Slashdot Mirror


User: hughk

hughk's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2,568
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2,568

  1. Re:Please someone stop this. on "No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester · · Score: 1

    If they are viewing naked kiddies then authorisation doesn't enter into it - but as private premises, a cop would need a warrant to access a locked area.

  2. Re:Really? on "No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester · · Score: 1

    You forgot to factor in the cost of the not particularly useful scanners, extra operating staff and time to scan.

  3. Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow on "No Scan, No Fly" At Heathrow and Manchester · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Regrettably, I'm only one person, and it won't make any difference.

    No, you are not the only one. Fewer and fewer people are flying and it isn't just the financial crisis. I'm lucky enough to live in Germany with its 300Km/h trains, which for journeys of 3-4 hours is now offering real competition. Flying itself can be faster but if you add-on weather uncertainties and all the queuing/waiting for security scans as well as the issues over lost baggage - I'ld just rather take the train.

    Unfortunately the UK is an island so going to most places is more difficult (but Paris and Brussels remain quite reachable).

  4. Re:5GHz won't be easy on Has 2.4 GHz Reached Maximum Capacity? · · Score: 1

    A lot of people do live in the big city in apartment complexes rather than the burbs with space for nice little houses spaced out with a good 50 yards between them. What s the godsend with apartment complexes is there is usually some reinforced concrete at least in the core and between floors (the rebar will absorb some signal).

  5. Re:Which corporations does Le Guin mean? on Ursula Le Guin's Petition Against Google Books · · Score: 1

    It's not reasonable because it places an enormous burden on the rights holder to police the use of his creation, and every time something slips by him, you're effectively saying that it was legal.

    That is how copyright works. If someone rips off your work and publishes it in India, you may not know about it unless someone tells you. You can then send your C&D and the publisher may withdraw it as India is relatively compliant. China may be another issue. It mqay sound unfair but that is how copyright has always been - a civil offence.

  6. Re:Weapon? on Using EMP To Punch Holes In Steel · · Score: 1

    Funnily enough someone came out with this little toy. Not exactly a killing machine but not bad. There are several others too.

    Portable Railguns are more difficult due to the need for sustained power, but it is fairly trivial to make a charging circuit and use capacitors to provide the field. So, why doesn't someone take this and up its power with a backpack or something into a real killing machines - well something that currently a small explosive charge to accelerate a projectile can do much better.

  7. Re:Weapon? on Using EMP To Punch Holes In Steel · · Score: 1

    A standard inductive hob unit in a domestic kitchen can pump out a KW or two - but you pass a hand over it without problems - thats if you could defeat the safeties. If you move a pot away, the unit switches off instantly - pretty useful in case you move your hand with a watch or ring over it.

  8. Re:What if EMP leaks out of the factory? on Using EMP To Punch Holes In Steel · · Score: 2, Informative

    Third rails are about 750V with lots of amps but animal fences are like 10KV with almost no current. The third rail is a lot more dangerous but the urine path is high resistance.

    As someone said, its volts that jolts but mills (as in mA) that kills!

  9. Re:I want multithreading! on Firefox 3.7 Dropped In Favor of Feature Updates · · Score: 1

    Too right! If you want to multitask and a poor website/plugin combo is hurting you, it can get really annoying.

    I know about the project to change the add-on model (Jetpack) but simply limiting the interface may compromise functionality and I would rather have something like what you mention.

  10. Re:Code in high-level on Cliff Click's Crash Course In Modern Hardware · · Score: 1

    Alpha AXP was canned because it was a competitor to Itanium in which HP and Intel had too much investment. Remember Digital weren't just building chips, they were building the entire computers, ones that were running as mainframes at the centre of banks and stock exchanges. Compaq didn't have much money for continued development but it happened. Compaq had problems and they were acquired by HP. They had OpenVMS some big systems and a regular income stream. HP was committed towards Itanium by their agreement with Intel so they started a programme to replace Alpha with Itanium - a painful process as there was a lot of suckage to overcome.

  11. Re:Code in high-level on Cliff Click's Crash Course In Modern Hardware · · Score: 1

    Ah but you look at the machines that influenced the 68K - the PDP-11 and then later the VAX. Beautiful instruction sets - CISC - but so nice!

