While I agree that history suggests that register values to represent pointers has proved effective, I don't share your view that the only way to support a >4GB address space is to support >32 bit register values.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear with respect to how I see these very large addresses proving useful. I'm not thinking of any system with even 2^64 units of stored data- rather that I can see an argument for massive address spaces in order to better organise data while retaining a persistent model. One possibility this would open is the mapping of 'transformed data' which could be computed on demand as the pages containing it are accessed - if this technique were applied recursively it is easy to see why very large address spaces may prove useful in future.
I would be intrigued to hear why you assert "32 bit floating point values are a complicated and dangerous compromise." I agree it is a compromise - but don't see why you would consider it dangerous. In my experience 32, 64 and 128bit are handled adequately in current 32 bit processors (with appropriate FPU implementations) though I admit most of my experience is with integer arithmetic. Why do you think it would be inappropriate to extend the MMU to handle addresses larger than 32 bits in a similar way to the FPU handles large floating point representations? I can see definite advantages to using 32 bit addresses to access executable code and stack space. I see definite advantages to supporting huge address spaces for memory mapped IO. I still don't see that 64 bit registers is the only (or even best) way to achieve this.
Maybe we need to agree to disagree - I doubt I'll see an architecture as I envisage any time soon!
Historically speaking, that's absolutely true. The distinction I'd like to make is one of diminishing returns for typical applications of increasing the "default word length". Sure, it makes things easy to have register values representing pointer values for which the full range of arithmetic and logical operators can be applied... but is this really useful for the most common software? (I don't think so.) I agree that this simplicity has been an enormous benefit with 32bit architectures- greatly simplifying the programmer/compiler authors' conceptual model - but I don't see that this is the only (or necessarily the best) plan for next generation platforms. Why limit ourselves to 64 bit addresses - I can foresee valid applications for 128,256 and 512 bit (and larger) address schemes (consider, for example, distributed grid computing.) I don't, at present, see applications which would significantly benefit from register values of these sizes - especially considering the trade off between cache and processing functionality given the limited die spaces in contemporary fabrication.
The interesting question is not when can I have 64 bit registers, but rather when can I have larger address bus, VM address space? In my view the benefits of 64 bit computing (in a way analogous to 32 bit computing) are not clearly proven. I propose, though don't offer empirical evidence here, that the vast majority of modern software has a property I will refer to loosely as locality - i.e. - the idea that typically register values are small and that the bottlenecks executing a properly optimised program will predominantly use a relatively small portion of the address space. If this is the case, I see no valid reason to want to manipulate 64 bit quantities atomically within the processor - wouldn't simply extending the 32bit MMU architecture (with appropriate compiler optimisations) prove more cost effective for the foreseeable future?
1. Re: "lesser punishments" > That's unfortunate, because there already are examples of laws where the > consequences have some effect on the punishment, or even the crime.
My argument isn't that there is no precedent - rather that I oppose the motion...
2. Re: Reduced punishment when the actual damage is easily corrected. > In both cases, the crime is the same -- fleeing the scene of an accident. > Driving into your car is not in itself a criminal act.
I, and thankfully the authorities, agree here. I still feel, however, that the similarities are worthy of consideration.
3. Re: value of damage ("what cut off point") > No, but stealing a candy-bar should not be (and isn't) treated the same way as > stealing a car, or going into a place with a "shoppiong list" and stealing > thousands of dollars worth of goods.
Maybe we should? I can see a distinction between taking food - which could be regarded as necessary "for survival" and stealing luxury goods. For any crime the punishment should take into account the circumstances under which the crime was committed, however I do not see why this should be tied to the value of the goods taken or damaged. I want any punishment to be based on circumstance and criminal intent - not estimated cost to the victim.
4. Re: encourage criminals to commit a much larger number of small crimes > That increases the chances of catching any given criminal, since they > have to commit crimes more frequently.
I don't know your background, but I'd like to suggest - from bitter experience - that the vast majority of petty crime is never appropriately dealt with. Vandalism and theft from cars is commonplace - often the culprits are known to the authorities yet these matters are seldom resolved. As criminal activity rises, it becomes more difficult to police - not least of all because criminal behaviour becomes normal and culprits no longer stand apart from the crowd.
