In a nutshell, yes, the horsepower requirements increase with added speed as your engine must fight with increased drag. So driving slower mitigates the energy required to overcome the additional force.
HOWEVER, going too slow and you don't cover enough distance for the amount of gas you use. In an extreme example, idling at 0mph is an asymptotic point on the mpg graph. All cars have different "sweet spots" where they are optimal. Those "sweet spots" are typically dictated by particular RPM ranges and the corresponding speeds by which a chosen gear will drive the car within those RPM ranges.
Some people will say that simply driving in the highest gear at the lowest speed will always produce the best mpg. Not necessarily so (though generally so). As an example, a 2006 Jeep Wrangler turning 35" tires gets exactly the same mpg in 6th gear as it does in 5th gear at 75mph. This is counter-intuitive but one must remember there are more factors at play within the engine computer than simply RPMs. Looking deeper at the situation reveals that while 5th gear requires more RPMs, the ignition timing is advanced nearly 20 degrees on 6th gear plus the higher RPMs are actually in the engine's torque zone meaning it requires less air (and hence less gas based on the stoichiometric ratio) to produce the same amount of power.
More than likely, his subconcious need for the device to work led to a more conservative driving style - resulting in the increase. Things you may do to the fuel far back in the fuel line will be completely negated once it gets spurted through the injectors.
http://www.omninerd.com/articles/Improve_MPG_The_Factors_Affecting_Fuel_Efficiency
I was part of the West Point team back in 2001's CDX when we won the first Director's Trophy. Unfortunately, I have the disappointing duty of letting you know that the Army will completely squander your skills and abilities once Human Resources Command (HRC) starts blindly filling roster vacancies with bodies. The NSA was even trying to transfer service obligations for key participants from the '01 CDX... but the Army put a stop to that by stamping the effort out with an old boot of lockstep tradition and red tape.
... a writer at OmniNerd put together a good article on Auction 73 outlining why the FCC is auctioning the 700Mhz spectrum as well as how they're doing it in a competitive and fair fashion. He even walks a fictitious company through the auction process to detail what is involved for bidders.
I actually find it quite amusing that some people feel like they're getting "great mileage" on their hybrid Priuses when they break the 40mpg barrier. I was able to do 44mpg on the highway and just shy of 40mpg city pretty regularly in my '98 Camry (regular 4 cylinder version). It really boils down to how driving habits affect fuel efficiency. The only reason I lost that performance was putting the roof rack on which drastically impaired my coefficient of drag.
All you hybrid owners had better be breaking 60mpg... otherwise it tells me you just mash your accelerator and hope the technology saves you the gas. Gas savings comes from both ends - both the engineered technology AND efficient driving. Just as everyone likes to deride those who offset their living with "Carbon Credits", so do the rest of us when we see someone driving a hybrid like a moron.
So more or less, this technology is simply a forced adaptation of improved driving habits for people too lazy to do it themselves. It's just proof positive of the old axiom stated time and time again - changing your driving habits can improve mpg.
Various rules of that sort have existed for a long time. I recall while I was there in 2005, there was a big push for to make every soldier reveal if they had a blog or personal website. Evidently, somebody had been posting more detailed accounts of the action as it happened on his blog than he was recording in the official duty log. So there are obvious cases where, yes, this is a problem.
But before discounting the average discussion forum as immaterial to foreign intelligence, you never really know who is reading your site. Our site had a fellow who began posting insurgent propaganda (our filters worked) which served as a wake-up to us that our own news/discussions had garnered attention we weren't aware of. But we made our own users aware of it with an OPSEC Awareness post to serve as a reminder.
Any real 4x4 like a Jeep Wrangler or the Hummer H1 are greener than everything else on the road for one very obvious reason: neither vehicle requires the world be covered in asphalt. A Prius or any other eco-friendly, high MPG vehicle on the other hand isn't going to get very far without chopping down forests, blasting through mountain ranges and otherwise laying waste to the environment for a "road".
I know that modern OS's don't use the BIOS - but they do when they're loading. Prior to having the system instantiated, using the BIOS is the only way to get the system physically off the disk and into RAM. It's during that phase, that a rootkit has an interesting opportunity for breaking into the system. Prior to Windows, Linux, BSD, what-have-you even loads, the BIOS will scan for expansion ROMs and that provides a unique opportunity to get a rogue monitor into place. The virtualization in essence, brings back the notion of old-school TSR (terminate stay resident) style programming. The rogue monitor has it's chance to do whatever it wants before the system loads and then loads the system transparently. Later on, it can pick and choose it's way into the guest at its leisure. At that point, it doesn't matter whether the guest is using direct io. If the appropriate functions have been subverted, it's too late for the guest.
