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User: TheTrueScotsman

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Comments · 116

  1. Encrypts and compresses? on Lockbox Aims To NSA-Proof the Cloud · · Score: 2

    One would hope they do the compression first otherwise there's very little point.

  2. Re:400 Mb per seconds on Supercomputer Becomes Massive Router For Global Radio Telescope · · Score: 1

    It's actually 400 MB. You need to get this sort of thing right if you're planning a career in the tech industry when you finish school.

  3. Re:FLAC on Neil Young Pushes Pono, Says Piracy Is the New Radio · · Score: 2

    I love vinyl and I know for sure that it gives a less accurate sound than CDs. What's great about vinyl is the euphonic distortion it adds to the sound.

  4. Re:No. What's up with these PC video screens? on Hardware Is Dead — At Least Most Expensive Hardware Is · · Score: 1

    There are loads of 1920x1200 monitors available. Looking at my local hardware shop's page, there about 30 different models with both TN and IPS screens from the usual suspects (Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, NEC, Samsung, etc).

    I prefer that extra bit of height and use a 2560x1440 27-inch Dell.

  5. Re:Computer does things a computer can do! on University Team Builds Lego and Raspberry Pi Cluster · · Score: 1

    Or they could just use a desktop PC with 64 VMs.

  6. Re:CRC on Ask Slashdot: How Do I De-Dupe a System With 4.2 Million Files? · · Score: 1

    Chance of a collision between any two random files is the birthday problem, isn't it? That would be one in 2^64 for MD5 (square root of 2^128). That's a pretty low probability for a few TB of data. Anyway, just do a straight compare if the hashes collide.

  7. Re:useless aspect ratio on Sources Say ITU Has Approved Ultra-High Definition TV Standard · · Score: 2

    I don't agree. As long as you have sufficient vertical resolution (1080 isn't enough, 1200 is ok, 1440 is great for me at the moment), then horizontal resolution is fine at either 16:9 or 16:10. In fact, at (say) 1200 vertical, 16:9 would give you a more useful monitor (won't ever exist, of course).

    1920x1080 is, of course, an abomination for work and I think this is where the hatred of 16:9 comes from. Whereas 2560x1440 looks great from where I'm sitting.

  8. They sound great! on Forget 6-Minute Abs: Learn To Code In a Day · · Score: 1

    How do I give one of them my interview coding test?

  9. Re:Oh Boeing... on Flight 4590 Didn't Kill the Concorde; Costs Did · · Score: 1

    It did stand out. I lived for a time in Windsor (about eight miles from Heathrow right under the flight path) in 1980 when all the planes you mention were flying.

    The noise Concorde made (whether on approach or departure) was astonishing and significantly louder than any other plane.

  10. Re:useless for strong passwords on John the Ripper Cracks Slow Hashes On GPU · · Score: 1

    It's not the words that are memorable, but the picture it creates. The human brain is very good at remembering (especially odd) pictures.

    The technique is well used by people that perform feats of memory. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

  11. Re:Irony on The Leap Second Is Here! Are Your Systems Ready? · · Score: 1

    I have about 30 Windows server machines (mix of 2003 and 2008) in a a server pool that I inherited. All are set to manual updates and I have never seen an unwanted restart that wasn't due to a hardware problem (some of the machines have been running for over five years). I call bullshit.

  12. Re:Maybe, maybe not... on US Regains Supercomputing Crown, Besting China and Japan · · Score: 1

    It's quite simple: if they have quantum computers then RSA (and DSA) are toast and symmetric algorithms are reduced to the square root. So if you're using AES256 (but without public keys to exchange session keys), you're fine. If you're using AES128, you can be decrypted by medium-sized resources in the near future (and certainly NSA resources now).

  13. "Bill the originator of the traffic" on The U.N.'s Push for Power Over the Internet · · Score: 1

    Surely they can that now: just tap and bill the upstream partner of each layer 1 connection. If no payment is made then they're disconnected.

  14. Re:I wish them luck. on OpenBSD Fork Bitrig Announced · · Score: 1

    It's "world-class" as a server OS.

