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User: jhantin

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  1. If you have an authentication server why do you need or even want block chain.

    Seems like people are deafened by the clamor of buzzwords. Heard about the Certificate Transparency project? A certificate audit log is a Merkle tree that is appended to by adding a new root node of which the old root is a child, proving the history has not been tampered with. The end nodes of the Merkle tree are also digitally signed data structures. These two properties give the audit log the same data structure shape as a blockchain.

    Furthermore if you want to distribute the authentication to many servers how do you control the authentication list if there's no proof of work. and if there's proof of work, then it gets expensive because that's why its called work

    The entirety of the log is issued by a single entity, so each new root can simply be signed by the CA, and all the heavyweight Byzantine distributed consensus cruft such as proof of work that applications like Bitcoin use is completely irrelevant to this use case. Individual certificates can be verified by the embedded digital signature, issuance can be verified by consulting the (also signed) audit log.

    Note that this doesn't mean I think Microsoft's project referenced in TFA is necessarily a good idea. I don't know enough about it even after reading TFA to pass judgement on it. That may itself be an artifact of excessive buzzword density.

  2. Re:USB drivers still in kernel? on Linux 4.14 Has Been Released (kernelnewbies.org) · · Score: 1

    DMA makes that approach a nonstarter unless you have a working and properly configured IOMMU between the controller and main memory. Even then, the most common use case is to give a virtual machine direct access to a device rather than to put an ordinary driver in user space.

  3. Re:USB drivers still in kernel? on Linux 4.14 Has Been Released (kernelnewbies.org) · · Score: 1

    I got into a situation last week doing a fresh install where the chipset's USB host support was built as a module but not included in initramfs. A startup problem (fumbled fstab) left it prompting for the root password without a working keyboard. Well, at least now the blasted driver's compiled in.

  4. Re:frist on "Maybe It's a Piece of Dust" (theoutline.com) · · Score: 1

    I see what you did there ;)

    Doubletype is a symptom of an echo problem, not a duplex problem. Specifically, it happens when both local and remote echo are mistakenly enabled at the same time. Echo and duplex are often confused, possibly because they're characteristically set together: remote echo is clumsy, inefficient or both on a half-duplex channel, so local echo is usually used with it. It also has zilch to do with keyboards unless the setting switch happens to be on it.

  5. Re:Never heard of him before. on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Favorite William Gibson Novel? · · Score: 1

    The Harry Potter books as an example. Once you get around the fact that the main character is a complete idiot then the rest of the books are not that bad.

    Ah yes, fantasy... perhaps you'd enjoy a tale in which he has enough marbles to sort into Ravenclaw. The Magicians trilogy isn't half bad either.

  6. Re:The term is . . . on Spies Hack. But the Best Spies Hack Other Spies. (bleepingcomputer.com) · · Score: 1

    Except the fourth party's fifth column is also up your six.

  7. Re:This isn't Open Source, then on Ask Slashdot: Building an Open Source Community For a Proprietary Software Product? · · Score: 1

    You are confusing open with free. There are many open source licenses not "approved" by the FSF.

    I'm highlighting a point on which the FSF, OSI and CFI are in agreement: the significance of the right to fork a project.

  8. This isn't Open Source, then on Ask Slashdot: Building an Open Source Community For a Proprietary Software Product? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'll try to buck the trend here by skipping the derision and offering constructive advice. ;-)

    A single license that gives users access to the code but limits the ability to redistribute the code and distribute patches to the "core" is what we'd prefer.

    In this case, the closest match I can come up with off the top of my head is to apply the Microsoft Reference Source License to the source code.

    This is not a Free/Libre or Open source license, because the constraints you are looking for are in direct conflict with the Open Source Definition, clauses 1 and 3; the Copyfree Standard Definition, clauses 1 and 3; and the Free Software Definition, freedoms 2 and 3.

