp set backspace=2 set history=200 set ruler set splitbelow set undolevels=100 set visualbell set mouse=a set showbreak=+\ set foldmethod=marker
" enable syntax highlighting :syntax on
" set the fg colors for some types of words :hi comment ctermfg=2 cterm=NONE " dark green :hi constant ctermfg=2 cterm=bold " light green :hi operator ctermfg=1 cterm=bold " light red :hi type ctermfg=7 cterm=bold " light white :hi function ctermfg=4 cterm=bold " light blue :hi statement ctermfg=1 cterm=bold " light red :hi identifier ctermfg=3 cterm=bold " light yellow :hi special ctermfg=6 cterm=bold " light cyan :hi phpSpecialChar ctermfg=6 cterm=bold " light cyan. needed because sometimes
" special is not recognized :hi include ctermfg=7 cterm=bold " light white :hi define ctermfg=7 cterm=bold " light white :hi delimiter ctermfg=6 cterm=bold " light cyan
Not sure why you would call this a Troll, since it's accurate.
Einstain did not say that the speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest attainable speed. He said that it would take an infinite amount of energy to speed up any object/particle that has mass to that speed from below that speed. And that has pretty much been proven.
It somewhat implies that the speed of light is a barrier, but it doesn't exclude the possibility of particles/objects that move faster than the speed of light, and it doesn't say anything about mass-less "things" (for lack of a better word).
I don't have time to google right now, but I remember some type of experiment that was performed where one of Mozart's symphonies was digitized and sent through a special wire/medium that was virtually devoid of electrons with insane voltage. They measured the time it took for the electrons(or was it the voltage?) to cross the wire and sometimes it seemed that they were moving at up to 5 times the speed of light... I may be wrong but that's how I remember reading about it. Something about particles "borrowing" huge amounts of energy from vacuum, doing something strange and then returning it.
"I'm not particularly impressed by your abusive language in lack of real arguments."
Since you obviously have some serious difficulty navigating around/. here is a link to the argument I made in great detail.
"But since I'm in a friendly mood, but friendless, I might add, I've made you my first abusive Slashdot friend."
I'm not surprised you are friendless..
And regarding "abusive Slashdot friend", the word you're looking for is "foe".
Still daring you to actually respond to my arguments. But I'm not holding my breath..
By the way, once again you made some weird choice in what to reply to. The first part of what you replied to (Now show us that you can do more than mock me and respond with an intelligent post and prove me wrong. (...)) you completely ignored. Why did you put it there? Need some instructions on how to copy and paste? Or can't put the bong down long enough to remember what you were going to reply to?
And the second part that you replied to (See I feel it's ok to call someone a moron or whatever if there is some beef behind what I say.) also has nothing to do with what you replied to. That's a fully valid statement. If someone is an idiot (and since you don't get generalizations, I am NOT calling you an idiot) and I can show "they" are an idiot, then I feel it is fully apropriate for me to call them an idiot.
Did you want to disagree and actually make an argument? Go ahead.
That is not abusive language, and that is a real argument.
If you have something to say, respond to my long post that explains why your post makes no sense and disprove it.
I did rip apart your argument there and I did show the world what a moron you are, and if you look at the score on the post, it seems people agree.
Now show us that you can do more than mock me and respond with an intelligent post and prove me wrong. If you can do that, I have no problem admitting my fault.
See I feel it's ok to call someone a moron or whatever if there is some beef behind what I say. I made a long post explaining my point. If you have one, write something that's more than two sentences making fun of me. Stop acting like a child and attack my argument instead of me.
Heh you know what's funny? I perfectly predicted your inability to have a meaningful conversation. The only thing you chose to reply to was the part that I figured you'd get. Bravo!
By the way I had good reasons to be upset at you. You made several snipes at me due to your ineptitude in reading comprehension. If you attack people for wrong reasons after they point out to you that you are incorrect.. well what do you expect?
Just as I expected, people like you can't be argued with. So I just call you a name and leave it at that, because I know you understand that.
And now you bitch about the moderators, who actually understand what I was saying and agree.
"Of course the OS no longer supported by Microsoft, since it's intended to run on PC that in the rich world is "obsolete". Do you think that P4 3.4 GHz with 1GB RAM and DSL line is common i Africa?"
