These are the sad facts about eugenics and anti-Semitism in the 1930's: they were rampant everywhere.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not saying that WWII was about stamping out Eugenics. I'm saying that WWII was started through the ideals of Eugenics. Of course, I'm oversimplifying many of the factors involved, but it was a driving force.
When one side had enough nukes to destroy the world five times over, the other side had to get enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over.
No, they didn't. All the nukes ever made could never destroy the world even once.
The Soviet Union had numerical superiority in these systems, so the US had to spend $$$ for developing advanced fighters and helicopters in order to take out these Soviet weapons.
The Soviet advantage was overstated on nearly all occasions. They spent themselves dry, but simply couldn't pull together the resources in brainpower and economics as the US had. It was pretty scary at the time, though.
Maybe for a uranium nuclear warhead. But, if you want to get into the big leagues with a plutoninum warhead, then the design is considerably more complex.
Implosion devices are no more complex in theory than gun type devices. In fact, they both work on the same principles. The only difference is how tricky it is to create the proper device. Quite a bit of experimentation is required to get the shape just right.
Note that this implmentation detail is still classified, but it doesn't take much more than a proper nuclear lab to figure it out. That's why Russia had the bomb, and why China now has the bomb.
However, what they are studying is sensitive information that CAN be used to make weapons.
Allow me to introduce you to a simple rock. In of itself, it can be useful for containing a fire inside a ring, crushing nuts to get to the edible part, or grinding flour for bread. However, that same rock can be used to kill something by clobbering it with sufficient force. It can also be used to fashion blades out of wood or other rocks. In fact, that rock is a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
Do you see the difficulty? Anything can become a weapon. That's why a strong military is necessary. Its very existance acts as a deterant. Others are only likely to turn their weapons on you if they feel that they can overpower you. So always be wary of military cutbacks.
Truth be told, the cold war was the last vestige of a long age of war. Remember, WWI was primarily about nobility attempting to maintain power in a modern world, while WWII was about Eugenics and superiority through control of genetics. (Since proven to be absolute garbage.)
The cold war was the same issue: Governments trying to hold onto personal power over others. They got away with it because the system was touted as a modern form of government that was for the people and by the people. And like all such governments, it collapsed in the face of the true ideals of individual freedom. Anyone remember the television show "Dallas"? Who would have thought that it could lead to the fall of communism in Romania?
They've got it backwards! We don't want to restrict American information, we want to export as much of it as possible! We have to make the world a safer place by ensuring that every street corner in the world has a McDonalds and Starbucks! Not to mention Plasma TVs and DVD players so that our current enemies are too busy drooling in front of the television to be worried about such a thing as killing Americans! (Don't laugh, I'm halfway serious.)
To sober up a bit, this is a silly restriction. Nearly all the information you can obtain in higher education can be now found on the Internet. Why bother even trying to restrict it? Besides, competition keeps the world healty. Without it, what desire is there to continue developing new and better technologies? Not to mention the matter of helping our fellow man. India has improved a lot, but my understanding is that there are still plenty of poverty-ridden areas. Many African countries are another good example of this. Why stop them from developing their country? If you want to be effective, close the legal holes in our own country that effectively allow for the import/out-sourcing of slave labor. (e.g. We should open our borders and allow people to legally immigrate in order to work, and then start prosecuting the abuses of the H1-B system.)
There's probably not too much that can be done about out-sourcing (other than ensuring working conditions are required to be to american code), but that doesn't matter quite as much. In a short period of time, the out-sourcing bubble is likely to collapse as companies find that they aren't saving money. Alternatively, foreign wages will rise to a sufficient degree to make such out-sourcing impractical.
Sorry about the American-centered post, but the original story is all about us and our laws. Europeans and other world residents may feel free to chime in with their anecdotes and feelings on the issue.:-)
Did you miss the memo? They've lowered the age on developers to 5 years of service or promotion to senior developer position, whichever comes first. (No, I'm not annoyed by idiot hiring practices that are driving companies into the ground, not at all.)
That's the luxury software developers have that civil engineers don't. Its not exactly possible to go back and fix a mistake you made while building a multi-million dollar bridge.
That's what you think. New structures are found to be unsound all the time, which usually requires that the structure be patched in some form or another.
Take the case of the London Millennium Bridge which suffered from Resonant vibration (a common problem with suspension bridges). It wasn't planned for because it was assumed that such vibrations couldn't happen from mere pedestrian traffic. The solution was to retrofit 37 fluid-viscous dampers and 52 tuned mass dampeners.
