I realize that slashdot does not represent the nation at large; but what I was surprised by was that within slashdot the tone has changed in the past several years. I remember when a discussion like this would be a lot more two sided. Perhaps I'm reaching but my guess is that there has been a recent delta in public opinion.
I understand your apathy on the topic, but the argument that 20 years of precedent dooms us to an eternity doesn't hold water. If that were generally true, then there would be no social progress whatsoever. For example, the arguments for civil rights weren't any better in the 60's than they were 20 years earlier, but things still changed because society can learn. It may not be this year, but I think it quite possible things will change in the next 10 if enough people (like you) stop thinking it can't change.
Just promise me that you'll vote despite your apathy and I'll shut up:)
So are these the fledgling footsteps of an emerging AI, or just the babbling beginnings of a bloated database?
I'll take door number two, Monty.
That's not to say it's not cool, or that the data won't be useful in this form, but Open/Cyc is no more intelligent than the dusty reference tomes on my shelf.
Opening statement: I've never used any of the currently illegal drugs and don't intend to, yet I am a strong supporter marijuana legalization.
When I popped into this thread, I was expecting to see the usual arguments. I was expecting to spend a little time combatting ignorance. I wasn't expecting any actual progress.
However, what amazed me was that every highly rated comment (I browse at +3) was pro-legalization. Every single one. Sure, they were responding to some of the same tired old arguments, but it seemed that the pro-legalization camp was far more strongly represented by both posters and mods. That surprised me and made me hopeful. I'm a regular financial supporter of The Marijuana Policy Project. There are so many lost causes in the world, improvements I'd love to see that will never happen. But I believe this is one issue that we might actually see resolved in our lifetimes.
I live in the Las Vegas area, and there is a statutory initiative on the ballot this upcoming election. Please, please, please, if you live in the Las Vegas area get out and vote. There are initiatives in other states as well, but I don't know the details there.
I am convinced now there is more than enough support to pass legalization in many states. But people need to get active about it. They need to watch the issue an vote. If this is an issue you care about, please take the time. We're at a possible turning point in the next 10 to 20 years. We can make things better.
There's always a loud contingent that complains that Apple didn't blow them away with the latest Keynote. I remember well all the snickering after the iPod was announced. But a year or two later people are using the stuff and it's become a part of their lives like it always needed to be there. How many people rolled their eyes as Steve demoed iTunes or iPhoto the first time... just another music player and photo manager. Whoop-dee-doo. But they're the only way I feel like managing either type of media now. Or how many saw Time Machine yesterday and said "yay... I already have tar and cron". This is the common reaction, but what's missing is an understanding that the details matter. Details matter a lot. Ask anyone who's used both Gnome and OSX for a year each. Ask anyone who's used both DOS and bash for a year each. This is what Apple is good at; getting the details right. Of course they misstep, and who knows which of the features announced yesterday will turn out to become must-haves (certainly not HTML email!)... but few companies have made such a business out of subtle yet important improvements. It's not really the gee-whiz that keeps them alive in my opinion, it's the "oh, this is how it should always be done" factor.
Heh, I guess it reads like I'm just remembering, but the intent was to semi-quote the parent, who said "because they don't have girlfriends". I knew before I posted that she was my wife:)
Actually, in my case it's because my girlfriend (well, wife) watches Apple with bated breath. I wish she paid attention to me like she does Steve Jobs!
Almost right. At the extremes (which in this debate includes almost everyone) pro-lifers believe that life begins at conception and pro-choicers believe that life begins at birth. I'll go out on a limb and say that both perspectives are absurd. But thems the lines that have been drawn and there's no hope for reconciliation that I can see.
My main point in responding is to correct the idea that pro-choicers draw a line at viability -- there are many abortions performed after viability and that is in line with the pro-choice doctrine that I've heard.
I agree this new info won't have any meaningful impact.
I thought it would be pretty sweet if Apple offered an iPod disabler. Since my music collection is mostly Wayne Newton (kidding) a thief is most likely going to need to hook it up to iTunes eventually. I'd gladly pay some money to Apple after my iPod got stolen to make sure the thing turned into a paper weight when someone tried to use it. If iPods got the reputation of being unable to be used after being stolen, black market value would drop and maybe eventually so would theft.
