I reminds me roughly of a code I came up with when I was a kid, which was actually based on Morse code. You'd write the plaintext out in Morse, and create one series of numbers representing the # of dots&dashes in each letter, then a second series of numbers counted consecutive dots and dashes. So Slashdot would be
Morse: Filter doesn't like:( Code1: 34234331 Code2: 41317124...and you could throw random numbers above 4 in the first line as noise. Simple enough you could do it on paper (assuming you already knew morse). I forget how I designated whether the first thing was a dot or a dash.
I can't help wondering if it's something along these lines.
Here in Ohio we have these things we call "tornados". It's not at all outside the realm of possibility that Mr. F5 could pick up your data center and drop it in Lake Erie somewhere. Offsite backups *are* a good idea, but just handing a tape - an UNENCRYPTED tape! - to an intern to keep "safe" is just... well, I don't know what lies beyond dumb, "infradumb" maybe.
Infinitely smarter and not terribly expensive (maybe $100/yr?) would be renting a safe deposit box in an bank a little ways away, and make it somebody's job to rotate the tapes in and out of that.
That would be the smart way, but it wouldn't be the government way.
RE: Programs like McAfee constantly bugging the user: Indeed. I'd like every notification box to include a "STFU" button, that when pressed, will suppress that notification from coming up ever again. In addition, we can add a "complaint box" for the computer where it can log what it's unhappy about, and the user can check the box when desired (or when they think something is wrong).
Computers should be seen and not heard. No, Windows, you may not eat at the grownups table until you learn to behave.
Second, EMP? Haha haaHahaHAAHA! Do you have any idea how EMPs are generated, aside from using a nuclear weapon?
Ok, so replace "EMP" with "Backpack containing battery powererd TRS-80 Model One" (technically, it was just TRS-80 back then, they only had the one model)
That bad boy, utterly unshielded, would spew RFI like chunder at a emetephile convention. Let's see yer RFID-enabled shells work now, copper! MWAHAHAHA!
My Dad worked at the FBI in the 1960's and then they also experimented with the Gel stuff that is used by car mechanics to get grease off of their hands. It's pretty common but I forget the name - smells like kerosene.
Glad I kept all my Y2k preps! Bring on the Mad-Max scenario! Bring on the purple spikey-haired mutants! You'll all be drinking dog urine out of rusty hubcaps soon enough!
I wonder if any of the anti-virus vendors actually create viruses themselves, so they can get one up on the competition by having the virus definitions already complete
Not a new theory... IIRC back in the day AV companies would pay a "bounty" if someone came up with a new virus they (or their competition) hadn't seen yet. Thus making it tempting for some one to create a "virus" that may never actually get into the wild, but would score some bounty cash.
Then company "M" could claim to scan for this new "BooBooWooWoo strain 42" before company "N" did, implying their software was better for it.
6. Having all files be "commands" in that if you double-click it examines the file (even if only the filename) and opens it with the correct program.
AmigaDOS. Back to the first released version, which was, what, 1985?
Every file could have it's own "tool" that would be invoked when the file was double-clicked. No need to tack a.TXT or.AVI or.EXE to the end of every filename.
And because it was done on a file-by-file basis, if you wanted the text file "foo" to be edited with program Alpha, while text file "bar" gets edited with program Gamma, no worries.
I'm still waitig for Microsoft to finish stealing this from the Amiga;)
So when the bank is robbed, who is to blame for the loss of your money? The bank? The robber? The safe manufacturer?
None, because the bank has a CSD (Combination Safe Depository) policy that will cover the loss. And when the bank calls their insurer to make the claim, the likely response will be "Well who did it? Elvis? Bigfoot?" along with a few disbelieving chuckles.
Speaking as someone who worked a good number of years for an insurer that sold such policies I can tell you that claims on CSD policies are as rare as hen's teeth, and even then most involve water damage (roof leaked, plumbing failed) or Suzy Creamcheese rented the same box to two people. Claims involving someone actually breaking into the safe are so rare that you can buy millions of dollars worth of protection for a few hundred bucks - the risk is that low. Underwriters consider the policy to be "gravy", and I think the only reason banks buy it in the first place is so they can tell their customers they're insured to umpity-ump Millions.
The point of this dissertation being that Safes Are Safe. Because banks have a powerful interest in making them so, to counterbalance the powerful interest that Bad People have in breaking into them.
If software companies put the sort of time, effort and research into making their products save that the bank vault builders do, I (and I imagine everyone else) would be a hell of a lot happier.
Or do you go scanning and discovering holes on other's network for you to offer them your solution?
