Understood. However, I would say that encrypting this sort of personal information on a per-customer basis is worth the resource hit. We shouldn't want that information cached even by accident.
Without knowing more details, I think your analysis sounds correct.
What I want to know is, why isn't this information encrypted apart from the SSL connection? There should be a public-private key pair for every customer managed by the Steam infrastructure and which is used to encrypt these sensitive details. In other words, personal information is encrypted long before it gets anywhere near the caches. That way, if there is a caching problem, the problem is minimal.
I don't like the idea of relying on SSL to protect this information.
Shrugs. I don't know (none of us do at this point) but I'll be very interested to hear what the cause of all this is.
Thanks for the info. That sounds like a pretty good system.
Just one question. What does the E stand for in PCI-E? I know PCI stands for Payment Card Industry but after a cursory search, I can't find what the E stands for.
Isn't first to file REALLY bad? It helps patent trolls doesn't it?
Yes. It's a disaster. In effect if you invent something you now have to patent it or possibly suffer the consequences from a patent troll. It's a money spinner for the patent office if nothing else.
I think the demo video for Natal went to ridiculous extremes to showcase the technology. The "hand buzzer" thing to which you refer being one, the invisible steering wheel being another. It's an interesting technology but I agree with Natal's detractors in that tactile feedback is important in many gaming situations.
In my opinion, equating Natal with "hands free" is potentially a marketing mistake. But then again, "hands free" is more casual and that's a huge market so perhaps Microsoft is right. The beauty of Natal though is that it can, like the tech in this patent, do "hands on" too.
That said, Sony's patent seems to be something else entirely. It claims to be able to recognise objects in 3d space and presumably, orientation of those objects. I'm afraid however that that is where my imagination fails me. I can't understand how that level of tech could be more effective in a gaming environment than what is already available (or soon to be). Anyone have any ideas?
The system looks similar to Microsoft's Project Natal, but instead of driving with an imaginary steering wheel, players can use an everyday item like a plate.
You can hold "everyday item's like a plate" with Natal too. The difference is that you don't have to for it to work.
I suspect that the main reason is a lot less noble: "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and petty power corrupts completely out of proportion to the actual power."
I agree. The current state of Wikipedia is a brilliant example of how authoritarians always manage to worm their way into power and ruin it for everyone else. A Tragedy of the Commons of the Internet age.
That's why I've made a principal decision to never again contribute to Wikipedia: doing so would mean engaging in petty power games with deletionists and other control freaks, so why bother ?
I'm of the same opinion. But then again, that's how authoritarians always win.
John Reid is really, really keen on keeping Biometric information for all UK citizens as part of a national ID project. Naturally enough, a large proportion of the UK population is uncomfortable with the idea. I suspect that this new idea is an attempt to encourage people into thinking that biometric identification is a part of everyday life.
As other poster's have pointed out there are other methods of protecting these sorts of devices (think of your car stereo for example) so it's reasonably clear to me at least that Reid has an ulterior motive.
In that case you may enjoy Cream. From the project's blurb.
Vim is one of the most powerful, lightweight and full-featured text editors ever created. It is the popular and famous descendant of the 1976 Vi text editor. Vim is also free and works on most operating systems.
But Vim has a steep learning curve. It was not primarily designed to be easy to use, favoring performance and technical flexibility instead. Because it is so different, learning to use Vim takes time. Cream shapes Vim to use the standard Common User Access model of user interface.
I don't know if it works perfectly with Vim 7 but you could always try it with 6.4.
Quick and simple: the original was an entirely live-action, puppeteered film. It's the only movie like it ever made, actually: the only all-puppet feature film with no humans or live animals present at all
In English Law it's called "Fair Dealing" and unless I'm misunderstanding something it's "Fair Use" in all but name.
Sections 28-76 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 lists the exceptions to infringing acts laid out in section 16. In a nutshell, copyright is not infringed in instances of using the work for research, private study, for criticism, for review or for news reporting. There are also exceptions for educational and library use.
Also, there are some exceptions relating to computer programs laid out in Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulations 1992. The most important exceptions allow for decompilation and the making of backup copies.
Do the "Fair Use" provisions in US law differ significantly?
It is illegal in the UK though because "media shifting" is not explicitely listed as a fair use exception to copyright. As this is an article from a UK paper, I suspect the claim was just a typo.
In America, copyright protection lasts 90 years -- and British ministers are considering a similar period.
If you look at the history of copyright reform, you can see this leapfrogging of other countries copyright period as standard practice. In fact, it's tempting to think that it's deliberate. The reasoning here is, the US has copyright for 90 years so the UK must have a period of 100 years otherwise it must be unfair. Expect in the future, US legislators to use the UK's period of 100 years to argue for 110 years. Ad Nauseum.
And the last part in appears to paint public domain as a problem of flawed law from some sort of rouge countries.
I've seen this sort of thing before. On the subject of the cessation of copyright on the earliest Elvis works, one particular newspaper report in the UK described it as a "legal loophole". Despite the fact that the termination clause is written in plain English.
When creating a hash it is often a good idea to add a little random data (ie. salt) to the input so that people can't infer a correct passwd simply by comparing hashes, as happened in this Wikipedia case. There's no need to add salt in all cases of hashing but it's a good idea when dealing with sensitive information.
In case anyone's wondering, you obviously need to store the salt somewhere but it's of no use unless you know the original password to add it to. In other words, reversing the hash with the salt is as difficult as reversing it without.
