As the ex-owner of a Psion Revo+ (replaced with a Zaurus), I will say that I expect symbian to dominate the cellphone market.
The Symbian OS (formerly known as EPOC) was designed from the ground up for small devices with small screens. Even the older version that my Revo ran was more feature-rich and polished than any other PDA OS I've touched. Most importantly (for cellphone use) the OS itself was rock solid. I can't remember a single time when I was forced to reboot.
Simply put, Microsoft is offering too little, too late. Most of the major cellphone manufacturers has signed on for Symbian.
I see the ISP more like the phone company. You don't blame the phone company because people can trade kiddie porn or plot crimes or terrorism over the phone.
You don't blame them if they don't know about it. Once they've been informed that someone has been placing 500 prank calls/day or whatever, and they refuse to do anything, it's perfectly reasonable to blame them.
I don't know of any blacklist that adds ISPs simply because one or two spams have come from their network. The ISP has to refuse to stop known spammers in order to end up on the list (usually).
Why don't we just create a system where we all only accept mail that has been PGP encrypted with our public keys? That way spammers will have to burn through a whole lot of clock cycles to get their crap out and as an added benefit, we will get a bit more privacy.
There's only one major problem with this: Mailing lists.
The solution is to allow for whitelisting of emails, if they have been signed with the proper key. This way LKML doesn't have to encrypt one email a gazillion times, but can instead rely on signing a single message, and sending the same message a gazillion times.
Ideally all mail would be PGP-encrypted and signed, allowing this to be done for other sources as well.
Other than that, the idea is fine.
Now all you have to do is get everyone to implement it:)
Interested in knowing when SCO will actually go after Linux and try to get an injunction to stop distribution of the kernel proper or try to go after Linus and try to force him to stop development of the kernel.
I bet they would be laughed out of court.
Linux developers have publicly stated that they would be perfectly happy to remove infringing material from the kernel.
SCO has refused to tell them how they are infringing.
SCO has been distributing Linux themselves. There are GPL implications of them having done this which may invalidate any of their claims.
The Linux kernel has a very well documented history. Who, besides SCO, can verify that the code the claim was stolen from them existed in their software, before it did in Linux?
Actually, they took the chart from here [levenez.com]. Note that they added the connection from Unix to Linux, since the original chart shows it based on ideas from Minix.
Maybe if there was a tablet the size of one of those old-style wacom tablet that you could use to set things on, and enter notes into a virtual labnotebook......
You still need some damned shelves and a table somewhere though.
Don't know about you, but the time it takes to test would be worth more to me than the difference in price between an MP and an XP.
Me too. But say you had the opportunity to save $60 by buying pre-modded, tested XP chips, might be woth it then right?
As a single person project, I don't see this going anywhere. As a collaboration between a large group of people, sharing their results, or as a company selling modded chips, I think it has a chance.
Even if you test the same system with MPs and XPs (as I said, something which rather defeats the purpose of saving money), you still don't know whether you just happened to have a good set of XPs, or if you failed to find the test case that would show up problems with them.
Come on now. Are you trying to say it's impossible to test to see if chips are operating properly? Look... say you run into an error using the modded chips. Your next step is to be able to consistently reproduce this error. Then you drop in your MPs and go through the steps which always reproduce the error. Testing will tell you what the cause of your problems are, if you actually do it right.
Look. It's possible to do all the testing necessary to know if this is going to work. It just is. There may be questions as to how difficult it will be to do so, but you can't expect anyone to believe that it just can't be done.
Er... you're failing to refute what I said. If you run into obscure problems, then you have no way of determining the cause if you've used this hack.
You quoted what refutes this statement: "There's a simple solution. Test with both modded XPs and regular MPs."
If you've tested a particular pair of hacked XPs and they appear to work, well done - it doesn't mean that the same hack will always work
Maybe. I don't know. It sounds like this is something that needs to be tested.
rather defeats the point of this hack (i.e. to get a cheap SMP system) if you have to test with MPs anyway
But what if you're building more than one system? There are companies the do a good business selling modded/overclocked chips. My video card (A Gainward GF2Ti Golden Sample) shipped overclocked, and was guaranteed to run overclocked. There's always room for some company to come in and make the connection on XPs, test them, and resell them in cheap SMP systems.
Guess what? You can't guarantee they'll work - people on LKML have refused to help users who have done this, as it simply makes it impossible to determine whether problems are the fault of the kernel or of the CPU itself.
Bah. You don't know anything for sure, neither to these LKML people. They're just trying to eliminate unknow quantities from their debugging (not like I blame them). For all we know right now (being that the article is slashdotted) there is no difference between the XP and MP except a jumper setting. I honestly wouldn't be suprised if it's true. Why go through all the trouble to fab seperate chips when you can just use external jumpers?
This wouldn't be the first time someone could upgrade their hardware by connecting two contacts.
