Re:Secure?? how?
on
Secure PDAs
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Funny- the "risk assessment" of fingerprints includes using a severed fingertip or a genetic clone of the registered finger. I'd say that if somebody cuts your finger off you have more to worry about than the security of your PDA.
The 93,000 people that were not allowed to vote during the 2000 election in Florida were still on the list this time around
Incorrect- according to the NAACP settlement of this case, all of the theoretical problems with the list have been corrected (most of them were corrected before the settlement, anyway). I say "theoretical problems" because nobody (not even your British tabloid buddy Greg Palast) could show that anybody was really affected by the list.
If you are complaining that Florida doesnt allow convicted felons to vote, then why don't you complain about the 15 other states with similar laws also?
This is such a non-story its surprizing that you even bring it up.
Re:International observers in Florida
on
Indecision 2002
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· Score: 2
a state who was run by the eventual winner's brother
And the winner's brother recused himself from all of the election proceedings due to the conflict of interest.
the person in charge of certifying the election was a state campaign leader for that candidate
And every move she made followed the law exactly and withstood intense international scrutiny.
The candidate's father also was the president who was supplanted by the ticket that had the eventual winner's opponent on it.
So?
Prior to being president that father was the head of the nation's secret police.
So?
You forgot to mention that there was never an allegation of misconduct or fraud (see this settlement, for example, where the NAACP plainly states "Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group.") and that Bush still won the unofficial AP recounts.
The people I know in the security business agree that the problem is impossible to solve without hardware support. If you haven't noticed, there is a huge demand for digital content, and there is a lack of supply of that content because the media companies fear piracy. This is a defensive move by Microsoft/AMD/Intel, because someday somebody was always going to find a way to allow media companies to distribute this content without fear of piracy, and that person is going to make a lot of money.
er the OS (palladium) decides what is trusted , otherwise the certificates are useless, and the certificates are issued by microsoft.
I have been reading the documentation available, like here where Microsoft says:
Only the user decides what "Palladium" applications get to run. Anyone can write an application to take advantage of "Palladium" APIs without notifying Microsoft (or anyone else) or getting its (or anyone else's) approval.
I have also been reading enough to know that most of the information out there about Palladium is untrue.
- The media that will most likely be restricted is media that is not available at all right now (legally) because the media producers fear piracy. Fair usage is a pretty muddy area, anyway.
2) The right to copy and email many types of files on my own system
- In general, you do not lose this "right". The cases where you do lose it, it is not legal to copy the file anyway.
3) The right to use international software without running it in a virtual environment (i.e. international software is unlikely to get certified)
- Certified by who? The user still decides what software is trusted or not.
About privacy:
Each palladium system has a unique 2048 bit public/private key pair. However, the public key is protected by hardware and cannot be tracked by a third party because of a system of nonces (outside parties will never see the same public key twice for the same system). Therefore, privacy is maintained.
They add complexity, but the slightest bug in the complex software will probably be exploitable to make encrypted data available to "normal" (e.g. non-approved-by-the-Intel-Microsoft-hegemony) programs.
Bugs in software cannot lead to protected data being divulged. The encryption key management and encryption routines themselves are implemented in hardware. The software portion of Palladium is actually pretty small, and Microsoft plans on releasing that code for public review.
And no programs are approved by Microsoft or Intel- Palladium amounts to an API that is available for ANY developer to use without any need to certify or register that software with anybody.
I think the sad thing is how much FUD there is about these technologies. Palladium, LaGrande, TCPA, and the like are NOT limiting technologies. All software that runs on non-Palladium systems will run on Palladium enabled hardware (like Intel's LaGrande). These technologies give developers more tools to protect data (something that is impossible without hardware support).
how little control or privacy these projects will leave us
The control still remains with the end user. By design, the user determines what is trusted and what is not trusted. And privacy is always protected, and that protection is backed by hardware.
These projects will not give us more stable software, just buggy software that will let us do less
I'm not sure where you are coming with that. Palladium will make it easier to develop secure applications- reduced complexity correlates directly with reduced bugs.
