I mean, honestly, don't we already have POSIX? Isn't this what this is really all about? i.e getting a standard out that all unixes can use, with the reliability and scalability to boot?
I believe that linux has partial POSIX compatiblity, but if the kernal was 100% compatible, would we have this "group" of large companies wanting to add features to "ensure" compatibility?
From whatis.com
POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) is a set of standard operating system interfaces based on the UNIX operating system. The need for standardization arose because enterprises using computers wanted to be able to develop programs that could be moved among different manufacturer's computer systems without having to be recoded. UNIX was selected as the basis for a standard
system interface partly because it was "manufacturer-neutral." However, several major versions of UNIX existed so there was a need to develop a common denominator system.
Informally, each standard in the POSIX set is defined by a decimal following the POSIX. Thus, POSIX.1 is the standard for an application program interface in the C language. POSIX.2 is the standard shell and utility interface (that is to say, the user's command interface with the operating system). These are the main two interfaces, but additional interfaces, such as POSIX.4 for thread management, have been developed or are being developed. The POSIX interfaces were developed under the auspices of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
________________________
So basically, we have a standard, not just for Linux, but for all *NIX's (BSD, IRIX, Solaris, etc) And this geat consortum wants to make a new standard. Hmm, I hope it doesn't break the thousands of programs already out there. I mean, I could live with a re-compile for quite a bit, but this Linux consortum is honestly going to have to come up with something pretty convincing to show me that this compatibility is not going to be broken.
From the Linux Base website:
A lot has been said of late regarding the possibility that Linux will fragment into incompatible versions. Some of the speculation has been well reasoned, some not.
The least credible argument has been that Linux will fragment because UNIX did. This completely ignores the market dynamics that caused UNIX to fragment, and
consequently why these dynamics do not apply to Linux. UNIX was a means to an end, and the end was to sell unique hardware solutions. Linux is the means to a
completely different end - a free (as in free speech), reliable, scalable open source solution. Linux is, in a sense, an end unto itself.
_________________________________
Ok, I can get that, but UNIX (as long as it was POSIX compatible) never split up to the point that it was completely unusable across platforms(and I am talking about CLI, not window managers)
I have no need to replace my DVD player with a new one.
DVD standard is MPEG2. Period. The standard is MPEG 2, and it is set in stone.
The problem that I may have is that all of the "extra" features may be in the windoes format. Argh.
I refuse to buy anything with this crap in it. Damnit, why can't people understand that I don't want Microsoft pervasive into my entire life. They want to be a part of everything... i.e. a little kid with their hands in everything, and they don't like anyone else to play. Well, fine, I won;t buy it. And furthurmore, CmrTaco, you should realize that you put money in those 40 billion dollar coffers when you bought that xbox.
If I am not mistaken(which I may be:), one of the tenants of the $150 million dollar "investment" Microsoft put into Apple several years ago was to not port there software to Intel/AMD chips. Now I believe that apple now has someone who is in charge of porting Darwin (the kernal) over to Intel chips, but they say that is for testing purposes to test the validity of the code.
While you ponder this question, I will sit here and laugh.
Call me flaimbait if you want to, but here is my take on this...
MS Office is The Standard for office applications. Period. OpenOffice does not have interoperability at 100%. Therefore, I can't use it in the office. The company I work for (which shall remain nameless here) sends and recieves email attachments which are.DOC and.XML.
They (much to my chagrin) are starting to use Access, and the quote from another IT person (a coder) in the company was "It is supported, and it will be around in 10 years"
I use linux, MacOS X.1, and Windows at home, and frankly, Linux isn't ready for prime time as a desktop OS. Not having an office suite which is 100% compatible with MS office is a MAJOR flaw holding back Linux from reaching major desktop support. Hopefully, MSFT will have to realease their desktop file protocol after this Antitrust thing is all said and done. That will do more than put a large damper on their monopoly.
I work as a network analyst, so I am not a programmer, but I have no qualms at using a command line. I have had to type in all kinds of stuff to make my linux machine actually work, and I still am not running as well as I should be because of AGP and sound problems. I was setting up this machine to try and convince the company to start propogating to Linux to save distro costs. Linux a(for the record: Mandrake 8.1 Soyo K7 Dragon board 1.4 ghz athlon, 512 DDR, Ati Radeon 32 DDR)
MacOSX actually has made a *nix easy enough for common people to use, and Office OSX is very very smooth.. It does have issues (such as MSFT's draconian licence (same as in Windows XP) so I refuse to use it, or purchase it. So I am stuck with a windows2k box with office2k at work. I would use an older version of office on a mac, but there are too many software apps that I can't get on Linux or Mac (i.e. some proprietery apps, PBX admin software, Fax server admin software, print server admin software, etc, etc.)
