Those locks are not sold as highly secure or so. While I'm quite positive Onity will have used "high security" as one of their sales pitches - part of the reason to use such expensive locks is that a guest not returning a key is not an issue any more, and that the keys are not so easy to copy.
Surprised it took thieves two months before starting to use this exploit. Even more surprising that the summary says "already".
The exploit was very well documented, and rather simple to copy. It took mere days for YouTube videos showing off the same hack to appear.
It is more likely that other hotels were hit with the issue already, but didn't disclose it to the public for fear of attracting more thieves to their hotels, and/or for the bad publicity and the risk of guests staying away from their insecure rooms.
Why would a "power off" function be under "settings"? That's quite odd in itself. Not to mention the issue of recognising it as "use this to shut down and power off" the machine, and not as "oh, so that're the power management settings".
Not necessarily Linux, GP doesn't even mention which OS - maybe he was talking about WinXP or Win7. Why are you thinking it'd be Linux to begin with? Because Windows still can't run/install off of a USB stick maybe?
Honestly I haven't tried recently but even following several tutorials a year or two ago I did fail to install WinXP from USB stick. It wouldn't even boot properly. Or got stuck somewhere down the line. No idea what was wong. In the end I gave up.
Slashdot is a prime example of a site heavily using javascript.
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS stuck to Firefox 3.6 for a long time. When loading a/. page, particularly one with many comments, it often gave me the "script is taking too long to complete" warning message. It would eventually complete, but took long. When Ubuntu finally replaced the browser with a newer Firefox, that problem was solved. It now renders reasonably fast.
And considering I have ads disabled, it is really/. itself that's so demanding.
We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues.
(emphasis mine)
So basically there was basically no effect either way on overall box office revenues. Blockbusters gained from the shutdown of megaupload (probably due to more people forced to go see it in the theatres as they couldn't download it any more), many smaller and less well known movies lost (probably due to less people being able to preview the movie, resulting in less word-of-mouth promotion of a movie).
Twitter should not ban anyone. It's also not Twitter who are considering a ban on access by Hamas (and presumably other such organisations).
If there would be such legislation, I can only hope that Twitter would vocally oppose it, and do what they can to stop it from being pushed through and becoming law. But when it becomes law, Twitter will have not much of a choice but to follow it - and again they should make it clear that these blocks are government-mandated, in a similar fashion as Google that lets you know when certain links are filtered out (usually by linking to documents that request the filter, and in that way showing you exactly what has been filtered out, giving indirect access).
Deviating of course weakens it. But in practice, this may be irrelevant.
Imagine you're a German code cracker, and your men intercept like 100 messages sent out by the British forces (by shooting those pigeons) that are known to be encrypted using one-time pads and using code words. Maybe two of them have used the same pad: you don't know which ones, nor that this is actually the case.
As one-time pads are known to be uncrackable, you're likely not even going to try.
This article, the source of it all, suggests something like you describe - but even better. But instead of using actual words as code, each five-letter group stands for a word (or common phrase maybe?). So without having the key to how to replace the five-letter groups to something sensible, there is no way of knowing what the meaning is.
On top of that they suspect the coded message is in turn encrypted using a one-time pad. Making it impossible to even get back the coded message.
The only real weakness in these encryption schemes is of course the key exchange, the encryption itself is better than what we use now: most modern encryption is crackable by brute force (albeit so hard it takes like forever).
In war time I can very well imagine a one-time pad being re-used for practical reasons, for example not having another one at hand and still needing to send out another message. Especially in older times, like the WW2 era.
Then also a whole lot of "security by obscurity" kicks in: not knowing two messages are encrypted with the same one-time pad, when you expect they are indeed using different pads, does add a real extra barrier for a potential interceptor to decrypt them.
Building a micropayment system can't be that hard.... And the actual payment may be an issue of course, there is no cost-effective way to charge small amounts of money.
Ok, now you are just throwing anything you can think of at the wall hoping it will stick, even if you contradict yourself. Why is it so common for people to look for narrow excuses for failure and assume they are insurmountable instead of looking for a way to find success?
That is not a contradiction, at all.
It is really not that hard to create a micropayment system: have a user log in to your web site, and charge them say $0.005 for each article they open in their browser. Then after a while they have a bill of say $0.15. Some occasional users may end up with an end of month bill of just $0.03. How are you going to charge that to them, without having to pay more in fees and processing cost? Of course you're not charging them every micro amount but you will tally it and charge them say once a month. Still that involves cost, a per-user cost. That is much higher a cost than when doing advertising.
