I remember the deregulation of the market in Germany when Deutsche Telekom had to open their phone and Internet services. Lots of competition popped up. INITIALLY. Many of them are gone by now, because they sold under their own cost (read: under the price that Telekom was charging them). That cannot be healthy over time (see.gone bubble). By now everybody is about the same, they all raised prices and there a happy few. Did it do much for the consumer? Not really as I recall (but I do not live there anylonger). The only differentiator (basically) is service now. So maybe it is a good thing...
Geee, thank you, now I remember how old I am. Was King's Quest II really in 1985????? And Space Quest I in 87? Excuse me Sir? Could we please go back in time to find some decent gameplay? And 15+ years to live again? These years were just fun (with or without computer games)
I have to disagree with you. Do you think a "pay-per-download/view" model would really work? On a voluntary basis? I think the offering that RH makes to you adds a lot of value and is really affordable. It is like hushmail.com, a nice secure email package I simply pay for because I like it. And I can help them support OpenPGP and other open standards. And this is exactly what RH is trying to achieve and what, IMHO, makes a lot of business sense. But these are only my $5/month worth of comments.
seems to be that the game is not yet available in Germany and that the effort going on will cost Infogrames a lot of money (the heise article, which, btw, is here says so, too). Also there will be issues with support. And it is there intellectual property. So, by altering a closed source program without permission they stepped over some border line. Wouldn't it be prosecuted here in the US under DMCA?
The title says it, I am very positively surprised by XP. Same machine, same applications, same everything and for example I get a performance boost in Java applications (like hushmail) that I can significantly feel. Working with it seems faster, too. The Taskbar is better (MUCH better), setting up the system was easy (except for the Intel 2100 Modem, which doesnt have XP drivers, so the 2K drivers have to work). The system seems to make better use of 384MB RAM, if I watch system monitors it seems to have a better swapping method. But this is all not very scientific. I believe if Infoworld says so that it _is_ slower. It certainly does not feel that way on a user level. It might be different if Id run a server here. Thanks for reading these random thoughts...
There is also no support from Qwest when you have the internal Intel PRO/DSL 2100 Modem. That is because there are no XP drivers. But the Windows 2000 drivers work just fine...
This is about signing certificates, nothing with "oops, my browser encrypted" bla. This is a very interesting move, that I cannot quite follow. Why in the world would you only limit signing certificates and blame it on the "world". Excuse me? I mean if it was about global server IDs, strong encrpytion, etc. I might find some reasons in current events to limit the distribution. But code signing certs? Quote from the Site: "Your customers can be confident that a Thawte Developer Certificate will guarantee that your code remains tamper proof, and that the content originated from the source on the certificate. Important Notice:
Due to current world circumstances developer certificates can no longer be issued to individuals." Or am I totally missing the point here (probably too late here on Pacific Time)
I think the idea Edelmann is pursuing here has some very interesting implications but also limitations. I wonder how stable the environment on greater distances might be, current, the seabed itself, and other environmental influences. The same goes for the suggested idea of using ping times and number of hop points to encrypt a message. These are highly unstable factors and in order to encrypt the message the environment shall be the same for both sides for the time of the communication flow. But I am also not enough cryptographer to really tell. Maybe others can shed some light on this?
Well, on scene.org you will some 4k WINDOWS demos. Neat little things...
Fascinating
on
Tiny Apps
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It is really fascinating what you call small. I remember the VC20/C64 and those things required true small applications. Applications that had more features than most of the "tiny" ones there.
You guys might also want to check out the 4KB and 64KB demonstration pieces from parties around the world at Scene. This will show you what can be done in applications as small as 4KB (rendered demos with sound and stuff like that). Enjoy!
I nevertheless appreciate a movement towards essential, small applications...
