Write a script that goes to lots of SSL sites and checks the signing certificate. Run one copy from behind the Great Firewall. Run another from the free world. Compare the output to see if CNNIC ever shows up where it shouldn't. Found a hit? Submit it to all the browser publishers and watch the security updates fly, as CNNIC loses all authority over SSL.
Bonus points if you can get Hillary Clinton to send a strongly-worded letter to China.
Welcome to the English language. When 99% of the population understands a certain word to mean a certain thing, then that word does, in fact, mean that thing.
What you will find even more confusing is that words sometimes have multiple meanings! For example, the word "hacker" could mean both "a clever programmer", "a golfer", and "a person who circumvents computer system security." All three at the same time! It's amazing.
it's hard for me to comprehend how someone could fail to deduce the rather straightforward solution to their problem
That's hard for you to deduce? Really? You must not be too bright, then.
I'll help you out: when you are terrified for your life, you don't think in the same way you do when you're sitting at your desk. Your brain is in an entirely different state.
I could see you in charge of army training, though:
Drills? What drills? We don't need to train our soldiers on how to react while under fire! Just throw them out on the battlefield and they'll reason it out. The answer should be obvious!
You say your mind has been boggling about this for a week? Are you mentally retarded? Have you any experience with humans, or any other animals, for that matter?
There's a lot of half-truth in your post. Botnet authors have wide ranges of experience and education. Sure, there are self-taught teenagers. But there are also professionals running botnets (on the payroll of the Ukrainian mafia, for example). Cybercrime is not a kid's game. Now that there's real money to be made, real money is being invested.
Any statement you make about all botnet authors is wrong.
their real purpose, which is funneling large sums of taxpayer cash to defense contractors.
That may be true, but this is the best kind of corruption the military-industrial-congressional complex can have: defense R&D. I would much prefer seeing my money spent on scientists and engineers in the states than on offensive, unnecessary overseas wars.
We don't need a large standing army. Having a small group with the best technology at their disposal is the better way to go.
You are ignorant and you will still be ignorant in ten years. You are claiming, based on a complete absence of evidence, that the foundation did not analyze the consequences of their actions before deciding what to do. The foundation has claimed otherwise, and they would actually know.
Furthermore, you are evil. You want to let people die to "decrease the surplus population?" Well, you better have actual analysis to back you up, not a line of bullshit, for championing such a position.
A "regular" TV? Where do you live, that a CRT is considered a "regular TV"? You can't even give CRTs away these days! HDTVs are the new "regular," and have been for a couple of years.
Next thing you know, some guy will be complaining that the game is unplayable on his reel projector because his phonograph keeps getting out of sync.
I doubt that they have done the analysis that you allude to. I really do.
Per Melinda Gates' own words, they HAVE done the analysis I mentioned. Your doubts, which are completely unfounded and lack any evidencary support, directly contradict the words of the woman who runs the foundation and has intimate personal knowledge of it.
You're talking out your ass to get karma. I've been on slashdot for ten years, so this shouldn't surprise me. But in this case, in does bother me. These people are making a careful effort to improve the human race, and you shit all over them out of your own ignorance. Shame on you.
Your personal disagreement doesn't count for squat. This foundation is not just shooting the shit on the internet to decide what to do. They have Mr. Gates' and Mr. Buffett's personal fortunes going into analyzing how to do the most good in the world.
Furthermore, your comprehension of economics seems to be rather inadequate. It's not like there are X jobs in the world, and if you have more than X people the rest are unemployed. It's not like the number of jobs is directly bound by the amount of farmland. In the developed world, an insignificant fraction of the population works in farming these days.
The European economy did not boom during the plague. It's just daft that you are suggesting as much.
A healthy population can build an economy and become a wealthy population. A sick population can't. It's that simple.
Melinda Gates spoke to Charlie Rose about this. She says that the foundation analyzed this question carefully, and came to the conclusion that it is just far far easier for a population to lift itself up out of a cycle of poverty if it doesn't have to deal with disease (both personal and of family members) all the time. It's hard to get an education when you're taking care of a household of polio victims.
Not harmful: showing you gadget ads instead of tampon ads because they know you're in the gadget demographic.
