Re:Nope: You've just given the bad guy your key.
on
Optical Cryptography
·
· Score: 0
However, if the source for the private key is hard enough to guess, you have a very good approximation to a random signal. There is no algorithm that can be broken using mathematical or computational means.
(The private key can be formed from the number of characters in each of the small ads in The London Times, the rainfall in selected countries, etc.)
Of course the safest way is always to use a truly random sequence of numbers known only to the sender and recipient, but the problem is that the sender and recipient then have to exchange keys through some other secure channel.
Re:Seems like a waste of noise...
on
Optical Cryptography
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Using noise interference doesn't necessarily need any extra bandwidth.
Light consists of waves, and when two waves are placed on top of each other, they form a new wave that takes no more space or bandwidth than the first one.
Documenting code is often seen as a "must", or even as a "waste of time". The assumption is that you document code for someone else, someone who is going to read it in the future.
But I think documentation is much more important as a help to oneself in writing the program.
The problem becomes much easier if you structure it, try to formulate it in words, draw diagrams of it, etc. It gives you a better overview and makes the problem clearer. And, I think the documentation becomes much better when you use it to help yourself, not because you have to or because "it's good practice to make a lot of comments".
And doing the documentation before the actual program is not a bad idea at all. The clearer the specifications are, the easier it is to code -- and the simpler and more functional the code becomes.
I don't think this guy came up with S-K Combinatory Logic. I think that's old. But he, apparently, was the first one mad enough to use it to define a Turing Machine.:)
So what's so great about that? Um... well, I guess it's just the academic world's version of "Hey! Look! I can code a scrolling text demo on the 6810 processor using only 33 bytes and 272 clock cycles!"
I.e., no practical applications, just a "cool thing".
It all dates back to the 1930's (when a lot of great math was done). Alonzo Church tried to define what a "computation" was, and came up with something called "lambda calculus". Alan Turing, independently, did the same thing, and came up with the "Turing machine". It was eventually proven that these two definitions are equivalent: anything you can compute with lambda calculus, you can compute with Turing machines, and vice versa. Actually, ALL computers are equivalent to Turing Machines. No matter how advanced a computer is, every computation it can do, can also be done on a Turing machine, only slower.
I think some other guy invented combinatory logic (was it Curry?) as an alternative to Lambda Calculus. It, too, can perform any computation possible. It's just simpler, S-K combinatory logic being the simplest, with only two operands/operators. So the definition is very simple, it's just damn hard to read.:)
So mathematicians proved long ago that these different ways of defining computations are all equivalent. Mathematicians usually only care about proving that things CAN be done. Once they've proven that, they don't care about actually doing it. So defining a Turing machine using combinatory logic is just a "cool thing", it doesn't have any theoretical importance. But I haven't read the article, so maybe the guy did something else with it that had importance.
Well, what we're doing here, isn't that unique to the 'net? Being able to have a discussion more or less in real-time, which is also being archived and indexed in real-time, where anyone with web access can just drop in and make a comment and have just as much chance of being heard as someone who's a regular?
I know it's not art, but it's a way of using the medium that's unique to the 'net.
Microsoft hires a lot of smart programmers and system designers who make intelligent decisions about how to design software and what code to re-use. Microsoft's programmers use open source code because it's good, it's standard, and it's familiar to them.
There are also a lot of competent programmers squashing out the bugs at Microsoft, but a large company has a lot more red tape to go through before anything is released.
The majority of Microsoft's products are good, but not always the best in their field.
Microsoft's flagship product, Windows NT/2K/XP, is an advanced operating system that strikes a good balance between security and backwards compatibility. Except for the tacked-on Internet Explorer interface, it's robust, feature-rich and modern with a very broad hardware support.
Microsoft is also very skilled in both adapting to and manipulating the market, and at using it's dominance in one market to gain dominance in others.
Ah, but what if we made GPL'd code that was so good and so far ahead of everything else, Microsoft didn't have any choice but using it in their products... nah. They wouldn't be able to sell any licenses that way. It would be financial suicide.
'Cept if it's some product they give away for free anyway, like IE.
""[...]but does point out that since zlib is not GPL'd they are under no obligation to release the source code to any of their products.""
"Darn, and I thought they were caught with their pants down."
Hey, that's a great idea. Find a way to sneak GPL'd code into, say, MFC, without Microsoft knowing it, then go to court to make them release all their software as Open Source.
Microsoft will, of course, apply all the delaying tactics they can... which gives us time to patch and rerelease Windows NT, IE and SQL server while the legal grinds are churning.
I don't think the point of the article is that Microsoft is insecure ('cept about keeping their market share, of course:).
I think it was interesting that Microsoft used open source code in software they sell externally. I didn't know that before.
It was also interesting that security flaws in Microsoft products was caused by open source code. Kind of turns the tables on those geeks. (Wait... what site am I at? Oh, Slashdot! Damn...)^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HKind of turns the tables on those Microsofties, doesn't it?
And then comes the interesting question: what will they do about it? Apply the open source patch within 24 hrs, and admit that open source gets fixed damn fast, then hang their head in shame waiting week after week for the patch to reach out to all the end-users. Muahahahhahaha...
