12 us is very short -- 6000 cycles on a 500 MHz machine. It would be a nice trick if you could _decode_ 512 bit RSA given the two factors that fast.
Maybe that's what they've done. Cracking RSA would take a _massively_ parallel effort or unheard of clock rates. But electrons shifting orbits does take finite time, and so do nuclear reactions (measured in "shakes" 10^-14s IIRC).
The analogy is good. Carry it further--look beyond the stated aims and evaluate the actual effects.
In the case of drugs, the effect of the "war" is an expansion of police powers and a reduction in civil liberties. In the case of the "war" against the export of strong crypto, the effect is the supression of all _domestic_ crypto and a reduction in privacy for all.
But who benefits from these actions? Cash may not be directly involved, but those individuals who like to control others receive gratification. And which occupations are these "controllers" likely to seek in life? I would argue they will be disproportionately present in the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government at all levels.
It is unpopular and illegal for them to achieve their aims directly. With the facades of "fighting drugs" or "fighting terrorism" plus some scaremongering, they do anyways.
-- Robert
Whether these effects are desired by policymakers is a matter of individual judgement.
I doubt RMS will go for this one. TGPL source is _not_ free, it can be imprisoned at whim (forgive the anthropomorphism). Free software isn't about programmer freedom, which is obviously less under GPL than BSD.
Moreover, software companies will be fearful that the source will get GPL "contaminated" immediately. They like the NPL bargain "I'll let you have my code if you let me have yours". They don't see the critical importance of "Here's the code. It's free (speech)."
The GPL is very virulent. A softening is to allow the modifying coder an easy way (TGPL?) of granting a _second_ licence if s/he wishes back to the originator for the mods. The originator would then have to sift through unproprietarizable GPL'd mods, and proprietarizable TGPL mods. Not an easy task, but easier than asking permission much later.
Friction in a vaccuum is notoriously difficult to predict correctly, even if you get the density correct. What if the mean-free-path velocity distribution is _NOT_ anisotropic? (the same in all directions)
Pushed to the limit, all electronic compilations of copywrited works are at risk. Slashdot is probably OK since we posters are actually loading the database ourselves.
I don't buy the stated reason for publishing IPs. Casual anonymization is to easy via AOL or the anonymizer.
I think the real purpose is to visibly enable tracking and make an implied threat to tone down flamage. People with dynamic IPs are as traceable as long as their ISP keeps the logs.
Unfortunately, with IPv6, logs won't be necessary.
Yes. Eyeball count is only part of the story. The other parts are motivation and ability.
If you're working in a software house, you've been given a chunk of code to write/debug. Probably a poorly defined target. You'll do that, and go home at 5pm if you can. Fixing problems in other people's code likely won't bring you much reward. Worst of all, you don't really have ownership of anything.
Contrast that to OS: People have a problem they need to solve. They debug or write code to solve their problem, and share it because it's easy to do. They _own_ their work, even if Linus rejects the patch, they can still use it.
Ability is a very controversial subject. Suffice it to say that I don't think you can hire contract programers as skillful as OS volunteers.
The article is bland, but the questions interesting. I have thought this before releasing my own code as OS (cpuburn http://users.ev1.net/~redelm FYI).
First, people will code to solve their problems. Second, if you've already written the SW, the cost of releasing it OS is minimal. Only if you could sell it for significant $$$ would you hold back. Or planned that all along (software companies).
But the Unix design is very modular. While a whole Linux/*BSD OS _is_ worth alot of money, the components are worth very little sold individually. Fortunately, they are also easy to write.
So I would argue that OS will work for modularizable code, but not for large monoliths such as MS-Windows applications. Even large Xapps become monoliths, and saleable. How much would you pay for Lotus 1-2-3 for Linux/X?
Sometimes, strategic considerations cause companies to release otherwise saleable code as OS [Netscape]. I expect this is the exception, not the rule.
Of course a sword is for threatening or killing. That isn't the issue. What matters is why and how it is used. The genie is _NOT_ going to go back into the bottle, so we'd best learn to cope.