And the user part: that's really about the end user. Some years ago I've done some literature research into the topic, wondering why micropayments just don't work. And what comes back all the time, is that users don't like to make payment decisions all the time. They'd rather pay a larger lump sum of say $0.99 for full access than ending up with a bill of $0.50 for viewing 100 articles a month. And now I'm even completely bypassing the unwillingness of most users to create yet another account for yet another site.
This argument is also nothing new, it's way older than micropayments. It was, for example, part of the business philosophy of attraction parks (the predecessor of the modern theme park). At a fun fair you have to pay for every single ride, as each is run by a different vendor. The attraction park lets you pay a one-time sum, and then gives you unlimited rides. The number of rides people use after that may not be more than the equivalent amount of money would buy them on a single-ride basis (partly thanks to the much longer waiting times just to get on your ride), yet it proved to be a great success, and people loved it. Not having to make a payment decision every time.
If you think micropayments work, and you can make it work, good luck with that, I'm sure it can make you rich. But mind, it's not just because that it doesn't exist yet.
Advertising did NOT kill micropayments. Micropayments NEVER worked, they never came to life, nothing that can be killed.
Building a micropayment system can't be that hard. Cryptography is advanced enough. The thing that's stopping it is the users: or do you really want to make a decision every time you click something whether it's worth paying for? Even if it's just a cent a page, browsing a news paper site becomes different. Are you really interested in that article? Read the headline and discard it together with your hard-earned money? Not everyone has money to burn, mind you.
And the actual payment may be an issue of course, there is no cost-effective way to charge small amounts of money. Credit cards (for those that have one) are too expensive. PayPal is not really an option either, even less available than credit cards.
Micropayments are not an option, never have been, advertising is.
The same can be argued for TV ads, there are also filters for that (automatic ad skippers for recorded programmes, for example). If it were technically possible these filters would exist for news papers, too.
The same can be argued for TV ads, there are also filters for that (automatic ad skippers for recorded programmes, for example). If it were technically possible these filters would exist for news papers, too.
The reason this student objects against wearing an id is religious, see previously linked articles.
Interestingly, the religious aspect would apply to having an ID rather than having an RFID chip in that ID, at least that's my interpretation of how they state the objection.
And besides, people that protest so vocally against RFID are most likely people that actually know about how it works quite well. After all it's hard arguing your point if you don't know what you're talking about.
The child WAS primary suspect as it says so in warrant. The father of course is carrier in legal case as she is minor and lives at his father house. ( I have friend investigator from secret police who has first hand knowledge of this case).
According to other posts, copyright institution says it only tracks IP addresses, and sues based on that. How can the girl become suspect if she's not the ISP account holder? This contradicts.
The girl is a minor, and at 9 yo probably pretty much immune from criminal prosecution, on grounds of being too young to make decisions and so. Does this also apply for minors in civil suits?
2) sounds highly plausible, and is not really in contradiction to 9). Plenty of artists have free sample songs online; music from the artist in question is apparently available for free via Spotify even; so those police should shut up, refrain from making any public statements about the case, and just do their work. They're police, not a judge, and shouldn't behave like that.
And finally I think this artist shouldn't come with that kind of half-way statements. Either she really doesn't want her fans to be sued and seriously complains to that TTVK, or she should shut up about it and silently endorse the action.
First of all don't forget that the world is bigger than the US of A, and this story was set in that other 95% of the world. RIAA and MPAA have nothing to say there.
Secondly also in the US the RIAA and MPAA are never involved directly in law suits, that is always the record company (who owns the copyrights involved). If RIAA or MPAA would start those suits themselves, they would be thrown out just like what happened to Righthaven's copyright suits.
Neither will work because for a fridge you're too close to the melting point of water (it's not just because they don't use water as cooling liquid in fridges), and for your coffee mug you're too close to the boiling point (and way above ambient temperatures) to make any condensation happen.
Water dripping from an airco unit should be safe to drink, that's pure condensation water. Could be as pure as distilled water - depending on how clean the air around it is.
One could maybe use a chimney, heated by the sun, to draw the air through the system. Though technically that's also an external power input of course, even though it doesn't need moving parts.
Slashdot Mirror
Those locks are not sold as highly secure or so. While I'm quite positive Onity will have used "high security" as one of their sales pitches - part of the reason to use such expensive locks is that a guest not returning a key is not an issue any more, and that the keys are not so easy to copy.
