Discerning keyboard delays vs. user typing delays.
Discerning keyboard delays vs. network latency variability.
Of course, this system would undoubtably have a very low signal to noise ratio, but that only limits the bandwidth to very small amounts, it doesn't prevent it from working entirely. Sending a password is what, a few bytes?
Getting the user to connect to a remote host using a direct keyboard interface like telnet. The much more common WWW connections do not expose keyboard input speed, the input is sent as one big request (unless you run some java app, or possibly other active code in the browser).
SSH is very popular, and has similar timing charactoristics to telnet...
Compromising the network connection or destination host to expose the keyboard traffic.
If someone's operating over a VPN (thinking they are secure) this could be as easy as being their ISP, or an internet trunk. WIFI sniffing is also a good way to get this information (straight from the source) and that can be done for *miles* out of an office building, even further with good equipment.
Encryption latency, packet retransmissions upon collisions at routing equipement... there are 1000 reasons outside the lab this wouldn't be even remotely useful for tracking activity off the desktop, and there's way easier ways of doing it on the desktop.
If the "secret" data being sent was very small, and the number of packets being sent was very large, and the interference was fairly well behaved (followed a fairly discernable distribution), the signal could be pulled out of the noise using modern signal analysis. Remember, passwords are only a few bytes of data, as are credit card numbers and many other sensitive pieces of information. As long as none of these processes destroy the information of the packet jitter, but rather perform addititively, I think a short message could easily be recovered.
If you're an AOL user you need to zcat this through grep ASAP for one of your unique searches, ASAP, to make sure you're not in the dataset. They can't ever "unrelease" this data.
I agree with your sentiments, but it's a lot more efficent to use zgrep.
I saw the movie, and while a few parts were a little... slow, I thought overall it was an excellent documentary which I'd reccomend to everyone. One issue, however, is that while global warming is a very real phenomenon, most of the evidence is rather subtle, and only accessible to those who are experts. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the severity, timescale, and effects of Global Warming (indeed check out Global Dimming which seems to be offsetting it, at least for the moment). I work with many atmospheric scientists at Cornell, and the main issue that they have is that there simply is not enough information for proper policy creation. Economic/social interest groups/lobbiests aside, to form a proper policy, one must have a good notion of the expected costs and consequences of various plans of action. Right now we're doing nothing and we're still okay - likely that will change, but how much is a very big unknown. If the cost of people moving inland is small enough (consider that rebuilding cities from scratch will lead to vast improvements in efficiency over large timescales that practically pay for themselves), it may be the best option. It's equally possible that radical action is neccessary - but that action cannot occur until people are convinced, and even then it will be an uphill battle.
Sometimes tradgedies come along, like the Great Depression, and they bring out the best in people. Perhaps global warming is just what we need to unite as a species and settle our differences once and for all. Or perhaps we'll just end up fighting over what little remains afterwards, who knows?
This will be great for artists who have the talent, but really need exposure. One of the most powerful things about the WWW has been the collective filtering of content on places like Slashdot, YouTube, and Digg. Hopefully this site will help overcome the SNR of the WWW - I don't read web comics because almost all of those that I've come upon just didn't seem funny, at least not to me. Maybe with the enhanced variety of many sources, this pressing problem can be solved!
These types of nonlinear differential equations are usually very simple in form, and, most importantly, very local, as that is how most biological interaction is mediated. The parameter tweaking should not be considered too alarming when one considers that the number of biological parameters, in the sense of genetic material, involves thousands of degrees of freedom.
A short (but good) web site about this can be found here. The interpretation of these formulas is fairly trivial, as they describe a diffusion process (common in all biological systems) with a somewhat more complex reactive process, which could be mediated through all kinds of channels.
This is not akin to fitting a polynomial to the shape of a bone and calling that a "model" - there are obvious interpretations which correspond to very well known processes.
Oh, I don't disagree with you at all... In fact if I ever try to do something like this, you better believe I'll be using OTP. I just worry that some people perceive this to be a "magic bullet," which it most definitely is not. In another post that even attracting attention with encrypted messages (especially those the government cannot break) could soon be an unacceptable risk for many people, and unfortunately OTP can't help with that.
A sound implementation of a OTP is a formidable foe.
OTP has two huge problems associated with it, despite the mathematics being sound (assuming you have good random numbers):
Key distribution - do you like sending long messages? You'll need a key that's at least as long as the compressed message, and that distribution system must be absolutely secure. Also you'll need to make sure no one ever has a chance to access your key before or after the message is sent, otherwise you're screwed.
