Because if the usable system you use to generate the key has any sort of network connection, then an attacker could eavesdrop on the generation and learn the key before the drive is removed and locked in the safe.
All k-dimensional vectorspaces are isomorphic to each other
I feel that should be "all k-dimensional vectorspaces over a given field are isomorphic to each other". R^3 and C^3 are both 3-dimensional vectorspaces (over the fields R and C, respectively), but certainly aren't isomorphic.
Implementing it in hardware removes encoding/decoding speed as an issue and 2k or 4k bit key lengths make it impractical to attack, unless you find a major weakness in the algorithm.
Only if you're very careful about constructing the hardware. Things like surges in power consumption or radio emissions can leak a lot of information.
the several-page digression into Greek mythology was a bit of a struggle
Yikes, does this guy make a habit of those? Snow Crash is the only Stephenson book I've read so far, and I enjoyed it with the exception of the multiple several-page digressions into bloody Sumerian-or-whatever-it-was mythology. Have been meaning to read Cryptonomicon for a while. A little put off by the prospect of having to battle through more boring mythology.:s
These trains are really so loud that you can't have a conversation in them? I'd go nuts riding something that noisy to work everyday. At least you wouldn't have to worry about falling asleep and missing your stop, I guess.
Well, thanks for that. I defected to mathematics after two years of theoretical physics, so never got into relativity all that deeply. It was really just a cheap joke, anyway.
I keep saying I'll teach myself some GR someday...
You're thinking of Western Australia.:p I'm still not convinced Perth actually exists. I mean, sure, it's on the maps, but when was the last time you ever heard anything about Perth on the news, or met anybody from Perth, or had Perth's existence validated in any other way?
That was pretty quick.
on
Etch Goes Beta
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Seems not so long ago Sarge came out after an eternity of waiting. Good to see things speeding up a bit.
I originally wasn't talking about antigravity at all, which would be plain if you'd read my earlier comment and understood high school physics. I was talking about balancing gravity out with an equal magnitude force in the opposite direction. You know, the way everything else that flies today flies.
Oh, well, if you're talking about present humans, I believe our evolution is more or less completely over. Medical technology means that people with genetic defects can still live and reproduce fine, and the fact that it's expensive to support children means that people with genetic superiorities aren't going to go and have twice as many kids as regular people. So I believe that further evolution of the human race will be limited to things like decreasing genetic susecptibility to disease, like you mention.
However, for "lesser" life forms, things like a genetic weak bone disorder would probably inhibit survivability rather more than for a human, and the trait probably would die out.
As for not being able to name any instances of beneficial genetic mutations in humans...I have to thank you for mentioning that because I actually hadn't considered it before and it has provoked some thought. I guess an important thing to ask is - for how long has the human race been in a position to recognise and record these things, and how long is this on an evolutionary scale, and what proportion of the human race has been in this position? Bear in mind that even today the vast majority of the human race lives in financial and technological conditions where they may not even recognise, and more probably not record or spread word about, a beneficial mutation?
Apologies for the belated reply.
Re:Reminds me of an old joke
on
Space Lichens
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· Score: 1
In Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, the main character dives between two docked space vehicles without a suit, being in space for maybe twenty seconds, and makes it with nothing more than a blood nose. That really kind of shocked me and had me wondering if it were really possible. I mean, okay, it's a science fiction book, sure, but I don't really understand the biological reasons for space-death well enough to be able to dismiss it out of hand. It'd be really eerie if that were true.
The temperature extremes have me wondering. It's freaking cold out there, but at the same time you're in a vacuum so there's nothing for your body heat to conduct out to and you'd only cool by radiation. I'm not really sure what the emissivity of the human body is. And, y'know, when I said "without a suit" I didn't mean "completely naked" but more "without a sealed helmet and stuff", so I guess heat loss by radiation would be limited to the extremities? I dunno.
Not to sound elitist, but people are mostly dumb in the sense that they're not looking for an all-encompassing law of the world. They've got television and their social lives to worry about. They'll accept what they're taught, so long as it doesn't interfere with these two matters, whether they contradict each other or not.
I've observed this too, to my complete bemusement. I think you said that well.
Its like getting a linux kernal binary, and whacking in or removing a few random bytes every copy and expecting that to make a better linux kernel.
You clearly don't understand evolution.
It's like getting a linux kernel binary, changing a few random bytes and then testing that kernel and if those random changes have made a better kernel, then you put them in the next release, whereas if they cause kernel panics you go back to where you started from and try another random bunch of bytes.
If you do this long enough, you will get a better kernel! Guaranteed.
Common sense doesn't say at all that bad mutations will occur orders of magnitude more regularly than good mutations - but even if they did, common sense says this won't matter. All those bad mutations will die out within a few generations and will have no overall effect on the population. The rare good mutations will continue to propogate, however, and become the norm.
Slashdot Mirror
has a total ban on Internet pr0n
That's news to me, as a life-long resident of Australia.
Because if the usable system you use to generate the key has any sort of network connection, then an attacker could eavesdrop on the generation and learn the key before the drive is removed and locked in the safe.
All k-dimensional vectorspaces are isomorphic to each other
I feel that should be "all k-dimensional vectorspaces over a given field are isomorphic to each other". R^3 and C^3 are both 3-dimensional vectorspaces (over the fields R and C, respectively), but certainly aren't isomorphic.