5. Re: Fagin > Aren't there already offences that specifically address the issue of soliciting > minors to commit crime ? Why not just hit this Fagin guy with multiple > counts of this offence ?
There are a few practical snags:
I strongly suspect that it would be very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Neo-Fagin had solicited the criminal activity.
The most likely source of evidence would be the juveniles encouraged to act on Neo-Fagin's behalf - and I see no reason for them to break Neo-Fagin's trust by offering evidence - especially if by denying his existence there are no significant consequences.
I guess you are assuming Neo-Fagin is a prosecutable adult... I see no reason he might not turn out to be under age too - which I suggest would throw another proverbial spanner in the works.
OK - so maybe I was guilty of flame-bait tactics, but I remain convinced about at least the core of my argument. In the UK, at least, we have something called the "Computer misuse act" (1990 - updated 1998) and this covers the vast majority of malicious activities with computers. In very simple terms, "stealing" computer resources, like graffiti (criminal damage), is a criminal act - though I guess the burden of proof would be increased for web-server attacks - since the misused machine has an implicit invitation for some form of public use.
In essence, I believe that these malicious acts should be treated as criminal rather than civil violations. As such, I can see no valid reason for leniency merely because the victim was able to recover cheaply. Similarly, I see no reason that punishment should escalate merely because the victim was incompetent at security - in many cases this security is already a requirement in law of anyone who stores personal data.
Morally, I believe that punishments should relate to criminal intent rather than criminal success. I recognise that offences committed by children, juveniles and adults are best dealt with differently - however I can see no reason to adopt a victim-driven penal system where punishments are determined by the consequences of the criminal acts.
I share, respect and applaud your assertion that the vast majority of cyber-legislature should be unnecessary, and that existing laws should be sufficiently robust that an inconsequential change. For example, interacting using computers as opposed to, say, over the phone should not require grotesque swathes of ill-defined additional laws, however I must oppose your view about "lesser punishments" where consequences are small.
Should the man who drove off at high speed after driving into my car be let-off because he hit a cheaper production car? His obligations to stop and exchange insurance details would be enforced if I had a specialist sports car particularly expensive to fix? That is silly. What should be the cut-off? Should we allow people to steal as long as they don't take more than $10 at a time, £100, $1000? Ridiculous -encourage criminals to commit a much larger number of small crimes... which in turn are likely to be far more difficult to police. Are we trying to launch a modern Fagin who can escape the long arm of the law hiding behind juveniles committing frequent but individually petty crime?
I admit that it is most difficult to address vandalism-like crimes - particularly in a virtual environment, but see too many distinctions between graffiti and ego-hacking. Would it be too much of a stretch to compare web-site defacement to placing an "I'm a bit twit who doesn't want my SUV" poster placed on the seat of an unlocked truck left with the keys in the ignition? Each of these causes anxiety (what else might have been done to the vehicle) - but only when it comes to hacking is it seen as valid to persecute someone based upon what the victim feels might have done. When the consequences of an electronic attack are so severe, surely it should be seen as necessary, responsible behaviour to ensure effective security against such juvenile behaviour?
... have shown a significant drop in core subjects (Math, English) in schools that plase strong emphasis on Information Technology
No shit, Sherlock?
Seriously, as far as I can tell the problem is that IT and most teachers are completely immiscible. IT is treated as a separate subject and this is confused with computation - which in turn encourages the technically illiterate to imagine that there is no more to computer science than their experience with Word and Excel. It is pointless to teach someone to program who can't solve simple algebraic problems; to word process when they don't grasp the essence of prose - or to use mathematical tools when they can't do sums by hand.
I think you're missing some crucial points in your arguments... First, winning at chess is not, in my opinion at least, an indication of intelligence. Chess is a game with a simple description won by recognising winnable patterns and planning - both of which are better suited to machines than humans. I would consider a chess computer to exhibit intelligent behaviour if it modified its objectives (not merely strategy) as a consequence of experience - for example, maybe "deciding" to let a novice player win in order to play a better adversary.
