Let's see is it Eastasia or Eurasia. Which enemy is it again? I forget. Who is it that when defeated we can declare peace and not just always move though continual war?
Anyway, as a side note for those people asking, "What has darpa research done for us recently?" Well, keep in mind that when academic research into the original internet protocols and such was in progress you could have asked the same thing, not knowing what was coming. Also realize that the skill set required for true research and the skill set required for producing a product are not the same thing. Some people are suited for research some are not. Both kinds of people are needed for longterm progress.
Lastly, some guy was pointing out that p2p did not come from academia. That may be true, but significant advances in things like scalability, privacy, and simplicity are in the works. Yes revolutionary ideas can come from anywhere, but someone usually has to slog through many steps of little improvements to make those ideas reach their full potential. Complex systems do not tend to spring fully formed from someone's head like a greek goddess. Instead, someone has to do the research, and often that research does not have a clear (short-term) monetary incentive, so don't expect industry to do it.
"We see some of the same things occurring that did to Unix -- it could splinter into many different types of languages. " (Unix splintered into many different languages?)
Sure, remember, the bible talks about the tower of Unix that was an affront to god so (s)he splintered the Unixes into many languages?
Not sure I agree with your premise that SSNs were intended for identification for all things, but in the end it is generally irrelevant. They are used for authenticators whether we like it or not, and that needs to be fixed. The only reason it hasn't come to a head before now is that before large amounts of SSN associated data was available online fraud was much more difficult. When I only gave out my SSN when necessary (~~ thats the spelling by the way) I could be assured that only a very few people would have access to it. Now, a single unsecured machine allows for someone across the world to read my data from the comfort of their bedroom. It's just not acceptable to use SSNs as the authenticators any longer.
Fair enough, but my point was more along the lines of initial contruction. I.e. if you're doing optimization then yes, you must be extremely careful with your choice of algorithms specifically because of problems like that. But, I'd argue that in many cases when an application is first being built it's really more important to get an initial product working, then worry more about the algorithms. It may take some additional time in the portions of the code where you do need to optimize, but in many cases you'll find that the initial construction was adaquate.
I'll also take a minute to address a couple of other responses. 2^n n^2 at 10 is 1024 and 100. You know what? On a modern machine you often find that 100 vs. 1000 operations is still unnoticable. Program start-up time tends to outweight a lot of operations, but then again I'm not writing heavy computation programs. Lastly, to the guy who said that if it's not obvious what algorithm to use then you should be in another line of work. Look, use the obvious easy one, it's just there's always sooo many ways to do something, and there's likely a better one you're not thinking of. Point being, don't worry about that as some of us are want to do, and see if you need to do some harded thinking later.
It all comes down to the fact that at this point the most expensive thing in a development station these days is between the seat and the keyboard. Man hours are costly, processor time usually isn't.
I agree with you to a point. Do not try to squeeze a couple cycles here and there. Pick the right algorithm, but realize that n vs. n^2 vs. 2^n is not a big deal in 99% of applications. Code it so it works first. Make it go. Then, if it sucks performance-wise, replace those slow algorithms. I've seen too many people, myself included, who try to ensure that they've picked the perfect algorithm for the job, but take 4 times longer to design and write the code. Write the damn thing first. Keep it readable and maintainable first.
The worst people are those college students completing early algorithms classes. They've just been shown the power of the algorithms, and now they feel that everything must use them. Realistically, if you're working with 10 objects, 100 objects, 1000 objects n^2 often isn't a big deal on a 1ghz+ processor. Learn the tools called profilers that enable you to find where the slow points are and optimize after it basically works. Of course, original design does need to be reasonably modular to allow you to replace algorithms as needed.
Anyway, just my 2 cents after having not finished some projects because I got too caught up in the algorithm and speed details that on reflection were probably not necessary.
If you're curious about that 64 client limit check out winnt.h and look for MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS (in mine it's on line 1354): #define MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS 64// Maximum number of wait objects
This is the limit on the number of objects that can be waited for in WaitForMultipleObjects calls. The same limit is enforced in winsock2 for select calls, I believe because in the end microsoft's select implementation is using WaitForMultipleObjects underneath. (Also note that the winnt.h header file is entirely too large for a single header (9170 lines), but hey, that's window's style for ya).
