Maybe that is why they don't talk about it on YouTube? There is seriously quite some music on YouTube, some of it is good and often linked to a site where you can get a hi-quality version, buy the CD or otherwise support the performers/producers directly. Who needs the RIAA?
Perhaps within all that data is a DVDrom or two of real juicy material. More importantly, there may (should) be enough info in there to convict the former Bush administration's true criminals. Destroying that would be "destroying evidence": Supposed to to a 'serious crime' in the US. If most of it is Windows word/email, that thankfully compresses over 1000:1 to 'human readable' text. Programs such as 'antiword' would be my first line of attack if I was in-charge of this mess. Thankfully I'm not.
Since its well established nobody reads a EULA: Wouldn't it be painful to translate it into dozens of Languages? Perhaps computer programs can as legalese is very limited. Its more of a computer language and legalese might be parseable as such. Anybody who uses software surely knows its "at your own risk" and not much else.
As for FOSS, its expected everyone knows the spirit of the GPL and how it differs from the BSD contract. Not much else is enforceable on a global scale.
the Internet is much, much older than they are aware of, and for a reason. The Internet has always been a "nasty" and "krass" place. During most of its existence, as text only, maybe there was more left to the imagination? Its great to have all the added bandwidth, but not the added hassle of "do-gooders".
Nobody is going to "regulate" or enforce their religious convictions here. Leave us alone!
There is one item I question in this WSJ piece. There may be 500.000 people imprisoned for drugs alone, but how many more committed their violent crimes because of current drug laws in the US? If you factor that in, it may just be that the US isn't as criminal as it appears, in terms of incarceration.
While most countries simply ignore drug laws and put on an act for the US, this year saw quite a few declare them legal. Sometimes by prescription and in a few cases, outright legalization. The impairment each substance causes is generally well understood and it shouldn't be a problem enforcing traffic laws that forbid the use of many (including prescription) drugs.
In the US, it is probably most appropriate to start with marijuana and Heroin. The former has a good safety record and the later for the sake of public safety. Drugs like Heroin (capital "H" as its a brand name) and any drug that is easy to die from an overdose, should be Rx only. That should be obvious to most. The benefits would be immense: A half million could be released from prison and much fewer future convictions would for violent crimes as a result. Coke should likewise, at least at the start, be an Rx drug as it is unknown how the population would respond. Personally, I think a few may die of the "excitement", but the vast majority would be unaffected. In time it would be determined if the Rx policy was really needed. LSD, mushrooms and related substances are probably safe to outright legalize. Amphetamines and most other substances where it is really hard to OD on, like benzodiazapines, should also be included. Almost anything else that represents a personal or real public danger, like antibiotics, should remain Rx.
Regardless to how legalization is done, the benefits would be great for most in society. Only prison guards and similar low-life really need to fear for their jobs. The boost to society this would create would more than cover the loss of a few specialized jobs. In all likelihood, the overall use of drugs would go down. (Hardly worth mentioning as its so obvious.) Its hard to see it any other way, then again the way Americans vote scares the whole world.
In most places of the world (I've been to) including the USA, I've never been required to show ID to get a local pre-pay SIM. It is simply cheaper to forward all calls to your temporary SIM (through a suitable VoIP provider) and have people call you at that (land-line) number. Sure its a 'hole' in the system, but the "George Bush system" is at its end.
If people can get over the witch-hunt (especially in the USA) we will be in a safer world. Your odds of dying in a terrorist attack are about those of winning the lottery, Bush crap factored in. The world might soon become much safer. Please don't support this "War on Terror" crap anymore!
This indeed is one of the best decisions of the EU, particularly in that it ends the whole biometric scam, at least for here. Since DNA and fingerprints are the most 'stable' biometric measures, all other methods, disproved over 100 years ago, would seem to be included. The ramifications of this are great from ending (real)ID cards to George Bush's false "War on Terror".
If the USA government is poking at China, its more sophisticated and not readily detectable from the civilian nets. Appropriate technology and its proper use is the solution to this 'problem' that is very visible on our nets.
--
No, I can't read your signature, but my computer can. Using 'geek' is nicer than 'nerd' in these parts.
The pdf may be of interest to those studying relationships with China, but very little mention of any "cyber war" except part of chapter two that stresses its 'non-classified' information. The biggest hole in US computer security is Windows and how people use it. It is very common for 'users' of Windows not to set passwords, which just makes it even easier easier to penetrate the whole network. Hopefully, no Windows machine can even access classified information in the first place.
Unix isn't perfect either and again, its the human aspect that is the biggest risk. Anyone caught using an account with access to 'sensitive' or 'classified' without an adequate password should be warned, explained what a good password is and fired if they can't comply. It would seem that there is high compliance and regular audits anywhere 'classified' information can be accessed. Chapter 2 of the pdf only mentions 'unclassified' material, never mind all 'classified' material is created from 'unclassified' resources. Truly classified data should never be accessible from The Internet in any way, in the first place. Any information placed on, or close to The Internet should be considered 'public' on a worldwide basis.
Generally speaking, China uses the simplest, known techniques, to penetrate servers. Any admin can tell you how many dictionary attacks come from China. It is impossible to determine which ones are just 'script kiddies' or students and which are serious organized efforts. There is a very small rate of success from this method. Today it seems that these (Unix) machines are simply used to spread the simple scripts on a wider scale. Simply moving off port 22 (even to port 23) will stop 99% of the problem. Statistical programs that temporarily deny access to a certain IP address can be very effective as most scans never return, even if the access is denied for as little as five minutes. To combat the hardcore attempts where the attack returns, simply increase the 'access denied' time and ultimately blacklist the IP address and the whole net if necessary. (It is very rare it ever goes that far.)
