This attack is pretty neat, but couldn't the vulnerability be closed by just doing FWE multiple times and voting, or otherwise checking the result?
It seems that the real problem here is that the attacker can create corrupt output data even though he does not know the actual workings of the processor in question. This seems easy enough to fix.
Also, instant obliteration ranks pretty damn high on the list of pleasant exits. Even in areas with fun stuff like sanitation and modern medicine, a great many people should be so lucky.
It's the poor bastards on the edge of the obliteration zone that have something to cry about.
The situation might suck really bad, but personally I'd rather have the chance to survive. Anyhow, we're not talking about an actual nuclear bomb, where being at the edge of the crater zone is much worse because it means a slow death due to radiation poisoning. With a small asteroid impact, you are probably going to be worried about more mundane things like fire, building collapse, riots, etc.
The problem is not that wireless power is impossible, rather, that 802.11 access points cannot (by law) output a signal strong enough to provide any meaningful power at a reasonable distance.
What we really need now is super-beefy access points. Allocate some spectrum so that I can set an access point to transmit at 100kw. That'll get some power! Just don't stand close to it...
Take the space that would normally hold a dvd burner and pack in twice as much battery. Better battery life benefits users all the time; how often do you find yourself using optical media these days (or, do you find the lack of a dvd drive in netbooks to be problematic)?
I suspect that the issue there is weight. Most people apparently would rather have a light laptop that lasts 4 hours in real use than a heavier one that lasts 8 hours. Personally, I'd rather have the extra runtime...but this must be a feeling that is only held by a minority of users, since no manufacturer seems willing to beef up their battery sizes.
Of course, batteries cost more than optical drives, too...
I don't think we're going to see really useful battery life times until there are some more advances in battery technology.
Or advances in components to make them use less power. Screens, HDs, and processors all seem like good candidates for this sort of advance. Or advances in both...
It'd be much more useful if they printed the minimum battery life on the box. Then I know, no matter what, I'll get at least that much time out of the battery... And if I'm not actually working it that hard, I'll get more.
That would be nice, but given the nature of Lithium-Ion batteries it would still be unrealistic. Anyone who has a laptop or a cell phone knows that after the first few times you use it, the battery loses a great deal of its charge capacity. What I really want to see is how long the battery lasts, after you've been using the machine for a month.
No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
The issue is mainly about flying from Canadian cities to destinations in e.g. South America, not domestic Canada flights.
Ah, okay, that makes sense. I was really replying this statement in the post:
"It seems that the long arms of the TSA are eager to grope at Canadians taking a shortcut to Toronto; no doubt to prevent any terrorist attacks on Lake Huron."
Flying around US airspace between Canadian cities isn't as bad as it looks on a flat 2d projection map. They should probably just avoid any issues and stick to Canadian airspace.
Are we talking about kids hired at minimum wage to write javascript that animates the company logo on mouseover? Experienced C developers writing device drivers? C++ developers working on a legacy MMO engine?
"Developer" encompasses a very wide range of experience and knowledge levels. Experienced professionals working on complicated programs should not be encumbered by controls designed to prevent idiots from screwing up their OS install. Employees who barely know enough about the system to write business logic, should not be in a position to break things.
We have rotaries here in MA. They are safer than normal intersections, but... so many people just don't get them. They arn't hard. If your inside, you have right of way. Its simple. Yet, nearly every morning I am honking my horn at people who are yielding in the middle.
Here in VA, they have recently been installing a lot of these. The result, anytime they are installed on a road people actually use, has been a huge increase in traffic congestion.
The way some people insist that increasing traffic congestion is 'green' makes no sense to me. In many of these places it is relatively rural so public transportation is impractical, making the only result a huge increase in emissions from cars sitting around waiting for traffic to move.
And yet, the traffic circles are touted as 'green projects'.
This sounds quite nice, but consider the costs. According to NASA, each Space Shuttle launch costs an average of $450 million. Doing one each week would amount to approximately $24 billion per year in costs. This would be similar to the per-year project cost of the Apollo program. If we are going to spend that much, shouldn't we go to Mars or something rather than just throwing up a bunch of rockets?
Anyhow, given the debt that the US is currently putting itself into, it seems to me like it would be a much better use of money to create more 'prizes' for private builders...something useful that can be done at a fraction of the cost.
There's a big difference between a tax, compulsory by law, and a service that almost everyone wants to buy. In the latter case, you are free to choose the manner and best price for the service you wish to have. If you wish, you can avoid buying the service altogether and save yourself the money, or choose an alternate service of any type. In the former case, you MUST buy a particular service, even if a better competing service exists, or be fined or jailed.
