The events of September 11 have made everyone realize how important security is. The federal government is spending billions of dollars on homeland security and so there are going to be a fair number of government contracts.
Even things that don't work like facial recognition at airports will get a lot of money.
Its nice that they make these comparisions to the phone system, but they are not valid.
Even though the phones are deregulated, their are still relatively few carriers to coerce into supporting this. On the internet, they could most likely get the backbone to support it and large ISPs like AOL, but they are not really the problem. The biggest lag is going to be in the many smaller ISPs that host web sites and whatever other things they want to do. So they need to get the small ISPs to cooperate, which is the most important, but also the most difficult because there are so many.
Even if some agency makes it a requirement that everyone implement this, how long will it take? Look at E911, the location service for 911 on cell phones. The major carriers have been dragging their feet for years. The entire system was suppose to be in place last year but their is so little support it is barely usable.
Finally if they want this to be at all secure, they are going to have to use digital signatures of some type, which will introduce a whole new set of headaches. Otherwise every gamer and his brother will set this flag.
Interesting question considering the source code of AT&T UNIX circulated (illegally) rapidly after being distributed to universities.
I bet many Slashdot readers (as I do) have photocopies or printouts of AT&T UNIX source in their attics.
Just because it is not in the public domain does not mean that Microsoft will not claim that people are using Windows code in other projects.
Microsoft licenses Windows CE code under it's "shared source" program for integrating applications at a low level. This is not public domain but hasn't prevented them in the past from threating to sue for using Microsoft code in other ways.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like it was designed to be insecure...
Please tell me this the sequel to The Firm and not real life.
Even things that don't work like facial recognition at airports will get a lot of money.
-Robert Coveyou
And where are the getting these random numbers?
assuming it scales linearly, $10B will only crack a 1027 bit key in the same timeframe
Its nice that they make these comparisions to the phone system, but they are not valid.
Even though the phones are deregulated, their are still relatively few carriers to coerce into supporting this. On the internet, they could most likely get the backbone to support it and large ISPs like AOL, but they are not really the problem. The biggest lag is going to be in the many smaller ISPs that host web sites and whatever other things they want to do. So they need to get the small ISPs to cooperate, which is the most important, but also the most difficult because there are so many.
Even if some agency makes it a requirement that everyone implement this, how long will it take? Look at E911, the location service for 911 on cell phones. The major carriers have been dragging their feet for years. The entire system was suppose to be in place last year but their is so little support it is barely usable.
Finally if they want this to be at all secure, they are going to have to use digital signatures of some type, which will introduce a whole new set of headaches. Otherwise every gamer and his brother will set this flag.
Anyways that's my take on this whole thing.
Looks interesting. Does anyone know from a security standpoint how this compares to OpenBSD or other similar security minded projects?
Interesting question considering the source code of AT&T UNIX circulated (illegally) rapidly after being distributed to universities. I bet many Slashdot readers (as I do) have photocopies or printouts of AT&T UNIX source in their attics.
Just because it is not in the public domain does not mean that Microsoft will not claim that people are using Windows code in other projects.
Microsoft licenses Windows CE code under it's "shared source" program for integrating applications at a low level. This is not public domain but hasn't prevented them in the past from threating to sue for using Microsoft code in other ways.