  15. Re:Ban the cloud? on IBM's Ban on Dropbox and iCloud Highlights Cloud Security Issues · · Score: 1

    A port is not a protocol. It's trivial to monitor port 80 (or 443, etc) and detect if FTP or SCP headers are passing through. You could, of course, come up with a completely encrypted customized protocol, but this can be flagged as well.

  16. Re:Go Figure! on Archaeologists Find Oldest Known Mayan Calendar · · Score: 1

    Wonderful example of a kook site. It's even got a marquee.

  17. Re:Fly by wire.... on Fly-By-Wire Contributed To Air France 447 Disaster · · Score: 0

    the point of not having physical feedback is to reduce strain on the pilots. this way, the stick is always centered, and when moving off center, the pilot knows he's issuing commands to the plane. if it was not so, the pilot wouldn't be sure in which state of the stick is it in a 'neutral' position.

    Only the pilot in command should have his hand on the stick; so linking the two together wouldn't have any of the problems you raise. It would, though, give valuable visual (and tactile if both pilots are trying to control the stick) information to the co-pilot.

    There is one reason and one reason alone Airbus didn't link the sticks - and that's cost (both in higher building costs and extra weight).

  18. Re:Whatever! on New York Times Halves Monthly Free Article Views To Ten · · Score: 1

    All three of you are idiots with your freetard moralizing. Are you so technically retarded that you can't even work out how to get free access to the site? NYT has excellent journalism that (probably) can't be supported by an ad-based model. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

  19. In you interview with me on Ask Slashdot: Finding an IT Job Without a Computer-Oriented Undergraduate Degree · · Score: 1

    I'm going to (currently) ask you to (amongst other stuff):

    1) Design a simple hash table implementation.

    2) Show an understanding of complexity: the differences between lookup times of said hash table, linear lists, trees. Why and when you would use these different data structures.

    3) Do fairly well in a pretty tough hour-long programming test involving chopping up a text file and data mining it which goes into what we talked about in (1) and (2).

    4) Tell me roughly how a heat pipe works.

    5) Tell me roughly how an MP3 works.

    I don't care about qualifications and barely look at that on the CV. Experience and some sign of fascination with the engineering of IT is what I want to see. Having said that, I'm in a small company without an HR department...

  20. Re:How many bits? on NSA Building US's Biggest Spy Center · · Score: 1

    If you believe they have QC, are you using any public key encryption?

  21. Re:How many bits? on NSA Building US's Biggest Spy Center · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no way they can crack AES-128 unless there's a hole in the algorithm or they have quantum computing.

    Current best practices are:

    1) AES-128 to AES-256 for symmetric keys (although AES-256 has its own problems which can sometimes collapse it to AES-128 - these are ameloriated by increasing the key rounds)

    2) 2048-bit to 4092-bit for RSA keys (2048 may be breakable by 2030 with conventional computing, 4092-bit will take much longer).

    If quantum computing becomes feasible then AES keys will effectively halve in complexity (i.e. AES-128 goes to 64-bit, AES-256 goes to AES-128) and RSA and DSA keys will be useless.

  22. Re:a thought on NSA Building US's Biggest Spy Center · · Score: 1

    You have to share the initialization vector in the same way you have to share the session key.

    Breaking either of these boils down to the same problem: breaking the asymmetric (e.g. RSA) keys.

    This problem is doable for commonly-used 1024 bit RSA keys with absolutely massive amounts (the sort of thing a rich government may be able to come up with now) of CPU power; but not doable in the medium or long term for 2048 bit or greater keys, Of course, practical quantum computing will change this equation.

  23. Re:Google's payment options on Google To Devs: Use Our Payment System Or Be Dropped · · Score: 2

    At least non sequitur hasn't changed its meaning...

  24. Re:Non-nuclear? Oh , you mean oil... on Japan's Nuclear Energy Industry Nears Shutdown · · Score: 1

    Yes, coal. That well-known zero-carbon fuel...

  25. Re:Why the anxiety? on Ask Slashdot: Life After Firefox 3.6.x? · · Score: 1

    Why not just open a new instance and let the OS show the title in its task bar? This is essentially the same as vertical tabs.

    Using Windows 7, I typically have 30 or more browser instances open and just hover over the task bar to see the title in each. I usually tab the browsers with related sites from the original (e.g. several slashdot items).