Where services are chosen by the individual, with no requirements on what you may purchase and no support by the government of a particular choice*, selection and quality flourish. Where there is only one choice, or trivially few choices, enforced by law or favorable policy*, stagnation of quality and price occurs.
*Bailouts obviously protect the bailed-out from competitive pressure. Excessively complex legal frameworks favor few large companies over many small ones, because for a large company the requisite massive legal team represents a smaller proportion of total revenue.
Both science and religion are based on unprovable axioms.
Science assumes an objective reality wherein for most people, what they see and measure really represents what exists. To be a scientist, you must trust your senses.
Religion isn't too dissimilar, except that the primary assumption tends to be that the objective reality is grounded in God, rather than independent of any consciousness.
I live in Massachusetts... competence is fairly prevalent here. Going to the RMV (our version of the DMV) still sucks, but unless you're getting your license for the first time you can circumvent that hellish trip and process your registration forms through a website.:)
You are comparing apples to oranges by attempting to compare statistical evidence to anecdotal evidence.
Where I live, I renew both my driver's license and car registration online. I have done this many times and never had an issue. The same goes with trips to the DMV; when rarely necessary, they have been much less than 'hellish'. Sure, there is a wait, but it really isn't so bad. The processing of persons was fast and efficient.
Would it surprise you to learn that I live in Virginia?
It's not just 'drive by wire' vehicles. At one point while driving a 1991 model car, I pressed the accelerator hard to get up a hill. When I let off the pedal, the cable/pedal must have gotten stuck because the vehicle kept accelerating (now down the hill). In retrospect, I should probably have switched it to neutral, but at the time my immediate snap response was to turn off the ignition key. Despite the loss of power steering and braking, it was quite effective.
It seems to me that if people are hitting the vehicle in front of them because of unexpected acceleration, they either are very bad at making quick decisions or they do not maintain a safe following distance while driving (a common problem these days).
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0.0 to 1.0 in 0.1 increments = 10 levels.
Wouldn't that be 11 levels? 0-10?
This attack is pretty neat, but couldn't the vulnerability be closed by just doing FWE multiple times and voting, or otherwise checking the result?
It seems that the real problem here is that the attacker can create corrupt output data even though he does not know the actual workings of the processor in question. This seems easy enough to fix.
Seriously.
Why should whales get dibs on the whole ocean.
People like you are the reason Kirk had to go back in time to the 1980s. Sheesh.
Also, instant obliteration ranks pretty damn high on the list of pleasant exits. Even in areas with fun stuff like sanitation and modern medicine, a great many people should be so lucky. It's the poor bastards on the edge of the obliteration zone that have something to cry about.
The situation might suck really bad, but personally I'd rather have the chance to survive. Anyhow, we're not talking about an actual nuclear bomb, where being at the edge of the crater zone is much worse because it means a slow death due to radiation poisoning. With a small asteroid impact, you are probably going to be worried about more mundane things like fire, building collapse, riots, etc.
The problem is not that wireless power is impossible, rather, that 802.11 access points cannot (by law) output a signal strong enough to provide any meaningful power at a reasonable distance.
What we really need now is super-beefy access points. Allocate some spectrum so that I can set an access point to transmit at 100kw. That'll get some power! Just don't stand close to it...
Allow the construction of new plants. Newer designs are cheaper and safer. If new plants were allowed, they would gradually replace the aging designs.
Take the space that would normally hold a dvd burner and pack in twice as much battery. Better battery life benefits users all the time; how often do you find yourself using optical media these days (or, do you find the lack of a dvd drive in netbooks to be problematic)?
I suspect that the issue there is weight. Most people apparently would rather have a light laptop that lasts 4 hours in real use than a heavier one that lasts 8 hours. Personally, I'd rather have the extra runtime...but this must be a feeling that is only held by a minority of users, since no manufacturer seems willing to beef up their battery sizes.
Of course, batteries cost more than optical drives, too...
I don't think we're going to see really useful battery life times until there are some more advances in battery technology.
Or advances in components to make them use less power. Screens, HDs, and processors all seem like good candidates for this sort of advance. Or advances in both...
It'd be much more useful if they printed the minimum battery life on the box. Then I know, no matter what, I'll get at least that much time out of the battery... And if I'm not actually working it that hard, I'll get more.
That would be nice, but given the nature of Lithium-Ion batteries it would still be unrealistic. Anyone who has a laptop or a cell phone knows that after the first few times you use it, the battery loses a great deal of its charge capacity. What I really want to see is how long the battery lasts, after you've been using the machine for a month.
I'm quite amused by the lack of "normal configuration in Linux is godmode!" posts on this story.
No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
Remember that the earth is round and the shortest rout on a 2d map isn't a straight line.
That's exactly what I was saying on my original post.