In short, don't think that engineering is that much different from software. They're quite similar, to the point of being frightening.
You'd either randomly have one of your cards charged, or you'd have to take the card out of your wallet anyway.
You'd have to take it out. Although if these things caught on, I wouldn't be surprised if you started seeing wallets with flip-through card holders becoming more popular. Another popular device might be a keyring for cards. (Similar to color swatches on a ring.) This would allow you to move only one of the cards in front of the reader quickly and easily.
You should see how creative people get with their electronic door keys. Some people even go as far as to put the one they know they're going to use in their pocket, then swing their hips toward the lock as they walk by. (You have to get pretty close.) It becomes so automatic that they never even stop to think about it.:-)
Unless they increase the power and put on a more sensitive antenna.
What part of "this is not wireless technology" is so f***ing hard for you people to understand? There are no antennas, no radio broadcasts, NOTHING. This works by extending an EM field out a few cms to power the microchip on the card. To power this from a much greater distance (e.g. two feet), you'd need a LOT of power. Of course, that much power would either fry the card or make your hair instantly stand on end. I think you'd notice. (Especially when the Tesla bolts of doom start arcing across thin air.)
Of course, you'd know that if you stopped for ten seconds to pay attention to what's being said. (FYI, sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "La, la, I can't hear you" is very childish.)
Results 1 - 10 of about 17,200,000 for merchant account. (0.07 seconds) You were saying?
I was saying that they're hard to get. Have you ever tried getting a merchant account? It's expensive, and a royal pain in the ass! Not to mention that it is really easy to lose your merchant account. Just because there are variety of carriers (although not as many as it might seem at first) doesn't mean that such accounts are easy to get.
...because criminals NEVER use fake names and addresses, right?
Because merchants are never verified by CC companies, right? And because merchant accounts don't cost $$$ to get set up, right? And because the CC company isn't going to lock out your account as soon as fraudulent transactions start coming through, right?
Secure smartcards cost upwards of $40 each, plus customers will want replacements and support.
Secure SmartCards currently retail for less than $40 in small quantities. (I've seen ~$26.) In large quantities, they can easily drop to $10 or less per card. Not sure where you're getting your info from.
One attacker is at an ATM, collects the challenge data from the ATM, sends it by radio to an accomplice who is near you, relays that data to your card, collects your card's data, returns it to the first attacker, who relays it to the ATM and happily withdraws your money.
1. This isn't radio. I can't stress that enough. The reader has to be held VERY close to the card to induct enough energy to power the card. We're talking a few centimeters. Every have an electronic key card that you can wave in front of the lock? Same thing.
2. If the reader equipment is smart, it will salt every transaction to ensure that a given transmission can't be reused.
So, in the end we still have to trust the merchant not to act fraudulently because they probably wouldn't get away with it.
Hardly. Have you ever gotten a merchant account? They are not easy to come by. The costs of setting it up would easily outweigh how much you can steal before they shut you down. And if you try to operate it semi-legitimately, be aware that chargebacks are shouldered by the merchant, not by the CC company.
Wireless devices always work over longer distances than advertised.
This isn't wireless. It's induction. You know those electronic key badges/fobs that you can hold up to a door to unlock it? Same type of technology. Notice how close they have to be for the reader to read the key. That's how close an attacker has to get his reader to your ass.
My only real beef is that crypto hashing takes cpu power, and I'll get warm, and I'll have to slap on a tiny heatsink in the hotter countries.
Heh. No, it's not likely to get very warm. For one thing, these chips are specially designed for cryptography. Which means it takes a LOT less horsepower to do the same amount of work as a general purpose processor. For another, they're only going to be activated for very short periods of time, so any heat that's generated won't have time to build up.
All these negatives on slashdot, and none of the posts has convinced me why this is less secure than a credit card, which has numbers printed on the front and nobody checks the signature.
Agreed. Despite the submitter setting off the "Slashdot Group Think Phenomemnon(TM)", I think this design is probably very secure and may be a good solution for the future.
Of course, I get a kick out of the fact that people around here think that you're NOT going to notice some weird guy holding a contactless card reader to your ass for 3-5 seconds. (rolls eyes)
The shady guy standing next to you in line (or the cashier who double-swipes) doesn't care about legal charges now. Why would he care in this future where he can steal your card wirelessly?
