Actually, chip cards (EMV) do work in a manner similar to what you describe (public/private key encryption). The problem highlighted by the report is that it is possible to capture the PIN as it passes from the PIN pad before being transmitted. This part of the equation is unencrypted atleast in one model of terminals from one manufacturer. As far as I know, just about every other POS terminal as well as the keyboards on the ATMs only pass on encrypted PINs (except for older models!).
So, what do you loose if your PIN is compromised? Actually, nothing in a perfect world. That is, a world with only chip cards. The problem is that an overwhelming majority of transactions are being performed on plain old magnetic stripe cards. The amount of infrasturcture already out there prevents an overnight shifting to chip cards, and that is why every card with a chip also has a magnetic stripe.
So if you have a clear PIN and you have the data on the magentic stripe of a card, then it is trivial to reproduce the card and then use it on an ATM with the PIN to withdraw cash.
If you have a secure chip only card, then more than 90% of the world's terminals will not work for you, including just about every terminal in north America.
This is actually not as proprietary as you might think. Chip card standards are set by an organization called EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa, emvco.com) which has detailed published specifications for the hardware as well as software. Every POS terminal as well as the software residing in it has to go through a certification process. I suppose the next revision of the standard will overcome the problem highlighted.
Actually, youtube is back online in Pakistan. Apparently, the "highly blasphemous material has been removed by youtube"!
According to the govt. of Pakistan.
On a side note, portraits of Muhammad and others are everywhere in Iran. You can even see them painted in cafes depicting various scenes from Muhammad's life.
So how come it is OK for Iranians to do this but not anyone else?
I would have thought this would be grounds enough to nuke Iran long ago!
I know this is Slashdot, and this may never be modded above 1 but compared to the ipod touch:
- The Zune costs half the price of the 32GB Touch and comes with 80GB. - The Zune comes with high quality headphones and sounds much better than any Ipod. Yes, I've actually compared the two by listening to them! - You are not condemned for life to use Itunes. Seriously, for us PC users who might want to switch to the Mac, is Itunes an example of the finesse and "cool" that is Apple? I am digressing here, but the Itunes experience is horrible. And the less that is said about Safari (on XP) the better. Compared to Itunes, the Microsoft PC sync application is exceedingly easy, intuitive and non-intrusive. Hold on to your comments on this until you actually try it. - I've played with the Ipod touch interface for several hours. While it is cool, for me it is impractical in the long term. The reason is that I'm used to operating my MP3 players and cell phones with a single hand. I also absolutely require dedicated volume control buttons. - The Internet experience on the Touch is better than on other devices of similar screen size, but it is still impractical for any serious or long-term use. - I'm not sure if the Touch allows you to sync over WiFi (the model I tried seemed to require a USB cable). The Zune lets you use WiFi to sync with your PC. - I'm not sure why Apple still does not include an FM radio in their Ipods. It is really useful if you watch TV while working out at the gym as most gyms broadcast the TV audio on FM. Overall, I found the Zune to be a better experience. I actually wanted to get an Ipod touch but am inclined towards a Zune now.
Right now, I'm using a Sony 4GB MP3 player. I never even needed to open the CD that came with it. It just appears as an external device on USB and I just drag and drop entire music folders into it. It is that convenient. It works equally well with the Windows Media Player. For some reason, didn't work with Itunes. Sound quality is the same as an Ipod and costs 35% less than Ipod nano.
I think there is perhaps another simpler explanation.
What terrorists need foremost are people with engineering/technical background. These are the people that are going to be the most useful to them (building bombs, improvised explosives, electronic control systems, calculating the explosives required for specific targets, communication systems, counter measures to electronic surveillance, countering building security systems, etc.) After engineers, they would probably need project managers, counselors, finance experts and of course computer systems guys.
So obviously, engineers are the most desirable recruits for the terrorist HR department and they would go after engineers at a high priority in their recruiting drives.
Probably that is the reason you would find more engineers in sufficiently mature terrorist organizations.
It is all because of the number of available positions in an organization as opposed to any psychology inherent in engineers.
That's all fine but what to do with the original?
Does the original continue to exist or is killed -9? If it exists, how would you synchronize the two? What happens to the copy? What if the copy doesn't want to be erased?
It is these ethical dilemmas that are keeping telportation from becoming a reality!
Oh come on!
It is way more convenient to use a two button mouse. Any one but a "head up Steve's butt" Mac fan would admit to that.
It is just out of spite that Mac is still without a two button mouse!
I bet you don't even use a full size qwerty keyboard, you probably just use mouse clicks instead!
By the way, what do you use your precious little middle finger for?
I know that I will never get modded up beyond 1, but you need to grow up.
I'm not a computer nerd, but can someone elaborate why it only required a fraction of the current supercomputer power to simulate nuclear weapons 30 years ago? Wasn't that kind of processing power restricted from being exported at that time? Have computer algorithms actually deteriorated so that they would require more power to be effective now than a few decades back?
Isn't a simple Intel Pentium of today more capable than a Cray supercomputer of say, 30 years ago which was banned for export precisely because it could be used to simulate nuclear weapons?
If you could simulate nuclear explosions on a Pentium (Today's Pentium = Cray of 70s) why would you need something more powerful? I mean sure if you are looking to maximize the yield on your weapons beyond the current state of the art, fine. But otherwise it seems to me that you shouldn't need an elaborate setup.
Remember this is slashdot. All you're going to get are comments such as "I can read just fine on my iphone". When it comes to Apple, objectivity is the first to go down the drain.