Solving newly introduced problems is left as an exercise for the reader.
Ignoring for the moment that CSS is flawed, I wonder if something like a standards cartel could improve the situation... the standards bodies don't do any good at all because nobody cares. The browsers have no motivation to follow the standards since most sites don't follow the standards. As long as they render the top 100 sites reasonably okay, they won't change. So what if the top 20 sites or so formed a cartel, standardized their sites and did the terrible faux-pas of not allowing their site to show in known-to-be-non-compliant browsers? Of course I always hated sites like that, but that was because back in the day things were so in flux it made no sense; I'd have had to use a different browser for every site. However if it was consistent across most of the big sites, it would have a lot more weight -- like the pressure to get a browser in the first place. They'd be saying "this is how it works". If those top 20 all agreed on the set of standards compliant browsers (ACID2, perhaps) and then required those... Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Slashdot, etc. They'd all have to do it on the same day. I bet that within a week all the non-standards compliant browsers would be reduced to well below 5% market share. Maybe enough to kill them off and then other sites would follow.
What is the motivation for the companies to do this? Saving loads of cash on cross browser testing. Once the browsers got in line, or were killed off, development costs would be cheaper. I don't expect perfection, there will always be some ambiguity in the standard. But I bet a move like that could bring us pretty well past the growing pains.
All this written by a guy who keeps all his sites in HTML 3.2 because it's the only thing that works reliably...
I just want to question that one assumption, which seems to get thrown around a lot. "Software sucks today". Really? My path was C64, Amiga, Win95, Linux, OSX. I feel that software became notably more powerful, less buggy, and easier to use over my computer experience. People love to say things suck, compared to some hypothetical (and quite possibly unrealistic) idea of how things should be. But by any measure that matters in practice, software today seems eons ahead of where it was two decades ago.
Keep in mind that your individual opinion on what is an unimportant fact is no more valid than the person who put it in. If enough people think it is stupid it will be removed. Heck, you can remove it. You can battle back and forth with the anonymous person on the other side endlessly, and the page will change every day, and your frustration will rise and...
Somehow Wikipedia continues to be useful. I understand what you're saying, but whatever criticism anyone has of Wikipedia, no matter how valid, ignores the fact that it is unquestionably incredibly useful. And the suggestions to improve it via restriction would bring it closer to the types of encycolpedias we already have had for a century... and those simply aren't useful in the same capacity as Wikipedia.
So let's enjoy our Brittanica, and enjoy our Wikipedia. Both are interesting experiments in information consolidation, from opposite extremes, and both work well in their way. If you think there's another way that would work, go right ahead and start it up! I'd be happy to critique it for you:)
I never said there weren't bad people or that they can't do great harm. I fact I said the exact opposite. My only point was that the rest of us overpower them eventually, sometimes at great cost, sure. And you're right, it can be pretty demoralizing to see how much damage a few assholes can do. But doesn't it give you the slightest bit of hope to realize that, on average, such people don't really get far?
More importantly, don't you think it's good public knowledge to spread the word that assholes usually end up worse off than decent folk? In fact, I worry sometimes that this perception that assholes get away with murder is in part responsible for the few people who are too dumb to see through such garbage to keep trying to be assholes. You gave a wide variety of examples, but one thing they have in common is that they focus on the bad thing that someone did, but ignore the fact that usually a) the error is corrected or b) they end up dead early or in prison or somesuch. That was my point. There is plenty of evil in the world, yes, but in general people who are evil don't lead happy fulfilling lives.
Because despite our cynicism, and contrary to our oft stated negative perception of the world, good people far outnumber bad people. By a huge margin, actually. For the sake of argument I'll assume we all know what I mean by good and bad here. Sure, there are bad people, and they can destroy things and do so in a loud manner. But the fact remains that most people are content to just keep to themselves and do no harm unless provoked. It's why society works. It's why Wikipedia works. It's not because of laws or punishment or any of that. It's because most people don't want to be assholes unless they have to be. It's because being an asshole doesn't usually result in anything positive. And being a nice person usually does. It almost gives me some hope for humanity or something.
Did he? He hasn't cracked iTunes 6 yet... I thought he did the old iTunes before he moved. Or perhaps he's just bored with that particular challenge having cracked it already.
