According to the article, the FCC is imposing a fee if and when the VOIP call interfaces with the PSTN network, ie. when one or more of the parties is using legacy telephone service. The fee does not apply to pure VOIP calls. Unfortunately, it isn't clear if a provider must pay the fee if it *ever* connects to PSTN, or only on a per-call basis. If it's the former, then this is really ridiculous. If it's the latter, then this may make some semblance of sense, annoying though it is. Anybody know which it is?
I have been using LUKS to do this on my Gentoo box. It sees to it that the root partition is completely encrypted; only the boot partition is in the clear. (Gentoo itself has support for encrypted swap.) The instructions are a bit scattershot, but I was able to get it to work. YMMV.
Before doing this, use Darik's Boot and Nuke or something like that to fill the drive with random data; I do not think LUKS takes any steps to randomize the contents of a newly-created partition.
I think their notion is that you get more than $8 of value out of this thing. Because it's digital with preview/delete, you can nix bad pictures before going to get them developed, something you cannot do with a disposable film camera.
In other words, they're banking that a $20 disposable digital is worth about two $10 disposable film cameras, or more.
Actually, I do not think the project is CPU-bound. If you happen to have an extra GEODSS telescope in your backyard, though, maybe they could use the extra data.:)
In one of my college classes, we had an exam which satated at the start that the entire exam would be dealing with a hypothetical computer with four states per fundamental information unit -- exactly the "quit" you mention.
At the end of the test, the last page said something like: "You have reached the end of the test. (You may QUIT now.)"
Arrrgh, nothing quite like professorial humor in the midst of our suffering...
Take a look at the first color image (~ 1mb jpeg). Scroll down about two-fifths of the way along the left edge of the picture.
Is it just me, or is there a burnt detached skull lying there?! Did the solid rockets broil a Martian on the way down?
Remember the Sonic Cruiser?
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This sounds like aeronautical vaporware. Boeing's attempt at a higher-speed "Sonic Cruiser" was scrapped last year when the company felt that economical flight at current speeds was the way to go (via the 7E7 project), and the Cruiser wasn't even planning to pass the sound barrier.
It's one thing for EADS to think speed is the way to go, and it's quite another to propose something as ambitious as they have. Based on the article I strongly suspect they're making token research into engine tech but aren't actually trying to design a plane at all here (no mention of fuselage design at all). It's just Fun with Public Relations.
> but man, I wish I could get a car with European fuel efficiency in the US.
Well, you aren't gonna get something as cool as a 74mpg Lupo over here, but you can get a VW TDI-engined car which will get you a good 50mpg on the highway. Things like the Civic Hybrid and the Prius aren't looking too shabby either.:)
Miscreants spray-painted "w3 0wnz j00" on the third cooling tower at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility overnight. The citizen watching Camera 7 at the time, Johnathan Witkowski, of 77 Washington Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, could not be reached for comment. </nightly-news>
(any resemblance to real names and addresses is purely coincidental.)
I know "security through obscurity" isn't security, but "security through obscurity and good coding" is probably better than "security though good coding" alone.
Well, sort of... but obscurity does not generally lend itself to good coding. (That argument is a very slippery off-topic slope so I'll stop now.)
When it comes to a financial app, whether it goes on the 'net or not, I very much do not want obscurity -- otherwise I might end up installing something that both does my taxes and mucks with reserved sectors of my hard drive.
Erm, an enzyme is just a huge molecule, isn't it? It isn't alive in any sense. Don't worry, you won't be oppressing any bacteria or anything -- never mind the millions of 'em each of us slaughter daily by breathing.:)
We need to make using an SSN for identification purposes entirely illegal, credit card companies and banks be damned.
I don't think it necessarily has to come to that. An SSN is analogous to a username, but we keep using it as some sort of password. Until everyone has the easy and routine ability to digitally sign things, I don't think it'll make any difference to ban the use of the SSN for identification. They'll just find something else to make the same mistake with.
In the lovely concrete blob where I went to college, I think they more or less got it right.
First they teach the basics of programming (variables, environments, scoping, addition, subtraaction, subroutines, etc.) and all of that happy stuff.
Then they teach you how to build a NAND gate using transistors.
