Problem is, banks don't want to replace outdated hardware and networks, as long as their customers don't know they should be scared where their money is going.
Should their customers really be scared? How likely is it that the technology to do the hardware cracking is easily available? Not too likely, I'd assume.
For a janitor to even have access to a server room is relatively unlikely, especially in a bank; I can't imagine they would let minimum-wage grunts in the same room as the financial data of their customers. For said janitor to have $1000 of specialized computing hardware is another thing. For him to know how to hook up that hardware to the IBM Encryption Coprocessor is even more difficult. Then he would have to actually go grab the PINs - all he'd have at this point is the DES key which they are encrypted with.
Sure, one person may exploit it - but seeing as most janitors aren't reading Slashdot, and probably don't even know it, or an IBM cryptocard exists, there is very little to worry about.
You'd be more likely to win the lotto than to have your money stolen by a janitor who cracked IBM's encryption.
Re:Even better than an IDE
on
Java IDEs?
·
· Score: 2
I think they mean "just plain dumb" but it's not a mod option...Nice attempt at humor but didn't quite make it.
IDE (Integrated Development Environment), n., Computer Science: An application for programming in a specific language, that includes tools such as source/version control, syntax highlighting, and easy access to compile/debug tools from one place.
Miss anything?
Turing-completeness (slightly OT)
on
Java IDEs?
·
· Score: 2
I am unclear on something about Java. It seems that as it requries a VM to run, which is in essence an (emulator/interpreter), sort of like the types of "compilers" used for BASIC, it isn't turing-complete. Are there any Java compilers written in Java, without some other type of programming language existing in the back end? Pascal is written in Pascal, C++ is written in C++, and so on. HOW they do that confounds me, but I've never understood if Java is a real "programming language" or just a sort of compiled very powerful scripting engine.
Windows 2000 Advanced Server comes with clustering built in via the "cluster" command, you probably don't want that though, because it wouldn't run on the 450 and probably pretty slow on the Duron.
If I understand correctly (IIUC? Maybe I can start a new acronym trend here...) anything parallelizable must be custom-written with the Beowulf libraries in mind. I have absolutely no idea how to do this, but the command #include or comes to mind, something I read about it. I've got a handful of older systems sitting around, and gave clustering a thought, but I'm not confidant in my Linux skills to try and compile a custom clustered kernel.
A virtual Beowulf that is physically a beowulf node itself...Naah, that'd take some clever hacking, a cluster of cluster servers. Probably not possible.
char array[30]; and for a 30-byte item and forgetting the null at the end
or something complicated, like a flawed mathematical model, corrupted pointer that comes from something being "optomized" a little bit too much, or soforth.
If its the first, I'd do some thinking (I'm only an HS student so I'm still allowed to make that mistake, but I don't terribly often.) If its the second - thats why Windows crashes so much. Complicated programs make compilcated bugs.
There is a difference. I doubt (I may be wrong) that you're really sick of CS - just of the CS education. By the time you're a semester away from graduating, you probably feel you could do well enough in the real world, and don't need the mind-numbing projects and textbook solutions any more. You might be right - but unfortunately, graduating is a certificate of authenticity.
A person I know has three masters degrees, in three totally different fields, for the three times he changed careers in his life. Engineering, Chemistry, and Law. He said what he was doing before just got boring, so he switched. *shrug* Finish out what you've got going now and give it a try, and if you hate it that much, go learn something else. Paying for it may be a problem, but in theory it is doable.
That's Murphey's Law for you, extended a bit by Thurgood's Corollary (it's on a poster in my CS classroom)
"Anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong, and not only in the worst technically possible way, but in the way that generates the worst pr and lowers everyone's opinion of your product."
Trust me, if the CS class at my high school is any indication, there would be (1) hot-looking female type, (10) potentially attractive to the opposite sex male types (i.e., not fat and know what a razor is), and (89) fat, unshaven, socially slightly off people.
You really wouldn't be any safer, and probably emotionally scared.
I like to think I'm 1/10...but still, please, keep your clothes on.
Honestly, I don't see the banning of non-Vendor bags as a "security" measure. I see it as a "protect-the-people-who-are-here-profit" measure. It may have aspects of both, but its definately more the second one. Why not just simply have a mandatory security screening of all carried items before they are allowed into the premesis?