What does that have to with what I said? You totatally missed the point on the parent post. Why is it "Of Course" no longer supported? There are several large companies that support their products for decades, and the fact that Win98 is no longer supported is one of a constantly reoccuring heated debate, even here on slashdot.
What does your snotty comment try to say? No I don't think that a state of the art computer is common in Africa overall, but I also completly resent your notion that it's not there. Africa is not all 3rd world. There are big, civilized cities and even Democracies. And yes, they have modern computers and Internet access.
Go back and read what the parent wrote and what you replied. Your post makes no sense, and taking a cheap shot at me is not going to change that, ass.
And a machine that runs Win98 is by no means obsolete. What does the OS have to do with the hardware? I still run Win98 SE on several machines. It's a very stable single user OS. But again, that wasn't part of this discussion you moron.
"Perhaps because the moderator realizes that very many in the world is poor, and has to do with what they have?"
Again, your lack of reading comprehension is monumental. Not only did you miss what the orignal poster said, and what I said, but even though I specifically pointed out that you missed the point, you didn't go back and read what was said. RTFA. This has __NOTHING__ to do with how poor someone is. a) these computers are being provided for FREE anyway. b) it doesn't cost M$ anything to provide copies of their OS c) what the OP pointed out is that since it doesn't cost them anything anyway, why didn't they put a supported OS like WinME on the machines, but instead chose a product that has EOLed like Win98. Either one will run fine on comparable Hardware.
"Btw, as far as I know, Win 2000 is not EOLed."
NOONE said Win2K was EOLed. Where do you pull this crap from? And by the way, it was supposed to EOL just a few days ago on 03/31/04. From what I understand they extended it another year, but I'm not sure on that.
"But then again, you don't run obsolete and old software when you can have shiny new XP to impress your friends?"
Another cheap shot at me for what? And again, stop pulling shit out of your ass. I never said I run XP or anything like that. In fact, the machine I'm writing this on uses *gasp* Win98 SE.
Learn how to read, and how to think logically, then RTFA otherwise don't bother replying.
Oh, and since you don't understand logic, try this: go fuck yourself.
You completely missed the point. It's not about whether the OS can run on those machines, but the fact that they are giving away/install an OS that is no longer supported (ie EOLed - End Of Life-ed).
And why did the post get modded up? Because it suggested that Linux may work on a machine that Win2K won't? Lamers.
First, thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure you'd write back.
"If there are individual readers for each one, build a device that incorporates all of them try one at a time until you get an expected result." Sorry, it doesn't work like that. You can't just tape them all together. See, the problem is that they're all emitting and reading RF, and if you have more than one active at a time, you'll get nasty interference. The fact is, it is hard to build a device that does multiple frequencies and protocols. I really meant, run one reader on one frequency - then if you get no good response, turn its transmitter off. Then try the next one and so on, in other words avoid interference by trying one at a time. (But again.. I'm no RF engineer, this is just how I imagined it and am just clarifying what I ment)
"But what makes you think anti-collision is even necessary for my argument?" Anti-collision is necessary for any reader on any of the of the protocols you mentioned. Otherwise if you have two tags in the field and your reader tries to read the tags in the field, they'll both try to answer at the same time and interfere with eachother (collide). AC is one of the hard parts of any shared medium communication, be it aloha-net, ethernet or RFID. While anti-collision may be required by those protocols, many uses of RFID tags (as I imagine them) do not need to deal with this. A "key" reader for example - if there are two tags in the reading range, it shouldn't unlock the door. Only if there is one key, and it has a valid authorized code should the door be unlocked. Same goes for Speed Passes and many similar applications. In these situations it would almost be a "feature" that they don't work when there are two keys present. Of course anti-collision mechanisms will definitely be needed in, say a retail environment, or with long range tags.
Anyhow, you don't have to be an RF engineer to participate in RFID discussions. But if you're completely misinformed about the subject, then you're just spreading FUD, and that's what I object to. You're absolutely right, and I stand corrected on several issues you've pointed out.
"They don't have batteries, which is the only reason for their limited range. They get power directly from the radio waves." Half-true. Some RFID tags are powered or active, some are unpowered or passive. I actually didn't know this when I wrote this, I only found out when I did some more research today. For me, when thinking of RFID tags I just didn't think of a powered device which to me seems more like an integrated wireless device. Again, I stand corrected.
