That is a good point. Under simplified artificial conditions, the net value only cancels out if the queue is long enough that people forego the reward due to the wait. If the line is short enough that all interested parties get in line, it's a net positive, that's true.
I WAS thinking it was always true for the marginal value case of "leave now or leave later", but I think I had it backwards. The thereom always FALSE for getting in the Burning Man line at all, because it's ALWAYS better to get the reward at the end - getting out of the desert, even if you spent two weeks in line,. The alternative is to die of dehydration in the desert. Themarginal gain (or loss) of leaving at any specific time is more complex.
I'm thinking this through in writing, so tell me if I miss something.
In the ice cream example, the line gets to the threshold and stays there because if it's too long, people will skip the ice cream. They'll decide getting the ice cream is not worth the wait, just not get ice cream.
Getting home is not optional. People will not decide to skip getting home in order to avoid the line. The question is not "is it worth getting in line?" Rather, the question is the marginal utility of getting in line NOW vs hanging out another five minutes. So the options are:
A) Less time at festival, get home sooner, more/less time in line. B) More time at festival, get home later, more/less time in line
That seems to be an altogether different calculation, with different results, and different number of variables than:
a) get in line and get reward b) don't get in line
You could reduce the actual situation to simple scenario if "get reward" is defined as the marginal utility of now vs later. It's interesting that the difference between the two is: (Home sooner) - (less time at festival) -+ (the line may be longer or shorter later)
The marginal utility, therefore, may be negative, the "reward" at the end of the line may be a punishment. In that case, no rational, sober person who studied the problem would leave at that time. Unless of course it was subjectively a positive _for_them_ to leave immediately because they have a chainsaw in their neck. Hmm, this is getting interesting.
Of course, we just assumed everyone at burning man is a rational, sober person who is carefully calculating their options. I'm not sure where to go from here, so let's bring back the ice cream, this time withmarginal utility. You have two lines, one for chocolate, one for vanilla. (A line to leave this morning vs a line to leave tonight). The student of game theory would point out that theory says the marginal utility of chocolate vs. vanilla must equal the extra waiting time for chocolate. The teacher of game theory would point out that some people don't like chocolate. Their kid will point out "free ice cream for everyone! Everyone pick your favorite flavor!"
BTW, you might want to read the first link in those search results for the search you posted. Quite obviously you didn't bother. It sure is amazing that a school with only 43,000 students each year has a couple who were unhappy. WGU graduates more students every year than Harvard, Princeton, and Yale put together. With that number, there's certainly going to be a few people who are unhappy that they didn't accept a certain class for transfer or whatever.
Oh, okay, I understand what you're saying. Ads on web sites are just billboards - you don't have to be on the site to se the ads that are on the site. Just like a billboard, if Dice puts an ad on Slashdot, people on Techcrunch will see it. Obviously, that makes Techdirt readers unhappy, having their neighbor Slashdot putting up all of those billboards.
You're certainly right. It's not like you only see the ads on Slashdot if you come to Slashdot.
> the queue will still grow to the point where the convenience of getting out is just barely outweighed by the inconvenience of waiting in line.
True (sort of), but perhaps not as important as it first appears. The above statement is STILL true when the wait is 30 seconds. Yet, a 30 second wait is surely a success. Just because the two are theoretically balanced doesn't mean the plan wasn't a great success. Therefore it might make sense not to focus too much on that.
That does suggest a refinement, though. Announcing the winner of a contest would only take a couple of minutes, so yeah it only splits the group in two. Better would be something like a long performance or series of performances so that some people would stay an extra hour, some stay an extra two hours, etc. Maybe that could be combined with the volunteer issue, pack up / clean up thing. If you stay for the cleanup on Monday, you'll be there for _____ (good stuff, but not too good).
You're complaining about ads on "the internet". But "the internet" doesn't mean web pages. So you're complaining about flyers stuffed into fiber conduits?
You're trying to defend the position that:
"The internet is the place where people put ads are". "The internet is the fiber and routers".
See, you keep contradicting yourself. When that happens, you have several options. A) You can flee to ridiculous ad hominem, B) you can lose your mind struggling to find a way to make all of those contradictions make sense, or C) you be intellectually honest with yourself and recognizing that the position you had been advocating is clearly non-sensical and it's time to step back and see what actually makes sense.