Basically, Palladium sets out to solve the problem of protecting mobile code from a malicious host (that is, it protects software from software). Without hardware support, developers must rely on obfuscation or tamper-resistant code to completely protect their code and data (something which is provably impossible to do, btw).
If the ISP is not responsible for their screw-up, who is?
I think most of the responsibility lies with this lady. She knowingly used the service for 14 months without paying. When she refused to pay, they suspended her account. BTW- she doesn't dispute any of this. Her only complaint is that they didn't bounce the emails to her account after it was suspended so people thought the emails were being delivered. Boo hoo- she should have paid her bill then.
The accounting department does share a little responsibility because they screwed up by not sending her a bill, but she is still responsible for the charges. She agreed to pay $x per month when she signed up for the service and she didn't pay it.
The Acceptable Use Policy does not include billing for service, accepting payment and then not providing that service.
That has nothing to do with this case. There was no payment here- she went 14 months without paying. Her complaint is that after the ISP suspended her account because she hadn't paid, they continued to accept email to her account. There was no way for her to access that email, and there wasn't any notification to the sender that she couldn't access it.
Basically she tried to free-ride for over a year, and it came back and bit her in the ass.
I think the point of a Palladium based architecture is to eventually require you to use a Palladium-friendly O/S (windows) whenever you use any public network.
I don't agree with that, and I think you are not giving the power of capitalism enough credit. People always have a choice. If the costs of using a product or service outweigh the benefits, then nobody will use it. That also means that businesses will only provide services that people want. If a company can make money selling non-palladium systems, then they will sell non-palladium systems (I am obviously against any legislation that would limit this- that goes against capitalism in every way). If a website requires me to use IE, and I don't want to use IE, then I will find another website.
I also don't buy the argument that people will be forced to use it because it is a de facto standard. You always have a choice.
Everything Microsoft does is designed to destroy some form of competition.
Everything that any company does is designed to give it an edge over the competition. I don't see how Microsoft is any different here. Microsoft would be neglecting their responsibility to the shareholders if they did otherwise.
Consider: the main point of Palladium is that the combination of a Palladium hardware device and a Palladium O/S will refuse to run "unsafe code"
NO! As I said before, Palladium does not limit any software from running. What it does do is keep "unsafe" code from seeing or modifying protected data. From a programmers perspective, Palladium amounts to a new API to setup a secure context and protect data. Any program can use the API without any certification, and Palladium NEVER imposes itself on a process that does not request its services.
Basically, I see Palladium as a defensive move for Microsoft for several reasons: #1- There is a huge demand for digital content (see Napster or KaZaA) #2- The supply of (legal) digital content is lacking because many of the producers of the content fear rampant piracy, so they don't release their stuff electronically (the validity of this fear is another topic entirely) #3- It is only a matter of time before somebody figures out a way for the producers to distribute their content without this fear of piracy, and that person/group/company is going to make a lot of money #4- Like any business should do, Microsoft is attempting to fill this void in market so they can make more money
So basically, like every other business in the world, Microsoft is trying to make more money. This obviously includes trying to gain market share and expand into new business areas, but they will always have to offer a product that people want in order to stay alive. And there will always be an alternative for the people that do not like the product that they offer.
If you say that that's a fair thing, you're an incredibly ruthless capitalist
What would be fair- the government telling a business how much they are allowed to charge for their products? Thats bull crap and you know it.
If people are willing to pay for Office, then why on earth would Microsoft want to charge less? If you look at AMD vs Intel, AMD is not charging less for their chips because they want to be nice to the people that use them- they are charging highest price that the average consumer will pay for them. If they could charge more, they would. Its not unfair- its business.
Which is, at the core, EXACTLY what Palladium would do
Actually, that has nothing to do with Palladium and Palladium can't even do that. Palladium will NOT block any software from running - one of the core design requirements for it was that all existing software* will run on Palladium hardware (including alternate OSs) without modification.
* There are a few obsucure pieces of code that will need to be modifed, like some power managment routines in BIOS and debuggers.