"They are now weaving them into of clothing, they are inside your tires, and in the handle of your razor." They are not weaving them into clothing. I challenge you to find me one quote where they say they're doing that. I think that rumour may have started when a Wired article claimed that "Prada already embeds RFID inventory tags into its clothing". But a little research shows that is simply a tag that they put on in one particular store, which is probably removed when it is sold, and it is very visible to the customer: "Pick up any pair of shoes or handbag or dress and you'll find a clear RFID tag, with the antenna and chip clearly visible." See, it's the antenna that's difficult. Sure, the RFID chip is tiny, but the antennas are pretty big, normally on the order of 10cm by 3cm or so, so weaving it into clothing just wouldn't work. Here are three examples: Benetton, Marks & Spencer, and KSW-Microtec - they make wearable/washable tags specifically to be embedded in clothing. (These may not be the best links, but further reasearch on each of them can easily be found by googling.)
As for tires and rasors, I sincerely doubt that that's the case
You obviously know a lot about this issue. I never did or even tried to dispute that.
I never claimed I knew all the ins and outs of this technology either. And as far as the technical aspects go, I don't have a problem admitting that I'm in a little over my head.
I've done my share of reading on it however, more so the social implications than the technical implementations. I'm not an electrical engineer, and didn't claim to be one. The statement I made seemed plausible conclusions to me, given what I see is available right now - from what I've read.
Now to your questions:
"""What makes you so sure "it's not so hard to scan a few frequencies and try a few protocols"?""" If there are individual readers for each one, build a device that incorporates all of them try one at a time until you get an expected result. I'm not saying that's quickly done, or with little resources, but I bet you'd agree it's likely possible, and a large entitity (corporation/government etc) could bring up the resources. I'm saying it's not hard because it doesn't require inventing anything or depends on unproven technology. It's just a matter of combining existing technology.
"""Have you ever implemented an anti-collision search for any of those standards you mention?""" No (although you already knew that). But what makes you think anti-collision is even necessary for my argument? Your examples ("Mobil Speedpass", keyless entry pass, garage entry pass) are probably all systems that would not function under collision situations, nor do they need to. There is a collision and you get bad data? Ignore it. Fully acceptable for those situations. The same would be true for RFID tags in tires. You get two in the reader area? - Ignore it, you'll get a good read at the next intersection.
"""Do you have any idea what the hardware and software requirements of doing a multi-protocol reader are?""" No. Neither does anybody that doesn't have the resources to seriously consider and spec out such a project. And it's not really relevant to this discussion anyway. However, I doubt that they would be much larger than the combined requirements for each individual device - since at least some software and hardware parts will be usable for several of the individual readers.
"""The protocol is nothing like a simple 'ping-pong', whatever that is.""" With ping-pong i only meant transmit request (ping) and receive response (pong). I've never actually looked at the protocols in detail.
"""The tough part is the "anti-collision" part. What happens when there are two tags in the field? How do you ensure that only one tag responds so you can read it without RF interference?""" Again, I'm no electrical engineer, but I would imagine something like a signal that causes random short delays in sending the response, and then repeat until you get a clear response from each tag. Or maybe each tag can be on one of X number of channels, that get scanned sequentially, greatly reducing the potential of collisions etc... Anyways, I know several devices on the market can do this, so this problem has already been solved, ie is technically feasible, so the argument about it is mute - it can be (and has been) done.
"""You're talking out of your ass. Admit it and either accept that you're scared of technology you don't understand, or learn about it then comment.""" Well I'll respond to that with a quote "Obscenity is the last refuge of the inarticulate motherfucker."
You're trying to say that I can't argue/discuss these things unless I'm an expert in the field and know every little technical implementation detail. If you don't see a flaw in that, please don't respond. I know you read this anyway.
This discussion was origianlly about the social effects of RFID tags, and whether concern about widespread implementation was justified. You picked up on a line that may have been technically a bit of a stretch (or even plain incorrect), but rea
Granted the statement was an exaggeration, but so is yours. "The protocols used are generally not published"... there are several ISO standards (ISO 14443 A/B, ISO 15693, ISO 18000, EPC) that just about everybody uses, same with the frequencies. (125KHz (new), 148KHz (old), 13.56 MHz (probably most common for short range, the one I was referring to), 315 MHz (long range, expensive))
Check these out. They read just about any standard on 13.56MHz (and really, almost everybody uses that frequency).
