PGP addresses the problem of transporting private data securely across a public medium. Traditional cryptography involved a private key, in which you and your correspondent both need to know the unique cryptographic key in order to read the encrypted method. The problem with this method was that, while easy to program and use, real-life applications were complicated. After all, if you have a secure medium to transfer the key, why not just transmit your entire message that way? PGP was a major breakthrough (or implementation of, rather) in public key cryptography. Using this system, no secure channel is ever needed. Both the recipients public key and the message can be transmitted (or even broadcast publicly) via an insecure network. Because of the way data is encrypted, PGP is also good at guaranteeing the authenticity of a message - the idea that while others may have looked at your encrypted message while in transport to the recipient, if they have changed so much as a space, the recipient will be aware.
PGP (or any other program for that matter) can do nothing (or very little) against user malice/stupidity/carelessness. That is beyond the scope of PGP. If you whispered a secret message to Ms. Muslim in a dark alley, there is still nothing preventing her from doing as she wishes with your (until-now) private message. For more on software controlling the users, check out what Microsoft is trying to do (albeit fairly unsuccessfully).
PGP will also do you no good for "traffic attacks" (Alice sends an encrypted message to Bob, Bob murders Alice's spouse, Bob sends an encrypted message to Alice. You guess cop's #1 suspect) and has never intended to. You may want to look into cryptography's little sister, steganography for message hiding.
I would highly recommend browsing to http://www.pgpi.org/doc/faq/ and doing some more reading. I also own O'Reilly's PGP: Pretty Good Privacy and have found it an excellent resource. It was published back when PGP was still Phil's, but applicable today nonetheless. Heavy on theory and application, there's also a very good appendix on the dirty math involved.
...our processor announced all our homework would be in C...
Interesting place where the computers are already teaching the CS classes. I'm still at a stuck-in-the-stone-age school where my classes are taught by people. Usually of the older type, granted, but I can at least speak English to them.
As a student living in an off-campus apartment, I was amazed at the amount of phone calls we would receive at all times of the afternoon and evening from telemarketers trying to hawk everything from newspaper subscriptions to imported roses. Since I consider my time to be worth something, when I have to get up and answer the phone only to find out it's one of these guys again, I also consider them to be robbing me. I have no interest in being considerate or forgiving to any of these agencies. As soon as I realize it is a sales call, I simply reply, "I don't think I'm interested in your offer, but I know my roommate/friend/brother has been looking to buy just such a thing. Hold on and I'll get him." Then I put the phone down and go back to whatever I was doing. This method has the advantage of 1) keeping the telemarketer on the phone at his dime, which costs him more (for less sales) and 2) preventing him from bothering other potential callees for the amount of time he hangs on the line. I've known people to hang on the line for upwards of 15 minutes. DNC lists didn't really work in a temporary-living situation like an apartment, since the number is already listed and you won't be there long enough to tell every calling organization to stop anyway.
They're rude and inconsiderate to me, why should I be anything less back to them?
In a related note, I know of many small businesses that purchase one copy of MS Office and install it on every computer in the place. This practice will end with the Office 2000 Service Pack 1, because after so many days, you are required to contact MS to obtain a license code, which is based on the number MS Office 2000 SP1 generates from an algorithm in calculated, in part, from your computer's unique configuration.
First some background: After installing a retail copy Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1, users will be asked to register via the Office Registration Wizard. There are no less than 5 different ways to "unlock" the software, including the internet, email, phone, fax, and snail mail.
As to businesses buying one copy of Microsoft Office and installing on more than one computer, this clearly violates the license agreement that comes with the software. Regardless of how bad you may think Microsoft to be, they did write the software and they are entitled to charge and license it as they see fit. If a small business needs as few as even five (5!) copies of application or OS software, they can enter into a bulk licensing agreement with Microsoft. By doing so, they receive software that is not subject to registration.
If you are a retail user that has one copy of Office, you are still only entitled to install it on a single computer. If you register via the phone, fax, email or snail mail, you can save your unlock code and reuse it if you reformat your hard disk. As long as your computer hardware configuration doesn't change drastically, it will still work. Even if you do change your hardware (machine upgrade, move to a better machine), just call up the (24x7, toll-free even! how can you complain?) customer service number and explain the situation.
