Anything we do on Mars is going to be so much less energetic that it's ridiculous to consider as a possible threat to Earth.
Oh sure, you say that now but I think you'll be singing a different tune when explosive gases cause Mars to explode and chunks of it come crashing into the Earth. That's why I'm going to move to the sun.. The intense heat will cause anything to melt before it gets anywhere near me.
Even with some caching involved, font rendering adds one more layer of processor overhead -- but no vendor would dare release an interface with bitmap fonts today.
Right. No vendor except RedHat/Fedora. And Debian. And Suse. And....
You're making a common first-year programmer's mistake.
I'm not going to say that it's impossible to write bug-free software, but it's simply not a provable goal. How do you prove that your software doesn't have any bugs? You can't. You can prove that you can't make it crash with the things you *think of*, but that's it. It's certainly a good ethic to attempt to create bug-free software, but there's no measure of when something is truly bug-free. Even "mission critical," software cannot claim to be bug free; only that it functions within the limits of its intended use (and hopefully is fault tolerant).
Now, given that, how much money is it worth to "ensure" you don't have any exploitable code in your software? 10% of development? 25%? 95%? There's no conclusive way to know when testing is done; at some point you have to say it's "good enough."
Should security holes be patched as they're found? Absolutely. But is it ever possible to know conclusively that you have no security holes? I don't think so, and I don't think anyone can make a convincing argument to the contrary. It's ridiculous to have this gaping-mouth syndrome every time a security flaw is discovered.
That said, this paper wasn't about exploitable software per se; it was about an exploitable configuration. Should the administrator have been more careful in the setup? Perhaps. There's no way to know what he did or didn't do, or what kind of time or budget he had to work with. He succeeded in configuring a network that functioned as intended. The fact that it also functioned beyond those intentions is much like the buggy program whose flaws, like anything else, cannot be known until they are discovered.
Security is an arms race, and holes must constantly be patched -- especially if the system is vital -- but I still stand by my original post. Much of the time, all you can really do is provide the illusion of security.
I realize that you're being deliberately obtuse, but the use of quotes around the term "terrorist" was clearly meant to give the term a certain uncertainty. Who and what constitutes a terrorist very much depends on your politics, and frankly, many people in the US these days seem to use that term a little bit too freely.
Perhaps, but we're hardly executing terrorists. The quote wasn't, "What about terrorist's right to habeus corpus," it was about their right to life. The only injuries that appear to be killing suspected terrorists are self inflicted, thus my comment. I think you knew that, but instead chose to call me obtuse.
Now if you want to say, "What about suspected terrorists right to due process," I'll support you 100%, and I agree that the term terrorist is overly used, and has been for about 3 and a half years now.. but the guv'mint is hardly lining up suspects in the streets and summarily executing them. They might be crossing the line with civil liberties, which again is still wrong, and it's a slippery slope, but let's keep it in perspective.
It's not about pranks.It's not a question of what the reviewer should and shouldn't do...There's a reason for police there's a reason for locks on doors, there's a reason for computer security, and there's a reason I don't leave my lunch out when my cat is in the room.
It's all about what you should and shouldn't do.
Understand something: Police aren't around (at least in the US) to PREVENT crime, they're there to respond after the fact. Locks don't prevent theft; they merely deter the casual person from entering a space, or making off with a bike, or a laptop, etc. Anyone who's determined to do something can usually find a way to do it.
You might be surprised to learn that most physical security isn't really about preventing unathorized access, it's about deterring people from trying. Security guards aren't some super-vigilant breed of human that can focus their attention on every detail of a situation for extended periods of time. They might be looking around with a suspicious expression (if they're really gung-ho, and not reading a magazine), but they're almost definately thinking about something unrelated.
So why do we expect better from software that's been written by people? If someone wants to gain access to a system, they will. It's all about posturing and setting up an interface with a "secure feel," just like the security gate at a building. Sure, you don't just leave the gate open and let the guard leave the station unattended, but there comes a point where you're expending more resources by keeping a facility secure than you stand to lose by having the facility compromised.
I'm not trying to make excuses for wanton disregard of basic practices.. there's no point in having a gate if you have no fence after all. But to expect any security to be bullet-proof is being unrealistic.
Just as often as men. Probably more often, because it's taboo.
Detect when a woman has had enough to drink and will sleep with almost anyone
Or did you mean, when you can take advantage of them and hopefuly they won't remember it?