Overconfidence - Congratulations, if you've done it correctly you have 100% secure communications channel. The endpoints, however, are not protected by this mathematics, and are succeptable to everything from hidden bugs to software hacking or even "rubber hose" cryptoanalysis.
I think we're moving to a society where just being suspected of a crime will be so bad (in terms of government harassment like no-fly lists, wiretapping, etc) that the most important thing will not be to make sure that the government can't read what you communicate, but rather have no reason to suspect you're doing anything they don't like. With current advances in data mining, it's going to be an arms race - the stenographers against the miners. I for one am fascinated by both technologies, and frankly rather terrified of how they each may be used. It was be interesting to see, but one thing is for sure - encryption will no longer be enough.
I tell everyone I know to check out techbargains.com. A quick search there revealed:
Samsung Black-and-White Laser Printer
for $60, not a bad deal, but I don't have any experience with Samsung laser printers, so who knows how good it is.
Here's AOL's most recent mailing to all of its customers:
Dear AOL Member,
I want to let you know about some exciting changes happening at AOL. Our service has always been an all-in-one solution for our members, consisting of:
1. Connectivity - a way of connecting to the Internet (through a dial-up or high-speed connection), and
2. Content and Services - bringing you useful tools and features like email, security and an entertaining online experience once you're connected.
Today we are announcing that AOL's software, email, and other compelling AOL features will be free to everyone who has an Internet connection -- including your Address Book, Screen Name, the Buddy List® feature and more. AOL will continue to provide a dial-up connection for you, and we will continue to offer several reliable and affordable options for getting online.
What Does This Mean for You?
Nothing about your service arrangement with us will change unless you want it to. Your current plan, which includes Internet connectivity, 24/7 customer support, unlimited email storage, your email addresses, and all the AOL content and services you rely on, will still be there for you.
If you do at some point choose another provider to connect you to the Internet:
* You can keep your AOL Screen Name and email address for as long as you want to use it, completely free;
* You can continue to use your AOL software, and you can still get all your favorite features and content, completely free;
* You will still get AOL's comprehensive safety and security tools, protecting you from online hackers, spammers and identity thieves, completely free.
All of this is free, no matter who provides your Internet connection.
Why Is AOL Doing This?
We're simply changing with the times. There are many options for Internet access, whether it's dial-up or broadband. At the same time, a lot of online content and services are now available on the Web free of charge because they are supported by advertising. So, while your Internet connectivity needs may change over time, what you love about the Web does not. We are now able to ensure that the familiar AOL experience, your Screen Name, your Address Book, your Buddy List, your Favorite Places, and other content and features you enjoy, will always be available to you for free.
In September, you will be hearing more about changes at AOL. Until then, you can visit AOL Keyword: New AOL for more information and to sign up for informative email alerts.
I think at this point, it's probably safe to give up on OS X being a viable platform for most game development, for economic reasons (too small marketshare). Hopefully technology like this will at least allow me to play somewhat new games on my intel mac - if it does that, I'll be happy. That's probably it for most native games, except shareware, though.
I think it's great that OSS is being employed in educational fascilities, but what I'd really like to see is more educators teaching programming/software engineering via examination of the source code. There's more than a few projects that are actually coded very well, I know I sure learn something whenever I look at the sources.
Can we just quit the stupid accessories already and put that energy into improving battery life or something?
I'd be cool if the umbrella itself had a battery in it to give you a little extra power when you have a long walk in the rain, or maybe some kind of generator from arm movements?
If you happen to see people wildly shaking and dancing with their white umbrellas in the street, don't call them crazy just yet. They might just be controlling their iPod with an iBrella.
Whether or not one is controlling their iPod while doing this, I still believe they can be safely categorized as "fucking nuts."
Never watched Sailor Moon (I like different anime), and it's been a while since I watched first season Futurama (but I do have seasons 1-4 on DVD).
I still think it's great that I got a joke about gay, west-coast sailors on the moon moderated up to 5: Informative, with help from a link that was discussed on slashdot many moons ago...
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, this system would undoubtably have a very low signal to noise ratio, but that only limits the bandwidth to very small amounts, it doesn't prevent it from working entirely. Sending a password is what, a few bytes?