I highly recommend a utility written by Mike Lin which can be had for free at http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml. It enumerates each and every program and service that will run at startup. It runs on any 32-bit Windows OS from Win95 Gold to Win2000. What distinguishes it from other programs of its type is that when you delete an entry, it only moves to a "Deleted" area so that if you find out things have crashed and burned after a reboot, all is not lost.
The HREF pointing to the official movie site is broken; it in fact leads to http://www.pithmovie.com/" The trailing quote is interpreted as part of the URL and as such, simply 404's.
Either put the beginning quote in or leave them both out, but at least match it up for those more inclined to click on links instead of typing (and/or fixing them).
The network management at my university is horribly understaffed. Ostensibly, IT Services is resposible for managing network traffic, reporting violators, and making sense to the mayhem. In reality, they do little more than reboot the intranet web server every other day or so.
As a dorm resident as well as a student employed to help manage the (1000-node) labnet, I see both sides of the situation. Dorm residents are generally benign web surfers, but a select few truly understand the massive bandwidth available and have capitalized on it. A few examples of what goes on here:
Just across the hall from me, a friend runs a 77-gig warez/movies server with a 50-concurrent-user limit. He measures throughput in terabytes now. Network management has NO idea this is going on, as they only have tools available to see traffic reports per subnet.
I spoke to a few higher-ups recently to see what port filtering they do at a campus level. I was looking for a few common trojan ports and maybe even Windows networking (hello? what *else* uses 31337?). Eventually I got a decision maker who informed me that *nothing* was blocked at ALL, because even-further-higher-ups wanted to maintain an "open educational evironment."
I routinely hear of unwitting students who bring thier computers in because they started getting "I 0wn j00r box!" messages popping up. The solution? Wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Never mind education, prevention, or salvaging data.
Last year an email list was set up that sent email to all ~30,000 students. It wasn't long after the first "Welcome to the University from the President" message was sent that it was discovered that anyone could send messages to the entire student body by hitting reply. Administration only found out about it when the email server crashed.
In short, what does my campus do? Nothing. They are painfully unaware of hacking, misuse, and abuse. Anything goes here. Policies are in place, but the only time action is taken is when a dire emergency occurs.
Negative on this one. Service Pack 1 (code-named "Asteroid") is still in development. It's scheduled to release in June. Think about this for a minute. When SP1 ships in June, it will be expected to have fixed all the security holes up until then. And until the masses get their hands on it after it retails on 17Feb2000, the majority of security holes will still be uncovered. SP2 is still hardly a twinkle in some developers eye.
Coincidentally, Datacenter Server is expected to ship in June as well, so at least one Windows 2000 edition will ship with a Service Pack in the box.
Did anyone else notice that CmdrTaco's linking skills could use some help? The link to www.hackernews.com in his posting unfortunately doesn't include the http:// so it instead points to http://slashdot.org/www.hackernews.com, which obviously doesn't exist.
I worked at the World's Largest Theatre (30 screens, Ontario, CA) for about two years before leaving for school this fall. A few facts gleaned from the projection booth:
Theatres are nearly mandated to play the movie trailers (the previews that show before the movie) at a volume level about 25% louder than the actual movie, to (supposedly) draw attention in that first 12-15 minutes when latecomers are still finding seats. Add in the fact that many trailers include action scenes that are normally loud anyway and there are not a small number of complaints. The invariable response is "Has the movie started yet? No? Well then don't worry, it'll be at a normal volume when the movie starts." And over 90% of the time, it is.
Trailers, promo clips, theatre snipes, and the film itself are invariably at different volume levels. It is impossible to adjust for all of them and most of the time the volume level is just at a certain level and only gets changed if someone asks. Bear in mind the people in the projection booth cannot hear the movie at all and have no idea if they've accidentally knocked the volume control while moving platters or performing routine maintenance.
If, once the movie has started, it still seems a little loud, make a trip outside. Talk to somebody and it will get taken care of and you'll most likely walk off with some popcorn coupons for your trouble. Just remember the fact that you're paying a premium to see a feature film in its best possible presentation and you're entitled to it.
The same applies in the cartoon series "Muppet Babies." The little cartoon muppet guys only ever saw the legs of "Nanny" (who could forget the red and white stockings?!?) or any other adults who occasionally visited. As a child I watched this show religiously and never noticed the significance of not showing the adult faces, but I realize now that the absence put the focus on the rest of the show. The same thing very much happened in TS1 and I don't know if I'll be disappointed in TS2 because of its deviance, but I'll sure shell out my money to go see it!
