Of course, that supposes you're compiling the compiler with an untrusted binary (else, the trojan code would be found in the source code; that means the binary wasn't compiled from the same source you're reading.) However, if you could somehow trust the binary, you could compile your source with the trusted binary, and then trust what you just compiled.
Or, just compile one compiler with another. That sort of trojan wouldn't store excerpts of code from *all* compilers out there, would it? (If you think so, *WATCH OUT* THE CIA IS AFTER YOU, THERE'S A CAMERA INSIDE YOUR SCREEN!!)
It surprises me how rugged hard drives must be when used in such appliances. Grab an ordinary hard drive, bump it around a little bit, do a surface scan and you'll be surprised at how many bad sectors were created in the process. I'd still rely on solid-state or optical storage, albeit solid-state is too expensive and too small.
By the time prices for DVD burners have leveled, surely DVD-R(W) will be a better choice -- expect that to happen at least a year and a half from now, however.
What will happen to Glide now? With nVidia's excellent driver team, they could release a Glide wrapper a week after getting their hands on specs. I know Glide is mostly useless today, but still there are people out there using UltraHLE.
Iridium can be rescued, but it won't work.
on
Iridium Saved?
·
· Score: 1
Let's suppose for a moment that Iridium really gets bought out, and operation is resumed. Will it work? No.
Iridium's design is flawed by nature, and instead of maturing their product before launching, they just threw a bunch of money on dozens of satellites, and relayed this cost to the users of the service -- how does it cost anyway? US$ 10 a minute, I've heard? Unless you're climbing the Everest or something like that, plain old cell phones will cover most of the locations you'll need, with a smaller cost, plus you're not required to carry along the "mobile" unit -- if you can regard that as mobile, even my SC-750A case could!
We are down to only a few cellular standards, and as long as one or two out of these standards is chosen (which is far beyond utopic, but hope springs eternal), dual-mode cell phones (supporting say GSM and CDMA 3G) were manufactured, and companies launched calling card-like plans, most Iridium users' needs would be fullfiled -- plus you won't pay as much while carrying a single phone.
I can't stress enough how utopic this is -- but then again, so was Iridium.
As long as it wouldn't cost a lot, keeping Mir in space is a nice idea. It could be used as some sort of "safeguard" in case of failures in the building process of the ISS, for instance. Unless it has deteriorated so much it's getting unsafe for a crew to stay inside it (a possibility I don't discard completely.)
While reading the "Intro to Cryptography" document included with PGP, its concept of PKI made much more sense to me (the "Web of Trust" model.) Of course, within a company (that is, if all certificates are created and kept inside the company) most likely X.509 and Web of Trust are equally useful. The decision, then, falls outside the security realm and into cost and implementation concerns.
I read in some (p)reviews that PowerNow can be disabled through the included software... Whether that means the feature is hardware-disabled or that it's software controlled and the software itself is disabled, I can't comment on.
Adding up to the limitation of liability issue, there's the fact that the government wants to shut down bug tracking services. So, the companies are not required to fix the bugs; supposing they were willing to write fixes, you are forbidden to report the bug. Relying on Microsoft, for instance, to figure the (millions of) bugs in their software is suicide.
Isn't it worth to put some money into a computer instead? Let's look at some of the advantages:
-upgradeability
-tweaking (isn't overclocking fun?)
-possibility of updating the game, or installing expansion paks
-game mods (as in Q3A)
-a monitor is way better than a TV in terms of quality
-functionality other than playing games and watching DVDs
-most importantly: you can't run Linux on a PS II!!! (yet)
I guess this topic will just start another flame war on the console vs. PC discussion. *sigh* Anyway, just felt like voicing my opinion.
The US government has no interest in its citizens (and pretty much everyone else in the world) using hi-grade data encryption. The NSA, the Skipjack algorithm, the Clipper chip, lawful key escrow requirements, the PGP trials... For instance, CDMA's "encryption" scheme is an RFI-minded (as opposed to security-minded) 42-bit stream cipher, whose keys are exchanged through insecure channels. Still, I've been told by engineers that the system is "pretty much unbreakable". Yeah right. But who'll implement public-key cryptography in wireless communication when there's government pressure to allow them to listen to your (supposedly private) conversations?
Apart from the NSA itself, which employs very good cryptologists (and probably a couple of Deep Crack machines... or is it a couple hundred?), the infrastructure for intercepting communications is there (*cough* Digital Telephony bill *cough*). Perhaps the plot from "Enemy of the State" isn't too absurd after all.
Yeah, net users being geeks with no life outside the 'net is a myth (and a big one), but it would be taken down sooner or later. But there are other net-related myths apart from that. For example, the fact that you lose your privacy and is tracked while online (kudos to doubleclick.net for the help here) or that it is insecure to shop with credit cards or do online banking. My God, this thing gives me the creeps! Most people I talk to IRL fear typing their credit card number in a form which will be sent through a 128-bit secure channel (and probably will never be seen by a human, as all processing is done electronically), but isn't afraid to shop by phone and voice their number loud and clear while some guy who might be tapping their phone, or using another wireless phone is listening to the conversation, or perhaps the phone shop employee grabbed a pen and a notepad and is taking notes of your info. I'd say the cryptography awareness issue is just as important for an e-commerce boom as not being seen as a lifeless geek by the rest of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, that supposes you're compiling the compiler with an untrusted binary (else, the trojan code would be found in the source code; that means the binary wasn't compiled from the same source you're reading.) However, if you could somehow trust the binary, you could compile your source with the trusted binary, and then trust what you just compiled.