The issue is mainly about flying from Canadian cities to destinations in e.g. South America, not domestic Canada flights.
Ah, okay, that makes sense. I was really replying this statement in the post: "It seems that the long arms of the TSA are eager to grope at Canadians taking a shortcut to Toronto; no doubt to prevent any terrorist attacks on Lake Huron."
Flying around US airspace between Canadian cities isn't as bad as it looks on a flat 2d projection map. They should probably just avoid any issues and stick to Canadian airspace.
Are we talking about kids hired at minimum wage to write javascript that animates the company logo on mouseover? Experienced C developers writing device drivers? C++ developers working on a legacy MMO engine?
"Developer" encompasses a very wide range of experience and knowledge levels. Experienced professionals working on complicated programs should not be encumbered by controls designed to prevent idiots from screwing up their OS install. Employees who barely know enough about the system to write business logic, should not be in a position to break things.
We have rotaries here in MA. They are safer than normal intersections, but... so many people just don't get them. They arn't hard. If your inside, you have right of way. Its simple. Yet, nearly every morning I am honking my horn at people who are yielding in the middle.
Here in VA, they have recently been installing a lot of these. The result, anytime they are installed on a road people actually use, has been a huge increase in traffic congestion.
The way some people insist that increasing traffic congestion is 'green' makes no sense to me. In many of these places it is relatively rural so public transportation is impractical, making the only result a huge increase in emissions from cars sitting around waiting for traffic to move.
And yet, the traffic circles are touted as 'green projects'.
Clearly tracking Santa promotes the practice of giving holiday gifts, which increases interstate commerce!
Welcome to post-1937 America.
Various statements on the website strongly imply that it is an all-volunteer project. I doubt tax money is funding it.
I don't like the idea of my tax dollars being spent on non-essential services either, but I really don't think that's the case here.
Good luck shooting down a sleigh that travels at relativistic speeds.
Too bad the government does not have infinite money...
Despite the spending habits of the current Congress, $24 billion is still a lot of money.
This sounds quite nice, but consider the costs. According to NASA, each Space Shuttle launch costs an average of $450 million. Doing one each week would amount to approximately $24 billion per year in costs. This would be similar to the per-year project cost of the Apollo program. If we are going to spend that much, shouldn't we go to Mars or something rather than just throwing up a bunch of rockets?
Anyhow, given the debt that the US is currently putting itself into, it seems to me like it would be a much better use of money to create more 'prizes' for private builders...something useful that can be done at a fraction of the cost.
There's a big difference between a tax, compulsory by law, and a service that almost everyone wants to buy. In the latter case, you are free to choose the manner and best price for the service you wish to have. If you wish, you can avoid buying the service altogether and save yourself the money, or choose an alternate service of any type. In the former case, you MUST buy a particular service, even if a better competing service exists, or be fined or jailed.
Where services are chosen by the individual, with no requirements on what you may purchase and no support by the government of a particular choice*, selection and quality flourish. Where there is only one choice, or trivially few choices, enforced by law or favorable policy*, stagnation of quality and price occurs.
*Bailouts obviously protect the bailed-out from competitive pressure. Excessively complex legal frameworks favor few large companies over many small ones, because for a large company the requisite massive legal team represents a smaller proportion of total revenue.
Both science and religion are based on unprovable axioms.
Science assumes an objective reality wherein for most people, what they see and measure really represents what exists. To be a scientist, you must trust your senses.
Religion isn't too dissimilar, except that the primary assumption tends to be that the objective reality is grounded in God, rather than independent of any consciousness.
It seems like in Virginia... ineptitude abounds.
I live in Massachusetts... competence is fairly prevalent here. Going to the RMV (our version of the DMV) still sucks, but unless you're getting your license for the first time you can circumvent that hellish trip and process your registration forms through a website. :)
You are comparing apples to oranges by attempting to compare statistical evidence to anecdotal evidence.
Where I live, I renew both my driver's license and car registration online. I have done this many times and never had an issue. The same goes with trips to the DMV; when rarely necessary, they have been much less than 'hellish'. Sure, there is a wait, but it really isn't so bad. The processing of persons was fast and efficient.
Would it surprise you to learn that I live in Virginia?
It's not just 'drive by wire' vehicles. At one point while driving a 1991 model car, I pressed the accelerator hard to get up a hill. When I let off the pedal, the cable/pedal must have gotten stuck because the vehicle kept accelerating (now down the hill). In retrospect, I should probably have switched it to neutral, but at the time my immediate snap response was to turn off the ignition key. Despite the loss of power steering and braking, it was quite effective.
It seems to me that if people are hitting the vehicle in front of them because of unexpected acceleration, they either are very bad at making quick decisions or they do not maintain a safe following distance while driving (a common problem these days).