To play devil's advocate, then why don't we make it illegal for people to buy things from a telemarketer? If the only reason we still get telemarketing calls is because 10% of the people buy from them, then these 10% are just as much at fault for me getting a telemarketing call as the telemarketers themselves.
I think this would be just as dumb as passing laws telling me which phone numbers I am allowed to dial.
Your suggestion that I should have to change the social factors in my community (convince people not to buy stuff from telemarketers) is absurd
And I think the suggestion that the government should limit who we can and cannot call on the telephone is absurd.
Nowhere are you guaranteed the right to bother people
We are guaranteed the right to freedom of speech. Door to door soliciting has been ruled to be protected speech numerous times in the courts- what's the difference there? If I want to stand on a street corner and talk to everybody that passes by, that may bother people but I am guaranteed the right to do it. If we are legislating against annoyances, then why isn't there a law that says that you have to bathe regularly (because stinky people bother me).
I think the whole thing is blown out of proportion anyway. If you receive a telemarketing call, you have several options including:
Hang up the phone (total time wasted = 2 seconds)
Set the phone down and let them drone on until they realize they aren't talking to anybody (my personal choice- total time wasted = 2 seconds)
Tell them not to call you anymore (total time wasted = 20 seconds)
And you aren't taking rights away "from the public" you are restricting ways in which business can carry out business
This may come as big surprise to you, but businesses are owned and operated by members of the public.
Now, telemarketers bug me as much as the next guy, but why do we have to involve the government in everything? The reason we get telemarketing calls is that the telemarketers make money. If you want to stop the calls, don't buy anything. If you really want to stop the calls, then encourage other people not to buy anything from telemarketers too. All these anit-telemarketing laws do is take more freedoms away from the public.
I think that is the biggest problem with our (the US) government- they think that everything is their business. Thats why you have to have a state license to give a freakin manicure or other idiotic laws like that.
You could wait until Microsoft offers XP Pro for $40 to registered Microsoft partners again. They have done this twice so far this year, and they throw in a pack of Big League Chew gum to boot. Or you could get XP home edition for about $90 OEM. If you pay $269 for it, then you are a moron.
I think you are missing the point. Intel is fully aware that the IPC of the P4 is less than the Athlon, but they are far enough ahead in the MHz that it more than makes up for this. That is the design philosophy of the P4. Intel is confident enough in this philosophy that they expect the P4 to have increased speed enough by the time Hammer is released (still another 6 months) that it will outperform Hammer. Only time will tell if this is true.
AMD has been losing the speed war for several months now, but I think they have been winning the price war all along
Not really. In most cases, the Athlon model number is chosen to reflect which Pentium 4 speed it competes with. Therefore, the Athlon 2400+ on average performs about as well as the 2.4 GHz P4 in the benchmarks. If you look at the latest prices, the Athlon 2400 is $3 more than the P4 2.4 GHz.
A friend of mine recently built a new computer, and he was choosing between the P4 2.53 GHz and the fastest Athlon available (which did not perform as well as the P4). After adding the costs up for both systems, the P4 system about $10 more. I don't see that as a big win in the price war.
The true fact in the matter is that intel are going to rely almost entirely on the marketability of a big number with the P4, as it's handling is rather unimpressive when compared to such ordinary designs as those from AMD, which clock poorly, yet crunch happily.
I disagree. Intel's strategy of designing for higher clock speeds has given them a much more scalable chip, and that is evidenced by Intel's ability to increase the clock speeds frequently while AMD is struggling. And if you look at the last Toms hardware review (its a couple of weeks old), the P4 2.8 GHz pretty much tied with the Athlon 2800 (they both won about 14 benchmark tests). But that is much less meaningful when you realize that Tom was testing an Intel chip that has been available for 2 months with an Athlon that won't be available until December. If you compare the 2.8 GHz P4 with the fastest available Athlon today, the P4 beats it in over 90% of the benchmarks (I'd imagine that a comparison between the 3.06 GHz HT chip and the Athlon 2800+ would be similar). So Intel's strategy is working for performance, and it is more marketable to boot.