    Do you expect that if you were to permit redistribution of the core and modifications to it that others in the community would completely take over the project and continue its development without your business's involvement (a 'fork', in development jargon)? That would be the primary reason I can think of for such a restriction.

  9. Re:Manners please. on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Service Providers When You're an IT Pro? · · Score: 1

    It's very easy to be curt and brusque in text, or at least be perceived that way. It's a learned skill to be able to do text chat support and not come off as being dismissive, put-off-ish, and/or plain rude.

    Perhaps, for that very reason, many chat support representatives I've encountered instead err on the side of obsequiousness. Many take it too far, almost as if they're trying to trigger irrational rage responses, and others ring hollow with Eliza-like echo statements ("My frob won't womble." "I'm sorry to hear your frob won't womble.") - it wouldn't surprise me one bit if there was a pacifying-echo hotkey on their end.

  10. Old asshattery in new packaging on Uber Revises Privacy Policy, Wants More Data From Users · · Score: 2

    welcome to the internet of things, if you would argue as to what this "ass-hattery" has to do with IoT... then I present to you this "business model"

    This form of asshattery is by no means limited to the "Internet of Things", or "Web 2.0", or "Social Media", or any other buzzword you might choose to throw out there. I'm not even certain it's restricted to Internet manifestations, though those are certainly the easiest and most prominent.

  11. Re:No. on Is Agile Development a Failing Concept? · · Score: 1

    we the developers were the first ones to go "Woah there, Peaches".

    Sexist.

    There aren't so many gender-neutral horse names to choose from. You seem quick to judge - perhaps he alternates between fillies and stallions in his horse metaphors.

    These discussions usually continue long after the horse is beaten to death - call it blunt metaphors trauma.

  12. Re:magic ingredient: perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane on New Paint Based On Titanium Nanoparticles Creates Self-Cleaning Surfaces · · Score: 1

    This uses POTS, not FDTS, so there are ethoxy groups instead of chlorine atoms bound to the silicon. Still flammable, but POTS is innocuous enough that it's used to coat pigment particles in cosmetics.

    I suspect even FDTS gets a lot less nasty once a coating settles in. R1-Si-Cl + H-O-R2 -> R1-Si-O-R2 + HCl, the HCl escapes as a gas and the rest stays put, covalently bonded to the surface.

  13. Re:512 should still be too high a bar... on FREAK Attack Threatens SSL Clients · · Score: 1

    MITM positioning is a prerequisite, but that's not hard if you run a Wi-Fi hotspot. This is a bid-down attack, tampering with initial negotiation to limit the cipher suite and strength to something more breakable without raising alarms.

    If you can additionally prevent the use of PFS cipher suites so the 512 bit key is used for pre-master secret encipherment, you need only break the static 512-bit key once to read all the traffic protected by it.

  14. Re:Tough decision on Microsoft Fixes Critical Remotely Exploitable Windows Root-Level Design Bug · · Score: 1
  15. (bdum tish) on Russia Seeking To Ban Tor, VPNs and Other Anonymizing Tools · · Score: 4, Funny

    Both countries have small penises. Can we please move on.

    I dunno, Alaska and Kamchatka are both sizable peninsulas.

  16. Re:mmmm... that feels good... on The Search For Neutrons That Leak Into Our World From Other Universes · · Score: 1
  17. Re:Since when is AMT controversial? on FSF-Endorsed Libreboot X200 Laptop Comes With Intel's AMT Removed · · Score: 2

    Exactly. How is this materially different from an integrated remote-access card and baseboard management controller? I'm at a loss why Intel used an Argonaut core for it, though. I'd have expected a lightweight x86, or maybe an ARM. However, all that is beside the point.

    The main reason for all the hullabaloo is that the Intel firmware that normally runs on this coprocessor is delivered as a closed-source blob, which raises trust issues given how pervasive its access to the machine is. It's also had its share of bugs and exploits, some of which work even if AMT is turned off in the BIOS, since the coprocessor may still be doing mundane baseboard tasks like fan control.