Linux needs a 100% MS compatible office suite, and because the desktop file protocol that they use is not opened, no linux office ap will be able to give me 100% file interoperablity, and therefore I can't use it most of the time. Free as in speech and beer is really really nice, but the world that I live in needs simple things too, and 100% office compatibility is one of them. MSFT knows this, which is why they only release older versions of their desktop file protocols, and won't release new ones until they themselves are old.
No, -255C is impossible. It is below absolute zero. (-253.15C or 0Kelvin)
I would also conclude that they may have goten Kelvin and Celsius mixed up. (A lot of places do.)
I did some projects on this way back when cutting edge was Yittrium-Barium-Copper Oxide and we could use Liquid nitrogen rather than Liquid Helium.
Just think of the possibility of superconductivity at room tempurature:
Batteries that have huge spans. (You make a superconductor into a ring... walla.. you made a battery.)
Computers with no heat dissapation, and super fast. (Superconductors don't release ANY energy as waste, so no melting down of processors because they don't get hot at all. If the material is robust enough, they could make the MoBo, video card, and Ram. Damn, I bet that would make a quick computer )
Anyway, this discovery is important, as it one step closer to this utopia.
http://www.egglescliffe.org.uk/physics/supercond /b ob.html ( an intro to superconductivity ) Will give you a primer if you are interested in this.
This looks possible, but why?
on
Parasitic Computing
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· Score: 4, Insightful
This will make an EXTREMLY slow computer, and if anyone out there knows anything about routing (which I am sure you do:) The time it would take to recieve and compile all of the data would take longer and require more bandwith than would be viable on the economy of scale.
Example --- need to send 4,000,000 packets out and recieve the TCP packet back.
To do this with any speed, and also to not lose a fair majority of packets, you have to have a huge backhaul.. (T-3, OC3 or larger) TCP will not continue sending packet so you will loses them. Cost for large backhaul. $4800 month, (as by what my company chages..)
4,800 x 12 $57,600
So for one year of a huge pipe to the net you will be paying 57,600 (through my provider)
This still will not fix latent packets that never get back to the user, or any other problems.. (such as someone on your network running bearshare and eating all of your bandwidth)
Now lets look at the amount of money used for that large amount of bandwidth.
$57,600 for the amount we could have spent on that line in one year we can build a beowulf cluster with 30 nodes (and that is being very liberal on the cost of the nodes)
Now, looking at the article that I read, it seems as if the computing style using TCP/IP is very very ineffiecint.
Personally, for the amount needed to make this work, on the scale of actually getting any real work done, I would much rather build a Athlon Beowulf cluster.
This looks like in reality this could only be implimented in the real world as a new type of DOS attack.
Isn't this such a sad sight?
on
Sklyarov Indicted
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Why, in this country of supposed freedom, do we allow companies to control not only specific markets, (in the case of Micro$oft monopoly) but also allow them to lobby towards laws that take away freedoms, such as freedom of speech.
I know that ElComSoft Co. Ltd made mistakes when they started selling a program designed to defeat a specific type of encryption. I feel that this is wrong. Unfortunately, arresting a programer for giving a speech about how he broke the encryption is hogwash as well. (did I really say hogwash...)
This country (the USA) was founded upon ideals that one man can speak his mind, and express himself in whatever way that he chooses, as so long as it doesn't detriment others. (thus, yelling "fire" in a theater is wrong) I see no reason why showing an encryption to be faulty and how to circumvent it AS A ACADEMIC STUDY wrong. As I said before, I think that the company was at fault, but can the "oh so mighty" hand of the US touch a company in Russia? Nope, we can't, at least legally anyway. So the goverment uses a poorly worded law to push the corporate views on American people. What will be next? Will I be arrested because I point out a security hole in Microsoft's hotmail site? No, but if I start selling a product that will allow it's user's to read other's email, I can and I should be arrested. I don't believe that Sklyarov ownes this company, he is just a programmer.
This person has been arrested for violation of the DMCA. I don't believe in the DMCA, and unfortunately, I cannot make my congressman or senator understand why. (The breaking of encryption is over their heads, and copyrights and patents lasting forever is very vague to them as well.) They are too pressured my lobbyists throwing bags of money at them to listen to something that would blackball them in the lobbyists eyes. So what happens? More rights are taken away from all Americans, and 85% or more of Americans don't know of don't care.
It is a sad state.
Ben Franklin ( I think ) said that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." But Americans have become to apathetic to even care about there government, much less the actions that the government has been taking. And because of this more and more skewed laws have worked there way in the the US Code. Sadly, today, they could arrest almost anyone with the inordinate amount of laws on the books. They chose here and now to arrest Mr. Sklyarov. I hope that he wins, and I hope that the court system invalidates this very askew law. It would help put more freedom back into the individuals hand, and away from the greedy corporate entity.