And there is a lot of research right now about the optimal pipeline depth, and the conclusion was that the current pipelines are not deep enough. The optimal pipeline depth for the x86 architecture is around 40-50 stages.
There are LOTS of studies that show that we are destroying our environment one piece at a time.
Correction- there are lots of studies that theorize that we may be destroying our environment. There are also lots of studies that disagree with those theories. In fact, the NOAA link that you posted says that all of the climate change that has been observed could just be caused by variations in the sun's intensity or the earth's orbit. Some people theorize that the build-up of "greenhouse gases" like CO2 is not causing a climate change, but rather a symptom of it (like this article for example).
Either way, none of those links that you gave make the jump that you made that our entire eco system is going to irreversibly collapse.
Your claims that the earth is overpopulated are also crap. Right now, you could fit everybody on the earth into Texas with about the same population density as Paris, France (look here). And the global population growth rate has been decreasing for the past 30 years.
Nobody is calling for the blatant misuse of our environment, but I think the earth is a lot more robust that you give it credit for, and I think that humans are not as influential to the environment as you seem to think.
Yes- but AFAIK command queuing is not implemented in a lot of the 1st generation controllers because it can break backwards compatibility with PATA software. Most vendors went for an easy upgrade path instead. Look for command queuing in the next generation of controllers.
No it doesnt. Data goes through the PCI bus if the address is not claimed by something else along the way. That means that everything from the southbridge up is not limited by the PCI bus bandwidth. That means that integrated SATA controllers (not available until next year) are only limited by the bandwidth between the northbridge and southbridge.
Ever read the actual throughput specs on a drive?
Drive throughput has been steadily increasing, and it is predicted to pass up PATA within a few years, and that is not counting RAID striping or the 8 MB drive caches. Its always desirable for the bottleneck to be the drive rather than the controller.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny- the "risk assessment" of fingerprints includes using a severed fingertip or a genetic clone of the registered finger. I'd say that if somebody cuts your finger off you have more to worry about than the security of your PDA.
The 93,000 people that were not allowed to vote during the 2000 election in Florida were still on the list this time around
Incorrect- according to the NAACP settlement of this case, all of the theoretical problems with the list have been corrected (most of them were corrected before the settlement, anyway). I say "theoretical problems" because nobody (not even your British tabloid buddy Greg Palast) could show that anybody was really affected by the list.
If you are complaining that Florida doesnt allow convicted felons to vote, then why don't you complain about the 15 other states with similar laws also?
This is such a non-story its surprizing that you even bring it up.
a state who was run by the eventual winner's brother
And the winner's brother recused himself from all of the election proceedings due to the conflict of interest.
the person in charge of certifying the election was a state campaign leader for that candidate
And every move she made followed the law exactly and withstood intense international scrutiny.
The candidate's father also was the president who was supplanted by the ticket that had the eventual winner's opponent on it.
So?
Prior to being president that father was the head of the nation's secret police.
So?
You forgot to mention that there was never an allegation of misconduct or fraud (see this settlement, for example, where the NAACP plainly states "Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory
manner toward any group.") and that Bush still won the unofficial AP recounts.
The people I know in the security business agree that the problem is impossible to solve without hardware support. If you haven't noticed, there is a huge demand for digital content, and there is a lack of supply of that content because the media companies fear piracy. This is a defensive move by Microsoft/AMD/Intel, because someday somebody was always going to find a way to allow media companies to distribute this content without fear of piracy, and that person is going to make a lot of money.
er the OS (palladium) decides what is trusted , otherwise the certificates are useless, and the certificates are issued by microsoft.
I have been reading the documentation available, like here where Microsoft says:
I have also been reading enough to know that most of the information out there about Palladium is untrue.
1) Fair usage writes on media
- The media that will most likely be restricted is media that is not available at all right now (legally) because the media producers fear piracy. Fair usage is a pretty muddy area, anyway.
2) The right to copy and email many types of files on my own system
- In general, you do not lose this "right". The cases where you do lose it, it is not legal to copy the file anyway.
