In the GPS system, there are three kinds of codes: C/A code, P-code and Y-code.
Now last I checked the Precision (P) code was considered classified. Details about how this code was generated and how to decrypt it were considered military secrets.
I don't believe the P-code has anything to do with selective availability either, I think that the P-code is used for the militaries PPS, which is "precise positioning system".
Anyway, so how is that included in this suite? and further, what purpose does it serve to even have access to the p-code, as standard gps gear isn't even supposed to work with it?
"Her PC was in such bad shape, it required 10 1/2 hours of surgery to restore it to working condition."
Are you kidding me? Any guy who calls himself "the digital doctor" should have enough know-how and resources to be able to back-up a machine, wipe it clean, and re-install the necessary applications.
It is all too common nowadays for the inept to call themselves experts.
I'm not sure I follow your "business standpoint" logic. I think it is a bad idea, and bad precedent. Microsoft should be focusing money and energy on their product, not on containment techniques.
The fact of the matter is that this strategy only works if there are only a handful of people with the knowledge to write the virii, and you think you can catch them all. However this is not the case... several "authors" have proven to be minors, which only demonstrates that the knowledge is widely available to those who seek it out.
I really appreciated the above story in that it demonstrated that it is not just the US that is having this music copyright debate (debate/problem/issue... you choose your wording).
It seems like every time something bad happens here (in the US) all these Canadians chime in about how trouble free their existence is... and I partially believe that it is in fact better (on some levels at least), but at the same time it always sounds very very one sided.
In retrospect it seems pretty safe to assume that if you are the little guy, it probably sucks somewhat everywhere
None of the items on the "patent hit-list" is what I would consider a high-profile "stupid" patent. These are all patents that are out there being enforced on a daily basis and are causing problems with business
They make no mention of the plethora of inane patents that have been granted (double-click patent, spam filter patent, swinging sideways patent).
The approach they are taking seems less likely to cause a big stir, because they are going to be hard fought with little gains in patent approval procedures
It seems to me that the easier way to get things to change (for the better) would be to gather up a list of 100 patents and systematically prove that every single one of them was extremely foolish to grant. Embarass the USPTO in the media with obvious claims of prior art.
Basically what we are looking for here isn't a few patents to be overturned, which is what the EFF is trying to do (its a nice start, don't get me wrong), but rather we need a change to the system, and unfortunately it appears it can only be done through an act of congress or through repeated abuses of the USPTO in the court system...
Voodoo was basically the beginning of the performance PC market, with tons of wierd options and card types.
Benchmarks for the old 3dfx V2 SLI can be seen here:
http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/19980204/ I was (and still am, although its in the junk pile) a 3dfx V2 owner, the performance of that card was just amazing at the time. The Voodoo and the Voodoo2 definitely changed the world of 3d gaming.
Also of interest is an API that came out much later for the 3dfx chipsets that actually let you use your 3dfx chipset (they didn't call it a GPU back in the day) as another system processor. If you were an efficient coder you could actually offload geometric and linear calculations to the card for things other than rendering. I can't seem to find the link for that though, it may be gone forever.
You know what, you're absolutely right. In fact, instead of making all of these changes independently, maybe OpenBSD should resync with FreeBSD, instead of wasting development effort on "security". Then they would have all the features of a modern OS *and* security! It's brilliant.
Honestly, OpenBSD is way overdue for a resync anyway, especially given how old the feature-set feels... will they ever do it again? It would help them *so much* in catching up.
it's good to see that he is opening his mind to the one area OpenBSD is severly lacking.
Um, are you kidding me? I've been involved in a project doing OpenBSD kernel development for the last 2 years, and I'll tell you right now there are so many shortcomings in the kernel you wouldn't believe it.
Let's start with the broken PCMCIA support (interrupt problems), or maybe the fact that it doesn't have kernel threads (user threads blow, especially when those are broken too), and don't get me started on the broken drivers (there are so many that don't work right).
We fixed lots of these issues for our projects, but honestly, who cares about contributing back to OpenBSD. We talked about sending patches, but he was such a jerk in our interactions with him (Theo) that we just decided to keep them to ourselves.
Seriously, at this point the differences in security between OpenBSD and FreeBSD are trivial... so what's the point.
Let's be honest here, these development teams (Origin, Black Isle, etc) are no longer the crack creative outlets they once were. Why care about their dispersion?