Now, I am not a Java programmer by any strech of the imagination, but why would you actually want a non-processor specific voting program. (As in the GNU Internet Voting software.) Then you could always have a security flaw in the OS, the Runtime, or the program... as opposed to just the kernal and program... unless you implement the program in the kernal.. but anyway...
Didn't I read here on Slashdot that Australia, or New Zealand, is going to attempt implimentation of Debian with Open source programs being used as the voting system.
I would actually prefer having open source software being used in a voting enviornment because of the ultimate checks and balances that such software would recieve. My bet is that any voting program used by the US government in one form or another would be meticulously picked apart by security experts and kernal hackers.
Why are they having hight school user's attempt to break into the system. I am not doubting that this is a good idea for a start, but why just hight school children? I know I did learn a lot about security and hacking in high school, but my knowledge then pales in comparison to today. Is it that the Government feels as if they can "keep a lid" on security holes better if the holes are discovered by a student that they can "coerce" into not publicly stating the defect in the software?
I would also like to see Broward county release the software to allow security experts who are not involved at all in the government in Florida look at the system and asses the possibility of danger from it.
Maybe I am being a little "1984"ish, but seriously, look at how Adobe reacted when someone said, "hey, your encryption isn't nearly as good as you proclaim it is". They throw him in Jail. Although I do realize that this has nothing to do with the DMCA, governments do act like large corporations in a lot of ways. I would like to see this looked at line by line by security experts, simply because this is our truest freedom. If our right to vote is easily deemed irrelevant by someone rooting the box, what is that to say about our government?
I think that it can be. With the advent of encryption being broken in a week, maybe the standards groups..(ANSI, IEEE, etc..) can really start advocating a secure enviornment prior to the acceptance of a standard.
Although wireless lan protocols have been compromised, will that stop people from using them? No. That is bad, because we all know MSFT will do nothing to help introduce any type of higher level encryption.
I hope that the open source community will have an open source project in the works. I would really enjoy watching that happen.
Is bandwidth a concern here, yes. 11mbs will work extremely well for many applications, but I would hate to have a large encryption scheme (working at layer 5 or above...) eating a whole ton of bandwith and proc cycles.
Have you checked netcraft?
This site scans sites and tells you what there are running and uptime and a whole lot more.
It is very helpful in my line of work.
Here is the link below.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&mo de_w=on&site=www.humanclock.com&submit=Examine
As a CLEC, this is how we have been coping.
on
Broadband Crackdown
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I work for a regional CLEC out of chicago. We have several thousand installed DSL lines. This is how we have been coping with the Code Red worm... (*as a buisness class of service, we can't be simply turning off all port 80.. many people do host off of our SDSL lines*)
We have a large number of 10.x.x.x addresses for our broadband subscribers. (This saves us the trouble of assigning public IP's to every single customer, because most don't want nor need a public IP). Our NAT server was getting so clogged up with TCP/IP sessions because code red was serching for hosts. (and once it got into the 10.x.x.x network, it has lots of addresses to check.
We simply got a free scanning utility (sorry... I am at home, don't have it here, nor the time to find it. ) After scanning all of our customers, we located around 30 infected computers.) We left messages stating that they were infected, and we were shutting off there connection until they would remove the offending computer..(we could discern the IP itself, and our users are statically assigned, not DHCP thank god..)
Several users were irate as all hell, but the good of the many outwieigh the good of the few correct? Many times the customer simply unplugged the computer and we put them back on. They are then responsible for patching it.. We have been running scans everyday, and have now gotten fewer and fewer code red worms in our user's DSL systems.
I think that this was the ideal approach. Why use a damn sledgehammer when all of about 30 minutes of work allows you to use a use a fly swatter to remove the offending computers.
If I read that paper correctly, (and I may not have, simply because I only have 3 years of physics experience in a lab enviornment) the device that he has designed can manipulate magnetic fields to a point where it can force objects away. Similar to a magnet, although much more controlable, and able to be used on what would normally be considered "non-magnetic" The downside is that this is in an experimental stage at this point. Imagine haveing long distance satallites using this..(the vacumn of space has an ambient tempurature of around 3k.. just low enough for use of superconducting items in the liquid helium range.)
Many micrometeors have sizes smaller than a fraction of an inch, and we cannot accurately scan for them (it has been described almost as a life sized comparison to Heisenburg's Uncertainty Princible.) This would honestly help out small satellites, because a small micrometeors can disable or destroy those satallites with a single pass. With NASA now focusing on a "smaller, faster, cheaper" mantra, this may not be worked on as a viable option for quite some time. (I live in the states, and NASA is a seen as the world leader in Space... please don't flame me ESA members...)
