As far as I know, the technique used for finding these MD5 collisions, cannot be performed with a GIVEN hash. So it's not possible to create, say, a copy of an already available RPM, add malicious code to it, and easily find some data to add to it to generate the same hash. This is not possible.
The only thing the current 'crack' does is create two RANDOM input files that generate the same hashed output. So it's only useful for someone who can control both the 'original' and the 'malicious' version of the data which is being protected by an MD5 hash.
So the dangers here are kind of limited though you could still do a lot of damage with it.
Sounds good.. I wouldn't mind getting one for that price, seems like a good way to keep logged onto messenger all day, and if you get bored with it you can turn it into a handheld SSH client or something.. Or even X!
The only thing is.. where do you buy these in Europe? They only seem to be available in the US:(
I don't think RSA keys are very safe. Ok, they stop remote brute force attacks, but remember your users will most likely keep their RSA keys on a Windows machine, where they are likely to be compromised due to a trojan horse, spyware, exploit, etc. Once the attacker has got control of the RSA key file, brute-forcing the password on it is fairly easy as they don't need to connect to your system to do it. They can just run a very fast brute-force attack on the encrypted keyfile locally, trying thousands of passwords per second.
So instead of having to worry about your computer being compromised, you now have to worry about ANY of your users' computers being compromised, over which you have no control at all. Epecially if you have sudo users.
For this reason I prefer using OTP keys (S/Key for example). They use a program that generates a different (very long) password every time. A bit like the RSA SecurID token thing does. It's much more work and it's very obvious (you get a challenge asked before connecting) but it is even secure against keylogging on your users' computers, if they are using a key calculator on a different device (I have them on my Palm and Java-enabled mobile phone).
Well then you're not just buying an 'operating system':-)
But I do agree that the question was very vague. It can be interpreted both ways depending on your definition of 'operating system' or 'out of the box'. I don't think this will be something where Linux will really be better than windows, especially this is all yet to be developed, and there are so many biometric devices already available for Windows.
By the way, the IBM T42's we have here at work don't seem to have the fingerprint option enabled when they are delivered to us, but it could be that they took it out of the corporate preload they put on it.
The question said 'out of the box', I think that means 'without having to install any drivers'.
All biometric solutions I've seen use the OmniPass software from Softex that needs to be installed first. Just plugging one of those fingerprint scanners in your computer (e.g. APC Biopod) does nothing without installing the software.
I mean.. A good review is one thing, but this is outright praise:-). I have a few logitech products, and they're good, but I don't think they're *THAT* good..
Just a quote: There's no doubt that Logitech is one of the pioneers when it comes to peripherals such as keyboards, mice, joysticks and other key components for personal computers. It's almost as if the company has perfected the art of designing peripherals that are nearly faultless in every way. Though Logitech's components carry a hefty price tag, in many cases the product is worth the value. Whenever it appears to be the end of innovation with peripherals, Logitech always have something unique entering the market. Whether the feature is practical or not is not the question, but continuous motivation on Logitech's part to deliver something new with almost every product is exceptional.
Office for Mac doesn't include Access anyway:-) I'd say it's way too much tied into the Jet database engine and ODBC links to be ported to MacOS easily.
It also doesn't come with Outlook but with Entourage, which has sort of the same functionality. I'd say if Apple would integrate Mail and iCal and make it work with exchange server (like Evolution already can) they'd be almost there.
Yes, or perhaps they have a cooling-off period in which you can cancel the order? I don't know about the US store but that's mandatory in Europe..
He could always cool off on the order and then place a new one again:-)
Biometric security measures, in my opinion, would be too intrusive and unwieldy for use at the desktop level. If I want to let my friend Bob use my machine, I can give him my password, but I cannot hand him my retina.
No, but you can scan his retina and give him temporary access, which is how biometric authentication is supposed to work...
The main problem on the antiquated space shuttles is the heat-resistant tiles. They're extremely expensive, and not very good. They're so soft you could problably crush a piece with your hands, which means they're easily damaged during flight (and we've seen the fatal results of that)
I thought it was the leading wing edge that got damaged in the case of the Columbia, which was supposed to be rock-hard. It wasn't the soft tiles on the bottom.
However, it could have been, of course, if they're so soft.
Trivial note: You often see 8086/8088, 80286 and higher CPUs, but have you ever seen an 80186 CPU? IBM used to make an ISA network card (Token Ring?) that used the 80186 as the processor.
Philips used to make a computer called the 'Yes' based on this CPU. It was supposed to be an IBM compatible PC, but for some reason (I think the 80186 itself) it wasn't 100% compatible, and therefore it failed miserably...