Then they teach you how to build a CPU using NAND gates.
Then they teach you how to call subroutines using RAM and registers and pointers and that CPU you just built.
Then they go back to the basics of programming, now that you have a full appreciation for everything that happens when you add two numbers together, and proceed from there into the nether regions of algorithmia.
To me it seems to be a good approach -- it gives you the basic destination first, then it gives you the foundations to get there, and then it goes onwards. It means you've been exposed to every level of what you're working with (to a point -- we never doped silicon to build NAND gates!), so you know what's down there, and you also see the importance of ignoring what's down there when it doesn't matter.
not quite -- that/. story was talking about RSA, a public-key algorithm. the problem is that the 2^1024 keysize doesn't actually require you to try 2^1024 keys in order to break in -- kewl stuff lets you factor such a number more easily than that.
D.Net is trying to crack RC5, a symmetric-key algorithm. at the moment there's no better approach than brute-force -- checking all 2^64 possibilities.
I don't quite understand all this. By intentionally weakening the CD's inherent resistance to scratches and dust, it's going to encourage legitimate owners to make copies in order to prolong the lifespan of the CD!
Back in the day, us Apple II owners had a nifty utility called "Copy II Plus" that was used to make archival copies of copy-protected software. This was very useful for someone like me who schlepped stuff between home and school and back -- those 5.25" disks weren't terribly durable...
IANAL, but does the DMCA actually prohibit the creation of a modern-day "Copy II Plus" for the production of archival copies of legitimately purchased material?
Heh. Back in my freshman year in college (1995-96), I had an Apple IIGS in my dorm room. Read my email by dialing in at 1200bps and using an old terminal emulator. (Hey, it even had ZModem!) Some of the students would come by to pay homage to my old box, and its industrial-strength ImageWriter II printer.
Meanwhile my roommates had Pentiums and were playing networked Doom and Doom 2.
That old GS was fun -- even if I couldn't run around shooting Imps with shotguns.:)
Forgive my naivete, but it would seem that IBM's latest SiGe transistors (the switches) pairs perfectly with their copper-wiring chip technology (the interconnects) to produce a very formidable leap forward in the entire chip's functionality.
The question, of course, is how IBM plans to make money from these innovations. Will they license the technology to the likes of Intel and Sun, or will they use it themselves 'til the patent runs dry? I don't know; what do you think?
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According to the article, the FCC is imposing a fee if and when the VOIP call interfaces with the PSTN network, ie. when one or more of the parties is using legacy telephone service. The fee does not apply to pure VOIP calls. Unfortunately, it isn't clear if a provider must pay the fee if it *ever* connects to PSTN, or only on a per-call basis. If it's the former, then this is really ridiculous. If it's the latter, then this may make some semblance of sense, annoying though it is. Anybody know which it is?
I have been using LUKS to do this on my Gentoo box. It sees to it that the root partition is completely encrypted; only the boot partition is in the clear. (Gentoo itself has support for encrypted swap.) The instructions are a bit scattershot, but I was able to get it to work. YMMV.
Before doing this, use Darik's Boot and Nuke or something like that to fill the drive with random data; I do not think LUKS takes any steps to randomize the contents of a newly-created partition.
Considering Caltech had to fit their hacks into the overhead compartments or under the seat in front of them, it's not so shabby.
Freaking huge droids take up a lot o' space.
I think their notion is that you get more than $8 of value out of this thing. Because it's digital with preview/delete, you can nix bad pictures before going to get them developed, something you cannot do with a disposable film camera.
In other words, they're banking that a $20 disposable digital is worth about two $10 disposable film cameras, or more.
Actually, I do not think the project is CPU-bound. If you happen to have an extra GEODSS telescope in your backyard, though, maybe they could use the extra data. :)
In one of my college classes, we had an exam which satated at the start that the entire exam would be dealing with a hypothetical computer with four states per fundamental information unit -- exactly the "quit" you mention.
...
At the end of the test, the last page said something like: "You have reached the end of the test. (You may QUIT now.)"
Arrrgh, nothing quite like professorial humor in the midst of our suffering
Is it just me, or is there a burnt detached skull lying there?! Did the solid rockets broil a Martian on the way down?
