And, of course, the first thing I tried to do was to upload a single mp3 (3.7Mb).
Given the claims noted above ("one gigabyte of space", "exceptionally fast for exchanging large files" etc), I was somewhat suprised when I received a ColdFusion Error Page (with the appropriate Stack Trace) telling me that the "String or binary data would be truncated".
Hmmm.
So, apart from the crappy interface and the lack of field validation, this system also doesn't allow files >3Mb to be attached.
Frankly, I'm not impressed.
- dj
-- Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
It is also more or less implemented by Spam Gourmet.
Spam Gourment allows you to specify an email address on the fly that will only accept and forward a limited number of emails (less than twenty). Any emails sent to that email address after the limit is reached are silently "eaten".
Easy.
The email address is in the form of randomword.11.username@spamgourmet.com, where 11 is the number of emails sent to this address that should be forwarded. (As well, if you don't loke the name spamgourmet, or think having that domain might tip some people off, there are a number of different domains that work: namely antichef.net, neverbox.com, spamcannon.net, dfgh.net, antichef.com, or recursor.net...)
To email me, any of the following would work:
slashdotRulez.5.fredmonkey@spamgourmet.com
ilovemyspam.19.fredmonkey@antichef.net
hotstuff.3.fredmonkey@dfgh.net
etc
Give it a shot: Spam Gourmet - free disposable email addresses.
Quantum Computing A method of computing that encodes data in the supposition of states of quantum bits. When this supposition collapses, the answer falls out (more or less). This technique can be used to solve the Integer Factorisation Problem. If this occurs, all public-key cryptography is useless.
Quantum Cryptography A technique of sending single photons oscillating in different directions. This is secure because it is not possible to determine the direction of oscillation of the photon without changing its state (ie. it is imposiible to eavesdrop without being detected). This is a means of ensuring secure two-party communications.
If Quantum Computing was viable today, it would invalidate all existing public key encryption systems. The good news is that Quantum Encryption would then be available to replace it.
David Jackson -- Incorrigible punster - Do not incorrige.
Using DNA Computing to solve hard (NP) problems
on
Future Computers
·
· Score: 2, Informative
In 1994, Leonard Adleman (the A in RSA) showed that it was possible to solve a particular computational problem using standard molecular biology techniques. His experiment solved an instance of the Directed Hamiltonian Path Problem (also called the Travelling Salesman problem) entirely by manipulating strands of DNA. The problem he solved was only 7 nodes in length, which is easily computable by hand in about 20 minutes, but was a great achievment in molecular computing.
There are two compelling advantages to using molecular biology to solve computational problems. Firstly, DNA has a much greater information density than almost any other media: using DNA it is possible to store data in a trillion times less space than with an electronic computer. Presently, it is possible to contain 10^21 DNA molecules in less than 1 litre of water, (with each molecule encoding potentially 400 bits of information). Secondly, biological operations performed on DNA are massively parallel. All operations that are executed are performed on each strand of DNA simultaneously.
Adleman's experiment encoded a 7 node Hamiltonian Path Problem. Each node of the graph was encoded as a random 20 base long strand of DNA, and these were randomly annealed into long potential 'paths' through the graph. Paths were selected (and extracted) based on the length of the strand, which nodes were encoded in the strand, and whether the path encoded all nodes. At the end of this selection process, the remaining strand/s should encode the shortest path of the graph.
As can be imagined, this experiment has potentially huge consequences for large computational problems.
The problem remains to make this process reliable.
David Jackson -- Incorrigible punster - Do not incorrige.
AFAIR (taken from a badly remembered talk at school),
<Blockquote> When the solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, strikes the moon, helium 3 is deposited... </Blockquote>
These very same charged particles would hit the earth, but for a small matter of polarity (that is, the Earth's magnetic field repels all but a small proportion of the Helium-3 winging its way towards earth).
It just so happens that the moon doesn't have such a strong magnetic field (making this bit up here: someone please correct me as required), and more helium-3 can be "deposited in the powdery soil". (And the moon just happens to be close by... we could probably get our He-3 from them moons of Mars as required, but that isn't as much fun:-)
As the speaker said to us: He-3 is great - except that there is (almost) no Helium-3 on Earth, and Fusion is required (also not yet working).
Another clever exploit is to store a piece of the attack bot bootstrap sequence on the network card itself. Most modern network cards have 64 bytes (or more) of EEPROM that are used to store the 6 byte hardware MAC address, leaving the majority of the space unused. More sophisticated server network cards even have more space for downloadable firmware. The mostly unused network card EEPROM is typically loaded by OS drivers in its entirety - usually to a fixed address static buffer.