Attending COMDEX would be one of the things I look forward to most in my computing career. I'm only a highschool student now, but I hear very interesting things of the convention, and I'd enjoy talking to the vendors and seeing their flagship products firsthand. There's something about being able to see the new Athlon MP board, or a new video card, or the latest development in RAID technology, in person, that a catalog can't do, no matter how many pictures they put in.
I got shot at damn near point-blank range, in the forehead, from a paintball marker that was overspeed for that field, without head protection on. Apparently the guy didn't like that I shot him out, and was going to play nasty with me. I'll be damned if it didn't crack something, could barely walk off the field, but a few days later everything was fine. Five months later, no lasting effects...*shrug* Maybe they were related - maybe they weren't.
I'm honestly impressed with Linus' reaction towards MS. I don't really like/use Linux, but respect its creator, I'm more of a Windows guy because I don't have the time to devote to learning a new OS at the moment. However, the rampant OS-bashing from both sides going on is relatively petty, and Linus seems to realize it isn't worth anything.
Anyone know of a place I could purchase hard-drives with this type of hardware-level password protection for a desktop system? I'd put one of those onto my documents drive and keep it safe from prying family members while I was out.
Several HDDs I have taken apart have a small flash ROM or EEPROM or some other such small memory-storing chip, located in the same container as the physical drive platters. There's the EEPROM, some resistors, and the drive servo. I don't know about IBM drives; but it probably is stored in one of those chips. Per the geek.com discussion, it seems IBM won't be terribly helpful with it, but I'm sure somebody, somewhere, has written a reflasher for the drive. The question is finding that person...
The way I understood it, the host system's motherboard was just a backplane supplying power to the computer, which was contained on the PCI card. IIRC, several years back, when Pentium IIs came out, lots of people wanted a way to upgrade their Pentium-I based systems. The easy answer was - make the motherboard into a holder for a very compact computer. It had, I think, a 333 Celeron, an SODIMM slot for memory, a single IDE channel and floppy controller, and onboard sound and video. Not too impressive, but the entire workings of the computer onto a single PCI card.
Sun or SGI also has something like this, to allow SparcStation users to run Windows applications natively. Basically, a card with a 450MHz Pentium II, some RAM, video (no sound though), and the other necessities of a computer.
I agree about the RF interference, however. I ran several computers, even in their shielded cases, in my room for a while, and it was a deadzone for our cordless phone. It would be only worse with inches, instead of feet, between the systems. Not all people have room for a rack to mount things on, however.
In order to really debate this, there needs to be a clear definition of what "software" is. Websters' doesn't cut it - HTML documents, CD audio, etc, all fall under it.
How about "Software, n. Computer Science
Instructions to a turing-complete hardware system which produces an image or effect that is manipulatable and interactive for the user."
That covers anything you can manipulate in software. Games, AutoCAD, Windows, MacOS, Linux, MUDs, etc... but it doesn't cover video (you can't manipulate it to what you want), audio (same, you can't change what the song sounds like without other software that acts on it), and such.
Most of the definitions penned quite a long time ago for computer technology need to be updated in a major way.
Sounds marginally similar to Invasion: America the anime mini-series aired on the WB a few years back. I think I have the episodes taped, maybe I'll dig them out and post a synopsis.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone was selling a dozen of these on eBay for $127.99/ea. I wonder why......
Should their customers really be scared? How likely is it that the technology to do the hardware cracking is easily available? Not too likely, I'd assume.
For a janitor to even have access to a server room is relatively unlikely, especially in a bank; I can't imagine they would let minimum-wage grunts in the same room as the financial data of their customers. For said janitor to have $1000 of specialized computing hardware is another thing. For him to know how to hook up that hardware to the IBM Encryption Coprocessor is even more difficult. Then he would have to actually go grab the PINs - all he'd have at this point is the DES key which they are encrypted with.
Sure, one person may exploit it - but seeing as most janitors aren't reading Slashdot, and probably don't even know it, or an IBM cryptocard exists, there is very little to worry about.
You'd be more likely to win the lotto than to have your money stolen by a janitor who cracked IBM's encryption.
I think they mean "just plain dumb" but it's not a mod option...Nice attempt at humor but didn't quite make it.