So, I dissed Microsoft. Do I get my Karma now?
No... Microsoft will, of course, apply the open source patch to it's zlib package and recompile, thus demonstrating the viability of the open source approach to security (keep the system open, so anyone can patch the security holes, instead of keeping it closed, hoping that nobody will discover the security holes that are inevitably there).
That reminds me of the African-American software engineer who was lying on a sunchair in his own garden, and was arrested by the police for loitering...
He was living in a rich neighbourhood with few African-Americans, so the policemen could "safely" assume any African-Americans in the neighbourhood were doing something illegal.
I think Columbus just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Spain, Portugal, France and England needed new lands to loot and colonise, and had the technology to do it. European culture has to take both the blame and praise for what happened during the next 500 years, not the person who happened to make the discovery.
Isn't 90% of the legal problem solved just by removing the 'iexplore.exe' executable and the icons for it?
The problem seems to be that Microsoft uses it's dominance in the desktop OS market to gain dominance in the web browser market. If Joe User buys a computer with Internet Explorer on it, he most likely won't bother to download and try out Netscape or Opera. He'll just click the big 'e' icon that already sits there on the desktop. He probably doesn't even know how to download and install applications. This problem is easily solved by merely removing the 'iexplore.exe' executable and the icons for it. Then every web browser is on an equal footing, and the computer manufacturer can bundle any web browser they want. So why all this talk about removing 'mshtml.dll' and Internet Explorer components integrated into the OS? What's the point of that?
I think the battle is alredy won. Open source operating systems will take over in the long run, so there's no need to feel threatened by Microsoft in any way.
IBM used to be the #1 enemy for all hackers back in the 70's. It seems to be the hacker mentality -- the biggest guy is always the bad guy. Hackers hate bullies.
Slashdot Mirror
However, if the source for the private key is hard enough to guess, you have a very good approximation to a random signal. There is no algorithm that can be broken using mathematical or computational means.
(The private key can be formed from the number of characters in each of the small ads in The London Times, the rainfall in selected countries, etc.)
Of course the safest way is always to use a truly random sequence of numbers known only to the sender and recipient, but the problem is that the sender and recipient then have to exchange keys through some other secure channel.
Using noise interference doesn't necessarily need any extra bandwidth.
Light consists of waves, and when two waves are placed on top of each other, they form a new wave that takes no more space or bandwidth than the first one.
Now that we know somebody got the story wrong, isn't it time to change the headline of this article?
Documenting code is often seen as a "must", or even as a "waste of time". The assumption is that you document code for someone else, someone who is going to read it in the future.
But I think documentation is much more important as a help to oneself in writing the program.
The problem becomes much easier if you structure it, try to formulate it in words, draw diagrams of it, etc. It gives you a better overview and makes the problem clearer. And, I think the documentation becomes much better when you use it to help yourself, not because you have to or because "it's good practice to make a lot of comments".
And doing the documentation before the actual program is not a bad idea at all. The clearer the specifications are, the easier it is to code -- and the simpler and more functional the code becomes.
Hey, guys, don't spend your hard-earned money just to 'support a good cause'. I think open source OSes will win over proprietary ones anyway.
:)
Unless, of course, any of you has a 'real job', but why are you hanging around Slashdot then?
I don't think this guy came up with S-K Combinatory Logic. I think that's old. But he, apparently, was the first one mad enough to use it to define a Turing Machine. :)
:)
So what's so great about that? Um... well, I guess it's just the academic world's version of "Hey! Look! I can code a scrolling text demo on the 6810 processor using only 33 bytes and 272 clock cycles!"
I.e., no practical applications, just a "cool thing".
It all dates back to the 1930's (when a lot of great math was done). Alonzo Church tried to define what a "computation" was, and came up with something called "lambda calculus". Alan Turing, independently, did the same thing, and came up with the "Turing machine". It was eventually proven that these two definitions are equivalent: anything you can compute with lambda calculus, you can compute with Turing machines, and vice versa.
Actually, ALL computers are equivalent to Turing Machines. No matter how advanced a computer is, every computation it can do, can also be done on a Turing machine, only slower.
I think some other guy invented combinatory logic (was it Curry?) as an alternative to Lambda Calculus. It, too, can perform any computation possible. It's just simpler, S-K combinatory logic being the simplest, with only two operands/operators. So the definition is very simple, it's just damn hard to read.
So mathematicians proved long ago that these different ways of defining computations are all equivalent. Mathematicians usually only care about proving that things CAN be done. Once they've proven that, they don't care about actually doing it. So defining a Turing machine using combinatory logic is just a "cool thing", it doesn't have any theoretical importance.
But I haven't read the article, so maybe the guy did something else with it that had importance.
Well, what we're doing here, isn't that unique to the 'net? Being able to have a discussion more or less in real-time, which is also being archived and indexed in real-time, where anyone with web access can just drop in and make a comment and have just as much chance of being heard as someone who's a regular?
I know it's not art, but it's a way of using the medium that's unique to the 'net.
