Unfortunately, John Steinbeck has been dead since 1968. The article asked for living authors.
I prefer Hemingway to Steinbeck myself, with For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea as my favorite works of his. I'm not such a big fan of much of the rest of his work, though.
The only living author I've read recently who seems like a Great Author is E. Annie Proulx.
The ordination process consists of listening to a two-minute Real Audio speech (complete with organ music) and typing your name in a dialog box.
The titles are especially fun. I couldn't resist buying the title of "Cardinal" for merely $12.95. Now people have to address me as "Your Eminence".
Other fun ones include Apostle of Humility, The Very Esteemed, and Martyr. Apparently you don't even have to be dead to have them confer the latter!
To tie this back in to the article, they also offer degrees. Everything from Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Metaphysics, Doctor of Immortality, etc. Some of them require a course that I assume is purely nominal. You can even get a Ph.D.
In which case I don't see why you should be opposed to filtering software. After all, it is just a way to let people choose automatically what they want themselves and their dependents/customers to see.
Filters do not restrict freedom of speech, until such time as their use becomes government-mandated. (So schools and libraries are a separate issue.) And of course, they may have technical or policy flaws that could them less than optimal, but that's their user's problem.
In short, I don't see what all your rhetoric about free speech has to do with this story at all.
I was expecting to read something about a new RFC: IP over Railway.
REQUEST FOR COMMENTS: RFC Ol' 97 STATUS: EXPERIMENTAL
Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams over Railway
Frame Format
Each IP datagram shall be transported on a single railway car. The data portion of the datagram shall be written onto magnetic tape or another practical medium and placed in the interior of the car. The header portion of the datagram shall be printed in hexadecimal on continuous-feed paper, banner-style; each digit SHOULD be at least 30 cm in height. This promotes ease in routing as the destination of the datagram can be observed without the latency of stopping the data stream.
Transport of the datagram requires an additional module called an "engine". The algorithm used by the engine is left to the implementor; among those found historically to have been successful are "electric", "diesel", and "coal". For efficiency, a single engine may transport several datagrams in a daisy-chain configuration; the resulting super-datagram is referred to as a Transport Reduction Algorithm Internet Novelty, or TRAIN for short.
Discussion
IP over Railway offers MTUs without precedent in size. Latency may be high (on the order of 1e5 seconds for transcontinental datagrams) but this is expected to decrease with improved infrastructure.
Packet collisions generally result in the loss of both packets, since no media in current use is able to withstand the rapid combustion generally caused by such an event. However, since IP only guarantees best-effort delivery (also described by Wells, Fargo et al), this is not considered a problem; a higher-level transmission control protocol should be used if reliable message transmission is desired. The "semaphores" and similar mutex devices installed on existing Railway networks may be dispensed with.
Security Considerations
Railway networks are historically vulnerable to "Robber" attacks. These traditionally involve a gang of masked men who obstruct the data pathway and then inspect and occasionally tamper with or destroy the datagrams. (See James and James, 1873.) Those who are worried can use available mechanisms for encryption and authentication, although Denial of Service attacks remain possible. Pinkerton et al have described an algorithm for Virtual Private Networks, albeit at somewhat greater expense.
References
Waitzman, D., "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", RFC 1149, 1 April 1990.
Interesting. Is this the same number they make you type in when you install it? If so, it seems a little counterproductive to have you disseminate it...:)
I very much doubt it. The pad has to be transmitted securely; i.e. nobody except the sender and the recipient knows what the key is. If an attacker knows it, they can read any messages encrypted with it. So broadcasting the key over shortwave would be a terrible idea.
But I was right in part! No one - being a person - has travelled at any velocity reasonabally approaching the speed of light, to experience the time-dialation effect!
True, but why should it have to be a person?
AFAIK what's been done is this: You take a particle that has a known lifespan; it lasts for time T and then decays. You then create one moving at relativistic speeds. It has been observed, I believe, that the time it takes to decay in the observer's frame is greater than T.
Well, it's a nice idea, but in order for this to be "open source" as we understand it, there are several necessary conditions that Microsoft would have to agree to. Namely:
People can read the source.
People can fix the source.
People can reuse the source.
1 is really only a very complete form of documentation. It will help people write compatible programs, and avoid "hidden APIs", but won't benefit anyone besides Windows applications.
2 would be useful from a support perspective; when you find bugs in Windows, you can fix them yourself, rather than having to complain to Microsoft. But again, it only helps Windows users.