You also mention that assembly language is small and doesn't need a hidden partition. You're right - if you know exactly what you're targeting. The idea behind this was for a more powerful implementation. You can be as small and stealthy as you want. But if you had the ability to cache a pile of attack code for multiple operating systems right there and a means by which to hide it... why wouldn't you? This would allow the system to adapt to almost ANYTHING that tries to boot. Say the owner attempts to reboot from a CD-ROM so they can do a rootkit scan? Once again, ROM extensions come first, the system is subverted, the ROM detects that boot will come from a CDROM and can start protecting itself. Whereas, the highly specialized, assembly system will be caught.
It's almost like this gives the attacker an ability to code in high level languages - a little more sloppy but a lot more robust in terms of packages available and speed of delivery.
Regardless of the author's Borat style choice of words, that's a damn near stroke of brilliance with many different combinations of implementation. Using the BIOS extensions from expansion card ROMs would allow more than simply hooking into a booting Windows system. It's a near perfect delivery mechanism for a Blue Pill style of rootkit.
The best implementation, though, would be to use a variety of stages. Custom craft a bootable USB key to target flash ROMs. There's plenty of storage available on today's flash drives which would allow a variety of "alternate" ROMs to be stored. The attacker could seed the flash drive with customized ROMs for the most frequently purchased cards and then simply have the key detect the present hardware and flash. This of course, would require physical access but there are plenty of systems to be had at an office by simply sticking in the key and rebooting them after hours.
But I mentioned multi-stage and Blue Pill. The fastest way to make it a reality would be for the "rootkit key" to do more than just flash some ROMs. Perhaps integrate re-partitioning schemes from products like iPartition or PartitionMagic to make oneself a happy hacker partition. This would normally be quite detectable... unless you had control of the BIOS. These ROM extensions could be used not as an attack vector, but as a cloaking measure - by commandeering the BIOS 10h functions and "hiding" calls to the new partition unless an appropriate "register knock" took place.
With the partition hidden appropriately, the rootkit code no longer has to be excessively tight and lean because there is almost no exposure (because it will be cloaked during the BIOS boot process). Now, if the processor incorporates the appropriate virtualization features, the ROM extension could pervert the boot process one more time, by redirecting the bootcode search from the REAL bootsector to the hidden partition. The rootkit partition then has all the room it needs to establish the appropriate virtualization environment, boot the operating system like normal and then stroll through its library of OS tools to integrate itself post-boot into any number of target OS's.
Once you're finished scratching your head over the quantum physics, you can really twist your noodle with the philosophy of time travel at http://www.omninerd.com/2006/11/14/coffeeshop/14 where we question if the very notion of time travel requires FATE and negates FREE WILL.
I think that is taking a somewhat simplistic perspective. It doesn't really matter whether the major OS products make use of virtualization. The entire point of a successful rootkitting is leaving no visible trace of your presence. A well crafted rootkit would take hold from the bootprocess, virtualize the environment and then load the operating system. Thus - who cares if Microsoft, Linux or Apple makes use of virtualization, if the rootkit detects an appropriate target loaded into its context... BAM, ownership.
The only way true way to detect a rootkit is to shut down a system and reboot from a separate, read-only instance of an OS dedicated for rootkit scans. No business, however, wants to hear that answer given to them as a course of action. They'll question their IT staff why they let the system get infected in the first place. They'll ask how such an action will impact on their financials. And if the scan comes up clean - IT looks like paranoid idiots. If it comes up infected - IT looks incompetent.
OmniNerd has an article describing how rootkits function. Most of you are already familiar with them, but the underpinnings as to why software solutions will always fail are quite clear.
I, too, would be wary of a government hardware device installed in my own computer. It's all too evident the NSA has its hand in all communications already. Would anybody really trust a device that can intercept all data traffic? It's the master backdoor they've always wanted. Then again, who would you trust to manufacture such a card?
If Sony really believes they can settle a rootkit installation snafu with offering downloads, then they must be smoking something good. Although, I can't blame them for trying - the more they downplay the actual impact of an exploitable rootkit, the less it will cost them in the end. The price of a few downloads is far less than financial damages per computer as would be necessary. What goads me the most is that if the legal system accepts this as legitimate. Would that set an established precedent that hackers can use in court? IE, the crime was the installation of a rootkit without authorization so Joe Hacker can now refer to Sony vs. The People and settle for about $20 flat. The decision makers need to understand WHAT a rootkit is and the effects of having one on a computer mean for a user - OmniNerd: Rootkit Analysis.