It was a good CPU though, better than the 8088 that most PC's of the time used.
The rotating restaurant I visited turned quite slowly - around 2 RPM from memory
2 Revolutions per minute? I really hope you meant per hour:-) Otherwise I think the dinner will go out as quicky as it went in:-)
GSM will only work at 20 kms and 250km/hr
on
Cell Phones In The Air?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't think mobiles will actually work in air planes travelling at cruise speeds, especially internationally. The only network that (to the best of my knowledge) supports roaming worldwide is GSM. However, GSM is very limited in distance to the base station, and speed, due to timing constraints.
Most importantly, there are 2 limiting factors:
It doesn't accept phones further than 20 kms from the base station because the signal takes so long to get there that it will jam the next time slot
It doesn't allow speeds greater than 250 km/hr because the doppler shift stretches the signal too much.
So, an airliner flying at 10 km altitude will have a very limited view of base stations, and it's cruising speed of 1000 km/hr will be 4 times the limit. I'm pretty sure this won't work.
Perhaps in the U.S. where analog networks are still commonplace, you could get a connection on one of them. But I don't see it happening with GSM. Perhaps during take-off and landing but that would be it.
I doubt many would do this, since most of them already have installed special equipment to receive the signal inside of the airplane and connect to the handheld phones located in the seat in front of you. If you pay $10/month you can even get calls for just $0.10/minute, so the ridiculous rates are probably nothing more than price gouging.
The built-in phones in the airplane don't work on the normal mobile network, they work on the global satellite network. This is done so you can still have coverage even when you're not flying over an inhabited area or even the ocean.
Satellite phones are much more expensive to use, and the cost of a call isn't too different from the rate charged in an airplane.. Check out the rates on the inmarsat network.. These are the old 'briefcase' satellite phones and those are also the ones built into the airplanes as far as I know.
There are cheaper satellite networks like Iridium, but I don't think they are used on airliners yet.
Commercial aircraft fly at 35,000 feet, which esentially avoids the confusion issue, by taking you out of radio range of most of the towers you're flying over until they're almost directly below you.
True... The GSM standards (which is the only one that works internationally as far as I know) works at 20 kms MAX due to timing issues (the signal would arrive so late that it would jam the next time slot).
However, GSM also allows only maximum speeds of 250 km/hr (150 mph or so), due to the doppler shift changing the signal rate. So I'm surprised if you can get one to work in an airliner with a ground speed of about 4 times that..
Imagine if spammers start encrypting their spam with the recipients own PGP key. It would be impossible for content based spam filters to classify the e-mail (pre decryption).
Yes, but you can still see the sender's address and the subject.. If this is someone you don't know you'll have a good idea it's spam..
Besides, it wouldn't be too hard to make a desktop-based spam filter that just decrypts messages just like your mail reader does.. If PGP/GPG ever really take off, that is the next logical step.
I have the same issue with my (very old) NEC VersaNote 5060X. It's a P1-166Mhz so I don't use it very much anymore, but sometimes it's back from sleep within a couple of seconds and sometimes it takes forever...
The article says that it couldn't test the original Kensington finder, but that they only heard bad news about it. This is true according to my experiences.
I've got one myself, bought it about a year ago in a typical airport impulse purchase:-) This is the grey-metallic creditcard-sized one with 3 lights. Unfortunately it sucks, the lights are way too dim to be seen in any sunlight and the button is so weak it gets pressed in your pocket and wastes battery power. Besides that it detects any bluetooth phone as well and doesn't mention the difference (so it seems WiFi is detected).
I've also seen situations where I was able to get a WiFi connection on my laptop and the finder showed none, and the other way around (probably because it detected a bluetooth signal). I can't recommend it at all!
The article discusses two alternatives: "Alternative One: Bring back the shuttle" and "Alternative Two: Replace Hubble with spacecraft". Both alternatives would be expensive but with a better chance of high scientific value.
Interesting article! However, I am a bit surprised the article doesn't mention that a replacement to the Hubble is already planned: The James Webb telescope. The only thing that one doesn't have and the Hubble does is a UV viewer (which can't be done on earth either due to the ozone layer). But apart from that it is a replacement for Hubble.
It's amazing that we haven't heard of the SMS of Death yet
We HAVE:-) Several years ago there was a bug in the then-current Nokia series (like the 5110, 6110 etc), that locked up completely if you sent an SMS to them consisting of 160 periods (.)
In contrast to webmail providers, there are a lot of decent IM clients. So the answer is NO.
Well I'd say there are more webmail providers than IM clients around:-) Seriously, did you ever try to count them? There's a lot of country-specific ones as well..