3) The right to use international software without running it in a virtual environment (i.e. international software is unlikely to get certified)
- Certified by who? The user still decides what software is trusted or not.
About privacy:
Each palladium system has a unique 2048 bit public/private key pair. However, the public key is protected by hardware and cannot be tracked by a third party because of a system of nonces (outside parties will never see the same public key twice for the same system). Therefore, privacy is maintained.
They add complexity, but the slightest bug in the complex software will probably be exploitable to make encrypted data available to "normal" (e.g. non-approved-by-the-Intel-Microsoft-hegemony) programs.
Bugs in software cannot lead to protected data being divulged. The encryption key management and encryption routines themselves are implemented in hardware. The software portion of Palladium is actually pretty small, and Microsoft plans on releasing that code for public review.
And no programs are approved by Microsoft or Intel- Palladium amounts to an API that is available for ANY developer to use without any need to certify or register that software with anybody.
I think the sad thing is how much FUD there is about these technologies. Palladium, LaGrande, TCPA, and the like are NOT limiting technologies. All software that runs on non-Palladium systems will run on Palladium enabled hardware (like Intel's LaGrande). These technologies give developers more tools to protect data (something that is impossible without hardware support).
how little control or privacy these projects will leave us
The control still remains with the end user. By design, the user determines what is trusted and what is not trusted. And privacy is always protected, and that protection is backed by hardware.
These projects will not give us more stable software, just buggy software that will let us do less
I'm not sure where you are coming with that. Palladium will make it easier to develop secure applications- reduced complexity correlates directly with reduced bugs.
Basically, Palladium sets out to solve the problem of protecting mobile code from a malicious host (that is, it protects software from software). Without hardware support, developers must rely on obfuscation or tamper-resistant code to completely protect their code and data (something which is provably impossible to do, btw).
If the ISP is not responsible for their screw-up, who is?
I think most of the responsibility lies with this lady. She knowingly used the service for 14 months without paying. When she refused to pay, they suspended her account. BTW- she doesn't dispute any of this. Her only complaint is that they didn't bounce the emails to her account after it was suspended so people thought the emails were being delivered. Boo hoo- she should have paid her bill then.
The accounting department does share a little responsibility because they screwed up by not sending her a bill, but she is still responsible for the charges. She agreed to pay $x per month when she signed up for the service and she didn't pay it.
The Acceptable Use Policy does not include billing for service, accepting payment and then not providing that service.
That has nothing to do with this case. There was no payment here- she went 14 months without paying. Her complaint is that after the ISP suspended her account because she hadn't paid, they continued to accept email to her account. There was no way for her to access that email, and there wasn't any notification to the sender that she couldn't access it.
Basically she tried to free-ride for over a year, and it came back and bit her in the ass.
I think the point of a Palladium based architecture is to eventually require you to use a Palladium-friendly O/S (windows) whenever you use any public network.
I don't agree with that, and I think you are not giving the power of capitalism enough credit. People always have a choice. If the costs of using a product or service outweigh the benefits, then nobody will use it. That also means that businesses will only provide services that people want. If a company can make money selling non-palladium systems, then they will sell non-palladium systems (I am obviously against any legislation that would limit this- that goes against capitalism in every way). If a website requires me to use IE, and I don't want to use IE, then I will find another website.
I also don't buy the argument that people will be forced to use it because it is a de facto standard. You always have a choice.
Everything Microsoft does is designed to destroy some form of competition.
Everything that any company does is designed to give it an edge over the competition. I don't see how Microsoft is any different here. Microsoft would be neglecting their responsibility to the shareholders if they did otherwise.
Consider: the main point of Palladium is that the combination of a Palladium hardware device and a Palladium O/S will refuse to run "unsafe code"
NO! As I said before, Palladium does not limit any software from running. What it does do is keep "unsafe" code from seeing or modifying protected data. From a programmers perspective, Palladium amounts to a new API to setup a secure context and protect data. Any program can use the API without any certification, and Palladium NEVER imposes itself on a process that does not request its services.
