Ok, this opens up a huge can of worms on the definition of self. But for all practical purposes, if I download the contents of my brain into a computer which is faithfully simulating the appropriate biological processes, and simultaneously destroy the wetware original, from my point of view my awareness should continue uninterrupted.
...to being able to download our brains into computers. Not that it's something I'd want to do for a closer association with my computer, I just don't want to die.
The mass media don't know a virus from a worm from athlete's foot. It could be a targeted SATAN or ISS type tool, or a BO-type trojan. That might be the easiest... just control your target's web access, proxy everything they download, and covertly slip in a trojan with a convenient EXE...
What worries me is who else has got this sort of technology. There are certainly plenty of little guys out there with the talent to create tools like this, but what about the big (state-sponsored? organized crime?) guys? The ones who most certainly AREN'T looking out for our 'best interests', and aren't out for the thrill of the hunt. Those with the discipline and knowledge to move silently and cautiously, to compromise systems where it counts? These are the people we really need to worry about. Think they're not out there? I find that hard to believe. And if they're not, they will be. THIS is the real threat.
Where to we begin to combat this? We can hardly keep up with the damn script kiddies!
Woo hoo! My first negative moderation! And in only 30 seconds! This trolling stuff is much better for instant gratification than posting thoughtful or informative comments. I can see why it's so popular on/.!
...before choosing a winner in the reality TV category!
Seriously, I do have an audition down there this week... so keep an eye out, and you might see one of/.'s own making a complete fool of himself on national TV. (And getting PAID for it - I usually make a fool of myself for free!)
Remember, these things are just spitting the scan codes out as serial data - the effect being that to the human ear (with an inductive probe) the repeating scan code sequences sound like varying tones or buzzes. And yes, it'd be difficult to separate the signals from multiple keyboards. But I'd think it wouldn't be unreasonably difficult to build a sniffing device that could be covertly placed within a few feet of the keyboard to record keystrokes and be recovered later.
Actually, it's not terribly difficult to get data from a wired keyboard at a reasonable range. They run at a low data rate and leak a fair amount of RF. You can demonstrate this by holding an inductive probe near one and pressing different keys - they all make different tones.
Ok, I'm just finishing up a project with about 300 reports that are launched (mostly) from web-based Oracle Forms apps. I don't know if this would work for you, but I'll try to explain briefly how my system works. I'm using Brio.Report for the report engine (I've got a few COBOL reports but they run through a Brio wrapper I wrote). Brio.Report (aka SQR) will generate output in XML, HTML, PDF, PS, PCL, and plain ASCII, as well as its own intermediate format. In my system, when the report is run it saves the intermediate.spf file in a temporary directory, and then generates an HTML version from the ASCII output, since I didn't like their default HTML. There's no way to control page breaks in HTML, so I cheated - my script looks at the browser you're using and tries to guess how many lines per page it prints, and then pads the -formatted output with enough blank lines to make the page breaks line up. It works pretty well most of the time. But more importantly, the user has the option of clicking on a PDF icon and having the script generate a PDF from the.spf file.
Brio.Report's got a spiffy-looking GUI design tool, but I honestly haven't used it much. All of my existing reports were written for SQR 3.0 on a VAX so I didn't need to worry about design too much. Amazingly, most of them ran with very minimal modifications.
It seems to be build for batch processing - it's quite happy churning out hundreds of reports at a time. The ActiveX control included with it sucks, though - I wound up writing my own wrapper for it in VB to integrate more easily with IIS. (No flames, please - I have to use what I'm given.) It's certainly capable of generating nicer-looking output than what I'm doing, with GIF and JPEG graphics and such, but appearance isn't my primary concern right now and I don't have time to mess with it.
On the down side, it's not cheap. I believe they license it by server class - on a midrange NT box I think we paid around $10K, and about $15K on an Alpha running OpenVMS. So if this is for home use, you're probably out of luck.
Did you even try looking up the patent first to see what they were actually claiming? The core of the claim is their process for breaking down a document into multiple HTML tag-bound regions and checksumming them seperately to allow change detection independent of formatting changes. Maybe a little weak, in my opinion, but it's certainly not as simple as a straight MD5 checksum of a document.
