What do you want to do? Launch a Lego probe to grab NEAR, bring it safely back to sea level, and sell it on eBay? I'd be tempted to, if I had a cheap launch platform. But it's always about effort and its common representation, money.
People don't know that MS decided way back with the PC/AT's 80286 to not use its hardware features to protect the O.S. from the applications. The virus industry enjoys MS' behavior.
People think that it's routine for computers to be unstable. As if it's somehow inherent in the metal. Not that "Support Staff" mind. Good thing they take more action about bridge design.
The biggest problem is the proprietary file formats. Data and documents belong to users, not to MS. But once the information is in an MS product, you're lucky if you can transfer it to something else. I dread having to access today's electronic government records in ten years -- who knows what MS Word 2010 will think of Word 6.DOC?
I think the DOJ dropped the ball on that one. Whatever happened to the company, they should have required opening the APIs. Document the program interfaces, and document the data formats. Let others be able to process MS data formats.
"If I printed out my message, took a photo of the text with a digital camera, and then ran the resulting.jpg file through rot-128? How would an unintended recipient know where to start decoding the message?"
Start with a copy of "Codes & Secret Writing" or any other introduction to coding and decoding. The standard procedure is to find some weakness, decode what is weakened, then repeat the process. The classic example in text decoding is to look for patterns which represent the most common letters and words in the language which is probably being used. Basically, if you have to ask this kind of question then you shouldn't be trying to create an encryption algorithm. It's not easy to create something which is at all secure.
Although I'm not familiar with the format of a.jpg file, there probably is a certain pattern near the beginning due to the definition of the compression patterns. (Yes, I'm ignoring the actual header which announces the file type -- that's too easy) Someone who does this for a living would recognize that type of pattern hiding behind simple encryptions of this type. There probably are some sort of record markers which separate each chunk of the picture, and the pattern of those markers would also reveal clues to the encryption. JPEG also uses compression, and the codes used to indicate reuse of compressed values would also provide patterns (ie, the green in a field of grass may provide a cluster of patterns).
I once had to deal with an encrypted mail system which was being used by thieves. The programmer of the mail system had used a standard library routine which sometimes left a space at the end of a line of text. It was easy to see the patterns of those spaces, and from the way the spaces were encrypted the encryption algorithm and its key were easy to find. The program was available, so the encryption algorithm could have been extracted from the program, but it wasn't necessary to do so -- although the program was also studied later to confirm that it was understood properly.
Well, if we follow the example of "Spacehounds of the IPC" we just need a few heroic individuals with access to machine shops. They'll smelt copper, draw wire, build an electrical generator, and start making bolts with which to fasten together the parts for a chipmaking foundry.
Those horizontal outlet strips are available from industrial electronics catalogs and industrial supply houses. I'm sure that you're referring to those which often are four, six, or ten feet long.
The components for making those strips are available to electricians. It is not unusual to have a work area with outlet strips installed to exactly match the width of the work area -- the components can be fitted end-to-end to make arbitrarily long units.
Easier to find in hardware stores are surface-mount conduit. This is a covered metal strip for carrying wires across a wall to surface-mounted outlets. Making a row of outlets from this produces outlet-containing boxes which are connected with thinner conduit. The outlet strips which are referred to above use conduit which is wide enough for the installed outlets.
This involves mounting a floppy with tar gzip files, then copying those into ramdisk. This happens late in the boot process (see the script "linuxrc" (ie, pkgsrc/root/linuxrc). Should work with a removable drive.
(Why Linux? Because a BSOD is a terrible thing to embed.)
For reference while shopping, the Video4Linux home page lists major hardware types. V4Linux is included in recent distributions, particularly with the 2.4 kernel. As I noted elsewhere, some manufacturers not listed here also mention Linux.
Hmm.. That erase-after-viewing magnet might be the basis of this 2-play tape system.
It would be easy to put the magnet on a mechanism that would move the magnet into erasing position the first time the tape is rewound or the first time the tape plays past a certain point.
When the tape is played the second time, the tape would past that magnet which damages/erases the recording. The same mechanism which moved the magnet would move it away from the tape to a permanently locked position, thus allowing the tape to be used normally.
Perhaps he doesn't own it...but if he was doing this work under the impression that use of the GPL was okay, did he include any existing GPL-protected code? What other names are now involved?