Harmful: helping a dictatorship track you so they can kill you for espousing liberal views; helping law enforcement investigate your online activity without due process.
As far as I can tell, Google only does the "not harmful" stuff with the data it collects, and in some cases it goes to great lengths to avoid doing the "harmful" stuff.
Listen, I have a PIC Microcontroller here on my desk. I toy with it from time to time, to build my killer robot... but even that wimpy little 8-bit fleck of baked sand can be programmed with C.
And I am aware that the languages I do useful (non-killer-robot) work in all run on top of something which runs on top of something (etc.) which was programmed in C.
My question is: who out there is saying "gee, C just won't cut it. I need assembly."?
Some software companies sue security researchers. A few (Adobe) even attempt to get researchers arrested! Microsoft openly espouses its disdain for security researchers (see Balmer's comments at the shareholders' meeting).
Google? Google pays them cold, hard cash.
I swear, it seems Google bucks every bad trend in the software/IT industry. It's like they're reading Slashdot and doing everything we say! The only real gripe slashdotters have with google is targeted advertising, but that's their revenue model, so the best we can hope for is that they don't give the info to those who would use it for something harmful (which seems to be the case).
What is primary use of assembly these days? I thought C gave you the same level of control, but with portability and much-improved readability.
And to give you an idea of where this question is coming from, the last app I wrote was a web app runs in JRuby, using DataMapper to free me from dealing with SQL and Sinatra to free me from dealing with HTTP/CGI. It runs on the Google App Engine cloud. My world is so high-level, with so many layers of virtualization and encapsulation, that I can barely see assembly way down there at the bottom of the stack...
First World has come to be largely synonymous with developed and/or highly developed countries (depending on which definition is being used).
This is the case for the term "first world." It is not the case that the term "second world" has become "largely synonymous" with "slow internet access" as was claimed by that other bozo. "Second world" still means what it always meant.
No, really, you're confused. The fact that the Soviet Union does not exist does not mean you all of a sudden have the right to redefine any word which refers to the Soviet Union.
"Second World" has never been the accepted terminology to refer to "those countries with moderate wireless internet coverage." It has a specific definition which you were ignorant of until I educated you. You tried to invent a new phrase based on your misunderstanding of another phrase. There's no weaseling out of it.
Complaints one hears about a cellphone carrier are directly proportional to the number of customers said carrier has. All carriers suck some of the time in some of the places.
Hoo boy are you confused. Let me make this easy for you:
First World: democratic capitalism, aka The US and its allies
Second World: dictatorial communism, aka the Soviet Union and its allies
Third World: everyone else (These countries were not allied with either of the above groups primarily because they were too poor to matter in the great struggle over property rights and liberalism.)
To say the US is "second world" is absurd, as being aligned with the US is the very definition of "first world."
Wait--if his post confused you, what are you doing on slashdot? I hope you don't work in IT!
He said that Vista (the OS) requires more minimum resources to run well, but applications don't run slow on it.
Modern operating systems do memory management, task scheduling, and a bunch of other things. So long as you have the resources to run the core OS functions, Vista and its apps will perform great.
Imagine two databases, on requiring 900GiB of memory and one requiring 1100GiB. It is quite possible that the later uses much faster algorithms, but the former will outperform it on a system with 1GiB of RAM, as it would not incur the performance penalty of using "virtual RAM" (disk-swapping). On a system with 2GiB, however, the one with the higher minimum resource requirement will smoke the other one.
The answer to your question is implementation-specific.
If you're cracking encrypted email, you know you're looking for plain text, so that test is easy. Cracking TrueCrypt partitions? Use whatever algorithm TC uses to determine whether or not a password matches (TC has some deterministic means of distinguishing this, for use in its plausible deniability feature).
Cracking SSL? Look for the one which decrypts to HTTP.
Cracking general disk encryption products? Look for filesystem structures.
The only time the problem you mention could trip you up is when you have no idea what format the underlying data is in. In that case, you can test for entropy or try some other tricks.