An workable model formed on this approach could see itself attached later to the space station or even the shuttle (The shuttle has sensors, (and so does mission control) that scans constantly for items that could hit the shuttle and destroy it. Think the opening sequence to Armegeddon, (well, maybe not that bad...:) But it would be nice to simply turn those small objects away.
This will be interesting to see how these finding develop.
Finally, a company that gets it. 3G is so expensive... why do you think companies have scaled back large deployment of it? And here is a company (that isn't even a telco..) that is using 2.4ghz and 5.7ghz band (which is unlicenced, and therefore, free..) to have higher speed connectivity. This is similar to Apple's airport in design, since it is going to be using the 802.11 standard.... but Airport uses only the 2.4 ghz band.
I will be interested in knowing how this Pizza company will implement security. The free wireless networks in place in Seattle and San Francisco still do not have great security, as there isn't great security inherent in the protocol. I would hate to have someone snagging my email or telnet sessions out of the air.. (and yes, I do use PGP and SSH.. but many people do not...)
I do happen to find it interesting about this company... A pizza company no less. I work for a CLEC, and I see all kinds of executives here who still don't get broadband... (as crazy as that sounds, it is true..) I honestly hope that this company can implement this.
This reminds me of companies who designed broadband connectivity that went through power lines... and had an impossible time trying to convince the Power companies. They simply didn't understand the resources that they had. Now, we are entering an age where in fact wires can be made obsolete ( for the most part...) and we can send out high speed data though the air. Now, if we can just get the security down, and make sure that they don't cause cancer.. and microwave towers can...
Yes, we have. It is the same situation that they place with TFT displays. They consider it a moving target for quality and cost. Why? The costs are dropping and the quality is rising. That is why the rather archaic manner of the electron gun based CRT is still in use..(after almost 75 or so years of constant use) the fact that we can upgrade it over time and still use the same or slightly modified equipment to manufacture it. Hmm, isn't this the same reason DVD's are exactly the same size as CD's? That's right skipper, have a doggie treat.
The point of the matter is that after reading the article I don't see anything new that I didn't really expect... Just regular achievements in display technology. I was much more impressed by the super high definition display by IBM just a couple of weeks ago.
Point is, this is great news, but will it replace TFT displays in Laptops? no. Will it replace the use of TFT is the office or home? No. Will is improve the CRT monitors? Eventually it will. But that is all. I honestly doubt this is going to give TFT displays a "run for it's money" so to speak.
The cracking of any encryption of files is considered "bad" and is thus illegal.
Now look at the perspective that the government, namely the FBI, but also the NSA, and a whole bunch of other acronyms use software as well. Don't you think that with simple encryption, the US government now no longer has to brute force encryption to bypass the problem, when the encryption is very poor, and backdoors made very apparant, (at least in other parts of the world).
Honestly, with simple backdoors such as this to "popular" forms of encryption, don't you think the government is giddy as a school girl? No more "big iron" from cray for brute force cracking. No, now we have the software implemintation of the clipper chip. And it is being backed by government of the USA by the DMCA. Gawd, had I thought of that myself, I would be a rich man, or a really shady politician.
Come on now, if you had clients who were in the FBI, wouldn't you attempt to lobby their support for your cause? I know that I would, but, unfortunately, I happen to not know any.
The goverment of the US is a highly charged political arena. Being from Chicago ( in the US ), I quickly learned that isn't what you know, or what you have done, or what you have, but rather, who you know. ( Do a search for corruption in Chicago on www.google.com )
I am sorry to say but I honestly doubt a grassroots campaign is going to work towards a mutually benifitial arrangement here. The DMCA is seriously flawed, and the lawyers of major corporations know this, and are exploiting that fact. (Just look at the entire MP3 for personal use posts on/. within the past few weeks). Because he has friends also in the FBI, (and because of that, friends all over the executive branch of government) he is going to going to use everyone he knows to try and get him out of jail. I mean, have you ever sat in jail? If you have, you know that you call _every_ person you can (and are able to) to help get you out of this bind.
At least that is my opinion, but remember, it is worth what you paid for it.
Looks like you aren't. I guess now you have to give we back your bases.... *( That damn quote is almost as overused as "first post" )* So how about you just stop it....
Slashdot Mirror
From the article:
And just where does the BSA get most of its leads on whom to bust? That's right -- from pissed-off ex-employees.
I have printed this thing up, and I am going to show it to my boss.
Fire me, I don't think so... (manical little chuckle)
I mean, honestly, don't we already have POSIX? Isn't this what this is really all about? i.e getting a standard out that all unixes can use, with the reliability and scalability to boot?
