Slashdot Mirror


User: HiThere

HiThere's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
17,789
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 17,789

  1. Re:gotta get the encrypted data first on MIT's New 5-Atom Quantum Computer Could Make Today's Encryption Obsolete (pcworld.com) · · Score: 1

    A problem is that even for a theoretically perfect solution, you are depending on a perfect implementation. Recently most cryptographic problems have stemmed from faulty implementation, and the more complicated something gets, the more likely the implementation will be faulty.

    But the real answer seems to be "if you want a secret to be secure, don't share it". There always seems to be some way to discover a shared secret.

  2. Re:Totally misleading title on MIT's New 5-Atom Quantum Computer Could Make Today's Encryption Obsolete (pcworld.com) · · Score: 1

    They explicitly talked about it being scalable. But I do wonder what amount of error correction will be needed as they increase the length, and, of course, about the speed and the cost.

    I have my doubts about this particular approach ever being practical (as in a reasonable degree of accuracy on a reasonable problem at a reasonable cost). Of course, but different applications reasonable will have a different value, but still...

    This looks to me like another laboratory benchtop quantum computer, slightly more practical than the one based around a cup of coffee. It may be something that can be developed into something practical, but the development won't be straightforwards.

  3. Re:gotta get the encrypted data first on MIT's New 5-Atom Quantum Computer Could Make Today's Encryption Obsolete (pcworld.com) · · Score: 1

    The problem is that to be accurate you should have said "nation states shouldn't store this stuff online". But we keep running across stories of where one or the other has done so. Not frequently, but often enough. Perhaps once every other year. And those are the occasions we hear about.

    Now aside from this there are all those occasionally lost laptops or hard disks that are sold without reformatting or...

    People aren't perfect. Mistakes happen. And secrets occasionally get published...sometimes even unencrypted. But if they are stored securely encrypted, then it takes an extra layer of mistakes to reveal them. This is just saying not to count on prime factoring for that extra layer. I'm not really sure it's correct except for something like transmission of public-key handshakes, but it's not an area where I'm really knowledgeable.

    The thing is, quantum computing isn't some sort of magic wand, it merely (in this application) decreases the number of steps necessary to decrypt something. But if the quantum computer takes a lot longer for each step, then it may not be much of an improvement. And it's sure to need a lot more error correction. So a longer key might suffice. Perhaps. We don't know how this will develop, but not all computer technologies end up being fast. And the description doesn't lead me to expect this approach to ever be cheap.

  4. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    I could use "bootable snapshots" (I'm guessing you mean "live CDs", or possibly USBsticks). I don't. I want to clean out unused programs that I've installed over the last year, etc. Occasionally I also rebuild my user profile from scratch, because unused things accumulate.

    Automated tools never make all the right decisions. Expecting them to do so without huge strings of question/answer interactions is unreasonable, and nobody builds something that annoying to use. So it's better to do a clean install. (As I save the 1-back system image nothing gets lost until the next install.) And I've also got a few full backups including system files in bootable format, if I ever need to use that. But so far I never have. (I don't save these forever, a couple of years is generally tops.)

  5. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    Re-imaging is a horrible solution unless you store the user files on a separate partition, or separate disk, from system files. And if executables can be run from the user partition that's not an answer unless the system protects system partitions from being modified.

    I totally forgot about disk defraggers. That they should still be needed is wierd, as automated defraggers were being advertised in 1998. And if the system is so improved that you only need to run anti-virus once a month I'm surprised. Granted I don't run an anti-virus, but I also run on Linux where the system files are password write protected...and I feel lazy because I don't set the partition to be read only. When I left MSWind it was important to have a virus scanner running in the background at all times, and regularly updated.

    If that's what you mean by maintenance, then it's reasonable for most users, but some will require consistent reminding and still won't understand why. And it's unreasonable to expect them to. A computer for non-IT users should be as easy and maintenance free as a smart-phone.