DVD Jon moved to the US, so I don't think he'll be doing any more of those little tricks:/
Cheers.
Re:I wonder where you approach the limit.....
on
The Physics of Superman
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Good point... of course it depends what context you're in. If your goal is to lift heavy things all things all the time, the extra bulk will be useful all of the time. More realistically if you need to move quickly sometimes, it would becomes a burden. So what's an advantage depends on the needs.
In fact, since this study indicates our bodies strengthen and weaken based on the average load, I'll go ahead and guess that the size and strength we develop to is "about right" for our particular usage pattern. In other words, going about your day to day activities your body will adjust to "about right" muscle and bone strength, so as to handle most tasks easily and not waste too much effort building infrastructure that won't be needed often if ever.
Of course, many of us seem to disagree with the natural results. Though in reality I sit at a computer most of the day and have little need for muscular development, I exercise a couple times a week to fool my body into thinking I need a little extra bone and muscle tissue.
Hangul is a pretty neat written language (I don't know it, but have taken a few quick lessons from my wife, who is Korean born). But back in 1444 there was far, far less Korean literacy than we have today in English. There was a much smaller body of literature to update, too. And there was a much stronger drive to switch to hangul since spoken Korean didn't translate well into the Chinese characters they were using. And yet aside from all that I am told that kids (at least when she was growing up in the 80's) still had to learn to read Chinese characters in addition to Hangul anyways. So I'm not sure how well that example applies to reworking English.
Good lord. I wonder what would happen to society if we punished mistakes with such extremity. I bet some folks would immediately say "it would be better". But history has many lessons on this topic and that doesn't seem to fit.
I think the original post is referring to the theory that freeing your kids from any responsibility to fend for themselves is not good for them. I want the best for my family, but I don't think, for example, setting them up with an inexhaustable trust fund is best for them. They'd likely become weak and useless. So instead I'll provide them everything they need as they grow, teach them how to be self-reliant, and then kick them out of the nest when the time comes. After that I'd support them through hardship, but not laziness. That is what I believe would be best for my family.
It's not clear from your post if you'd agree with that methodology, and I don't expect to change your mind if you don't, but it's a fairly reasonable sentiment as there are plenty of examples of rich kids doing nothing useful with their lives. There's nothing cruel or irresponsible in a parent wanting their child to learn to fend for themself and earn there own way.
The fact that slavery eventually ended is a small comfort to those who were slaves.
Not sure what your point is there. I mean for the ones who died as slaves, sure, nothing can be done. For the others, it seems pretty likely they felt quite a bit of comfort to see such a change.
Assuming you're talking just of the former, then yeah, there has always been and always will be a lot of injustice in the world. But it still counts as progress to eliminate it.
Ah well, good luck then. Most of the things you are railing against here are acceptable standards to the credit card industry for tier1 vendors. But what do they know? I know that my company passes these guidelines. We do use SecurID where needed, but for many things it's not.
I'm skeptical that the password scheme you're talking about actually works because, you know, people write down difficult passwords. Sure, you can issue everyone a 128 bit hex key and they'll just save it on sticky or something, and depending on how they handle said sticky you may have trouble. I feel you're confusing the cryptographic and the human side. And you can most certainly lock attacked accounts by IP. Heck, you can lock the account entirely -- we're talking about a single user here. That's a valid response and adequately mimics the behavior (from the crackers' perspective) of revoking the plastic card. Once you know you're under attack (and how) you can come up with a defense that addresses it. I'm sure you'll pick this all apart, but keep in mind we may be talking about different cases. Each case has it's own requirements. This scheme works for what I'm doing. Maybe it won't work for what you're doing. I respect that your system's needs may be different.
It doesn't seem you respect my thoughts on this, which is fine, but I'm not talking out of complete ignorance here. It's part of what I do for a living. I'm not going to bother with any further line-by-line response because most of your replies are based on reductionist view without taking my whole argument into account. I think that mentality is insecure. Security is not about key size or password strength or any other one thing. It's about coming up with a combined human/machine infrustructure that works to minimize risk. It's exceptionally hard, if not impossible, to do 100% "right", as Bruce S has pointed out.