In conclusion: Don't put classified information in the reach of The Internet. Never use any Microsoft product to view 'classified' or 'sensitive' information unless it can be assured there will never be any Internet connections of any sort. It is highly unlikely any government secrets leak out unless that was the intention, such as a "trial balloon". At this time, this is a non-problem that can be stopped. If absolutely nothing is done, it could escalate in much the way spam did. The official report appears to draw the same conclusion, however that is buried in a pile of irrelevant and off-topic material.
Personally, I find the articles attached to this about "as clear as mud". That is politics. Maybe there is presently a mandate to protect DRM, but its very divided by nation-state. I bet dollars to donuts (even money) that the mandate will be retracted before it becomes law. Politics as usual. There are so many loopholes in such laws. I may get sued in some nations if I were to port an effective DRM-stripper to Windows. (No I don't make ports for Windows -- That is for beginners.) If put out a Windows port that converted one DRM standard to another, all of Europe would love it. In my neck of the woods, I'm actually encouraged to crack DRM. In a twisted way, its like the legal concept of a locked door means "no entry". You are not supposed to crack WEP or WPA, for instance, even if they are known to be highly flawed.
The whole IP thing is so 20th century Capitalism. I just don't see hard working authors, musicians and inventors losing to "piracy". The suits like patents simply because their livelyhood depends on leaching money from hard working intellectual people. Every job where a patent was involved that I've had has greatly delayed me getting my product out. I lose, the fucking suits leach big-time. Yes, in the end only the lawyers win is a true statement. At least Europe got over software patents and for the most part isn't all that serious about making any exceptions in law because of technology's changes. Copyrights are automatic and that is right for the most part. I do agree that 'copyleft' should be legal world-wide. There is very great benefit in giving IP away: No lawyers, suits and other expensive and trivial people. I've made $Millions by just getting to the market first. By the time you get a patent, the copy-cats got your ass and most of your profit goes to lawyers. I get royalties but they are measly compared to 'bypassing the system'.
In the states greed rules and its a bit different but fundamentally the same. I couldn't make any real money there due to very short-sided thinking. This should be contrasted with the very long-term patents and copyrights. The US has never made any sense to me. Don't get me wrong, there is an element of bullshit everywhere, but the material provided for this really takes the cake. Looks like business as usual, but Obama has just been elected and who knows, he might follow through. Give the guy a break and let's see what he really does. 80% of the entire planet supports him. Its not the US ruling everywhere anymore. The "Bush doctrine" has long been dead, if you must call it that. Corruption has ruled from high places in the US much longer than Bush. Nobody can reset the US government in four years and look what JFK got for trying.
IP laws are simply an extension of US corruption and greed that has taken the world. Maybe 'big pharma' deserves very long-term patents then again its equally possible the FDA has it all wrong. All it took was a single drug scare for a substance that proved to be useful -- after the patent expired. That is what the world puts Bush's name to. It all the 911 game played over and over. IMO, the Germans invented modern psychological warfare, a very dangerous game. In a sense the US is playing 'world cop' with all this crap. The whole world now sees its ran out for the USA. I'm so pissed off about paying a tax on my FreeBSD that I probably pay more in the total effort to legally circumvent the laws concerning CD blanks. Hard-drives are a better deal anyways, but you must have many, set up a RAID (A real RAID, not 'raid 0 or 1'), back-up and don't forget to replace a disk on the __first__ bad block. If hard-drives are ever taxed for material that is not on them when they are sold (save that occasional copy of Windows that is on some OEM drives:) the retailer is the loser as I'll get them wholesale. Presently retail prices are very good but that could change on short notice. CDs and DVDs are strictly back-up material or fodder for the car or a party. I rarely burn audio CDs in the first place! Those things can cro
An order of magnitude improvement in cracking a 56bit key would be significant. However, most of us use far greater key-spaces and only flaws in the crypto itself or the container is the real threat. It is however interesting when anybody can make a massive improvement in cryptoanalysis. A 10x improvement would make cracking 40bit 'consumer-grade' (such as GSM and DECT) crypto trivial on the latest processors. The most likely application is to give governments easy access to snoop 'private' phone and data conversations.
This is not threatening to me at all. I don't really see the need to encrypt phone calls in the first place. It is absolutely essential to encrypt other data. This seems to be because there is a social taboo about tapping phones, but not so much so with data. Therefore all system admins must use SSH and others should consider it too.
The real threat is the quantum computer, if it exists in a practical form. If that is the case, there is one complete solution -- The awkward 'one-time pad'.
While it seems likely there are some flaws in SSH (if you know, you know) that won't be posted here, the most likely attack was probably from those lame SSH dictionary scans on port 22. This is usually just an extreme annoyance to admins who must provide port 22 service and haven't heard of 'SSHguard'.
Since it seems impossible to educate people about good pass words, these lame attacks will sometimes succeed. Any corporate admin should run 'crack' often. Moving SSH to any port other than 22 will eliminate 99.9% of these lame scans. SSH is secure for today, if used properly. All suspected exploits of the code itself are unproven.
Nothing to be alarmed about here. Problems that affect corporations are unlikely to affect knowledgeable users. To them, computers are 'a necessary evil'. To us, that is our thing.