I have a coworker that had this done and she said it took less than 10 minutes. It cost her $1300 an eye (because she paid up front with a credit card, normal fare is $1400-1500 an eye at this doctor) and she has been very happy with it. It has been 7 months and she has not had to go back for the touchup, although the doctor says it's about a 50/50 chance as to whether you will need it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
PGP addresses the problem of transporting private data securely across a public medium. Traditional cryptography involved a private key, in which you and your correspondent both need to know the unique cryptographic key in order to read the encrypted method. The problem with this method was that, while easy to program and use, real-life applications were complicated. After all, if you have a secure medium to transfer the key, why not just transmit your entire message that way? PGP was a major breakthrough (or implementation of, rather) in public key cryptography. Using this system, no secure channel is ever needed. Both the recipients public key and the message can be transmitted (or even broadcast publicly) via an insecure network. Because of the way data is encrypted, PGP is also good at guaranteeing the authenticity of a message - the idea that while others may have looked at your encrypted message while in transport to the recipient, if they have changed so much as a space, the recipient will be aware.
PGP (or any other program for that matter) can do nothing (or very little) against user malice/stupidity/carelessness. That is beyond the scope of PGP. If you whispered a secret message to Ms. Muslim in a dark alley, there is still nothing preventing her from doing as she wishes with your (until-now) private message. For more on software controlling the users, check out what Microsoft is trying to do (albeit fairly unsuccessfully).
PGP will also do you no good for "traffic attacks" (Alice sends an encrypted message to Bob, Bob murders Alice's spouse, Bob sends an encrypted message to Alice. You guess cop's #1 suspect) and has never intended to. You may want to look into cryptography's little sister, steganography for message hiding.
I would highly recommend browsing to http://www.pgpi.org/doc/faq/ and doing some more reading. I also own O'Reilly's PGP: Pretty Good Privacy and have found it an excellent resource. It was published back when PGP was still Phil's, but applicable today nonetheless. Heavy on theory and application, there's also a very good appendix on the dirty math involved.
I imagine the PGP Corporation owns that now -- did they get everything PGP-related from NAI?
From their products page at http://www.pgp.com/display.php?pageID=2
The following products were NOT part of the PGP technology acquisition and must continue to be purchased from Network Associates:
o PGP E-Business Server
o PGP Command Line
Since that link to winsupersite.com is a little dated, have a look at the Paul's new review of Windows XP Media Center Edition (updated 11 Oct 2002) as well as his new writeup on copy-protection and DRM in Windows XP Media Center Edition (updated as well).
...our processor announced all our homework would be in C...
Interesting place where the computers are already teaching the CS classes. I'm still at a stuck-in-the-stone-age school where my classes are taught by people. Usually of the older type, granted, but I can at least speak English to them.
As a student living in an off-campus apartment, I was amazed at the amount of phone calls we would receive at all times of the afternoon and evening from telemarketers trying to hawk everything from newspaper subscriptions to imported roses. Since I consider my time to be worth something, when I have to get up and answer the phone only to find out it's one of these guys again, I also consider them to be robbing me. I have no interest in being considerate or forgiving to any of these agencies. As soon as I realize it is a sales call, I simply reply, "I don't think I'm interested in your offer, but I know my roommate/friend/brother has been looking to buy just such a thing. Hold on and I'll get him." Then I put the phone down and go back to whatever I was doing. This method has the advantage of 1) keeping the telemarketer on the phone at his dime, which costs him more (for less sales) and 2) preventing him from bothering other potential callees for the amount of time he hangs on the line. I've known people to hang on the line for upwards of 15 minutes. DNC lists didn't really work in a temporary-living situation like an apartment, since the number is already listed and you won't be there long enough to tell every calling organization to stop anyway.
They're rude and inconsiderate to me, why should I be anything less back to them?
First some background: After installing a retail copy Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1, users will be asked to register via the Office Registration Wizard. There are no less than 5 different ways to "unlock" the software, including the internet, email, phone, fax, and snail mail.
As to businesses buying one copy of Microsoft Office and installing on more than one computer, this clearly violates the license agreement that comes with the software. Regardless of how bad you may think Microsoft to be, they did write the software and they are entitled to charge and license it as they see fit. If a small business needs as few as even five (5!) copies of application or OS software, they can enter into a bulk licensing agreement with Microsoft. By doing so, they receive software that is not subject to registration.