    Digital also came out with their RISC design, the Alpha - also a beautiful architecture which Intel and HP promptly proceeded to nuke in favour of the Itanium, which is one of the few things that will make you pine for x86.

  12. Re:I did the same thing on HP Patents Bignum Implementation From 1912 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Funnily enough HP bought Compaq who bout Digital who designed the VAX range of computers, but the VAX architecture is ~30 years old (it was announced in 1978) so they probably ended up prior arting themselves.

  13. Re:Is the newest version deployed everywhere? on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 1

    Sorry, I confused for a moment Biham/Shamir's work with Wiener's.

  14. Re:TFA is incomplete/incorrect. on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 1

    Authentication and key generation is handled by A3/A8. A5/1 and A5/3 are documented universally as being for the protection of over the air integrity. Not just on Wikipedia but also in places like GSM-World.

  15. Re:old system? on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 1

    Yep. The encryption by design is only over the air.

  16. Re:TFA is incomplete/incorrect. on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 2, Informative

    The slides are here and A5/1 and A5/3 are encryption algorithms.

  17. Re:Not a smart move on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 1

    Why? The balm of secrecy only makes you feel better. Someone else may already be doing this on the quiet. It should be noted that the GSM associateion has been climing that this was impossible.

  18. Re:old system? on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 1

    The joke is that it is comparatively easy to create your own BSC (see the OpenBSC project for an example) - there is no authentication needed and then you can potentially make man-in-the-middle attacks because it is the landing BSC that decides which encryption to use (including none).

  19. Re:Summary is Wrong and Dumb on UK Consumers To Pay For Online Piracy · · Score: 1

    They're (the recording Industry) not making that profit because they lost the easy (government supported!) monopoly on distribution.

    Even without the ease of breaching copyright now, there are many other factors. I have only so much free time in the week and unlike my parents, there is a heck of a lot more to do with the time. Also any new producer of music isn't just competing with other music today, they are competing against the mountain of music that is out there already, selling at remaindered prices. The other side is that those who are making money have less free time than their parents - holidays haven't gone down but the working day has definitely gotten longer.

    This is the big fallacy of the record companies and film studios and where they should be attacked. Their "Losses due to Piracy" figures have about as much standing as a mortgage backed security.

  20. Re:Think of the opportunities! on UK Consumers To Pay For Online Piracy · · Score: 1

    At least in your first two examples, you have a real counter to use to estimate your losses. Unfortunately the RIAA/MPAA approach to piracy functions more like the third. They have no source numbers to show the number of times a song was downloaded - this is the whole thing about P2P. The rights owner is encouraged to think of any number they can (and possibly double it).

  21. Re:How do people pay eachother? on UK Wants To Phase Out Checks By 2018 · · Score: 1

    I would love this solution when I was in the UK but the transfers still go through a separate route (CHAPS).

  22. Re:Conveniently forgetting the details on Israeli Border Police Shoot US Student's Laptop · · Score: 1

    By modern stuff, I'm meaning Semtex based devices.

    The story elsewhere is that she had Arabic keycap stickers on her PC and a photo of some graffiti on the wall. I have Russian on mine but it doesn't mean that I'm a KGB operative.

  23. Re:Conveniently forgetting the details on Israeli Border Police Shoot US Student's Laptop · · Score: 1

    Nah, I just have to look at the Royal Engineer's Handbook in the section on Ordinance Disposal. It points out that shooting bullets at an explosive isn't much help. The suggested technique was fire (if the detonator can be removed) or controlled detonation.

  24. Re:Is the newest version deployed everywhere? on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There is an interesting issue that emerged when DES was the standard. With everyone adopting DES it became a 'target' meaning that more people would devote time to attacking it. The eventual attacks using differential cryptanalysis used specialised hardware for breaking DES. Although based on programmable gate arrays, the design was fairly specific and could not so quickly be converted into attacking a different cryptographic system. However, I would agree that unless you have a bunch of experts working for you, the system an individual entity will come up with will probably be flawed. And then key management usually turns out to be a minefield of exploits.

  25. Re:Irony on GSM Decryption Published · · Score: 1

    GSM was not designed to be safe. Law enforcement wouldn't let it be.