IMO, not at all. The setup looks exactly like something Tesla built almost 100 years ago. Even Tesla's classic design style of the coils is used. In what little of Tesla's documentation I've seen, it would appear he beat the 75% barrier at greater distances long ago. This is one old idea that won't die and it shouldn't!
A more practical laptop solution would place the primary coil directly below the laptop, such as under a (physical) desktop. These power units would cost no more than a normal adapter -- a couple bucks. These coil units could be placed at all areas the laptop is used. (Except the lap, of course.) Like the RFID cards, a standard for frequency and field strength would allow complete interoperability. This would allow wireless power in public places and replace the common AC outlets provided for laptop users.
In addition to laptops, mobile phones, PDAs and other common gadgets could be made compatible. (perhaps not at maximum efficiency) Since this is the same technology as 'near field RFID', the coils would be energized only when a compatible unit was properly placed near the unit. While the cost of the power for a laptop is minimal, there is an automatic mechanism to bill the users. Most people would probably pay a buck to charge their batteries. The efficiency of this system would be far greater than any gadget -- 95% would be easy to achieve.
This is the way forward. This is not really Intel's expertise, so assume much better systems probably exist now. Intel's area of expertise is making chips, not Tesla coils or Linux powered TVs for that matter.
The source build I have made on BSD works beautifully and if you see this, the failed submission is one of those 'sometimes happens' bugs. I've had v3 in its pre-released forms for some time. Perhaps it got a bit rushed for this publicity stunt? The Windows version I got, bombed on a new, fully patched install from some bad flash code. Fortunately 'ad-block' to the rescue.
It may not be perfect, but its by far the best. I'd like to see Mozilla Foundation concentrate more on quality than quantity, but marketing reality means one enhances the other. I guess an 'awareness drive' (publicity stunt) from time to time is good, but everyone should know by now there is probably nothing on the entire net that has more mass appeal than 'free' Firefox binaries.
Here goes the test....
Looking good, no bug confirmed.
Just build it -- It will only take a couple hours at most and almost always save you money.
It seems quite obvious to me. I can't stand the thought of a MS tax. (Though its unavoidable as most hardware -- even drives, memory-sticks -- everything has a NDIS CD you don't need!) Build your PC -- Its very simple to do and you have total control of your hardware. In the case of a laptop, you might have to have it "special ordered", which could be a wait. No OS is a legal right in Europe and the only way I'd accept a new laptop.
Finally if you buy a 'server', chances are there will be no OS pre-installed, but like the laptop, you must accept what you get and be sure there are expansion slots and ideally no Realshit audio and other bundled "crape-ware" from the hardware makers.
There isn't too much information in the article, particularly what problems may be encountered. The amount of data that can be delivered will vary greatly due to certain technical considerations. Politically, giving everyone in rural areas the 'same lousy service' is a minefield.
The outside cable plant and distance to the central office is everything:
* "Wires on poles" can degrade bandwidth 10x or more, particularly if there is industrial or broadcast interference. Modern underground cable plant can provide several Mbit/s up to 30km or so.
* Loading coils, commonly used in the past to maintain 600 or 900 ohm line impedance, limit the bandwidth of the lines to not mush more than 4kHz. They must be removed which is allot of tedious labour. Once removed, POTS may not work properly. Since some lines will need them and others definitely not, this gives a great excuse to 'take forever' to install the service.
* COTS DSL-modem/routers, common in many areas, may not work on large runs. Slightly modified units can put out greater signal and have better echo cancellation. This looks like a lock-in and higher prices. Higher transmission levels, lower received levels and longer runs invite crosstalk in a big way. It may be that many systems start out really good, but quickly degrade as more subscribers are added.
* Some rural cable-plant is "hollow-sounding" with voice and will simply not work with DSL. I'm no expert on US rural phone systems, but its fair to say most will get the pitiful 256kbit/s rate. This is what can be achieved with above-ground cable-plant at 30km in a city environment. The actual case I use example is Buenos Aries.
Any cable-plant that doesn't support 25kHz should be recycled! Otherwise, most will probably do much better, so limiting service to below 256kbit/s is deceptive. All told, there are a number of technical hurdles, which can be overcome, but the politics will go on forever.
This isn't a nice comparison to make, but in England there is more 'broadband' (there is a somewhat higher standard to the definition there) in the country than the city. Of course, like most of Europe, all wires are underground.
The article is about Windows, so all the applications have installers. Organized package tool systems like 'ports' on BSD and 'ebuilds' on Gentoo are not graphical interfaces, so anything along those lines is very acceptable. I take exception in the few cases where they try to think for you and make assumptions. That is the rule with graphical installers. Even in FOSS it can be unbearable but one can usually work around them on the command line. Some command-line installs are so simple that you think you have failed because it 'simply worked'.
As for the Windows applications, along with Windows itself, the most annoying are Flash and Acroread both by Adobe. Honorable mention must go to Realplayer. By bypassing 'their installer', you can spare allot of grief. I know better concerning Acroread. The commonly cited example, "Evince is vastly superior". is absolutely true. I like my FreeBSD with multiple amd64 cores and as a result it isn't any problem to run Linux or Windows. (Some people say I have too much time, but anybody can have my system software for free.) My only use for Windows is to run Flash on BBC and some other sites where it is not trivial to bypass. Of course I need to run Firefox to use the Flash-9. plug-in. I test some applications friends write for Windows out of marketing reality too, generally ports of programs developed on Unix. My conclusion on Windows is that it is nothing more than a collection of browsers and second-rate "multimedia". There are other reasons to emulate Windows but that is not on topic. Once tamed, Windows is OK as a beginner OS and with experience it can be installed quickly and ran somewhat safely.