Surprised it took thieves two months before starting to use this exploit. Even more surprising that the summary says "already".
The exploit was very well documented, and rather simple to copy. It took mere days for YouTube videos showing off the same hack to appear.
It is more likely that other hotels were hit with the issue already, but didn't disclose it to the public for fear of attracting more thieves to their hotels, and/or for the bad publicity and the risk of guests staying away from their insecure rooms.
Why would a "power off" function be under "settings"? That's quite odd in itself. Not to mention the issue of recognising it as "use this to shut down and power off" the machine, and not as "oh, so that're the power management settings".
The power button on the device itself didn't do the job?
Not necessarily Linux, GP doesn't even mention which OS - maybe he was talking about WinXP or Win7. Why are you thinking it'd be Linux to begin with? Because Windows still can't run/install off of a USB stick maybe?
Honestly I haven't tried recently but even following several tutorials a year or two ago I did fail to install WinXP from USB stick. It wouldn't even boot properly. Or got stuck somewhere down the line. No idea what was wong. In the end I gave up.
Slashdot is a prime example of a site heavily using javascript.
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS stuck to Firefox 3.6 for a long time. When loading a /. page, particularly one with many comments, it often gave me the "script is taking too long to complete" warning message. It would eventually complete, but took long. When Ubuntu finally replaced the browser with a newer Firefox, that problem was solved. It now renders reasonably fast.
And considering I have ads disabled, it is really /. itself that's so demanding.
The actual conclusion of the researchers was:
We find that the shutdown had a negative, yet insignificant effect on box office revenues.
(emphasis mine)
So basically there was basically no effect either way on overall box office revenues. Blockbusters gained from the shutdown of megaupload (probably due to more people forced to go see it in the theatres as they couldn't download it any more), many smaller and less well known movies lost (probably due to less people being able to preview the movie, resulting in less word-of-mouth promotion of a movie).
Interesting results anyway.
Twitter should not ban anyone. It's also not Twitter who are considering a ban on access by Hamas (and presumably other such organisations).
If there would be such legislation, I can only hope that Twitter would vocally oppose it, and do what they can to stop it from being pushed through and becoming law. But when it becomes law, Twitter will have not much of a choice but to follow it - and again they should make it clear that these blocks are government-mandated, in a similar fashion as Google that lets you know when certain links are filtered out (usually by linking to documents that request the filter, and in that way showing you exactly what has been filtered out, giving indirect access).
Deviating of course weakens it. But in practice, this may be irrelevant.
Imagine you're a German code cracker, and your men intercept like 100 messages sent out by the British forces (by shooting those pigeons) that are known to be encrypted using one-time pads and using code words. Maybe two of them have used the same pad: you don't know which ones, nor that this is actually the case.
As one-time pads are known to be uncrackable, you're likely not even going to try.
This article, the source of it all, suggests something like you describe - but even better. But instead of using actual words as code, each five-letter group stands for a word (or common phrase maybe?). So without having the key to how to replace the five-letter groups to something sensible, there is no way of knowing what the meaning is.
On top of that they suspect the coded message is in turn encrypted using a one-time pad. Making it impossible to even get back the coded message.
The only real weakness in these encryption schemes is of course the key exchange, the encryption itself is better than what we use now: most modern encryption is crackable by brute force (albeit so hard it takes like forever).
In war time I can very well imagine a one-time pad being re-used for practical reasons, for example not having another one at hand and still needing to send out another message. Especially in older times, like the WW2 era.
Then also a whole lot of "security by obscurity" kicks in: not knowing two messages are encrypted with the same one-time pad, when you expect they are indeed using different pads, does add a real extra barrier for a potential interceptor to decrypt them.
Building a micropayment system can't be that hard. ...
And the actual payment may be an issue of course, there is no cost-effective way to charge small amounts of money.
Ok, now you are just throwing anything you can think of at the wall hoping it will stick, even if you contradict yourself. Why is it so common for people to look for narrow excuses for failure and assume they are insurmountable instead of looking for a way to find success?
That is not a contradiction, at all.
It is really not that hard to create a micropayment system: have a user log in to your web site, and charge them say $0.005 for each article they open in their browser. Then after a while they have a bill of say $0.15. Some occasional users may end up with an end of month bill of just $0.03. How are you going to charge that to them, without having to pay more in fees and processing cost? Of course you're not charging them every micro amount but you will tally it and charge them say once a month. Still that involves cost, a per-user cost. That is much higher a cost than when doing advertising.