Personally I don't really care where a package installs its files as long as I can find them, and you know what? With Fedora I can. rpm -ql blah lists files installed by blah. Don't know what owns file/usr/blah/blah? rpm -qf/usr/blah/blah tells you. For met the point of the directory structure is to organize things so that I can find them, so that I can identify them, and so that it makes sense to someone. Since you'll never get everyone to agree on the one true directory structure just make sure that someone can at least answer the obvious questions easily. I'd kill to have something in windows that would let me find out what applications/parts of windows installed that DLL in c:\windows\system32.
As for redhat being a problematic distro.... I use it, and know the issues I've had in the past. In general, nothing too serious, although with each release I wonder what they fucked up. Oh well, I've talked to other people about installing other distros and was just never convinced. Too set in my ways, and used to what I know. Someday I'll switch, but for now I'll stick to my untweaked relatively easy to install and manage rpms. Yes I said relatively easy to install. I do wish that I could install an app without some of the dependencies because I know I don't need those features, but that's not specific to rpm, just to binary packaging systems where someone has to make a choice as to what features to compile into the binary. But, as far as I'm concerned I'd rather throw another 1% of my drive space at the dependencies then have to wait for a compiler.
Note that not all brute force attacks take place against the online system. Through a bug in some service, a poorly configured database, or a single compromised username (plus a privalege escalation) an attacker may be able to send the passwd (hopefully shadow) file to another machine where they can brute force at their leisure. Much smaller chance of detection this way.
Also note that requiring special characters does far more than add "an extra 12 hours". In most cases the brute force attack would be many *times* longer when you increase the possible characters by 1, let alone a bunch of special characters. Of course, users tend to just append the characters, so brute forcing may take advantage of that, but at that point you're getting away from what a "brute force" attack implies.
First off it's COPPER, not cooper. Cooper is a guy who makes barrels, copper is a fairly non-reactive element. Surely you see the difference. Other options for cooper are Alice Cooper, Hanging With Mr Cooper, D. B. Cooper, etc.
Next up, lets take the line: if it is known to be "safe" for the comet to interact with cooper in that explosion, then the chemical composition of the comet it is already KNOWN and that makes NO reason for the experiment. How wrong can you be? It's pretty easy to know something will not significantly react with copper and yet not know the exact composition, unfortunately I can't come up with a clever metaphor about throwing a penny at a dirty snowbank, but based on some simple chemistry you'd get the idea.
Next, how about the part: how "safe" it is to force it in an explosion with cooper(sic)...? Well, let's see, there is a gigantic nuclear fusion reaction that provides most of our planet's energy in one form or another, so you can guess space is not going to notice even something the size of a comet going nuclear. It's not like we're setting it off over New York city. It's a long ways away. Additionally, since the current theory (theory like evolution is a theory) is that comets are basically dirty snowballs, the odds of getting something more like an explosion and less like a splash are slim, verging on none.
For the rest of the people talking about, "is it a good idea to destroy a comet?" Well, worst case is that it's fairly whole, and orbit its changed. Could be changed in a way that puts it in a collision course with earth. Basically that would be very bad. But, another thing to keep in mind is the sizes we're talking about here: very dense bathtub vs. 2.5 MILES long. Overall, not too worried. Also, keep in mind that if it's this easy to change the trajectory, then.... well.... it's this easy to change the trajectory.
Minor nitpick: But they're still talking about the stations being a mile apart. Which means an average of a one-mile hike and a max of a two mile hike if your starting location and destination are exactly between stations.
If we're talking about 1 mile between stations then the farthest you have to walk is 1 mile (half on each end), and the average is 1/2 mile. If stations are actually 1 mile apart you're never more than 1/2 mile from a station. Remember, you can go just past your destination and walk back instead of stopping 3/4 of a mile before it.
What's next? How about, "Before you sell that pot you need to put a tax stamp on it." Love that law, and it's been on the books since 1937. Search for the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Or even better, here's a link: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/mj taxact.htm Legislators work in mysterious/interesting ways.