Flash is therefore the worst because it has no place. The web can be hell because of it if you don't use an 'external' ad blocker. (in the Unix part of the machine) As some correctly stated, its very dangerous and can hose your (virtual) Windows. It could, in theory, discover if you were running under emulation and possibly take aim for the Unix 'root'. Fortunately online criminals are far below "power users" and we still can laugh a bit to this day. Flash is not light, it takes far too long to load compared to other components and adds absolutely no enjoyment to the browsing experience. If I want to see a video, let me see it on my terms. Mplayer (or possibly VLC) offer greater flexibility and rather amazing quality on both video and audio over Flash.
Realplayer, (Helixplay) outside of Windows, is not a bad performer. Its not yet fully integrated into mplayer, but its not a bad experience to install non-graphically. Its only recently I've realized that both Realplay and Windows media player are extraordinarily poor when used with Windows. (Verified by testing on a native i386 Windows XP system.) This simply gives Flash a default position in the "multimedia" world and Adobe must do everything in their power to see that it stays that way. This is "marketing reality" -- fully dependent on people having their heads in the sand.
Personally I don't bother with commercial games. That may be a valid reason to use Windows and put up with the hell it can bring. This situation appears to be changing fast and if you count game consoles, Linux could already be in position to become the market leader. Oh, game noises are as annoying as they are unnecessary.
So Flash is the biggest annoyance, you should know better about Acroread and look at your videos on a properly implemented system before passing judgment on various formats. As for audio -- Forget Windows.
One last point. Has anybody ever put one of those America Online CDs that used to fill your snail box in a Windows computer? Somehow I just know that stuff was evil. At the hacker congresses is called "Assholes online" and somehow that paints a certain picture of extreme annoyance.......
Its not clear if you could remove the sensor without damaging the tyre. The RFID cure all, the magnetron, seems safer to the tyre, but not to somebody that doesn't know what he's doing. They are a bit large to place in the nuker, so bringing the oven, interlocks defeated, to the tyre would be required.
If the government fails, at least someone knows the spirit of governance! Lets wish Mr. Geist (spirit in Germanic languages) the very best. Is this a possible cure for spam where its legal or the laws are inadequate? Would this sort of citizen action hold up in the USA, where the most profit from spam is made? (This is total speculation based on original research.)
We are mature enough not to do this, but this person doesn't know about source code. BSD is mostly MacOSX and hugely important in MSWindows, at least to XP. There are several more commercial implementations. This is not a bash to Linux. Linux is almost exclusively used in supercomputing today and a close look at "Top 500" will show the BSD niche is coming back in that area. The only non-level playing field is on the desktop. -- That's all your fault and you know who you are....
Future extreme 'firewire' ports will use a fibre pair and two pieces of copper to carry the power. Please standardise the voltage that uses the copper. Also make it AC at >20kHz. It should be below 48V, AC or DC no matter what, for safety reasons. "Firewire" in the form of IEEE1394, as we know it, is dead, but some concept of a general purpose port that can carry more than 2.5W could live on for quite some time.
The standard 50, 68 and 84pin variety is headed for the heap. It will be many years (ten or more) until legacy SCSI is no longer supported. In the meantime, just about the only way to talk to a high-speed external device is the SCSI protocol. There is SAS (Serial attached SCSI) and SATA which is slightly simplified SAS. SCSI is almost exclusively used for all USB UMASS ports. It is also the protocol most likely on the IEEE-1394 port, but its dead already. (good riddance)
Let me take exception with the first (real) poster's remarks. The phone port, perhaps you were thinking "WIN/LINmodem" is also a standard two-wire to four-wire converter (hybrid) with digital in and out. (sound card.) This, for the forseeable future will have use in VoIP and test applications for as long as copper is use. A 'phone port' could be very handy for traveling.
Finally: Who slipped the "Cowboy Neil" port in this discussion?
The resonate frequency of the 'wobble' would be extremely low. Therefore, it would be possibly be imperceptible without the use of instrumentation. However, over time this resonance may build up over time, requiring an extremely small amount of thrust to correct. The (cycle) period would be in days and depending on design, harmonic and overtone activity would be lower than the fundamental by a considerable amount, at least six dB an octave. (Which would be very serious if only odd harmonics were produced.;) Clearly this has been simulated (and its quite easy) on a computer before?
Personally, while I respect the editorial staff of New Scientist greatly, people do make mistakes and since NS allows some types of advertising, a little bit of sensationalism can have its leeway. Somehow it might be tied to a very low tech product that is all over the pages of NS: The automobile.
Actually that one is taken and its DNS is: {ns1/ns2.anything.com}. I fully agree these are overly generic (both of the past domains qualify) and should be 'reserved' for nobody, and that isn't {nobody.com}... It all depends on who runs the TLD. Some are more permissive than others. Playing 'by the book', '.com' probably allows some very tacky names -- Its a 'generic domain'. A geographic TLD would take quite some care to avoid misuse. Clearly, names of government agencies are to be avoided, but does '.com'? I don't think any individual would ever get, {fbi.us} or, heaven forbid, {irs.us} or here, {avid.nl} or anything with 'belasting' in it, unless you really are the 'tax people'.
At first I thought all this (domain hacks) was quite funny. However, it is unfortunate so many see the net as one big crime spree.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe that is why they don't talk about it on YouTube? There is seriously quite some music on YouTube, some of it is good and often linked to a site where you can get a hi-quality version, buy the CD or otherwise support the performers/producers directly. Who needs the RIAA?