Boy, does that sound like an astonishingly bad idea. Sorta like a locksmith picking the lock on your front door, coming inside and offering to sell you a better lock. Sounds to me like a great way to get shot.
Many many years (ok, decades) ago, when I was a kid, I got this really cool toy for Christmas. It was a flashlight. But instead of batteries, it had a little generator inside, and a crank to turn. It also had a switch so you could flash the light on and off as you cranked.
Funny thing is, when the light was switched on, the crank was harder to turn then when the light was switched off.
Honest! I'm not making this up. Somehow the generator "knew" when the light was on, and it put up more of a fight to turn. Really!
I think if you had this toy to play with for about ten seconds, you'd see what's wrong with your theory.
Professor Julius Sumner Miller taught great science with toys. We need more cool toys. Toys for science!
Yes, but people do sell stuff for a fraction of it's value on a regular basis. If you need $250 right now to bail your boyfriend out of jail, you might sell a laptop for $250 when you know that you might get $1000 for it on eBay if you listed it now and waited seven days.
Generally those types of "crash" sales aren't going to happen over the internet - which is where this laptop was sold according to TFA. You'd take it to an aquaintence, or a pawn shop or such, and you'd have no problem leaving a copy of your ID as bona fides that it's not hot.
Just because something is cheap, that doesn't mean it's stolen.
Just because smoke is pouring out of a house doesn't mean it's on fire - but a reasonable person would call the fire department anyway. And a reasonable person would think this was a stolen laptop.
Sure the bank wins in the end - because people are also buying extended warranties on things that they'll never make claims on (see category #1). That's where the profit comes from.
If the big resellers (Circuit Buy, Best City, et al) were to do actuarial analysis on the claims made on warranties vs the money they're asking, they could set prices according to risk (like an insurance company does) and things would be very different indeed. AFAIK, the do not do anything like this, warranty price is set very broadly, perhaps just a percentage of item price.
As long as they do it this general way, we "smart" warranty buyers will make out like bandits, subsidised by the "dumb" warranty buyers.
That works for me. And I'll repeat: I'm ahead of the game in extended warranty purchases - the paid claims I've gotten outweigh the premium (warranty cost) by at least 2 to 1.
Ahh, me dumb. "Laptop" should have been in the #2 list (GET WARRANTY!), not #1. I too suffered a broken LCD, got a new lappie because of Dell Extended warranty, thank God. The LCD was the single most expensive thing on the beast.
I was pretty specific when I asked the salesdroid about the Dell warranty: "It covers any damage? If I drop the laptop down four flights of stairs..."
"Just sweep the parts into the return box and we'll send you a new [well, refurbished] one."
I would agree that extended warranties on PCs aren't worth it, but my rule is:
1) If it's something that goes on the shelf/table and just sits there, forget the warranty: TV, DVD player, stereo, laptop, PC, etc
2) If it's something you carry around, small, expensive and likley to break when dropped, consider the warranty: CD player, tape system, mini-disc, PDA, etc
This has served me in good stead, the two or three extended warranties I have gotten have definitely paid for themselves. But then I'm a klutz.
You mean my speakers can't sink 1,000 watts?!? The deuce you say!
I love the power ratings on speakers. If those numbers were half true, playing an MP3 would make the streetlights dim in time to the music. And all that power somehow coming from a little 500 mA wall-wart. Science, wonders, and miracles!
Private insurance companies do not, I repeat DO NOT, write flood insurance policies, at least not at affordable rates
Technically, private insurers do write the policies, they just don't pay the claims for FEMA flood insurance. Insurers handle the paperwork (which they're notoriously good at), but the risk is "underwritten" by the federales. [In the early 90s I worked on an project for a major insurance company that combined street maps of the kind you see on Mapquest along with digitized USGS flood zone survey maps to do high-speed accurate flood zone determination of properties based on street address]
However, did you notice all those cars, trucks, boats, cows and whatnot blown all to hell and back in N.O. by Katrina? Private insurance companies will be writing the checks on those claims. If the major insurers (State Farm, Nationwide et al) aren't setting up command posts in the stricken areas already, they soon will be.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that nuclear fission? That must be one hell of an enzyme. I hope the terrorists don't get their hands on it!
I reminds me roughly of a code I came up with when I was a kid, which was actually based on Morse code. You'd write the plaintext out in Morse, and create one series of numbers representing the # of dots&dashes in each letter, then a second series of numbers counted consecutive dots and dashes. So Slashdot would be
:( ...and you could throw random numbers above 4 in the first line as noise. Simple enough you could do it on paper (assuming you already knew morse). I forget how I designated whether the first thing was a dot or a dash.
