I actually made the test with a stop watch, and I spend about 25% of my commuting time waiting at traffic lights. YTLDMV (Your traffic lights distribution may vary), but in the end don't underestimate the waiting times! At my old job it took the same commuting time for me if I rode the bicylce than drove the car, and it was an 8 mile ride. Considered the fact that my bicycle cruising speed is about 15 mph instead of 35mph, you could estimate the traffic light waiting times at 55% of the whole trip.
Everything that affects the machine compromises security by definition. So that's no argument as such, you have to elaborate. The connection made between 'written down passwords' and 'physical access to a machine' is very weak. Of course: If I got into the secured building with the computer desk, it may be easier to just root the computer and then access whatever you want than to break into the file cabinet and search for the password. But security by itself does not only contain prevention of a compromisation, but also detection of a compromisation. And a security breach by physical access to a machine is often much more easy and timely to detect than a physical access to the written down password. Stick-It notes don't log access, as far as I remember;). So if it is an inside job, a security breach may go unnoticed if the attacker just reads the password while passing by and then trying it from another machine, or if he just seems to 'look for that one file I left on the desk' and searches for the password. In this case the first security breach (compromise of the password) is not necessarily time-connected to the second one (unauthorized access to the password protected entity), and such the detection of both is more complicated.
Because there are environments, where physical access to your machine is no problem, and it still shouldn't compromise security (think: large office rooms with several desks). And if you have shared desks, then writing down passwords and keeping them near the computer is a quite bad idea.
Then there is another aspect in server environments: Password recovery always requires a reboot or at least a service disruption, so this is very likely to be noticed by people. Entering a password you just found on a stick it note might go without any notification.
Call it a 'behavioural reserve'.:) It might not have an advantage right now, but it isn't too much of an disadvantage either. It might come in handy if there will ever be new types of small, but very dangerous animals:) (Same goes for all types of sexual behaviour. You never know if they once will prove to produce offspring in completely different circumstances, or if they will work as social adhesive...)
So you are saying, that evolution researchers have an unfair advantage, because they not only have a theory (evolution), but also facts (fossil record) to prove the theory is sound?
Someting in a loop waiting for an event to work on is a pretty good description of what an operating system actually does. According to my CS class on operating systems an OS is "a program that controls all resources, starts and stops tasks (processes, programs...) and assigns ressources to and withdraws them from the tasks".
Please, this is a site for nerds, and nerds should be able to distinguish between 'OS' and 'OS + Shell + Tools + User Interface' (which the layman was told by the marketing to call an operating system). My old C= 1541 disk drive had an actual operating system for its 8-bit-controller (a 6502), even though it came with only 4kByte ROM and 8kByte RAM. So most embedded devices, if they use a program for control, they have by definition an operating system too. The coffee maker at a former employer's office was running SB-CAF 1.03 (you could see the boot messages on the LCD screens).
The question is only: Does this program be able to do time sharing? Or is the purely sequential execution of tasks ok? In the latter case, it can be pretty simple, because it won't even need a scheduler, mutex infrastructure, process priorisation, kernel locks etc.pp.
There are issues with TPM vs. free software you didn't address. What if the kernel you want to boot doesn't have a signature the TPM module recognizes? If you or some friend or colleague of you modify a kernel, then its signature changes (that's the whole point of signed binaries). So what if you TPM module just refuses to boot from a signature it doesn't know?
What if the device is something like a digital video recorder or a wireless router, which in theory runs under Linux or other GPLed software, and you should be able to change the code according to your wishes, but because you don't have a key the TPM module trusts, you can't sign your changes, and the TPM module tells the BIOS not to boot your binary? It might be not with the general purpose computer for now, but on specialized hardware it's pretty possible. The hardware vendor will just tell you that he has to sign all changes, and what use is the GPL for the software to you, if you can't run your modifications without the vendor's agreement? You are back to square 1, this time not fiddling with copyright, but with the TPM module, and no clever licensing gets you out of the trouble.
So what about running for example other software than Mac OS X on new Apple-Intel hardware, if the BIOS just wants Apple's signature on the kernel binary? As the previous poster already said: If you don't have the keys to your computer, you are not in control of your computer. It doesn't need the malice of the OS designer, it can be already be in the BIOS.