If I had some more time I'd google around a bit, but I'd bet most of what you'll find (95%+) will be a variation of one of the above.
I bet you, if they don't already exist, it will be a short time until someone makes a universal RFID tag reader. It's not hard to scan a few frequencies and try a few different protocols. Especially for ReadOnly tags (again, the large majority) because the protocol will be a simple ping-pong.
Slashdot Mirror
ActiveX is not a big part of the bugs or of a poor design. It is just a misfeature. Microsoft could overnight throw out ActiveX and be in the same position as Firefox when it comes to those controls, as such it is not a fundamental design flaw.
Actually, (for example) IE implements the XMLHTTPRequest (javascript) object as an ActiveX control. This is a favourite new toy for very spiffy interactive webpages (think AJAX). Examples of things that break if you turn ActiveX off: Gmail, google maps, google suggest.. etc.
This in turn causes users to not turn off ActiveX (the tin-foil-hat crowd would tell you this isn't a coincidence) because it would fundamentally break many really useful websites.
A "server" as you know it, like Karana for example does not translate to a physical box or cluster per se. It's actually run on a per zone basis. For example both Karana and Bertoxx could be running on the same physical machine, or Karana's zones could be split out across 20 physical boxes. It's possible that LDON zones for example are all on the same server cluster independent from the other servers. This is really more of a name-change. They're not going to turn the 18 "servers" off, they are just going to be working some of the zones of the servers that continue to exist.
Also, it was my understanding that this massive merger was announced because the earlier mergers had produced results where the combined server would have more than the combined active population post-merge, meaning the merger brought a lot of people back into the game as their servers were no longer ghost towns.
wow. i had to look 3 times to read what was actually written there. at first i thought, don't those two words mean the same thing?
it's time to go home. looooong day at work.
Yes, yes I was being sarcastic... you know.. funny laugh? The point still holds that they can't easily move that reactor around. It's not like a big box with a lock you break of and grab the fissile material and run. To get to that they need big heavy equipment, specialized training and a good bit of time.
Irrelevant. These people have guns and can threaten the authorized operators. They can own ("pwn") the site for days if necessary.
Are you trying to prove you didn't read the article? These units are self contained and sealed. Noone works there. You CANT JUST OPEN THEM UP. There is noone to take hostage. Here let me help you: (2nd and 3rd paragraph from the article):
They can't own the site for days. The reactor automatically calls for help the second someone tries to break in. You can be fairly assured the government/military will not give you a few days time playing with that thing. What they will do if they can't send in a special forces team is probably just drop a very big bomb on it. Kill everone there, minnimal radiation leak if any, just drop off a new reactor later.
It's quite easy. Wilderness borders, such as between the USA and Canada, are not hard to penetrate. Expecting border guards to catch 100 pound weapons is not realistic.
The border between the USA and Canada is a bogous example, because getting the material into Canada in the first place without getting noticed is just as difficult. All border stations have radiation detectors that would go off the scale if you carried a few pounds of fissile material around.
Bringing it directly into a port city by ship works too. Cargos aren't inspected today, although they will be soon- but even when that happens, the inspectors won't visit cargo vessels until they're already inside the port.
First, you don't need to inspect cargo to find radioactive material, especially several pounds of it. A few radioactivity meaters will do just fine, and they are already in use in almost all airports, sea ports, and along highwars and all over major cities. People in New York keep getting arrested after radioactive treatments for cancer when they are trying to use the metro (Google for those stories - make for a funny reading). These systems are in place, and they pick up small changes in radioactivity quite readily.
Wheather the material is in the port is irrelevant (as explained in the portion you decided to leave out in your response). A dirty bomb is still just a regular bomb, the radioactivity has virtually ZERO lethal effect, especially if you're not in a densely populated area (like a sea port). Even then the best you can hope for is to give a few people cancer if you're lucky. IT'S JUST HYPE. The government would hand out iodine pills if something like this happened, and you'll maybe get a situation where the local populations develops a barely noticable higher chance of getting cancer.
Relative to other portable WMD, nuclear devices are easier to detect, but they're all pretty low.