This sounds like aeronautical vaporware. Boeing's attempt at a higher-speed "Sonic Cruiser" was scrapped last year when the company felt that economical flight at current speeds was the way to go (via the 7E7 project), and the Cruiser wasn't even planning to pass the sound barrier.
It's one thing for EADS to think speed is the way to go, and it's quite another to propose something as ambitious as they have. Based on the article I strongly suspect they're making token research into engine tech but aren't actually trying to design a plane at all here (no mention of fuselage design at all). It's just Fun with Public Relations.
> but man, I wish I could get a car with European fuel efficiency in the US.
:)
Well, you aren't gonna get something as cool as a 74mpg Lupo over here, but you can get a VW TDI-engined car which will get you a good 50mpg on the highway. Things like the Civic Hybrid and the Prius aren't looking too shabby either.
"Ow, my server!"
C'mon, Jerry! Go mow a few lawns or something. Break that tie!
Miscreants spray-painted "w3 0wnz j00" on the third cooling tower at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility overnight. The citizen watching Camera 7 at the time, Johnathan Witkowski, of 77 Washington Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, could not be reached for comment.
</nightly-news>
(any resemblance to real names and addresses is purely coincidental.)
Well, sort of... but obscurity does not generally lend itself to good coding. (That argument is a very slippery off-topic slope so I'll stop now.)
When it comes to a financial app, whether it goes on the 'net or not, I very much do not want obscurity -- otherwise I might end up installing something that both does my taxes and mucks with reserved sectors of my hard drive.
Erm, an enzyme is just a huge molecule, isn't it? It isn't alive in any sense. Don't worry, you won't be oppressing any bacteria or anything -- never mind the millions of 'em each of us slaughter daily by breathing. :)
In the lovely concrete blob where I went to college, I think they more or less got it right.
First they teach the basics of programming (variables, environments, scoping, addition, subtraaction, subroutines, etc.) and all of that happy stuff.
Then they teach you how to build a NAND gate using transistors.
Then they teach you how to build a CPU using NAND gates.
Then they teach you how to call subroutines using RAM and registers and pointers and that CPU you just built.
Then they go back to the basics of programming, now that you have a full appreciation for everything that happens when you add two numbers together, and proceed from there into the nether regions of algorithmia.
To me it seems to be a good approach -- it gives you the basic destination first, then it gives you the foundations to get there, and then it goes onwards. It means you've been exposed to every level of what you're working with (to a point -- we never doped silicon to build NAND gates!), so you know what's down there, and you also see the importance of ignoring what's down there when it doesn't matter.
not quite -- that /. story was talking about RSA, a public-key algorithm. the problem is that the 2^1024 keysize doesn't actually require you to try 2^1024 keys in order to break in -- kewl stuff lets you factor such a number more easily than that.
D.Net is trying to crack RC5, a symmetric-key algorithm. at the moment there's no better approach than brute-force -- checking all 2^64 possibilities.
Back in the day, us Apple II owners had a nifty utility called "Copy II Plus" that was used to make archival copies of copy-protected software. This was very useful for someone like me who schlepped stuff between home and school and back -- those 5.25" disks weren't terribly durable...
IANAL, but does the DMCA actually prohibit the creation of a modern-day "Copy II Plus" for the production of archival copies of legitimately purchased material?
Heh. Back in my freshman year in college (1995-96), I had an Apple IIGS in my dorm room. Read my email by dialing in at 1200bps and using an old terminal emulator. (Hey, it even had ZModem!) Some of the students would come by to pay homage to my old box, and its industrial-strength ImageWriter II printer.
:)
Meanwhile my roommates had Pentiums and were playing networked Doom and Doom 2.
That old GS was fun -- even if I couldn't run around shooting Imps with shotguns.
Forgive my naivete, but it would seem that IBM's latest SiGe transistors (the switches) pairs perfectly with their copper-wiring chip technology (the interconnects) to produce a very formidable leap forward in the entire chip's functionality. The question, of course, is how IBM plans to make money from these innovations. Will they license the technology to the likes of Intel and Sun, or will they use it themselves 'til the patent runs dry? I don't know; what do you think?