Wow, site is a verb now?
Unless Schneier is an expert on electronics, Schneier isn't qualified to say anything about this.
Schneier has a physics degree. I'm sure he can understand some basic EE.
Implementing it in hardware removes encoding/decoding speed as an issue and 2k or 4k bit key lengths make it impractical to attack, unless you find a major weakness in the algorithm.
Only if you're very careful about constructing the hardware. Things like surges in power consumption or radio emissions can leak a lot of information.
Mod this down, it is factually inaccurate, as a first-year astronomy class will make clear.
the several-page digression into Greek mythology was a bit of a struggle
:s
Yikes, does this guy make a habit of those? Snow Crash is the only Stephenson book I've read so far, and I enjoyed it with the exception of the multiple several-page digressions into bloody Sumerian-or-whatever-it-was mythology. Have been meaning to read Cryptonomicon for a while. A little put off by the prospect of having to battle through more boring mythology.
Blasphemy!
These trains are really so loud that you can't have a conversation in them? I'd go nuts riding something that noisy to work everyday. At least you wouldn't have to worry about falling asleep and missing your stop, I guess.
Can you find me a quote by RMS to support that? Or do you have some sort of mind-reading abilities that I'm just going to have to take your word for?
The BSD license is listed as free on the FSF website.
Well, thanks for that. I defected to mathematics after two years of theoretical physics, so never got into relativity all that deeply. It was really just a cheap joke, anyway.
I keep saying I'll teach myself some GR someday...
If Earth were stationary, that would be the end of the story. But Earth is not stationary.
I see they found that universal frame of reference they were looking for.
Red package application support
I knew those damn Sun bastards had turned communist when they released the Solaris source code!
Wow, three years at Adelaide and I had no idea our library website had the philosophers song on it! That's something to brag about.
You're thinking of Western Australia. :p I'm still not convinced Perth actually exists. I mean, sure, it's on the maps, but when was the last time you ever heard anything about Perth on the news, or met anybody from Perth, or had Perth's existence validated in any other way?
Seems not so long ago Sarge came out after an eternity of waiting. Good to see things speeding up a bit.
First post?
I originally wasn't talking about antigravity at all, which would be plain if you'd read my earlier comment and understood high school physics. I was talking about balancing gravity out with an equal magnitude force in the opposite direction. You know, the way everything else that flies today flies.
Oh, well, if you're talking about present humans, I believe our evolution is more or less completely over. Medical technology means that people with genetic defects can still live and reproduce fine, and the fact that it's expensive to support children means that people with genetic superiorities aren't going to go and have twice as many kids as regular people. So I believe that further evolution of the human race will be limited to things like decreasing genetic susecptibility to disease, like you mention.
However, for "lesser" life forms, things like a genetic weak bone disorder would probably inhibit survivability rather more than for a human, and the trait probably would die out.
As for not being able to name any instances of beneficial genetic mutations in humans...I have to thank you for mentioning that because I actually hadn't considered it before and it has provoked some thought. I guess an important thing to ask is - for how long has the human race been in a position to recognise and record these things, and how long is this on an evolutionary scale, and what proportion of the human race has been in this position? Bear in mind that even today the vast majority of the human race lives in financial and technological conditions where they may not even recognise, and more probably not record or spread word about, a beneficial mutation?
Apologies for the belated reply.
In Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, the main character dives between two docked space vehicles without a suit, being in space for maybe twenty seconds, and makes it with nothing more than a blood nose. That really kind of shocked me and had me wondering if it were really possible. I mean, okay, it's a science fiction book, sure, but I don't really understand the biological reasons for space-death well enough to be able to dismiss it out of hand. It'd be really eerie if that were true.
The temperature extremes have me wondering. It's freaking cold out there, but at the same time you're in a vacuum so there's nothing for your body heat to conduct out to and you'd only cool by radiation. I'm not really sure what the emissivity of the human body is. And, y'know, when I said "without a suit" I didn't mean "completely naked" but more "without a sealed helmet and stuff", so I guess heat loss by radiation would be limited to the extremities? I dunno.
2.3 Kelvin? I thought it was closer to 3?
Not to sound elitist, but people are mostly dumb in the sense that they're not looking for an all-encompassing law of the world. They've got television and their social lives to worry about. They'll accept what they're taught, so long as it doesn't interfere with these two matters, whether they contradict each other or not.
I've observed this too, to my complete bemusement. I think you said that well.
Its like getting a linux kernal binary, and whacking in or removing a few random bytes every copy and expecting that to make a better linux kernel.
You clearly don't understand evolution.
It's like getting a linux kernel binary, changing a few random bytes and then testing that kernel and if those random changes have made a better kernel, then you put them in the next release, whereas if they cause kernel panics you go back to where you started from and try another random bunch of bytes.
If you do this long enough, you will get a better kernel! Guaranteed.
Common sense doesn't say at all that bad mutations will occur orders of magnitude more regularly than good mutations - but even if they did, common sense says this won't matter. All those bad mutations will die out within a few generations and will have no overall effect on the population. The rare good mutations will continue to propogate, however, and become the norm.
It's not that hard, really.
Live in the US? Wtf? I signed up from Australia just fine.
I guess it's possible that that is what he meant to convey. I wasn't thinking of anything quite so exotic.