PS - WGU students can refer potential students and send them a code that waives the $65 application fee. Message me if you're interested in looking into it.
There is a way to get a bachelor's degree from a state university, and a bunch of well-known certifications at the same time, for only a few thousand dollars. I'm sort of doing what I'm about to describe, though I could have saved myself more money by planning ahead. I did earn six college credits this week, though, which cost me about $100. Western Governor's University ( http://wgu.edu/ ) has IT programs in which most of computer related classes are based on passing a test. Specifically, they use industry recognized certification tests from COMPTIA, Microsoft, etc. So passing one of these tests gets you both course credit and a certification.
At WGU, you don't pay per-class. Instead, tuition covers a six-month time semester. You can take and pass 20 classes if you want to. That allows for the following strategy:
Look at the list of certifications that make up a specific degree. Study for those certifications using Professor Messer or other free resources. When you're ready to take six certifications, register for WGU. Take those six tests in the first two weeks of the term (24-32 college credits). Take non-certification tests like Math, which I just took after a couple of days of study (6 college credits). Begin studying for the next set and get those done in the remaining five months. (12 college credits).
In that way, you will have earned 48 college credits and received several certifications, while paying only $2,800 for the term. Depending on your level of pre-existing knowledge and the amount of time you put in, you might well be able to complete a BS or BA in 18-24 months, paying $8,400 for your degree and certifications.
WGU is an accredited university founded by 19 governors that is considered a state university in many states. I just now took my math final on my lunch break, sitting at my desk at work. They use a webcam for proctoring to make sure I'm not cheating. It took me maybe three hours of study and one hour testing to pass the math class, which is 3 credits.
The license plate thing probably would reduce the wait. The wait could be more organically reduced by holding some event or two shortly after the time people are currently leaving, so that some people stick around a bit longer.
I don't know exactly what would be appropriate at what time, but let's say the traffic jam is really bad from 9AM-10AM. Schedule to announce the winner of the biggest bud contest at 10:00, and give away a ______ at 10:30. People staying for those two things would level out the traffic outflow.
No, it's not. It's a collective term for a bunch of people's individual sites, what used to be called "home pages". I won't tell you what to put on your home page. If you want to make a site where you babble about your collectivist nonsense, go ahead. It's none of my business what you put on your site. Your shite is not a commons. Before you build your site, I'd SUGGEST that you first visit one of the many fine sites where you can learn what "commons" means, but it's really none of my business if you want to skip learning the vocabulary and just post gibberish on your site.
Maybe if you're among the 80% of working age Americans who has a job, a new one isn't a big deal. Well, unless you're one of the 13% under-employed, a programmer checking groceries at Walmart. If you are among the 17% who are either struggling to find work or have given up hope and stopped even trying, a programming job that will pay your family's bills could be a very big deal indeed.
That's me. I'm not good at running a company, though I've run a few during the 16 years I ran them. I also don't LIKE running a company, filing taxes every month and all that. You've got employment taxes four times a year, state franchise tax, income tax, sales tax, business personal property tax in the county where the office is, business personal property tax where the servers are, managing group heath insurance - holy shit wtf is Obama doing today, unemployment tax, worker's comp...
Being an employer in the US takes about 30 hours per week. The other twenty hours are left to manage the business - strategy, cash flow, manage the employees, etc. If I was lucky, I'd be able to code for five hours in a week.
That's unfortunate, because I really enjoy STARTING a business. Moving from being just one person to big enough to hire a full or half time accountant and full or half time HR person is REALLY difficult, though.
While I'm not that good at running a business, most people who know me say I'm really, really good at software systems design. I never did any real marketing - I didn't know how. My companies stayed afloat only because the product was clearly best in class.
Now, I'm rather enjoying NOT running a company. I just code all day. Some lady down the hall deals with insurance companies and studies Obamacare changes all day. Several people around the corner take care of the various taxes. I just build cool software and I like it.
(Is it a problem if we need more people dedicated to taxes and other government forms than we have programmers, marketing people, or customer support staff?)
Nobody owes you building free web sites for you. Facebook is not the freaking commons, it's Zuck's property, and you are an invited guest. Slashdot is not yours. CmdrTaco built it, and he put ads in his house. If you don't like how he (and now Dice) decorated his house, you are welcome to leave.