If the produce is contaminated by the GPL, the employer will have to decide how to deal with it. The simplest might be to leave it all under the GPL -- that only becomes an issue when the code is "distributed" to others. They can develop and use it internally, but have to make the source available to anyone who they sell or license the software to.
I don't know if the author is entitled to a copy. That's an issue between him and his employer.
Look at the Linux-USB.Org page again. See the big colored arrow saying "Check here or on the linux-usb mailing list for device support"? Click on that.
I do not know. Mine is from a 1960s disk drive that was nine feet tall, had two stacks of twelve platters, and used hydraulics to move the heads. It did not have much capacity, but it had a good transfer rate due to reading 12-bit words off all 12 platters in parallel. Support for them got very expensive around 1980 so they probably all vanished around that time, and that was when I got mine.
Burning lighter fluid in a metal wastebasket won't do all that much to the data on the platters. There's not very good air circulation, and lighter fluid burns at a low temperature. There should be air holes in the incinerator, at least, and preferably plenty of fuel.
You need to raise the temperature of the magnetic coating above the Curie temperature (770 C for iron). But as the platters are probably aluminum, and the melting point of aluminum is around 660 C -- you're probably going to have to settle for melting the platters and stirring them up.
Be aware that melting aluminum in your wastebasket will damage your wastebasket. And you probably should not do this near your cubicle.
We don't have to wait. 50 percent of stars like ours probably have metallic planets.
A survey of middle-aged stars within 350 light years found that half of them were emitting light that showed metals were present in the top layers of the stars. That suggests that metallic dust, asteroids, and planets fell into the star. Not all that stuff falls in, so there are planets around a bunch of those. Planets that formed a long time ago.
It's a shame that NASA's software distribution system, COSMIC, vanished in a puff of greasy black smoke two years ago. They used to have quite an assortment of government-developed software. You can judge for yourself how well you can find something at the replacement service.
"The Administration shall provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." -National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958
The article makes more sense if you're aware that in Chemistry the word "reduce" means that a certain chemical reaction takes place. Far down in the article it is also mentioned that this organism produces insoluble material.
This article is reporting that this organism can be let loose (well, it's already around in small quantities naturally), fed, and after the resulting slime dies off there will be deposits which do not easily dissolve in water.
The purpose of this method is to turn radioactive leaks into bits that don't interact with the environment as easily as raw machined metal does. If there's strong radioactivity one still has to dig up the resulting solids and put them someplace safer until the radioactivity fades. That's weeks, decades, or millenia depending upon the material -- or fire up your nuclear accelerator and transmute them into safer stuff sooner.
Slashdot Mirror
"Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle", he said quick as a flash.
The maximum allowed non-lethal caliber is half a foot? Well, I suppose if you only hit an arm with a six-inch shell that might be survivable...
What do you want to do? Launch a Lego probe to grab NEAR, bring it safely back to sea level, and sell it on eBay? I'd be tempted to, if I had a cheap launch platform. But it's always about effort and its common representation, money.
People don't know that MS decided way back with the PC/AT's 80286 to not use its hardware features to protect the O.S. from the applications. The virus industry enjoys MS' behavior.
People think that it's routine for computers to be unstable. As if it's somehow inherent in the metal. Not that "Support Staff" mind. Good thing they take more action about bridge design.
The biggest problem is the proprietary file formats. Data and documents belong to users, not to MS. But once the information is in an MS product, you're lucky if you can transfer it to something else. I dread having to access today's electronic government records in ten years -- who knows what MS Word 2010 will think of Word 6 .DOC?
I think the DOJ dropped the ball on that one. Whatever happened to the company, they should have required opening the APIs. Document the program interfaces, and document the data formats. Let others be able to process MS data formats.
Although I'm not familiar with the format of a .jpg file, there probably is a certain pattern near the beginning due to the definition of the compression patterns. (Yes, I'm ignoring the actual header which announces the file type -- that's too easy) Someone who does this for a living would recognize that type of pattern hiding behind simple encryptions of this type. There probably are some sort of record markers which separate each chunk of the picture, and the pattern of those markers would also reveal clues to the encryption. JPEG also uses compression, and the codes used to indicate reuse of compressed values would also provide patterns (ie, the green in a field of grass may provide a cluster of patterns).
