Contrary to many common password policies the UK National Cyber Security Centre (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/articles/problems-forcing-regular-password-expiry) recommends passwords should never expire. Problem with password expiry is that it is not usable, since people having to make new passwords all the time choose weaker passwords.
Background: Im a PhD student working for Cryptomathic on e-voting.
Indeed we have developed some new e-voting protocols. (Building on the cryptographic literature and publishing also our own protocols.)
For those interested Ill try to give a very brief account of the ideas:
To ensure that only registered voters can vote we use digital signatures or some other authentication mechanism.
To ensure that votes remain secret we encrypt them using a public key cryptosystem.
The public key cryptosystem has a so called homomorphic property. Basically this means that by multiplying all the encrypted votes we get a ciphertext that contains the result of the election.
To prevent any state official from peeking the voter over the shoulder we distribute the secret key for the cryptosystem over several independent servers.
The servers cooperate to decrypt the ciphertext with the result.
As far as I know patents in the crypto industry are not that profitable (with exceptions of course, e.g. RSA). Rather than generate revenue they are used as something to block competitors, or something to trade with: I have this patent, you have that patent, let us grant each other rights to exploit both patents.
Even if a cryptography company wants to use techniques patented by another company it takes ages for the economy guys to actually agree on a technology trade. Therefore the gut instinct of crypto-developers is to invent some other method to get around the problem in question.
The academic environment has become so focused on publishing and getting grants that the focus is not on quality but quantity.
To present a counterexample: In Denmark PhD students in medicine were advised by a central authority (cannot remember which) to put emphasis on quality rather than quantity. As far as I recall this was a success and they started getting their papers accepted in better journals.
If I am to guess at the future Id predict a tendency towards higher quality being rewarded. The reason being that more and more stuff is published so if you want to be heard, noticed and respected in your scientific community you need to put out high quality material, you need to stand out in the crowd.
Re: Motivation for donating hard earned money
on
Geek Charities?
·
· Score: 2
What motivates people to donate to charity?
To improve the world or some aspect thereof Id guess.
I've earned my money and see no reason to share it with someone who hasn't.
Well, parents give money to their children even though the children havent "earned it". I guess charity is in general just an extension of that to a larger and more anonymous group of people than your close relatives.
Of course egoistic charity is also possible, somebody might for instance donate money for an enviromental cause due to fear of their island being flooded by the melting ice from the global warming.
To me turning around and giving that away is odd, why not just go through less pain to begin with?
I guess it is a trade-off. People hating their jobs and donating for charity at the same time seem to think that their donation is more worth than the pain they go through. There can be many reasons for this thinking.
I think most charities would be better odd with donations of your time rather than of your money
Im not so sure about that. Could be for instance that some computer professionals are better off earning money and donating them to somebody trained and skilled in working with kids rather than going out and working with kids themselves.
I guess in most cases society is best off with people doing what theyre good at, not necessarily what they themselves find important. I assume this is also the reason for the mandatory "charity" youre giving through taxes, it allows better distribution of the resources when there is some central control.
Slashdot Mirror
Contrary to many common password policies the UK National Cyber Security Centre (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/articles/problems-forcing-regular-password-expiry) recommends passwords should never expire. Problem with password expiry is that it is not usable, since people having to make new passwords all the time choose weaker passwords.
Background: Im a PhD student working for Cryptomathic on e-voting.
Indeed we have developed some new e-voting protocols. (Building on the cryptographic literature and publishing also our own protocols.)
For those interested Ill try to give a very brief account of the ideas:
To ensure that only registered voters can vote we use digital signatures or some other authentication mechanism.
To ensure that votes remain secret we encrypt them using a public key cryptosystem.
The public key cryptosystem has a so called homomorphic property. Basically this means that by multiplying all the encrypted votes we get a ciphertext that contains the result of the election.
To prevent any state official from peeking the voter over the shoulder we distribute the secret key for the cryptosystem over several independent servers.
The servers cooperate to decrypt the ciphertext with the result.
My background: PhD student in cryptography.
As far as I know patents in the crypto industry are not that profitable (with exceptions of course, e.g. RSA). Rather than generate revenue they are used as something to block competitors, or something to trade with: I have this patent, you have that patent, let us grant each other rights to exploit both patents.
Even if a cryptography company wants to use techniques patented by another company it takes ages for the economy guys to actually agree on a technology trade. Therefore the gut instinct of crypto-developers is to invent some other method to get around the problem in question.
If I am to guess at the future Id predict a tendency towards higher quality being rewarded. The reason being that more and more stuff is published so if you want to be heard, noticed and respected in your scientific community you need to put out high quality material, you need to stand out in the crowd.
Well, parents give money to their children even though the children havent "earned it". I guess charity is in general just an extension of that to a larger and more anonymous group of people than your close relatives.
Of course egoistic charity is also possible, somebody might for instance donate money for an enviromental cause due to fear of their island being flooded by the melting ice from the global warming.
I guess it is a trade-off. People hating their jobs and donating for charity at the same time seem to think that their donation is more worth than the pain they go through. There can be many reasons for this thinking.
Im not so sure about that. Could be for instance that some computer professionals are better off earning money and donating them to somebody trained and skilled in working with kids rather than going out and working with kids themselves.
I guess in most cases society is best off with people doing what theyre good at, not necessarily what they themselves find important.
I assume this is also the reason for the mandatory "charity" youre giving through taxes, it allows better distribution of the resources when there is some central control.