Marshall McLuhan's "The media is the message" has been widely misunderstood as "the media shapes the message". That is trite--of course it must. I heard him speak to my highschool class in the early '70s. IIRC, his point was that a new media [TV] has a message all of it's own: Things formerly hidden can now be seen/shown. That held true for the printing press, telegraph, cinema, telephone and television. It seems to be holding true for the Internet.
Any technology is merely a tool, neither bad nor good in and of itself. What matters is how people use it, and the motivations of those people.
If you think the police/govt/bosses are evil/hostile/malevolent or otherwise out to get you, then _ANY_ tools they have are bad. From gunpowder and the telegraph onwards.
I'm not quite so fearful, even though I have been the victim of malicious prosecution. Mostly they are after criminals. The definition of crime is usually reasonable but not always nor everywhere, so it bears watching.
The price of freedom has always been vigilance. Mostly of people in positions of power to ensure that they act reasonably and not from personal biases, hidden agendas or perverse incentives.
128 bits for an IPv6 IP address? Why _4_ times bigger? Since each packet's header needs both a destination and the source, that's 32 bytes vs 8.
If we say the average packet is 500 bytes (?), then IPv6 is imposing at least an additional 5% overhead on bandwidth limited lines. Like a tax--what are _we_ getting for it?
I'm sure the extra bits will be rapidly stolen to help routing (ie, a couple of bits for continent, a couple more for region (state), or the network topographical equivalents.
I have privacy concerns about this (static IPs) plus I wonder if Cisco isn't doing this to scr*w their competition (Linux routers?).
I just don't see much behind the advantages the author claims. Still, I'd usually rather have a FreeBSD 2.2.8 box than a RH6.0 . I simple cannot abide SysV/etc/rc.d .
As for `correct` vs `working`, I don't want to get into the old sync debate. It boils down to a choice you make. Linux certainly has more hardware supported, even if `less correctly'.
As for "less commercial", I beg to differ. The BSD licence is wide open for source being taken private. The GPL virus prevents this in Linux.
-- Robert
Re:Is this suitable reading for children/teenagers
on
Ender's Shadow
·
· Score: 1
Your son sounds alot like mine, especially the Pokemon. He devours Animorph books.
I am very much concerned about Hellmouth stuff. You make a good point about oscillation. My son has a tendancy to feel sorry for himself, and retreat into reading. I'm just worried that this dark stuff will aggravate it. OTOH, feeling you're not alone _does_ dispell isolation!
-- Robert
Is this suitable reading for children/teenagers?
on
Ender's Shadow
·
· Score: 1
Not that I'm criticising "Enders Game" and others of it's genre. I very much enjoyed reading them.
My question is whether to give it to my 10.0 year old son. Reading level is not a problem. He has been suffering worse isolation than I went through at his age and later. I'm worried that this reading material would aggravate it. My wife would have my hide, but that's par for the course.:-)
As a modest contributor of Open Source (cpuburn http://users.ev1.net/~redelm ), I must strongly disagree with Mr Leonard.
I wrote code, and decided to release it GPL. I know exactly why I did this, and "the good of the masses" was very far down the list. First, the foregone income was negligible. Second, I wanted help improving my code. Third, I wanted some praise. Fourth, the effort of publication was minimal. Fifth, I wanted to give back to the OS community that had given me so much.
Note that communism in practice always requires heavy compulsion to redistribute goods. OS uses none. Had anyone tried any, my code would be in the bitbucket. Perhaps the OS world looks utopian, but it has nothing to do with "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities".
Steganography (hidden writing) is another example of a system that relies heavily on STO. A modern example would be using low order bits on music CD's, *.WAV, and maybe *.jpeg files to move banned information past censors.
IANAL, but Samba users wouldn't be affected. It was done in *.au AFAIK. You couldn't do rev-eng where UNITA was valid, but the results of the rev-eng could be used anywhere.
Still, it's bad that the US would be hobbled again like crypto.
Granted UNITA is _very_ onerous on users of proprietary software. That should make them more receptive to free [FSF] software.