Because they can't steal the card wirelessly. All they can do is attempt a transaction by placing a reader close to your behind. (Or wherever you keep your cards.)
And that transaction is useless unless they can submit it to the credit card company. You need a merchant account to do that. And a merchant account is not easy to get. Even if you do get one, the CC company will have all the info they need to track it back to you. Thus you'd have to use someone else's merchant account. But since the money from that account goes directly to the merchant (which will then be charged back by the CC company after the theft anyway), you'd have to steal from the merchant. Which means that it would have been easier to just steal the money in the first place.
Minor nitpick: SmartCards have been around since the 1970s. The hardware has been upgraded several times since then, but most of it is pretty well tested. Europe apparently uses them exclusively for credit cards, phone cards, and identification devices.
The encryption itself isn't the threat, it's the "what if someone breaks the encryption and walks around times square on a friday night with a card reader?" thing.
If every bank card or credit card turned into one of these remotely readable cards, and that happened, we'd all be in a world of shit.
Doubtful. The credit card transaction has to be submitted somehow. Perhaps through a registered merchant account? Those aren't that easy to come by...
No.. but it may as well be. If you can have a transaction that requires no contact and no signature what's to stop someone from doing the same without your knowledge?
Because the transaction has to be submitted through an authorized merchant account, which is carefully investigated before being handed out. Think about it.
How does the card know that it's owner approves of a particular transaction?
Presumably, the actual transaction still has to be sent to the server. The card identifies itself and/or cryptographically approves the transaction, then the results are sent to the CC server via a merchant account. Using your merchant account fraudulantly would not only get your account revoked, but would most likely result in legal charges from the CC company.
Slashdot Mirror
These are the sad facts about eugenics and anti-Semitism in the 1930's: they were rampant everywhere.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not saying that WWII was about stamping out Eugenics. I'm saying that WWII was started through the ideals of Eugenics. Of course, I'm oversimplifying many of the factors involved, but it was a driving force.
When one side had enough nukes to destroy the world five times over, the other side had to get enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over.
No, they didn't. All the nukes ever made could never destroy the world even once.
The Soviet Union had numerical superiority in these systems, so the US had to spend $$$ for developing advanced fighters and helicopters in order to take out these Soviet weapons.
The Soviet advantage was overstated on nearly all occasions. They spent themselves dry, but simply couldn't pull together the resources in brainpower and economics as the US had. It was pretty scary at the time, though.
Maybe for a uranium nuclear warhead. But, if you want to get into the big leagues with a plutoninum warhead, then the design is considerably more complex.
Implosion devices are no more complex in theory than gun type devices. In fact, they both work on the same principles. The only difference is how tricky it is to create the proper device. Quite a bit of experimentation is required to get the shape just right.
Note that this implmentation detail is still classified, but it doesn't take much more than a proper nuclear lab to figure it out. That's why Russia had the bomb, and why China now has the bomb.
However, what they are studying is sensitive information that CAN be used to make weapons.
Allow me to introduce you to a simple rock. In of itself, it can be useful for containing a fire inside a ring, crushing nuts to get to the edible part, or grinding flour for bread. However, that same rock can be used to kill something by clobbering it with sufficient force. It can also be used to fashion blades out of wood or other rocks. In fact, that rock is a very dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
Do you see the difficulty? Anything can become a weapon. That's why a strong military is necessary. Its very existance acts as a deterant. Others are only likely to turn their weapons on you if they feel that they can overpower you. So always be wary of military cutbacks.
That's all, carry on.
Well, that explains how I went from +4 to +3 without getting modded down. I was rubbing my eyes at that for a second. :-)
Yeah, competition in the realms of nuclear testing and missiles will give it that healthy, glowing complexion free of humans it's wanted for years.
Or it could lead to better nuclear technology, including nuclear engines and space travel.
Truth be told, the cold war was the last vestige of a long age of war. Remember, WWI was primarily about nobility attempting to maintain power in a modern world, while WWII was about Eugenics and superiority through control of genetics. (Since proven to be absolute garbage.)
The cold war was the same issue: Governments trying to hold onto personal power over others. They got away with it because the system was touted as a modern form of government that was for the people and by the people. And like all such governments, it collapsed in the face of the true ideals of individual freedom. Anyone remember the television show "Dallas"? Who would have thought that it could lead to the fall of communism in Romania?