The Kindle has a free unlimited data plan with no contract, a screen that's much easier on the eyes than backlit LCD, a much longer battery life, and it run Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Write a script that goes to lots of SSL sites and checks the signing certificate. Run one copy from behind the Great Firewall. Run another from the free world. Compare the output to see if CNNIC ever shows up where it shouldn't. Found a hit? Submit it to all the browser publishers and watch the security updates fly, as CNNIC loses all authority over SSL.
Bonus points if you can get Hillary Clinton to send a strongly-worded letter to China.
Welcome to the English language. When 99% of the population understands a certain word to mean a certain thing, then that word does, in fact, mean that thing.
What you will find even more confusing is that words sometimes have multiple meanings! For example, the word "hacker" could mean both "a clever programmer", "a golfer", and "a person who circumvents computer system security." All three at the same time! It's amazing.
My Eclipse has a metal hook which holds the floor mat in place. There's no way it's going to slide up over the accelerator.
There is a solution to this problem. Don't the Toyota engineers ever meet the Mitsubishi engineers and discuss this stuff over saki?
That's hard for you to deduce? Really? You must not be too bright, then.
I'll help you out: when you are terrified for your life, you don't think in the same way you do when you're sitting at your desk. Your brain is in an entirely different state.
I could see you in charge of army training, though:
You say your mind has been boggling about this for a week? Are you mentally retarded? Have you any experience with humans, or any other animals, for that matter?
There's a lot of half-truth in your post. Botnet authors have wide ranges of experience and education. Sure, there are self-taught teenagers. But there are also professionals running botnets (on the payroll of the Ukrainian mafia, for example). Cybercrime is not a kid's game. Now that there's real money to be made, real money is being invested.
Any statement you make about all botnet authors is wrong.
I would pay extra for ebooks if I have to. I want all my books on one device. I want to be able to search. I want all the other advantages of ebooks.
The pricing of media has nothing to do with distribution costs, and everything to do with "how much will people pay?"
That may be true, but this is the best kind of corruption the military-industrial-congressional complex can have: defense R&D. I would much prefer seeing my money spent on scientists and engineers in the states than on offensive, unnecessary overseas wars.
We don't need a large standing army. Having a small group with the best technology at their disposal is the better way to go.
You are ignorant and you will still be ignorant in ten years. You are claiming, based on a complete absence of evidence, that the foundation did not analyze the consequences of their actions before deciding what to do. The foundation has claimed otherwise, and they would actually know.
Furthermore, you are evil. You want to let people die to "decrease the surplus population?" Well, you better have actual analysis to back you up, not a line of bullshit, for championing such a position.
Full of shit. Evil. Tom (user 822).
A "regular" TV? Where do you live, that a CRT is considered a "regular TV"? You can't even give CRTs away these days! HDTVs are the new "regular," and have been for a couple of years.
Next thing you know, some guy will be complaining that the game is unplayable on his reel projector because his phonograph keeps getting out of sync.
Per Melinda Gates' own words, they HAVE done the analysis I mentioned. Your doubts, which are completely unfounded and lack any evidencary support, directly contradict the words of the woman who runs the foundation and has intimate personal knowledge of it.
You're talking out your ass to get karma. I've been on slashdot for ten years, so this shouldn't surprise me. But in this case, in does bother me. These people are making a careful effort to improve the human race, and you shit all over them out of your own ignorance. Shame on you.
Your personal disagreement doesn't count for squat. This foundation is not just shooting the shit on the internet to decide what to do. They have Mr. Gates' and Mr. Buffett's personal fortunes going into analyzing how to do the most good in the world.
Furthermore, your comprehension of economics seems to be rather inadequate. It's not like there are X jobs in the world, and if you have more than X people the rest are unemployed. It's not like the number of jobs is directly bound by the amount of farmland. In the developed world, an insignificant fraction of the population works in farming these days.
The European economy did not boom during the plague. It's just daft that you are suggesting as much.
A healthy population can build an economy and become a wealthy population. A sick population can't. It's that simple.
Melinda Gates spoke to Charlie Rose about this. She says that the foundation analyzed this question carefully, and came to the conclusion that it is just far far easier for a population to lift itself up out of a cycle of poverty if it doesn't have to deal with disease (both personal and of family members) all the time. It's hard to get an education when you're taking care of a household of polio victims.