Hmm, this example sounds a little far fetched to me. You do not present your ID when you buy something. Maybe you should present if you buy a tank or a controlled substance (assuming you could do so), but other than that? Flying on an airplane, living in a city, if these things become illegal you have a problem in general. We still have to wait and see what purpose the national ID system is supposed to serve. What parts of your life it shall have an effect on. Just for ID purposes, knowing where people live and if they travel by airplane (they won't ask you for your ID if you drive cross-country I assume) I personally believe it is not a bad thing. But again, I happen to trust my (old) government. I think you overstimate the amount of tracking. Just the humble opinion of a guest in your country who might look at things a little different. But I like the good comments (forgetting about the WWII and Jews start the war s&*%) that people gave so far. Thanks!
Just please educate me. What is so wrong about the card? If you would like to have an ID card, something that the US do _NOT_ have, and it carries your picture and your fingerprint, what again is so wrong with that. In my homecountry, Germany, you have to register with the city you live in, tell them where you live and, if you move, unregister with your old city and register in the new one. They can always track you. You have to have an ID card. It carries your address, height, weight, place of birth and your picture. If you move within the country (see above) you have to have it updated. True, it does not carry your fingerprint, but it has a nice little code that gets scanned when you travel by airplane, etc. It is compatible with the electronic readers at immigration that you guys might be familiar with. And I even think there is a fine if you do not carry it with you. So how is the proposed ID card so much different? I personally would like it if people have to register in a more thorough way if they travel with me on an airplane. Please do not get me wrong, systems can be abused and there are enough examples of that, but I do not see that coming with a national ID card system.
I guess somebody finally told him that the good guys would simply shrug their shoulders and the bad guys would have been forced into other, more secret, methods or implemented their own encrpytion. With "no backdoors" encryption in place investigators can at least gather some information about potential bad guys. E.g. that there _is_ secret information exchange taking place and/or they can detect patterns in the secret information exchange. Is there a rise in communication, followed by silence (somebody received orders, had questions and has now gone to sleep!?). You maybe not know the content of the message, but that might not be too important. Just imagine if the bad guys would now take a stego approach, doing it a little bit more clever than the "I hide a picture with content at eBay because it is soooooo secret" guys? Hide it in music, streaming videos, with your own algorithm, chunk it,... Nevermind, I know that the paranoid will now say that the NSA can compute any key length anyway. Maybe. Who knows? This is not a threat to me.
I just find it very strange that somebody tries to make us believe that Steganographic content is limited to pictures and will be found on eBay. _IF_ you really want to hide something you might want to embedd a message at a certain time (time synching is not a problem) into an ever changing stream of data (like a webcam or an Internet radio station). The content has to be spread out over a certain amount of time. Maybe only chunks of a message per hour. This is not exactly emergency communication, orders, information, etc. can be received over several hours if needed. Now you spread the content over a pre-defined sequence and maybe start with a "wakeup" message to indicate that a new block of cipher information is about to come. This would be impossible to detect, because you have nothing to compare against (like a picture of a busy street is never the same). So I personally think that this "we scan on eBay and the pictures are evil" is something to put people at ease, but is not really helping a lot. Other than people will be forced into more stealthier methods...
I am a German living in the United States and I turned to the Web to get information on the incidents that have a little "distance" to the disaster. It might not have been the most up-to-date information, BUT it was more accurate, better researched and also offered some other perspective. E.g. why people in other parts of the world might find the attack legitimate. Explaining the thinking, the reasoning behind such evil attacks. Please do not get me wrong, I condemn the attacks like everybody should. But still other countries might have a different perspective on the whole incident.
Well, I had different experiences when I was dealing with the BSI on some crypto patents (blind-signatures). When I dealt with Isabel Muench it was always very pleasant and they always recommended, never ruled. But some years have passed since that and maybe you are right as of today. I also wrote in my post that the Federal and State Government seems to go Windows, too (see the heise article) but nevertheless they are also pushing for open standards. It is kind of a mixed message you get there, and maybe it is me being too far away and that I do not have to deal with German authorities any longer.
a mixture of Linux and Windows but with a strong movement towards open source software. See also this story. The German Government nevertheless signed a large contract with Microsoft for future upgrades and deliverables (see here for a German article on that). One of the driving forces behind the open source movement has been the BSI, the german government agency for security in information technology (again Website is in German). They support open standards especially for security sensitive applications.