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Actually, chip cards (EMV) do work in a manner similar to what you describe (public/private key encryption). The problem highlighted by the report is that it is possible to capture the PIN as it passes from the PIN pad before being transmitted. This part of the equation is unencrypted atleast in one model of terminals from one manufacturer. As far as I know, just about every other POS terminal as well as the keyboards on the ATMs only pass on encrypted PINs (except for older models!).
So, what do you loose if your PIN is compromised? Actually, nothing in a perfect world. That is, a world with only chip cards. The problem is that an overwhelming majority of transactions are being performed on plain old magnetic stripe cards. The amount of infrasturcture already out there prevents an overnight shifting to chip cards, and that is why every card with a chip also has a magnetic stripe.
So if you have a clear PIN and you have the data on the magentic stripe of a card, then it is trivial to reproduce the card and then use it on an ATM with the PIN to withdraw cash.
If you have a secure chip only card, then more than 90% of the world's terminals will not work for you, including just about every terminal in north America.
This is actually not as proprietary as you might think. Chip card standards are set by an organization called EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa, emvco.com) which has detailed published specifications for the hardware as well as software. Every POS terminal as well as the software residing in it has to go through a certification process. I suppose the next revision of the standard will overcome the problem highlighted.
Actually, youtube is back online in Pakistan. Apparently, the "highly blasphemous material has been removed by youtube"! According to the govt. of Pakistan.
On a side note, portraits of Muhammad and others are everywhere in Iran. You can even see them painted in cafes depicting various scenes from Muhammad's life. So how come it is OK for Iranians to do this but not anyone else? I would have thought this would be grounds enough to nuke Iran long ago!
I know this is Slashdot, and this may never be modded above 1 but compared to the ipod touch:
- The Zune costs half the price of the 32GB Touch and comes with 80GB.
- The Zune comes with high quality headphones and sounds much better than any Ipod. Yes, I've actually compared the two by listening to them!
- You are not condemned for life to use Itunes. Seriously, for us PC users who might want to switch to the Mac, is Itunes an example of the finesse and "cool" that is Apple? I am digressing here, but the Itunes experience is horrible. And the less that is said about Safari (on XP) the better. Compared to Itunes, the Microsoft PC sync application is exceedingly easy, intuitive and non-intrusive. Hold on to your comments on this until you actually try it.
- I've played with the Ipod touch interface for several hours. While it is cool, for me it is impractical in the long term. The reason is that I'm used to operating my MP3 players and cell phones with a single hand. I also absolutely require dedicated volume control buttons.
- The Internet experience on the Touch is better than on other devices of similar screen size, but it is still impractical for any serious or long-term use.
- I'm not sure if the Touch allows you to sync over WiFi (the model I tried seemed to require a USB cable). The Zune lets you use WiFi to sync with your PC.
- I'm not sure why Apple still does not include an FM radio in their Ipods. It is really useful if you watch TV while working out at the gym as most gyms broadcast the TV audio on FM.
Overall, I found the Zune to be a better experience. I actually wanted to get an Ipod touch but am inclined towards a Zune now.
Right now, I'm using a Sony 4GB MP3 player. I never even needed to open the CD that came with it. It just appears as an external device on USB and I just drag and drop entire music folders into it. It is that convenient. It works equally well with the Windows Media Player. For some reason, didn't work with Itunes. Sound quality is the same as an Ipod and costs 35% less than Ipod nano.
I couldn't have said it better!
I think there is perhaps another simpler explanation.
What terrorists need foremost are people with engineering/technical background. These are the people that are going to be the most useful to them (building bombs, improvised explosives, electronic control systems, calculating the explosives required for specific targets, communication systems, counter measures to electronic surveillance, countering building security systems, etc.) After engineers, they would probably need project managers, counselors, finance experts and of course computer systems guys.
So obviously, engineers are the most desirable recruits for the terrorist HR department and they would go after engineers at a high priority in their recruiting drives. Probably that is the reason you would find more engineers in sufficiently mature terrorist organizations. It is all because of the number of available positions in an organization as opposed to any psychology inherent in engineers.
That's all fine but what to do with the original? Does the original continue to exist or is killed -9? If it exists, how would you synchronize the two? What happens to the copy? What if the copy doesn't want to be erased? It is these ethical dilemmas that are keeping telportation from becoming a reality!
Oh come on! It is way more convenient to use a two button mouse. Any one but a "head up Steve's butt" Mac fan would admit to that. It is just out of spite that Mac is still without a two button mouse! I bet you don't even use a full size qwerty keyboard, you probably just use mouse clicks instead! By the way, what do you use your precious little middle finger for? I know that I will never get modded up beyond 1, but you need to grow up.
I suppose the answer in the words of my generation would be "generation gap". Which seems to be occurring multiple times within a genration nowdays.
I'm not a computer nerd, but can someone elaborate why it only required a fraction of the current supercomputer power to simulate nuclear weapons 30 years ago? Wasn't that kind of processing power restricted from being exported at that time? Have computer algorithms actually deteriorated so that they would require more power to be effective now than a few decades back? Isn't a simple Intel Pentium of today more capable than a Cray supercomputer of say, 30 years ago which was banned for export precisely because it could be used to simulate nuclear weapons? If you could simulate nuclear explosions on a Pentium (Today's Pentium = Cray of 70s) why would you need something more powerful? I mean sure if you are looking to maximize the yield on your weapons beyond the current state of the art, fine. But otherwise it seems to me that you shouldn't need an elaborate setup.
Remember this is slashdot. All you're going to get are comments such as "I can read just fine on my iphone". When it comes to Apple, objectivity is the first to go down the drain.