The developers who made the games you love most likely left years ago, before they descended into mediocrity. It is unlikely they would (or could?) have made a title you would love like your old favorites.
My personal disallusionment with the gaming industry largely stems from the overwhelming lack of creativity. The PC game industry is looking a lot like the movie industry right now. Lots of big companies rehashing old ideas for the sake of profit. Well I'm not buying it (literally). Unless I see something really worth buying (something new & well made or *original*) I won't be spending my money on it.
If that means that my old favorite game companies go out of business, or are sold, dispersed, etc, then so be it. This is a do or die environment, and they didn't do it for me.
My only real concern is who ends up owning the franchises after the original groups dissolve. For example, Fallout. I don't care who makes the next title in the Fallout universe, as long as its *good*.
Well, I didn't do my homework, you are right that the POSSE money wasn't all pulled suddenly. I do recall reading some stories that seemed to phrase it that way on the internet, perhaps I misread.
I do stand by my statement though... (concerning the assholitude).:D
The posters point is taken though... IMHO Theo is an ass. I was in no way surprised when the funding they were promised was pulled moments before it was to be paid. He honestly seems to go out of his way to make people feel bad, and himself feel better.
A coworker of mine was "graced" with a personal email from Theo, in which he complained that adding new features to kernels was a "stupid new meme" without actually having read the email about what my coworker was doing....
Although I do run Openbsd... I attribute its quality to the dedicated coders who work relentlessly to find little tiny holes.
In addition to the freely distributable Software Programs, some versions of Xandros Desktop may also include certain Software Programs that are not distributed under the terms of the GPL or similar licenses that permit modification and redistribution. Generally, each of these Software Programs is distributed under the terms of a license agreement that grants the licensed user to install each of the Software Programs on a single computer for the user's own individual use. Copying (other than for archival purposes), redistribution, reverse engineering, decompiling and/or modification of these Software Programs is prohibited.
That would seem to imply that you cannoy just blatantly copy it and give it to all your friends without violating the license.
AFAIK Xandros completely ignores Gnome applications... The installation utilities don't allow for easy installation of the most basic gnome applications either, gnome-terminal, gaim, etc.
Definitely something to consider if you are thinking about trying it.
"The 44 kHz (IIRC) sampling frequency of a CD means that you can actually record signals with frequencies as high has 22 kHz (half the sampling frequency -- that's a methematical theorem about the discrete Fourier transform). The reason they designed CD audio around that figure was exactly because of the limits of human hearing."
You are referring to the Nyquist criterion, which states that in order to guarantee you are not losing analog signal information you must sample your source at twice the frequency of the source.
A detailed explanation of the criterion and theory is here
I don't believe it has anything to do with Fourier, or more likely, it can be understood very simply without any knowledge of advanced mathematics (see the link)
I both agree and disagree with you on your above points... it seems unlikely that the average person can hear about 20khz, but that doesn't necessarily mean that sampling at a higher frequency is pointless. It seems somewhat intuitive that the lower ranges would be that much more "correct". I.E. it can't hurt to sample faster, but it probably doesn't help so much.
M.T. Anderson wrote a satire about this sort of thing. The book was called "The Feed". It's next on my list, haven't gotten to it yet.
Amazon describes it as:
"This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy."
If they do equal...if the sun were to disappear, we would see the light of the sun and still be fine orbit wise for about 8 minutes. Kinda funny to think about.
So the universe suffers from lag then? 8 minutes seems excessively long, I think we need an upgrade;-)
Our cable broadband is provided by Comcast (notoriously identified as evil), and I have never heard so much as a peep from. I basically have torrentstorm running on one of our machines 24-7 downloading every kind of media imaginable, and I would not be surprised if I cleared 4-5 gigs most weeks... and that is only *me*, we have 2 other users on the network too.
I suspect this will end up being some small ISP who really can't afford to buy more bandwidth and has little choice but to throttle back heavy users.
'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'
The problem seems more like a lack of corporate leadership that can't see past their own bottom lines.
Offshoring jobs (especially in manufacturing) has always seemed particularly nefarious to me... Somehow sacrificing your fellow Americans to save a few dollars doesn't seem quite right.
I can't wait until we start offshoring CEO positions for traditionally American operated companies.