I got my first job at 16, tutoring college computer science classes. I'm now almost 24, and I've found that while people may be influenced by your age, they're more likely to be influenced by a mature, professional attitude. I'm now working as an Oracle developer and OpenVMS sysadmin - in this field, anyone under 40 is young! Yet I've proved myself, and I'm confident in my abilities, and I rarely have any trouble getting people to accept my opinions. Yeah, some people may just refuse to listen to you because of your age, but most people are pretty accepting when they see that you really do know what you're doing.
A thing like this on the Amiga? I vaguely remember trying to keep rolling eggs from falling through holes in a chute with a headband full of electrodes on my forehead...
I went out to the power meter the other day and timed the little wheel as it went around. Under normal load, it took about 19 seconds. I went in the house, shut down a SPARCstation, an SGI Indigo2, and a generic PC that were all running unnecessary services, and went back out to the meter. This time it took 21 seconds to go around. I went back in the house, turned off a few lights, and checked again. About 55 seconds this time.
With large servers, the proportions are a bit different, but the point is the same - computers are pretty damn efficient. Go look at any heavy industry and you'll see that all the computers in the world aren't going to make that big a difference in overall power consumption.
I've heard the reasoning before from law enforcement types that just by the fact of its existence, simulated child porn creates demand for the real thing. But what about FBI agents who frequent IRC pretending to be minors, in channels of an explicitly sexual nature? By the same token, wouldn't their presence there be contributing to demand by encouraging those with whom they interact?
Don't get me wrong... I'm a father of two and believe castration is a reasonable punishment for child molesters. But the idea that someone messing with Photoshop could be guilty of a felony without causing harm to anyone is absurd.
I remember something someone once said about snuff films... that law enforcement simply doesn't come across real examples because the risks from being caught are too high and it's so easy to make a fake. Wouldn't the same apply here? If legal simulated material was available from known and regulated sources, would it not drive out of business those who DO exploit children?
Forget freedom of speech... the whole thing borders on freedom of thought.
I was actually planning on getting this thing running, but the main problem with it is that it apparently requires 3-phase power. It was also on the second floor of a building, up three rather narrow flights of stairs, so getting it out required completely disassembling it. It's pretty much in one piece now, but I'm sure some of the internals need to be reconnected properly.
The main unit is about the size of a wide refrigerator, and the storage array (an SA-850) is the size of a regular 19" rack.
I like old hardware, but I really don't have the time to devote to it right now (or the 3-phase power) so I've been thinking about selling off all the boards and junking or giving away most of the rest. The guts are worth at least a few hundred bucks on the surplus market, so I'd rather not just give it all away, but on the other hand it's taking up a lot of room and it's not doing me any good. Maybe I'll post a message on that list and see if anyone wants to buy or trade for it.
Cool... maybe I'll finally be able to park in my garage! The 6GB of hard drive space I could use, except for the fact that the storage array draws about 20 amps and sounds like a 747 taking off.
Doesn't matter. Fuel is only a small part of your total cost. You've got the price of your launch vehicle, the launch site, range support, prelaunch tests, and so on ad nauseum. My primary job is running range planning and scheduling systems for a major space launch facility - trust me, there's a lot more to it than buying the gas. I've never heard of an operational launch system that could put a payload in orbit for less than $5000/lb, which would mean $1.25 million for our 250 lb person.
I think the projected price at which space tourism should be profitable is something like $50k/person. At that price you should still have plenty of takers to make it worth your while. Hell, if I could take a ride for $10k I'd start saving now.
The Pegasus is just one of the launch vehicles used by Orbital Sciences Corporation (http://www.orbital.com). Competition DOES exist in this field already. Go look up the Commercial Space Act. True, there are no private companies using reusable or manned vehicles, but that's simply a matter of economics; there's no money in it right now. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, OSC, and Sea Launch are all conducting commercial launch operations in the US (or at least FROM the US, in the case of Sea Launch.)
What would be gained by competition in the manned space arena? And how can competition possibly work when it's simply not profitable for ANYONE? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more manned space flight (and it still pisses me off that they cancelled the west coast Shuttle program), but I don't see competition as being realistic right now.
There has been a continuous cycle in NASA between efforts to reduce costs, and demands to increase safety. The shuttle is designed with triple redundant systems (fail-operate, fail-operate, fail-safe I believe it's called) and in a competitive, cost-concious commercial environment there may be more of a tendency to rely on redundant systems to reduce operating costs, at the expense of safety.