The ban on reverse engineering is probably the worst for OS. IANAL, but Samba shouldn't be affected since the rev-eng would be done in *.au AFAIK. Still, it's bad that the US is restricted like crypto again.
UNITA is egregiously odious. But in the fight to free software, is it bad that the enemy is hobbled? Even if it reduces freedom for many?
For me, the most important security question for my ISP is: What do you log? And what do you backup? How long do you keep it?
Of course AOL or any ISP has to comply with search warrents and subpoenae. But they can't produce what they never had, or had deleted. An usually they can't be faulted if it was a reasonable course of business. (Beware the.au initiative!)
Of course, if you leave stuff on their mailspool, that's your fault. But if they keep their IP/mail-logs forever, beware traffic analysis.
-- Robert
Maybe so, but not everybody uses X
on
XFree86 News
·
· Score: 1
I take issue with that 99.999% ! I administer six Linux boxen, and haven't used X in months. I don't use graphics, so X brings me nothing that virtual consoles and SVGATextMode won't. Mostly people seem use X to open xterms.
I object to GUI's because they are pictographic menuing systems. They abandon the invention of the alphabet. Menuing systems are limited by their design, and can be long to navigate. X is admittedly the best of a bad lot.
That said, graphics are sometimes vital, and X is the best graphics solution for Linux. So XFree86 should attract more developers.
Excuse me, but why is bloat in a competitor bad ???
If it weren't for MSbloatware, we wouldn't have $0.20/MHz CPU, $1/MB DRAM, and $20/GB disk. As someone (esr?) pointed out, Linux owes MS a great debt for making the fast hardware market cheap by its' volume.
Where would we be if MS-Win9* ran just fine on a 386/16, 4MB RAM, and 100 MB HD? It'd still cost $800.
Slashdot Mirror
12 us is very short -- 6000 cycles on a 500 MHz machine. It would be a nice trick if you could _decode_ 512 bit RSA given the two factors that fast.
Maybe that's what they've done. Cracking RSA would take a _massively_ parallel effort or unheard of clock rates. But electrons shifting orbits does take finite time, and so do nuclear
reactions (measured in "shakes" 10^-14s IIRC).
-- Robert
The analogy is good. Carry it further--look beyond the stated aims and evaluate the actual effects.
In the case of drugs, the effect of the "war" is an expansion of police powers and a reduction in civil liberties. In the case of the "war" against the export of strong crypto, the effect is the supression of all _domestic_ crypto and a reduction in privacy for all.
But who benefits from these actions? Cash may not be directly involved, but those individuals who like to control others receive gratification. And which occupations are these "controllers" likely to seek in life? I would argue they will be disproportionately present in the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government at all levels.
It is unpopular and illegal for them to achieve their aims directly. With the facades of "fighting drugs" or "fighting terrorism" plus some scaremongering, they do anyways.
-- Robert
Whether these effects are desired by policymakers is a matter of individual judgement.
I doubt RMS will go for this one. TGPL source is _not_ free, it can be imprisoned at whim (forgive the anthropomorphism). Free software isn't about programmer freedom, which is obviously less under GPL than BSD.
Moreover, software companies will be fearful that the source will get GPL "contaminated" immediately. They like the NPL bargain "I'll let you have my code if you let me have yours". They don't see the critical importance of "Here's the code. It's free (speech)."
The GPL is very virulent. A softening is to allow the modifying coder an easy way (TGPL?) of granting a _second_ licence if s/he wishes back to the originator for the mods. The originator would then have to sift through unproprietarizable GPL'd mods, and proprietarizable TGPL mods. Not an easy task, but easier than asking permission much later.
-- Robert
Well, well, well. Sounds like Intel is having the same troubles are less authorized overclockers
-- Robert
Just how well have they calc'd friction effects?
Friction in a vaccuum is notoriously difficult to predict correctly, even if you get the density correct. What if the mean-free-path velocity distribution is _NOT_ anisotropic? (the same in all directions)
-- Robert
Pushed to the limit, all electronic compilations of copywrited works are at risk. Slashdot is probably OK since we posters are actually loading the database ourselves.