I have seen (and maybe somebody else can provide links) some innovations in the research of data representations. Basic approach is to display data in more than 3 dimensions, using colors, forms and relative position to enrich the data and provide a better decision making process (first usage is in risk management for Financial Institutions, analysis of brokerage data, etc.) One very impressive example was done by SGI and it consisted of a wheel with different rings that you could turn and move freely that would directly indicate the performance of of certain stocks. It could be used for long-term analysis or day trading. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that it is (was?) in use by Morgan Stanley. The point is, once you have a different representation of data a different GUI approach (using the data) has to follow. I see data representation of large streams paving the way for true "Cyberspace" GUIs, allowing the user to walk through the data, adding movement, position etc. to the user experience. Just my 0000010 cents...
Wouldn't it be worthwhile for the researcher to add the Inner-European Interchanges, too? I remember from my time in Germany that FrankfurtLondon is a MAJOR Hub, for instance many English Providers have a direct peering at the DECIX. Same goes for the Netherlands and other countries. Now it depends on your routing, but many times you are being routed through other European countries first and then it very well matters how your interconnect with those countries works...
This is really sad to hear. We have seen to many good, anonymous services go down. It all started with DigiCash and Chaum, a payment system utilizing blind signatures. True(!) anonymous payments. And ZKS also had the right tools at hand to create anonymity. Maybe you will move ahead and do something in the private credential arena. Brands' patents should work fine for that... Readers interested in some level of anonymity for the masses should check out Hushmail and Zendit for anonymous, encrypted email services. And the other usual suspects like Anonymizer.com (BAH!). Good luck to Zeroknowledge!
Well, first I wonder why the author would do something like
x = mult*nbytes + 24;
when he sets mult=1
but this only explains for one wasted instruction. On the other handside I would take a close look at the Windows ReadFile and WriteFile functions. These, IMHO, could very well account for the poor performance the author is seeing. There are too many variables mixed into his test program to tell whether this is only the named pipes performing bad...
According to the changelog on news.gimp.org there were updates in the last 24 hours. The news site is also still up, maybe you can reach somebody there?
Congratulations! You just discovered a hole in CC Protocols. It is called MoTo (MailorderTelephoneorder) and you are correct that you can reverse such transaction. I guess every single eTailer out there suffered from this "loss". BUT, first of all, these rules are there for a reason. If I am your underpaid waiter in the little restaurant around the corner just pin down your 16-digit PAN and expiration date from your credit or debit (Visa/MC) card, guess what, I can go shoppingWohooo. What big of a deal. Now, if I, being the bad guy, accepted the delivery of my little shopping experience (using certified mail, signature required UPS or whatnot), I AM IN TROUBLE. And if your friend sent a 350$ item without a signature upon delivery, he is a f&((% idiot and should not sell stuff on eBay anyway. Phhhhhhhh...
Please folks, before you get over exited, I would consider that there is some panic on PayPals side involved in going for IPO, getting new capital in and expand RAPIDLY before others catch up. PayPal used to be pretty unique and the banks (even if Deutsche Bank was one of the original investors), especially big banking, pretty much stayed away from them. Why did the banks do that? They thought a technology driven company like Paypal (and DigiCash (today known as eCash Technologies), CyberCash(aquired by VeriSign and others), GlobeSET(acquired by Trintech) and many more...) never posed a threat to the big banks. Then Paypal started to do something you shall not do . Disintermediate the banks. Now the banks think, wow, they are stealing customers from us. So there are various new initiatives on their way. Visa 3-D Secure ( See here), which is _first_ aimed to eliminate consumer fraud but has extensions in the protocol for later P2P use, NACHA has several initiatives on the way: ISAP which is again _first_ an internet payment protocol but will carry into P2P later, Project Action which will aim directly at the eBay Payments of PayPal. So they are afraid. They are afraid for a good reason. They need money to compete (and, according to rumours they are pretty much running out of it). So an IPO is a logical step. Maybe they will even make it in these difficult times...