Perhaps within all that data is a DVDrom or two of real juicy material. More importantly, there may (should) be enough info in there to
convict the former Bush administration's true criminals. Destroying that would be "destroying evidence": Supposed to to a 'serious crime' in the US. If most of it is Windows word/email, that thankfully compresses over 1000:1 to 'human readable' text. Programs such as 'antiword' would be my first line of attack if I was in-charge of this mess. Thankfully I'm not.
BillSF
Since its well established nobody reads a EULA: Wouldn't it be painful to translate it into dozens of Languages? Perhaps computer programs can as legalese is very limited. Its more of a computer language and legalese might be parseable as such. Anybody who uses software surely knows its "at your own risk" and not much else.
As for FOSS, its expected everyone knows the spirit of the GPL and how it differs from the BSD contract. Not much else is enforceable on
a global scale.
the Internet is much, much older than they are aware of, and for a reason. The Internet has always been a "nasty" and "krass" place. During most of its existence, as text only, maybe there was more left to the imagination? Its great to have all the added bandwidth, but not the added hassle of "do-gooders".
Nobody is going to "regulate" or enforce their religious convictions here. Leave us alone!
There is one item I question in this WSJ piece. There may be 500.000 people imprisoned for drugs alone, but how many more committed their violent crimes because of current drug laws in the US? If you factor that in, it may just be that the US isn't as criminal as it appears, in terms of incarceration.
While most countries simply ignore drug laws and put on an act for the US, this year saw quite a few declare them legal. Sometimes by prescription and in a few cases, outright legalization. The impairment each substance causes is generally well understood and it shouldn't be a problem enforcing traffic laws that forbid the use of many (including prescription) drugs.
In the US, it is probably most appropriate to start with marijuana and Heroin. The former has a good safety record and the later for the sake of public safety. Drugs like Heroin (capital "H" as its a brand name) and any drug that is easy to die from an overdose, should be Rx only. That should be obvious to most. The benefits would be immense: A half million could be released from prison and much fewer future convictions would for violent crimes as a result. Coke should likewise, at least at the start, be an Rx drug as it is unknown how the population would respond. Personally, I think a few may die of the "excitement", but the vast majority would be unaffected. In time it would be determined if the Rx policy was really needed. LSD, mushrooms and related substances are probably safe to outright legalize. Amphetamines and most other substances where it is really hard to OD on, like benzodiazapines, should also be included. Almost anything else that represents a personal or real public danger, like antibiotics, should remain Rx.
Regardless to how legalization is done, the benefits would be great for most in society. Only prison guards and similar low-life really need to fear for their jobs. The boost to society this would create would more than cover the loss of a few specialized jobs. In all likelihood, the overall use of drugs would go down. (Hardly worth mentioning as its so obvious.) Its hard to see it any other way, then again the way Americans vote scares the whole world.
In most places of the world (I've been to) including the USA, I've never been required to show ID to get a local pre-pay SIM. It is simply cheaper to forward all calls to your temporary SIM (through a suitable VoIP provider) and have people call you at that (land-line) number. Sure its a 'hole' in the system, but the "George Bush system" is at its end.
If people can get over the witch-hunt (especially in the USA) we will be in a safer world. Your odds of dying in a terrorist attack are about those of winning the lottery, Bush crap factored in. The world might soon become much safer. Please don't support this "War on Terror" crap anymore!
This indeed is one of the best decisions of the EU, particularly in that it ends the whole biometric scam, at least for here. Since DNA and fingerprints are the most 'stable' biometric measures, all other methods, disproved over 100 years ago, would seem to be included. The ramifications of this are great from ending (real)ID cards to George Bush's false "War on Terror".
This is real change. Funny it starts in Europe.
Is this some excuse for another cold war?
If the USA government is poking at China, its more sophisticated and not readily detectable from the civilian nets. Appropriate technology and its proper use is the solution to this 'problem' that is very visible on our nets.
--
No, I can't read your signature, but my computer can. Using 'geek' is nicer than 'nerd' in these parts.
The pdf may be of interest to those studying relationships with China, but very little mention of any "cyber war" except part of chapter two that stresses its 'non-classified' information. The biggest hole in US computer security is Windows and how people use it. It is very common for 'users' of Windows not to set passwords, which just makes it even easier easier to penetrate the whole network. Hopefully, no Windows machine can even access classified information in the first place.
Unix isn't perfect either and again, its the human aspect that is the biggest risk. Anyone caught using an account with access to 'sensitive' or 'classified' without an adequate password should be warned, explained what a good password is and fired if they can't comply. It would seem that there is high compliance and regular audits anywhere 'classified' information can be accessed. Chapter 2 of the pdf only mentions 'unclassified' material, never mind all 'classified' material is created from 'unclassified' resources. Truly classified data should never be accessible from The Internet in any way, in the first place. Any information placed on, or close to The Internet should be considered 'public' on a worldwide basis.
Generally speaking, China uses the simplest, known techniques, to penetrate servers. Any admin can tell you how many dictionary attacks come from China. It is impossible to determine which ones are just 'script kiddies' or students and which are serious organized efforts. There is a very small rate of success from this method. Today it seems that these (Unix) machines are simply used to spread the simple scripts on a wider scale. Simply moving off port 22 (even to port 23) will stop 99% of the problem. Statistical programs that temporarily deny access to a certain IP address can be very effective as most scans never return, even if the access is denied for as little as five minutes. To combat the hardcore attempts where the attack returns, simply increase the 'access denied' time and ultimately blacklist the IP address and the whole net if necessary. (It is very rare it ever goes that far.)