Morse: Filter doesn't like
Code1: 34234331
Code2: 41317124
I can't help wondering if it's something along these lines.
Here in Ohio we have these things we call "tornados". It's not at all outside the realm of possibility that Mr. F5 could pick up your data center and drop it in Lake Erie somewhere. Offsite backups *are* a good idea, but just handing a tape - an UNENCRYPTED tape! - to an intern to keep "safe" is just... well, I don't know what lies beyond dumb, "infradumb" maybe.
Infinitely smarter and not terribly expensive (maybe $100/yr?) would be renting a safe deposit box in an bank a little ways away, and make it somebody's job to rotate the tapes in and out of that.
That would be the smart way, but it wouldn't be the government way.
Anyone on a plane wearing mirror shades is going to get some suspicious looks.
After reading the guidelines I got the distinct impression that they were trying to instill Vista with Genuine People Personality(tm).
"Happy Service!"
RE: Programs like McAfee constantly bugging the user: Indeed. I'd like every notification box to include a "STFU" button, that when pressed, will suppress that notification from coming up ever again. In addition, we can add a "complaint box" for the computer where it can log what it's unhappy about, and the user can check the box when desired (or when they think something is wrong).
Computers should be seen and not heard. No, Windows, you may not eat at the grownups table until you learn to behave.
Second, EMP? Haha haaHahaHAAHA! Do you have any idea how EMPs are generated, aside from using a nuclear weapon?
Ok, so replace "EMP" with "Backpack containing battery powererd TRS-80 Model One" (technically, it was just TRS-80 back then, they only had the one model)
That bad boy, utterly unshielded, would spew RFI like chunder at a emetephile convention. Let's see yer RFID-enabled shells work now, copper! MWAHAHAHA!
...was a really great sequel to TRON.
Or at least that's what I think.
Why not just stick it into the innoculations that we get as kids?
Because the RFID tag interferes with the efficacy of the chemical they put in those innoculations that gives 1 in 3 people cancer later in life.
Those doctors aren't gonna let anything as trivial as national security mess with the Big C Gravy Train.
[Note for the humor impaired: I'm kidding, of course. There's no conspiracy to innoculate little kids with cancer fnord.]
My Dad worked at the FBI in the 1960's and then they also experimented with the Gel stuff that is used by car mechanics to get grease off of their hands. It's pretty common but I forget the name - smells like kerosene.
GoJo? DAP?
...and make a fake finger. I read here on /. that Play-Doh can fool a fingerpint scanner. Might be worth a try.
Glad I kept all my Y2k preps! Bring on the Mad-Max scenario! Bring on the purple spikey-haired mutants! You'll all be drinking dog urine out of rusty hubcaps soon enough!
I wonder if any of the anti-virus vendors actually create viruses themselves, so they can get one up on the competition by having the virus definitions already complete
Not a new theory... IIRC back in the day AV companies would pay a "bounty" if someone came up with a new virus they (or their competition) hadn't seen yet. Thus making it tempting for some one to create a "virus" that may never actually get into the wild, but would score some bounty cash.
Then company "M" could claim to scan for this new "BooBooWooWoo strain 42" before company "N" did, implying their software was better for it.
As an old Big Iron grognard asked me many years ago...
"What prints your paycheck?"
Have you ever seen a windows box with multiple keyboards?
Yes, but they were all connected to the MIDI port at the time...
6. Having all files be "commands" in that if you double-click it examines the file (even if only the filename) and opens it with the correct program.
.TXT or .AVI or .EXE to the end of every filename.
;)
AmigaDOS. Back to the first released version, which was, what, 1985?
Every file could have it's own "tool" that would be invoked when the file was double-clicked. No need to tack a
And because it was done on a file-by-file basis, if you wanted the text file "foo" to be edited with program Alpha, while text file "bar" gets edited with program Gamma, no worries.
I'm still waitig for Microsoft to finish stealing this from the Amiga
So when the bank is robbed, who is to blame for the loss of your money? The bank? The robber? The safe manufacturer?
None, because the bank has a CSD (Combination Safe Depository) policy that will cover the loss. And when the bank calls their insurer to make the claim, the likely response will be "Well who did it? Elvis? Bigfoot?" along with a few disbelieving chuckles.
Speaking as someone who worked a good number of years for an insurer that sold such policies I can tell you that claims on CSD policies are as rare as hen's teeth, and even then most involve water damage (roof leaked, plumbing failed) or Suzy Creamcheese rented the same box to two people. Claims involving someone actually breaking into the safe are so rare that you can buy millions of dollars worth of protection for a few hundred bucks - the risk is that low. Underwriters consider the policy to be "gravy", and I think the only reason banks buy it in the first place is so they can tell their customers they're insured to umpity-ump Millions.