Basically, I see Palladium as a defensive move for Microsoft for several reasons:
#1- There is a huge demand for digital content (see Napster or KaZaA)
#2- The supply of (legal) digital content is lacking because many of the producers of the content fear rampant piracy, so they don't release their stuff electronically (the validity of this fear is another topic entirely)
#3- It is only a matter of time before somebody figures out a way for the producers to distribute their content without this fear of piracy, and that person/group/company is going to make a lot of money
#4- Like any business should do, Microsoft is attempting to fill this void in market so they can make more money
So basically, like every other business in the world, Microsoft is trying to make more money. This obviously includes trying to gain market share and expand into new business areas, but they will always have to offer a product that people want in order to stay alive. And there will always be an alternative for the people that do not like the product that they offer.
If you say that that's a fair thing, you're an incredibly ruthless capitalist
What would be fair- the government telling a business how much they are allowed to charge for their products? Thats bull crap and you know it.
If people are willing to pay for Office, then why on earth would Microsoft want to charge less? If you look at AMD vs Intel, AMD is not charging less for their chips because they want to be nice to the people that use them- they are charging highest price that the average consumer will pay for them. If they could charge more, they would. Its not unfair- its business.
Which is, at the core, EXACTLY what Palladium would do
Actually, that has nothing to do with Palladium and Palladium can't even do that. Palladium will NOT block any software from running - one of the core design requirements for it was that all existing software* will run on Palladium hardware (including alternate OSs) without modification.
* There are a few obsucure pieces of code that will need to be modifed, like some power managment routines in BIOS and debuggers.
Without MP, his claim that the kernel was "hitting two processes at the same time" doesn't make any sense.
To play devil's advocate, then why don't we make it illegal for people to buy things from a telemarketer? If the only reason we still get telemarketing calls is because 10% of the people buy from them, then these 10% are just as much at fault for me getting a telemarketing call as the telemarketers themselves.
I think this would be just as dumb as passing laws telling me which phone numbers I am allowed to dial.
And I think the suggestion that the government should limit who we can and cannot call on the telephone is absurd.
Nowhere are you guaranteed the right to bother people
We are guaranteed the right to freedom of speech. Door to door soliciting has been ruled to be protected speech numerous times in the courts- what's the difference there? If I want to stand on a street corner and talk to everybody that passes by, that may bother people but I am guaranteed the right to do it. If we are legislating against annoyances, then why isn't there a law that says that you have to bathe regularly (because stinky people bother me).
I think the whole thing is blown out of proportion anyway. If you receive a telemarketing call, you have several options including:
Hang up the phone (total time wasted = 2 seconds)
Set the phone down and let them drone on until they realize they aren't talking to anybody (my personal choice- total time wasted = 2 seconds)
Tell them not to call you anymore (total time wasted = 20 seconds)
And you aren't taking rights away "from the public" you are restricting ways in which business can carry out business
This may come as big surprise to you, but businesses are owned and operated by members of the public.
Now, telemarketers bug me as much as the next guy, but why do we have to involve the government in everything? The reason we get telemarketing calls is that the telemarketers make money. If you want to stop the calls, don't buy anything. If you really want to stop the calls, then encourage other people not to buy anything from telemarketers too. All these anit-telemarketing laws do is take more freedoms away from the public.
I think that is the biggest problem with our (the US) government- they think that everything is their business. Thats why you have to have a state license to give a freakin manicure or other idiotic laws like that.
You could wait until Microsoft offers XP Pro for $40 to registered Microsoft partners again. They have done this twice so far this year, and they throw in a pack of Big League Chew gum to boot. Or you could get XP home edition for about $90 OEM. If you pay $269 for it, then you are a moron.
I think you are missing the point. Intel is fully aware that the IPC of the P4 is less than the Athlon, but they are far enough ahead in the MHz that it more than makes up for this. That is the design philosophy of the P4. Intel is confident enough in this philosophy that they expect the P4 to have increased speed enough by the time Hammer is released (still another 6 months) that it will outperform Hammer. Only time will tell if this is true.