If google can make a good non-bloated one (like the first generation of MSN Messenger) they would have a good chance IMHO.
This is crazy, I hate having to pay 152 (euro) for a tv licence for a TV that I hardly ever watch and if I wans't living with my girlfriend I'd have got rid of it ages ok just to piss off the license inspector.
Yes, you're in Ireland too? I recently moved there and wasn't even aware of this until I got the threat letters. Seems they'd been sneaking a peek through the curtains! I ended up paying them.. Didn't have to pay the fine though.
I still can't understand how they use 152 euro a year per household for those two crappy channels (TV3 is not funded by this!) full of soaps, old movies and old American TV episodes. I guess those TV bosses get a massive wage for sitting on their arses.
It needs hardware encryption so that the disk is useless without the right pass-phrase, and optionally a hardware token like a separate USB pendrive (or compact flash, whatever) with a really big one-time pad on it.
If you want to encrypt the entire 40GB harddrive with a one-time-pad, you would need a one-time-pad of at least 40GB. Try to fit that on a pendrive:-)
...and flash them right between the eyes.. I mean, these are probably of the type that just amplify the light 1000x or something:-)
P.S.: I'm not really suggesting that you should do this of course:-)
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I know, the technique used for finding these MD5 collisions, cannot be performed with a GIVEN hash. So it's not possible to create, say, a copy of an already available RPM, add malicious code to it, and easily find some data to add to it to generate the same hash. This is not possible.
The only thing the current 'crack' does is create two RANDOM input files that generate the same hashed output. So it's only useful for someone who can control both the 'original' and the 'malicious' version of the data which is being protected by an MD5 hash.
So the dangers here are kind of limited though you could still do a lot of damage with it.
Sounds good.. I wouldn't mind getting one for that price, seems like a good way to keep logged onto messenger all day, and if you get bored with it you can turn it into a handheld SSH client or something.. Or even X!
:(
The only thing is.. where do you buy these in Europe? They only seem to be available in the US
So instead of having to worry about your computer being compromised, you now have to worry about ANY of your users' computers being compromised, over which you have no control at all. Epecially if you have sudo users.
For this reason I prefer using OTP keys (S/Key for example). They use a program that generates a different (very long) password every time. A bit like the RSA SecurID token thing does. It's much more work and it's very obvious (you get a challenge asked before connecting) but it is even secure against keylogging on your users' computers, if they are using a key calculator on a different device (I have them on my Palm and Java-enabled mobile phone).
Well then you're not just buying an 'operating system' :-)
But I do agree that the question was very vague. It can be interpreted both ways depending on your definition of 'operating system' or 'out of the box'. I don't think this will be something where Linux will really be better than windows, especially this is all yet to be developed, and there are so many biometric devices already available for Windows.
By the way, the IBM T42's we have here at work don't seem to have the fingerprint option enabled when they are delivered to us, but it could be that they took it out of the corporate preload they put on it.
The question said 'out of the box', I think that means 'without having to install any drivers'.
All biometric solutions I've seen use the OmniPass software from Softex that needs to be installed first. Just plugging one of those fingerprint scanners in your computer (e.g. APC Biopod) does nothing without installing the software.
Just a quote:
There's no doubt that Logitech is one of the pioneers when it comes to peripherals such as keyboards, mice, joysticks and other key components for personal computers. It's almost as if the company has perfected the art of designing peripherals that are nearly faultless in every way. Though Logitech's components carry a hefty price tag, in many cases the product is worth the value. Whenever it appears to be the end of innovation with peripherals, Logitech always have something unique entering the market. Whether the feature is practical or not is not the question, but continuous motivation on Logitech's part to deliver something new with almost every product is exceptional.
Office for Mac doesn't include Access anyway :-) I'd say it's way too much tied into the Jet database engine and ODBC links to be ported to MacOS easily.
It also doesn't come with Outlook but with Entourage, which has sort of the same functionality. I'd say if Apple would integrate Mail and iCal and make it work with exchange server (like Evolution already can) they'd be almost there.
Yes, or perhaps they have a cooling-off period in which you can cancel the order? I don't know about the US store but that's mandatory in Europe.. He could always cool off on the order and then place a new one again :-)
No, but you can scan his retina and give him temporary access, which is how biometric authentication is supposed to work...
I thought it was the leading wing edge that got damaged in the case of the Columbia, which was supposed to be rock-hard. It wasn't the soft tiles on the bottom.
However, it could have been, of course, if they're so soft.