A dirty bomb is NOT a nuclear device. It is not a WMD. It's just a bomb. Radioactive material in any significant quantity is very readily detected, especially material that can be used for a reactor. It is still inherently not very dan
Heh I had to laugh when I was thinking about a squad of militants moving a 500 ton piece of equipment "rather freely.". Plus they are completely or partially burried. That would take a lot of time and some very heavy equipment that for one isn't readily available to your squad, and even if they got their hands on it, those huge cranes and tractors move so slow and are so hard to hide on satelite images, we'd have a special forces team waiting at the reactor for them when they get there. Aside from the fact that they have GPS transmitters/receivers keeping track of their location and a alarm system that detects tampering. I'm sure they aren't going to make it easy to get into them either. Your philips head screwdriver only helps unmantling nuclear devices in movies.
And then to top it all off, let's assume they manage to get past all these obstacles. Now they have a few pounds of some radioactive material. They still need to deliver it, and bringing radioactive material into the country is by no means easily done. And then, even if they did manage to do that, all a dirty bomb is going to do (beyond the explosion of the conventional explosive) is disperse a small amount of radioactivity, maybe even give a handful of people thyroid cancer (also remember that those radioactive materials are just metal. They mostly don't explode into dust if you just put some explosives next to it. It would probably break into a few large chungks that get hurled a few hundred feet and that's about it). I think we all learned that there are much better ways that terrorists have found to kill much larger number of people with say airplanes for example. The only real impact a dirty bomb would have is everybody freaking out because they see a nuclear symbol on their over-hyped news.
In conclusion, your concern isn't invalid, but they thought about that when they created this project, and the risks are very managable.
Sure, but that's a very general use of the word "radar" in the sense that they are only referring to electromagnetic waves. I can guarantee you they are in a different frequency than the actual radar as in the system that sends electromagnetic waves just to read what bounces back (because else you'd never be able to receive the signal due to interference). My point was just that the "radar" as we commonly use the term referring to measuring the relative position to objects that reflect electromagnetic waves is commonly in the same frequency range as the OP's wireless entwork, and therefore interference and thusly loss of connectivity is expected.
I'd also wager that most larger planes and especially military aircraft have their own active radars for one for collision avoidance and two especially near airports for computer assisted landing aproach (I know that larger airports send sort of a beam of radar in the direction of the perfect landing approach angle from the runway and planes can tell if they are in that "path" or not, but I still think planes have their own radar assisting with this). I'm not someone with lots of knowledge about aircraft though, was just pointing out that the most commonly used radar for planes is right in the same spectrum as the wireless network the OP was talking about.
That's actually not really a "signal" they are broadcasting. Your average radar is right around 2.4Ghz, same as the phones, microwaves and your wireless network. But with enough power/interference to make communication in the same spectrum nearly impossible. Very effective jamming... I'm pretty sure they use a completely different spectrum for communication with air traffic control - for much the same reason.
While you're probably right, the game is so old, that I highly doubt there is any financial loss for Microprose caused by this activity - quite to the contrary this may actually re-generate some interest in the game and cause some sales.
So while you're right, they may be betting on Microprose realizing they only have to gain from it.
Well I looked around on their site and there is no writeup on that.
I would be seriously surprised if you were correct. I think you're the one that beleives in an Urban Legend.
If a virus can infest their system, (especially one that exploited a known and easily patchable vulnerability) they weren't taking care of it. The same holds true for any OS. You don't apply patches and fixes and _maintain_ your system, you will eventually run into problems like this. This has nothing to do with the choice of OS. A competently administered Windows box is fine in most scenarios.
"that is an oxymoron.. or actually in reality is' exceedingly rare to find a smart criminal."
That's not an oxymoron.
If they were easy to find, they wouldn't be smart criminals. You don't hear / find / see many smart criminals because they don't brag about it, have careful planning, and often don't get cought.
Flamebait? Who the f**k modded that flamebait and why?
It's even on topic...
PRAISE VIM!
.vimrc config for editing html/php:
:syntax on
:hi comment ctermfg=2 cterm=NONE " dark green
:hi constant ctermfg=2 cterm=bold " light green
:hi operator ctermfg=1 cterm=bold " light red
:hi type ctermfg=7 cterm=bold " light white
:hi function ctermfg=4 cterm=bold " light blue
:hi statement ctermfg=1 cterm=bold " light red
:hi identifier ctermfg=3 cterm=bold " light yellow
:hi special ctermfg=6 cterm=bold " light cyan
:hi phpSpecialChar ctermfg=6 cterm=bold " light cyan. needed because sometimes
:hi include ctermfg=7 cterm=bold " light white
:hi define ctermfg=7 cterm=bold " light white
:hi delimiter ctermfg=6 cterm=bold " light cyan
Here is my favourite (partial)
set nocp
set backspace=2
set history=200
set ruler
set splitbelow
set undolevels=100
set visualbell
set mouse=a
set showbreak=+\
set foldmethod=marker
" enable syntax highlighting
" set the fg colors for some types of words
" special is not recognized
LOVE THY VIM. PRAISE THY VIM!