Not harmful: showing you gadget ads instead of tampon ads because they know you're in the gadget demographic.
Harmful: helping a dictatorship track you so they can kill you for espousing liberal views; helping law enforcement investigate your online activity without due process.
As far as I can tell, Google only does the "not harmful" stuff with the data it collects, and in some cases it goes to great lengths to avoid doing the "harmful" stuff.
Bzzzzt!
"Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome."
http://code.google.com/chromium/
Sorry, but Sergey Brin browses at +5. The mods will need to show you some love if you want any chance at that...
Listen, I have a PIC Microcontroller here on my desk. I toy with it from time to time, to build my killer robot... but even that wimpy little 8-bit fleck of baked sand can be programmed with C.
And I am aware that the languages I do useful (non-killer-robot) work in all run on top of something which runs on top of something (etc.) which was programmed in C.
My question is: who out there is saying "gee, C just won't cut it. I need assembly."?
Some software companies sue security researchers. A few (Adobe) even attempt to get researchers arrested! Microsoft openly espouses its disdain for security researchers (see Balmer's comments at the shareholders' meeting).
Google? Google pays them cold, hard cash.
I swear, it seems Google bucks every bad trend in the software/IT industry. It's like they're reading Slashdot and doing everything we say! The only real gripe slashdotters have with google is targeted advertising, but that's their revenue model, so the best we can hope for is that they don't give the info to those who would use it for something harmful (which seems to be the case).
What is primary use of assembly these days? I thought C gave you the same level of control, but with portability and much-improved readability.
And to give you an idea of where this question is coming from, the last app I wrote was a web app runs in JRuby, using DataMapper to free me from dealing with SQL and Sinatra to free me from dealing with HTTP/CGI. It runs on the Google App Engine cloud. My world is so high-level, with so many layers of virtualization and encapsulation, that I can barely see assembly way down there at the bottom of the stack...
This is the case for the term "first world." It is not the case that the term "second world" has become "largely synonymous" with "slow internet access" as was claimed by that other bozo. "Second world" still means what it always meant.
No, really, you're confused. The fact that the Soviet Union does not exist does not mean you all of a sudden have the right to redefine any word which refers to the Soviet Union.
"Second World" has never been the accepted terminology to refer to "those countries with moderate wireless internet coverage." It has a specific definition which you were ignorant of until I educated you. You tried to invent a new phrase based on your misunderstanding of another phrase. There's no weaseling out of it.
Complaints one hears about a cellphone carrier are directly proportional to the number of customers said carrier has. All carriers suck some of the time in some of the places.
Hoo boy are you confused. Let me make this easy for you:
To say the US is "second world" is absurd, as being aligned with the US is the very definition of "first world."
Wait--if his post confused you, what are you doing on slashdot? I hope you don't work in IT!
He said that Vista (the OS) requires more minimum resources to run well, but applications don't run slow on it.
Modern operating systems do memory management, task scheduling, and a bunch of other things. So long as you have the resources to run the core OS functions, Vista and its apps will perform great.
Imagine two databases, on requiring 900GiB of memory and one requiring 1100GiB. It is quite possible that the later uses much faster algorithms, but the former will outperform it on a system with 1GiB of RAM, as it would not incur the performance penalty of using "virtual RAM" (disk-swapping). On a system with 2GiB, however, the one with the higher minimum resource requirement will smoke the other one.
The answer to your question is implementation-specific.
If you're cracking encrypted email, you know you're looking for plain text, so that test is easy. Cracking TrueCrypt partitions? Use whatever algorithm TC uses to determine whether or not a password matches (TC has some deterministic means of distinguishing this, for use in its plausible deniability feature).
Cracking SSL? Look for the one which decrypts to HTTP.
Cracking general disk encryption products? Look for filesystem structures.
The only time the problem you mention could trip you up is when you have no idea what format the underlying data is in. In that case, you can test for entropy or try some other tricks.
The Kindle has a free unlimited data plan with no contract, a screen that's much easier on the eyes than backlit LCD, a much longer battery life, and it run Linux.