If you are a retail user that has one copy of Office, you are still only entitled to install it on a single computer. If you register via the phone, fax, email or snail mail, you can save your unlock code and reuse it if you reformat your hard disk. As long as your computer hardware configuration doesn't change drastically, it will still work. Even if you do change your hardware (machine upgrade, move to a better machine), just call up the (24x7, toll-free even! how can you complain?) customer service number and explain the situation.
I highly recommend a utility written by Mike Lin which can be had for free at http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml. It enumerates each and every program and service that will run at startup. It runs on any 32-bit Windows OS from Win95 Gold to Win2000. What distinguishes it from other programs of its type is that when you delete an entry, it only moves to a "Deleted" area so that if you find out things have crashed and burned after a reboot, all is not lost.
The HREF pointing to the official movie site is broken; it in fact leads to http://www.pithmovie.com/" The trailing quote is interpreted as part of the URL and as such, simply 404's.
Either put the beginning quote in or leave them both out, but at least match it up for those more inclined to click on links instead of typing (and/or fixing them).
As a dorm resident as well as a student employed to help manage the (1000-node) labnet, I see both sides of the situation. Dorm residents are generally benign web surfers, but a select few truly understand the massive bandwidth available and have capitalized on it. A few examples of what goes on here:
In short, what does my campus do? Nothing. They are painfully unaware of hacking, misuse, and abuse. Anything goes here. Policies are in place, but the only time action is taken is when a dire emergency occurs.
Negative on this one. Service Pack 1 (code-named "Asteroid") is still in development. It's scheduled to release in June. Think about this for a minute. When SP1 ships in June, it will be expected to have fixed all the security holes up until then. And until the masses get their hands on it after it retails on 17Feb2000, the majority of security holes will still be uncovered. SP2 is still hardly a twinkle in some developers eye.
Coincidentally, Datacenter Server is expected to ship in June as well, so at least one Windows 2000 edition will ship with a Service Pack in the box.
Did anyone else notice that CmdrTaco's linking skills could use some help? The link to www.hackernews.com in his posting unfortunately doesn't include the http:// so it instead points to http://slashdot.org/www.hackernews.com, which obviously doesn't exist.
Just my nitpicking.
I worked at the World's Largest Theatre (30 screens, Ontario, CA) for about two years before leaving for school this fall. A few facts gleaned from the projection booth:
Theatres are nearly mandated to play the movie trailers (the previews that show before the movie) at a volume level about 25% louder than the actual movie, to (supposedly) draw attention in that first 12-15 minutes when latecomers are still finding seats. Add in the fact that many trailers include action scenes that are normally loud anyway and there are not a small number of complaints. The invariable response is "Has the movie started yet? No? Well then don't worry, it'll be at a normal volume when the movie starts." And over 90% of the time, it is.
Trailers, promo clips, theatre snipes, and the film itself are invariably at different volume levels. It is impossible to adjust for all of them and most of the time the volume level is just at a certain level and only gets changed if someone asks. Bear in mind the people in the projection booth cannot hear the movie at all and have no idea if they've accidentally knocked the volume control while moving platters or performing routine maintenance.
If, once the movie has started, it still seems a little loud, make a trip outside. Talk to somebody and it will get taken care of and you'll most likely walk off with some popcorn coupons for your trouble. Just remember the fact that you're paying a premium to see a feature film in its best possible presentation and you're entitled to it.
Happy moviegoing next time!
The same applies in the cartoon series "Muppet Babies." The little cartoon muppet guys only ever saw the legs of "Nanny" (who could forget the red and white stockings?!?) or any other adults who occasionally visited. As a child I watched this show religiously and never noticed the significance of not showing the adult faces, but I realize now that the absence put the focus on the rest of the show. The same thing very much happened in TS1 and I don't know if I'll be disappointed in TS2 because of its deviance, but I'll sure shell out my money to go see it!
I have a coworker that had this done and she said it took less than 10 minutes. It cost her $1300 an eye (because she paid up front with a credit card, normal fare is $1400-1500 an eye at this doctor) and she has been very happy with it. It has been 7 months and she has not had to go back for the touchup, although the doctor says it's about a 50/50 chance as to whether you will need it or not.