They've got it backwards! We don't want to restrict American information, we want to export as much of it as possible! We have to make the world a safer place by ensuring that every street corner in the world has a McDonalds and Starbucks! Not to mention Plasma TVs and DVD players so that our current enemies are too busy drooling in front of the television to be worried about such a thing as killing Americans! (Don't laugh, I'm halfway serious.)
:-)
To sober up a bit, this is a silly restriction. Nearly all the information you can obtain in higher education can be now found on the Internet. Why bother even trying to restrict it? Besides, competition keeps the world healty. Without it, what desire is there to continue developing new and better technologies? Not to mention the matter of helping our fellow man. India has improved a lot, but my understanding is that there are still plenty of poverty-ridden areas. Many African countries are another good example of this. Why stop them from developing their country? If you want to be effective, close the legal holes in our own country that effectively allow for the import/out-sourcing of slave labor. (e.g. We should open our borders and allow people to legally immigrate in order to work, and then start prosecuting the abuses of the H1-B system.)
There's probably not too much that can be done about out-sourcing (other than ensuring working conditions are required to be to american code), but that doesn't matter quite as much. In a short period of time, the out-sourcing bubble is likely to collapse as companies find that they aren't saving money. Alternatively, foreign wages will rise to a sufficient degree to make such out-sourcing impractical.
Sorry about the American-centered post, but the original story is all about us and our laws. Europeans and other world residents may feel free to chime in with their anecdotes and feelings on the issue.
Did you miss the memo? They've lowered the age on developers to 5 years of service or promotion to senior developer position, whichever comes first. (No, I'm not annoyed by idiot hiring practices that are driving companies into the ground, not at all.)
Riiiggght. You try setting up one of those and tell us if it was as cheap and easy as you're claiming. You might be in for a rude surprise.
That's the luxury software developers have that civil engineers don't. Its not exactly possible to go back and fix a mistake you made while building a multi-million dollar bridge.
That's what you think. New structures are found to be unsound all the time, which usually requires that the structure be patched in some form or another.
Take the case of the London Millennium Bridge which suffered from Resonant vibration (a common problem with suspension bridges). It wasn't planned for because it was assumed that such vibrations couldn't happen from mere pedestrian traffic. The solution was to retrofit 37 fluid-viscous dampers and 52 tuned mass dampeners.
In short, don't think that engineering is that much different from software. They're quite similar, to the point of being frightening.
You'd either randomly have one of your cards charged, or you'd have to take the card out of your wallet anyway.
:-)
You'd have to take it out. Although if these things caught on, I wouldn't be surprised if you started seeing wallets with flip-through card holders becoming more popular. Another popular device might be a keyring for cards. (Similar to color swatches on a ring.) This would allow you to move only one of the cards in front of the reader quickly and easily.
You should see how creative people get with their electronic door keys. Some people even go as far as to put the one they know they're going to use in their pocket, then swing their hips toward the lock as they walk by. (You have to get pretty close.) It becomes so automatic that they never even stop to think about it.
Unless they increase the power and put on a more sensitive antenna.
What part of "this is not wireless technology" is so f***ing hard for you people to understand? There are no antennas, no radio broadcasts, NOTHING. This works by extending an EM field out a few cms to power the microchip on the card. To power this from a much greater distance (e.g. two feet), you'd need a LOT of power. Of course, that much power would either fry the card or make your hair instantly stand on end. I think you'd notice. (Especially when the Tesla bolts of doom start arcing across thin air.)
Of course, you'd know that if you stopped for ten seconds to pay attention to what's being said. (FYI, sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "La, la, I can't hear you" is very childish.)
Results 1 - 10 of about 17,200,000 for merchant account. (0.07 seconds)
...because criminals NEVER use fake names and addresses, right?
You were saying?
I was saying that they're hard to get. Have you ever tried getting a merchant account? It's expensive, and a royal pain in the ass! Not to mention that it is really easy to lose your merchant account. Just because there are variety of carriers (although not as many as it might seem at first) doesn't mean that such accounts are easy to get.
Because merchants are never verified by CC companies, right? And because merchant accounts don't cost $$$ to get set up, right? And because the CC company isn't going to lock out your account as soon as fraudulent transactions start coming through, right?
Geez, people. Pull your heads out.
Secure smartcards cost upwards of $40 each, plus customers will want replacements and support.
Secure SmartCards currently retail for less than $40 in small quantities. (I've seen ~$26.) In large quantities, they can easily drop to $10 or less per card. Not sure where you're getting your info from.
