Slashdot Mirror


User: TechyImmigrant

TechyImmigrant's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
5,917
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 5,917

  1. Re:entropy decreases? on Telomere-Lengthening Procedure Turns Clock Back Years In Human Cells · · Score: 1

    Er no. Definitely not a closed system.

  2. Re:Hope that code gets better on OpenSSH Will Feature Key Discovery and Rotation For Easier Switching To Ed25519 · · Score: 1

    It's a signature algorithm. It should take any input and sign it.

  3. Re:This is not new. on Can Students Have Too Much Tech? · · Score: 1

    Yup. The computers are not the free variable. The competence of the teacher is.

  4. Re:Shame on them on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    I don't run around condemning people. There's a big different between 'you suck' and thinking someone sucks.
     

  5. Re:Shame on them on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    So you did nothting to help the West defend itself or to defeat Soviet and Nazi power? And you think that is a good thing?

    I judge those that came to the wrong decision poorly.

    Pride in poor judgment is it?

    I wasn't alive at that time and the world was a very different place. These days, if you live in Europe or America you are more likely to have your talents directed towards ill advised wars for the wrong reasons. If you were a French engineer developing missiles you would have found them being used against your NATO allies, casting doubt on the alliance.

    The world is asymmetric. Not all choices are morally equal.

  6. Re:Shame on them on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    I admit It doesn't really reach the modern pedagogical standards that (the rare examples of) solid educational research has established. But that wasn't what I was aiming for.

  7. Re:Why not put cams in cars? on Indian Woman Sues Uber In the US Over Alleged New Delhi Taxi Rape · · Score: 1

    Put a cam on the driver. That should help, I think.

    So it can whack him in the head each time the crackshaft rotates?

  8. Re:Shame on them on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    If they are really fools, they'd benefit by picking up a text book and studying until they are no longer fools.

  9. Re:Shame on them on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    Soldiers eat baked beans. Step away from that tin can.

  10. Re:Shame on them on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 2

    Well choosing to follow a path that leads to more people being killed more efficiently seems evil to me. That's why I avoided doing that in my career, where it was a very real option, and I judge those that came to the wrong decision poorly.

  11. Re:How far does the taint go? on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    >we're talking about ivory-tower researchers whose work is mostly not applicable to either the real world or the digital one.

    Actually I could do with a few hard core mathematicians. I have some very real world cryptographic implementation issues that pivot on the truth of some heavily ivory-tower-esque mathematical questions.

    There are companies that can and do employ academic mathematicians and appreciate the work they do. Both large corps and small companies.

    There's probably an old professor somewhere who is amazed that elliptic curves in additive groups are at the center of real world crypto battles and people really do lobby their governments over curve choice.

  12. Re:Same thing happened with Starwars program on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    The IACR stood up. Slashdot reported on it: here

  13. Ask yourself why you weren't alarmed by the dual-ec-drbg until the Snowden thing happened.

    Those of us who were having to make decisions about the design and deployment of RNGs prior to Snowden were under no illusion that it wasn't backdoored and acted accordingly. The papers were published. The facts were known. Snowden added nothing but publicity and drew focus from the media.

    I would express my opinion on it to anyone who's eyes wouldn't glaze over, which it approximately nobody who didn't already know. Nowadays, people ask me to explain it, because it's interesting to them, because it was in the media.

    For the record, the CTR-DRBG is fine, but inefficient. The hash and HMAC-DRBGs offer less performance for more hardware or cycles. The dual-ec-drbg was horrible from any implementation angle even before you consider it was broken. So you could be justifiably suspicious of anyone choosing to implement it in place of one of the other three options. The sad thing is number theory methods offer lots of benefits, but the dual-ec-drbg has screwed the whole field. I predict that you will not be seeing an EC based PRNG in NIST or ISO or the IEEE any time in the next decade.

  14. Re:Since when is AMT controversial? on FSF-Endorsed Libreboot X200 Laptop Comes With Intel's AMT Removed · · Score: 1

    Its the difference between "turn it off" and "I don't want this to be on my computer in the future".

    It's a benefit to you if you want to prevent someone with physical access to be able to turn it on then use it as a remote attack vector later.

  15. Re:they start YOUNG (true story) on Mathematicians Uncomfortable With Ties To NSA, But Not Pulling Back · · Score: 1

    " what are the two basic types of ciphers?" (fwiw I wasn't sure if they meant symmetric vs asymmetric or block vs stream)"

    The answer they were looking for was: substitution and transposition.

    Straight from the NSA activity book for kids. I have a copy. They give (or gave) them away at the museum next door.

  16. Re:Since when is AMT controversial? on FSF-Endorsed Libreboot X200 Laptop Comes With Intel's AMT Removed · · Score: 1

    Yes, please keep lecturing me about products I design. I'm sure I'll learn more by 'Googling around'.

  17. Re:Since when is AMT controversial? on FSF-Endorsed Libreboot X200 Laptop Comes With Intel's AMT Removed · · Score: 2

    It's off by default. What have you been smoking?

  18. Re:even when it is powered off. on FSF-Endorsed Libreboot X200 Laptop Comes With Intel's AMT Removed · · Score: 1

    Assuming you haven't disabled it in the bios.

  19. Re:Reasons why I don't like the Internet of Things on One In Five Developers Now Works On IoT Projects · · Score: 1

    A cellphone phone is a thing and it's usually connected to the internet. An internet of things no less.

    I'm pretty sure that you know that these "things" are things which have a purpose other than being a computer, which a cellphone doesn't. (POTS being obsolete today, though still useful)

    I think so. Thing is a pretty broad term.

  20. Re:Reasons why I don't like the Internet of Things on One In Five Developers Now Works On IoT Projects · · Score: 2

    Pretty much all of those apply to a modern cellphone.

    A cellphone phone is a thing and it's usually connected to the internet. An internet of things no less.

  21. Re:It's an unecesary label for small things on One In Five Developers Now Works On IoT Projects · · Score: 2

    IoT, IoT, IoT, IoT.

  22. It's an unecesary label for small things on One In Five Developers Now Works On IoT Projects · · Score: 1

    I've worked on 'IoT' but only in the sense that IoT things are assumed to be small and low power, so small, low power designs are needed.

    However making something small and low power is also a means of making is embeddable in other ways, such as in many places across a huge chip. The technical problem is the same. The need for small and low power is not IoT. However it is the justification to PHBs for doing what you do even if your primary application is something other than IoT.

    In the mega corp I work for, I've been handed two recognition awards (plaque and cash) for meeting IoT challenges (I.E. making a design of mine 20X smaller) when it's primarily so I can put it the middle of other circuits at the point of use rather than bussing data across the chip. This yields many engineering benefits.

    But IoT is the thing, so you sell it as an IoT solution and management pays attention.

  23. Re:Passes what? on Nobel Laureate and Laser Inventor Charles Townes Passes · · Score: 1

    Wind? Seriously, what's wrong with the word "dies"?

    He was eaten by wolves. He was delicious.

    So he'll pass in 24 hours or so.

  24. Re:It was never not prohibited on FCC Prohibits Blocking of Personal Wi-Fi Hotspots · · Score: 1

    That's interference. Targeted, but it sure as hell is interfering.

  25. Re:It was never not prohibited on FCC Prohibits Blocking of Personal Wi-Fi Hotspots · · Score: 1

    Ah, must be slashdot. Complete bullshit gets an 'informative' mod. They are only required to not interefere with LICENSED operations.

    You are wrong. See the above comments to understand why.