OmniNerd is carrying a decent article on the nature of rootkits (Rootkit: The "r00t" of Digital Evil) that isn't watered down like everything else the media has been using to describe rootkits. I think the principle problem with the legal system, the general public and Sony is that most people just don't understand what a rootkit really is and the capabilities they present to hackers. The media has been lumping them into the malware category as nothing more than the latest virus going around - a misconception that is costly to consumers because the threat has been greatly downplayed.
Perhaps once people really fathom just what a rootkit can do to them and how a properly written rootkit will not be detected by their anti-virus software, they'll take the threat more seriously. And in doing so, demand rightful compensation from Sony in lieu of a new audio CD. Are you comfortable with rootkits installed on the computers of your local financial institution? College records? Law enforcement? Wall Street? The military?
While the/. community is an exception, it seems to me that most people just don't understand what exactly rootkits do. At best, they're given cursory nods in the news [now] as just another form of malware. The media asks why can't our anti-virus software just detect them? OmniNerd has an article about how rootkits work that is technical enough for/. but without the reliance on source code found so often on Phrack resources, which our non-tech brethren can't understand.
URL: http://www.omninerd.com/2005/11/22/articles/43
I've seen the Pixar movies, Phantom Menace, and Final Fantasy on the DLP screen in Plano, TX. Just for shits and giggles, I saw them again on the regular screens. There is a significant difference with regard to how much brighter and sharper the picture appears (especially with the computer generated movies) that makes the effort of going to DLP screens well worth it. I hadn't realized how many visual artifacts regular film introduced into the movie (most of the time the eye is distracted anyway) until I saw a picture as clean as DLP produced.
Slashdot Mirror
All of your concerns are addressed in Improve MPG: The Factors Affecting Fuel Efficiency which was Slashdotted more than two years ago.
In a nutshell, yes, the horsepower requirements increase with added speed as your engine must fight with increased drag. So driving slower mitigates the energy required to overcome the additional force.
HOWEVER, going too slow and you don't cover enough distance for the amount of gas you use. In an extreme example, idling at 0mph is an asymptotic point on the mpg graph. All cars have different "sweet spots" where they are optimal. Those "sweet spots" are typically dictated by particular RPM ranges and the corresponding speeds by which a chosen gear will drive the car within those RPM ranges.
Some people will say that simply driving in the highest gear at the lowest speed will always produce the best mpg. Not necessarily so (though generally so). As an example, a 2006 Jeep Wrangler turning 35" tires gets exactly the same mpg in 6th gear as it does in 5th gear at 75mph. This is counter-intuitive but one must remember there are more factors at play within the engine computer than simply RPMs. Looking deeper at the situation reveals that while 5th gear requires more RPMs, the ignition timing is advanced nearly 20 degrees on 6th gear plus the higher RPMs are actually in the engine's torque zone meaning it requires less air (and hence less gas based on the stoichiometric ratio) to produce the same amount of power.
More than likely, his subconcious need for the device to work led to a more conservative driving style - resulting in the increase. Things you may do to the fuel far back in the fuel line will be completely negated once it gets spurted through the injectors. http://www.omninerd.com/articles/Improve_MPG_The_Factors_Affecting_Fuel_Efficiency
I was part of the West Point team back in 2001's CDX when we won the first Director's Trophy. Unfortunately, I have the disappointing duty of letting you know that the Army will completely squander your skills and abilities once Human Resources Command (HRC) starts blindly filling roster vacancies with bodies. The NSA was even trying to transfer service obligations for key participants from the '01 CDX ... but the Army put a stop to that by stamping the effort out with an old boot of lockstep tradition and red tape.
HRC Continues to Fail
... a writer at OmniNerd put together a good article on Auction 73 outlining why the FCC is auctioning the 700Mhz spectrum as well as how they're doing it in a competitive and fair fashion. He even walks a fictitious company through the auction process to detail what is involved for bidders.
I actually find it quite amusing that some people feel like they're getting "great mileage" on their hybrid Priuses when they break the 40mpg barrier. I was able to do 44mpg on the highway and just shy of 40mpg city pretty regularly in my '98 Camry (regular 4 cylinder version). It really boils down to how driving habits affect fuel efficiency. The only reason I lost that performance was putting the roof rack on which drastically impaired my coefficient of drag. All you hybrid owners had better be breaking 60mpg ... otherwise it tells me you just mash your accelerator and hope the technology saves you the gas. Gas savings comes from both ends - both the engineered technology AND efficient driving. Just as everyone likes to deride those who offset their living with "Carbon Credits", so do the rest of us when we see someone driving a hybrid like a moron.