When I stay up all night building something nice for you to enjoy, that doesn't make it yours, or make it "the commons". I built it, it's my site. If I want to put blink tags on my site I can. If you don't like blink tags, you're free to stay out of the place I built.
Disregard my post that is parent to this one. The threshold for weak authentication is set when the system is set up, and can't be adjusted by an attacker who has the database. (Modulo a non-obvious flaw, of course.)
> Yeah, I think that's a problem. There shouldn't be any way to tell a "slightly wrong" password from any other wrong password.
I'm not sure, but I think you just identified a HUGE problem. I believe the paper says the admin can specify how close to correct it has to be, as in how many bytes are checked. So the attacker sets their copy to check only the first byte and tries A-Z, 0-9, and !-=. That takes a millisecond to try 80 characters or so. Once they know the first character, they set it to also check the second character. A ten character password would fall in about 10 milliseconds.
A person will only trade A for B if A > B. Someone trades A for B. Therefore, A > B.
However, you've forgotten that in order for someone to trade A for B, someone must also trade B for A. For every seller there must be a buyer, for every employee, there must be an employer.
Therefore, the full syllogism for the transaction is:
A person will only trade A for B if A > B. Someone trades A for B. Someone trades B for A. Therefore, A > B and B > A.
It is obviously false that A is greater and less than B. Therefore, your whole understanding of capitalism is falsified in seconds. Your mind - blown.
You've missed a couple of important facts, including the very fact that the name "capitalism" comes from. First, a car is worth about $1500 / year. A teenage employee is worth about $10,000 / year. Ten thousand pounds of water, flour, tomatoes and cheese are worth $20,000. Total value of these items: $30,500 The value of 10,000 pizzas, each delivered: $140,000
The business person makes a profit essentially by putting the parts together in a way that increases value, not by shrewd trading. A ship combined with an organized crew, combined with a contract to carry things is (much) more valuable than the value of an empty ship + the value of random people's time + a contract you can't fulfill. That's how profits are made - putting the right pieces together, in the right way, so that the value to the is increased. You must increase the value to the buyer, obviously, but also increase the value to workers. By myself, I can generate $X in a good month, $Y in a bad month. My work, in my employer's office, with my employer's equipment, my employer's team, and my employer's reputation pays me a steady $X every month, which I find much more valuable. My employer can reliably pay me as much as I'd make by myself in a good month because by putting all of the parts together the value of the system is $X * 2.
Bob's car won't start until Alice blows his Breathalyzer, because Bob's a drunk.
Seriously it's more like Bob's key won't start Bob's car, and Alice's key won't start Alice's car, unless both Bob and Alice turn their keys at the same time. The keys have transponders in them that talk to each other.
Therefore, you can't make an unauthorized spare key by examining Bob's lock - your unauthorized key has to match both Bob's lock and Alice's key.
There's no requirement for "special" accounts, though that could be used.
The other option is to just allow your regular users logging in after a reboot to hit the threshold. This would be good for a busy site, where 1,000 users try to log in sooner than an admin can be alerted. That brings up the question of how you authenticate those first N users. The solution is the paper allows a weak authentication before the threshold is hit, so the server could allow "slightly wrong" passwords for the first 30-60 seconds after it starts up.
If users don't want annoying ads, instead serve ads that aren't annoying.
If you don't to be tracked from site to site, the ads you see on Slashdot could be based on which stories you read on Slashdot, and based on the comments you post. No cross-site tracking, if that's what users want.
Key to this is something else users want - a ton of free content. You don't want to pay $29.95 / month for Slashdot. You want Slashdot, and you want it for free. Advertisers are willing to help pay the bills to keep Slashdot running (and all of the other sites). That means advertisers are already giving you something you want.
One thing several people posted is that ad relevance is shorter than advertisers seem to think. Don't advertise something I searched for six weeks ago, users say. Advertisers can fix that. People have also complained that ads are often for a product they purchased. Instead, it would be better to have ads for RELATED products and services. That's doable.