AMD has been losing the speed war for several months now, but I think they have been winning the price war all along
Not really. In most cases, the Athlon model number is chosen to reflect which Pentium 4 speed it competes with. Therefore, the Athlon 2400+ on average performs about as well as the 2.4 GHz P4 in the benchmarks. If you look at the latest prices, the Athlon 2400 is $3 more than the P4 2.4 GHz.
A friend of mine recently built a new computer, and he was choosing between the P4 2.53 GHz and the fastest Athlon available (which did not perform as well as the P4). After adding the costs up for both systems, the P4 system about $10 more. I don't see that as a big win in the price war.
The true fact in the matter is that intel are going to rely almost entirely on the marketability of a big number with the P4, as it's handling is rather unimpressive when compared to such ordinary designs as those from AMD, which clock poorly, yet crunch happily.
r s/hartsteina_optimum_pipeline_color.pdf r s/Deep%20Pipes.pdf
/.
I disagree. Intel's strategy of designing for higher clock speeds has given them a much more scalable chip, and that is evidenced by Intel's ability to increase the clock speeds frequently while AMD is struggling. And if you look at the last Toms hardware review (its a couple of weeks old), the P4 2.8 GHz pretty much tied with the Athlon 2800 (they both won about 14 benchmark tests). But that is much less meaningful when you realize that Tom was testing an Intel chip that has been available for 2 months with an Athlon that won't be available until December. If you compare the 2.8 GHz P4 with the fastest available Athlon today, the P4 beats it in over 90% of the benchmarks (I'd imagine that a comparison between the 3.06 GHz HT chip and the Athlon 2800+ would be similar). So Intel's strategy is working for performance, and it is more marketable to boot.
And there is a lot of research right now about the optimal pipeline depth, and the conclusion was that the current pipelines are not deep enough. The optimal pipeline depth for the x86 architecture is around 40-50 stages.
http://systems.cs.colorado.edu/ISCA2002/FinalPape
http://systems.cs.colorado.edu/ISCA2002/FinalPape
BTW- thanks to fobef for these links- I read them yesterday on
There are LOTS of studies that show that we are destroying our environment one piece at a time.
Correction- there are lots of studies that theorize that we may be destroying our environment. There are also lots of studies that disagree with those theories. In fact, the NOAA link that you posted says that all of the climate change that has been observed could just be caused by variations in the sun's intensity or the earth's orbit. Some people theorize that the build-up of "greenhouse gases" like CO2 is not causing a climate change, but rather a symptom of it (like this article for example).
Either way, none of those links that you gave make the jump that you made that our entire eco system is going to irreversibly collapse.
Your claims that the earth is overpopulated are also crap. Right now, you could fit everybody on the earth into Texas with about the same population density as Paris, France (look here). And the global population growth rate has been decreasing for the past 30 years.
Nobody is calling for the blatant misuse of our environment, but I think the earth is a lot more robust that you give it credit for, and I think that humans are not as influential to the environment as you seem to think.
Well, I'm not the only one that calls it 1.5 Gb/s. The serial ATA website often refers to it as 1.5 Gb/s.
:)
Also, signalling bits that are thrown away are often counted. Otherwise we would have 98 Mb/s ethernet instead of 100
Actually, it is 1.5 Gb/s. There is a 8b/10b encoding at the link layer.
Yes- but AFAIK command queuing is not implemented in a lot of the 1st generation controllers because it can break backwards compatibility with PATA software. Most vendors went for an easy upgrade path instead. Look for command queuing in the next generation of controllers.
All data goes through the PCI bus
No it doesnt. Data goes through the PCI bus if the address is not claimed by something else along the way. That means that everything from the southbridge up is not limited by the PCI bus bandwidth. That means that integrated SATA controllers (not available until next year) are only limited by the bandwidth between the northbridge and southbridge.
Ever read the actual throughput specs on a drive?
Drive throughput has been steadily increasing, and it is predicted to pass up PATA within a few years, and that is not counting RAID striping or the 8 MB drive caches. Its always desirable for the bottleneck to be the drive rather than the controller.