  6. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but Wine takes a long time to catch up to MSWind changes...or at least it did when I switched. And it DOESN'T handle timing dependent changes at all.

    Now I'll grant that my comment is based on MSWind95 compatibility, which it never sufficiently attained, but I've no reason to believe that it's any better today. Wine is fine for certain applications, but those tend to be precisely the applications that aren't usually broken by system upgrades.

  7. Re:Why W10 is so slow? on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah. KDE has that problem, too, or it did the last time I installed it. I don't know the MSWind solution, but for KDE I turned off desktop search, and then installed Baloo which I restricted to indexing certain directories. That fixed the problem. Presumably something similar can be done in MSWind.

  8. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    And there we have one of the problems. Technically knowledgeable people don't run into the problems that many users do. But to require all users to be technically knowledgeable is totally unreasonable given the way computers are marketed.

    In all the time I used MSWind I never caught a virus, either. But lots of people did and still do.

  9. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    What you suggest *may* be reasonable for an IT professional. It's not reasonable for any other group. And I'm not sure it's reasonable for an IT professional...certainly not something that time consuming.

    E.g., I know I should read my logs, but I also know I don't. I run Linux on which I generally trust my backups. And I run system update twice a day, which usually takes 10 minutes, but doesn't require exclusive access. Well, it's my personal computer, and I will periodically install an new version of the OS as a fresh install...say once every year or so. At that time I switch disk partitions so the old version is still bootable, but the one before that gets overwritten. Not really best practice, but good enough and easy.

    The thing is, my process takes a LOT less time than the processes I used on MSWind, and I don't have the hideous overhead of a background virus checker. You didn't define "proper maintenance", so I'm guessing that it's as time consuming as the things I used to have to do. I.e., a lot more time for results that aren't as good. But this is a guess.

    However, notice that I was talking about the process that's reasonable for an IT professional. My wife, on Kubuntu, won't even run updates. I go to her computer every once in awhile and update it. This doesn't happen as often as it should, but hasn't yet caused a problem. And expecting her to do her own maintenance is unreasonable. There are many working in almost all offices for which this is true. So it has to be trivially easy and safe. That means Long Term Support releases only, and those installed only months to years after being released.

  10. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 2

    Stable? I haven't had a crash in the last decade, and I frequently update my system. Of course, I do periodically do a fresh install, but that's because I like to clean out old cruft when installing a new version, not because I need to.

    I will admit that Debian testing used to crash badly once or twice during the development cycle, but that hasn't happened recently, and I never had that happen with stable.

    That said, there are a lot of distros out there, and probably some of the pay less attention to stability. Still, why should someone be forced to choose stability over cutting edge software (or the other way around)?

  11. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Better isn't sufficient. You also need compatible with all older programs.

    There are a large number of people who are dependent on certain particular programs, and if they stop working the system is useless.

  12. Re:Left Microsoft on Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com) · · Score: 1

    Is there a Unix with R/W access to ext4 volumes? I haven't found one.

  13. Re:Traditional banks are dead on Paperless Statements Not Always Best Choice, Says New Report · · Score: 1

    For bank statements, paper copy works better for *me*. I don't trust on-line security, so I will not set up on-line access to my bank account, and that means I can't get on-line statements.

    I'm sure that with a decent bank all the transactions that don't involve the exchange of physical money can be handled on-line. Now convince me that it can be done safely. There were several SSH vulnerabilities last year, and I'm rather sure I've heard of one this year, though it might just be an old one that nobody bothered to fix. So I should trust this?

  14. Re:Melinda gates... on Server Snafu Makes Microsoft Beg For CA Audit Data From Its Partners (softpedia.com) · · Score: 1

    Everybody seems to know what you're talking about, but I've got no idea. Was is spam e-mail or what? (Or was it actually a Bellevue exercise studio? The first page of a Google search didn't list that, and I'd think it would.)