Actually there is much evidence that the anodized aluminum wrist rests corrode from contact with some skin. I know because it also happened to me. No, I didn't have any weird chemicals on my hands, nor were my hands dirty, nor did I scratch the surface in any way. I work long hours and my palms may get a little moist against the wristrest. After a few months this type of pitting happened. When I bought my new MacBook Pro I put clear plastic laminate on the wrist rest to protect it and that has worked well so far.
Apple really needs to do a little more research on these issues before releasing new products. The aluminum corrosion problem went on for years and still does, far as I know. Lots of people have been effected, but they haven't done anything about it. Now the MacBooks are proving to be reactive with some people's skin oils as well.
I understand that proving a negative is often impossible in theory (prove your nation has no nukes comes to mind), yet in practical terms it is most certainly acceptable scientific process. Think Louis Pasteur and spontaneous generation. He had to prove it wasn't happening, and he did. Unless you want to hang on to the idea that if we wait just a little longer those microorganisms will appear magically in the swan flask.
Apply as you like to global warming, but there's no rule that says either side can't prove their point for all intents and purposes.
Wait, if it is just a string of characters, a discreet enumerated set, as you say, then why is my password not considered 10 letters strong if it's two concatenated five letter words? To make that leap you're using information that the cracker won't have, namely that I use two english words. Of course, if I advertise that fact you'd be right, but I would never tell anyone;)
I understand where you're coming from, from a cryptographic standpoint. But in practice you simply can't enforce passwords to be that good. No really, I've tried. Virtually nobody uses the full 96 character set for their passwords and they're certainly not randomly chosen. So if I use two randomly chosen words from even a simplified dictionary, I think it's better in practice (though not in theory) than what you're saying.
Furthermore, I'd say that, depending on the application, 40 billion can be far more than enough. In fact, 10,000 is enough for high security in certain applications. Don't believe me? Check out your ATM PIN number. The important bit is that it has a physical key that you lose after three tries.
Any login system should be set to lock out after a small number of failed attempts, such that the 40 billion possibilities are suitably secure. For things that can be cracked offline you can't rely on such things, so for sure, encryption keys need to be much much larger.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize that slashdot does not represent the nation at large; but what I was surprised by was that within slashdot the tone has changed in the past several years. I remember when a discussion like this would be a lot more two sided. Perhaps I'm reaching but my guess is that there has been a recent delta in public opinion.
:)
I understand your apathy on the topic, but the argument that 20 years of precedent dooms us to an eternity doesn't hold water. If that were generally true, then there would be no social progress whatsoever. For example, the arguments for civil rights weren't any better in the 60's than they were 20 years earlier, but things still changed because society can learn. It may not be this year, but I think it quite possible things will change in the next 10 if enough people (like you) stop thinking it can't change.
Just promise me that you'll vote despite your apathy and I'll shut up
Cheers.
So are these the fledgling footsteps of an emerging AI, or just the babbling beginnings of a bloated database?
I'll take door number two, Monty.
That's not to say it's not cool, or that the data won't be useful in this form, but Open/Cyc is no more intelligent than the dusty reference tomes on my shelf.
Cheers.
Opening statement: I've never used any of the currently illegal drugs and don't intend to, yet I am a strong supporter marijuana legalization.
When I popped into this thread, I was expecting to see the usual arguments. I was expecting to spend a little time combatting ignorance. I wasn't expecting any actual progress.
However, what amazed me was that every highly rated comment (I browse at +3) was pro-legalization. Every single one. Sure, they were responding to some of the same tired old arguments, but it seemed that the pro-legalization camp was far more strongly represented by both posters and mods. That surprised me and made me hopeful. I'm a regular financial supporter of The Marijuana Policy Project. There are so many lost causes in the world, improvements I'd love to see that will never happen. But I believe this is one issue that we might actually see resolved in our lifetimes.
I live in the Las Vegas area, and there is a statutory initiative on the ballot this upcoming election. Please, please, please, if you live in the Las Vegas area get out and vote. There are initiatives in other states as well, but I don't know the details there.
I am convinced now there is more than enough support to pass legalization in many states. But people need to get active about it. They need to watch the issue an vote. If this is an issue you care about, please take the time. We're at a possible turning point in the next 10 to 20 years. We can make things better.
Cheers.