IDE (Integrated Development Environment), n., Computer Science: An application for programming in a specific language, that includes tools such as source/version control, syntax highlighting, and easy access to compile/debug tools from one place.
Miss anything?
I am unclear on something about Java. It seems that as it requries a VM to run, which is in essence an (emulator/interpreter), sort of like the types of "compilers" used for BASIC, it isn't turing-complete. Are there any Java compilers written in Java, without some other type of programming language existing in the back end? Pascal is written in Pascal, C++ is written in C++, and so on. HOW they do that confounds me, but I've never understood if Java is a real "programming language" or just a sort of compiled very powerful scripting engine.
My $.02 and some lint.
Mod parent up +1 funny...Maybe not more than once, but that deserves something in the way of a positive karma gain.
Ohh god...
type beowulf=packed array[0..255] of system;
type cluster=packed array[0..255,0..255,0..255] of beowulf;
Slightly recursive...
cluster[0[255],0[255],0[255]] = isPrime(bignumhere);
Thats if I remember my multidimensional linked arrays correctly. (and no, it isn't C++ either, sorta Pascal.)
The "Lameness Filter" edited out my .h files!
#include "beowulf.h"
or
#include "cluster.h"
Windows 2000 Advanced Server comes with clustering built in via the "cluster" command, you probably don't want that though, because it wouldn't run on the 450 and probably pretty slow on the Duron.
If I understand correctly (IIUC? Maybe I can start a new acronym trend here...) anything parallelizable must be custom-written with the Beowulf libraries in mind. I have absolutely no idea how to do this, but the command #include or comes to mind, something I read about it. I've got a handful of older systems sitting around, and gave clustering a thought, but I'm not confidant in my Linux skills to try and compile a custom clustered kernel.
Honestly, you might be on to something here :)
A virtual Beowulf that is physically a beowulf node itself...Naah, that'd take some clever hacking, a cluster of cluster servers. Probably not possible.
Off-by-one errors could be something simple
char array[30]; and for a 30-byte item and forgetting the null at the end
or something complicated, like a flawed mathematical model, corrupted pointer that comes from something being "optomized" a little bit too much, or soforth.
If its the first, I'd do some thinking (I'm only an HS student so I'm still allowed to make that mistake, but I don't terribly often.) If its the second - thats why Windows crashes so much. Complicated programs make compilcated bugs.
There is a difference. I doubt (I may be wrong) that you're really sick of CS - just of the CS education. By the time you're a semester away from graduating, you probably feel you could do well enough in the real world, and don't need the mind-numbing projects and textbook solutions any more. You might be right - but unfortunately, graduating is a certificate of authenticity.
A person I know has three masters degrees, in three totally different fields, for the three times he changed careers in his life. Engineering, Chemistry, and Law. He said what he was doing before just got boring, so he switched. *shrug* Finish out what you've got going now and give it a try, and if you hate it that much, go learn something else. Paying for it may be a problem, but in theory it is doable.
$0.02
That's Murphey's Law for you, extended a bit by Thurgood's Corollary (it's on a poster in my CS classroom)
"Anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong, and not only in the worst technically possible way, but in the way that generates the worst pr and lowers everyone's opinion of your product."
Something like that.
Trust me, if the CS class at my high school is any indication, there would be (1) hot-looking female type, (10) potentially attractive to the opposite sex male types (i.e., not fat and know what a razor is), and (89) fat, unshaven, socially slightly off people.
You really wouldn't be any safer, and probably emotionally scared.
I like to think I'm 1/10...but still, please, keep your clothes on.
Honestly, I don't see the banning of non-Vendor bags as a "security" measure. I see it as a "protect-the-people-who-are-here-profit" measure. It may have aspects of both, but its definately more the second one. Why not just simply have a mandatory security screening of all carried items before they are allowed into the premesis?
Attending COMDEX would be one of the things I look forward to most in my computing career. I'm only a highschool student now, but I hear very interesting things of the convention, and I'd enjoy talking to the vendors and seeing their flagship products firsthand. There's something about being able to see the new Athlon MP board, or a new video card, or the latest development in RAID technology, in person, that a catalog can't do, no matter how many pictures they put in.
Well in my version of AnalogX Rhyme, "masturbation" produced 746 matches...