Security by obscurity? Sure. That is all your password is, after all too, it (sec by obs) isn't strictly a bad thing.
Security by obscurity isn't about existing secrets (hey, if you encrypt something, then you also obscure the contents and hope for security). Security by obscurity means: We don't tell anyone how it works, so they will have a hard time figuring that out first until they can get in. Security by obscurity means: Putting the key under the doormat, so no one knows where the secret (the actual unique design of the key) is, and don't tell anyone that this key fits to the backdoor, not the front door. Security by obscurity is defeated by lifting the obscurity, not by revealing the secrets.
None of which of course alters my points in any way, as the resulting code cannot be sold to anyone, or distributed in any way externally, without running afoul of the GPL.
This is not directly true. According to the GPL you are not allowed to sell the compiled binaries without adding the offer to provide the code under GPL for the cost of the copy of the code. So there is no one hindering you to charge someone huge amounts of money for giving out the binaries, but if you do it, the written offer to put up with the code under GPL has to be there.
And it is still possible to create your own programs running on top of GPLed code. As long as your code doesn't reuse GPL code, and your binaries run in separate tasks from binaries compiled from GPL code, your binaries are free for you to license at wish.
And there is another aspect: Saddam Hussein had to keep the image of strongman at least for his people, his supporters and the neighbouring countries to stay in power. So in all official documents he was probably correct (as far as a giant bureaucracy can be correct about reality), but in his speeches he hinted that there might be something hidden no one knows about. Unluckily for him, not only the local people felt for the bluff, the George W. Bush administration did also.
It's really clever, because the values, for which the Zeta functions puts out zero, are not zero by themselves. So calling a value 'a zero', because used as value in a certain function it returns zero is already somewhat nontrivial.
I just saw a demo of Excel 2007 recently, and there are two quite nifty features in the GUI I liked. - The drop down menus on top are gone, instead clicking one item in the menu bar switches the toolbar to the items of the former drop down menu. It surely needs to get used to, but it seems a better idea for the average user to get an overwiev about the contents of a drop down menu, and it speeds up the work if you are using several items of the same menu. - There is some kind of instant data analysis directly in the worksheet, where you just mark a region and have for instance the background colored depending on the contents, so you can easily spot clusters of maxima or minima. (On the other hand: Excel was always the only program I ever liked in MS Office anyway...)
First: I was not talking about Mario Bros. (I am not very into jump&run anyway).
Second: Diablo and Diablo II are from a map point of view, from a level point of view, from a scoring point of view and from the equipment point of view very similar to nethack, and it would be actually quite simple to generate a Diablo level from a nethack level (Just add graphics for the chars. I am wondering if someone ever thought of generating a Diablo like GUI for the original nethack:) )
Third: I was playing and programming MMORPGs when no one called them that way (they were called MUD, MUSH, MOO, MUSE or whatever at that point in time, and that was already the third generation of MMORPGs), and I have left that world without looking back too often. Actually I played only one completely, and I found it more fun to program them and expand them than to actually play them. I know we had a lot of players who thought different, who were asking us for new features, for new quests, for new landscapes or new guilds all the time to increase size and depth of the game. So I understand your point of view, but I won't generalize it.
With both my daughter and my son I never tried something like 'baby speak'. I just talked to them like I would to every other people. My daughter was talking in whole sentences shortly after her first birthday, and my son was talking whole sentences way before his second birthday. I know that this is just anecdotal evidence, but at least using normal language didn't disturb completely their ability to learn language.
You know, there actually is a NFL Europe:) Most of the people I know who go to the games are telling me it's just about the party anyway (so why don't they omit the field and the players and just have fun?).
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I actually made the test with a stop watch, and I spend about 25% of my commuting time waiting at traffic lights. YTLDMV (Your traffic lights distribution may vary), but in the end don't underestimate the waiting times! At my old job it took the same commuting time for me if I rode the bicylce than drove the car, and it was an 8 mile ride. Considered the fact that my bicycle cruising speed is about 15 mph instead of 35mph, you could estimate the traffic light waiting times at 55% of the whole trip.