There's always a loud contingent that complains that Apple didn't blow them away with the latest Keynote. I remember well all the snickering after the iPod was announced. But a year or two later people are using the stuff and it's become a part of their lives like it always needed to be there. How many people rolled their eyes as Steve demoed iTunes or iPhoto the first time... just another music player and photo manager. Whoop-dee-doo. But they're the only way I feel like managing either type of media now. Or how many saw Time Machine yesterday and said "yay... I already have tar and cron". This is the common reaction, but what's missing is an understanding that the details matter. Details matter a lot. Ask anyone who's used both Gnome and OSX for a year each. Ask anyone who's used both DOS and bash for a year each. This is what Apple is good at; getting the details right. Of course they misstep, and who knows which of the features announced yesterday will turn out to become must-haves (certainly not HTML email!) ... but few companies have made such a business out of subtle yet important improvements. It's not really the gee-whiz that keeps them alive in my opinion, it's the "oh, this is how it should always be done" factor.
Cheers.
You see, you can't trust... oh, wait.
Cheers.
Heh, I guess it reads like I'm just remembering, but the intent was to semi-quote the parent, who said "because they don't have girlfriends". I knew before I posted that she was my wife :)
Cheers.
Actually, in my case it's because my girlfriend (well, wife) watches Apple with bated breath. I wish she paid attention to me like she does Steve Jobs!
;)
Cheers
Almost right. At the extremes (which in this debate includes almost everyone) pro-lifers believe that life begins at conception and pro-choicers believe that life begins at birth. I'll go out on a limb and say that both perspectives are absurd. But thems the lines that have been drawn and there's no hope for reconciliation that I can see.
My main point in responding is to correct the idea that pro-choicers draw a line at viability -- there are many abortions performed after viability and that is in line with the pro-choice doctrine that I've heard.
I agree this new info won't have any meaningful impact.
I thought it would be pretty sweet if Apple offered an iPod disabler. Since my music collection is mostly Wayne Newton (kidding) a thief is most likely going to need to hook it up to iTunes eventually. I'd gladly pay some money to Apple after my iPod got stolen to make sure the thing turned into a paper weight when someone tried to use it. If iPods got the reputation of being unable to be used after being stolen, black market value would drop and maybe eventually so would theft.
Solving newly introduced problems is left as an exercise for the reader.
Cheers.
Ignoring for the moment that CSS is flawed, I wonder if something like a standards cartel could improve the situation... the standards bodies don't do any good at all because nobody cares. The browsers have no motivation to follow the standards since most sites don't follow the standards. As long as they render the top 100 sites reasonably okay, they won't change. So what if the top 20 sites or so formed a cartel, standardized their sites and did the terrible faux-pas of not allowing their site to show in known-to-be-non-compliant browsers? Of course I always hated sites like that, but that was because back in the day things were so in flux it made no sense; I'd have had to use a different browser for every site. However if it was consistent across most of the big sites, it would have a lot more weight -- like the pressure to get a browser in the first place. They'd be saying "this is how it works". If those top 20 all agreed on the set of standards compliant browsers (ACID2, perhaps) and then required those... Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Ebay, Slashdot, etc. They'd all have to do it on the same day. I bet that within a week all the non-standards compliant browsers would be reduced to well below 5% market share. Maybe enough to kill them off and then other sites would follow.
What is the motivation for the companies to do this? Saving loads of cash on cross browser testing. Once the browsers got in line, or were killed off, development costs would be cheaper. I don't expect perfection, there will always be some ambiguity in the standard. But I bet a move like that could bring us pretty well past the growing pains.
All this written by a guy who keeps all his sites in HTML 3.2 because it's the only thing that works reliably...
Cheers.
I just want to question that one assumption, which seems to get thrown around a lot. "Software sucks today". Really? My path was C64, Amiga, Win95, Linux, OSX. I feel that software became notably more powerful, less buggy, and easier to use over my computer experience. People love to say things suck, compared to some hypothetical (and quite possibly unrealistic) idea of how things should be. But by any measure that matters in practice, software today seems eons ahead of where it was two decades ago.
Cheers.
Keep in mind that your individual opinion on what is an unimportant fact is no more valid than the person who put it in. If enough people think it is stupid it will be removed. Heck, you can remove it. You can battle back and forth with the anonymous person on the other side endlessly, and the page will change every day, and your frustration will rise and...