Ah, ok. The way you stated it just sounded weird, as if you were trying to provide new information. :-)
One attacker is at an ATM, collects the challenge data from the ATM, sends it by radio to an accomplice who is near you, relays that data to your card, collects your card's data, returns it to the first attacker, who relays it to the ATM and happily withdraws your money.
1. This isn't radio. I can't stress that enough. The reader has to be held VERY close to the card to induct enough energy to power the card. We're talking a few centimeters. Every have an electronic key card that you can wave in front of the lock? Same thing.
2. If the reader equipment is smart, it will salt every transaction to ensure that a given transmission can't be reused.
So, in the end we still have to trust the merchant not to act fraudulently because they probably wouldn't get away with it.
Hardly. Have you ever gotten a merchant account? They are not easy to come by. The costs of setting it up would easily outweigh how much you can steal before they shut you down. And if you try to operate it semi-legitimately, be aware that chargebacks are shouldered by the merchant, not by the CC company.
Wireless devices always work over longer distances than advertised.
This isn't wireless. It's induction. You know those electronic key badges/fobs that you can hold up to a door to unlock it? Same type of technology. Notice how close they have to be for the reader to read the key. That's how close an attacker has to get his reader to your ass.
My only real beef is that crypto hashing takes cpu power, and I'll get warm, and I'll have to slap on a tiny heatsink in the hotter countries.
Heh. No, it's not likely to get very warm. For one thing, these chips are specially designed for cryptography. Which means it takes a LOT less horsepower to do the same amount of work as a general purpose processor. For another, they're only going to be activated for very short periods of time, so any heat that's generated won't have time to build up.
All these negatives on slashdot, and none of the posts has convinced me why this is less secure than a credit card, which has numbers printed on the front and nobody checks the signature.
Agreed. Despite the submitter setting off the "Slashdot Group Think Phenomemnon(TM)", I think this design is probably very secure and may be a good solution for the future.
Of course, I get a kick out of the fact that people around here think that you're NOT going to notice some weird guy holding a contactless card reader to your ass for 3-5 seconds. (rolls eyes)
The shady guy standing next to you in line (or the cashier who double-swipes) doesn't care about legal charges now. Why would he care in this future where he can steal your card wirelessly?
Because they can't steal the card wirelessly. All they can do is attempt a transaction by placing a reader close to your behind. (Or wherever you keep your cards.)
And that transaction is useless unless they can submit it to the credit card company. You need a merchant account to do that. And a merchant account is not easy to get. Even if you do get one, the CC company will have all the info they need to track it back to you. Thus you'd have to use someone else's merchant account. But since the money from that account goes directly to the merchant (which will then be charged back by the CC company after the theft anyway), you'd have to steal from the merchant. Which means that it would have been easier to just steal the money in the first place.
Minor nitpick: SmartCards have been around since the 1970s. The hardware has been upgraded several times since then, but most of it is pretty well tested. Europe apparently uses them exclusively for credit cards, phone cards, and identification devices.
:-)
Other than that, right on.
who said they are using this??
Nobody. But it's pretty standard for smartcards.
The encryption itself isn't the threat, it's the "what if someone breaks the encryption and walks around times square on a friday night with a card reader?" thing.
If every bank card or credit card turned into one of these remotely readable cards, and that happened, we'd all be in a world of shit.
Doubtful. The credit card transaction has to be submitted somehow. Perhaps through a registered merchant account? Those aren't that easy to come by...
No.. but it may as well be. If you can have a transaction that requires no contact and no signature what's to stop someone from doing the same without your knowledge?
Because the transaction has to be submitted through an authorized merchant account, which is carefully investigated before being handed out. Think about it.
Do you work for/with Chase? If so, maybe you can help us out on a few things?
1. Is this an induction communications device, or an RF transciever?
2. Does it actually use an encryption chip to secure transmissions?
3. If so, wouldn't it basically be the same thing as a contactless or RF smartcard?
How does the card know that it's owner approves of a particular transaction?
Presumably, the actual transaction still has to be sent to the server. The card identifies itself and/or cryptographically approves the transaction, then the results are sent to the CC server via a merchant account. Using your merchant account fraudulantly would not only get your account revoked, but would most likely result in legal charges from the CC company.
How does 2048 bit RSA on a SecurCore ARM processor sound? Sounds good to me.