As a windows developer (thank god I haven't done that in a few month at least) I have to agree with you about the annoyance of kill in taskmanager. However, the security from ctrl+alt+delete has nothing to do with task manager. That key combination is always caught by the operating system, not a running program. This means that the user can be sure that the interface brought up by pressing ctrl+alt+delete is provided by the OS, not some application.
Think about stealing passwords. One of the easiest ways is popping up a real looking login box and then complaining that the user entered the wrong password and dumping out to the real one for the next password entry request. No user is going to be suspicious. Everyone assumes they slipped on the first try, but in a public lab situation this can be pretty effective. Can also get your ass tossed out of school these days.
I'm afraid its more likely that the extremist Muslim friend who has gotten a job at whatever place issues these things and he will happily fulfill his 'duty' to Allah will actually be living paycheck to paycheck minimally educated worker who has gotten a job at whatever place issues these things and he will be more than happy to fulfill his 'duty' to the almighty dollar. You don't have to be some extremist to help the bad guys. Bribes are offered and taken everyday.
I can play any first person shooter and feel nothing. Drop me in front of Descent and I need a doggy bag. Glad someone else had this problem. God, I get vaguely nauseous just remembering that game.
Ignoring all the gramatical errors (oh it hurts) there is one clear sign that you're refering to some fantasy land: why not use the software our gov uses tried tested and found to be having no bugs. Sure....
There's actually a very specific reason why this problem is not so simple. Although there must be a trail that shows that someone voted a certain way a trail that individually identifies voters can lead to vote buying. If I can prove who I voted for to another person (look at my id, see I voted for X) then I can sell my vote. Currently, I could simply tell the other person who I voted for, but in reality what happened behind the curtain is only known to me. Don't blow this off, I'm sure there are a great many people whom a couple bucks could sway, however, as long as they can't prove their vote this is not only illegal, but also not profitable.
I don't think this is contradictory thanks to that first line: Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move. A proprietary vendor could simply lift an entire library, thereby steal implementations of entire APIs. In fact, companies that have been caught with their hands in the proverbial GPL cookie-jar have usually been caught with entire libraries or applications (Dell access points, some set-top boxes with mplayer (think that's right), etc.).
Personally, I don't think I'll ever understand some people's problem with GPL'ed code. I've seen a number of bitch sessions about "but we don't want to release it". Tough shit, you chose to use GPL'ed code so play by the rules. You don't like the rules, don't use the code. It's not like this license sneaks up on you in the night. During design and implementation someone made a conscious descision about where to get code from. If that choice bites you in the ass, you have no one to blame but that guy.
In general, such a file system would have *horrible* performance, especially for writes, since it could require rearranging data on disk in order to allocate more space for a growing file. However, I would bet that some simple embedded filesystems do this sort of thing, especially if they are meant to be mainly read-only. Sorry, I can't just tell you the name of one, but you won't find such a filesystem made for regular desktop usage. Gonna be a special-purpose thing.
If you have *any* problems with a swap partition corrupting your data it is time for you to replace that disk. Besides one could easily check a checksum on the re-read data. And before anyone panics about the time it takes to checksum the data, you're pulling it off the disk. That's half a million times slower than memory? One more pass over the data in memory is not going to have such a horrible impact. Still, I'd personally say toss the dieing disk. They're cheap now.
Other accounts of the flood? How about the story of Gilgamesh where many scholars think the flood story from the Bible comes from? Of course, I don't think those two sources can't agree on an even approximate date....
I have no problem supporting the Bible as a source of history, but just as modern history books have their inaccuracies so will ancient, and based on what has been proven true or false in the bible so far I'd tend to say that the Good Book plays it a little fast and loose with the facts. The bible is also good literature from its time, but that doesn't mean anything special. Personally, I believe that in general has excellent messages as to how to live our lives (minus some out-of-date "stone the whore", "sacrifice your son" type things). However, I chose not to believe the majority of the Bible is much more than myth with some buried and distorted historical facts.
Slashdot Mirror
The US is at war. Get used to it.
Let's see is it Eastasia or Eurasia. Which enemy is it again? I forget. Who is it that when defeated we can declare peace and not just always move though continual war?