:)
Somehow Wikipedia continues to be useful. I understand what you're saying, but whatever criticism anyone has of Wikipedia, no matter how valid, ignores the fact that it is unquestionably incredibly useful. And the suggestions to improve it via restriction would bring it closer to the types of encycolpedias we already have had for a century... and those simply aren't useful in the same capacity as Wikipedia.
So let's enjoy our Brittanica, and enjoy our Wikipedia. Both are interesting experiments in information consolidation, from opposite extremes, and both work well in their way. If you think there's another way that would work, go right ahead and start it up! I'd be happy to critique it for you
Cheers.
I never said there weren't bad people or that they can't do great harm. I fact I said the exact opposite. My only point was that the rest of us overpower them eventually, sometimes at great cost, sure. And you're right, it can be pretty demoralizing to see how much damage a few assholes can do. But doesn't it give you the slightest bit of hope to realize that, on average, such people don't really get far?
More importantly, don't you think it's good public knowledge to spread the word that assholes usually end up worse off than decent folk? In fact, I worry sometimes that this perception that assholes get away with murder is in part responsible for the few people who are too dumb to see through such garbage to keep trying to be assholes. You gave a wide variety of examples, but one thing they have in common is that they focus on the bad thing that someone did, but ignore the fact that usually a) the error is corrected or b) they end up dead early or in prison or somesuch. That was my point. There is plenty of evil in the world, yes, but in general people who are evil don't lead happy fulfilling lives.
Cheers.
Because despite our cynicism, and contrary to our oft stated negative perception of the world, good people far outnumber bad people. By a huge margin, actually. For the sake of argument I'll assume we all know what I mean by good and bad here. Sure, there are bad people, and they can destroy things and do so in a loud manner. But the fact remains that most people are content to just keep to themselves and do no harm unless provoked. It's why society works. It's why Wikipedia works. It's not because of laws or punishment or any of that. It's because most people don't want to be assholes unless they have to be. It's because being an asshole doesn't usually result in anything positive. And being a nice person usually does. It almost gives me some hope for humanity or something.
Cheers.
Did he? He hasn't cracked iTunes 6 yet... I thought he did the old iTunes before he moved. Or perhaps he's just bored with that particular challenge having cracked it already.
DVD Jon moved to the US, so I don't think he'll be doing any more of those little tricks :/
Cheers.
Good point... of course it depends what context you're in. If your goal is to lift heavy things all things all the time, the extra bulk will be useful all of the time. More realistically if you need to move quickly sometimes, it would becomes a burden. So what's an advantage depends on the needs.
In fact, since this study indicates our bodies strengthen and weaken based on the average load, I'll go ahead and guess that the size and strength we develop to is "about right" for our particular usage pattern. In other words, going about your day to day activities your body will adjust to "about right" muscle and bone strength, so as to handle most tasks easily and not waste too much effort building infrastructure that won't be needed often if ever.
Of course, many of us seem to disagree with the natural results. Though in reality I sit at a computer most of the day and have little need for muscular development, I exercise a couple times a week to fool my body into thinking I need a little extra bone and muscle tissue.
Cheers.
Hangul is a pretty neat written language (I don't know it, but have taken a few quick lessons from my wife, who is Korean born). But back in 1444 there was far, far less Korean literacy than we have today in English. There was a much smaller body of literature to update, too. And there was a much stronger drive to switch to hangul since spoken Korean didn't translate well into the Chinese characters they were using. And yet aside from all that I am told that kids (at least when she was growing up in the 80's) still had to learn to read Chinese characters in addition to Hangul anyways. So I'm not sure how well that example applies to reworking English.
Cheers.
Good lord. I wonder what would happen to society if we punished mistakes with such extremity. I bet some folks would immediately say "it would be better". But history has many lessons on this topic and that doesn't seem to fit.
Cheers.
I think the original post is referring to the theory that freeing your kids from any responsibility to fend for themselves is not good for them. I want the best for my family, but I don't think, for example, setting them up with an inexhaustable trust fund is best for them. They'd likely become weak and useless. So instead I'll provide them everything they need as they grow, teach them how to be self-reliant, and then kick them out of the nest when the time comes. After that I'd support them through hardship, but not laziness. That is what I believe would be best for my family.