I must next take issue with the idea that an ability to 'learn' coupled with time and resources can increase intelligence. To my mind, intelligence is the capacity to learn and not the body of knowledge retained - hence even a learning machine would not increase in intelligence until it discovers new ways to learn. While I suspect it is possible for a programmer to implement a system more intelligent than himself, I suspect that this will not also be true of the system architect (no offence to programmers intended.) In essence I'd argue that if intelligence is the potential to react, then any person designing an intelligent machine must be able to react in the same manner - hence has at least that level of intelligence. While it doesn't rule out collaborations which result in systems with more "intelligence" than any single participant, I expect that the upper bound is the collective intelligences of the machine's creators.
Bring it on, I say, I don't need intelligent machines - hell plenty of people get by without intelligent friends!
I agree - a simple, straightforward and robust system... and one which can be introduced piecemeal. I see a distributed database assigning "scores" to authenticated tags embedded into email headers... 1 => Completely reliable source with strong and enforced email abuse policy... down to, say, 5 => Untrustworthy client - frequently reported spammer.
For the first couple of years, it would most users would use the additional header to present better criteria for client side filtering... but as uptake becomes more widespread... ISPs would emerge for the masses which only accept authenticated email.
Cloudmark certainly appears professional, however I have a concern about their approach. Assuming the body text of spams are fingerprinted, this will almost certainly fail as soon as spam messages are personalised (say by trying to guess my name from my email address.)
I think you mean your files which don't compress "too well" have high entropy not "nowhere near enough":-)
entropy 1. Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work. 2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system. 3...
Oh - and some of us use computers for things other than digital photography and MP3s! I find loss-less compressed archives as valuable a technique today as I ever did.
While an undergrad, one course (taught in Prolog) required all the students to take a given program, amend it and provide hardcopy traces of the output after each of the 5 stages to show that the program "still worked." Leaving aside the inherent flaws (which I could argue mean the original program could never "work!") I stumbled upon the documentary requirement placed on students. Two of us produced the first phase of the first part's printed documentation and a projection that a complete answer would cost tens of thousands of pounds in paper and ink and take several years to print even given exclusive use of the university's fastest printers. When challenged, the lecturer (who set this dastardly task) explained that all he really wanted was a 'heavy' submission from each student - in order to dissuade moderators from questioning the grades he deemed appropriate as they would have no desire to wade through a few hundred pages of output before making their case!
The sooner people realise that documentary complexity and volume doesn't gain advantages the better. It would be great to see a shift in opinion about such treatise requiring that the document be taken as a whole - and considered void in it's entirety should it contain anything redundant, unnecessarily convoluted or not legally binding. If this doesn't happen, I can only envisage licenses plummet further towards their own obsolescence.
Thanks for reminding me about ClearType - I used to find my Dell Inspiron 8200's screen the best display I've ever used - and checking that box just made everything a whole lot better!
I can only agree with you LCDs are the way forwards... but I want to see 17" (or preferably 19") 1600x1200 (or better) displays for sensible prices before I replace my working desktop CRT.
The freeware PGP8.0 is scheduled for release in Q4 2002. Can anyone comment about the release date? I see no problems using PGP Beta if PGP freeware will be available to download (at least several days) before the beta expires. In any case, I imagine we can still access our encrypted data using GPG?
I would like to see a more high tech version of this running on a PC. I think it would be liberating to press a button and have an Eliza-like program take over the call from my end. Initially, it could ask the telemarketers to repeat everything several times... then play dumb for a while - asking for things to be repeated in more and more depth - then present an automated sales pitch for some ludicrous randomly chosen product - finally thanking the company for an amusing conversation - and hanging up. I think this would be a particularly effective anti-scam as a result of the way in which I suspect many call centres are run - I understand that those making the calls are required to be polite at all times and are frequently are required to follow strict rules about how they must direct conversations and answer questions. I'm having fun ideas about stock phrases like - "Very interesting - but I'm afraid I was distracted by my next door neighbours' cat - please could you repeat all that" on a rule where the caller has spoken for over 3 minutes. "I'm very interested in this idea - please would you wait while I get a pen I'm back again - what was it we were talking about again?" "Can you explain to me what you meant by that first bit again?" (The possibilities are only limited by our imagination:-)
It all depends upon the implementation of Request.QueryString() - as it would appear that the string would need to be quoted... so... ASSUMING that Querystring() processes the string entered by the user to double up on apostrophes, and puts the whole string between quotes, then your argument that this is a security flaw does not hold - any attempt to do something smart would result in a syntax error... which would not damage the RDBMS data.