I once had to deal with an encrypted mail system which was being used by thieves. The programmer of the mail system had used a standard library routine which sometimes left a space at the end of a line of text. It was easy to see the patterns of those spaces, and from the way the spaces were encrypted the encryption algorithm and its key were easy to find. The program was available, so the encryption algorithm could have been extracted from the program, but it wasn't necessary to do so -- although the program was also studied later to confirm that it was understood properly.
Well, if we follow the example of "Spacehounds of the IPC" we just need a few heroic individuals with access to machine shops. They'll smelt copper, draw wire, build an electrical generator, and start making bolts with which to fasten together the parts for a chipmaking foundry.
The components for making those strips are available to electricians. It is not unusual to have a work area with outlet strips installed to exactly match the width of the work area -- the components can be fitted end-to-end to make arbitrarily long units.
Easier to find in hardware stores are surface-mount conduit. This is a covered metal strip for carrying wires across a wall to surface-mounted outlets. Making a row of outlets from this produces outlet-containing boxes which are connected with thinner conduit. The outlet strips which are referred to above use conduit which is wide enough for the installed outlets.
tcpflow home page
This involves mounting a floppy with tar gzip files, then copying those into ramdisk. This happens late in the boot process (see the script "linuxrc" (ie, pkgsrc/root/linuxrc). Should work with a removable drive.
For reference while shopping, the Video4Linux home page lists major hardware types. V4Linux is included in recent distributions, particularly with the 2.4 kernel. As I noted elsewhere, some manufacturers not listed here also mention Linux.
There are several USB video devices listed in this Linux USB video list.
It would be easy to put the magnet on a mechanism that would move the magnet into erasing position the first time the tape is rewound or the first time the tape plays past a certain point.
When the tape is played the second time, the tape would past that magnet which damages/erases the recording. The same mechanism which moved the magnet would move it away from the tape to a permanently locked position, thus allowing the tape to be used normally.
Perhaps he doesn't own it...but if he was doing this work under the impression that use of the GPL was okay, did he include any existing GPL-protected code? What other names are now involved?
If the produce is contaminated by the GPL, the employer will have to decide how to deal with it. The simplest might be to leave it all under the GPL -- that only becomes an issue when the code is "distributed" to others. They can develop and use it internally, but have to make the source available to anyone who they sell or license the software to.
I don't know if the author is entitled to a copy. That's an issue between him and his employer.
The sequel to Mission of Gravity is Star Light. Same characters, different situation, different problems. Both are good.
The M-1 a $500 320 x 240 gray scale display.
You end up on this site, and the "device overview" and "Networking" links show you this USB Networking frame.
I do not know. Mine is from a 1960s disk drive that was nine feet tall, had two stacks of twelve platters, and used hydraulics to move the heads. It did not have much capacity, but it had a good transfer rate due to reading 12-bit words off all 12 platters in parallel. Support for them got very expensive around 1980 so they probably all vanished around that time, and that was when I got mine.
You need to raise the temperature of the magnetic coating above the Curie temperature (770 C for iron). But as the platters are probably aluminum, and the melting point of aluminum is around 660 C -- you're probably going to have to settle for melting the platters and stirring them up.
Be aware that melting aluminum in your wastebasket will damage your wastebasket. And you probably should not do this near your cubicle.
(I do have a three-foot-diameter magnetic disk platter. Nice coffee table top.)
That's quite a high school. Are the Computer Design, Semiconductor Physics, and Electronic Engineering departments nearby?
A survey of middle-aged stars within 350 light years found that half of them were emitting light that showed metals were present in the top layers of the stars. That suggests that metallic dust, asteroids, and planets fell into the star. Not all that stuff falls in, so there are planets around a bunch of those. Planets that formed a long time ago.
This article is reporting that this organism can be let loose (well, it's already around in small quantities naturally), fed, and after the resulting slime dies off there will be deposits which do not easily dissolve in water.
The purpose of this method is to turn radioactive leaks into bits that don't interact with the environment as easily as raw machined metal does. If there's strong radioactivity one still has to dig up the resulting solids and put them someplace safer until the radioactivity fades. That's weeks, decades, or millenia depending upon the material -- or fire up your nuclear accelerator and transmute them into safer stuff sooner.