Everything that affects the machine compromises security by definition. So that's no argument as such, you have to elaborate. The connection made between 'written down passwords' and 'physical access to a machine' is very weak. Of course: If I got into the secured building with the computer desk, it may be easier to just root the computer and then access whatever you want than to break into the file cabinet and search for the password. But security by itself does not only contain prevention of a compromisation, but also detection of a compromisation. And a security breach by physical access to a machine is often much more easy and timely to detect than a physical access to the written down password. Stick-It notes don't log access, as far as I remember ;). So if it is an inside job, a security breach may go unnoticed if the attacker just reads the password while passing by and then trying it from another machine, or if he just seems to 'look for that one file I left on the desk' and searches for the password. In this case the first security breach (compromise of the password) is not necessarily time-connected to the second one (unauthorized access to the password protected entity), and such the detection of both is more complicated.
Because there are environments, where physical access to your machine is no problem, and it still shouldn't compromise security (think: large office rooms with several desks). And if you have shared desks, then writing down passwords and keeping them near the computer is a quite bad idea.
Then there is another aspect in server environments: Password recovery always requires a reboot or at least a service disruption, so this is very likely to be noticed by people. Entering a password you just found on a stick it note might go without any notification.
Call it a 'behavioural reserve'. :) It might not have an advantage right now, but it isn't too much of an disadvantage either. It might come in handy if there will ever be new types of small, but very dangerous animals :) (Same goes for all types of sexual behaviour. You never know if they once will prove to produce offspring in completely different circumstances, or if they will work as social adhesive...)
So you got hit by a bicycle. This proves for now and everytime and everyone, that the invention of the wheel was a mistake.
So you are saying, that evolution researchers have an unfair advantage, because they not only have a theory (evolution), but also facts (fossil record) to prove the theory is sound?
Someting in a loop waiting for an event to work on is a pretty good description of what an operating system actually does. According to my CS class on operating systems an OS is "a program that controls all resources, starts and stops tasks (processes, programs...) and assigns ressources to and withdraws them from the tasks".
Please, this is a site for nerds, and nerds should be able to distinguish between 'OS' and 'OS + Shell + Tools + User Interface' (which the layman was told by the marketing to call an operating system). My old C= 1541 disk drive had an actual operating system for its 8-bit-controller (a 6502), even though it came with only 4kByte ROM and 8kByte RAM. So most embedded devices, if they use a program for control, they have by definition an operating system too. The coffee maker at a former employer's office was running SB-CAF 1.03 (you could see the boot messages on the LCD screens).
The question is only: Does this program be able to do time sharing? Or is the purely sequential execution of tasks ok? In the latter case, it can be pretty simple, because it won't even need a scheduler, mutex infrastructure, process priorisation, kernel locks etc.pp.
It had to work flawlessly (that is without radioactive leakage) only for a few days though, from mounting the power unit until start.
At distances of 13.6 light hours away from any earth live it doesn't have to be clean though.
There are issues with TPM vs. free software you didn't address. What if the kernel you want to boot doesn't have a signature the TPM module recognizes? If you or some friend or colleague of you modify a kernel, then its signature changes (that's the whole point of signed binaries). So what if you TPM module just refuses to boot from a signature it doesn't know?
What if the device is something like a digital video recorder or a wireless router, which in theory runs under Linux or other GPLed software, and you should be able to change the code according to your wishes, but because you don't have a key the TPM module trusts, you can't sign your changes, and the TPM module tells the BIOS not to boot your binary? It might be not with the general purpose computer for now, but on specialized hardware it's pretty possible. The hardware vendor will just tell you that he has to sign all changes, and what use is the GPL for the software to you, if you can't run your modifications without the vendor's agreement? You are back to square 1, this time not fiddling with copyright, but with the TPM module, and no clever licensing gets you out of the trouble.
So what about running for example other software than Mac OS X on new Apple-Intel hardware, if the BIOS just wants Apple's signature on the kernel binary? As the previous poster already said: If you don't have the keys to your computer, you are not in control of your computer. It doesn't need the malice of the OS designer, it can be already be in the BIOS.