I also see no reason why security need not be enforced by only running such queries in an RDBMS account which has only been granted select privilege... I would consider such configuration an integral part of any system - and would again mean this code has no security flaw as you suggest.
Of course... I'm not saying that these things are done correctly - just that you've presented no evidence for your arguments - your conclusion doesn't follow from the quote.
I've taken an interest in small PCs recently... and I'm sad to say this one again seems to pander to someone else's wish list. I'd like a small form factor PC to accepts a couple of standard size IDE H/Ds and CD/CRRW. I don't need video or a fast processor - should have Ethernet (for connectivity) and USB/serial/parallel (for peripherals) and run silently - i.e. without a fan.
I'd give it wireless and broadband and a printer and voila, desktop priced resources available to my laptop. Am I the only one looking for this?
I can vouch for the argument about Windows just keeping quiet to reduce user angst.
I've recently encountered a very unsavoury consequence with Windows 2000 and power loss (on a laptop running off mains without a battery.) While it has been argued that NTFS (a log based file system) doesn't need fsck (chkdsk) after a crash... I can assure you, from bitter experience, that sometimes it does! The good news is that I could boot from the CD to a console and run chkdsk which made an appropriate repair... not a pleasant experience.
Whatever happened to the experimental transactional file system (Tux?)?
Windows sells better _because_ it is riddled with bugs, mis-features and quirks. This is one of the reasons I can't behave like a "proper" OSS advocate and recommend an alternative desktop OS. (I won't mention the fact that MS still has the productivity software suite market by the gonads.) If Windows were to be a mature and stable product, clueless business users wouldn't continually impose MS-only "standards" on all their colleagues. The sad fact is that it is far easier to put up with the cruft than it is to instigate a change. It is not acceptable to loose time due to in inability to handle the files from a lunatic customer using whatever is the latest and greatest MS format or feature. "Everyone uses MS" - we are tied by the shackle of compatibility.
Right now, I don't really need more than 512MB of physical RAM, BUT I do want the simplicity of memory mapping exabyte-scale data in a single process. I want a different kind of software:-)
As randombit (correctly) asserts, the linked list example is far from space efficient when compared to a vector (a.k.a. array) - but that's not the point. The crux of the matter with the hybrid approach he suggests is that larger vector (array) components in each linked list slot improve space efficiency, but adversely affect the efficiency of inserts/deletes (which is the reason a "sane-un" would use a linked list in the first place!)
I feel there is a need to re-think the way in which resources are allocated (from a holistic perspective) before we can reap big benefits from a 64-bit architecture. To a large extent 32 bit programmers had it easy - any memory address is a single register value - which was far easier to manage than the previous generation of baroque memory models where programmers had to consider system level minutia in order to ensure their programs were efficient. (Read Bentley's "Programming Pearls" if you want a superb example.) This simplicity was, in my opinion, central to the overwhelming success of 32 bit processors.
In order to exploit 64 bit address spaces it is imperative that the conceptual model within which application developers wave their cabalist wands doesn't become polluted. At the moment, I feel the future lies in the widespread adoption of generics where additional settings (say specified maximum sizes for linked lists) would allow compilation to use short representations of memory offsets (in place of pointers) with the added advantage that this should force locality of reference and pave the way to "page-miss prediction" which promises still further performance advantages.
P.S. Thanks for the hint about EROS - I was aware of it existence. Another one worth a mention is POST, (which I played about with for a bit but then discarded as a nice idea with a flaky implementation.)