Yeah, I realize that it is possible to crack just about any software, still one would think they would have used a "good" algorithm to protecting thier software. The way I understand it, they didnt even try. They just stuck on some fakey auth package in and expected people to pay for it. I would suspect that a large percent of the "element" that actually uses l0phtcrack are not network admins doing audits (not that I actually care), who would never have any intention of registering it. One would think they would have done everything in thier power to prevent them from exploiting the software.
I'm curious to know how you all felt when your tool (L0phtcrack), notoriously effective on beating lanman hashes, was itself cracked.
One way in that L0phtcrack existence was justified in the community was that it had a limited use for the "Script kiddies", and only lasted 20 days (I think), but as with all tools it was cracked. In essence, your cracker was cracked.
While I highly respect L0phtcrack and find it very usefull on the job, I have to wonder how well you thought about your own key. You know you have a tool that is very much in demand, yet you dont seem to protect it in the way that one would have expected. I mean some would argue that are the "best" security experts around, yet you didn't even protect your own software.
I would like very much to know what you think about this.
I'm curious to know how you all felt when your tool (L0phtcrack), notoriously effective on beating lanman hashes, was itself cracked. One way in that L0phtcrack existence was justified in the community was that it had a limited use for the "Script kiddies", and only lasted 20 days (I think), but as with all tools it was cracked. In essence, your cracker was cracked. While I highly respect L0phtcrack and find it very usefull on the job, I have to wonder how well you thought about your own key. You know you have a tool that is very much in demand, yet you dont seem to protect it in the way that one would have expected. I mean some would argue that are the "best" security experts around, yet you didn't even protect your own software. I would like very much to know what you think about this. -kamelkev
Slashdot Mirror
Oh wait... what? It's almost september? WTF is going on here...
Wonder woman would be all over this... this is the missing ingredient for the ever elusive "invisible plane".
Seriously though, this has crazy applications. Imagine all the things you could make with this stuff:
Windshields that bend instead of crack, providing protection during an accident
Pairs of glasses that won't break
No more broken windows because the kid down the street hits a baseball at your house.
There seem to be virtually limitless applications, assuming the optical properties are similar to that of glass, which the article alludes to.
In the GPS system, there are three kinds of codes: C/A code, P-code and Y-code.
Now last I checked the Precision (P) code was considered classified. Details about how this code was generated and how to decrypt it were considered military secrets.
I don't believe the P-code has anything to do with selective availability either, I think that the P-code is used for the militaries PPS, which is "precise positioning system".
Anyway, so how is that included in this suite? and further, what purpose does it serve to even have access to the p-code, as standard gps gear isn't even supposed to work with it?
"Her PC was in such bad shape, it required 10 1/2 hours of surgery to restore it to working condition."
Are you kidding me? Any guy who calls himself "the digital doctor" should have enough know-how and resources to be able to back-up a machine, wipe it clean, and re-install the necessary applications.
It is all too common nowadays for the inept to call themselves experts.
I'm not sure I follow your "business standpoint" logic. I think it is a bad idea, and bad precedent. Microsoft should be focusing money and energy on their product, not on containment techniques.
The fact of the matter is that this strategy only works if there are only a handful of people with the knowledge to write the virii, and you think you can catch them all. However this is not the case... several "authors" have proven to be minors, which only demonstrates that the knowledge is widely available to those who seek it out.
I really appreciated the above story in that it demonstrated that it is not just the US that is having this music copyright debate (debate/problem/issue ... you choose your wording).
It seems like every time something bad happens here (in the US) all these Canadians chime in about how trouble free their existence is... and I partially believe that it is in fact better (on some levels at least), but at the same time it always sounds very very one sided.
In retrospect it seems pretty safe to assume that if you are the little guy, it probably sucks somewhat everywhere
None of the items on the "patent hit-list" is what I would consider a high-profile "stupid" patent. These are all patents that are out there being enforced on a daily basis and are causing problems with business
They make no mention of the plethora of inane patents that have been granted (double-click patent, spam filter patent, swinging sideways patent).
The approach they are taking seems less likely to cause a big stir, because they are going to be hard fought with little gains in patent approval procedures
It seems to me that the easier way to get things to change (for the better) would be to gather up a list of 100 patents and systematically prove that every single one of them was extremely foolish to grant. Embarass the USPTO in the media with obvious claims of prior art.