Philips used to make a computer called the 'Yes' based on this CPU. It was supposed to be an IBM compatible PC, but for some reason (I think the 80186 itself) it wasn't 100% compatible, and therefore it failed miserably... It was a good CPU though, better than the 8088 that most PC's of the time used.
2 Revolutions per minute? I really hope you meant per hour :-) Otherwise I think the dinner will go out as quicky as it went in :-)
Most importantly, there are 2 limiting factors:
It doesn't accept phones further than 20 kms from the base station because the signal takes so long to get there that it will jam the next time slot
It doesn't allow speeds greater than 250 km/hr because the doppler shift stretches the signal too much.
So, an airliner flying at 10 km altitude will have a very limited view of base stations, and it's cruising speed of 1000 km/hr will be 4 times the limit. I'm pretty sure this won't work.
Perhaps in the U.S. where analog networks are still commonplace, you could get a connection on one of them. But I don't see it happening with GSM. Perhaps during take-off and landing but that would be it.
The built-in phones in the airplane don't work on the normal mobile network, they work on the global satellite network. This is done so you can still have coverage even when you're not flying over an inhabited area or even the ocean.
Satellite phones are much more expensive to use, and the cost of a call isn't too different from the rate charged in an airplane.. Check out the rates on the inmarsat network.. These are the old 'briefcase' satellite phones and those are also the ones built into the airplanes as far as I know.
There are cheaper satellite networks like Iridium, but I don't think they are used on airliners yet.
True... The GSM standards (which is the only one that works internationally as far as I know) works at 20 kms MAX due to timing issues (the signal would arrive so late that it would jam the next time slot).
However, GSM also allows only maximum speeds of 250 km/hr (150 mph or so), due to the doppler shift changing the signal rate. So I'm surprised if you can get one to work in an airliner with a ground speed of about 4 times that..
Yes, but you can still see the sender's address and the subject.. If this is someone you don't know you'll have a good idea it's spam..
Besides, it wouldn't be too hard to make a desktop-based spam filter that just decrypts messages just like your mail reader does.. If PGP/GPG ever really take off, that is the next logical step.
I have the same issue with my (very old) NEC VersaNote 5060X. It's a P1-166Mhz so I don't use it very much anymore, but sometimes it's back from sleep within a couple of seconds and sometimes it takes forever...
The article says that it couldn't test the original Kensington finder, but that they only heard bad news about it. This is true according to my experiences.
:-) This is the grey-metallic creditcard-sized one with 3 lights. Unfortunately it sucks, the lights are way too dim to be seen in any sunlight and the button is so weak it gets pressed in your pocket and wastes battery power. Besides that it detects any bluetooth phone as well and doesn't mention the difference (so it seems WiFi is detected).
:-)
I've got one myself, bought it about a year ago in a typical airport impulse purchase
I've also seen situations where I was able to get a WiFi connection on my laptop and the finder showed none, and the other way around (probably because it detected a bluetooth signal). I can't recommend it at all!
Just my 2 cents
Interesting article! However, I am a bit surprised the article doesn't mention that a replacement to the Hubble is already planned: The James Webb telescope. The only thing that one doesn't have and the Hubble does is a UV viewer (which can't be done on earth either due to the ozone layer). But apart from that it is a replacement for Hubble.
We HAVE :-) Several years ago there was a bug in the then-current Nokia series (like the 5110, 6110 etc), that locked up completely if you sent an SMS to them consisting of 160 periods (.)
Well I'd say there are more webmail providers than IM clients around :-) Seriously, did you ever try to count them? There's a lot of country-specific ones as well..
If google can make a good non-bloated one (like the first generation of MSN Messenger) they would have a good chance IMHO.
Yes, you're in Ireland too? I recently moved there and wasn't even aware of this until I got the threat letters. Seems they'd been sneaking a peek through the curtains! I ended up paying them.. Didn't have to pay the fine though.
I still can't understand how they use 152 euro a year per household for those two crappy channels (TV3 is not funded by this!) full of soaps, old movies and old American TV episodes. I guess those TV bosses get a massive wage for sitting on their arses.
It needs hardware encryption so that the disk is useless without the right pass-phrase, and optionally a hardware token like a separate USB pendrive (or compact flash, whatever) with a really big one-time pad on it. If you want to encrypt the entire 40GB harddrive with a one-time-pad, you would need a one-time-pad of at least 40GB. Try to fit that on a pendrive :-)
...and flash them right between the eyes.. I mean, these are probably of the type that just amplify the light 1000x or something :-)
P.S.: I'm not really suggesting that you should do this of course :-)
At least he beat the inifinite improbability of ever getting the movie through Hollywood :-)