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree that history suggests that register values to represent pointers has proved effective, I don't share your view that the only way to support a >4GB address space is to support >32 bit register values.
Maybe I didn't make myself clear with respect to how I see these very large addresses proving useful. I'm not thinking of any system with even 2^64 units of stored data- rather that I can see an argument for massive address spaces in order to better organise data while retaining a persistent model. One possibility this would open is the mapping of 'transformed data' which could be computed on demand as the pages containing it are accessed - if this technique were applied recursively it is easy to see why very large address spaces may prove useful in future.
I would be intrigued to hear why you assert "32 bit floating point values are a complicated and dangerous compromise." I agree it is a compromise - but don't see why you would consider it dangerous. In my experience 32, 64 and 128bit are handled adequately in current 32 bit processors (with appropriate FPU implementations) though I admit most of my experience is with integer arithmetic. Why do you think it would be inappropriate to extend the MMU to handle addresses larger than 32 bits in a similar way to the FPU handles large floating point representations? I can see definite advantages to using 32 bit addresses to access executable code and stack space. I see definite advantages to supporting huge address spaces for memory mapped IO. I still don't see that 64 bit registers is the only (or even best) way to achieve this.
Maybe we need to agree to disagree - I doubt I'll see an architecture as I envisage any time soon!
Historically speaking, that's absolutely true. The distinction I'd like to make is one of diminishing returns for typical applications of increasing the "default word length". Sure, it makes things easy to have register values representing pointer values for which the full range of arithmetic and logical operators can be applied... but is this really useful for the most common software? (I don't think so.) I agree that this simplicity has been an enormous benefit with 32bit architectures- greatly simplifying the programmer/compiler authors' conceptual model - but I don't see that this is the only (or necessarily the best) plan for next generation platforms. Why limit ourselves to 64 bit addresses - I can foresee valid applications for 128,256 and 512 bit (and larger) address schemes (consider, for example, distributed grid computing.) I don't, at present, see applications which would significantly benefit from register values of these sizes - especially considering the trade off between cache and processing functionality given the limited die spaces in contemporary fabrication.
The interesting question is not when can I have 64 bit registers, but rather when can I have larger address bus, VM address space? In my view the benefits of 64 bit computing (in a way analogous to 32 bit computing) are not clearly proven. I propose, though don't offer empirical evidence here, that the vast majority of modern software has a property I will refer to loosely as locality - i.e. - the idea that typically register values are small and that the bottlenecks executing a properly optimised program will predominantly use a relatively small portion of the address space. If this is the case, I see no valid reason to want to manipulate 64 bit quantities atomically within the processor - wouldn't simply extending the 32bit MMU architecture (with appropriate compiler optimisations) prove more cost effective for the foreseeable future?
Consensus then :-)
1. Re: "lesser punishments"
> That's unfortunate, because there already are examples of laws where the
> consequences have some effect on the punishment, or even the crime.
My argument isn't that there is no precedent - rather that I oppose the motion...
2. Re: Reduced punishment when the actual damage is easily corrected.
> In both cases, the crime is the same -- fleeing the scene of an accident.
> Driving into your car is not in itself a criminal act.
I, and thankfully the authorities, agree here. I still feel, however, that the similarities are worthy of consideration.
3. Re: value of damage ("what cut off point")
> No, but stealing a candy-bar should not be (and isn't) treated the same way as
> stealing a car, or going into a place with a "shoppiong list" and stealing
> thousands of dollars worth of goods.
Maybe we should? I can see a distinction between taking food - which could be regarded as necessary "for survival" and stealing luxury goods. For any crime the punishment should take into account the circumstances under which the crime was committed, however I do not see why this should be tied to the value of the goods taken or damaged. I want any punishment to be based on circumstance and criminal intent - not estimated cost to the victim.
4. Re: encourage criminals to commit a much larger number of small crimes
> That increases the chances of catching any given criminal, since they
> have to commit crimes more frequently.