3 is the kicker. This is where WINE can make Windows APIs work perfectly. Where Your Favorite Unix can take advantage of any clever OS things Microsoft might have figured out (yes, it is possible). But it goes beyond that; if you can reuse the source, then you can make your own version. Then we might very well see Red Hat Windows, and 500 other distributions. There would be nothing special about Microsoft anymore.
In short, 1 and 2 just make Windows a better product and don't really hurt Microsoft. But 3 hurts Microsoft enormously, perhaps even unreasonably. Therefore, I think it's unlikely that Microsoft would agree to 3, and so its proposal wouldn't be punitive.
Of course, all this assumes that we're talking about the complete source, and it seems Microsoft may not be. So that would make it an even less significant remedy for the government and the public. In short, I very much doubt that Microsoft's proposal is meaningful.
That is a good question. I think the operative term may be "depiction".
I seem to recall that some production of the film "Lolita" cast in Lolita's role an actress who was over 18 but looked younger (perhaps much younger, I haven't seen it so I don't know). However, the film was considered child pornography since the *character* was represented as under 18 and engaged in explicit sex. (If I've made any mistakes here, please correct me.)
On the other hand, the novel on which the film was based is perfectly legal. And it could be argued that animation is closer to the novel than to the movie, since it's more abstract (involves no real people at all).
Now, if someone were to create an animated film that was indistinguishable from live-action, then we'd have a sticky situation.
Clearly, something is inconsistent, and I think it's the first case. There is nothing inherently wrong with films, novel, or animation of sex with children, in my opinion. The most that can be argued is that they may tend to encourage actual sex. But down that road, we ban all representation and discussion of violence, crime, and everything else that's illegal, since it might encourage people to do it. I'd be very much opposed to anything so draconian (though perhaps others might not be). We need to be able to have these things in the open, for their artistic, social, and political value. Censorship is not a good thing.
Then I suppose every country is at war with every other country, since they all do this. A country which took no interest in the doings of other countries' nationals would most likely die out quickly, since it would be unable to detect spying, terrorism, etc, etc. I don't think this constitutes an act of war, except to a very very touchy nation.
Also, your idea of "suing" has problems. Suing requires a court which has jurisdiction over both parties. But since you're in the US, and MI5 (6?) isn't, you'll have trouble finding such a court. You'd probably have to establish a UN tribunal or something of the sort, and I don't know whether they recognize a right to privacy.
Basically, I think you're being awfully simplistic.
Are you kidding? A successful cracker has lots of beneficial skills. I don't know the details of his exploits (pun not intended), but presumably he got very good at finding security holes in systems. This would make him an excellent security consultant, or the like.
Of course, this requires that an employer trust him to actually report all the holes found, rather than keep them secret for later use. His crimes may hurt his credibility then. But he certainly has skills. If I trusted him, I'd hire him.
Using brute force, it is POSSIBLE to read a message enciphered with conventional or public-key cryptography.
No matter how much brute force you apply, it is IMPOSSIBLE to read a message enciphered with a one-time pad.
Therefore, I don't think it is unreasonable to state that conventional and public-key algorithms are vulnerable to brute force, compared to one-time pad algorithms.
If someone has to rely on brute force to decode your messages, you're in pretty safe hands.
Whether this is true depends on the key size. If your key was 8 bits, no matter how secure the algorithm, brute force would 0wn you quickly. And as a real-life example, 56-bit DES is beginning to be feasible to brute-force.
You miss the point. The CPU ID is only useful if software developers know it's there, and know how to get it. The worry has been that every browser and every server would get the number and distribute it all willy-nilly. But if they don't know how to get it, then they can't do that, can they?
There is the possibility that certain software concerns would be told about the CPU ID, and made to keep it secret. But this would also restrict its use, making it less effective.
In short, the CPU ID will only work if it's public knowledge. A bit like the Doomsday Machine:)
AFAIK, no crypto protocol works perfectly when third parties can listen to everything. Most common algorithms are vulnerable to brute force, so if they intercept the message, then, given enough[1] computing horsepower, they can read it.
To avoid brute force attacks requires something like a one-time pad, where the key is sent in advance over a secure channel. Yes, I know, if you have a secure channel then you don't need crypto. But perhaps the secure channel is slow, or likely to disappear. By using it to send the key in advance, you can then send a later message quickly, reliably, and safely.
Something like this would be perfect for sending keys. The key is just random noise, so if you find that it's been intercepted, you just don't use that piece of it, and the enemy has gained nothing.
[1] Of course, "enough" horsepower may not be able to exist in the known universe, but...