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I remember the deregulation of the market in Germany when Deutsche Telekom had to open their phone and Internet services. Lots of competition popped up. INITIALLY. Many of them are gone by now, because they sold under their own cost (read: under the price that Telekom was charging them). That cannot be healthy over time (see .gone bubble). By now everybody is about the same, they all raised prices and there a happy few. Did it do much for the consumer? Not really as I recall (but I do not live there anylonger). The only differentiator (basically) is service now. So maybe it is a good thing ...
Geee, thank you, now I remember how old I am.
Was King's Quest II really in 1985????? And Space Quest I in 87?
Excuse me Sir? Could we please go back in time to find some decent gameplay? And 15+ years to live again? These years were just fun (with or without computer games)
I have to disagree with you. Do you think a "pay-per-download/view" model would really work? On a voluntary basis? I think the offering that RH makes to you adds a lot of value and is really affordable. It is like hushmail.com, a nice secure email package I simply pay for because I like it. And I can help them support OpenPGP and other open standards. And this is exactly what RH is trying to achieve and what, IMHO, makes a lot of business sense.
But these are only my $5/month worth of comments.
seems to be that the game is not yet available in Germany and that the effort going on will cost Infogrames a lot of money (the heise article, which, btw, is here says so, too). Also there will be issues with support. And it is there intellectual property. So, by altering a closed source program without permission they stepped over some border line. Wouldn't it be prosecuted here in the US under DMCA?
- Just my 0000010 cents
Nope, it is a update install. So all the old sh** is still there. It really does feel faster. Again, this is not scientific. This is only my feeling.
The title says it, I am very positively surprised by XP. Same machine, same applications, same everything and for example I get a performance boost in Java applications (like hushmail) that I can significantly feel. Working with it seems faster, too. The Taskbar is better (MUCH better), setting up the system was easy (except for the Intel 2100 Modem, which doesnt have XP drivers, so the 2K drivers have to work). The system seems to make better use of 384MB RAM, if I watch system monitors it seems to have a better swapping method. But this is all not very scientific. I believe if Infoworld says so that it _is_ slower. It certainly does not feel that way on a user level. It might be different if Id run a server here. ...
Thanks for reading these random thoughts
There is also no support from Qwest when you have the internal Intel PRO/DSL 2100 Modem. That is because there are no XP drivers. But the Windows 2000 drivers work just fine ...
This is about signing certificates, nothing with "oops, my browser encrypted" bla. This is a very interesting move, that I cannot quite follow. Why in the world would you only limit signing certificates and blame it on the "world". Excuse me? I mean if it was about global server IDs, strong encrpytion, etc. I might find some reasons in current events to limit the distribution. But code signing certs? Quote from the Site: "Your customers can be confident that a Thawte Developer Certificate will guarantee that your code remains tamper proof, and that the content originated from the source on the certificate. Important Notice:
Due to current world circumstances developer certificates can no longer be issued to individuals." Or am I totally missing the point here (probably too late here on Pacific Time)
I think the idea Edelmann is pursuing here has some very interesting implications but also limitations. I wonder how stable the environment on greater distances might be, current, the seabed itself, and other environmental influences. The same goes for the suggested idea of using ping times and number of hop points to encrypt a message. These are highly unstable factors and in order to encrypt the message the environment shall be the same for both sides for the time of the communication flow. But I am also not enough cryptographer to really tell. Maybe others can shed some light on this?
Well, on scene.org you will some 4k WINDOWS demos. Neat little things ...
It is really fascinating what you call small. I remember the VC20/C64 and those things required true small applications. Applications that had more features than most of the "tiny" ones there.
...
You guys might also want to check out the 4KB and 64KB demonstration pieces from parties around the world at Scene. This will show you what can be done in applications as small as 4KB (rendered demos with sound and stuff like that). Enjoy!