More manned space launch operators means more potential for accidents. Can you imagine what another Challenger would do to the future of America's manned space program in today's political climate?
Here's a quick summary of my thoughts on GTE/Verizon Internet (NOT the phone company):
Their customer service is rather clueless. They overbilled me for a year and when I finally proved it they only refunded the difference for 7 months. When I moved they DOUBLE billed me for two months. No problems with GTE the telco - THEY managed to get my service changed no problem, with very quick response.
Outages are fairly common and are rarely acknowleged by Verizon. They're apparently using Redback Networks SMS series customer aggregation routers (check your ARP cache and see), using DHCP-based port security. The problem here is that when they reboot the SMS's they loose what they learned from DHCP, so the only way you can re-establish your connection is to do a DHCP discover via an unbound interface. This generally means completely downing the interface, which is a real pain in the ass with Win2000, Solaris, Tru64, IRIX, OpenVMS, and OpenBSD all running on my home network. Did I mention this is something they do pretty frequently?
On the other hand, at least around here, they don't seem to restrict DHCP at all. Under Solaris, 'ifconfig le0:1 dhcp' is enough to get me an additional address on a virtual interface. I've had at least a dozen machines on my DSL line, all plugged in through a simple hub.
If you ever manage to get ahold of an engineer or anyone with a clue, get their direct number! Convincing first-level support that you've got a clue and actually DO know how to plug your computer in can take quite a while.
And at the very least, make sure you get the support number BEFORE your connection goes down and you can't look it up. And be very aware of the fact that despite having the same company name, Verizon and Verizon Internet DO NOT talk to each other in any meaningful way! Be prepared to act as an intermediary and make note of everyone you talk to on both sides. Don't trust them to get any order right, and follow up every order with that in mind.
Beyond that, the service isn't bad. Good bandwidth, no stupid restrictions on traffic types. Yet. And it's hard to beat their prices.
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Heck, how can you possibly go wrong with giant orbiting lasers? Let's do it!
They're simply a test market for the new Monsanto self-scaling fish!
Ok, this opens up a huge can of worms on the definition of self. But for all practical purposes, if I download the contents of my brain into a computer which is faithfully simulating the appropriate biological processes, and simultaneously destroy the wetware original, from my point of view my awareness should continue uninterrupted.
...to being able to download our brains into computers. Not that it's something I'd want to do for a closer association with my computer, I just don't want to die.
Actually, it sounds like the perfect targeting system for my robotic paintball sentry gun...
The mass media don't know a virus from a worm from athlete's foot. It could be a targeted SATAN or ISS type tool, or a BO-type trojan. That might be the easiest... just control your target's web access, proxy everything they download, and covertly slip in a trojan with a convenient EXE...
What worries me is who else has got this sort of technology. There are certainly plenty of little guys out there with the talent to create tools like this, but what about the big (state-sponsored? organized crime?) guys? The ones who most certainly AREN'T looking out for our 'best interests', and aren't out for the thrill of the hunt. Those with the discipline and knowledge to move silently and cautiously, to compromise systems where it counts? These are the people we really need to worry about. Think they're not out there? I find that hard to believe. And if they're not, they will be. THIS is the real threat.
Where to we begin to combat this? We can hardly keep up with the damn script kiddies!
...that last week, I couldn't think of anything to fill up that new 100 GB hard drive in under 12 hours.
With the possible exception of high-speed satellite access to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica...
Woo hoo! My first negative moderation! And in only 30 seconds! This trolling stuff is much better for instant gratification than posting thoughtful or informative comments. I can see why it's so popular on /.!
It "really" annoys me when "people" use "quotation marks" "too much" and in "inappropriate" places.
...before choosing a winner in the reality TV category!
/.'s own making a complete fool of himself on national TV. (And getting PAID for it - I usually make a fool of myself for free!)
Seriously, I do have an audition down there this week... so keep an eye out, and you might see one of
Remember, these things are just spitting the scan codes out as serial data - the effect being that to the human ear (with an inductive probe) the repeating scan code sequences sound like varying tones or buzzes. And yes, it'd be difficult to separate the signals from multiple keyboards. But I'd think it wouldn't be unreasonably difficult to build a sniffing device that could be covertly placed within a few feet of the keyboard to record keystrokes and be recovered later.