But I've never known anyone who is really passionate about windows
I knew someone once who threatened to punch me if I didn't retract an innocent assertion that OS/2 was a pretty good Operating System. Really. He was adamant that OS/2 was somehow a threat to Windows 95 and is holding the computing world back. Yes, he was a wanker.
I realise this guy is an aberration but whenever I read a complaint about "Open Source Zealots" or whomever, I remember this guy.
Yes, a jet engine upside down on the beach still running after the crash made for a very scary noise, and having it explode in a huge fireball when some dude got sucked in was impressive, but they might as well have had a 50' clown catching people in a giant popcorn bag for all the plausibility it had.
That incident was implausible until we learn later in the series that Hurley causes bad luck to occur to those around him. Notice who's stood by the engine at the time of the accident and his reaction. It's quite amusing once you know more about the characters.
Granted, it's still implausible but the whole premise of the show is perfectly ridiculous too. I can hardly criticise it for the nuance being implausible.
Slashdot Mirror
Understood. However, I would say that encrypting this sort of personal information on a per-customer basis is worth the resource hit. We shouldn't want that information cached even by accident.
Without knowing more details, I think your analysis sounds correct.
What I want to know is, why isn't this information encrypted apart from the SSL connection? There should be a public-private key pair for every customer managed by the Steam infrastructure and which is used to encrypt these sensitive details. In other words, personal information is encrypted long before it gets anywhere near the caches. That way, if there is a caching problem, the problem is minimal.
I don't like the idea of relying on SSL to protect this information.
Shrugs. I don't know (none of us do at this point) but I'll be very interested to hear what the cause of all this is.
Thanks for the info. That sounds like a pretty good system. Just one question. What does the E stand for in PCI-E? I know PCI stands for Payment Card Industry but after a cursory search, I can't find what the E stands for.
Yes. It's a disaster. In effect if you invent something you now have to patent it or possibly suffer the consequences from a patent troll. It's a money spinner for the patent office if nothing else.
Surely that should read, "without the user's permission".
This Lemmings clone dates back to 2004 so it's not HTML 5 but it's pretty good all the same.
http://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/
I think the demo video for Natal went to ridiculous extremes to showcase the technology. The "hand buzzer" thing to which you refer being one, the invisible steering wheel being another. It's an interesting technology but I agree with Natal's detractors in that tactile feedback is important in many gaming situations.
In my opinion, equating Natal with "hands free" is potentially a marketing mistake. But then again, "hands free" is more casual and that's a huge market so perhaps Microsoft is right. The beauty of Natal though is that it can, like the tech in this patent, do "hands on" too.
That said, Sony's patent seems to be something else entirely. It claims to be able to recognise objects in 3d space and presumably, orientation of those objects. I'm afraid however that that is where my imagination fails me. I can't understand how that level of tech could be more effective in a gaming environment than what is already available (or soon to be). Anyone have any ideas?
You can hold "everyday item's like a plate" with Natal too. The difference is that you don't have to for it to work.
It's in the porting section.
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua-PPC.html
I agree. The current state of Wikipedia is a brilliant example of how authoritarians always manage to worm their way into power and ruin it for everyone else. A Tragedy of the Commons of the Internet age.
I'm of the same opinion. But then again, that's how authoritarians always win.
John Reid is really, really keen on keeping Biometric information for all UK citizens as part of a national ID project. Naturally enough, a large proportion of the UK population is uncomfortable with the idea. I suspect that this new idea is an attempt to encourage people into thinking that biometric identification is a part of everyday life.
As other poster's have pointed out there are other methods of protecting these sorts of devices (think of your car stereo for example) so it's reasonably clear to me at least that Reid has an ulterior motive.
Meet The Feebles was an all-puppet feature film too.
"if cryptozoology is your thing, then my money's on the Yeti."
4 946.stm
h tml
The Orang Pendek of Sumatra is a much more likely candidate IMO.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/373
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/182_orang1.s
In English Law it's called "Fair Dealing" and unless I'm misunderstanding something it's "Fair Use" in all but name.
Sections 28-76 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 lists the exceptions to infringing acts laid out in section 16. In a nutshell, copyright is not infringed in instances of using the work for research, private study, for criticism, for review or for news reporting. There are also exceptions for educational and library use.
Also, there are some exceptions relating to computer programs laid out in Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulations 1992. The most important exceptions allow for decompilation and the making of backup copies.
Do the "Fair Use" provisions in US law differ significantly?
It is illegal in the UK though because "media shifting" is not explicitely listed as a fair use exception to copyright. As this is an article from a UK paper, I suspect the claim was just a typo.
In the case of the De Menezes execution, the police actually shot him in the head an amazing seven times and not five as initial reports suggested.
e ws/2005/08/17/nmenez17.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/08/17 /ixnewstop.html
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1794292005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/n
George Orwell, "1984"
This seems appropriate.
When creating a hash it is often a good idea to add a little random data (ie. salt) to the input so that people can't infer a correct passwd simply by comparing hashes, as happened in this Wikipedia case. There's no need to add salt in all cases of hashing but it's a good idea when dealing with sensitive information.
In case anyone's wondering, you obviously need to store the salt somewhere but it's of no use unless you know the original password to add it to. In other words, reversing the hash with the salt is as difficult as reversing it without.
I realise this guy is an aberration but whenever I read a complaint about "Open Source Zealots" or whomever, I remember this guy.
Granted, it's still implausible but the whole premise of the show is perfectly ridiculous too. I can hardly criticise it for the nuance being implausible.