- Getting the user to connect to a remote host using a direct keyboard interface like telnet. The much more common WWW connections do not expose keyboard input speed, the input is sent as one big request (unless you run some java app, or possibly other active code in the browser).
SSH is very popular, and has similar timing charactoristics to telnet...- Compromising the network connection or destination host to expose the keyboard traffic.
If someone's operating over a VPN (thinking they are secure) this could be as easy as being their ISP, or an internet trunk. WIFI sniffing is also a good way to get this information (straight from the source) and that can be done for *miles* out of an office building, even further with good equipment.Encryption latency, packet retransmissions upon collisions at routing equipement... there are 1000 reasons outside the lab this wouldn't be even remotely useful for tracking activity off the desktop, and there's way easier ways of doing it on the desktop.
If the "secret" data being sent was very small, and the number of packets being sent was very large, and the interference was fairly well behaved (followed a fairly discernable distribution), the signal could be pulled out of the noise using modern signal analysis. Remember, passwords are only a few bytes of data, as are credit card numbers and many other sensitive pieces of information. As long as none of these processes destroy the information of the packet jitter, but rather perform addititively, I think a short message could easily be recovered.
If you're an AOL user you need to zcat this through grep ASAP for one of your unique searches, ASAP, to make sure you're not in the dataset. They can't ever "unrelease" this data.
I agree with your sentiments, but it's a lot more efficent to use zgrep.
I saw the movie, and while a few parts were a little... slow, I thought overall it was an excellent documentary which I'd reccomend to everyone. One issue, however, is that while global warming is a very real phenomenon, most of the evidence is rather subtle, and only accessible to those who are experts. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the severity, timescale, and effects of Global Warming (indeed check out Global Dimming which seems to be offsetting it, at least for the moment). I work with many atmospheric scientists at Cornell, and the main issue that they have is that there simply is not enough information for proper policy creation. Economic/social interest groups/lobbiests aside, to form a proper policy, one must have a good notion of the expected costs and consequences of various plans of action. Right now we're doing nothing and we're still okay - likely that will change, but how much is a very big unknown. If the cost of people moving inland is small enough (consider that rebuilding cities from scratch will lead to vast improvements in efficiency over large timescales that practically pay for themselves), it may be the best option. It's equally possible that radical action is neccessary - but that action cannot occur until people are convinced, and even then it will be an uphill battle.
Sometimes tradgedies come along, like the Great Depression, and they bring out the best in people. Perhaps global warming is just what we need to unite as a species and settle our differences once and for all. Or perhaps we'll just end up fighting over what little remains afterwards, who knows?
There is opportunity here to inform the cow-like public that they are being manipulated by assholes.
If you're living in a "democracy" that has a "cow-like public", it's not the "assholes" that are the real problem.
This will be great for artists who have the talent, but really need exposure. One of the most powerful things about the WWW has been the collective filtering of content on places like Slashdot, YouTube, and Digg. Hopefully this site will help overcome the SNR of the WWW - I don't read web comics because almost all of those that I've come upon just didn't seem funny, at least not to me. Maybe with the enhanced variety of many sources, this pressing problem can be solved!
These types of nonlinear differential equations are usually very simple in form, and, most importantly, very local, as that is how most biological interaction is mediated. The parameter tweaking should not be considered too alarming when one considers that the number of biological parameters, in the sense of genetic material, involves thousands of degrees of freedom.
A short (but good) web site about this can be found here. The interpretation of these formulas is fairly trivial, as they describe a diffusion process (common in all biological systems) with a somewhat more complex reactive process, which could be mediated through all kinds of channels.
This is not akin to fitting a polynomial to the shape of a bone and calling that a "model" - there are obvious interpretations which correspond to very well known processes.
A much more detailed version of what you describe can be found here.
If the hostile party even thinks you're still hiding something, however, this won't stop them.
Well, I suppose this makes you next...
Oh, I don't disagree with you at all... In fact if I ever try to do something like this, you better believe I'll be using OTP. I just worry that some people perceive this to be a "magic bullet," which it most definitely is not. In another post that even attracting attention with encrypted messages (especially those the government cannot break) could soon be an unacceptable risk for many people, and unfortunately OTP can't help with that.
Shortwave numbers stations are a social experiment being conducted by the aliens.
Actually they are mostly tenticle-enlargement spam, but we don't have the proper char-set support yet. Hopefully this will be included in Vista.