Basically what we are looking for here isn't a few patents to be overturned, which is what the EFF is trying to do (its a nice start, don't get me wrong), but rather we need a change to the system, and unfortunately it appears it can only be done through an act of congress or through repeated abuses of the USPTO in the court system...
Voodoo was basically the beginning of the performance PC market, with tons of wierd options and card types.
Benchmarks for the old 3dfx V2 SLI can be seen here:
http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/19980204/
I was (and still am, although its in the junk pile) a 3dfx V2 owner, the performance of that card was just amazing at the time. The Voodoo and the Voodoo2 definitely changed the world of 3d gaming.
Also of interest is an API that came out much later for the 3dfx chipsets that actually let you use your 3dfx chipset (they didn't call it a GPU back in the day) as another system processor. If you were an efficient coder you could actually offload geometric and linear calculations to the card for things other than rendering. I can't seem to find the link for that though, it may be gone forever.
This is not just "porting" like a device driver.
You know what, you're absolutely right. In fact, instead of making all of these changes independently, maybe OpenBSD should resync with FreeBSD, instead of wasting development effort on "security". Then they would have all the features of a modern OS *and* security! It's brilliant.
Honestly, OpenBSD is way overdue for a resync anyway, especially given how old the feature-set feels... will they ever do it again? It would help them *so much* in catching up.
it's good to see that he is opening his mind to the one area OpenBSD is severly lacking.
Um, are you kidding me? I've been involved in a project doing OpenBSD kernel development for the last 2 years, and I'll tell you right now there are so many shortcomings in the kernel you wouldn't believe it.
Let's start with the broken PCMCIA support (interrupt problems), or maybe the fact that it doesn't have kernel threads (user threads blow, especially when those are broken too), and don't get me started on the broken drivers (there are so many that don't work right).
We fixed lots of these issues for our projects, but honestly, who cares about contributing back to OpenBSD. We talked about sending patches, but he was such a jerk in our interactions with him (Theo) that we just decided to keep them to ourselves.
Seriously, at this point the differences in security between OpenBSD and FreeBSD are trivial... so what's the point.
Let's be honest here, these development teams (Origin, Black Isle, etc) are no longer the crack creative outlets they once were. Why care about their dispersion?
The developers who made the games you love most likely left years ago, before they descended into mediocrity. It is unlikely they would (or could?) have made a title you would love like your old favorites.
My personal disallusionment with the gaming industry largely stems from the overwhelming lack of creativity. The PC game industry is looking a lot like the movie industry right now. Lots of big companies rehashing old ideas for the sake of profit. Well I'm not buying it (literally). Unless I see something really worth buying (something new & well made or *original*) I won't be spending my money on it.
If that means that my old favorite game companies go out of business, or are sold, dispersed, etc, then so be it. This is a do or die environment, and they didn't do it for me.
My only real concern is who ends up owning the franchises after the original groups dissolve. For example, Fallout. I don't care who makes the next title in the Fallout universe, as long as its *good*.
Well, I didn't do my homework, you are right that the POSSE money wasn't all pulled suddenly. I do recall reading some stories that seemed to phrase it that way on the internet, perhaps I misread.
:D
I do stand by my statement though... (concerning the assholitude).
The posters point is taken though... IMHO Theo is an ass. I was in no way surprised when the funding they were promised was pulled moments before it was to be paid. He honestly seems to go out of his way to make people feel bad, and himself feel better.
...
A coworker of mine was "graced" with a personal email from Theo, in which he complained that adding new features to kernels was a "stupid new meme" without actually having read the email about what my coworker was doing.
Although I do run Openbsd... I attribute its quality to the dedicated coders who work relentlessly to find little tiny holes.
Check out the license here
In addition to the freely distributable Software Programs, some versions of Xandros Desktop may also include certain Software Programs that are not distributed under the terms of the GPL or similar licenses that permit modification and redistribution. Generally, each of these Software Programs is distributed under the terms of a license agreement that grants the licensed user to install each of the Software Programs on a single computer for the user's own individual use. Copying (other than for archival purposes), redistribution, reverse engineering, decompiling and/or modification of these Software Programs is prohibited.
That would seem to imply that you cannoy just blatantly copy it and give it to all your friends without violating the license.
AFAIK Xandros completely ignores Gnome applications... The installation utilities don't allow for easy installation of the most basic gnome applications either, gnome-terminal, gaim, etc.