It's not clear from your post if you'd agree with that methodology, and I don't expect to change your mind if you don't, but it's a fairly reasonable sentiment as there are plenty of examples of rich kids doing nothing useful with their lives. There's nothing cruel or irresponsible in a parent wanting their child to learn to fend for themself and earn there own way.
Cheers.
The fact that slavery eventually ended is a small comfort to those who were slaves.
Not sure what your point is there. I mean for the ones who died as slaves, sure, nothing can be done. For the others, it seems pretty likely they felt quite a bit of comfort to see such a change.
Assuming you're talking just of the former, then yeah, there has always been and always will be a lot of injustice in the world. But it still counts as progress to eliminate it.
Cheers.
Ah well, good luck then. Most of the things you are railing against here are acceptable standards to the credit card industry for tier1 vendors. But what do they know? I know that my company passes these guidelines. We do use SecurID where needed, but for many things it's not.
I'm skeptical that the password scheme you're talking about actually works because, you know, people write down difficult passwords. Sure, you can issue everyone a 128 bit hex key and they'll just save it on sticky or something, and depending on how they handle said sticky you may have trouble. I feel you're confusing the cryptographic and the human side. And you can most certainly lock attacked accounts by IP. Heck, you can lock the account entirely -- we're talking about a single user here. That's a valid response and adequately mimics the behavior (from the crackers' perspective) of revoking the plastic card. Once you know you're under attack (and how) you can come up with a defense that addresses it. I'm sure you'll pick this all apart, but keep in mind we may be talking about different cases. Each case has it's own requirements. This scheme works for what I'm doing. Maybe it won't work for what you're doing. I respect that your system's needs may be different.
It doesn't seem you respect my thoughts on this, which is fine, but I'm not talking out of complete ignorance here. It's part of what I do for a living. I'm not going to bother with any further line-by-line response because most of your replies are based on reductionist view without taking my whole argument into account. I think that mentality is insecure. Security is not about key size or password strength or any other one thing. It's about coming up with a combined human/machine infrustructure that works to minimize risk. It's exceptionally hard, if not impossible, to do 100% "right", as Bruce S has pointed out.
Cheers.
Actually there is much evidence that the anodized aluminum wrist rests corrode from contact with some skin. I know because it also happened to me. No, I didn't have any weird chemicals on my hands, nor were my hands dirty, nor did I scratch the surface in any way. I work long hours and my palms may get a little moist against the wristrest. After a few months this type of pitting happened. When I bought my new MacBook Pro I put clear plastic laminate on the wrist rest to protect it and that has worked well so far.
Apple really needs to do a little more research on these issues before releasing new products. The aluminum corrosion problem went on for years and still does, far as I know. Lots of people have been effected, but they haven't done anything about it. Now the MacBooks are proving to be reactive with some people's skin oils as well.
Cheers.
I understand that proving a negative is often impossible in theory (prove your nation has no nukes comes to mind), yet in practical terms it is most certainly acceptable scientific process. Think Louis Pasteur and spontaneous generation. He had to prove it wasn't happening, and he did. Unless you want to hang on to the idea that if we wait just a little longer those microorganisms will appear magically in the swan flask.
Apply as you like to global warming, but there's no rule that says either side can't prove their point for all intents and purposes.
Cheers.
Wait, if it is just a string of characters, a discreet enumerated set, as you say, then why is my password not considered 10 letters strong if it's two concatenated five letter words? To make that leap you're using information that the cracker won't have, namely that I use two english words. Of course, if I advertise that fact you'd be right, but I would never tell anyone ;)
I understand where you're coming from, from a cryptographic standpoint. But in practice you simply can't enforce passwords to be that good. No really, I've tried. Virtually nobody uses the full 96 character set for their passwords and they're certainly not randomly chosen. So if I use two randomly chosen words from even a simplified dictionary, I think it's better in practice (though not in theory) than what you're saying.
Furthermore, I'd say that, depending on the application, 40 billion can be far more than enough. In fact, 10,000 is enough for high security in certain applications. Don't believe me? Check out your ATM PIN number. The important bit is that it has a physical key that you lose after three tries.
Any login system should be set to lock out after a small number of failed attempts, such that the 40 billion possibilities are suitably secure. For things that can be cracked offline you can't rely on such things, so for sure, encryption keys need to be much much larger.
Cheers.