The point of this dissertation being that Safes Are Safe. Because banks have a powerful interest in making them so, to counterbalance the powerful interest that Bad People have in breaking into them.
If software companies put the sort of time, effort and research into making their products save that the bank vault builders do, I (and I imagine everyone else) would be a hell of a lot happier.
Or do you go scanning and discovering holes on other's network for you to offer them your solution?
Boy, does that sound like an astonishingly bad idea. Sorta like a locksmith picking the lock on your front door, coming inside and offering to sell you a better lock. Sounds to me like a great way to get shot.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
Many many years (ok, decades) ago, when I was a kid, I got this really cool toy for Christmas. It was a flashlight. But instead of batteries, it had a little generator inside, and a crank to turn. It also had a switch so you could flash the light on and off as you cranked.
Funny thing is, when the light was switched on, the crank was harder to turn then when the light was switched off.
Honest! I'm not making this up. Somehow the generator "knew" when the light was on, and it put up more of a fight to turn. Really!
I think if you had this toy to play with for about ten seconds, you'd see what's wrong with your theory.
Professor Julius Sumner Miller taught great science with toys. We need more cool toys. Toys for science!
Yes, but people do sell stuff for a fraction of it's value on a regular basis. If you need $250 right now to bail your boyfriend out of jail, you might sell a laptop for $250 when you know that you might get $1000 for it on eBay if you listed it now and waited seven days.
Generally those types of "crash" sales aren't going to happen over the internet - which is where this laptop was sold according to TFA. You'd take it to an aquaintence, or a pawn shop or such, and you'd have no problem leaving a copy of your ID as bona fides that it's not hot.
Just because something is cheap, that doesn't mean it's stolen.
Just because smoke is pouring out of a house doesn't mean it's on fire - but a reasonable person would call the fire department anyway. And a reasonable person would think this was a stolen laptop.
Sure the bank wins in the end - because people are also buying extended warranties on things that they'll never make claims on (see category #1). That's where the profit comes from.
If the big resellers (Circuit Buy, Best City, et al) were to do actuarial analysis on the claims made on warranties vs the money they're asking, they could set prices according to risk (like an insurance company does) and things would be very different indeed. AFAIK, the do not do anything like this, warranty price is set very broadly, perhaps just a percentage of item price.
As long as they do it this general way, we "smart" warranty buyers will make out like bandits, subsidised by the "dumb" warranty buyers.
That works for me. And I'll repeat: I'm ahead of the game in extended warranty purchases - the paid claims I've gotten outweigh the premium (warranty cost) by at least 2 to 1.
Ahh, me dumb. "Laptop" should have been in the #2 list (GET WARRANTY!), not #1. I too suffered a broken LCD, got a new lappie because of Dell Extended warranty, thank God. The LCD was the single most expensive thing on the beast.
I was pretty specific when I asked the salesdroid about the Dell warranty: "It covers any damage? If I drop the laptop down four flights of stairs..."
"Just sweep the parts into the return box and we'll send you a new [well, refurbished] one."
Works for me!
I would agree that extended warranties on PCs aren't worth it, but my rule is:
1) If it's something that goes on the shelf/table and just sits there, forget the warranty: TV, DVD player, stereo, laptop, PC, etc
2) If it's something you carry around, small, expensive and likley to break when dropped, consider the warranty: CD player, tape system, mini-disc, PDA, etc
This has served me in good stead, the two or three extended warranties I have gotten have definitely paid for themselves. But then I'm a klutz.
You mean my speakers can't sink 1,000 watts?!? The deuce you say!
I love the power ratings on speakers. If those numbers were half true, playing an MP3 would make the streetlights dim in time to the music. And all that power somehow coming from a little 500 mA wall-wart. Science, wonders, and miracles!
Private insurance companies do not, I repeat DO NOT, write flood insurance policies, at least not at affordable rates
Technically, private insurers do write the policies, they just don't pay the claims for FEMA flood insurance. Insurers handle the paperwork (which they're notoriously good at), but the risk is "underwritten" by the federales. [In the early 90s I worked on an project for a major insurance company that combined street maps of the kind you see on Mapquest along with digitized USGS flood zone survey maps to do high-speed accurate flood zone determination of properties based on street address]
However, did you notice all those cars, trucks, boats, cows and whatnot blown all to hell and back in N.O. by Katrina? Private insurance companies will be writing the checks on those claims. If the major insurers (State Farm, Nationwide et al) aren't setting up command posts in the stricken areas already, they soon will be.
I stand by my original post.