There are a whole series of Jeeves collections. Including , Right Ho, Jeeves, and Carry On, Jeeves. Fun to read, but don't read too many at once; they all start to sound the same.
And incidentally, there is a musical comedy about Jeeves, entitled By Jeeves.
Slashdot Mirror
I prefer Hemingway to Steinbeck myself, with For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea as my favorite works of his. I'm not such a big fan of much of the rest of his work, though.
The only living author I've read recently who seems like a Great Author is E. Annie Proulx.
> Mmmhhhmmm ... show me a laptop that you can buy sans Operating System.
I just bought one. http://www.mtechlaptops.com/ Super-generic, yes, but cheap, and OS optional.
Why are those dates unusual? Aren't domains usually registered for six months or a year at a time?
If S11 does stand for September 11, then September 11, 2000, seems like a perfectly reasonable time to register it.
The ordination process consists of listening to a two-minute Real Audio speech (complete with organ music) and typing your name in a dialog box.
The titles are especially fun. I couldn't resist buying the title of "Cardinal" for merely $12.95. Now people have to address me as "Your Eminence".
Other fun ones include Apostle of Humility, The Very Esteemed, and Martyr. Apparently you don't even have to be dead to have them confer the latter!
To tie this back in to the article, they also offer degrees. Everything from Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Metaphysics, Doctor of Immortality, etc. Some of them require a course that I assume is purely nominal. You can even get a Ph.D.
> as a monogamous gay man...
Shouldn't that be "monoandrous"?
In which case I don't see why you should be opposed to filtering software. After all, it is just a way to let people choose automatically what they want themselves and their dependents/customers to see.
Filters do not restrict freedom of speech, until such time as their use becomes government-mandated. (So schools and libraries are a separate issue.) And of course, they may have technical or policy flaws that could them less than optimal, but that's their user's problem.
In short, I don't see what all your rhetoric about free speech has to do with this story at all.
I was expecting to read something about a new RFC: IP over Railway.
REQUEST FOR COMMENTS: RFC Ol' 97
STATUS: EXPERIMENTAL
Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams over Railway
Frame Format
Each IP datagram shall be transported on a single railway car. The data portion of the datagram shall be written onto magnetic tape or another practical medium and placed in the interior of the car. The header portion of the datagram shall be printed in hexadecimal on continuous-feed paper, banner-style; each digit SHOULD be at least 30 cm in height. This promotes ease in routing as the destination of the datagram can be observed without the latency of stopping the data stream.
Transport of the datagram requires an additional module called an "engine". The algorithm used by the engine is left to the implementor; among those found historically to have been successful are "electric", "diesel", and "coal". For efficiency, a single engine may transport several datagrams in a daisy-chain configuration; the resulting super-datagram is referred to as a Transport Reduction Algorithm Internet Novelty, or TRAIN for short.
Discussion
IP over Railway offers MTUs without precedent in size. Latency may be high (on the order of 1e5 seconds for transcontinental datagrams) but this is expected to decrease with improved infrastructure.
Packet collisions generally result in the loss of both packets, since no media in current use is able to withstand the rapid combustion generally caused by such an event. However, since IP only guarantees best-effort delivery (also described by Wells, Fargo et al), this is not considered a problem; a higher-level transmission control protocol should be used if reliable message transmission is desired. The "semaphores" and similar mutex devices installed on existing Railway networks may be dispensed with.
Security Considerations
Railway networks are historically vulnerable to "Robber" attacks. These traditionally involve a gang of masked men who obstruct the data pathway and then inspect and occasionally tamper with or destroy the datagrams. (See James and James, 1873.) Those who are worried can use available mechanisms for encryption and authentication, although Denial of Service attacks remain possible. Pinkerton et al have described an algorithm for Virtual Private Networks, albeit at somewhat greater expense.
References
Waitzman, D., "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", RFC 1149, 1 April 1990.
Watt, James. "Locomotion". London, 1800.
Interesting. Is this the same number they make you type in when you install it? If so, it seems a little counterproductive to have you disseminate it... :)
I very much doubt it. The pad has to be transmitted securely; i.e. nobody except the sender and the recipient knows what the key is. If an attacker knows it, they can read any messages encrypted with it. So broadcasting the key over shortwave would be a terrible idea.
True, but why should it have to be a person?
AFAIK what's been done is this: You take a particle that has a known lifespan; it lasts for time T and then decays. You then create one moving at relativistic speeds. It has been observed, I believe, that the time it takes to decay in the observer's frame is greater than T.