You are not mistaken. Your IP address is basically unique to your neighborhood. So we have "that guy in northwest Billings, Montana who uses Safari version X.Y on OSX version X.Y.z with the screen resolution xXy, media player plugin version x.Y, adblock version x.Y, noscript version x.Y....". We'll recognize that guy when he comes back.
> who can be trusted to vet the content they pass on and avoid being a distributor of JavaScript malware?
That's easy - if they only pass on plain text and images, no scripting, they aren't passing on JavaScript malware. I believe Google falls into that category.
Of course Google has their own script. It does "track" you, but it's not malware in the sense of your post.
> selling all the things I couldn't care less about and they make it hard to actually concentrate on the content I am on the website for in the first place.
Agreed. I much prefer RELEVANT ads. These days, I often see ads that are precisely the type of thing I would buy, and like that. I buy a lot of refurb enterprise storage. If you offer me a great deal on a 16 port 3ware card, that's a lot more useful to me (and the advertiser) than some random ad.
> 2) they're one of the most popular ways of spreading malware on the Internet.
And needlessly so. The ads themselves don't need to be running script or Flash from the advertiser. Text or an image does the job fine. The NETWORK (Google or DoubleClick) may need some scripting to provide the most relevant ads, but they don't need to be presenting script provided by their various advertisers.
"Advertisers are parasites". That's an interesting choice of words. I guess you're unaware that advertisers pay the bills for this site and almost all sites on the internet. Users like yourself get something for free. For any definition of "parasite" that I can imagine, it's the users, who get something for nothing, who best fit that label.
I work with a few thousand sites that are NOTsupported by ads. Instead, users pay the bills directly. That normally costs $29.95 / month for a membership. Personally, I don't want to pay $29.95 for each site. I prefer the ad-supported model.
Considering the information in TFA, can we infer anything about what type of puzzles would be easy for humans, but hard for computers? Traditional captchas were an attempt at that, but they don't work that well.
So far, I've come up with only one puzzle our wetware does much better than software - spotting attractive members of the opposite sex. That's what we use in our captchasystem.
Slashdot Mirror
That is a good point. Under simplified artificial conditions, the net value only cancels out if the queue is long enough that people forego the reward due to the wait. If the line is short enough that all interested parties get in line, it's a net positive, that's true.
I WAS thinking it was always true for the marginal value case of "leave now or leave later", but I think I had it backwards. The thereom always FALSE for getting in the Burning Man line at all, because it's ALWAYS better to get the reward at the end - getting out of the desert, even if you spent two weeks in line,. The alternative is to die of dehydration in the desert. Themarginal gain (or loss) of leaving at any specific time is more complex.
I'm thinking this through in writing, so tell me if I miss something.
In the ice cream example, the line gets to the threshold and stays there because if it's too long, people will skip the ice cream. They'll decide getting the ice cream is not worth the wait, just not get ice cream.
Getting home is not optional. People will not decide to skip getting home in order to avoid the line. The question is not "is it worth getting in line?" Rather, the question is the marginal utility of getting in line NOW vs hanging out another five minutes. So the options are:
A) Less time at festival, get home sooner, more/less time in line.
B) More time at festival, get home later, more/less time in line
That seems to be an altogether different calculation, with different results, and different number of variables than:
a) get in line and get reward
b) don't get in line
You could reduce the actual situation to simple scenario if "get reward" is defined as the marginal utility of now vs later. It's interesting that the difference between the two is:
(Home sooner) - (less time at festival) -+ (the line may be longer or shorter later)
The marginal utility, therefore, may be negative, the "reward" at the end of the line may be a punishment. In that case, no rational, sober person who studied the problem would leave at that time. Unless of course it was subjectively a positive _for_them_ to leave immediately because they have a chainsaw in their neck. Hmm, this is getting interesting.
Of course, we just assumed everyone at burning man is a rational, sober person who is carefully calculating their options. I'm not sure where to go from here, so let's bring back the ice cream, this time withmarginal utility. You have two lines, one for chocolate, one for vanilla. (A line to leave this morning vs a line to leave tonight). The student of game theory would point out that theory says the marginal utility of chocolate vs. vanilla must equal the extra waiting time for chocolate. The teacher of game theory would point out that some people don't like chocolate. Their kid will point out "free ice cream for everyone! Everyone pick your favorite flavor!"