In conclusion: Don't put classified information in the reach of The Internet. Never use any Microsoft product to view 'classified' or 'sensitive' information unless it can be assured there will never be any Internet connections of any sort. It is highly unlikely any government secrets leak out unless that was the intention, such as a "trial balloon". At this time, this is a non-problem that can be stopped. If absolutely nothing is done, it could escalate in much the way spam did. The official report appears to draw the same conclusion, however that is buried in a pile of irrelevant and off-topic material.
BillSF
Personally, I find the articles attached to this about "as clear as mud". That is politics. Maybe there is presently a mandate to protect DRM, but its very divided by nation-state. I bet dollars to donuts (even money) that the mandate will be retracted before it becomes law. Politics as usual. There are so many loopholes in such laws. I may get sued in some nations if I were to port an effective DRM-stripper to Windows. (No I don't make ports for Windows -- That is for beginners.) If put out a Windows port that converted one DRM standard to another, all of Europe would love it. In my neck of the woods, I'm actually encouraged to crack DRM. In a twisted way, its like the legal concept of a locked door means "no entry". You are not supposed to crack WEP or WPA, for instance, even if they are known to be highly flawed.
The whole IP thing is so 20th century Capitalism. I just don't see hard working authors, musicians and inventors losing to "piracy". The suits like patents simply because their livelyhood depends on leaching money from hard working intellectual people. Every job where a patent was involved that I've had has greatly delayed me getting my product out. I lose, the fucking suits leach big-time. Yes, in the end only the lawyers win is a true statement. At least Europe got over software patents and for the most part isn't all that serious about making any exceptions in law because of technology's changes. Copyrights are automatic and that is right for the most part. I do agree that 'copyleft' should be legal world-wide. There is very great benefit in giving IP away: No lawyers, suits and other expensive and trivial people. I've made $Millions by just getting to the market first. By the time you get a patent, the copy-cats got your ass and most of your profit goes to lawyers. I get royalties but they are measly compared to 'bypassing the system'.
In the states greed rules and its a bit different but fundamentally the same. I couldn't make any real money there due to very short-sided thinking. This should be contrasted with the very long-term patents and copyrights. The US has never made any sense to me. Don't get me wrong, there is an element of bullshit everywhere, but the material provided for this really takes the cake. Looks like business as usual, but Obama has just been elected and who knows, he might follow through. Give the guy a break and let's see what he really does. 80% of the entire planet supports him. Its not the US ruling everywhere anymore. The "Bush doctrine" has long been dead, if you must call it that. Corruption has ruled from high places in the US much longer than Bush. Nobody can reset the US government in four years and look what JFK got for trying.
IP laws are simply an extension of US corruption and greed that has taken the world. Maybe 'big pharma' deserves very long-term patents then again its equally possible the FDA has it all wrong. All it took was a single drug scare for a substance that proved to be useful -- after the patent expired. That is what the world puts Bush's name to. It all the 911 game played over and over. IMO, the Germans invented modern psychological warfare, a very dangerous game. In a sense the US is playing 'world cop' with all this crap. The whole world now sees its ran out for the USA. I'm so pissed off about paying a tax on my FreeBSD that I probably pay more in the total effort to legally circumvent the laws concerning CD blanks. Hard-drives are a better deal anyways, but you must have many, set up a RAID (A real RAID, not 'raid 0 or 1'), back-up and don't forget to replace a disk on the __first__ bad block. If hard-drives are ever taxed for material that is not on them when they are sold (save that occasional copy of Windows that is on some OEM drives :) the retailer is the loser as I'll get them wholesale. Presently retail prices are very good but that could change on short notice. CDs and DVDs are strictly back-up material or fodder for the car or a party. I rarely burn audio CDs in the first place! Those things can cro
There is more than just that. Washington state has about the lowest electricity rates in the world from all the hydro-electric generation.
An order of magnitude improvement in cracking a 56bit key would be significant. However, most of us use far greater key-spaces and only flaws in the crypto itself or the container is the real threat. It is however interesting when anybody can make a massive improvement in cryptoanalysis. A 10x improvement would make cracking 40bit 'consumer-grade' (such as GSM and DECT) crypto trivial on the latest processors. The most likely application is to give governments easy access to snoop 'private' phone and data conversations.
This is not threatening to me at all. I don't really see the need to encrypt phone calls in the first place. It is absolutely essential to encrypt other data. This seems to be because there is a social taboo about tapping phones, but not so much so with data. Therefore all system admins must use SSH and others should consider it too.
The real threat is the quantum computer, if it exists in a practical form. If that is the case, there is one complete solution -- The awkward 'one-time pad'.
While it seems likely there are some flaws in SSH (if you know, you know) that won't be posted here, the most likely attack was probably from those lame SSH dictionary scans on port 22. This is usually just an extreme annoyance to admins who must provide port 22 service and haven't heard of 'SSHguard'.
Since it seems impossible to educate people about good pass words, these lame attacks will sometimes succeed. Any corporate admin should run 'crack' often. Moving SSH to any port other than 22 will eliminate 99.9% of these lame scans. SSH is secure for today, if used properly. All suspected exploits of the code itself are unproven.
Nothing to be alarmed about here. Problems that affect corporations are unlikely to affect knowledgeable users. To them, computers are 'a necessary evil'. To us, that is our thing.