For "S" I found
SALVATION
SANCTIFICATION
SANITATION
SANITATION(2)
SAPONIFICATION
SARMATIAN
SATURATION
SECURITIZATION
SEDATION
SEDIMENTATION
SEGMENTATION
SEGREGATION
SELF-CONGRATULATION
SELF-DETERMINATION
SELF-PERPETUATION
SENSATION
SEPARATION
SEQUESTRATION
SIMPLIFICATION
SIMULATION
SINGULARIZATION
SITUATION
SOCIALIZATION
SOLICITATION
SOPHISTICATION
SPECIALIZATION
SPECIFICATION
SPECULATION
STABILIZATION
STAGFLATION
STAGNATION
STALINIZATION
STANDARDIZATION
STARVATION
STATION
STERILIZATION
STERILIZATION(2)
STIMULATION
STIPULATION
STRANGULATION
SUBORDINATION
SUBSIDIZATION
SUBSTANTIATION
SUBSTATION
SUBURBANIZATION
SUFFOCATION
SUMMATION
SUPERSTATION
SYNDICATION
Thats quite a lot.
I got shot at damn near point-blank range, in the forehead, from a paintball marker that was overspeed for that field, without head protection on. Apparently the guy didn't like that I shot him out, and was going to play nasty with me. I'll be damned if it didn't crack something, could barely walk off the field, but a few days later everything was fine. Five months later, no lasting effects...*shrug* Maybe they were related - maybe they weren't.
I'm honestly impressed with Linus' reaction towards MS. I don't really like/use Linux, but respect its creator, I'm more of a Windows guy because I don't have the time to devote to learning a new OS at the moment. However, the rampant OS-bashing from both sides going on is relatively petty, and Linus seems to realize it isn't worth anything.
Anyone know of a place I could purchase hard-drives with this type of hardware-level password protection for a desktop system? I'd put one of those onto my documents drive and keep it safe from prying family members while I was out.
Several HDDs I have taken apart have a small flash ROM or EEPROM or some other such small memory-storing chip, located in the same container as the physical drive platters. There's the EEPROM, some resistors, and the drive servo. I don't know about IBM drives; but it probably is stored in one of those chips. Per the geek.com discussion, it seems IBM won't be terribly helpful with it, but I'm sure somebody, somewhere, has written a reflasher for the drive. The question is finding that person...
I'm running Cygwin. It actually tells me when it kills the thing, and is silent on failure. *shrug* Doesn't make sense to me either.
Are you sure? I always thought it was
/bin/laden
jwkoebel@SERVER $ ps
[1]: 666
jwkoebel@server $ kill -9 666
Killed 1 process...
Not only do we get to kill him, but the -9 signals core-dump, so his innards are removed before the killing.
Fun for the masses.
The way I understood it, the host system's motherboard was just a backplane supplying power to the computer, which was contained on the PCI card. IIRC, several years back, when Pentium IIs came out, lots of people wanted a way to upgrade their Pentium-I based systems. The easy answer was - make the motherboard into a holder for a very compact computer. It had, I think, a 333 Celeron, an SODIMM slot for memory, a single IDE channel and floppy controller, and onboard sound and video. Not too impressive, but the entire workings of the computer onto a single PCI card.
Sun or SGI also has something like this, to allow SparcStation users to run Windows applications natively. Basically, a card with a 450MHz Pentium II, some RAM, video (no sound though), and the other necessities of a computer.
I agree about the RF interference, however. I ran several computers, even in their shielded cases, in my room for a while, and it was a deadzone for our cordless phone. It would be only worse with inches, instead of feet, between the systems. Not all people have room for a rack to mount things on, however.
In order to really debate this, there needs to be a clear definition of what "software" is. Websters' doesn't cut it - HTML documents, CD audio, etc, all fall under it.
How about "Software, n. Computer Science
Instructions to a turing-complete hardware system which produces an image or effect that is manipulatable and interactive for the user."
That covers anything you can manipulate in software. Games, AutoCAD, Windows, MacOS, Linux, MUDs, etc... but it doesn't cover video (you can't manipulate it to what you want), audio (same, you can't change what the song sounds like without other software that acts on it), and such.
Most of the definitions penned quite a long time ago for computer technology need to be updated in a major way.
Sounds marginally similar to Invasion: America the anime mini-series aired on the WB a few years back. I think I have the episodes taped, maybe I'll dig them out and post a synopsis.