Actually, it's not terribly difficult to get data from a wired keyboard at a reasonable range. They run at a low data rate and leak a fair amount of RF. You can demonstrate this by holding an inductive probe near one and pressing different keys - they all make different tones.
Ok, I'm just finishing up a project with about 300 reports that are launched (mostly) from web-based Oracle Forms apps. I don't know if this would work for you, but I'll try to explain briefly how my system works. I'm using Brio.Report for the report engine (I've got a few COBOL reports but they run through a Brio wrapper I wrote). Brio.Report (aka SQR) will generate output in XML, HTML, PDF, PS, PCL, and plain ASCII, as well as its own intermediate format. In my system, when the report is run it saves the intermediate .spf file in a temporary directory, and then generates an HTML version from the ASCII output, since I didn't like their default HTML. There's no way to control page breaks in HTML, so I cheated - my script looks at the browser you're using and tries to guess how many lines per page it prints, and then pads the -formatted output with enough blank lines to make the page breaks line up. It works pretty well most of the time. But more importantly, the user has the option of clicking on a PDF icon and having the script generate a PDF from the .spf file.
Brio.Report's got a spiffy-looking GUI design tool, but I honestly haven't used it much. All of my existing reports were written for SQR 3.0 on a VAX so I didn't need to worry about design too much. Amazingly, most of them ran with very minimal modifications.
It seems to be build for batch processing - it's quite happy churning out hundreds of reports at a time. The ActiveX control included with it sucks, though - I wound up writing my own wrapper for it in VB to integrate more easily with IIS. (No flames, please - I have to use what I'm given.) It's certainly capable of generating nicer-looking output than what I'm doing, with GIF and JPEG graphics and such, but appearance isn't my primary concern right now and I don't have time to mess with it.
On the down side, it's not cheap. I believe they license it by server class - on a midrange NT box I think we paid around $10K, and about $15K on an Alpha running OpenVMS. So if this is for home use, you're probably out of luck.
Hope that helps....
Did you even try looking up the patent first to see what they were actually claiming? The core of the claim is their process for breaking down a document into multiple HTML tag-bound regions and checksumming them seperately to allow change detection independent of formatting changes. Maybe a little weak, in my opinion, but it's certainly not as simple as a straight MD5 checksum of a document.
I got my first job at 16, tutoring college computer science classes. I'm now almost 24, and I've found that while people may be influenced by your age, they're more likely to be influenced by a mature, professional attitude. I'm now working as an Oracle developer and OpenVMS sysadmin - in this field, anyone under 40 is young! Yet I've proved myself, and I'm confident in my abilities, and I rarely have any trouble getting people to accept my opinions. Yeah, some people may just refuse to listen to you because of your age, but most people are pretty accepting when they see that you really do know what you're doing.
Hey, I left the core servers running, and in any case the monstrous VAX in my garage keeps me secure in my geek status, thank you very much.
A thing like this on the Amiga? I vaguely remember trying to keep rolling eggs from falling through holes in a chute with a headband full of electrodes on my forehead...
I went out to the power meter the other day and timed the little wheel as it went around. Under normal load, it took about 19 seconds. I went in the house, shut down a SPARCstation, an SGI Indigo2, and a generic PC that were all running unnecessary services, and went back out to the meter. This time it took 21 seconds to go around. I went back in the house, turned off a few lights, and checked again. About 55 seconds this time.
With large servers, the proportions are a bit different, but the point is the same - computers are pretty damn efficient. Go look at any heavy industry and you'll see that all the computers in the world aren't going to make that big a difference in overall power consumption.
I've heard the reasoning before from law enforcement types that just by the fact of its existence, simulated child porn creates demand for the real thing. But what about FBI agents who frequent IRC pretending to be minors, in channels of an explicitly sexual nature? By the same token, wouldn't their presence there be contributing to demand by encouraging those with whom they interact?
Don't get me wrong... I'm a father of two and believe castration is a reasonable punishment for child molesters. But the idea that someone messing with Photoshop could be guilty of a felony without causing harm to anyone is absurd.
I remember something someone once said about snuff films... that law enforcement simply doesn't come across real examples because the risks from being caught are too high and it's so easy to make a fake. Wouldn't the same apply here? If legal simulated material was available from known and regulated sources, would it not drive out of business those who DO exploit children?
Forget freedom of speech... the whole thing borders on freedom of thought.