And the user part: that's really about the end user. Some years ago I've done some literature research into the topic, wondering why micropayments just don't work. And what comes back all the time, is that users don't like to make payment decisions all the time. They'd rather pay a larger lump sum of say $0.99 for full access than ending up with a bill of $0.50 for viewing 100 articles a month. And now I'm even completely bypassing the unwillingness of most users to create yet another account for yet another site.
This argument is also nothing new, it's way older than micropayments. It was, for example, part of the business philosophy of attraction parks (the predecessor of the modern theme park). At a fun fair you have to pay for every single ride, as each is run by a different vendor. The attraction park lets you pay a one-time sum, and then gives you unlimited rides. The number of rides people use after that may not be more than the equivalent amount of money would buy them on a single-ride basis (partly thanks to the much longer waiting times just to get on your ride), yet it proved to be a great success, and people loved it. Not having to make a payment decision every time.
If you think micropayments work, and you can make it work, good luck with that, I'm sure it can make you rich. But mind, it's not just because that it doesn't exist yet.
Advertising did NOT kill micropayments. Micropayments NEVER worked, they never came to life, nothing that can be killed.
Building a micropayment system can't be that hard. Cryptography is advanced enough. The thing that's stopping it is the users: or do you really want to make a decision every time you click something whether it's worth paying for? Even if it's just a cent a page, browsing a news paper site becomes different. Are you really interested in that article? Read the headline and discard it together with your hard-earned money? Not everyone has money to burn, mind you.
And the actual payment may be an issue of course, there is no cost-effective way to charge small amounts of money. Credit cards (for those that have one) are too expensive. PayPal is not really an option either, even less available than credit cards.
Micropayments are not an option, never have been, advertising is.
Reply ended up at wrong place, reposting...
The same can be argued for TV ads, there are also filters for that (automatic ad skippers for recorded programmes, for example). If it were technically possible these filters would exist for news papers, too.
The same can be argued for TV ads, there are also filters for that (automatic ad skippers for recorded programmes, for example). If it were technically possible these filters would exist for news papers, too.
News paper or magazine readers don't click on those ads either. Nor do TV viewers, or radio listeners.
That's not making them less interesting to the advertisers.
The reason this student objects against wearing an id is religious, see previously linked articles.
Interestingly, the religious aspect would apply to having an ID rather than having an RFID chip in that ID, at least that's my interpretation of how they state the objection.
And besides, people that protest so vocally against RFID are most likely people that actually know about how it works quite well. After all it's hard arguing your point if you don't know what you're talking about.
Sue them on grounds of attempted extortion.
The child WAS primary suspect as it says so in warrant. The father of course is carrier in legal case as she is minor and lives at his father house. ( I have friend investigator from secret police who has first hand knowledge of this case).
Wow, secret police involved even? It's getting better.
According to other posts, copyright institution says it only tracks IP addresses, and sues based on that. How can the girl become suspect if she's not the ISP account holder? This contradicts.
The girl is a minor, and at 9 yo probably pretty much immune from criminal prosecution, on grounds of being too young to make decisions and so. Does this also apply for minors in civil suits?
2) sounds highly plausible, and is not really in contradiction to 9). Plenty of artists have free sample songs online; music from the artist in question is apparently available for free via Spotify even; so those police should shut up, refrain from making any public statements about the case, and just do their work. They're police, not a judge, and shouldn't behave like that.
And finally I think this artist shouldn't come with that kind of half-way statements. Either she really doesn't want her fans to be sued and seriously complains to that TTVK, or she should shut up about it and silently endorse the action.
First of all don't forget that the world is bigger than the US of A, and this story was set in that other 95% of the world. RIAA and MPAA have nothing to say there.
Secondly also in the US the RIAA and MPAA are never involved directly in law suits, that is always the record company (who owns the copyrights involved). If RIAA or MPAA would start those suits themselves, they would be thrown out just like what happened to Righthaven's copyright suits.
Those ocean researchers should really check whether Sandy Island is not actually covered in an invisibility cloak.
Neither will work because for a fridge you're too close to the melting point of water (it's not just because they don't use water as cooling liquid in fridges), and for your coffee mug you're too close to the boiling point (and way above ambient temperatures) to make any condensation happen.
Water dripping from an airco unit should be safe to drink, that's pure condensation water. Could be as pure as distilled water - depending on how clean the air around it is.
One could maybe use a chimney, heated by the sun, to draw the air through the system. Though technically that's also an external power input of course, even though it doesn't need moving parts.