I nevertheless appreciate a movement towards essential, small applications
Hmm, this example sounds a little far fetched to me. You do not present your ID when you buy something. Maybe you should present if you buy a tank or a controlled substance (assuming you could do so), but other than that? Flying on an airplane, living in a city, if these things become illegal you have a problem in general. We still have to wait and see what purpose the national ID system is supposed to serve. What parts of your life it shall have an effect on. Just for ID purposes, knowing where people live and if they travel by airplane (they won't ask you for your ID if you drive cross-country I assume) I personally believe it is not a bad thing. But again, I happen to trust my (old) government. I think you overstimate the amount of tracking. Just the humble opinion of a guest in your country who might look at things a little different.
But I like the good comments (forgetting about the WWII and Jews start the war s&*%) that people gave so far. Thanks!
Just please educate me. What is so wrong about the card? If you would like to have an ID card, something that the US do _NOT_ have, and it carries your picture and your fingerprint, what again is so wrong with that. In my homecountry, Germany, you have to register with the city you live in, tell them where you live and, if you move, unregister with your old city and register in the new one. They can always track you. You have to have an ID card. It carries your address, height, weight, place of birth and your picture. If you move within the country (see above) you have to have it updated. True, it does not carry your fingerprint, but it has a nice little code that gets scanned when you travel by airplane, etc. It is compatible with the electronic readers at immigration that you guys might be familiar with. And I even think there is a fine if you do not carry it with you. So how is the proposed ID card so much different? I personally would like it if people have to register in a more thorough way if they travel with me on an airplane. Please do not get me wrong, systems can be abused and there are enough examples of that, but I do not see that coming with a national ID card system.
I guess somebody finally told him that the good guys would simply shrug their shoulders and the bad guys would have been forced into other, more secret, methods or implemented their own encrpytion. With "no backdoors" encryption in place investigators can at least gather some information about potential bad guys. E.g. that there _is_ secret information exchange taking place and/or they can detect patterns in the secret information exchange. Is there a rise in communication, followed by silence (somebody received orders, had questions and has now gone to sleep!?). You maybe not know the content of the message, but that might not be too important. Just imagine if the bad guys would now take a stego approach, doing it a little bit more clever than the "I hide a picture with content at eBay because it is soooooo secret" guys? Hide it in music, streaming videos, with your own algorithm, chunk it, ...
Nevermind, I know that the paranoid will now say that the NSA can compute any key length anyway. Maybe. Who knows? This is not a threat to me.
I just find it very strange that somebody tries to make us believe that Steganographic content is limited to pictures and will be found on eBay. _IF_ you really want to hide something you might want to embedd a message at a certain time (time synching is not a problem) into an ever changing stream of data (like a webcam or an Internet radio station). The content has to be spread out over a certain amount of time. Maybe only chunks of a message per hour. This is not exactly emergency communication, orders, information, etc. can be received over several hours if needed. Now you spread the content over a pre-defined sequence and maybe start with a "wakeup" message to indicate that a new block of cipher information is about to come. This would be impossible to detect, because you have nothing to compare against (like a picture of a busy street is never the same). So I personally think that this "we scan on eBay and the pictures are evil" is something to put people at ease, but is not really helping a lot. Other than people will be forced into more stealthier methods ...
I am a German living in the United States and I turned to the Web to get information on the incidents that have a little "distance" to the disaster. It might not have been the most up-to-date information, BUT it was more accurate, better researched and also offered some other perspective. E.g. why people in other parts of the world might find the attack legitimate. Explaining the thinking, the reasoning behind such evil attacks. Please do not get me wrong, I condemn the attacks like everybody should. But still other countries might have a different perspective on the whole incident.
Well, I had different experiences when I was dealing with the BSI on some crypto patents (blind-signatures). When I dealt with Isabel Muench it was always very pleasant and they always recommended, never ruled. But some years have passed since that and maybe you are right as of today. I also wrote in my post that the Federal and State Government seems to go Windows, too (see the heise article) but nevertheless they are also pushing for open standards. It is kind of a mixed message you get there, and maybe it is me being too far away and that I do not have to deal with German authorities any longer.
a mixture of Linux and Windows but with a strong movement towards open source software. See also this story. The German Government nevertheless signed a large contract with Microsoft for future upgrades and deliverables (see here for a German article on that). One of the driving forces behind the open source movement has been the BSI, the german government agency for security in information technology (again Website is in German). They support open standards especially for security sensitive applications.