I'm actually on CS staff, and a great thing it is. And yes, the sysadmin turnover is still what it was (I assume you're a graduate).
Small world, I guess.
--Nate Eldredge, nate@cs.hmc.edu
1 is really only a very complete form of documentation. It will help people write compatible programs, and avoid "hidden APIs", but won't benefit anyone besides Windows applications.
2 would be useful from a support perspective; when you find bugs in Windows, you can fix them yourself, rather than having to complain to Microsoft. But again, it only helps Windows users.
3 is the kicker. This is where WINE can make Windows APIs work perfectly. Where Your Favorite Unix can take advantage of any clever OS things Microsoft might have figured out (yes, it is possible). But it goes beyond that; if you can reuse the source, then you can make your own version. Then we might very well see Red Hat Windows, and 500 other distributions. There would be nothing special about Microsoft anymore.
In short, 1 and 2 just make Windows a better product and don't really hurt Microsoft. But 3 hurts Microsoft enormously, perhaps even unreasonably. Therefore, I think it's unlikely that Microsoft would agree to 3, and so its proposal wouldn't be punitive.
Of course, all this assumes that we're talking about the complete source, and it seems Microsoft may not be. So that would make it an even less significant remedy for the government and the public. In short, I very much doubt that Microsoft's proposal is meaningful.
I think you want securityfocus.org.
I seem to recall that some production of the film "Lolita" cast in Lolita's role an actress who was over 18 but looked younger (perhaps much younger, I haven't seen it so I don't know). However, the film was considered child pornography since the *character* was represented as under 18 and engaged in explicit sex. (If I've made any mistakes here, please correct me.)
On the other hand, the novel on which the film was based is perfectly legal. And it could be argued that animation is closer to the novel than to the movie, since it's more abstract (involves no real people at all).
Now, if someone were to create an animated film that was indistinguishable from live-action, then we'd have a sticky situation.
Clearly, something is inconsistent, and I think it's the first case. There is nothing inherently wrong with films, novel, or animation of sex with children, in my opinion. The most that can be argued is that they may tend to encourage actual sex. But down that road, we ban all representation and discussion of violence, crime, and everything else that's illegal, since it might encourage people to do it. I'd be very much opposed to anything so draconian (though perhaps others might not be). We need to be able to have these things in the open, for their artistic, social, and political value. Censorship is not a good thing.
Godwin.
Hmm... the spec was just released recently. Were people "forced to stop using Windows" before now?
Also, your idea of "suing" has problems. Suing requires a court which has jurisdiction over both parties. But since you're in the US, and MI5 (6?) isn't, you'll have trouble finding such a court. You'd probably have to establish a UN tribunal or something of the sort, and I don't know whether they recognize a right to privacy.
Basically, I think you're being awfully simplistic.
By reading the source, maybe?
I think you might be a little too paranoid if you see the NSA involved here...
Of course, this requires that an employer trust him to actually report all the holes found, rather than keep them secret for later use. His crimes may hurt his credibility then. But he certainly has skills. If I trusted him, I'd hire him.
Maybe this is just a semantic argument. But:
Therefore, I don't think it is unreasonable to state that conventional and public-key algorithms are vulnerable to brute force, compared to one-time pad algorithms.
If someone has to rely on brute force to decode your messages, you're in pretty safe hands.
Whether this is true depends on the key size. If your key was 8 bits, no matter how secure the algorithm, brute force would 0wn you quickly. And as a real-life example, 56-bit DES is beginning to be feasible to brute-force.
Really? Like what? I wasn't aware of this.
There is the possibility that certain software concerns would be told about the CPU ID, and made to keep it secret. But this would also restrict its use, making it less effective.
In short, the CPU ID will only work if it's public knowledge. A bit like the Doomsday Machine :)
To avoid brute force attacks requires something like a one-time pad, where the key is sent in advance over a secure channel. Yes, I know, if you have a secure channel then you don't need crypto. But perhaps the secure channel is slow, or likely to disappear. By using it to send the key in advance, you can then send a later message quickly, reliably, and safely.
Something like this would be perfect for sending keys. The key is just random noise, so if you find that it's been intercepted, you just don't use that piece of it, and the enemy has gained nothing.
[1] Of course, "enough" horsepower may not be able to exist in the known universe, but...
Hmm, I've turned up the following:
q.com
x.com
z.com
i.net
q.net
x.org
But presumably you're right, it was forbidden early on. Otherwise, they'd surely all be taken.
And incidentally, there is a musical comedy about Jeeves, entitled By Jeeves.