I don't know your background, but I'd like to suggest - from bitter experience - that the vast majority of petty crime is never appropriately dealt with. Vandalism and theft from cars is commonplace - often the culprits are known to the authorities yet these matters are seldom resolved. As criminal activity rises, it becomes more difficult to police - not least of all because criminal behaviour becomes normal and culprits no longer stand apart from the crowd.
5. Re: Fagin
> Aren't there already offences that specifically address the issue of soliciting
> minors to commit crime ? Why not just hit this Fagin guy with multiple
> counts of this offence ?
There are a few practical snags:
I strongly suspect that it would be very difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Neo-Fagin had solicited the criminal activity.
The most likely source of evidence would be the juveniles encouraged to act on Neo-Fagin's behalf - and I see no reason for them to break Neo-Fagin's trust by offering evidence - especially if by denying his existence there are no significant consequences.
I guess you are assuming Neo-Fagin is a prosecutable adult... I see no reason he might not turn out to be under age too - which I suggest would throw another proverbial spanner in the works.
OK - so maybe I was guilty of flame-bait tactics, but I remain convinced about at least the core of my argument. In the UK, at least, we have something called the "Computer misuse act" (1990 - updated 1998) and this covers the vast majority of malicious activities with computers. In very simple terms, "stealing" computer resources, like graffiti (criminal damage), is a criminal act - though I guess the burden of proof would be increased for web-server attacks - since the misused machine has an implicit invitation for some form of public use.
In essence, I believe that these malicious acts should be treated as criminal rather than civil violations. As such, I can see no valid reason for leniency merely because the victim was able to recover cheaply. Similarly, I see no reason that punishment should escalate merely because the victim was incompetent at security - in many cases this security is already a requirement in law of anyone who stores personal data.
Morally, I believe that punishments should relate to criminal intent rather than criminal success. I recognise that offences committed by children, juveniles and adults are best dealt with differently - however I can see no reason to adopt a victim-driven penal system where punishments are determined by the consequences of the criminal acts.
I share, respect and applaud your assertion that the vast majority of cyber-legislature should be unnecessary, and that existing laws should be sufficiently robust that an inconsequential change. For example, interacting using computers as opposed to, say, over the phone should not require grotesque swathes of ill-defined additional laws, however I must oppose your view about "lesser punishments" where consequences are small.
Should the man who drove off at high speed after driving into my car be let-off because he hit a cheaper production car? His obligations to stop and exchange insurance details would be enforced if I had a specialist sports car particularly expensive to fix? That is silly. What should be the cut-off? Should we allow people to steal as long as they don't take more than $10 at a time, £100, $1000? Ridiculous -encourage criminals to commit a much larger number of small crimes... which in turn are likely to be far more difficult to police. Are we trying to launch a modern Fagin who can escape the long arm of the law hiding behind juveniles committing frequent but individually petty crime?
I admit that it is most difficult to address vandalism-like crimes - particularly in a virtual environment, but see too many distinctions between graffiti and ego-hacking. Would it be too much of a stretch to compare web-site defacement to placing an "I'm a bit twit who doesn't want my SUV" poster placed on the seat of an unlocked truck left with the keys in the ignition? Each of these causes anxiety (what else might have been done to the vehicle) - but only when it comes to hacking is it seen as valid to persecute someone based upon what the victim feels might have done. When the consequences of an electronic attack are so severe, surely it should be seen as necessary, responsible behaviour to ensure effective security against such juvenile behaviour?
No shit, Sherlock?
Seriously, as far as I can tell the problem is that IT and most teachers are completely immiscible. IT is treated as a separate subject and this is confused with computation - which in turn encourages the technically illiterate to imagine that there is no more to computer science than their experience with Word and Excel. It is pointless to teach someone to program who can't solve simple algebraic problems; to word process when they don't grasp the essence of prose - or to use mathematical tools when they can't do sums by hand.
I think you're missing some crucial points in your arguments... First, winning at chess is not, in my opinion at least, an indication of intelligence. Chess is a game with a simple description won by recognising winnable patterns and planning - both of which are better suited to machines than humans. I would consider a chess computer to exhibit intelligent behaviour if it modified its objectives (not merely strategy) as a consequence of experience - for example, maybe "deciding" to let a novice player win in order to play a better adversary.