Anyway, as a side note for those people asking, "What has darpa research done for us recently?" Well, keep in mind that when academic research into the original internet protocols and such was in progress you could have asked the same thing, not knowing what was coming. Also realize that the skill set required for true research and the skill set required for producing a product are not the same thing. Some people are suited for research some are not. Both kinds of people are needed for longterm progress.
Lastly, some guy was pointing out that p2p did not come from academia. That may be true, but significant advances in things like scalability, privacy, and simplicity are in the works. Yes revolutionary ideas can come from anywhere, but someone usually has to slog through many steps of little improvements to make those ideas reach their full potential. Complex systems do not tend to spring fully formed from someone's head like a greek goddess. Instead, someone has to do the research, and often that research does not have a clear (short-term) monetary incentive, so don't expect industry to do it.
That's just a great post to do as AC.... =)
"We see some of the same things occurring that did to Unix -- it could splinter into many different types of languages. "
(Unix splintered into many different languages?)
Sure, remember, the bible talks about the tower of Unix that was an affront to god so (s)he splintered the Unixes into many languages?
Not sure I agree with your premise that SSNs were intended for identification for all things, but in the end it is generally irrelevant. They are used for authenticators whether we like it or not, and that needs to be fixed. The only reason it hasn't come to a head before now is that before large amounts of SSN associated data was available online fraud was much more difficult. When I only gave out my SSN when necessary (~~ thats the spelling by the way) I could be assured that only a very few people would have access to it. Now, a single unsecured machine allows for someone across the world to read my data from the comfort of their bedroom. It's just not acceptable to use SSNs as the authenticators any longer.
Fair enough, but my point was more along the lines of initial contruction. I.e. if you're doing optimization then yes, you must be extremely careful with your choice of algorithms specifically because of problems like that. But, I'd argue that in many cases when an application is first being built it's really more important to get an initial product working, then worry more about the algorithms. It may take some additional time in the portions of the code where you do need to optimize, but in many cases you'll find that the initial construction was adaquate.
I'll also take a minute to address a couple of other responses. 2^n n^2 at 10 is 1024 and 100. You know what? On a modern machine you often find that 100 vs. 1000 operations is still unnoticable. Program start-up time tends to outweight a lot of operations, but then again I'm not writing heavy computation programs. Lastly, to the guy who said that if it's not obvious what algorithm to use then you should be in another line of work. Look, use the obvious easy one, it's just there's always sooo many ways to do something, and there's likely a better one you're not thinking of. Point being, don't worry about that as some of us are want to do, and see if you need to do some harded thinking later.
It all comes down to the fact that at this point the most expensive thing in a development station these days is between the seat and the keyboard. Man hours are costly, processor time usually isn't.
I agree with you to a point. Do not try to squeeze a couple cycles here and there. Pick the right algorithm, but realize that n vs. n^2 vs. 2^n is not a big deal in 99% of applications. Code it so it works first. Make it go. Then, if it sucks performance-wise, replace those slow algorithms. I've seen too many people, myself included, who try to ensure that they've picked the perfect algorithm for the job, but take 4 times longer to design and write the code. Write the damn thing first. Keep it readable and maintainable first.
The worst people are those college students completing early algorithms classes. They've just been shown the power of the algorithms, and now they feel that everything must use them. Realistically, if you're working with 10 objects, 100 objects, 1000 objects n^2 often isn't a big deal on a 1ghz+ processor. Learn the tools called profilers that enable you to find where the slow points are and optimize after it basically works. Of course, original design does need to be reasonably modular to allow you to replace algorithms as needed.
Anyway, just my 2 cents after having not finished some projects because I got too caught up in the algorithm and speed details that on reflection were probably not necessary.
If you're curious about that 64 client limit check out winnt.h and look for MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS (in mine it's on line 1354): // Maximum number of wait objects
#define MAXIMUM_WAIT_OBJECTS 64
This is the limit on the number of objects that can be waited for in WaitForMultipleObjects calls. The same limit is enforced in winsock2 for select calls, I believe because in the end microsoft's select implementation is using WaitForMultipleObjects underneath. (Also note that the winnt.h header file is entirely too large for a single header (9170 lines), but hey, that's window's style for ya).
