These languages port to a huge multitude of platforms. Pretty much anything which can be programmed in a higher level language has toolchain with a C or C++ compiler.
A ubiquitous password that everyone is trained to use without even thinking about it will make it easy for someone to set up a rogue wireless hotspot which supports that password. Not all users will notice that they are connecting to the wrong hotspot.
Once you're routing through the rogue, your traffic can be sniffed by the rogue.
Moreover, if this convention catches on, the dumb end users will try "free" against any wireless hotspot, anywhere without caring what they are connecting to. The rogues won't have to bother learning about the password of a public hotspot in order to replicate it. Just set up your gear, all set up with the "free" password, and off you go.
This ubiquitous password can only work as intended for security-conscious, Wi-Fi savvy users who understand that it's important to know that you are connecting to the right station, and can tell whether this is the case.
Public hotspots should have a true password, and should change it regularly. (At least once a day).
Another problem is that even if you use this password and connect to the correct access point, that does not mean you are secure! The encryption stops at the access point. Sniffing could be going on upstream.
There is no substitute for end-to-end encryption: VPNs, SSL, etc.
If your session is not secured at the appropriate level, you can't band-aid the problem with a "free" password everywhere.
Because the suit's legs stretch more than the torso section, the wearer's legs are subjected to a greater force — replicating gravity effects on Earth
This can only be true if the suit is split into two separate compartments of tension: feet to waist, and waist to shoulder.
This means that there will be an unbalanced force at around the waist, which will have to be counteracted by a very firm attachment to the waist so that the lower part of the suit does not slip down.
That, in turn, sounds very uncomfortable!
Imagine, say, wearing 100 pound pants with a belt tight enough so they don't slip (no use of suspenders: that would run the same 100 pound compression through your spine/and/ legs).
Also, is mere static compression really enough to prevent bone loss? I thought that bone responds to changing stresses. There is a theory that the piezo-electric effect is involved.
Placing the legs under a constant tension does not accurately simulate how they are actually loaded on earth: changing from sitting or lying to standing, shifting weight from one leg to the other during walking. and handling several times the body weight during activities like jumping and running.
Another thing: would stirrups be enough? You need density in the metatarsal bones of your feet, which are carrying your weight whenever you stand on your toes, which happens during walking, etc. What's the use of having good bone density in your femur and tibia, if you get a stress fracture in your foot.
Yes, well, you know what they say! In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are different.
To support all Java programs properly, your interpreter would have to have all the features of the Java platform. Everything from loading class files, to threads to GUI files. You'd need a static type checker. Java program can't be checked at run-time without changing the whole run-time model to include type info in every value.
Why write a Java interpreter in C, when you can just add a bit of garbage collection to C, a small library supporting tagged dynamic types. You can then write in a dynamic dialect of C that is superior to Java, and has a tiny footprint.
I have a project in which my C looks more like a cross between Lisp and Javascript, e.g.:
} else {
val subforms = mapcar(bind2other(func_n2(eval_form), bindings), form);
bind2other means bind the other argument of a two argument function, producing a one-argument function. We are establishing bindings for an evaluation which is applied to all elements of form via mapcar. Then I'm using the all_satisfy function to check that none of the resulting values are nil (by using the identity function as the predicate).
C can be re-shaped. And the key to this is the flexibility with regard to memory and data types.
For instance, I'm using spare bits in a pointer to implement a type tag. So the nil value in the above code is the real C null pointer, and all other values fit into the size of a pointer (which means we can efficiently pass them into functions, return them out of functions, etc).
Java's type system would never allow us to use spare bits in a reference as an efficient type tag. The virtual machine is totally hostile against languages which don't look like Java, essentially dictating to the programmer "you must compute this way, using this paradigm". Real machines are not hostile in that way, and C lets us get at the real machines.
When you talk to a customer service rep on the phone, don't you get a warning that your conversation is being recorded and/or monitored?
Sometimes, sometimes not.
That implies it's legal for them to do the monitoring, but doesn't imply that the disclaimer is required.
I suspect that the warning's main function is to cut down on abusive behavior. People will tend less to be jerks if they suspect they may be recorded. It's a good idea to have that message even if you have absolutely no monitoring and recording program whatsoever in place, and no plans to implement one.
It could be that the legal department of these service organizations simply thinks it's a good idea to put in the disclaimer. That doesn't imply it's legally required. It's a form of "fine print" that covers behinds. Essentially they can argue that by listening to the disclaimer and proceeding, the customer is giving consent to being monitored. They could use this to convince a court to grant them indemnity against any action that could arise (which could be a civil action, not based in any criminal law against monitoring).
Speaking of e-mail and expectations regarding e-mail, ISP's still have agreements in which they spell out that your e-mail, and unencrypted communication in general, isn't private. Subscribers have to agree to that, which covers the ISP's butt against unreasonable actions by subscribers.