IMO, not at all. The setup looks exactly like something Tesla built almost 100 years ago. Even Tesla's classic design style of the coils is used. In what little of Tesla's documentation I've seen, it would appear he beat the 75% barrier at greater distances long ago. This is one old idea that won't die and it shouldn't!
A more practical laptop solution would place the primary coil directly below the laptop, such as under a (physical) desktop. These power units would cost no more than a normal adapter -- a couple bucks. These coil units could be placed at all areas the laptop is used. (Except the lap, of course.) Like the RFID cards, a standard for frequency and field strength would allow complete interoperability. This would allow wireless power in public places and replace the common AC outlets provided for laptop users.
In addition to laptops, mobile phones, PDAs and other common gadgets could be made compatible. (perhaps not at maximum efficiency) Since this is the same technology as 'near field RFID', the coils would be energized only when a compatible unit was properly placed near the unit. While the cost of the power for a laptop is minimal, there is an automatic mechanism to bill the users. Most people would probably pay a buck to charge their batteries. The efficiency of this system would be far greater than any gadget -- 95% would be easy to achieve.
This is the way forward. This is not really Intel's expertise, so assume much better systems probably exist now. Intel's area of expertise is making chips, not Tesla coils or Linux powered TVs for that matter.
The source build I have made on BSD works beautifully and if you see this, the failed submission is one of those 'sometimes happens' bugs. I've had v3 in its pre-released forms for some time. Perhaps it got a bit rushed for this publicity stunt? The Windows version I got, bombed on a new, fully patched install from some bad flash code. Fortunately 'ad-block' to the rescue.
It may not be perfect, but its by far the best. I'd like to see Mozilla Foundation concentrate more on quality than quantity, but marketing reality means one enhances the other. I guess an 'awareness drive' (publicity stunt) from time to time is good, but everyone should know by now there is probably nothing on the entire net that has more mass appeal than 'free' Firefox binaries.
Here goes the test....
Looking good, no bug confirmed.
Just build it -- It will only take a couple hours at most and almost always save you money.
It seems quite obvious to me. I can't stand the thought of a MS tax. (Though its unavoidable as most hardware -- even drives, memory-sticks -- everything has a NDIS CD you don't need!) Build your PC -- Its very simple to do and you have total control of your hardware. In the case of a laptop, you might have to have it "special ordered", which could be a wait. No OS is a legal right in Europe and the only way I'd accept a new laptop.
Finally if you buy a 'server', chances are there will be no OS pre-installed, but like the laptop, you must accept what you get and be sure there are expansion slots and ideally no Realshit audio and other bundled "crape-ware" from the hardware makers.
There isn't too much information in the article, particularly what problems may be encountered. The amount of data that can be delivered will vary greatly due to certain technical considerations. Politically, giving everyone in rural areas the 'same lousy service' is a minefield.
The outside cable plant and distance to the central office is everything:
* "Wires on poles" can degrade bandwidth 10x or more, particularly if there is industrial or broadcast interference. Modern underground cable plant can provide several Mbit/s up to 30km or so.
* Loading coils, commonly used in the past to maintain 600 or 900 ohm line impedance, limit the bandwidth of the lines to not mush more than 4kHz. They must be removed which is allot of tedious labour. Once removed, POTS may not work properly. Since some lines will need them and others definitely not, this gives a great excuse to 'take forever' to install the service.
* COTS DSL-modem/routers, common in many areas, may not work on large runs. Slightly modified units can put out greater signal and have better echo cancellation. This looks like a lock-in and higher prices. Higher transmission levels, lower received levels and longer runs invite crosstalk in a big way. It may be that many systems start out really good, but quickly degrade as more subscribers are added.
* Some rural cable-plant is "hollow-sounding" with voice and will simply not work with DSL. I'm no expert on US rural phone systems, but its fair to say most will get the pitiful 256kbit/s rate. This is what can be achieved with above-ground cable-plant at 30km in a city environment. The actual case I use example is Buenos Aries.
Any cable-plant that doesn't support 25kHz should be recycled! Otherwise, most will probably do much better, so limiting service to below 256kbit/s is deceptive. All told, there are a number of technical hurdles, which can be overcome, but the politics will go on forever.
This isn't a nice comparison to make, but in England there is more 'broadband' (there is a somewhat higher standard to the definition there) in the country than the city. Of course, like most of Europe, all wires are underground.
The article is about Windows, so all the applications have installers. Organized package tool systems like 'ports' on BSD and 'ebuilds' on Gentoo are not graphical interfaces, so anything along those lines is very acceptable. I take exception in the few cases where they try to think for you and make assumptions. That is the rule with graphical installers. Even in FOSS it can be unbearable but one can usually work around them on the command line. Some command-line installs are so simple that you think you have failed because it 'simply worked'.
As for the Windows applications, along with Windows itself, the most annoying are Flash and Acroread both by Adobe. Honorable mention must go to Realplayer. By bypassing 'their installer', you can spare allot of grief. I know better concerning Acroread. The commonly cited example, "Evince is vastly superior". is absolutely true. I like my FreeBSD with multiple amd64 cores and as a result it isn't any problem to run Linux or Windows. (Some people say I have too much time, but anybody can have my system software for free.) My only use for Windows is to run Flash on BBC and some other sites where it is not trivial to bypass. Of course I need to run Firefox to use the Flash-9. plug-in. I test some applications friends write for Windows out of marketing reality too, generally ports of programs developed on Unix. My conclusion on Windows is that it is nothing more than a collection of browsers and second-rate "multimedia". There are other reasons to emulate Windows but that is not on topic. Once tamed, Windows is OK as a beginner OS and with experience it can be installed quickly and ran somewhat safely.