Personally I don't really care where a package installs its files as long as I can find them, and you know what? With Fedora I can. rpm -ql blah lists files installed by blah. Don't know what owns file /usr/blah/blah? rpm -qf /usr/blah/blah tells you. For met the point of the directory structure is to organize things so that I can find them, so that I can identify them, and so that it makes sense to someone. Since you'll never get everyone to agree on the one true directory structure just make sure that someone can at least answer the obvious questions easily. I'd kill to have something in windows that would let me find out what applications/parts of windows installed that DLL in c:\windows\system32.
As for redhat being a problematic distro.... I use it, and know the issues I've had in the past. In general, nothing too serious, although with each release I wonder what they fucked up. Oh well, I've talked to other people about installing other distros and was just never convinced. Too set in my ways, and used to what I know. Someday I'll switch, but for now I'll stick to my untweaked relatively easy to install and manage rpms. Yes I said relatively easy to install. I do wish that I could install an app without some of the dependencies because I know I don't need those features, but that's not specific to rpm, just to binary packaging systems where someone has to make a choice as to what features to compile into the binary. But, as far as I'm concerned I'd rather throw another 1% of my drive space at the dependencies then have to wait for a compiler.
Me too!!!
Note that not all brute force attacks take place against the online system. Through a bug in some service, a poorly configured database, or a single compromised username (plus a privalege escalation) an attacker may be able to send the passwd (hopefully shadow) file to another machine where they can brute force at their leisure. Much smaller chance of detection this way.
Also note that requiring special characters does far more than add "an extra 12 hours". In most cases the brute force attack would be many *times* longer when you increase the possible characters by 1, let alone a bunch of special characters. Of course, users tend to just append the characters, so brute forcing may take advantage of that, but at that point you're getting away from what a "brute force" attack implies.
First off it's COPPER, not cooper. Cooper is a guy who makes barrels, copper is a fairly non-reactive element. Surely you see the difference. Other options for cooper are Alice Cooper, Hanging With Mr Cooper, D. B. Cooper, etc.
Next up, lets take the line: if it is known to be "safe" for the comet to interact with cooper in that explosion, then the chemical composition of the comet it is already KNOWN and that makes NO reason for the experiment. How wrong can you be? It's pretty easy to know something will not significantly react with copper and yet not know the exact composition, unfortunately I can't come up with a clever metaphor about throwing a penny at a dirty snowbank, but based on some simple chemistry you'd get the idea.
Next, how about the part: how "safe" it is to force it in an explosion with cooper(sic)...? Well, let's see, there is a gigantic nuclear fusion reaction that provides most of our planet's energy in one form or another, so you can guess space is not going to notice even something the size of a comet going nuclear. It's not like we're setting it off over New York city. It's a long ways away. Additionally, since the current theory (theory like evolution is a theory) is that comets are basically dirty snowballs, the odds of getting something more like an explosion and less like a splash are slim, verging on none.
For the rest of the people talking about, "is it a good idea to destroy a comet?" Well, worst case is that it's fairly whole, and orbit its changed. Could be changed in a way that puts it in a collision course with earth. Basically that would be very bad. But, another thing to keep in mind is the sizes we're talking about here: very dense bathtub vs. 2.5 MILES long. Overall, not too worried. Also, keep in mind that if it's this easy to change the trajectory, then.... well.... it's this easy to change the trajectory.
made for backhats
Are those over by the asshats?
Minor nitpick:
But they're still talking about the stations being a mile apart. Which means an average of a one-mile hike and a max of a two mile hike if your starting location and destination are exactly between stations.
If we're talking about 1 mile between stations then the farthest you have to walk is 1 mile (half on each end), and the average is 1/2 mile. If stations are actually 1 mile apart you're never more than 1/2 mile from a station. Remember, you can go just past your destination and walk back instead of stopping 3/4 of a mile before it.
What's next? How about, "Before you sell that pot you need to put a tax stamp on it." Love that law, and it's been on the books since 1937. Search for the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Or even better, here's a link: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/mj taxact.htm
Legislators work in mysterious/interesting ways.