What's next? If we keep sliding down this slippery slope, we will eventually be watched in convenience stores, gas stations, train stations, airport terminals, apartment hallways and elevators,..
What if I want to simply log my own text messages for archival? If the phone is destroyed, I still have an off-phone record of all of them, just like an e-mail box on a server somewhere.
What if I want to snoop on the traffic generated by thieves who stole my phone?
Are you too obtuse to imagine legitimate uses for this?
I don't believe you are correct. Any recipient that sends e-mail to a corporate account is really sending a message to the corporation as a whole. It should be treated as if it were addressed to the CEO.
Do you really believe that if you send some e-mail to "mikesmith@intel.com", Mike Smith's boss has no right to read the e-mail without you being informed first?
Never heard of this. Maybe this is unique to some jurisdictions, like Germany.
If your mobile device is owned by your employer and provided to you for work purposes, they most certainly have a right to monitor all your SMS and other traffic.
Not only is it legal, but I suspect you could be rightfully dismissed for interfering with such an application.
I'm confused here. What rights does this relate to? The right of a vendor not to sell something? Or the right not to be spied on? The rights of spyware authors to disseminate?
C is portable, a given piece of C code is not necessarily. I guarantee that if I write a program of any complexity in C on Windows, and don't make specific efforts, that program will not compile on Linux or MacOS.
But chances are you could not write that program in Java. Why is it nonportable? It's integrating into Windows in a way that your Java isn't.
The "specific effort" I have to make is the extra choice you have to make about how to develop, because you have the freedom to.
I might choose to make the program such that it will work on Linux and MacOS too. Doing that might not necessarily make the program harder to develop, but easier (since I will likely leverage some cross-platform tools and libraries, which will have nicer API's for some things than bare Win32).
Exactly, and that will also be the case if this C program is a Java system, being developed to run Java code. important. For those things, people will keep using compiled languages and dealing with the headaches of porting. For everything else, Java is fine, and a huge cost saver in a lot of cases.
Java is not a compiled language? Do you actually know anything about Java, or just the front cover of some Java-promoting brochure?
C is must more portable than Java. If I write something in Java, it will work on exactly one platform: the Java platform. The C will actually work on hundreds of platforms. If I want. Or just one, if I want.
In C, you're programming any machine, using a portable syntax. You can write C code that doesn't require any library or operating system at all, just some way to to be loaded and invoked.
You can write C code that efficiently uses the native types of the machine, more or less. If the machine has 36 bit integers, you can use all 36 bits (while still remaining portable to where there are only 32 bits).
C can be made ROM-able.
Let's see, random project out of the air. Could, say, Etherboot be easily redeveloped in Java? Sure, if your system boot firmware can cough up a Java environment.
C++ is better than C in that it helps programmers control the scope of variables, for example.
C has similar scope rules to C++. ISO standard since 1999. That is, declarations can be mixed with statements, and the for (;;) loop header contain a declaration.
Furthermore, C does not have the "class scope" disease:
int x;
void foo::bar(int y)
{
x = y;
}
You better get into the habit of writing::x when referring to that file scope variable. Otherwise if someone introduces member "x" to the foo class, or any of its inheritance ancestors, the meaning of the assignment changes. It now silently resolves to the member.
C++ class scope is the Pascal WITH statement different clothing. When you write
int foo::bar() {
}
you are saying, "open a scope between these braces which contains an unknown quantity of declarations which are potentially scattered in numerous remote locations, nowhere visible in the present lexical scope".
Every time you need to add a member variable, you have to inspect every single region of class scope to look for this type of silent clash, unless you strictly adhere to naming conventions like m_ on every member.
The people who come up with protective C++ coding conventions are the true thinkers and designers.
don't compare and contrast with C++ or Java. How about something more familiar?
Let's see, "you're declaratively specifying which objects (out of a group) you want something to happen to, so you're thinking in terms of matching logic rather than ordered steps in an algorithm. "
Slashdot Mirror
Why hasn't FOSS come up its own managed runtime+language stack?
Lisp implementations (of which there are FOSS examples) predate all this Java and C# hoopla.
They compile to real machine code. (You don't need inefficient byte code in order to be "managed").
C and C++ port to nearly bare iron.
These languages port to a huge multitude of platforms. Pretty much anything which can be programmed in a higher level language has toolchain with a C or C++ compiler.
Java ports to the Java platform.
A ubiquitous password that everyone is trained to use without even thinking about it will make it easy for someone to set up a rogue wireless hotspot which supports that password. Not all users will notice that they are connecting to the wrong hotspot.
Once you're routing through the rogue, your traffic can be sniffed by the rogue.