Detect when a woman has just broken up with a boy friend, and wants to 'show him' by sleeping with another man..
Try the "conversation method."
Warn you when YOU are drunk and hitting on the boss's wife at a party
Now that's actually a good idea.
One that shows she's gonna sleep with you, and not just leeching drinks off you at the bar
If you need to ask...
Women don't accept drinks because they find you attractive, they accept drinks because you're foolish enough to buy them, and in most cases they think you're just another loser trying to buy their attention. Develop a personality -- it's got a much higher success rate and you'll save loads of cash.
I don't think safety needs to be *that* high of a priority. We're not talking about consumer transportation here -- we're talking about a specialized device used to transport people who willingly face the very real possibility of death on every mission, many times due to things that are completely beyond anyone's control. Safety is only practical until it reaches the point where it's cheaper to retry a failed mission from scratch than plan for every inevitability to ensure success the first time.
It depends how long of a run you're talking about. Health problems might weed out people, national security might bolster our country, but space exploration will secure our species. In the big picture, humanity will suffer much more if we're tied to one planet, also known as the "all of your eggs in one basket" strategy, than if we can spread out.*
Besides, interplanetary wars will kick ass. Or so I'm told.
* As long as the EU doesn't make it there first. God forbid an alien's first contact is with a Frenchman.
No. The reason talking on cellphones is dangerous is that part of the act of communication involves visualizing the other person's body language, facial expressions, and surroundings. Doing that takes away cycles (for lack of a better term) from the visual-spatial aspects of driving.
Moreover, a passenger is a second set of eyes, which counteracts the lack of attention. Further, a passenger will understand if you don't answer right away because you're focused on something else (making sure traffic is clear to make a left out of a parking lot, changing lanes, etc) whereas a person who can't see you still expects your full attention, and any pause in the conversation is questioned.. "Hello? Are you there? Hello..."
"MS To Limit Security Fixes to Legal Copies of Windows"
Well, first of all, the article specifically states that security updates will not be affected:
Users of pirated copies of Windows will still be able get some updates, such as security patches, but will not be able to get other add-ons for Windows, the Redmond, Washington-based company said in a statement.
"The article is light on details about what versions of Windows this will affect."
Once again, the article specifically states that XP will be affected, and since 2K is just NT5.0 and XP is NT5.1, it's probably a safe bet that the same thing will apply to both products.
Under a new verification program, users will have to prove their copy was obtained legitimately to receive "greater reliability, faster access to updates, and richer user experiences" from Windows XP, the latest version of the operating system running on over 90 percent of the world's personal computers.
So they're just restricting access for upgrades to paying customers. Big deal.
Meaningless? Tell that to all the people who just rushed out to buy the new slim phone. The size of the power supply is very relevant. The energy density of the fuel itself is is not relevant -- it's the ability to extract that energy in the smallest possible form factor that's important. For practical purposes, the size of the entire cell would be what you base the energy density on, not the volume of the fuel.
Right.. because people will stop writing software from fear of prosecution. I see that happening in.. oh.. Neverland.
I know it's hip to bemoan the **AA here, but it's also commonly acknowleged that they labor in vain. People will continue to use technology for their own means, and no amount of litigation or legislation will suppress it.
From everything I've heard, fuel cells have a LOWER energy density than a battery. Not to mention, you'd have to refuel your [insert device of your choice here] instead of recharging the battery. True, you could just swap out cells, but you know as well as I that each company would come up with their own design, and you'd have to buy cells specific for the model you were using. No down time? Just buy two battaries (or two sets) and let one charge while you use the other. I'll put money on it that your second battery will charge faster than you drain the first.
That doesn't mean that I think batteries, in their current incarnation, are the best we can do, but they make more sense than fuel cells at this point.
Hmm.. There is an equal number of people on both sides of the 100 mark, since 100 is nothing more than the arbitrary value assigned to the median score. If society at large starts scoring better, the median changes accordingly. You're basically saying that a pound of sand didn't outweigh a pound of dirt.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny reading those comments.. Five years later and the only thing that's changed is the user numbers.
Disclaimer: Cops are generally good people, in fact I have relatives who are cops.
I know how you feel.. I hate my relatives too, and they're not even cops.
Just kidding. Please don't write me out of the will. Please?
Anything we do on Mars is going to be so much less energetic that it's ridiculous to consider as a possible threat to Earth.