Not sure why you would call this a Troll, since it's accurate.
Einstain did not say that the speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest attainable speed. He said that it would take an infinite amount of energy to speed up any object/particle that has mass to that speed from below that speed. And that has pretty much been proven.
It somewhat implies that the speed of light is a barrier, but it doesn't exclude the possibility of particles/objects that move faster than the speed of light, and it doesn't say anything about mass-less "things" (for lack of a better word).
I don't have time to google right now, but I remember some type of experiment that was performed where one of Mozart's symphonies was digitized and sent through a special wire/medium that was virtually devoid of electrons with insane voltage. They measured the time it took for the electrons(or was it the voltage?) to cross the wire and sometimes it seemed that they were moving at up to 5 times the speed of light... I may be wrong but that's how I remember reading about it. Something about particles "borrowing" huge amounts of energy from vacuum, doing something strange and then returning it.
Whoops my bad... English is actually my second language. Thanks for pointing it out.
"I'm not particularly impressed by your abusive language in lack of real arguments."
/. here is a link to the argument I made in great detail.
Since you obviously have some serious difficulty navigating around
"But since I'm in a friendly mood, but friendless, I might add, I've made you my first abusive Slashdot friend."
I'm not surprised you are friendless..
And regarding "abusive Slashdot friend", the word you're looking for is "foe".
Still daring you to actually respond to my arguments. But I'm not holding my breath..
By the way, once again you made some weird choice in what to reply to. The first part of what you replied to (Now show us that you can do more than mock me and respond with an intelligent post and prove me wrong. (...)) you completely ignored. Why did you put it there? Need some instructions on how to copy and paste? Or can't put the bong down long enough to remember what you were going to reply to?
And the second part that you replied to (See I feel it's ok to call someone a moron or whatever if there is some beef behind what I say.) also has nothing to do with what you replied to. That's a fully valid statement. If someone is an idiot (and since you don't get generalizations, I am NOT calling you an idiot) and I can show "they" are an idiot, then I feel it is fully apropriate for me to call them an idiot.
Did you want to disagree and actually make an argument? Go ahead.
That is not abusive language, and that is a real argument.
You were saying?
You can mock me all you want.
If you have something to say, respond to my long post that explains why your post makes no sense and disprove it.
I did rip apart your argument there and I did show the world what a moron you are, and if you look at the score on the post, it seems people agree.
Now show us that you can do more than mock me and respond with an intelligent post and prove me wrong. If you can do that, I have no problem admitting my fault.
See I feel it's ok to call someone a moron or whatever if there is some beef behind what I say. I made a long post explaining my point. If you have one, write something that's more than two sentences making fun of me. Stop acting like a child and attack my argument instead of me.
Heh you know what's funny? I perfectly predicted your inability to have a meaningful conversation. The only thing you chose to reply to was the part that I figured you'd get. Bravo!
By the way I had good reasons to be upset at you. You made several snipes at me due to your ineptitude in reading comprehension. If you attack people for wrong reasons after they point out to you that you are incorrect.. well what do you expect?
Just as I expected, people like you can't be argued with. So I just call you a name and leave it at that, because I know you understand that.
And now you bitch about the moderators, who actually understand what I was saying and agree.
Get lost.
What on earth are you blathering about?
"Of course the OS no longer supported by Microsoft, since it's intended to run on PC that in the rich world is "obsolete". Do you think that P4 3.4 GHz with 1GB RAM and DSL line is common i Africa?"
What does that have to with what I said? You totatally missed the point on the parent post. Why is it "Of Course" no longer supported? There are several large companies that support their products for decades, and the fact that Win98 is no longer supported is one of a constantly reoccuring heated debate, even here on slashdot.
What does your snotty comment try to say? No I don't think that a state of the art computer is common in Africa overall, but I also completly resent your notion that it's not there. Africa is not all 3rd world. There are big, civilized cities and even Democracies. And yes, they have modern computers and Internet access.