I believe that linux has partial POSIX compatiblity, but if the kernal was 100% compatible, would we have this "group" of large companies wanting to add features to "ensure" compatibility?
From whatis.com
POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) is a set of standard operating system interfaces based on the UNIX operating system. The need for standardization arose because enterprises using computers wanted to be able to develop programs that could be moved among different manufacturer's computer systems without having to be recoded. UNIX was selected as the basis for a standard
system interface partly because it was "manufacturer-neutral." However, several major versions of UNIX existed so there was a need to develop a common denominator system.
Informally, each standard in the POSIX set is defined by a decimal following the POSIX. Thus, POSIX.1 is the standard for an application program interface in the C language. POSIX.2 is the standard shell and utility interface (that is to say, the user's command interface with the operating system). These are the main two interfaces, but additional interfaces, such as POSIX.4 for thread management, have been developed or are being developed. The POSIX interfaces were developed under the auspices of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
________________________
So basically, we have a standard, not just for Linux, but for all *NIX's (BSD, IRIX, Solaris, etc) And this geat consortum wants to make a new standard. Hmm, I hope it doesn't break the thousands of programs already out there. I mean, I could live with a re-compile for quite a bit, but this Linux consortum is honestly going to have to come up with something pretty convincing to show me that this compatibility is not going to be broken.
From the Linux Base website:
A lot has been said of late regarding the possibility that Linux will fragment into incompatible versions. Some of the speculation has been well reasoned, some not.
The least credible argument has been that Linux will fragment because UNIX did. This completely ignores the market dynamics that caused UNIX to fragment, and
consequently why these dynamics do not apply to Linux. UNIX was a means to an end, and the end was to sell unique hardware solutions. Linux is the means to a
completely different end - a free (as in free speech), reliable, scalable open source solution. Linux is, in a sense, an end unto itself.
_________________________________
Ok, I can get that, but UNIX (as long as it was POSIX compatible) never split up to the point that it was completely unusable across platforms(and I am talking about CLI, not window managers)
Hey, they let some of the baby bells get back together, just look at SBC.
(A horrible company, to say the least)
Why the feds let that happen, I don't know, but they did....
The world is comming to and end... You can't do anything anymore.
I am moving to the moon.
You are a dork.
You need to die.
Die Billy Die.
Please die so that they may bury you in that burlap sack.
Hey, and take that damn BSD is dead troll and Stephen King is dead troll with you
I have a DVD player with progressive out.
I have no need to replace my DVD player with a new one.
DVD standard is MPEG2. Period. The standard is MPEG 2, and it is set in stone.
The problem that I may have is that all of the "extra" features may be in the windoes format. Argh.
I refuse to buy anything with this crap in it. Damnit, why can't people understand that I don't want Microsoft pervasive into my entire life. They want to be a part of everything... i.e. a little kid with their hands in everything, and they don't like anyone else to play. Well, fine, I won;t buy it. And furthurmore, CmrTaco, you should realize that you put money in those 40 billion dollar coffers when you bought that xbox.
Shame on you.
If I am not mistaken(which I may be :), one of the tenants of the $150 million dollar "investment" Microsoft put into Apple several years ago was to not port there software to Intel/AMD chips. Now I believe that apple now has someone who is in charge of porting Darwin (the kernal) over to Intel chips, but they say that is for testing purposes to test the validity of the code.
. ht ml#x86
http://www.opensource.apple.com/news/qa20010927
Does Unix really need Office at this point?
.DOC and .XML.
While you ponder this question, I will sit here and laugh.
Call me flaimbait if you want to, but here is my take on this...
MS Office is The Standard for office applications. Period. OpenOffice does not have interoperability at 100%. Therefore, I can't use it in the office. The company I work for (which shall remain nameless here) sends and recieves email attachments which are
They (much to my chagrin) are starting to use Access, and the quote from another IT person (a coder) in the company was "It is supported, and it will be around in 10 years"
I use linux, MacOS X.1, and Windows at home, and frankly, Linux isn't ready for prime time as a desktop OS. Not having an office suite which is 100% compatible with MS office is a MAJOR flaw holding back Linux from reaching major desktop support. Hopefully, MSFT will have to realease their desktop file protocol after this Antitrust thing is all said and done. That will do more than put a large damper on their monopoly.
I work as a network analyst, so I am not a programmer, but I have no qualms at using a command line. I have had to type in all kinds of stuff to make my linux machine actually work, and I still am not running as well as I should be because of AGP and sound problems. I was setting up this machine to try and convince the company to start propogating to Linux to save distro costs. Linux a(for the record: Mandrake 8.1 Soyo K7 Dragon board 1.4 ghz athlon, 512 DDR, Ati Radeon 32 DDR)
MacOSX actually has made a *nix easy enough for common people to use, and Office OSX is very very smooth.. It does have issues (such as MSFT's draconian licence (same as in Windows XP) so I refuse to use it, or purchase it. So I am stuck with a windows2k box with office2k at work. I would use an older version of office on a mac, but there are too many software apps that I can't get on Linux or Mac (i.e. some proprietery apps, PBX admin software, Fax server admin software, print server admin software, etc, etc.)