I was actually planning on getting this thing running, but the main problem with it is that it apparently requires 3-phase power. It was also on the second floor of a building, up three rather narrow flights of stairs, so getting it out required completely disassembling it. It's pretty much in one piece now, but I'm sure some of the internals need to be reconnected properly.
The main unit is about the size of a wide refrigerator, and the storage array (an SA-850) is the size of a regular 19" rack.
I like old hardware, but I really don't have the time to devote to it right now (or the 3-phase power) so I've been thinking about selling off all the boards and junking or giving away most of the rest. The guts are worth at least a few hundred bucks on the surplus market, so I'd rather not just give it all away, but on the other hand it's taking up a lot of room and it's not doing me any good. Maybe I'll post a message on that list and see if anyone wants to buy or trade for it.
Cool... maybe I'll finally be able to park in my garage! The 6GB of hard drive space I could use, except for the fact that the storage array draws about 20 amps and sounds like a 747 taking off.
Doesn't matter. Fuel is only a small part of your total cost. You've got the price of your launch vehicle, the launch site, range support, prelaunch tests, and so on ad nauseum. My primary job is running range planning and scheduling systems for a major space launch facility - trust me, there's a lot more to it than buying the gas. I've never heard of an operational launch system that could put a payload in orbit for less than $5000/lb, which would mean $1.25 million for our 250 lb person.
I think the projected price at which space tourism should be profitable is something like $50k/person. At that price you should still have plenty of takers to make it worth your while. Hell, if I could take a ride for $10k I'd start saving now.
The Pegasus is just one of the launch vehicles used by Orbital Sciences Corporation (http://www.orbital.com). Competition DOES exist in this field already. Go look up the Commercial Space Act. True, there are no private companies using reusable or manned vehicles, but that's simply a matter of economics; there's no money in it right now. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, OSC, and Sea Launch are all conducting commercial launch operations in the US (or at least FROM the US, in the case of Sea Launch.)
What would be gained by competition in the manned space arena? And how can competition possibly work when it's simply not profitable for ANYONE? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see more manned space flight (and it still pisses me off that they cancelled the west coast Shuttle program), but I don't see competition as being realistic right now.
There has been a continuous cycle in NASA between efforts to reduce costs, and demands to increase safety. The shuttle is designed with triple redundant systems (fail-operate, fail-operate, fail-safe I believe it's called) and in a competitive, cost-concious commercial environment there may be more of a tendency to rely on redundant systems to reduce operating costs, at the expense of safety.
More manned space launch operators means more potential for accidents. Can you imagine what another Challenger would do to the future of America's manned space program in today's political climate?
Here's a quick summary of my thoughts on GTE/Verizon Internet (NOT the phone company):
Their customer service is rather clueless. They overbilled me for a year and when I finally proved it they only refunded the difference for 7 months. When I moved they DOUBLE billed me for two months. No problems with GTE the telco - THEY managed to get my service changed no problem, with very quick response.
Outages are fairly common and are rarely acknowleged by Verizon. They're apparently using Redback Networks SMS series customer aggregation routers (check your ARP cache and see), using DHCP-based port security. The problem here is that when they reboot the SMS's they loose what they learned from DHCP, so the only way you can re-establish your connection is to do a DHCP discover via an unbound interface. This generally means completely downing the interface, which is a real pain in the ass with Win2000, Solaris, Tru64, IRIX, OpenVMS, and OpenBSD all running on my home network. Did I mention this is something they do pretty frequently?
On the other hand, at least around here, they don't seem to restrict DHCP at all. Under Solaris, 'ifconfig le0:1 dhcp' is enough to get me an additional address on a virtual interface. I've had at least a dozen machines on my DSL line, all plugged in through a simple hub.
If you ever manage to get ahold of an engineer or anyone with a clue, get their direct number! Convincing first-level support that you've got a clue and actually DO know how to plug your computer in can take quite a while.
And at the very least, make sure you get the support number BEFORE your connection goes down and you can't look it up. And be very aware of the fact that despite having the same company name, Verizon and Verizon Internet DO NOT talk to each other in any meaningful way! Be prepared to act as an intermediary and make note of everyone you talk to on both sides. Don't trust them to get any order right, and follow up every order with that in mind.
Beyond that, the service isn't bad. Good bandwidth, no stupid restrictions on traffic types. Yet. And it's hard to beat their prices.