Go back and read what the parent wrote and what you replied. Your post makes no sense, and taking a cheap shot at me is not going to change that, ass.
And a machine that runs Win98 is by no means obsolete. What does the OS have to do with the hardware? I still run Win98 SE on several machines. It's a very stable single user OS. But again, that wasn't part of this discussion you moron.
"Perhaps because the moderator realizes that very many in the world is poor, and has to do with what they have?"
Again, your lack of reading comprehension is monumental. Not only did you miss what the orignal poster said, and what I said, but even though I specifically pointed out that you missed the point, you didn't go back and read what was said. RTFA. This has __NOTHING__ to do with how poor someone is.
a) these computers are being provided for FREE anyway.
b) it doesn't cost M$ anything to provide copies of their OS
c) what the OP pointed out is that since it doesn't cost them anything anyway, why didn't they put a supported OS like WinME on the machines, but instead chose a product that has EOLed like Win98. Either one will run fine on comparable Hardware.
"Btw, as far as I know, Win 2000 is not EOLed."
NOONE said Win2K was EOLed. Where do you pull this crap from? And by the way, it was supposed to EOL just a few days ago on 03/31/04. From what I understand they extended it another year, but I'm not sure on that.
"But then again, you don't run obsolete and old software when you can have shiny new XP to impress your friends?"
Another cheap shot at me for what? And again, stop pulling shit out of your ass. I never said I run XP or anything like that. In fact, the machine I'm writing this on uses *gasp* Win98 SE.
Learn how to read, and how to think logically, then RTFA otherwise don't bother replying.
Oh, and since you don't understand logic, try this: go fuck yourself.
You completely missed the point. It's not about whether the OS can run on those machines, but the fact that they are giving away/install an OS that is no longer supported (ie EOLed - End Of Life-ed).
And why did the post get modded up? Because it suggested that Linux may work on a machine that Win2K won't? Lamers.
First, thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure you'd write back.
"If there are individual readers for each one, build a device that incorporates all of them try one at a time until you get an expected result." Sorry, it doesn't work like that. You can't just tape them all together. See, the problem is that they're all emitting and reading RF, and if you have more than one active at a time, you'll get nasty interference. The fact is, it is hard to build a device that does multiple frequencies and protocols.
I really meant, run one reader on one frequency - then if you get no good response, turn its transmitter off. Then try the next one and so on, in other words avoid interference by trying one at a time. (But again.. I'm no RF engineer, this is just how I imagined it and am just clarifying what I ment)
"But what makes you think anti-collision is even necessary for my argument?" Anti-collision is necessary for any reader on any of the of the protocols you mentioned. Otherwise if you have two tags in the field and your reader tries to read the tags in the field, they'll both try to answer at the same time and interfere with eachother (collide). AC is one of the hard parts of any shared medium communication, be it aloha-net, ethernet or RFID.
While anti-collision may be required by those protocols, many uses of RFID tags (as I imagine them) do not need to deal with this. A "key" reader for example - if there are two tags in the reading range, it shouldn't unlock the door. Only if there is one key, and it has a valid authorized code should the door be unlocked. Same goes for Speed Passes and many similar applications. In these situations it would almost be a "feature" that they don't work when there are two keys present. Of course anti-collision mechanisms will definitely be needed in, say a retail environment, or with long range tags.
Anyhow, you don't have to be an RF engineer to participate in RFID discussions. But if you're completely misinformed about the subject, then you're just spreading FUD, and that's what I object to.
You're absolutely right, and I stand corrected on several issues you've pointed out.
"They don't have batteries, which is the only reason for their limited range. They get power directly from the radio waves." Half-true. Some RFID tags are powered or active, some are unpowered or passive.
I actually didn't know this when I wrote this, I only found out when I did some more research today. For me, when thinking of RFID tags I just didn't think of a powered device which to me seems more like an integrated wireless device. Again, I stand corrected.
"They are now weaving them into of clothing, they are inside your tires, and in the handle of your razor." They are not weaving them into clothing. I challenge you to find me one quote where they say they're doing that. I think that rumour may have started when a Wired article claimed that "Prada already embeds RFID inventory tags into its clothing". But a little research shows that is simply a tag that they put on in one particular store, which is probably removed when it is sold, and it is very visible to the customer: "Pick up any pair of shoes or handbag or dress and you'll find a clear RFID tag, with the antenna and chip clearly visible." See, it's the antenna that's difficult. Sure, the RFID chip is tiny, but the antennas are pretty big, normally on the order of 10cm by 3cm or so, so weaving it into clothing just wouldn't work.