So more or less, this technology is simply a forced adaptation of improved driving habits for people too lazy to do it themselves. It's just proof positive of the old axiom stated time and time again - changing your driving habits can improve mpg.
Various rules of that sort have existed for a long time. I recall while I was there in 2005, there was a big push for to make every soldier reveal if they had a blog or personal website. Evidently, somebody had been posting more detailed accounts of the action as it happened on his blog than he was recording in the official duty log. So there are obvious cases where, yes, this is a problem. But before discounting the average discussion forum as immaterial to foreign intelligence, you never really know who is reading your site. Our site had a fellow who began posting insurgent propaganda (our filters worked) which served as a wake-up to us that our own news/discussions had garnered attention we weren't aware of. But we made our own users aware of it with an OPSEC Awareness post to serve as a reminder.
Signs of an Alien Invasion http://www.omninerd.com/2007/02/25/articles/71
Any real 4x4 like a Jeep Wrangler or the Hummer H1 are greener than everything else on the road for one very obvious reason: neither vehicle requires the world be covered in asphalt. A Prius or any other eco-friendly, high MPG vehicle on the other hand isn't going to get very far without chopping down forests, blasting through mountain ranges and otherwise laying waste to the environment for a "road".
http://www.omninerd.com/
I wonder if that thing can figure out what was flying around over the desert in New Mexico: http://www.omninerd.com/2007/02/25/articles/71
I know that modern OS's don't use the BIOS - but they do when they're loading. Prior to having the system instantiated, using the BIOS is the only way to get the system physically off the disk and into RAM. It's during that phase, that a rootkit has an interesting opportunity for breaking into the system. Prior to Windows, Linux, BSD, what-have-you even loads, the BIOS will scan for expansion ROMs and that provides a unique opportunity to get a rogue monitor into place. The virtualization in essence, brings back the notion of old-school TSR (terminate stay resident) style programming. The rogue monitor has it's chance to do whatever it wants before the system loads and then loads the system transparently. Later on, it can pick and choose it's way into the guest at its leisure. At that point, it doesn't matter whether the guest is using direct io. If the appropriate functions have been subverted, it's too late for the guest.
... why wouldn't you? This would allow the system to adapt to almost ANYTHING that tries to boot. Say the owner attempts to reboot from a CD-ROM so they can do a rootkit scan? Once again, ROM extensions come first, the system is subverted, the ROM detects that boot will come from a CDROM and can start protecting itself. Whereas, the highly specialized, assembly system will be caught.
You also mention that assembly language is small and doesn't need a hidden partition. You're right - if you know exactly what you're targeting. The idea behind this was for a more powerful implementation. You can be as small and stealthy as you want. But if you had the ability to cache a pile of attack code for multiple operating systems right there and a means by which to hide it
It's almost like this gives the attacker an ability to code in high level languages - a little more sloppy but a lot more robust in terms of packages available and speed of delivery.
Regardless of the author's Borat style choice of words, that's a damn near stroke of brilliance with many different combinations of implementation. Using the BIOS extensions from expansion card ROMs would allow more than simply hooking into a booting Windows system. It's a near perfect delivery mechanism for a Blue Pill style of rootkit.
... unless you had control of the BIOS. These ROM extensions could be used not as an attack vector, but as a cloaking measure - by commandeering the BIOS 10h functions and "hiding" calls to the new partition unless an appropriate "register knock" took place.
The best implementation, though, would be to use a variety of stages. Custom craft a bootable USB key to target flash ROMs. There's plenty of storage available on today's flash drives which would allow a variety of "alternate" ROMs to be stored. The attacker could seed the flash drive with customized ROMs for the most frequently purchased cards and then simply have the key detect the present hardware and flash. This of course, would require physical access but there are plenty of systems to be had at an office by simply sticking in the key and rebooting them after hours.