Security by obscurity isn't about existing secrets (hey, if you encrypt something, then you also obscure the contents and hope for security).
Security by obscurity means: We don't tell anyone how it works, so they will have a hard time figuring that out first until they can get in. Security by obscurity means: Putting the key under the doormat, so no one knows where the secret (the actual unique design of the key) is, and don't tell anyone that this key fits to the backdoor, not the front door.
Security by obscurity is defeated by lifting the obscurity, not by revealing the secrets.
None of which of course alters my points in any way, as the resulting code cannot be sold to anyone, or distributed in any way externally, without running afoul of the GPL.
This is not directly true. According to the GPL you are not allowed to sell the compiled binaries without adding the offer to provide the code under GPL for the cost of the copy of the code. So there is no one hindering you to charge someone huge amounts of money for giving out the binaries, but if you do it, the written offer to put up with the code under GPL has to be there.
And it is still possible to create your own programs running on top of GPLed code. As long as your code doesn't reuse GPL code, and your binaries run in separate tasks from binaries compiled from GPL code, your binaries are free for you to license at wish.
But Windows NT ironically runs on something similar, and when WinNT was being developed, it used some kind of Mach2/Mach3 mixture as starting point.
And there is another aspect: Saddam Hussein had to keep the image of strongman at least for his people, his supporters and the neighbouring countries to stay in power. So in all official documents he was probably correct (as far as a giant bureaucracy can be correct about reality), but in his speeches he hinted that there might be something hidden no one knows about. Unluckily for him, not only the local people felt for the bluff, the George W. Bush administration did also.
(If someone is interested in the acutal interview, here is a (german) link: Die erotischen Probleme der Menschen im Weltall sind nicht das Thema)
Or, as Stanislaw Lem himself put it in an interview: I didn't write a novel about the sexual problems of humans in zero gravity.
It's really clever, because the values, for which the Zeta functions puts out zero, are not zero by themselves. So calling a value 'a zero', because used as value in a certain function it returns zero is already somewhat nontrivial.
It's again proof that shouting around and accusing and threatening people will get things done. Manager 101.
On the other hand: He puts his money where his mouth is. :)
I prefer Xfig, I am just missing all the stencils only available for Visio. But I am completing my own collection of Xfig stencils :)
I just saw a demo of Excel 2007 recently, and there are two quite nifty features in the GUI I liked.
- The drop down menus on top are gone, instead clicking one item in the menu bar switches the toolbar to the items of the former drop down menu. It surely needs to get used to, but it seems a better idea for the average user to get an overwiev about the contents of a drop down menu, and it speeds up the work if you are using several items of the same menu.
- There is some kind of instant data analysis directly in the worksheet, where you just mark a region and have for instance the background colored depending on the contents, so you can easily spot clusters of maxima or minima.
(On the other hand: Excel was always the only program I ever liked in MS Office anyway...)
Yes! That's what I am talking about. :)
First: I was not talking about Mario Bros. (I am not very into jump&run anyway).
:) )
Second: Diablo and Diablo II are from a map point of view, from a level point of view, from a scoring point of view and from the equipment point of view very similar to nethack, and it would be actually quite simple to generate a Diablo level from a nethack level (Just add graphics for the chars. I am wondering if someone ever thought of generating a Diablo like GUI for the original nethack
Third: I was playing and programming MMORPGs when no one called them that way (they were called MUD, MUSH, MOO, MUSE or whatever at that point in time, and that was already the third generation of MMORPGs), and I have left that world without looking back too often. Actually I played only one completely, and I found it more fun to program them and expand them than to actually play them. I know we had a lot of players who thought different, who were asking us for new features, for new quests, for new landscapes or new guilds all the time to increase size and depth of the game. So I understand your point of view, but I won't generalize it.
With both my daughter and my son I never tried something like 'baby speak'. I just talked to them like I would to every other people. My daughter was talking in whole sentences shortly after her first birthday, and my son was talking whole sentences way before his second birthday. I know that this is just anecdotal evidence, but at least using normal language didn't disturb completely their ability to learn language.
You know, there actually is a NFL Europe :) Most of the people I know who go to the games are telling me it's just about the party anyway (so why don't they omit the field and the players and just have fun?).