If every post on Slashdot were posted by the same person, then I'd certainly agree that "slashdot is nothing more than a den of fags who try any excuse to steal music/movies/etc."
Let us remember that people have free will, and that forcing people to "choose" to work together for the "greater good" is antithetical to free will. To deprive a person of his free will is to destroy that person (for that person would then become a mindless automaton); let us hope that no one ever attempts to create a utopia by depriving people of their free will, by forcing them to serve the greater good (as has been attempted many, many times in the past).
But then we are faced with the question, What if people chose to help each other, including themselves? I agree that such a society would be heavenly, but in order to create it, we would have to force people to act accordingly, thus depriving them of their free will, thus destroying them, etc. So, such a society could only exist if it were brought about by random chance. Perhaps it's not impossible, but it's surely improbable.
There's no such thing as a utopia--real or virtual. Suffering is the kick in the pants that forces us to become better people. A utopia is a world where no one has any incentive to become a better person (since there's no suffering), in which case, I'm glad no utopia can exist.
'"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."' --Ayn Rand, 'Atlas Shrugged' http://www.working-minds.com/ARquotes.htm (emphasis mine)
I very, VERY highly doubt that that machine originally came with 768MB of RAM. I'd be willing to bet cold hard cash that you upgraded it at some point, in which case, no it's not an 8-year-old machine: it's a {insert number of years ago that you added the RAM}-year-old machine.
Granted, I love macs (typing this on a shiny new 24" IMac with a 2.33GHz core duo proc and 2GB of ram), but be real here.
Software is math and the first proof of a theorem is generally ugly.
Apples and oranges. The big difference with math theorems and computer programs is that a theorem still "works" perfectly even if its proof is ugly. All that matters is that the proof is valid. It can be a trillion lines long, but as long as it's valid, we can be certain that the theorem is true and that we can use it in our work.
Not so with a trillion-line program. A program that takes a million years to execute is as useless as a program that segfaults. It doesn't matter if the code is provably correct; if it's too inefficient, it's useless. A math proof can be inefficient but still "work".
Yes, I know, I know, a trillion-line math proof is useless if it takes a million years to verify, but we have automated proof-verification programs that could verify such a proof in, say, one year, which is at least tractable. All that I'm saying is that even though proofs and programs and conceptually similar, they're so different in practical terms that you really can't compare them.
"Any code is crackable if you have enough time to generate every single possible key."
That's not quite true. In the case of a one-time pad (OTP), properly-encrypted plaintext will remain hidden forever as long as certain requirements are met (the pad is never used twice, the media containing the pad is not physically captured by the enemy, the pad was sufficiently random to begin with, etc.).
Now, I know some lamer is going to come up and say, "That's not true! Given enough time, SOMEONE will eventually come up with the pad!" But therein lies the beauty of OTP: Every possible pad has an equal likelihood of being used, and every pad yields different plaintext when reverse-applied to the cyphertext.
Let's say you do find the right pad to decrypt something encrypted with OTP. How do you know it's the right pad? How do you know it's not some other pad yielding an equally plausible plaintext? You don't--as long as you don't have physical access to the pad's media, as long as the pad was random enough, etc.
As long as you're capable of deeper conversation than "ooh, aaah", I think that there will always be guys (like me) that will be willing to share a Friday night with you. Nevertheless, I'm getting a sinking feeling that I'm in the minority...
(BTW, IMNSHO your comment should have been modded "insightful", not "funny".)
I don't see you getting +5 informative since not only did someone beat you to the punch, that someone even included the Wikipedia content in their comment. Sorry.:-)
From the FreeBSD story, it looks like the problem lies not with FreeBSD but with the NFS spec. IIRC, NFS is Sun technology, and if this is the case, someone needs to give Sun a good kick in the ass and have them tighten up the NFS spec. The whole reason why we have (preferably open) specifications in the first place is to enable different implementations from different people/organizations to work together. A loose spec ultimately hurts everyone.
"Well then I guess you refuse to use airlines, banks, power companies, mortgage companies, amazon.com, etc."
You left of the GP's post's phrase "which is this important" (or something like that). Amazon.com is nowhere near as important as what is at stake here. Also, I highly doubt airlines and banks use Windows for their truly mission-critical apps, like keeping planes in the sky and money flowing through the wires. Hell, I wouldn't even trust Mac OS X or Linux in situations like those (typing this on a Powerbook running OS X).
"Yeah, that will really be worth it. You will sure show them."
I actually agree with you here. Even if the GP has the balls to try to pull off a Rosa Parks, I doubt the media will cover it enough to make a difference.
This doesn't make sense to me. Aren't games their main source of revenue when it comes to the Xbox? Why would they care if people decide to mod their Xbox, as long as they still buy games? IMHO, the Xbox would be more valuable to the consumer if it could be modified in any way they see fit, but this is MS we're talking about... Oh well.
Agreed. I'm not enough of a grammar nazi to scream about an uncapitalized slash, but I will admit starting a sentence with/. makes it hard to tell where one sentence ends and another begins.
"Any serious flaws to this idea, besides the fact that it requires widespread adoption before it's really useful?"
