Does anyone else think "anticryptography" just sounds like a technobabbly buzzword, pretentiously constructed to sell books*?
How about "self-describing data"?
*Notice the submission came from O'Reilly, who sells books, and the article is by Brian McConnell, the author of a book that is conveniently for sale, just "one click" away . ..
Besides, [Daniel Clements, president of Ad Cops] adds: "This stuff is already floating around on the Internet anyway," and savvy thieves know where and how to find it.
Translation: only a seriously defective mind would actually pay us $99 for this rubbish.
Re:This is part of our destiny.
on
Solar Sails
·
· Score: 2
Besides, Einstein did not prove that travel faster than light was impossible. He merely proved that travel *at* the speed of light was impossible.
It wasn't necessary to prove anything beyond that. An object can't travel at a given speed without first accelerating to that speed (quantum mechanics aside; we're talking about spaceships here).
It seems to me that ISP's are becoming redundant. They have an almost 19th century business model, one based on dominating a segment of the market. Well, that kind of thinking doesn't work on the interent, and it is the reason why the biggies - AOL for example - will eventually collapse.
The model is actually a few thousand years older than that, and is just as effective today as ever. And, sorry to say, AOL is not anywhere near "collapse" . . . like it or not, they're still fantastically successful.
I forsee that when broadband comes, the telecoms companies will be in the most powerful position.
They already are. The ISPs are just (necessary) middlemen.
With broadband and more powerful computers, there is no reason why the average users computer cannot connect to the internet directly, and bypass the ISP model entirely.
Mail servers, DNS servers, address blocks, and about 400 other reasons come to mind.
ISP's, with their ridiculous dreams of providing direct media content and products, will die and be replaced by a devolved and more democratic network.
On one side, there are a lot of ISPs that offer low rates and no content. On the other side, a lot of people want the content offered by companies such as AOL.
Communicative equality in America, land of free and equal speech, could be reborn through the arrival of P2P, IMHO.
Nice sentiment, I suppose, but comletely unrealistic. Not to mention that the P2P concept has nothing to do with Internet connection service.
it's obvious that the US Patent Office just hands them out like Everlasting Gobstoppers at the Willy Wonka factory
As I recall, Everlasting Gobstoppers were treated as a corporate secret, worth many thousands of dollars to competitor Slugworth, and the factory handed out only five.
If the patent office treated patents like that, we'd be in good shape.
Lawyers would not have to be in Michigan or even be licensed to practice in the state.
Not requiring a license to practice in Michigan is shady. So would the lawyer only need to be licensed in the state where the "pajamas and sticky-bun" reside, or what?
Also, what's with the pretentious"I haven't chosen a location for a start-up lately" crap in the post? The multitude of start-ups that you have started were before the fall of the Nasdaq? I mean, gimme a freakin' break!
Alternatively, what if we are aware of the carrier, but not aware that anything is encoded in it? The sound of a modem is hiss (one would guess noise if one didn't know otherwise), but it's actually full of Slashdot and pr0n. "They" could be using encoding we can't imagine (for example, 1 bit every 400 years may make sense to "them").
Yeah, if you're interested in quality, DAT is definitely the way to go. Not the most portable, but superior to CD for quality.
As for the inconvenient-copying problem: I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were software available that can bulk-dump CD and/or WAV audio to a DAT tape high-speed via a backup deck (many of those use DAT tape as well). Still never going to match the time requred to burn a CD, though.
If the eavesdropper, for example, had a secret way to decode the message saying "start" and it took a minute to do the calculation needed to decode it, it would be too late by the time the eavesdropper got going. The sender and recipient would already have their string of numbers and that string of numbers, once broadcast, could never be retrieved. It would be infeasible to store the endless string of numbers in any computer and so they are essentially gone forever.
It sounded pretty cool, right up until the end of that paragraph. Why is it infeasible to store the number stream along with timestamps, and when you decrypt the "start" message, just go back to the proper point in your stream? Even if you missed it by 10 or 1000 places, it's then just a matter of trying different keys until one makes sense.
Very good point, too. Now that you mention it, there are many games that can be replayed a huge variety of ways because of cheats (Goldeneye comes to mind).
1) Plot v. Action: Depends totally on the game. If it's a game where you need to "figure stuff out" (e.g. Myst) then plot is a necessity. If it's a shooter, plot is OK, but please, please let me skip the cinematics if I want to.
2) Cheats: If you have to have them to make the game worthwhile, it's a badly designed game. I view cheats primarily as a way to jump in and start really playing a game without investing the (often copious) time required to get good. Beating a game without cheating provides a sense of accomplishment; cheating trades that feeling for saved time.
They always like to have professionals to do work like this, because, rightly or wrongly, they want someone who can be held responsible for anything that goes wrong.
Very true. They also want people who can be there full-time, who won't have to go to class in the middle of a "network down" fire, and who most likely will be there more than a semester or two.
Student work is great practice seeing a real network in action. If you want to run the network, don't talk to your university's student employment office, talk to the HR department.
If you're working part-time with all the laxity and lack of accountability that comes as a benefit of being a student, don't expect a great deal of respect from the experienced full-timers. You can't have both, unless you're willing to make the job Priority #1 and be a student only part-time (or night school).
Is it possible to
implement a solution built on top of MySQL or Postgres, or something else that might scale well?
Even better: why not implement it with a truly open, generic SQL interface (with options for hand-tailored optimizations) so you could use anything as a backend? This way, users of this software could involve the DB backend they already have (commercial or otherwise). Scalability then becomes an external issue, if the interface is strong and generic.