-- Robert
I don't buy the stated reason for publishing IPs. Casual anonymization is to easy via AOL or the anonymizer.
I think the real purpose is to visibly enable tracking and make an implied threat to tone down flamage. People with dynamic IPs are as traceable as long as their ISP keeps the logs.
Unfortunately, with IPv6, logs won't be necessary.
-- Robert
Yes. Eyeball count is only part of the story. The other parts are motivation and ability.
If you're working in a software house, you've been given a chunk of code to write/debug. Probably a poorly defined target. You'll do that, and go home at 5pm if you can. Fixing problems in other people's code likely won't bring you much reward. Worst of all, you don't really have ownership of anything.
Contrast that to OS: People have a problem they need to solve. They debug or write code to solve their problem, and share it because it's easy to do. They _own_ their work, even if Linus rejects the patch, they can still use it.
Ability is a very controversial subject. Suffice it to say that I don't think you can hire contract programers as skillful as OS volunteers.
-- Robert
The article is bland, but the questions interesting. I have thought this before releasing my own code as OS (cpuburn http://users.ev1.net/~redelm FYI).
First, people will code to solve their problems. Second, if you've already written the SW, the cost of releasing it OS is minimal. Only if you could sell it for significant $$$ would you hold back. Or planned that all along (software companies).
But the Unix design is very modular. While a whole Linux/*BSD OS _is_ worth alot of money, the components are worth very little sold individually. Fortunately, they are also easy to write.
So I would argue that OS will work for modularizable code, but not for large monoliths such as MS-Windows applications. Even large Xapps become monoliths, and saleable. How much would you pay for Lotus 1-2-3 for Linux/X?
Sometimes, strategic considerations cause companies to release otherwise saleable code as OS [Netscape]. I expect this is the exception, not the rule.
-- Robert
Of course a sword is for threatening or killing. That isn't the issue. What matters is why and how it is used. The genie is _NOT_ going to go back into the bottle, so we'd best learn to cope.
Marshall McLuhan's "The media is the message" has been widely misunderstood as "the media shapes the message". That is trite--of course it must. I heard him speak to my highschool class in the early '70s. IIRC, his point was that a new media [TV] has a message all of it's own: Things formerly hidden can now be seen/shown. That held true for the printing press, telegraph, cinema, telephone and television. It seems to be holding true for the Internet.
-- Robert
Any technology is merely a tool, neither bad nor good in and of itself. What matters is how people use it, and the motivations of those people.
If you think the police/govt/bosses are evil/hostile/malevolent or otherwise out to get you, then _ANY_ tools they have are bad. From gunpowder and the telegraph onwards.
I'm not quite so fearful, even though I have been the victim of malicious prosecution. Mostly they are after criminals. The definition of crime is usually reasonable but not always nor everywhere, so it bears watching.
The price of freedom has always been vigilance. Mostly of people in positions of power to ensure that they act reasonably and not from personal biases, hidden agendas or perverse incentives.
-- Robert
128 bits for an IPv6 IP address? Why _4_ times bigger? Since each packet's header needs both a destination and the source, that's 32 bytes vs 8.
If we say the average packet is 500 bytes (?), then IPv6 is imposing at least an additional 5% overhead on bandwidth limited lines. Like a tax--what are _we_ getting for it?
I'm sure the extra bits will be rapidly stolen to help routing (ie, a couple of bits for continent, a couple more for region (state), or the network topographical equivalents.
I have privacy concerns about this (static IPs) plus I wonder if Cisco isn't doing this to scr*w their competition (Linux routers?).
-- Robert
I assure you, I do run Slackware. I am currently having fits with RH6.0 on one partition because a package seems to need glibc.
-- Robert
I just don't see much behind the advantages the author claims. Still, I'd usually rather have a FreeBSD 2.2.8 box than a RH6.0 . I simple cannot abide SysV /etc/rc.d .
As for `correct` vs `working`, I don't want to get into the old sync debate. It boils down to a choice you make. Linux certainly has more hardware supported, even if `less correctly'.