Yes, just like the other state universities in Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.
(WGU is a state university in those states).
https://www.google.com/search?...
BTW, you might want to read the first link in those search results for the search you posted. Quite obviously you didn't bother.
It sure is amazing that a school with only 43,000 students each year has a couple who were unhappy.
WGU graduates more students every year than Harvard, Princeton, and Yale put together. With that number, there's certainly going to be a few people who are unhappy that they didn't accept a certain class for transfer or whatever.
Oh, okay, I understand what you're saying. Ads on web sites are just billboards - you don't have to be on the site to se the ads that are on the site. Just like a billboard, if Dice puts an ad on Slashdot, people on Techcrunch will see it. Obviously, that makes Techdirt readers unhappy, having their neighbor Slashdot putting up all of those billboards.
You're certainly right. It's not like you only see the ads on Slashdot if you come to Slashdot.
> the queue will still grow to the point where the convenience of getting out is just barely outweighed by the inconvenience of waiting in line.
True (sort of), but perhaps not as important as it first appears. The above statement is STILL true when the wait is 30 seconds. Yet, a 30 second wait is surely a success. Just because the two are theoretically balanced doesn't mean the plan wasn't a great success. Therefore it might make sense not to focus too much on that.
That does suggest a refinement, though. Announcing the winner of a contest would only take a couple of minutes, so yeah it only splits the group in two. Better would be something like a long performance or series of performances so that some people would stay an extra hour, some stay an extra two hours, etc. Maybe that could be combined with the volunteer issue, pack up / clean up thing. If you stay for the cleanup on Monday, you'll be there for _____ (good stuff, but not too good).
You're complaining about ads on "the internet". But "the internet" doesn't mean web pages.
So you're complaining about flyers stuffed into fiber conduits?
You're trying to defend the position that:
"The internet is the place where people put ads are". "The internet is the fiber and routers".
See, you keep contradicting yourself. When that happens, you have several options. A) You can flee to ridiculous ad hominem, B) you can lose your mind struggling to find a way to make all of those contradictions make sense, or C) you be intellectually honest with yourself and recognizing that the position you had been advocating is clearly non-sensical and it's time to step back and see what actually makes sense.
PS - WGU students can refer potential students and send them a code that waives the $65 application fee.
Message me if you're interested in looking into it.
There is a way to get a bachelor's degree from a state university, and a bunch of well-known certifications at the same time, for only a few thousand dollars. I'm sort of doing what I'm about to describe, though I could have saved myself more money by planning ahead. I did earn six college credits this week, though, which cost me about $100.
Western Governor's University ( http://wgu.edu/ ) has IT programs in which most of computer related classes are based on passing a test.
Specifically, they use industry recognized certification tests from COMPTIA, Microsoft, etc. So passing one of these tests gets you both course credit and a certification.
At WGU, you don't pay per-class. Instead, tuition covers a six-month time semester. You can take and pass 20 classes if you want to. That allows for the following strategy:
Look at the list of certifications that make up a specific degree.
Study for those certifications using Professor Messer or other free resources.
When you're ready to take six certifications, register for WGU.
Take those six tests in the first two weeks of the term (24-32 college credits).
Take non-certification tests like Math, which I just took after a couple of days of study (6 college credits).
Begin studying for the next set and get those done in the remaining five months. (12 college credits).
In that way, you will have earned 48 college credits and received several certifications, while paying only $2,800 for the term.
Depending on your level of pre-existing knowledge and the amount of time you put in, you might well be able to complete a BS or BA in 18-24 months, paying $8,400 for your degree and certifications.
WGU is an accredited university founded by 19 governors that is considered a state university in many states. I just now took my math final on my lunch break, sitting at my desk at work. They use a webcam for proctoring to make sure I'm not cheating. It took me maybe three hours of study and one hour testing to pass the math class, which is 3 credits.
The license plate thing probably would reduce the wait. The wait could be more organically reduced by holding some event or two shortly after the time people are currently leaving, so that some people stick around a bit longer.
I don't know exactly what would be appropriate at what time, but let's say the traffic jam is really bad from 9AM-10AM. Schedule to announce the winner of the biggest bud contest at 10:00, and give away a ______ at 10:30. People staying for those two things would level out the traffic outflow.