Oh sure, you say that now but I think you'll be singing a different tune when explosive gases cause Mars to explode and chunks of it come crashing into the Earth. That's why I'm going to move to the sun.. The intense heat will cause anything to melt before it gets anywhere near me.
that if you scroll down to the bottom of the article, there's a picture of the author. Notice anything fishy about him? Exactly. It's Peter Fonda!
Even with some caching involved, font rendering adds one more layer of processor overhead -- but no vendor would dare release an interface with bitmap fonts today.
Right. No vendor except RedHat/Fedora. And Debian. And Suse. And....
I'm not sure what this means exactly, but I found it in some sekret dokuments and I thought it looked suspicious...
for (x=0; x (cpuMHz * cpuMHz); x++)
FillMem(x);
You're making a common first-year programmer's mistake.
I'm not going to say that it's impossible to write bug-free software, but it's simply not a provable goal. How do you prove that your software doesn't have any bugs? You can't. You can prove that you can't make it crash with the things you *think of*, but that's it. It's certainly a good ethic to attempt to create bug-free software, but there's no measure of when something is truly bug-free. Even "mission critical," software cannot claim to be bug free; only that it functions within the limits of its intended use (and hopefully is fault tolerant).
Now, given that, how much money is it worth to "ensure" you don't have any exploitable code in your software? 10% of development? 25%? 95%? There's no conclusive way to know when testing is done; at some point you have to say it's "good enough."
Should security holes be patched as they're found? Absolutely. But is it ever possible to know conclusively that you have no security holes? I don't think so, and I don't think anyone can make a convincing argument to the contrary. It's ridiculous to have this gaping-mouth syndrome every time a security flaw is discovered.
That said, this paper wasn't about exploitable software per se; it was about an exploitable configuration. Should the administrator have been more careful in the setup? Perhaps. There's no way to know what he did or didn't do, or what kind of time or budget he had to work with. He succeeded in configuring a network that functioned as intended. The fact that it also functioned beyond those intentions is much like the buggy program whose flaws, like anything else, cannot be known until they are discovered.
Security is an arms race, and holes must constantly be patched -- especially if the system is vital -- but I still stand by my original post. Much of the time, all you can really do is provide the illusion of security.
I realize that you're being deliberately obtuse, but the use of quotes around the term "terrorist" was clearly meant to give the term a certain uncertainty. Who and what constitutes a terrorist very much depends on your politics, and frankly, many people in the US these days seem to use that term a little bit too freely.
Perhaps, but we're hardly executing terrorists. The quote wasn't, "What about terrorist's right to habeus corpus," it was about their right to life. The only injuries that appear to be killing suspected terrorists are self inflicted, thus my comment. I think you knew that, but instead chose to call me obtuse.
Now if you want to say, "What about suspected terrorists right to due process," I'll support you 100%, and I agree that the term terrorist is overly used, and has been for about 3 and a half years now.. but the guv'mint is hardly lining up suspects in the streets and summarily executing them. They might be crossing the line with civil liberties, which again is still wrong, and it's a slippery slope, but let's keep it in perspective.
According to one version I was secret police officer. They must have wiped my memory as I can't remember working for them...
That's the spirit, comrad. Tell them nothing.
What happened to the "terrorists"'s right to life?
Presumably they relinquished their right to life when they strapped on a TNT vest.
It's not about pranks.It's not a question of what the reviewer should and shouldn't do...There's a reason for police there's a reason for locks on doors, there's a reason for computer security, and there's a reason I don't leave my lunch out when my cat is in the room.
It's all about what you should and shouldn't do.
Understand something: Police aren't around (at least in the US) to PREVENT crime, they're there to respond after the fact. Locks don't prevent theft; they merely deter the casual person from entering a space, or making off with a bike, or a laptop, etc. Anyone who's determined to do something can usually find a way to do it.
You might be surprised to learn that most physical security isn't really about preventing unathorized access, it's about deterring people from trying. Security guards aren't some super-vigilant breed of human that can focus their attention on every detail of a situation for extended periods of time. They might be looking around with a suspicious expression (if they're really gung-ho, and not reading a magazine), but they're almost definately thinking about something unrelated.
So why do we expect better from software that's been written by people? If someone wants to gain access to a system, they will. It's all about posturing and setting up an interface with a "secure feel," just like the security gate at a building. Sure, you don't just leave the gate open and let the guard leave the station unattended, but there comes a point where you're expending more resources by keeping a facility secure than you stand to lose by having the facility compromised.