Definitely something to consider if you are thinking about trying it.
"The 44 kHz (IIRC) sampling frequency of a CD means that you can actually record signals with frequencies as high has 22 kHz (half the sampling frequency -- that's a methematical theorem about the discrete Fourier transform). The reason they designed CD audio around that figure was exactly because of the limits of human hearing."
You are referring to the Nyquist criterion, which states that in order to guarantee you are not losing analog signal information you must sample your source at twice the frequency of the source.
A detailed explanation of the criterion and theory is here
I don't believe it has anything to do with Fourier, or more likely, it can be understood very simply without any knowledge of advanced mathematics (see the link)
I both agree and disagree with you on your above points... it seems unlikely that the average person can hear about 20khz, but that doesn't necessarily mean that sampling at a higher frequency is pointless. It seems somewhat intuitive that the lower ranges would be that much more "correct". I.E. it can't hurt to sample faster, but it probably doesn't help so much.
M.T. Anderson wrote a satire about this sort of thing. The book was called "The Feed". It's next on my list, haven't gotten to it yet.
Amazon describes it as:
"This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy."
Sounds interesting, and inevitable....
If they do equal...if the sun were to disappear, we would see the light of the sun and still be fine orbit wise for about 8 minutes. Kinda funny to think about.
;-)
So the universe suffers from lag then? 8 minutes seems excessively long, I think we need an upgrade
Well, I wonder who the ISP was.
Our cable broadband is provided by Comcast (notoriously identified as evil), and I have never heard so much as a peep from. I basically have torrentstorm running on one of our machines 24-7 downloading every kind of media imaginable, and I would not be surprised if I cleared 4-5 gigs most weeks... and that is only *me*, we have 2 other users on the network too.
I suspect this will end up being some small ISP who really can't afford to buy more bandwidth and has little choice but to throttle back heavy users.
'The problem is a lack of highly educated workers willing to work for the minimum wage or lower in the U.S. Costs are driving outsourcing, not the quality of American schools.'
The problem seems more like a lack of corporate leadership that can't see past their own bottom lines.
Offshoring jobs (especially in manufacturing) has always seemed particularly nefarious to me... Somehow sacrificing your fellow Americans to save a few dollars doesn't seem quite right.
I can't wait until we start offshoring CEO positions for traditionally American operated companies.
Apple is offering free laser engraving for those of you who may be interested in buying this particular iPod version.
Nothing says "don't steal me" like your name blazened across the back...
Yeah, I realize that it is possible to crack just about any software, still one would think they would have used a "good" algorithm to protecting thier software. The way I understand it, they didnt even try. They just stuck on some fakey auth package in and expected people to pay for it. I would suspect that a large percent of the "element" that actually uses l0phtcrack are not network admins doing audits (not that I actually care), who would never have any intention of registering it. One would think they would have done everything in thier power to prevent them from exploiting the software.
Sorry, Im a dumbass, instead of hitting preview I hit submit after I had fixified it for readability.
my bad
I'm curious to know how you all felt when your tool (L0phtcrack), notoriously effective on beating lanman hashes, was itself cracked.
One way in that L0phtcrack existence was justified in the community was that it had a limited use for the "Script kiddies", and only lasted 20 days (I think), but as with all tools it was cracked. In essence, your cracker was cracked.
While I highly respect L0phtcrack and find it very usefull on the job, I have to wonder how well you thought about your own key. You know you have a tool that is very much in demand, yet you dont seem to protect it in the way that one would have expected. I mean some would argue that are the "best" security experts around, yet you didn't even protect your own software.
I would like very much to know what you think about this.
-kamelkev
I'm curious to know how you all felt when your tool (L0phtcrack), notoriously effective on beating lanman hashes, was itself cracked. One way in that L0phtcrack existence was justified in the community was that it had a limited use for the "Script kiddies", and only lasted 20 days (I think), but as with all tools it was cracked. In essence, your cracker was cracked. While I highly respect L0phtcrack and find it very usefull on the job, I have to wonder how well you thought about your own key. You know you have a tool that is very much in demand, yet you dont seem to protect it in the way that one would have expected. I mean some would argue that are the "best" security experts around, yet you didn't even protect your own software. I would like very much to know what you think about this. -kamelkev