Flash is therefore the worst because it has no place. The web can be hell because of it if you don't use an 'external' ad blocker. (in the Unix part of the machine) As some correctly stated, its very dangerous and can hose your (virtual) Windows. It could, in theory, discover if you were running under emulation and possibly take aim for the Unix 'root'. Fortunately online criminals are far below "power users" and we still can laugh a bit to this day. Flash is not light, it takes far too long to load compared to other components and adds absolutely no enjoyment to the browsing experience. If I want to see a video, let me see it on my terms. Mplayer (or possibly VLC) offer greater flexibility and rather amazing quality on both video and audio over Flash.
Realplayer, (Helixplay) outside of Windows, is not a bad performer. Its not yet fully integrated into mplayer, but its not a bad experience to install non-graphically. Its only recently I've realized that both Realplay and Windows media player are extraordinarily poor when used with Windows. (Verified by testing on a native i386 Windows XP system.) This simply gives Flash a default position in the "multimedia" world and Adobe must do everything in their power to see that it stays that way. This is "marketing reality" -- fully dependent on people having their heads in the sand.
Personally I don't bother with commercial games. That may be a valid reason to use Windows and put up with the hell it can bring. This situation appears to be changing fast and if you count game consoles, Linux could already be in position to become the market leader. Oh, game noises are as annoying as they are unnecessary.
So Flash is the biggest annoyance, you should know better about Acroread and look at your videos on a properly implemented system before passing judgment on various formats. As for audio -- Forget Windows.
One last point. Has anybody ever put one of those America Online CDs that used to fill your snail box in a Windows computer? Somehow I just know that stuff was evil. At the hacker congresses is called "Assholes online" and somehow that paints a certain picture of extreme annoyance.......
Its not clear if you could remove the sensor without damaging the tyre. The RFID cure all, the magnetron, seems safer to the tyre, but not to somebody that doesn't know what he's doing. They are a bit large to place in the nuker, so bringing the oven, interlocks defeated, to the tyre would be required.
If the government fails, at least someone knows the spirit of governance! Lets wish Mr. Geist (spirit in Germanic languages) the very best. Is this a possible cure for spam where its legal or the laws are inadequate? Would this sort of citizen action hold up in the USA, where the most profit from spam is made? (This is total speculation based on original research.)
We are mature enough not to do this, but this person doesn't know about source code. BSD is mostly MacOSX and hugely important in MSWindows, at least to XP. There are several more commercial implementations. This is not a bash to Linux. Linux is almost exclusively used in supercomputing today and a close look at "Top 500" will show the BSD niche is coming back in that area. The only non-level playing field is on the desktop. -- That's all your fault and you know who you are....
Future extreme 'firewire' ports will use a fibre pair and two pieces of copper to carry the power. Please standardise the voltage that uses the copper. Also make it AC at >20kHz. It should be below 48V, AC or DC no matter what, for safety reasons. "Firewire" in the form of IEEE1394, as we know it, is dead, but some concept of a general purpose port that can carry more than 2.5W could live on for quite some time.
The standard 50, 68 and 84pin variety is headed for the heap. It will be many years (ten or more) until legacy SCSI is no longer supported. In the meantime, just about the only way to talk to a high-speed external device is the SCSI protocol. There is SAS (Serial attached SCSI) and SATA which is slightly simplified SAS. SCSI is almost exclusively used for all USB UMASS ports. It is also the protocol most likely on the IEEE-1394 port, but its dead already. (good riddance)
Let me take exception with the first (real) poster's remarks. The phone port, perhaps you were thinking "WIN/LINmodem" is also a standard two-wire to four-wire converter (hybrid) with digital in and out. (sound card.) This, for the forseeable future will have use in VoIP and test applications for as long as copper is use. A 'phone port' could be very handy for traveling.
Finally: Who slipped the "Cowboy Neil" port in this discussion?
The resonate frequency of the 'wobble' would be extremely low. Therefore, it would be possibly be imperceptible without the use of instrumentation. However, over time this resonance may build up over time, requiring an extremely small amount of thrust to correct. The (cycle) period would be in days and depending on design, harmonic and overtone activity would be lower than the fundamental by a considerable amount, at least six dB an octave. (Which would be very serious if only odd harmonics were produced.;) Clearly this has been simulated (and its quite easy) on a computer before?
Personally, while I respect the editorial staff of New Scientist greatly, people do make mistakes and since NS allows some types of advertising, a little bit of sensationalism can have its leeway. Somehow it might be tied to a very low tech product that is all over the pages of NS: The automobile.
Actually that one is taken and its DNS is: {ns1/ns2.anything.com}. I fully agree these are overly generic (both of the past domains qualify) and should be 'reserved' for nobody, and that isn't {nobody.com}... It all depends on who runs the TLD. Some are more permissive than others. Playing 'by the book', '.com' probably allows some very tacky names -- Its a 'generic domain'. A geographic TLD would take quite some care to avoid misuse. Clearly, names of government agencies are to be avoided, but does '.com'? I don't think any individual would ever get, {fbi.us} or, heaven forbid, {irs.us} or here, {avid.nl} or anything with 'belasting' in it, unless you really are the 'tax people'.
At first I thought all this (domain hacks) was quite funny. However, it is unfortunate so many see the net as one big crime spree.