"This probably isn't the most cost-effective way to GET to those spinoffs, but what can you do?..." Hm... fund other types of research instead?
Yeah I know the feeling. There's a female programmer working here that's better than me.
Was that the spacecraft presumably lost in space after an ALGOL 60 programmer typed a comma instead of a dot?
Microsoft hires a lot of smart programmers and system designers who make intelligent decisions about how to design software and what code to re-use. Microsoft's programmers use open source code because it's good, it's standard, and it's familiar to them.
There are also a lot of competent programmers squashing out the bugs at Microsoft, but a large company has a lot more red tape to go through before anything is released.
The majority of Microsoft's products are good, but not always the best in their field.
Microsoft's flagship product, Windows NT/2K/XP, is an advanced operating system that strikes a good balance between security and backwards compatibility. Except for the tacked-on Internet Explorer interface, it's robust, feature-rich and modern with a very broad hardware support.
Microsoft is also very skilled in both adapting to and manipulating the market, and at using it's dominance in one market to gain dominance in others.
"I beg your pardon, this looks like the same level of Inovation microsoft has been doing since Day one.
port basic
buy qdos
borrow from Apple and Xerox
borrow from BSD
borrow from open source.
...."
Ah, much like Red Hat, SuSE and Mandrake then.
Seems like Microsoft got the point of Open Source long before Linus Torvalds started hacking away: it's all about borrowing.
Ah, but what if we made GPL'd code that was so good and so far ahead of everything else, Microsoft didn't have any choice but using it in their products... nah. They wouldn't be able to sell any licenses that way. It would be financial suicide.
'Cept if it's some product they give away for free anyway, like IE.
"I bet that most ppl who bash MS have never spent time with Windows 2000."
I must admit I'm feeling guilty.
I switched to XP after a few months.
:-)
""[...]but does point out that since zlib is not GPL'd they are under no obligation to release the source code to any of their products.""
"Darn, and I thought they were caught with their pants down."
Hey, that's a great idea. Find a way to sneak GPL'd code into, say, MFC, without Microsoft knowing it, then go to court to make them release all their software as Open Source.
Microsoft will, of course, apply all the delaying tactics they can... which gives us time to patch and rerelease Windows NT, IE and SQL server while the legal grinds are churning.
It just might work!
I don't think the point of the article is that Microsoft is insecure ('cept about keeping their market share, of course :).
I think it was interesting that Microsoft used open source code in software they sell externally. I didn't know that before.
It was also interesting that security flaws in Microsoft products was caused by open source code. Kind of turns the tables on those geeks. (Wait... what site am I at? Oh, Slashdot! Damn...)^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HKind of turns the tables on those Microsofties, doesn't it?
And then comes the interesting question: what will they do about it? Apply the open source patch within 24 hrs, and admit that open source gets fixed damn fast, then hang their head in shame waiting week after week for the patch to reach out to all the end-users. Muahahahhahaha...
So, I dissed Microsoft. Do I get my Karma now?
No... Microsoft will, of course, apply the open source patch to it's zlib package and recompile, thus demonstrating the viability of the open source approach to security (keep the system open, so anyone can patch the security holes, instead of keeping it closed, hoping that nobody will discover the security holes that are inevitably there).
And Open Source scores one point.
That reminds me of the African-American software engineer who was lying on a sunchair in his own garden, and was arrested by the police for loitering...
He was living in a rich neighbourhood with few African-Americans, so the policemen could "safely" assume any African-Americans in the neighbourhood were doing something illegal.
I think Columbus just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Spain, Portugal, France and England needed new lands to loot and colonise, and had the technology to do it. European culture has to take both the blame and praise for what happened during the next 500 years, not the person who happened to make the discovery.
I must confess ignorance.
Was it proven that Microsoft threatened PC makers to revoke their licenses if they didn't include IE on the desktop?
Oh darn. So it's a Linux conspiracy to make BIOSes incompatible with Windows! I should have known that!
Linux BIOS
Now, I want to know how all this fits into the big conspiracy to make all hardware incompatible with Linux.
Isn't 90% of the legal problem solved just by removing the 'iexplore.exe' executable and the icons for it?
The problem seems to be that Microsoft uses it's dominance in the desktop OS market to gain dominance in the web browser market.
If Joe User buys a computer with Internet Explorer on it, he most likely won't bother to download and try out Netscape or Opera. He'll just click the big 'e' icon that already sits there on the desktop. He probably doesn't even know how to download and install applications.
This problem is easily solved by merely removing the 'iexplore.exe' executable and the icons for it. Then every web browser is on an equal footing, and the computer manufacturer can bundle any web browser they want. So why all this talk about removing 'mshtml.dll' and Internet Explorer components integrated into the OS? What's the point of that?
... anymore?
Does this mean that -- -- OS/2 is NOT the platform for the 90's?
I think the battle is alredy won. Open source operating systems will take over in the long run, so there's no need to feel threatened by Microsoft in any way.
IBM used to be the #1 enemy for all hackers back in the 70's. It seems to be the hacker mentality -- the biggest guy is always the bad guy. Hackers hate bullies.