I have seen (and maybe somebody else can provide links) some innovations in the research of data representations. Basic approach is to display data in more than 3 dimensions, using colors, forms and relative position to enrich the data and provide a better decision making process (first usage is in risk management for Financial Institutions, analysis of brokerage data, etc.) One very impressive example was done by SGI and it consisted of a wheel with different rings that you could turn and move freely that would directly indicate the performance of of certain stocks. It could be used for long-term analysis or day trading. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that it is (was?) in use by Morgan Stanley. ...
The point is, once you have a different representation of data a different GUI approach (using the data) has to follow. I see data representation of large streams paving the way for true "Cyberspace" GUIs, allowing the user to walk through the data, adding movement, position etc. to the user experience.
Just my 0000010 cents
Wouldn't it be worthwhile for the researcher to add the Inner-European Interchanges, too? I remember from my time in Germany that FrankfurtLondon is a MAJOR Hub, for instance many English Providers have a direct peering at the DECIX. Same goes for the Netherlands and other countries. Now it depends on your routing, but many times you are being routed through other European countries first and then it very well matters how your interconnect with those countries works ...
This is really sad to hear. We have seen to many good, anonymous services go down. It all started with DigiCash and Chaum, a payment system utilizing blind signatures. True(!) anonymous payments. And ZKS also had the right tools at hand to create anonymity. Maybe you will move ahead and do something in the private credential arena. Brands' patents should work fine for that ... Readers interested in some level of anonymity for the masses should check out Hushmail and Zendit for anonymous, encrypted email services. And the other usual suspects like Anonymizer.com (BAH!). Good luck to Zeroknowledge!
Well, first I wonder why the author would do something like
...
x = mult*nbytes + 24;
when he sets mult=1
but this only explains for one wasted instruction. On the other handside I would take a close look at the Windows ReadFile and WriteFile functions. These, IMHO, could very well account for the poor performance the author is seeing. There are too many variables mixed into his test program to tell whether this is only the named pipes performing bad
According to the changelog on news.gimp.org there were updates in the last 24 hours. The news site is also still up, maybe you can reach somebody there?
Congratulations! You just discovered a hole in CC Protocols. It is called MoTo (MailorderTelephoneorder) and you are correct that you can reverse such transaction. I guess every single eTailer out there suffered from this "loss". BUT, first of all, these rules are there for a reason. If I am your underpaid waiter in the little restaurant around the corner just pin down your 16-digit PAN and expiration date from your credit or debit (Visa/MC) card, guess what, I can go shoppingWohooo. What big of a deal. Now, if I, being the bad guy, accepted the delivery of my little shopping experience (using certified mail, signature required UPS or whatnot), I AM IN TROUBLE. And if your friend sent a 350$ item without a signature upon delivery, he is a f&((% idiot and should not sell stuff on eBay anyway. Phhhhhhhh ...
Please folks, before you get over exited, I would consider that there is some panic on PayPals side involved in going for IPO, getting new capital in and expand RAPIDLY before others catch up. PayPal used to be pretty unique and the banks (even if Deutsche Bank was one of the original investors), especially big banking, pretty much stayed away from them. Why did the banks do that? They thought a technology driven company like Paypal (and DigiCash (today known as eCash Technologies), CyberCash(aquired by VeriSign and others), GlobeSET(acquired by Trintech) and many more ...) never posed a threat to the big banks. Then Paypal started to do something you shall not do . Disintermediate the banks. Now the banks think, wow, they are stealing customers from us. So there are various new initiatives on their way. Visa 3-D Secure ( See here), which is _first_ aimed to eliminate consumer fraud but has extensions in the protocol for later P2P use, NACHA has several initiatives on the way: ISAP which is again _first_ an internet payment protocol but will carry into P2P later, Project Action which will aim directly at the eBay Payments of PayPal. So they are afraid. They are afraid for a good reason. They need money to compete (and, according to rumours they are pretty much running out of it). So an IPO is a logical step. Maybe they will even make it in these difficult times ...