Linux needs a 100% MS compatible office suite, and because the desktop file protocol that they use is not opened, no linux office ap will be able to give me 100% file interoperablity, and therefore I can't use it most of the time. Free as in speech and beer is really really nice, but the world that I live in needs simple things too, and 100% office compatibility is one of them. MSFT knows this, which is why they only release older versions of their desktop file protocols, and won't release new ones until they themselves are old.
Mod This Up
I didn't post this as AC, but I can easily tell you what he did.
Cut and paste from a website... Add in dumb racist comments to see if anyone would even pay attention.
You caught it.
No, -255C is impossible. It is below absolute zero. (-253.15C or 0Kelvin)
d /b ob.html ( an intro to superconductivity ) Will give you a primer if you are interested in this.
I would also conclude that they may have goten Kelvin and Celsius mixed up. (A lot of places do.)
I did some projects on this way back when cutting edge was Yittrium-Barium-Copper Oxide and we could use Liquid nitrogen rather than Liquid Helium.
Just think of the possibility of superconductivity at room tempurature:
Batteries that have huge spans. (You make a superconductor into a ring... walla.. you made a battery.)
Computers with no heat dissapation, and super fast. (Superconductors don't release ANY energy as waste, so no melting down of processors because they don't get hot at all. If the material is robust enough, they could make the MoBo, video card, and Ram. Damn, I bet that would make a quick computer )
Anyway, this discovery is important, as it one step closer to this utopia.
http://www.egglescliffe.org.uk/physics/supercon
umm, pick me pick me.
Grin, just couldn't resist...lol
lol
This will make an EXTREMLY slow computer, and if anyone out there knows anything about routing (which I am sure you do :) The time it would take to recieve and compile all of the data would take longer and require more bandwith than would be viable on the economy of scale.
Example --- need to send 4,000,000 packets out and recieve the TCP packet back.
To do this with any speed, and also to not lose a fair majority of packets, you have to have a huge backhaul.. (T-3, OC3 or larger) TCP will not continue sending packet so you will loses them. Cost for large backhaul. $4800 month, (as by what my company chages..)
4,800 x 12 $57,600
So for one year of a huge pipe to the net you will be paying 57,600 (through my provider)
This still will not fix latent packets that never get back to the user, or any other problems.. (such as someone on your network running bearshare and eating all of your bandwidth)
Now lets look at the amount of money used for that large amount of bandwidth.
$57,600 for the amount we could have spent on that line in one year we can build a beowulf cluster with 30 nodes (and that is being very liberal on the cost of the nodes)
Now, looking at the article that I read, it seems as if the computing style using TCP/IP is very very ineffiecint.
Personally, for the amount needed to make this work, on the scale of actually getting any real work done, I would much rather build a Athlon Beowulf cluster.
This looks like in reality this could only be implimented in the real world as a new type of DOS attack.
Why, in this country of supposed freedom, do we allow companies to control not only specific markets, (in the case of Micro$oft monopoly) but also allow them to lobby towards laws that take away freedoms, such as freedom of speech.
I know that ElComSoft Co. Ltd made mistakes when they started selling a program designed to defeat a specific type of encryption. I feel that this is wrong. Unfortunately, arresting a programer for giving a speech about how he broke the encryption is hogwash as well. (did I really say hogwash...)
This country (the USA) was founded upon ideals that one man can speak his mind, and express himself in whatever way that he chooses, as so long as it doesn't detriment others. (thus, yelling "fire" in a theater is wrong) I see no reason why showing an encryption to be faulty and how to circumvent it AS A ACADEMIC STUDY wrong. As I said before, I think that the company was at fault, but can the "oh so mighty" hand of the US touch a company in Russia? Nope, we can't, at least legally anyway. So the goverment uses a poorly worded law to push the corporate views on American people. What will be next? Will I be arrested because I point out a security hole in Microsoft's hotmail site? No, but if I start selling a product that will allow it's user's to read other's email, I can and I should be arrested. I don't believe that Sklyarov ownes this company, he is just a programmer.
This person has been arrested for violation of the DMCA. I don't believe in the DMCA, and unfortunately, I cannot make my congressman or senator understand why. (The breaking of encryption is over their heads, and copyrights and patents lasting forever is very vague to them as well.) They are too pressured my lobbyists throwing bags of money at them to listen to something that would blackball them in the lobbyists eyes. So what happens? More rights are taken away from all Americans, and 85% or more of Americans don't know of don't care.