  15. 1) It *IS* expensive and dangerous. The listed costs are highly subsidized. (Well, all power sources are subsidized, but nuclear power is more so than the others, even to the extent of the government insuring against an extreme accident.

    2) Is arguing about something with no operating examples. India is (or was) talking about Thorium cycle reactors, but I don't know if they are going ahead with it. And all reactors operating in the US are quite complex. How do you fix a leak in the radioactive part of a heat exchanger?

    3) This is a valid criticism. Coal is especially worse than nuclear, but Oil also has a lot of problems. This doesn't mean that nuclear waste isn't a big problem.

    4) I said short term profit. Nuclear plants should be managed with the goal of creating a profit over centuries...and include the actual cost of decommissioning in the total. The numbers usually used for this do not reflect any past experience and are extreme underestimates.
    That said, I do understand that long term costs are quite uncertain. But current approaches are hideously inappropriate.

  16. Those are drawbacks, not benefits.

    I listed them as costs, not as benefits.

  17. Re:Sphagetti code on DNA 'Knockouts' Reveal Genes Humans Don't Need (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 2

    If you think many people understand virtual machines, then you are using the word "understanding" in a very different way than I do. Many people have a rough idea of how virtual machines work. That's not at all the same statement.

    And as for your last paragraph, I think your acquaintance with code is shallow. Error Correcting Codes are common. Many of them can even correct multi-bit errors. Computer "viruses" modify existing code, but they were developed from programs that self-modified.

    As for my level of expertise, it's only general science level WRT biology. I am aware, however, of the features that you describe, and so what. Do you expect analogies to be the same as isomorphisms? The better criticism of the analogy would be that code isn't self-motivated, doesn't build the environment within which it lives, etc. And even to that I say "So what?". The statement may be valid, but it's not a criticism of the analogy. If you're interested in that set of features you need a different analogy, but you won't find one that's perfect in all details, because that's not what an analogy is.

  18. Re:Sphagetti code on DNA 'Knockouts' Reveal Genes Humans Don't Need (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 2

    Well, you could nominate the ribosome as a multi-processor CPU, but the analogy is really too loose to carry that far.

    You don't use an analogy to get a detailed understanding of something, only to get a rough idea. For detailed understanding you need to study the thing itself. Like this study.

  19. Re:So what? on NRC Engineers Urge Shutdown of Nuclear Plants If Design Flaw Not Fixed (utilitydive.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah. Simply amazing all the anonymous cowards posting that his is not a story.

    Nuclear power has four big problems:
    1) It's expensive
    2) It's complicated
    3) It's dangerous
    4) It's managed to create short-term profit.

    The other problems are derivative of those. They exist, and they are severe, but they can be handled. And the main problem of the 4 big ones is number 4...though that would be less of a problem without the other three. And profit shouldn't only be calculated in dollars, but should also include such things as political power and centralized control.

  20. Re:there is a lot we don't need on DNA 'Knockouts' Reveal Genes Humans Don't Need (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 1

    You are assuming that it *IS* useful. That's the conservative assumption, and for any particular gene it may be true. But many have never been useful, and are just random mutations that happened to be carried along. See "Neutral Drift". Others are actively harmful, but not harmful enough to have been selected out ... yet. Others were at one point useful, and would still be useful if the original occasion reoccurred. Others were once useful, but have since mutated into forms that are just useless...or at any rate useless for the original purpose. See the eyes of "blind cave fish" and the mammalian ear (which started out as parts of a jaw bone). There's LOTs of other examples. Check out the evolutionary history of any part of your body and you'll find out that it once did something else. (Well, perhaps not the skin. And sometimes you need to trace it fairly far back. Eyes appear to have started in the Cambrian or Pre-Cambrian, e.g., but once were skin.)