Moreover, if this convention catches on, the dumb end users will try "free" against any wireless hotspot, anywhere without caring what they are connecting to. The rogues won't have to bother learning about the password of a public hotspot in order to replicate it. Just set up your gear, all set up with the "free" password, and off you go.
This ubiquitous password can only work as intended for security-conscious, Wi-Fi savvy users who understand that it's important to know that you are connecting to the right station, and can tell whether this is the case.
Public hotspots should have a true password, and should change it regularly. (At least once a day).
Another problem is that even if you use this password and connect to the correct access point, that does not mean you are secure! The encryption stops at the access point. Sniffing could be going on upstream.
There is no substitute for end-to-end encryption: VPNs, SSL, etc.
If your session is not secured at the appropriate level, you can't band-aid the problem with a "free" password everywhere.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinarily credible citations.
Because the suit's legs stretch more than the torso section, the wearer's legs are subjected to a greater force — replicating gravity effects on Earth
This can only be true if the suit is split into two separate compartments of tension: feet to waist, and waist to shoulder.
This means that there will be an unbalanced force at around the waist, which will have to be counteracted by a very firm attachment to the waist so that the lower part of the suit does not slip down.
That, in turn, sounds very uncomfortable!
Imagine, say, wearing 100 pound pants with a belt tight enough so they don't slip (no use of suspenders: that would run the same 100 pound compression through your spine /and/ legs).
Also, is mere static compression really enough to prevent bone loss? I thought that bone responds to changing stresses. There is a theory that the piezo-electric effect is involved.
Placing the legs under a constant tension does not accurately simulate how they are actually loaded on earth: changing from sitting or lying to standing, shifting weight from one leg to the other during walking. and handling several times the body weight during activities like jumping and running.
Another thing: would stirrups be enough? You need density in the metatarsal bones of your feet, which are carrying your weight whenever you stand on your toes, which happens during walking, etc. What's the use of having good bone density in your femur and tibia, if you get a stress fracture in your foot.
Hmm ...
RNA actually IS a copy of the DNA. The apparent misspellings are the genetic equivalent of backslash-escaped backslashes and other meta-characters. :)
Yes, well, you know what they say! In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they are different.
To support all Java programs properly, your interpreter would have to have all the features of the Java platform. Everything from loading class files, to threads to GUI files. You'd need a static type checker. Java program can't be checked at run-time without changing the whole run-time model to include type info in every value.
Why write a Java interpreter in C, when you can just add a bit of garbage collection to C, a small library supporting tagged dynamic types. You can then write in a dynamic dialect of C that is superior to Java, and has a tiny footprint.
I have a project in which my C looks more like a cross between Lisp and Javascript, e.g.:
} else {
val subforms = mapcar(bind2other(func_n2(eval_form), bindings), form);
if (all_satisfy(subforms, identity_f, nil))
return cons(t, mapcar(func_n1(cdr), subforms));
return nil;
}
bind2other means bind the other argument of a two argument function, producing a one-argument function. We are establishing bindings for an evaluation which is applied to all elements of form via mapcar. Then I'm using the all_satisfy function to check that none of the resulting values are nil (by using the identity function as the predicate).
C can be re-shaped. And the key to this is the flexibility with regard to memory and data types.
For instance, I'm using spare bits in a pointer to implement a type tag. So the nil value in the above code is the real C null pointer, and all other values fit into the size of a pointer (which means we can efficiently pass them into functions, return them out of functions, etc).
Java's type system would never allow us to use spare bits in a reference as an efficient type tag. The virtual machine is totally hostile against languages which don't look like Java, essentially dictating to the programmer "you must compute this way, using this paradigm". Real machines are not hostile in that way, and C lets us get at the real machines.
When you talk to a customer service rep on the phone, don't you get a warning that your conversation is being recorded and/or monitored?
Sometimes, sometimes not.
That implies it's legal for them to do the monitoring, but doesn't imply that the disclaimer is required.
I suspect that the warning's main function is to cut down on abusive behavior. People will tend less to be jerks if they suspect they may be recorded. It's a good idea to have that message even if you have absolutely no monitoring and recording program whatsoever in place, and no plans to implement one.
It could be that the legal department of these service organizations simply thinks it's a good idea to put in the disclaimer. That doesn't imply it's legally required. It's a form of "fine print" that covers behinds. Essentially they can argue that by listening to the disclaimer and proceeding, the customer is giving consent to being monitored. They could use this to convince a court to grant them indemnity against any action that could arise (which could be a civil action, not based in any criminal law against monitoring).
Speaking of e-mail and expectations regarding e-mail, ISP's still have agreements in which they spell out that your e-mail, and unencrypted communication in general, isn't private. Subscribers have to agree to that, which covers the ISP's butt against unreasonable actions by subscribers.