I'm not trying to make excuses for wanton disregard of basic practices.. there's no point in having a gate if you have no fence after all. But to expect any security to be bullet-proof is being unrealistic.
Hitler's reasoning was based on the false assumption that blonde hair and blue eyes are superior
Ah crap, that's false? I guess I can stop dying my hair and wearing contacts now. What a waste.
Detect when women are horny
Just as often as men. Probably more often, because it's taboo.
Detect when a woman has had enough to drink and will sleep with almost anyone
Or did you mean, when you can take advantage of them and hopefuly they won't remember it?
Detect when a woman has just broken up with a boy friend, and wants to 'show him' by sleeping with another man..
Try the "conversation method."
Warn you when YOU are drunk and hitting on the boss's wife at a party
Now that's actually a good idea.
One that shows she's gonna sleep with you, and not just leeching drinks off you at the bar
If you need to ask...
Women don't accept drinks because they find you attractive, they accept drinks because you're foolish enough to buy them, and in most cases they think you're just another loser trying to buy their attention. Develop a personality -- it's got a much higher success rate and you'll save loads of cash.
I don't think safety needs to be *that* high of a priority. We're not talking about consumer transportation here -- we're talking about a specialized device used to transport people who willingly face the very real possibility of death on every mission, many times due to things that are completely beyond anyone's control. Safety is only practical until it reaches the point where it's cheaper to retry a failed mission from scratch than plan for every inevitability to ensure success the first time.
Besides, interplanetary wars will kick ass. Or so I'm told.
* As long as the EU doesn't make it there first. God forbid an alien's first contact is with a Frenchman.
No. The reason talking on cellphones is dangerous is that part of the act of communication involves visualizing the other person's body language, facial expressions, and surroundings. Doing that takes away cycles (for lack of a better term) from the visual-spatial aspects of driving.
Moreover, a passenger is a second set of eyes, which counteracts the lack of attention. Further, a passenger will understand if you don't answer right away because you're focused on something else (making sure traffic is clear to make a left out of a parking lot, changing lanes, etc) whereas a person who can't see you still expects your full attention, and any pause in the conversation is questioned.. "Hello? Are you there? Hello..."
I can almost hear the French accent in your writing.
Their livelihood is dependant on their integrity.
And quite possibly their lives.
Well, first of all, the article specifically states that security updates will not be affected:
"The article is light on details about what versions of Windows this will affect."
Once again, the article specifically states that XP will be affected, and since 2K is just NT5.0 and XP is NT5.1, it's probably a safe bet that the same thing will apply to both products.
So they're just restricting access for upgrades to paying customers. Big deal.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Meaningless? Tell that to all the people who just rushed out to buy the new slim phone. The size of the power supply is very relevant. The energy density of the fuel itself is is not relevant -- it's the ability to extract that energy in the smallest possible form factor that's important. For practical purposes, the size of the entire cell would be what you base the energy density on, not the volume of the fuel.
Right.. because people will stop writing software from fear of prosecution. I see that happening in.. oh.. Neverland.
I know it's hip to bemoan the **AA here, but it's also commonly acknowleged that they labor in vain. People will continue to use technology for their own means, and no amount of litigation or legislation will suppress it.
Try showing up for work. It's amazing how much that helps you to keep a job.
Actually, there's lots of reasons to believe Moore's Law will soon become obsolete. Not to mention that Moore only speculated about the number of transistors that could be placed on an IC; not processing power per se.
From everything I've heard, fuel cells have a LOWER energy density than a battery. Not to mention, you'd have to refuel your [insert device of your choice here] instead of recharging the battery. True, you could just swap out cells, but you know as well as I that each company would come up with their own design, and you'd have to buy cells specific for the model you were using. No down time? Just buy two battaries (or two sets) and let one charge while you use the other. I'll put money on it that your second battery will charge faster than you drain the first.
That doesn't mean that I think batteries, in their current incarnation, are the best we can do, but they make more sense than fuel cells at this point.
Hmm.. There is an equal number of people on both sides of the 100 mark, since 100 is nothing more than the arbitrary value assigned to the median score. If society at large starts scoring better, the median changes accordingly. You're basically saying that a pound of sand didn't outweigh a pound of dirt.