OK, so maybe that was a little too dry. Lemme try again:
Imagine, in this day and age, some poor grad student still has to build a major project in assembly language;););););). What are they using, a PDP-11;););););)?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but I've gotta say the "ad karma" idea is exceptionally bad. The only way I'm going to spend my time rating your banner ads is if you:
Science/genetics = a species improving itself over time, to better fit a changing environment
The mechanism is different, and the time period is shorter, but "survival of the fittest" doesn't exactly apply to the human race these days either.
Sadly, I think the anti-MS propaganda is the only thing that makes this post slashdot-worthy. C'mon Hemos, what gives?!
You find yourself surrounded by a mysterious blue cloud. You are unable to move.
How about "self-describing data"?
*Notice the submission came from O'Reilly, who sells books, and the article is by Brian McConnell, the author of a book that is conveniently for sale, just "one click" away . . .
Translation: only a seriously defective mind would actually pay us $99 for this rubbish.
It wasn't necessary to prove anything beyond that. An object can't travel at a given speed without first accelerating to that speed (quantum mechanics aside; we're talking about spaceships here).
The model is actually a few thousand years older than that, and is just as effective today as ever. And, sorry to say, AOL is not anywhere near "collapse" . . . like it or not, they're still fantastically successful.
I forsee that when broadband comes, the telecoms companies will be in the most powerful position.
They already are. The ISPs are just (necessary) middlemen.
With broadband and more powerful computers, there is no reason why the average users computer cannot connect to the internet directly, and bypass the ISP model entirely.
Mail servers, DNS servers, address blocks, and about 400 other reasons come to mind.
ISP's, with their ridiculous dreams of providing direct media content and products, will die and be replaced by a devolved and more democratic network.
On one side, there are a lot of ISPs that offer low rates and no content. On the other side, a lot of people want the content offered by companies such as AOL.
Communicative equality in America, land of free and equal speech, could be reborn through the arrival of P2P, IMHO.
Nice sentiment, I suppose, but comletely unrealistic. Not to mention that the P2P concept has nothing to do with Internet connection service.
"not white" != "black"
Not to mention the poor, exploited oompa loompas . . .
As I recall, Everlasting Gobstoppers were treated as a corporate secret, worth many thousands of dollars to competitor Slugworth, and the factory handed out only five.
If the patent office treated patents like that, we'd be in good shape.
Not requiring a license to practice in Michigan is shady. So would the lawyer only need to be licensed in the state where the "pajamas and sticky-bun" reside, or what?
Also, what's with the pretentious"I haven't chosen a location for a start-up lately" crap in the post? The multitude of start-ups that you have started were before the fall of the Nasdaq? I mean, gimme a freakin' break!
Alternatively, what if we are aware of the carrier, but not aware that anything is encoded in it? The sound of a modem is hiss (one would guess noise if one didn't know otherwise), but it's actually full of Slashdot and pr0n. "They" could be using encoding we can't imagine (for example, 1 bit every 400 years may make sense to "them").
"$35 for Frampton Comes Alive?!"
"Well, you know, there's royalties, shipping costs, media costs, etc. etc.
As for the inconvenient-copying problem: I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be suprised at all if there were software available that can bulk-dump CD and/or WAV audio to a DAT tape high-speed via a backup deck (many of those use DAT tape as well). Still never going to match the time requred to burn a CD, though.
Then again, if I hadn't posted to this thread, your post wouldn't be there to moderate.
It sounded pretty cool, right up until the end of that paragraph. Why is it infeasible to store the number stream along with timestamps, and when you decrypt the "start" message, just go back to the proper point in your stream? Even if you missed it by 10 or 1000 places, it's then just a matter of trying different keys until one makes sense.
Very good point, too. Now that you mention it, there are many games that can be replayed a huge variety of ways because of cheats (Goldeneye comes to mind).
1) Plot v. Action: Depends totally on the game. If it's a game where you need to "figure stuff out" (e.g. Myst) then plot is a necessity. If it's a shooter, plot is OK, but please, please let me skip the cinematics if I want to.
2) Cheats: If you have to have them to make the game worthwhile, it's a badly designed game. I view cheats primarily as a way to jump in and start really playing a game without investing the (often copious) time required to get good. Beating a game without cheating provides a sense of accomplishment; cheating trades that feeling for saved time.
Very true. They also want people who can be there full-time, who won't have to go to class in the middle of a "network down" fire, and who most likely will be there more than a semester or two.
Student work is great practice seeing a real network in action. If you want to run the network, don't talk to your university's student employment office, talk to the HR department.
If you're working part-time with all the laxity and lack of accountability that comes as a benefit of being a student, don't expect a great deal of respect from the experienced full-timers. You can't have both, unless you're willing to make the job Priority #1 and be a student only part-time (or night school).
Scientist 1 to Scientist 2: Stop hogging Lunar Lander! You got past level 1, now I want to play!
Think early Playstation 1 games vs. Nintendo 64. N64 uses much more antialiasing, resulting in a smoother (blurred?) look.
Yeah, what else would people become overzealous about on Slashdot?!
Even better: why not implement it with a truly open, generic SQL interface (with options for hand-tailored optimizations) so you could use anything as a backend? This way, users of this software could involve the DB backend they already have (commercial or otherwise). Scalability then becomes an external issue, if the interface is strong and generic.
Imagine, in this day and age, some poor grad student still has to build a major project in assembly language ;) ;) ;) ;) ;). What are they using, a PDP-11 ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)?