I haven't looked at the code closely yet. Multiple accounts say that it is relatively easy to crack, but I think that's the point.
Did you ever hear of that "Einstein problem", that supposedly he claimed only 98% of the population could answer? It is my firm belief that well over 98% of the population could figure out the answer, but probably only 2% of the people who actually saw the problem actually tried it.
I think this is a similiar situation... sure, it might not be that hard of a problem, but only a fraction of the people who actually see it will invest the time to do it. And as a result, you ont only get smart people turning in answers, but those who are really dedicated and interested in this sort of work.
There is going to be many security flaws in any major piece of software. Everyone is looking closely at WindowsXP becuase it is the next big thing.
As for the "Linux, anyone" comments? Linux is fine for the desktop, unless you actually want to run any popular software... But I guess 0.25 percent of web surfers can't be wrong.
I downloaded WinMX the other night to try it out. I searched for the song "Thank You" by "Dido"... I'd never heard of it, but my girlfriend thought it was a nice song. I didn't find any "Thank You" songs, but I did find "Thank You1.mp3" and "ThankYo u.mp3" and "Thank YouA.mp3", etc.
I haven't followed the battle THAT closely, but if the recording industry thinks that they can simply filter out songs BY NAME, they've got another thing coming.
Anyone who has written a regular expressions knows that it's not hard to match out every possible permutation of the letters "Thank You". But can you extend that logic to "Thank You1"? Probably. "Thank Yuo"? Probably not.
It will be impossible to write a filter that will recognize song names BETTER than a human (who's searching specifically for that song) can.
My thoughts...
Yep, I took third place in the first section of the contest, which was to write a game in Perl in 512 bytes or less. I love game programming, and I love Perl, and the contest was really a lot of fun. I'm proud of what I did.
To all those who are clever and say that Perl is obfuscated in and of itself, I disagree. I think writing obfuscated Perl *WELL* requires vast knowledge of the language, including obscure little tricks, weird regexps, etc, and HOW to use them effectively.
Not me, though... I just wrote a game and made sure it was 512 bytes (which isn't as easy as it sounds to maximize the "game" part and minimize the bytes).
Adam
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't call it purely a publicity stunt.
I haven't looked at the code closely yet. Multiple accounts say that it is relatively easy to crack, but I think that's the point.
Did you ever hear of that "Einstein problem", that supposedly he claimed only 98% of the population could answer? It is my firm belief that well over 98% of the population could figure out the answer, but probably only 2% of the people who actually saw the problem actually tried it.
I think this is a similiar situation... sure, it might not be that hard of a problem, but only a fraction of the people who actually see it will invest the time to do it. And as a result, you ont only get smart people turning in answers, but those who are really dedicated and interested in this sort of work.
Ada
There is going to be many security flaws in any major piece of software. Everyone is looking closely at WindowsXP becuase it is the next big thing.
As for the "Linux, anyone" comments? Linux is fine for the desktop, unless you actually want to run any popular software... But I guess 0.25 percent of web surfers can't be wrong.
AdamTrace
I downloaded WinMX the other night to try it out. I searched for the song "Thank You" by "Dido"... I'd never heard of it, but my girlfriend thought it was a nice song. I didn't find any "Thank You" songs, but I did find "Thank You1.mp3" and "ThankYo u.mp3" and "Thank YouA.mp3", etc. I haven't followed the battle THAT closely, but if the recording industry thinks that they can simply filter out songs BY NAME, they've got another thing coming. Anyone who has written a regular expressions knows that it's not hard to match out every possible permutation of the letters "Thank You". But can you extend that logic to "Thank You1"? Probably. "Thank Yuo"? Probably not. It will be impossible to write a filter that will recognize song names BETTER than a human (who's searching specifically for that song) can. My thoughts...
Yep, I took third place in the first section of the contest, which was to write a game in Perl in 512 bytes or less. I love game programming, and I love Perl, and the contest was really a lot of fun. I'm proud of what I did. To all those who are clever and say that Perl is obfuscated in and of itself, I disagree. I think writing obfuscated Perl *WELL* requires vast knowledge of the language, including obscure little tricks, weird regexps, etc, and HOW to use them effectively. Not me, though... I just wrote a game and made sure it was 512 bytes (which isn't as easy as it sounds to maximize the "game" part and minimize the bytes). Adam