Or, just compile one compiler with another. That sort of trojan wouldn't store excerpts of code from *all* compilers out there, would it? (If you think so, *WATCH OUT* THE CIA IS AFTER YOU, THERE'S A CAMERA INSIDE YOUR SCREEN!!)
It surprises me how rugged hard drives must be when used in such appliances. Grab an ordinary hard drive, bump it around a little bit, do a surface scan and you'll be surprised at how many bad sectors were created in the process. I'd still rely on solid-state or optical storage, albeit solid-state is too expensive and too small.
By the time prices for DVD burners have leveled, surely DVD-R(W) will be a better choice -- expect that to happen at least a year and a half from now, however.
GIF's compression (LZW) is already patented actually. Unisys had even been trying to enforce it.
What will happen to Glide now? With nVidia's excellent driver team, they could release a Glide wrapper a week after getting their hands on specs. I know Glide is mostly useless today, but still there are people out there using UltraHLE.
Let's suppose for a moment that Iridium really gets bought out, and operation is resumed. Will it work? No.
Iridium's design is flawed by nature, and instead of maturing their product before launching, they just threw a bunch of money on dozens of satellites, and relayed this cost to the users of the service -- how does it cost anyway? US$ 10 a minute, I've heard? Unless you're climbing the Everest or something like that, plain old cell phones will cover most of the locations you'll need, with a smaller cost, plus you're not required to carry along the "mobile" unit -- if you can regard that as mobile, even my SC-750A case could!
We are down to only a few cellular standards, and as long as one or two out of these standards is chosen (which is far beyond utopic, but hope springs eternal), dual-mode cell phones (supporting say GSM and CDMA 3G) were manufactured, and companies launched calling card-like plans, most Iridium users' needs would be fullfiled -- plus you won't pay as much while carrying a single phone.
I can't stress enough how utopic this is -- but then again, so was Iridium.
As long as it wouldn't cost a lot, keeping Mir in space is a nice idea. It could be used as some sort of "safeguard" in case of failures in the building process of the ISS, for instance. Unless it has deteriorated so much it's getting unsafe for a crew to stay inside it (a possibility I don't discard completely.)
While reading the "Intro to Cryptography" document included with PGP, its concept of PKI made much more sense to me (the "Web of Trust" model.) Of course, within a company (that is, if all certificates are created and kept inside the company) most likely X.509 and Web of Trust are equally useful. The decision, then, falls outside the security realm and into cost and implementation concerns.
I read in some (p)reviews that PowerNow can be disabled through the included software... Whether that means the feature is hardware-disabled or that it's software controlled and the software itself is disabled, I can't comment on.
Adding up to the limitation of liability issue, there's the fact that the government wants to shut down bug tracking services. So, the companies are not required to fix the bugs; supposing they were willing to write fixes, you are forbidden to report the bug. Relying on Microsoft, for instance, to figure the (millions of) bugs in their software is suicide.
Isn't it worth to put some money into a computer instead? Let's look at some of the advantages:
-upgradeability
-tweaking (isn't overclocking fun?)
-possibility of updating the game, or installing expansion paks
-game mods (as in Q3A)
-a monitor is way better than a TV in terms of quality
-functionality other than playing games and watching DVDs
-most importantly: you can't run Linux on a PS II!!! (yet)
I guess this topic will just start another flame war on the console vs. PC discussion. *sigh* Anyway, just felt like voicing my opinion.
The US government has no interest in its citizens (and pretty much everyone else in the world) using hi-grade data encryption. The NSA, the Skipjack algorithm, the Clipper chip, lawful key escrow requirements, the PGP trials... For instance, CDMA's "encryption" scheme is an RFI-minded (as opposed to security-minded) 42-bit stream cipher, whose keys are exchanged through insecure channels. Still, I've been told by engineers that the system is "pretty much unbreakable". Yeah right. But who'll implement public-key cryptography in wireless communication when there's government pressure to allow them to listen to your (supposedly private) conversations?
Apart from the NSA itself, which employs very good cryptologists (and probably a couple of Deep Crack machines... or is it a couple hundred?), the infrastructure for intercepting communications is there (*cough* Digital Telephony bill *cough*). Perhaps the plot from "Enemy of the State" isn't too absurd after all.
Yeah, net users being geeks with no life outside the 'net is a myth (and a big one), but it would be taken down sooner or later. But there are other net-related myths apart from that. For example, the fact that you lose your privacy and is tracked while online (kudos to doubleclick.net for the help here) or that it is insecure to shop with credit cards or do online banking. My God, this thing gives me the creeps! Most people I talk to IRL fear typing their credit card number in a form which will be sent through a 128-bit secure channel (and probably will never be seen by a human, as all processing is done electronically), but isn't afraid to shop by phone and voice their number loud and clear while some guy who might be tapping their phone, or using another wireless phone is listening to the conversation, or perhaps the phone shop employee grabbed a pen and a notepad and is taking notes of your info. I'd say the cryptography awareness issue is just as important for an e-commerce boom as not being seen as a lifeless geek by the rest of the world.
----------