  18. Their drivers might be garbage, the silicon's OK on AMD Catalyst Is the Broken Wheel For Linux Gaming · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AMD got the $6 billion to buy ATI by spending the cash reserves they had to build their next generation fab. The result is that after they bought ATI they had to sell their manufacturing operations sliding even further into irrelevance as their costs are much higher than Intel.

    It's not like they don't actually have a sensible plan, though. While they might not be able to catch Intel in the short run on high-end CPUs, some of their newer APUs (some of them outright SoCs) are surprisingly efficient little beasts built for the low-power market segment: silent or fanless mini PCs, tablets, ultraportables, and an assortment of bespoke embedded gadgets. While the CPU side trails Intel's, on-die GCN soundly demolishes any integrated graphics Intel puts out there.

  19. Re:Nothing has been lost! on Bitcoin Volatility Puts Miners Under Pressure · · Score: 1

    The is an infinite number that can be collected over an infinite amount of years... However at any particular point of time there is only a limited number available to be used. The the number cannot be dramatically increase or decrease with a sign of a pen.

    The number of new coins issued with each block is cut in half every 210,000 blocks (approximately every four years), and summing from 1 to infinity over 1/(2**n) equals one, not infinity. The total circulation will asymptotically approach approximately 21 million.

  20. Re: Bitcoin != Coins on Fraud, Not Hackers, Took Most of Mt. Gox's Missing Bitcoins · · Score: 2

    trading gold is nothing more than trading the energy consumed in mining it.

    Gold comes from mines? I always believed it came from pawn shops and elderly relatives.

    Well, the generation of that gold probably occurred in a process even more energy intensive than bitcoin mining, such as a very large star going out with a bang. After that it's just been transferred around.

  21. Re:More moaning and groaning for nothing. on N. Korea Blames US For Internet Outage, Compares Obama to "a Monkey" · · Score: 1

    It doesn't stop at 'name endianness'. It's probably less confusing, in print at least, to use the convention of all-capping the surname while leaving the full name in its native order. I imagine such a convention would be especially handy when trying to wrangle elaborate names carrying a whole syntax tree laden with titles, adjective phrases, and prepositional phrases, leaving the surname somewhere in the middle. Such names tend to be found in Europe and the Middle East at least.

    The downside to smashing case is that it loses information, such as whether 'VON FOO' is properly cased as 'von Foo' or 'Von Foo'. Where possible it's probably better to use an inline tag or something, but plain text doesn't leave room for such niceties.

  22. Re:More moaning and groaning for nothing. on N. Korea Blames US For Internet Outage, Compares Obama to "a Monkey" · · Score: 1

    TV Tropes found some cute prior art for the spokesperson's snarky comment; it's the page image for Cross-Cultural Kerfluffle, since not every culture sees the monkey comparison as racist.

  23. Sybil attack? on Lizard Squad Targets Tor · · Score: 3, Informative

    I haven't seen any explanation of how this is a zero-day exactly; so far, this looks more like a Sybil attack.

  24. Re:Depends... on Verizon "End-to-End" Encrypted Calling Includes Law Enforcement Backdoor · · Score: 1

    Didn't say it was. It's the pattern of usage, though, not any real time constraints. Server-based games tend to be receive-heavy rather than symmetric; they're sending the user's actions but updating the entire environment around the user. Always on DRM is basically periodic license re-validation, relatively low frequency. UI remoting is again going to be extremely receive-heavy; keystrokes and coordinates take up much less space than graphics pushes.

    You might have difficulty distinguishing one voice app from another within an encrypted tunnel, though.

  25. Re:Depends... on Verizon "End-to-End" Encrypted Calling Includes Law Enforcement Backdoor · · Score: 1

    Traffic analysis. You don't have to decipher anything to surmise that the same size packet exactly every 20ms in both directions is a voice call.