What's next? If we keep sliding down this slippery slope, we will eventually be watched in convenience stores, gas stations, train stations, airport terminals, apartment hallways and elevators, ..
Thank you for this breaking piece of news.
It's an app designed to be installed on someone else's phone without their consent.
How many GNU/Linux distros obtain consent before installing syslogd, which can log sensitive information in a file? :)
Really? So you think every background daemon on a device should have a persistent GUI presence on the desktop?
There is no reason for a program to be in the background unless it's a malicious app hiding itself?
Look at all the hidden malware on this machine: apache, exim4, syslogd, ...
What if I want to simply log my own text messages for archival? If the phone is destroyed, I still have an off-phone record of all of them, just like an e-mail box on a server somewhere.
What if I want to snoop on the traffic generated by thieves who stole my phone?
Are you too obtuse to imagine legitimate uses for this?
I don't believe you are correct. Any recipient that sends e-mail to a corporate account is really sending a message to the corporation as a whole. It should be treated as if it were addressed to the CEO.
Do you really believe that if you send some e-mail to "mikesmith@intel.com", Mike Smith's boss has no right to read the e-mail without you being informed first?
Never heard of this. Maybe this is unique to some jurisdictions, like Germany.
Apparently, you don't work for a living.
If your mobile device is owned by your employer and provided to you for work purposes, they most certainly have a right to monitor all your SMS and other traffic.
Not only is it legal, but I suspect you could be rightfully dismissed for interfering with such an application.
I'm confused here. What rights does this relate to? The right of a vendor not to sell something? Or the right not to be spied on? The rights of spyware authors to disseminate?
This non-story seems miscategorized.
C is portable, a given piece of C code is not necessarily. I guarantee that if I write a program of any complexity in C on Windows, and don't make specific efforts, that program will not compile on Linux or MacOS.
But chances are you could not write that program in Java. Why is it nonportable? It's integrating into Windows in a way that your Java isn't.
The "specific effort" I have to make is the extra choice you have to make about how to develop, because you have the freedom to.
I might choose to make the program such that it will work on Linux and MacOS too. Doing that might not necessarily make the program harder to develop, but easier (since I will likely leverage some cross-platform tools and libraries, which will have nicer API's for some things than bare Win32).
Exactly, and that will also be the case if this C program is a Java system, being developed to run Java code.
important. For those things, people will keep using compiled languages and dealing with the headaches of porting. For everything else, Java is fine, and a huge cost saver in a lot of cases.
Java is not a compiled language? Do you actually know anything about Java, or just the front cover of some Java-promoting brochure?
C is must more portable than Java. If I write something in Java, it will work on exactly one platform: the Java platform. The C will actually work on hundreds of platforms. If I want. Or just one, if I want.
In C, you're programming any machine, using a portable syntax. You can write C code that doesn't require any library or operating system at all, just some way to to be loaded and invoked.
You can write C code that efficiently uses the native types of the machine, more or less. If the machine has 36 bit integers, you can use all 36 bits (while still remaining portable to where there are only 32 bits).
C can be made ROM-able.
Let's see, random project out of the air. Could, say, Etherboot be easily redeveloped in Java? Sure, if your system boot firmware can cough up a Java environment.
I'm a hacker and I break out of loops, not into computers.
if you buy a new motherboard. Because you fried it with your cooking stunt. [OK] [Cancel]''
Was too busy texting his buddies when his highschool teacher was explaining Ohm's law, etc.
One university professor called this "Bumble Sort".
C++ is better than C in that it helps programmers control the scope of variables, for example.
C has similar scope rules to C++. ISO standard since 1999. That is, declarations can be mixed with statements, and the for (;;) loop header contain a declaration.
Furthermore, C does not have the "class scope" disease:
int x;
void foo::bar(int y)
{
x = y;
}
You better get into the habit of writing ::x when referring to that file scope variable. Otherwise if someone introduces member "x" to the foo class, or any of its inheritance ancestors, the meaning of the assignment changes. It now silently resolves to the member.
C++ class scope is the Pascal WITH statement different clothing. When you write
int foo::bar() {
}
you are saying, "open a scope between these braces which contains an unknown quantity of declarations which are potentially scattered in numerous remote locations, nowhere visible in the present lexical scope".
Every time you need to add a member variable, you have to inspect every single region of class scope to look for this type of silent clash, unless you strictly adhere to naming conventions like m_ on every member.
The people who come up with protective C++ coding conventions are the true thinkers and designers.
:)
Doh.
don't compare and contrast with C++ or Java. How about something more familiar?
Let's see, "you're declaratively specifying which objects (out of a group) you want something to happen to, so you're thinking in terms of matching logic rather than ordered steps in an algorithm. "
Hmm.
<div class="group">object1</div>
<div class="group">object2</div>
Aha, now I get it!