P2P apps require "widespread adoption" before becoming useful, so I'm inclined to think that it's at least *theoretically* possible to overcome the initial barriers. I'm also inclined to think that spyware hatred is enough of a force to do it.:-)
Despite my nick, I'm not a "pointy head math wizard", but I'll take a stab at why it might not be as secure as you think:
The whole point in making passwords as convoluted as possible is to minimize brute-forceability. If someone knew you used pi for your passwords (and you just told all of Slashdot, so there you go:-), then all that would be needed would be the starting offset. The offset you give is less than a million, so assuming all the offsets you use are less than a million, that gives a dictionary of a million offsets to brute-force--very easy by modern standards.
As far as the repetition period goes, once the offset is known, all the attacker would have to do is start brute-forcing the repetition periods to get the rest of the encrypted document. Sorry to bust your bubble.:-)
Main Entry: ordinance
Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s, 'or-d&n-&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Medieval Latin; Middle French ordenance, literally, act of arranging, from Medieval Latin ordinantia, from Latin ordinant-, ordinans, present participle of ordinare to put in order -- more at ORDAIN
1 a : an authoritative decree or direction : ORDER b : a law set forth by a governmental authority; specifically : a municipal regulation
2 : something ordained or decreed by fate or a deity
3 : a prescribed usage, practice, or ceremony
synonym see LAW
Main Entry: ordnance
Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ordinaunce, from Middle French ordenance, literally, act of arranging
1 a : military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment b : a service of the army charged with the procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance
2 : CANNON, ARTILLERY
We now return to our regularly scheduled flamewars.
Gentoo by default installs software to the root directory of your Mac OS X installation. This makes linking your own software to packages installed by Gentoo really easy. It also allows us to provide our own ebuilds for packages such as the Mac OS X kernel.
Before a package gets 'merged' with your system, it undergoes 'collision' testing. This optional feature (enabled by default) checks whether the application to be merged overwrites or collides with applications portage didn't install itself. If the application to be merged collides with other applications portage didn't install itself, the build process aborts cleanly.
So it looks like you don't have much to worry about.
Are you familiar with the philosophy of Objectivism? Your comment follows Objectivist thought very closely; if you're not familiar with Objectivism, you should read some about it.
Slashdot Mirror
I would like to nominate Slashdot as being most likely to be shut down. After all, free thought is anathema to government control.
If every post on Slashdot were posted by the same person, then I'd certainly agree that "slashdot is nothing more than a den of fags who try any excuse to steal music/movies/etc."
However, such is not the case (fortunately!).
Let us remember that people have free will, and that forcing people to "choose" to work together for the "greater good" is antithetical to free will. To deprive a person of his free will is to destroy that person (for that person would then become a mindless automaton); let us hope that no one ever attempts to create a utopia by depriving people of their free will, by forcing them to serve the greater good (as has been attempted many, many times in the past).
But then we are faced with the question, What if people chose to help each other, including themselves? I agree that such a society would be heavenly, but in order to create it, we would have to force people to act accordingly, thus depriving them of their free will, thus destroying them, etc. So, such a society could only exist if it were brought about by random chance. Perhaps it's not impossible, but it's surely improbable.
There's no such thing as a utopia--real or virtual. Suffering is the kick in the pants that forces us to become better people. A utopia is a world where no one has any incentive to become a better person (since there's no suffering), in which case, I'm glad no utopia can exist.
Cold-hearted? Sure. But so is reality.
'"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."' --Ayn Rand, 'Atlas Shrugged' http://www.working-minds.com/ARquotes.htm (emphasis mine)
I very, VERY highly doubt that that machine originally came with 768MB of RAM. I'd be willing to bet cold hard cash that you upgraded it at some point, in which case, no it's not an 8-year-old machine: it's a {insert number of years ago that you added the RAM}-year-old machine.
Granted, I love macs (typing this on a shiny new 24" IMac with a 2.33GHz core duo proc and 2GB of ram), but be real here.
Software is math and the first proof of a theorem is generally ugly.
Apples and oranges. The big difference with math theorems and computer programs is that a theorem still "works" perfectly even if its proof is ugly. All that matters is that the proof is valid. It can be a trillion lines long, but as long as it's valid, we can be certain that the theorem is true and that we can use it in our work.
Not so with a trillion-line program. A program that takes a million years to execute is as useless as a program that segfaults. It doesn't matter if the code is provably correct; if it's too inefficient, it's useless. A math proof can be inefficient but still "work".
Yes, I know, I know, a trillion-line math proof is useless if it takes a million years to verify, but we have automated proof-verification programs that could verify such a proof in, say, one year, which is at least tractable. All that I'm saying is that even though proofs and programs and conceptually similar, they're so different in practical terms that you really can't compare them.
"Any code is crackable if you have enough time to generate every single possible key."
That's not quite true. In the case of a one-time pad (OTP), properly-encrypted plaintext will remain hidden forever as long as certain requirements are met (the pad is never used twice, the media containing the pad is not physically captured by the enemy, the pad was sufficiently random to begin with, etc.).