As for "less commercial", I beg to differ. The BSD licence is wide open for source being taken private. The GPL virus prevents this in Linux.
-- Robert
Your son sounds alot like mine, especially the Pokemon. He devours Animorph books.
I am very much concerned about Hellmouth stuff. You make a good point about oscillation. My son has a tendancy to feel sorry for himself, and retreat into reading. I'm just worried that this dark stuff will aggravate it. OTOH, feeling you're not alone _does_ dispell isolation!
-- Robert
Not that I'm criticising "Enders Game" and others of it's genre. I very much enjoyed reading them.
:-)
My question is whether to give it to my 10.0 year old son. Reading level is not a problem. He has been suffering worse isolation than I went through at his age and later. I'm worried that this reading material would aggravate it. My wife would have my hide, but that's par for the course.
Any thoughts?
-- Robert
As a modest contributor of Open Source (cpuburn http://users.ev1.net/~redelm ), I must strongly disagree with Mr Leonard.
I wrote code, and decided to release it GPL. I know exactly why I did this, and "the good of the masses" was very far down the list. First, the foregone income was negligible. Second, I wanted help improving my code. Third, I wanted some praise. Fourth, the effort of publication was minimal. Fifth, I wanted to give back to the OS community that had given me so much.
Note that communism in practice always requires heavy compulsion to redistribute goods. OS uses none. Had anyone tried any, my code would be in the bitbucket. Perhaps the OS world looks utopian, but it has nothing to do with "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities".
-- Robert
Might Linus just be out on vacation?
It's summertime, very traditional for Europeans to take vacation. And who deserves one more?
-- Robert
Steganography (hidden writing) is another example of a system that relies heavily on STO. A modern example would be using low order bits on music CD's, *.WAV, and maybe *.jpeg files to move banned information past censors.
-- Robert
... but it shouldn't be the ONLY security measure.
The criticism of STO is usually directed against systems that use STO as the primary or only security measure.
-- Robert
IANAL, but Samba users wouldn't be affected. It was done in *.au AFAIK. You couldn't do rev-eng where UNITA was valid, but the results of the rev-eng could be used anywhere.
Still, it's bad that the US would be hobbled again like crypto.
-- Robert
Granted UNITA is _very_ onerous on users of proprietary software. That should make them more receptive to free [FSF] software.
The ban on reverse engineering is probably the worst for OS. IANAL, but Samba shouldn't be affected since the rev-eng would be done in *.au AFAIK. Still, it's bad that the US is restricted like crypto again.
UNITA is egregiously odious. But in the fight to free software, is it bad that the enemy is hobbled? Even if it reduces freedom for many?
I don't know. What does RMS or ESR say?
-- Robert
For me, the most important security question for my ISP is: What do you log? And what do you backup? How long do you keep it?
.au initiative!)
Of course AOL or any ISP has to comply with search warrents and subpoenae. But they can't produce what they never had, or had deleted. An usually they can't be faulted if it was a reasonable course of business. (Beware the
Of course, if you leave stuff on their mailspool, that's your fault. But if they keep their IP/mail-logs forever, beware traffic analysis.
-- Robert
I take issue with that 99.999% ! I administer six Linux boxen, and haven't used X in months. I don't use graphics, so X brings me nothing that virtual consoles and SVGATextMode won't. Mostly people seem use X to open xterms.
I object to GUI's because they are pictographic menuing systems. They abandon the invention of the alphabet. Menuing systems are limited by their design, and can be long to navigate. X is admittedly the best of a bad lot.
That said, graphics are sometimes vital, and X is the best graphics solution for Linux. So XFree86 should attract more developers.
-- Robert
Excuse me, but why is bloat in a competitor bad ???
If it weren't for MSbloatware, we wouldn't have $0.20/MHz CPU, $1/MB DRAM, and $20/GB disk. As someone (esr?) pointed out, Linux owes MS a great debt for making the fast hardware market cheap by its' volume.
Where would we be if MS-Win9* ran just fine on a 386/16, 4MB RAM, and 100 MB HD? It'd still cost $800.
-- Robert