But I mentioned multi-stage and Blue Pill. The fastest way to make it a reality would be for the "rootkit key" to do more than just flash some ROMs. Perhaps integrate re-partitioning schemes from products like iPartition or PartitionMagic to make oneself a happy hacker partition. This would normally be quite detectable
With the partition hidden appropriately, the rootkit code no longer has to be excessively tight and lean because there is almost no exposure (because it will be cloaked during the BIOS boot process). Now, if the processor incorporates the appropriate virtualization features, the ROM extension could pervert the boot process one more time, by redirecting the bootcode search from the REAL bootsector to the hidden partition. The rootkit partition then has all the room it needs to establish the appropriate virtualization environment, boot the operating system like normal and then stroll through its library of OS tools to integrate itself post-boot into any number of target OS's.
bootup code procedures http://www.omninerd.com/2005/11/05/articles/40
rootkit fundamentals http://www.omninerd.com/2005/11/22/articles/43
Once you're finished scratching your head over the quantum physics, you can really twist your noodle with the philosophy of time travel at http://www.omninerd.com/2006/11/14/coffeeshop/14 where we question if the very notion of time travel requires FATE and negates FREE WILL.
I think that is taking a somewhat simplistic perspective. It doesn't really matter whether the major OS products make use of virtualization. The entire point of a successful rootkitting is leaving no visible trace of your presence. A well crafted rootkit would take hold from the bootprocess, virtualize the environment and then load the operating system. Thus - who cares if Microsoft, Linux or Apple makes use of virtualization, if the rootkit detects an appropriate target loaded into its context ... BAM, ownership.
The only way true way to detect a rootkit is to shut down a system and reboot from a separate, read-only instance of an OS dedicated for rootkit scans. No business, however, wants to hear that answer given to them as a course of action. They'll question their IT staff why they let the system get infected in the first place. They'll ask how such an action will impact on their financials. And if the scan comes up clean - IT looks like paranoid idiots. If it comes up infected - IT looks incompetent.
~ Matthew Vea
Rootkit Theory @ http://www.omninerd.com/2005/11/22/articles/43
Just in case people do not know what Peak Oil is you can read about it.
OmniNerd has an article describing how rootkits function. Most of you are already familiar with them, but the underpinnings as to why software solutions will always fail are quite clear.
I, too, would be wary of a government hardware device installed in my own computer. It's all too evident the NSA has its hand in all communications already. Would anybody really trust a device that can intercept all data traffic? It's the master backdoor they've always wanted. Then again, who would you trust to manufacture such a card?
If Sony really believes they can settle a rootkit installation snafu with offering downloads, then they must be smoking something good. Although, I can't blame them for trying - the more they downplay the actual impact of an exploitable rootkit, the less it will cost them in the end. The price of a few downloads is far less than financial damages per computer as would be necessary. What goads me the most is that if the legal system accepts this as legitimate. Would that set an established precedent that hackers can use in court? IE, the crime was the installation of a rootkit without authorization so Joe Hacker can now refer to Sony vs. The People and settle for about $20 flat. The decision makers need to understand WHAT a rootkit is and the effects of having one on a computer mean for a user - OmniNerd: Rootkit Analysis.
OmniNerd is carrying a decent article on the nature of rootkits (Rootkit: The "r00t" of Digital Evil) that isn't watered down like everything else the media has been using to describe rootkits. I think the principle problem with the legal system, the general public and Sony is that most people just don't understand what a rootkit really is and the capabilities they present to hackers. The media has been lumping them into the malware category as nothing more than the latest virus going around - a misconception that is costly to consumers because the threat has been greatly downplayed.
Perhaps once people really fathom just what a rootkit can do to them and how a properly written rootkit will not be detected by their anti-virus software, they'll take the threat more seriously. And in doing so, demand rightful compensation from Sony in lieu of a new audio CD. Are you comfortable with rootkits installed on the computers of your local financial institution? College records? Law enforcement? Wall Street? The military?
While the /. community is an exception, it seems to me that most people just don't understand what exactly rootkits do. At best, they're given cursory nods in the news [now] as just another form of malware. The media asks why can't our anti-virus software just detect them? OmniNerd has an article about how rootkits work that is technical enough for /. but without the reliance on source code found so often on Phrack resources, which our non-tech brethren can't understand.
URL: http://www.omninerd.com/2005/11/22/articles/43
I've seen the Pixar movies, Phantom Menace, and Final Fantasy on the DLP screen in Plano, TX. Just for shits and giggles, I saw them again on the regular screens. There is a significant difference with regard to how much brighter and sharper the picture appears (especially with the computer generated movies) that makes the effort of going to DLP screens well worth it. I hadn't realized how many visual artifacts regular film introduced into the movie (most of the time the eye is distracted anyway) until I saw a picture as clean as DLP produced.