Now, I know some lamer is going to come up and say, "That's not true! Given enough time, SOMEONE will eventually come up with the pad!" But therein lies the beauty of OTP: Every possible pad has an equal likelihood of being used, and every pad yields different plaintext when reverse-applied to the cyphertext.
Let's say you do find the right pad to decrypt something encrypted with OTP. How do you know it's the right pad? How do you know it's not some other pad yielding an equally plausible plaintext? You don't--as long as you don't have physical access to the pad's media, as long as the pad was random enough, etc.
Obligatory OTP Wikipedia link here.
As long as you're capable of deeper conversation than "ooh, aaah", I think that there will always be guys (like me) that will be willing to share a Friday night with you. Nevertheless, I'm getting a sinking feeling that I'm in the minority...
(BTW, IMNSHO your comment should have been modded "insightful", not "funny".)
Gives a new meaning to "clusterfuck", doesn't it?
:-)
(sorry, couldn't resist
I don't see you getting +5 informative since not only did someone beat you to the punch, that someone even included the Wikipedia content in their comment. Sorry. :-)
From the FreeBSD story, it looks like the problem lies not with FreeBSD but with the NFS spec. IIRC, NFS is Sun technology, and if this is the case, someone needs to give Sun a good kick in the ass and have them tighten up the NFS spec. The whole reason why we have (preferably open) specifications in the first place is to enable different implementations from different people/organizations to work together. A loose spec ultimately hurts everyone.
That shouldn't be a problem when it comes to porn--ASCII art renders perfectly fine in Lynx! (rimshot)
"Well then I guess you refuse to use airlines, banks, power companies, mortgage companies, amazon.com, etc."
You left of the GP's post's phrase "which is this important" (or something like that). Amazon.com is nowhere near as important as what is at stake here. Also, I highly doubt airlines and banks use Windows for their truly mission-critical apps, like keeping planes in the sky and money flowing through the wires. Hell, I wouldn't even trust Mac OS X or Linux in situations like those (typing this on a Powerbook running OS X).
"Yeah, that will really be worth it. You will sure show them."
I actually agree with you here. Even if the GP has the balls to try to pull off a Rosa Parks, I doubt the media will cover it enough to make a difference.
This doesn't make sense to me. Aren't games their main source of revenue when it comes to the Xbox? Why would they care if people decide to mod their Xbox, as long as they still buy games? IMHO, the Xbox would be more valuable to the consumer if it could be modified in any way they see fit, but this is MS we're talking about... Oh well.
Agreed. I'm not enough of a grammar nazi to scream about an uncapitalized slash, but I will admit starting a sentence with /. makes it hard to tell where one sentence ends and another begins.
"Any serious flaws to this idea, besides the fact that it requires widespread adoption before it's really useful?"
:-)
P2P apps require "widespread adoption" before becoming useful, so I'm inclined to think that it's at least *theoretically* possible to overcome the initial barriers. I'm also inclined to think that spyware hatred is enough of a force to do it.
This computer is SWEET!
:-)
It's funny. Laugh.
As for the military capabilities that wealth may bring - a change in foreign policy wouldn't be such a bad thing for the US at this point in time.
And at the bottom of the page:
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
Despite my nick, I'm not a "pointy head math wizard", but I'll take a stab at why it might not be as secure as you think:
:-), then all that would be needed would be the starting offset. The offset you give is less than a million, so assuming all the offsets you use are less than a million, that gives a dictionary of a million offsets to brute-force--very easy by modern standards.
:-)
The whole point in making passwords as convoluted as possible is to minimize brute-forceability. If someone knew you used pi for your passwords (and you just told all of Slashdot, so there you go
As far as the repetition period goes, once the offset is known, all the attacker would have to do is start brute-forcing the repetition periods to get the rest of the encrypted document. Sorry to bust your bubble.
For those of you who don't know, it should be "ordnance" rather than "ordinance".
From www.m-w.com:
Main Entry: ordinance
Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s, 'or-d&n-&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Medieval Latin; Middle French ordenance, literally, act of arranging, from Medieval Latin ordinantia, from Latin ordinant-, ordinans, present participle of ordinare to put in order -- more at ORDAIN
1 a : an authoritative decree or direction : ORDER b : a law set forth by a governmental authority; specifically : a municipal regulation
2 : something ordained or decreed by fate or a deity
3 : a prescribed usage, practice, or ceremony synonym see LAW
Main Entry: ordnance
Pronunciation: 'ord-n&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English ordinaunce, from Middle French ordenance, literally, act of arranging
1 a : military supplies including weapons, ammunition, combat vehicles, and maintenance tools and equipment b : a service of the army charged with the procuring, distributing, and safekeeping of ordnance
2 : CANNON, ARTILLERY
We now return to our regularly scheduled flamewars.
...who read "BT" as "BitTorrent"? When I saw, "BT to Offer Free Internet Calls", I thought, "Wow! Voice over BitTorrent! What'll they think of next?"
Are you familiar with the philosophy of Objectivism? Your comment follows Objectivist thought very closely; if you're not familiar with Objectivism, you should read some about it.
"The answer is that in this universe, no such infinitely rigid rod is possible"
No doubt that disappoints a lot of women, who were looking for an "infinitely rigid rod"... *rimshot*