  21. Re:Endogenous retroviruses on DNA 'Knockouts' Reveal Genes Humans Don't Need (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 1

    The problem isn't that if you remove the ancient retroviruses you are likely to get reinfected, it's that you may have become dependent upon them...though this study is of those who turn out to be naturally missing genes thought necessary. But mitochondria, among other organelles, were originally infectious bacteria, and we'd die without them. Ancient retroviruses are more difficult to identify, but there's no reason to believe they aren't equally important. Evolution works with what's on hand, it doesn't pay attention to where it came from.

  22. Re:Sphagetti code on DNA 'Knockouts' Reveal Genes Humans Don't Need (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 2

    While there's some truth in what you say, there's not much. Epigenetics are rather like state variables, Methylation is analogous to a read-protect and de-methylation to the removal of such protections. Most epigenetic markers are removed between generations, but some slip through, an don't know the reasons. (That's not my area of expertise, but I believe that nobody currently knows why.)

    OTOH, "unused" genes may be needed as spacers, as some enzymes depend on a particular separation between the pieces that they are attaching to. But many of them are flexible enough that removing the spacers wouldn't cause problems.

    To say that the chromosomes are just strings of nucleotides would, indeed, be foolish. This doesn't mean that code isn't a good, even an excellent, analogy. It's the best analogy we really understand unless you want to consider it as being like a virtual machine, but few people really understand virtual machines. I suppose you could analogize it to a complex multiprocessor program with inter-process communication, but that doesn't really help ANYONE understand it. It's more accurate, but too complex and not sufficiently specific.

    Removal of SOME "useless" codons will change gene expression. Removal of other "useless" codons will have no effect. Removal of other "useless" codons will have no effect except in the presence of particular external threats.

    Remember, the genetic environment, including the code, evolved, which means that there's a lot of noise in the code. One of the problems of writing genetic programs is limiting the accumulation of noise in the code. Darwinian evolution does this by multiple means, but one of the primary ones is killing off the unfit before they can reproduce. This is difficult unless you're dealing with a really large population. Say the world population of mice. Larger animals with smaller populations have a tendency to go extinct. (Well, every species has a tendency to go extinct, but small populations are more likely to do so.)

    Because of this humans are at two or three evolutionary disadvantages. We've expanded from a small population, so our genetic variability is small. We are a large animal, so we have a small population. And we avoid killing off the unfit. Genetic medicine offers an eventual solution. We aren't there yet, but this study is one of many needed stepping stones.

  23. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons on Mozilla Bans Popular Firefox Add-On That Tampered With Security Settings (softpedia.com) · · Score: 1

    The last time I tried to use Seamonkey it wouldn't run. I didn't devote a whole lot of effort into trying to figure out why, but it did compile without errors (that I remember). I was trying to install it to use its html editor, but I found another one that looked like a fork and worked without problem. (Can't remember its name.)

  24. Re:other browsers with Firefox-like add-ons on Mozilla Bans Popular Firefox Add-On That Tampered With Security Settings (softpedia.com) · · Score: 1

    Even MSWind95 did that. When I installed Squeak and Python on MSWind95 there were no files installed outside the application directory, which I located in a custom place segregated from all system files.

    The problem isn't that MSWind doesn't allow that, the problem is that it doesn't (didn't?) require that.

    FWIW, I generally prefer /usr/local to /opt, but in either case the files should be those that you trust, and the locations should require root permission to allow installation. Files with any doubt as to their provenance should be installed in a place like /home/apps/ with write permission only to the apps user (not a real user) and execute permission as desired. If you can't control where it installs itself, don't trust it.

  25. Re:I actually found this funny on The Case Against Algebra · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but percentage is not an exponential function. It's true that compounded percentage IS an exponential function, but the exponential is added by the interaction of multiplication with recursion.

    I do agree that the official rates of inflation are intentional lies, however. But the very concept of a rate of inflation that is consistent across income levels and purchasing preferences is fantasy. Durable goods are quite different from commodities, e.g. So it's quite possible that there is some group within society for which the 2% rate of inflation is accurate.