Here are three examples: Benetton, Marks & Spencer, and KSW-Microtec - they make wearable/washable tags specifically to be embedded in clothing. (These may not be the best links, but further reasearch on each of them can easily be found by googling.)
As for tires and rasors, I sincerely doubt that that's the case
You obviously know a lot about this issue. I never did or even tried to dispute that.
I never claimed I knew all the ins and outs of this technology either. And as far as the technical aspects go, I don't have a problem admitting that I'm in a little over my head.
I've done my share of reading on it however, more so the social implications than the technical implementations. I'm not an electrical engineer, and didn't claim to be one. The statement I made seemed plausible conclusions to me, given what I see is available right now - from what I've read.
Now to your questions:
"""What makes you so sure "it's not so hard to scan a few frequencies and try a few protocols"?"""
If there are individual readers for each one, build a device that incorporates all of them try one at a time until you get an expected result. I'm not saying that's quickly done, or with little resources, but I bet you'd agree it's likely possible, and a large entitity (corporation/government etc) could bring up the resources. I'm saying it's not hard because it doesn't require inventing anything or depends on unproven technology. It's just a matter of combining existing technology.
"""Have you ever implemented an anti-collision search for any of those standards you mention?"""
No (although you already knew that). But what makes you think anti-collision is even necessary for my argument? Your examples ("Mobil Speedpass", keyless entry pass, garage entry pass) are probably all systems that would not function under collision situations, nor do they need to. There is a collision and you get bad data? Ignore it. Fully acceptable for those situations. The same would be true for RFID tags in tires. You get two in the reader area? - Ignore it, you'll get a good read at the next intersection.
"""Do you have any idea what the hardware and software requirements of doing a multi-protocol reader are?"""
No. Neither does anybody that doesn't have the resources to seriously consider and spec out such a project. And it's not really relevant to this discussion anyway. However, I doubt that they would be much larger than the combined requirements for each individual device - since at least some software and hardware parts will be usable for several of the individual readers.
"""The protocol is nothing like a simple 'ping-pong', whatever that is."""
With ping-pong i only meant transmit request (ping) and receive response (pong). I've never actually looked at the protocols in detail.
"""The tough part is the "anti-collision" part. What happens when there are two tags in the field? How do you ensure that only one tag responds so you can read it without RF interference?"""
Again, I'm no electrical engineer, but I would imagine something like a signal that causes random short delays in sending the response, and then repeat until you get a clear response from each tag. Or maybe each tag can be on one of X number of channels, that get scanned sequentially, greatly reducing the potential of collisions etc... Anyways, I know several devices on the market can do this, so this problem has already been solved, ie is technically feasible, so the argument about it is mute - it can be (and has been) done.
"""You're talking out of your ass. Admit it and either accept that you're scared of technology you don't understand, or learn about it then comment."""
Well I'll respond to that with a quote "Obscenity is the last refuge of the inarticulate motherfucker."
You're trying to say that I can't argue/discuss these things unless I'm an expert in the field and know every little technical implementation detail. If you don't see a flaw in that, please don't respond. I know you read this anyway.
This discussion was origianlly about the social effects of RFID tags, and whether concern about widespread implementation was justified. You picked up on a line that may have been technically a bit of a stretch (or even plain incorrect), but rea
Granted the statement was an exaggeration, but so is yours. "The protocols used are generally not published"... there are several ISO standards (ISO 14443 A/B, ISO 15693, ISO 18000, EPC) that just about everybody uses, same with the frequencies. (125KHz (new), 148KHz (old), 13.56 MHz (probably most common for short range, the one I was referring to), 315 MHz (long range, expensive))
Check these out. They read just about any standard on 13.56MHz (and really, almost everybody uses that frequency).
If I had some more time I'd google around a bit, but I'd bet most of what you'll find (95%+) will be a variation of one of the above.
I bet you, if they don't already exist, it will be a short time until someone makes a universal RFID tag reader. It's not hard to scan a few frequencies and try a few different protocols. Especially for ReadOnly tags (again, the large majority) because the protocol will be a simple ping-pong.
Umm... it's not like you're replying to a post or anything..