Sorry, the title was supposed to read "Stenography >> Encryption"
OTP has two huge problems associated with it, despite the mathematics being sound (assuming you have good random numbers):
I think we're moving to a society where just being suspected of a crime will be so bad (in terms of government harassment like no-fly lists, wiretapping, etc) that the most important thing will not be to make sure that the government can't read what you communicate, but rather have no reason to suspect you're doing anything they don't like. With current advances in data mining, it's going to be an arms race - the stenographers against the miners. I for one am fascinated by both technologies, and frankly rather terrified of how they each may be used. It was be interesting to see, but one thing is for sure - encryption will no longer be enough.
I tell everyone I know to check out techbargains.com. A quick search there revealed:
Samsung Black-and-White Laser Printer for $60, not a bad deal, but I don't have any experience with Samsung laser printers, so who knows how good it is.
Here's another by Konica.
Here's AOL's most recent mailing to all of its customers:
Dear AOL Member,
I want to let you know about some exciting changes happening at AOL. Our service has always been an all-in-one solution for our members, consisting of:
1. Connectivity - a way of connecting to the Internet (through a dial-up or high-speed connection), and
2. Content and Services - bringing you useful tools and features like email, security and an entertaining online experience once you're connected.
Today we are announcing that AOL's software, email, and other compelling AOL features will be free to everyone who has an Internet connection -- including your Address Book, Screen Name, the Buddy List® feature and more. AOL will continue to provide a dial-up connection for you, and we will continue to offer several reliable and affordable options for getting online.
What Does This Mean for You?
Nothing about your service arrangement with us will change unless you want it to. Your current plan, which includes Internet connectivity, 24/7 customer support, unlimited email storage, your email addresses, and all the AOL content and services you rely on, will still be there for you.
If you do at some point choose another provider to connect you to the Internet:
* You can keep your AOL Screen Name and email address for as long as you want to use it, completely free;
* You can continue to use your AOL software, and you can still get all your favorite features and content, completely free;
* You will still get AOL's comprehensive safety and security tools, protecting you from online hackers, spammers and identity thieves, completely free.
All of this is free, no matter who provides your Internet connection.
Why Is AOL Doing This?
We're simply changing with the times. There are many options for Internet access, whether it's dial-up or broadband. At the same time, a lot of online content and services are now available on the Web free of charge because they are supported by advertising. So, while your Internet connectivity needs may change over time, what you love about the Web does not. We are now able to ensure that the familiar AOL experience, your Screen Name, your Address Book, your Buddy List, your Favorite Places, and other content and features you enjoy, will always be available to you for free.
In September, you will be hearing more about changes at AOL. Until then, you can visit AOL Keyword: New AOL for more information and to sign up for informative email alerts.
Sincerely,
Jon Miller
Chairman and CEO
AOL LLC
What about Wifi Baloons? This may become very cheap, and cover a much larger area.
I think at this point, it's probably safe to give up on OS X being a viable platform for most game development, for economic reasons (too small marketshare). Hopefully technology like this will at least allow me to play somewhat new games on my intel mac - if it does that, I'll be happy. That's probably it for most native games, except shareware, though.
I think it's great that OSS is being employed in educational fascilities, but what I'd really like to see is more educators teaching programming/software engineering via examination of the source code. There's more than a few projects that are actually coded very well, I know I sure learn something whenever I look at the sources.
Yes, but Win95 was lightyears ahead of 3.1, but I have yet to see a *single* thing in Vista that's "revolutionary."
Can we just quit the stupid accessories already and put that energy into improving battery life or something?
I'd be cool if the umbrella itself had a battery in it to give you a little extra power when you have a long walk in the rain, or maybe some kind of generator from arm movements?
What if the only song it played was "It's Raining Men?"
I'd set phasers to "kill."
I hear this product works very well, but unfortunately it currently only plays "Singing in the Rain."
If you happen to see people wildly shaking and dancing with their white umbrellas in the street, don't call them crazy just yet. They might just be controlling their iPod with an iBrella.
Whether or not one is controlling their iPod while doing this, I still believe they can be safely categorized as "fucking nuts."
Never watched Sailor Moon (I like different anime), and it's been a while since I watched first season Futurama (but I do have seasons 1-4 on DVD).
I still think it's great that I got a joke about gay, west-coast sailors on the moon moderated up to 5: Informative, with help from a link that was discussed on slashdot many moons ago...