> "The Internet" is a commons.
No, it's not. It's a collective term for a bunch of people's individual sites, what used to be called "home pages". I won't tell you what to put on your home page. If you want to make a site where you babble about your collectivist nonsense, go ahead. It's none of my business what you put on your site. Your shite is not a commons. Before you build your site, I'd SUGGEST that you first visit one of the many fine sites where you can learn what "commons" means, but it's really none of my business if you want to skip learning the vocabulary and just post gibberish on your site.
Maybe if you're among the 80% of working age Americans who has a job, a new one isn't a big deal. Well, unless you're one of the 13% under-employed, a programmer checking groceries at Walmart. If you are among the 17% who are either struggling to find work or have given up hope and stopped even trying, a programming job that will pay your family's bills could be a very big deal indeed.
That's me. I'm not good at running a company, though I've run a few during the 16 years I ran them. I also don't LIKE running a company, filing taxes every month and all that. You've got employment taxes four times a year, state franchise tax, income tax, sales tax, business personal property tax in the county where the office is, business personal property tax where the servers are, managing group heath insurance - holy shit wtf is Obama doing today, unemployment tax, worker's comp ...
Being an employer in the US takes about 30 hours per week. The other twenty hours are left to manage the business - strategy, cash flow, manage the employees, etc. If I was lucky, I'd be able to code for five hours in a week.
That's unfortunate, because I really enjoy STARTING a business. Moving from being just one person to big enough to hire a full or half time accountant and full or half time HR person is REALLY difficult, though.
While I'm not that good at running a business, most people who know me say I'm really, really good at software systems design. I never did any real marketing - I didn't know how. My companies stayed afloat only because the product was clearly best in class.
Now, I'm rather enjoying NOT running a company. I just code all day. Some lady down the hall deals with insurance companies and studies Obamacare changes all day. Several people around the corner take care of the various taxes. I just build cool software and I like it.
(Is it a problem if we need more people dedicated to taxes and other government forms than we have programmers, marketing people, or customer support staff?)
Nobody owes you building free web sites for you.
Facebook is not the freaking commons, it's Zuck's property, and you are an invited guest. Slashdot is not yours. CmdrTaco built it, and he put ads in his house. If you don't like how he (and now Dice) decorated his house, you are welcome to leave.
When I stay up all night building something nice for you to enjoy, that doesn't make it yours, or make it "the commons". I built it, it's my site. If I want to put blink tags on my site I can. If you don't like blink tags, you're free to stay out of the place I built.
Disregard my post that is parent to this one. The threshold for weak authentication is set when the system is set up, and can't be adjusted by an attacker who has the database. (Modulo a non-obvious flaw, of course.)
> Yeah, I think that's a problem. There shouldn't be any way to tell a "slightly wrong" password from any other wrong password.
I'm not sure, but I think you just identified a HUGE problem. I believe the paper says the admin can specify how close to correct it has to be, as in how many bytes are checked. So the attacker sets their copy to check only the first byte and tries A-Z, 0-9, and !-=. That takes a millisecond to try 80 characters or so. Once they know the first character, they set it to also check the second character. A ten character password would fall in about 10 milliseconds.
You assert the following:
A person will only trade A for B if A > B.
Someone trades A for B.
Therefore, A > B.
However, you've forgotten that in order for someone to trade A for B, someone must also trade B for A. For every seller there must be a buyer, for every employee, there must be an employer.
Therefore, the full syllogism for the transaction is:
A person will only trade A for B if A > B.
Someone trades A for B.
Someone trades B for A.
Therefore, A > B and B > A.
It is obviously false that A is greater and less than B. Therefore, your whole understanding of capitalism is falsified in seconds. Your mind - blown.
You've missed a couple of important facts, including the very fact that the name "capitalism" comes from.
First, a car is worth about $1500 / year. A teenage employee is worth about $10,000 / year. Ten thousand pounds of water, flour, tomatoes and cheese are worth $20,000.
Total value of these items: $30,500
The value of 10,000 pizzas, each delivered: $140,000
The business person makes a profit essentially by putting the parts together in a way that increases value, not by shrewd trading.