It is a sad state.
Ben Franklin ( I think ) said that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." But Americans have become to apathetic to even care about there government, much less the actions that the government has been taking. And because of this more and more skewed laws have worked there way in the the US Code. Sadly, today, they could arrest almost anyone with the inordinate amount of laws on the books. They chose here and now to arrest Mr. Sklyarov. I hope that he wins, and I hope that the court system invalidates this very askew law. It would help put more freedom back into the individuals hand, and away from the greedy corporate entity.
Now, I am not a Java programmer by any strech of the imagination, but why would you actually want a non-processor specific voting program. (As in the GNU Internet Voting software.) Then you could always have a security flaw in the OS, the Runtime, or the program... as opposed to just the kernal and program... unless you implement the program in the kernal.. but anyway... Didn't I read here on Slashdot that Australia, or New Zealand, is going to attempt implimentation of Debian with Open source programs being used as the voting system. I would actually prefer having open source software being used in a voting enviornment because of the ultimate checks and balances that such software would recieve. My bet is that any voting program used by the US government in one form or another would be meticulously picked apart by security experts and kernal hackers. Why are they having hight school user's attempt to break into the system. I am not doubting that this is a good idea for a start, but why just hight school children? I know I did learn a lot about security and hacking in high school, but my knowledge then pales in comparison to today. Is it that the Government feels as if they can "keep a lid" on security holes better if the holes are discovered by a student that they can "coerce" into not publicly stating the defect in the software? I would also like to see Broward county release the software to allow security experts who are not involved at all in the government in Florida look at the system and asses the possibility of danger from it. Maybe I am being a little "1984"ish, but seriously, look at how Adobe reacted when someone said, "hey, your encryption isn't nearly as good as you proclaim it is". They throw him in Jail. Although I do realize that this has nothing to do with the DMCA, governments do act like large corporations in a lot of ways. I would like to see this looked at line by line by security experts, simply because this is our truest freedom. If our right to vote is easily deemed irrelevant by someone rooting the box, what is that to say about our government?
I think that it can be. With the advent of encryption being broken in a week, maybe the standards groups..(ANSI, IEEE, etc..) can really start advocating a secure enviornment prior to the acceptance of a standard. Although wireless lan protocols have been compromised, will that stop people from using them? No. That is bad, because we all know MSFT will do nothing to help introduce any type of higher level encryption. I hope that the open source community will have an open source project in the works. I would really enjoy watching that happen. Is bandwidth a concern here, yes. 11mbs will work extremely well for many applications, but I would hate to have a large encryption scheme (working at layer 5 or above...) eating a whole ton of bandwith and proc cycles.
Have you checked netcraft? This site scans sites and tells you what there are running and uptime and a whole lot more. It is very helpful in my line of work. Here is the link below. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&mo de_w=on&site=www.humanclock.com&submit=Examine
I work for a regional CLEC out of chicago. We have several thousand installed DSL lines. This is how we have been coping with the Code Red worm... (*as a buisness class of service, we can't be simply turning off all port 80.. many people do host off of our SDSL lines*)
We have a large number of 10.x.x.x addresses for our broadband subscribers. (This saves us the trouble of assigning public IP's to every single customer, because most don't want nor need a public IP). Our NAT server was getting so clogged up with TCP/IP sessions because code red was serching for hosts. (and once it got into the 10.x.x.x network, it has lots of addresses to check.
We simply got a free scanning utility (sorry... I am at home, don't have it here, nor the time to find it. ) After scanning all of our customers, we located around 30 infected computers.) We left messages stating that they were infected, and we were shutting off there connection until they would remove the offending computer..(we could discern the IP itself, and our users are statically assigned, not DHCP thank god..)
Several users were irate as all hell, but the good of the many outwieigh the good of the few correct? Many times the customer simply unplugged the computer and we put them back on. They are then responsible for patching it.. We have been running scans everyday, and have now gotten fewer and fewer code red worms in our user's DSL systems.
I think that this was the ideal approach. Why use a damn sledgehammer when all of about 30 minutes of work allows you to use a use a fly swatter to remove the offending computers.
If I read that paper correctly, (and I may not have, simply because I only have 3 years of physics experience in a lab enviornment) the device that he has designed can manipulate magnetic fields to a point where it can force objects away. Similar to a magnet, although much more controlable, and able to be used on what would normally be considered "non-magnetic" The downside is that this is in an experimental stage at this point. Imagine haveing long distance satallites using this..(the vacumn of space has an ambient tempurature of around 3k.. just low enough for use of superconducting items in the liquid helium range.)
:) But it would be nice to simply turn those small objects away.