As a windows developer (thank god I haven't done that in a few month at least) I have to agree with you about the annoyance of kill in taskmanager. However, the security from ctrl+alt+delete has nothing to do with task manager. That key combination is always caught by the operating system, not a running program. This means that the user can be sure that the interface brought up by pressing ctrl+alt+delete is provided by the OS, not some application.
Think about stealing passwords. One of the easiest ways is popping up a real looking login box and then complaining that the user entered the wrong password and dumping out to the real one for the next password entry request. No user is going to be suspicious. Everyone assumes they slipped on the first try, but in a public lab situation this can be pretty effective. Can also get your ass tossed out of school these days.
I'm afraid its more likely that the extremist Muslim friend who has gotten a job at whatever place issues these things and he will happily fulfill his 'duty' to Allah will actually be living paycheck to paycheck minimally educated worker who has gotten a job at whatever place issues these things and he will be more than happy to fulfill his 'duty' to the almighty dollar. You don't have to be some extremist to help the bad guys. Bribes are offered and taken everyday.
So sorry to hear about your legs.
Amen brother, I was trying to figure out what the hell that guy was rambling about, but had to give up when my head hurt.
I can play any first person shooter and feel nothing. Drop me in front of Descent and I need a doggy bag. Glad someone else had this problem. God, I get vaguely nauseous just remembering that game.
Ignoring all the gramatical errors (oh it hurts) there is one clear sign that you're refering to some fantasy land: why not use the software our gov uses tried tested and found to be having no bugs . Sure....
There's actually a very specific reason why this problem is not so simple. Although there must be a trail that shows that someone voted a certain way a trail that individually identifies voters can lead to vote buying. If I can prove who I voted for to another person (look at my id, see I voted for X) then I can sell my vote. Currently, I could simply tell the other person who I voted for, but in reality what happened behind the curtain is only known to me. Don't blow this off, I'm sure there are a great many people whom a couple bucks could sway, however, as long as they can't prove their vote this is not only illegal, but also not profitable.
I don't think this is contradictory thanks to that first line: Context and interfaces are everything; unless it has been packaged into a library specifically intended to move. A proprietary vendor could simply lift an entire library, thereby steal implementations of entire APIs. In fact, companies that have been caught with their hands in the proverbial GPL cookie-jar have usually been caught with entire libraries or applications (Dell access points, some set-top boxes with mplayer (think that's right), etc.).
Personally, I don't think I'll ever understand some people's problem with GPL'ed code. I've seen a number of bitch sessions about "but we don't want to release it". Tough shit, you chose to use GPL'ed code so play by the rules. You don't like the rules, don't use the code. It's not like this license sneaks up on you in the night. During design and implementation someone made a conscious descision about where to get code from. If that choice bites you in the ass, you have no one to blame but that guy.
In general, such a file system would have *horrible* performance, especially for writes, since it could require rearranging data on disk in order to allocate more space for a growing file. However, I would bet that some simple embedded filesystems do this sort of thing, especially if they are meant to be mainly read-only. Sorry, I can't just tell you the name of one, but you won't find such a filesystem made for regular desktop usage. Gonna be a special-purpose thing.
If you have *any* problems with a swap partition corrupting your data it is time for you to replace that disk. Besides one could easily check a checksum on the re-read data. And before anyone panics about the time it takes to checksum the data, you're pulling it off the disk. That's half a million times slower than memory? One more pass over the data in memory is not going to have such a horrible impact. Still, I'd personally say toss the dieing disk. They're cheap now.
Other accounts of the flood? How about the story of Gilgamesh where many scholars think the flood story from the Bible comes from? Of course, I don't think those two sources can't agree on an even approximate date....
I have no problem supporting the Bible as a source of history, but just as modern history books have their inaccuracies so will ancient, and based on what has been proven true or false in the bible so far I'd tend to say that the Good Book plays it a little fast and loose with the facts. The bible is also good literature from its time, but that doesn't mean anything special. Personally, I believe that in general has excellent messages as to how to live our lives (minus some out-of-date "stone the whore", "sacrifice your son" type things). However, I chose not to believe the majority of the Bible is much more than myth with some buried and distorted historical facts.