A small segment of code could be programmed into the card and executed from this buffer by an exploit. The advantages to storing a portion of the attack code in the NIC is that it makes tracing the activity of the exploit difficult for someone trying to reverse engineer the code, and more importantly, a short program installed here will survive a disk formatting and OS re-install. This kind of exploit will lead to a lot of head scratching and questions about "How the hell do they keep getting back in after a disk wipe?" at the target.
While reading this discussion, I've noticed many comments and mentions of controlling devices from the computer, and the inadequacies of standard keyboards. In my travels (mainly for alternative entry methods for handheld devices), I came across the Fitaly keyboard.
This keyboard is presumably on-screen (think Palm) but seems like an obvious candidate for a conversion to hardware (anyone? My days are full with work and Uni, and I don't have much (read: any) experience in this area).
No, I don't work for fitaly, etc, etc
(FWIW: I'm not handicapped, but I am interested in alternative input methods mainly in relation to effective UI...)
But really, is there a market for a voice controlled MP3 robot stereo?
Which really gives a new meaning to surround sound (or, at least, circling the room really fast sound *g*:-)
David Jackson
Re:More money = better grade at the end?
on
Laptop Exams?
·
· Score: 1
In my experience with the Victorian Education System (Australia), they have tried to get around the disadvantagement problem (my word) by fairly closely restricting the equipment that was allowed to be used, and (in this last year) assuming that every student had a (much more affordable) Graphing Calculator (TI-83, Casio, etc. about AU$100-200), and disallowing anything more powerful (I am annoyed because they wouldn't let me use my Palm III!).
Last year, all maths exams were created following (?) the assumption that every student had this sort of calculator. The effect of this was that the exams were subsequently a fair bit harder, and focused on those areas where a graping calculator did not help.
(BTW: A fair number of students at my school found that no amount of expensive technology can help you when you didn't know the basics of the topic.)
The gap between the haves and the have nots is not so great here, especially because the school could afford to have a bunch of calculators that could be borrowed out to those without them (while this solution is technically possible with laptops, it is much more expensive and less maintainable).
As a side note, in all Science-ish exams, students are permitted two or four A4 sheets of paper, covered with whatever they want (formulae and examples, normally, but UserFriendly if you prefer).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I've somehow just got a dmail account.
And, of course, the first thing I tried to do was to upload a single mp3 (3.7Mb).
Given the claims noted above ("one gigabyte of space", "exceptionally fast for exchanging large files" etc), I was somewhat suprised when I received a ColdFusion Error Page (with the appropriate Stack Trace) telling me that the "String or binary data would be truncated".
Hmmm.
So, apart from the crappy interface and the lack of field validation, this system also doesn't allow files >3Mb to be attached.
Frankly, I'm not impressed.
- dj
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
What you have suggested is a good idea.
It is also more or less implemented by Spam Gourmet.
Spam Gourment allows you to specify an email address on the fly that will only accept and forward a limited number of emails (less than twenty). Any emails sent to that email address after the limit is reached are silently "eaten".
Easy.
The email address is in the form of randomword.11.username@spamgourmet.com, where 11 is the number of emails sent to this address that should be forwarded. (As well, if you don't loke the name spamgourmet, or think having that domain might tip some people off, there are a number of different domains that work: namely antichef.net, neverbox.com, spamcannon.net, dfgh.net, antichef.com, or recursor.net...)
To email me, any of the following would work:
Give it a shot: Spam Gourmet - free disposable email addresses.
- dj
-----
SpamGourmet Stats:
And would it take more or less time to translate 386 CISC instructions into RISC before execution than 'native' RISC instructions??
DJ
There are two distinct concepts here:
Quantum Computing
A method of computing that encodes data in the supposition of states of quantum bits. When this supposition collapses, the answer falls out (more or less).
This technique can be used to solve the Integer Factorisation Problem. If this occurs, all public-key cryptography is useless.
Quantum Cryptography
A technique of sending single photons oscillating in different directions. This is secure because it is not possible to determine the direction of oscillation of the photon without changing its state (ie. it is imposiible to eavesdrop without being detected).
This is a means of ensuring secure two-party communications.
If Quantum Computing was viable today, it would invalidate all existing public key encryption systems. The good news is that Quantum Encryption would then be available to replace it.