Many micrometeors have sizes smaller than a fraction of an inch, and we cannot accurately scan for them (it has been described almost as a life sized comparison to Heisenburg's Uncertainty Princible.) This would honestly help out small satellites, because a small micrometeors can disable or destroy those satallites with a single pass. With NASA now focusing on a "smaller, faster, cheaper" mantra, this may not be worked on as a viable option for quite some time. (I live in the states, and NASA is a seen as the world leader in Space... please don't flame me ESA members...)
An workable model formed on this approach could see itself attached later to the space station or even the shuttle (The shuttle has sensors, (and so does mission control) that scans constantly for items that could hit the shuttle and destroy it. Think the opening sequence to Armegeddon, (well, maybe not that bad...
This will be interesting to see how these finding develop.
Finally, a company that gets it. 3G is so expensive... why do you think companies have scaled back large deployment of it? And here is a company (that isn't even a telco..) that is using 2.4ghz and 5.7ghz band (which is unlicenced, and therefore, free..) to have higher speed connectivity. This is similar to Apple's airport in design, since it is going to be using the 802.11 standard.... but Airport uses only the 2.4 ghz band.
I will be interested in knowing how this Pizza company will implement security. The free wireless networks in place in Seattle and San Francisco still do not have great security, as there isn't great security inherent in the protocol. I would hate to have someone snagging my email or telnet sessions out of the air.. (and yes, I do use PGP and SSH.. but many people do not...)
I do happen to find it interesting about this company... A pizza company no less. I work for a CLEC, and I see all kinds of executives here who still don't get broadband... (as crazy as that sounds, it is true..) I honestly hope that this company can implement this.
This reminds me of companies who designed broadband connectivity that went through power lines... and had an impossible time trying to convince the Power companies. They simply didn't understand the resources that they had. Now, we are entering an age where in fact wires can be made obsolete ( for the most part...) and we can send out high speed data though the air. Now, if we can just get the security down, and make sure that they don't cause cancer.. and microwave towers can...
There is a /. icon. The big IBM blue stripped shield thingie.... Yes, I just said thingie..
Yes, we have. It is the same situation that they place with TFT displays. They consider it a moving target for quality and cost. Why? The costs are dropping and the quality is rising. That is why the rather archaic manner of the electron gun based CRT is still in use..(after almost 75 or so years of constant use) the fact that we can upgrade it over time and still use the same or slightly modified equipment to manufacture it. Hmm, isn't this the same reason DVD's are exactly the same size as CD's? That's right skipper, have a doggie treat.
The point of the matter is that after reading the article I don't see anything new that I didn't really expect... Just regular achievements in display technology. I was much more impressed by the super high definition display by IBM just a couple of weeks ago.
Point is, this is great news, but will it replace TFT displays in Laptops? no. Will it replace the use of TFT is the office or home? No. Will is improve the CRT monitors? Eventually it will. But that is all. I honestly doubt this is going to give TFT displays a "run for it's money" so to speak.
If I understand everything correctly,
The cracking of any encryption of files is considered "bad" and is thus illegal.
Now look at the perspective that the government, namely the FBI, but also the NSA, and a whole bunch of other acronyms use software as well. Don't you think that with simple encryption, the US government now no longer has to brute force encryption to bypass the problem, when the encryption is very poor, and backdoors made very apparant, (at least in other parts of the world).
Honestly, with simple backdoors such as this to "popular" forms of encryption, don't you think the government is giddy as a school girl? No more "big iron" from cray for brute force cracking. No, now we have the software implemintation of the clipper chip. And it is being backed by government of the USA by the DMCA. Gawd, had I thought of that myself, I would be a rich man, or a really shady politician.
Come on now, if you had clients who were in the FBI, wouldn't you attempt to lobby their support for your cause? I know that I would, but, unfortunately, I happen to not know any. The goverment of the US is a highly charged political arena. Being from Chicago ( in the US ), I quickly learned that isn't what you know, or what you have done, or what you have, but rather, who you know. ( Do a search for corruption in Chicago on www.google.com ) I am sorry to say but I honestly doubt a grassroots campaign is going to work towards a mutually benifitial arrangement here. The DMCA is seriously flawed, and the lawyers of major corporations know this, and are exploiting that fact. (Just look at the entire MP3 for personal use posts on /. within the past few weeks). Because he has friends also in the FBI, (and because of that, friends all over the executive branch of government) he is going to going to use everyone he knows to try and get him out of jail. I mean, have you ever sat in jail? If you have, you know that you call _every_ person you can (and are able to) to help get you out of this bind.
At least that is my opinion, but remember, it is worth what you paid for it.
Looks like you aren't. I guess now you have to give we back your bases.... *( That damn quote is almost as overused as "first post" )* So how about you just stop it....