A ship combined with an organized crew, combined with a contract to carry things is (much) more valuable than the value of an empty ship + the value of random people's time + a contract you can't fulfill. That's how profits are made - putting the right pieces together, in the right way, so that the value to the is increased. You must increase the value to the buyer, obviously, but also increase the value to workers. By myself, I can generate $X in a good month, $Y in a bad month. My work, in my employer's office, with my employer's equipment, my employer's team, and my employer's reputation pays me a steady $X every month, which I find much more valuable. My employer can reliably pay me as much as I'd make by myself in a good month because by putting all of the parts together the value of the system is $X * 2.
Bob's car won't start until Alice blows his Breathalyzer, because Bob's a drunk.
Seriously it's more like Bob's key won't start Bob's car, and Alice's key won't start Alice's car, unless both Bob and Alice turn their keys at the same time. The keys have transponders in them that talk to each other.
Therefore, you can't make an unauthorized spare key by examining Bob's lock - your unauthorized key has to match both Bob's lock and Alice's key.
There's no requirement for "special" accounts, though that could be used.
The other option is to just allow your regular users logging in after a reboot to hit the threshold. This would be good for a busy site, where 1,000 users try to log in sooner than an admin can be alerted. That brings up the question of how you authenticate those first N users. The solution is the paper allows a weak authentication before the threshold is hit, so the server could allow "slightly wrong" passwords for the first 30-60 seconds after it starts up.
If users don't want annoying ads, instead serve ads that aren't annoying.
If you don't to be tracked from site to site, the ads you see on Slashdot could be based on which stories you read on Slashdot, and based on the comments you post. No cross-site tracking, if that's what users want.
Key to this is something else users want - a ton of free content. You don't want to pay $29.95 / month for Slashdot. You want Slashdot, and you want it for free. Advertisers are willing to help pay the bills to keep Slashdot running (and all of the other sites). That means advertisers are already giving you something you want.
One thing several people posted is that ad relevance is shorter than advertisers seem to think. Don't advertise something I searched for six weeks ago, users say. Advertisers can fix that. People have also complained that ads are often for a product they purchased. Instead, it would be better to have ads for RELATED products and services. That's doable.
You are not mistaken. Your IP address is basically unique to your neighborhood. So we have "that guy in northwest Billings, Montana who uses Safari version X.Y on OSX version X.Y.z with the screen resolution xXy, media player plugin version x.Y, adblock version x.Y, noscript version x.Y ....". We'll recognize that guy when he comes back.
> who can be trusted to vet the content they pass on and avoid being a distributor of JavaScript malware?
That's easy - if they only pass on plain text and images, no scripting, they aren't passing on JavaScript malware. I believe Google falls into that category.
Of course Google has their own script. It does "track" you, but it's not malware in the sense of your post.
> selling all the things I couldn't care less about and they make it hard to actually concentrate on the content I am on the website for in the first place.
Agreed. I much prefer RELEVANT ads. These days, I often see ads that are precisely the type of thing I would buy, and like that. I buy a lot of refurb enterprise storage. If you offer me a great deal on a 16 port 3ware card, that's a lot more useful to me (and the advertiser) than some random ad.
> 2) they're one of the most popular ways of spreading malware on the Internet.
And needlessly so. The ads themselves don't need to be running script or Flash from the advertiser. Text or an image does the job fine. The NETWORK (Google or DoubleClick) may need some scripting to provide the most relevant ads, but they don't need to be presenting script provided by their various advertisers.
"Advertisers are parasites". That's an interesting choice of words. I guess you're unaware that advertisers pay the bills for this site and almost all sites on the internet. Users like yourself get something for free. For any definition of "parasite" that I can imagine, it's the users, who get something for nothing, who best fit that label.
I work with a few thousand sites that are NOTsupported by ads. Instead, users pay the bills directly. That normally costs $29.95 / month for a membership. Personally, I don't want to pay $29.95 for each site. I prefer the ad-supported model.
Your girlfriend doesn't know when it's in the wrong hole and you're COMPLAINING?
Considering the information in TFA, can we infer anything about what type of puzzles would be easy for humans, but hard for computers? Traditional captchas were an attempt at that, but they don't work that well.
So far, I've come up with only one puzzle our wetware does much better than software - spotting attractive members of the opposite sex. That's what we use in our captchasystem.