David Jackson
--
Incorrigible punster - Do not incorrige.
In 1994, Leonard Adleman (the A in RSA) showed that it was possible to solve a particular computational problem using standard molecular biology techniques. His experiment solved an instance of the Directed Hamiltonian Path Problem (also called the Travelling Salesman problem) entirely by manipulating strands of DNA. The problem he solved was only 7 nodes in length, which is easily computable by hand in about 20 minutes, but was a great achievment in molecular computing.
There are two compelling advantages to using molecular biology to solve computational problems. Firstly, DNA has a much greater information density than almost any other media: using DNA it is possible to store data in a trillion times less space than with an electronic computer. Presently, it is possible to contain 10^21 DNA molecules in less than 1 litre of water, (with each molecule encoding potentially 400 bits of information).
Secondly, biological operations performed on DNA are massively parallel. All operations that are executed are performed on each strand of DNA simultaneously.
Adleman's experiment encoded a 7 node Hamiltonian Path Problem. Each node of the graph was encoded as a random 20 base long strand of DNA, and these were randomly annealed into long potential 'paths' through the graph. Paths were selected (and extracted) based on the length of the strand, which nodes were encoded in the strand, and whether the path encoded all nodes. At the end of this selection process, the remaining strand/s should encode the shortest path of the graph.
As can be imagined, this experiment has potentially huge consequences for large computational problems.
The problem remains to make this process reliable.
David Jackson
--
Incorrigible punster - Do not incorrige.
AFAIR (taken from a badly remembered talk at school),
...
:-)
<Blockquote>
When the solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, strikes the moon, helium 3 is deposited
</Blockquote>
These very same charged particles would hit the earth, but for a small matter of polarity (that is, the Earth's magnetic field repels all but a small proportion of the Helium-3 winging its way towards earth).
It just so happens that the moon doesn't have such a strong magnetic field (making this bit up here: someone please correct me as required), and more helium-3 can be "deposited in the powdery soil". (And the moon just happens to be close by... we could probably get our He-3 from them moons of Mars as required, but that isn't as much fun
As the speaker said to us: He-3 is great - except that there is (almost) no Helium-3 on Earth, and Fusion is required (also not yet working).
David Jackson
Another clever exploit is to store a piece of the attack bot bootstrap sequence on the network card itself. Most modern network cards have 64 bytes (or more) of EEPROM that are used to store the 6 byte hardware MAC address, leaving the majority of the space unused. More sophisticated server network cards even have more space for downloadable firmware. The mostly unused network card EEPROM is typically loaded by OS drivers in its entirety - usually to a fixed address static buffer.
A small segment of code could be programmed into the card and executed from this buffer by an exploit. The advantages to storing a portion of the attack code in the NIC is that it makes tracing the activity of the exploit difficult for someone trying to reverse engineer the code, and more importantly, a short program installed here will survive a disk formatting and OS re-install. This kind of exploit will lead to a lot of head scratching and questions about "How the hell do they keep getting back in after a disk wipe?" at the target.
NOTE: By reading this post, you have agreed to run around the room which you are currently in, flapping your arms, and sqawking like a chicken.
This keyboard is presumably on-screen (think Palm) but seems like an obvious candidate for a conversion to hardware (anyone? My days are full with work and Uni, and I don't have much (read: any) experience in this area).
No, I don't work for fitaly, etc, etc
(FWIW: I'm not handicapped, but I am interested in alternative input methods mainly in relation to effective UI...)
David Jackson
And always great for those games of Hide-and-Seek...
Not to mention working out where your PC/TV/Palm/AIBO is if it/they wonder off without you.
David Jackson
Which really gives a new meaning to surround sound (or, at least, circling the room really fast sound *g* :-)
David Jackson
Last year, all maths exams were created following (?) the assumption that every student had this sort of calculator. The effect of this was that the exams were subsequently a fair bit harder, and focused on those areas where a graping calculator did not help.
(BTW: A fair number of students at my school found that no amount of expensive technology can help you when you didn't know the basics of the topic.)
The gap between the haves and the have nots is not so great here, especially because the school could afford to have a bunch of calculators that could be borrowed out to those without them (while this solution is technically possible with laptops, it is much more expensive and less maintainable).
As a side note, in all Science-ish exams, students are permitted two or four A4 sheets of paper, covered with whatever they want (formulae and examples, normally, but UserFriendly if you prefer).
David Jackson