I must next take issue with the idea that an ability to 'learn' coupled with time and resources can increase intelligence. To my mind, intelligence is the capacity to learn and not the body of knowledge retained - hence even a learning machine would not increase in intelligence until it discovers new ways to learn. While I suspect it is possible for a programmer to implement a system more intelligent than himself, I suspect that this will not also be true of the system architect (no offence to programmers intended.) In essence I'd argue that if intelligence is the potential to react, then any person designing an intelligent machine must be able to react in the same manner - hence has at least that level of intelligence. While it doesn't rule out collaborations which result in systems with more "intelligence" than any single participant, I expect that the upper bound is the collective intelligences of the machine's creators.
Bring it on, I say, I don't need intelligent machines - hell plenty of people get by without intelligent friends!
I agree - a simple, straightforward and robust system... and one which can be introduced piecemeal. I see a distributed database assigning "scores" to authenticated tags embedded into email headers... 1 => Completely reliable source with strong and enforced email abuse policy... down to, say, 5 => Untrustworthy client - frequently reported spammer.
For the first couple of years, it would most users would use the additional header to present better criteria for client side filtering... but as uptake becomes more widespread... ISPs would emerge for the masses which only accept authenticated email.
I'd like to see this!
Cloudmark certainly appears professional, however I have a concern about their approach. Assuming the body text of spams are fingerprinted, this will almost certainly fail as soon as spam messages are personalised (say by trying to guess my name from my email address.)
Have I missed something?
http://www.7-zip.org/
I think you mean your files which don't compress "too well" have high entropy not "nowhere near enough" :-)
entropy
1. Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.
2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
3...
Oh - and some of us use computers for things other than digital photography and MP3s! I find loss-less compressed archives as valuable a technique today as I ever did.
While an undergrad, one course (taught in Prolog) required all the students to take a given program, amend it and provide hardcopy traces of the output after each of the 5 stages to show that the program "still worked." Leaving aside the inherent flaws (which I could argue mean the original program could never "work!") I stumbled upon the documentary requirement placed on students. Two of us produced the first phase of the first part's printed documentation and a projection that a complete answer would cost tens of thousands of pounds in paper and ink and take several years to print even given exclusive use of the university's fastest printers. When challenged, the lecturer (who set this dastardly task) explained that all he really wanted was a 'heavy' submission from each student - in order to dissuade moderators from questioning the grades he deemed appropriate as they would have no desire to wade through a few hundred pages of output before making their case!
The sooner people realise that documentary complexity and volume doesn't gain advantages the better. It would be great to see a shift in opinion about such treatise requiring that the document be taken as a whole - and considered void in it's entirety should it contain anything redundant, unnecessarily convoluted or not legally binding. If this doesn't happen, I can only envisage licenses plummet further towards their own obsolescence.
Amazon censored my comment...
I submitted a seriously thought through review on "Dekalog" (these are my favourite films I've ever seen) - though no-one could call them "happy!"
You Star!!!
Thanks for reminding me about ClearType - I used to find my Dell Inspiron 8200's screen the best display I've ever used - and checking that box just made everything a whole lot better!
I can only agree with you LCDs are the way forwards... but I want to see 17" (or preferably 19") 1600x1200 (or better) displays for sensible prices before I replace my working desktop CRT.
The freeware PGP8.0 is scheduled for release in Q4 2002. Can anyone comment about the release date? I see no problems using PGP Beta if PGP freeware will be available to download (at least several days) before the beta expires. In any case, I imagine we can still access our encrypted data using GPG?
I would like to see a more high tech version of this running on a PC. I think it would be liberating to press a button and have an Eliza-like program take over the call from my end. Initially, it could ask the telemarketers to repeat everything several times... then play dumb for a while - asking for things to be repeated in more and more depth - then present an automated sales pitch for some ludicrous randomly chosen product - finally thanking the company for an amusing conversation - and hanging up. I think this would be a particularly effective anti-scam as a result of the way in which I suspect many call centres are run - I understand that those making the calls are required to be polite at all times and are frequently are required to follow strict rules about how they must direct conversations and answer questions. I'm having fun ideas about stock phrases like - "Very interesting - but I'm afraid I was distracted by my next door neighbours' cat - please could you repeat all that" on a rule where the caller has spoken for over 3 minutes. "I'm very interested in this idea - please would you wait while I get a pen I'm back again - what was it we were talking about again?" "Can you explain to me what you meant by that first bit again?" (The possibilities are only limited by our imagination :-)
Not necessarily...
It all depends upon the implementation of Request.QueryString() - as it would appear that the string would need to be quoted... so... ASSUMING that Querystring() processes the string entered by the user to double up on apostrophes, and puts the whole string between quotes, then your argument that this is a security flaw does not hold - any attempt to do something smart would result in a syntax error... which would not damage the RDBMS data.
I also see no reason why security need not be enforced by only running such queries in an RDBMS account which has only been granted select privilege... I would consider such configuration an integral part of any system - and would again mean this code has no security flaw as you suggest.
Of course... I'm not saying that these things are done correctly - just that you've presented no evidence for your arguments - your conclusion doesn't follow from the quote.
I've taken an interest in small PCs recently... and I'm sad to say this one again seems to pander to someone else's wish list. I'd like a small form factor PC to accepts a couple of standard size IDE H/Ds and CD/CRRW. I don't need video or a fast processor - should have Ethernet (for connectivity) and USB/serial/parallel (for peripherals) and run silently - i.e. without a fan.
I'd give it wireless and broadband and a printer and voila, desktop priced resources available to my laptop. Am I the only one looking for this?
I can vouch for the argument about Windows just keeping quiet to reduce user angst.
I've recently encountered a very unsavoury consequence with Windows 2000 and power loss (on a laptop running off mains without a battery.) While it has been argued that NTFS (a log based file system) doesn't need fsck (chkdsk) after a crash... I can assure you, from bitter experience, that sometimes it does! The good news is that I could boot from the CD to a console and run chkdsk which made an appropriate repair... not a pleasant experience.
Whatever happened to the experimental transactional file system (Tux?)?
Windows sells better _because_ it is riddled with bugs, mis-features and quirks. This is one of the reasons I can't behave like a "proper" OSS advocate and recommend an alternative desktop OS. (I won't mention the fact that MS still has the productivity software suite market by the gonads.) If Windows were to be a mature and stable product, clueless business users wouldn't continually impose MS-only "standards" on all their colleagues. The sad fact is that it is far easier to put up with the cruft than it is to instigate a change. It is not acceptable to loose time due to in inability to handle the files from a lunatic customer using whatever is the latest and greatest MS format or feature. "Everyone uses MS" - we are tied by the shackle of compatibility.
Tell your son to grow up - get drunk and chase loose women... far more fun than 3D gaming when you're off on a jolly.
Right now, I don't really need more than 512MB of physical RAM, BUT I do want the simplicity of memory mapping exabyte-scale data in a single process. I want a different kind of software:-)
I feel there is a need to re-think the way in which resources are allocated (from a holistic perspective) before we can reap big benefits from a 64-bit architecture. To a large extent 32 bit programmers had it easy - any memory address is a single register value - which was far easier to manage than the previous generation of baroque memory models where programmers had to consider system level minutia in order to ensure their programs were efficient. (Read Bentley's "Programming Pearls" if you want a superb example.) This simplicity was, in my opinion, central to the overwhelming success of 32 bit processors.
In order to exploit 64 bit address spaces it is imperative that the conceptual model within which application developers wave their cabalist wands doesn't become polluted. At the moment, I feel the future lies in the widespread adoption of generics where additional settings (say specified maximum sizes for linked lists) would allow compilation to use short representations of memory offsets (in place of pointers) with the added advantage that this should force locality of reference and pave the way to "page-miss prediction" which promises still further performance advantages.
P.S. Thanks for the hint about EROS - I was aware of it existence. Another one worth a mention is POST, (which I played about with for a bit but then discarded as a nice idea with a flaky implementation.)