What really matters is determining if there is any actual difference between an XP and an MP. If there is none, then this isn't just for "the overclockers who couldn't care less about stability". There are plenty of others who would love to save $40/cpu.
Since you don't know either way. You're not really contributing much to the discussion. Yeah, without any testing I wouldn't use a modded chip for critical data, but it's not impossible to verify whether or not the modded chip is stable. "it simply makes it impossible to determine whether problems are the fault of the kernel or of the CPU itself" No, it doesn't. There's a simple solution. Test with both modded XPs and regular MPs.
What needs to happen is testing. Without that, we don't really know how useful this mod will be.
Until 9/11, you would've said the same thing about airplanes flying into buildings.
Nope, not really. It's not like 9/11 was the first time a plane was ever hijacked. Know what I have?
A poster with the WTC bombing on one side and the Air France hijacking on the other side. It was produced by the US government prior to 9/11.
9/11 exploited a flaw in policy. It doesn't require much of a stretch of the imagination that someone who hijacks a plane could be suicidal, yet our policy was not to resist the hijacker. It's not like 100 people couldn't have kicked the ass of a few guys with box cutters.
I'm also rather skeptical of the statement that it will take infinite resources to clog the Post Office
You should be. But I never said that. I said all those companies that send out free catalogs don't have infinate resources. Big difference. The point is that an attack of this type can only be of very limited proportions. It won't take long before AOL notices that it is sending 2/3 of it's CDs to Somewhere, Somestate. It does cost them money to procude them.
If inserting the word 'terrorism' is the only way things get done these days, so be it.
Not for me. When someone tries to tie terroism to something silly, they look like an idiot. If you really think fear-mongering is a valid way of getting things done, that's a real shame.
Now, if the RIAA were to hack into your computer an access data, that would be another thing, though stupid claims about your data being worth $1/kb (Not even Oracle costs that much) will label you as an idiot for the court.
Right for some people wired phones are no longer the best option. That's a far cry from them being completely replaced though.
For some people cellphones are the best choice. For some they aren't. As long as there isn't a better technology in place that offers every advantage the wired phones do, they can't really be considered obsolete.
He's simply pointing out that such possibilities exist. Security experts are paid to think up of unlikely, yet problematic scenarios, and he's doing exactly that. His statement WAS insightful, and doesn't all have to do with terrorism, but rather with disruption of service (which is one of the subheaders of terrorism).
I don't think his statement was insightful. As I said, it reqires extreme strteches of the imagination just to even come up with a scenario where this could become a real problem. Using bulk mail to clog the USPS is not likely to happen. It's not as if the companies have infinate resources and are going to send out an infinate number of catalogs, with no checking. The whole idea is just silly fear-mongering.
This reeks of an "Oh, well maybe if I can figure out a way to associate this with terrorism people will pay attention." line of thinking.
Anyway, point being the man was simply making a true statement.
Yeah, because the USPS is clogged by terrorist junk mail as we speak.
Security experts are paid to think or scenarios that could actually happen. They aren't paid to think of things like: "Wait...I got one! What if the terrorists start calling everyone up on the phone, every time they try and get some work done! It could bring our nation's economy to a standstill."
First the script you mention does not exist. The reason this attack actually worked on the spammer is bacuse of a HUGE number of people who signed this guy up for crap BY HAND.
Second, creating such a script would be incerdibly time comsuming. Each site that lets you submit catalog requests, etc does it in a different way.
Third, all those requests would be coming from one IP address.
Even if such a script were to be created, it would be possible to sue anyone using it. Right now its saftey in numbers. He can't possibly go after everyone, and even if he did, a judge is going to wonder if maybe he did do something to deserve it. This won't be the same for a single person attack.
or even worse, to serve as a diversion for a terrorist act, such as the mailing of a contaminated letter.'
God damn. This just makes me want to punch him in the face. Why the fuck does everyone always have to bring terrorism into everything? Ever since 9/11 we have had idiots, making comments like this about EVERYTHING. I am so sick of it.
This guy's statement require ridiculous stretches of the imagination of one to even think of a way it might benefit a terrorist. I mean, seriously, use some common sense here. If you're trying to send someone a letter full of anthrax, you want it to actually get there.
Yes, terrorists could use cars too. Maybe we should ban cars! That way a terrorist can't get his hands on a car and start running people over. Just imagine how many people he could kill by driving down a busy sidewalk! We better hurry!
Then we'll have to ban chair-lifts too. Imagine how many people would be injured or killed if someone cut the cable! We can't have that, now can we?
Ya know, they used fertilizer to make that there Oklahoma City bomb. We better get rid of fertilizer too.
But wait! That still leaves arson! We better make matches a restricted item. Can't have a terrorist going around burning down houses, no can we?
This kind of moronic reasoning makes me want to get this guy alone and "exploit the automation properties" of a few choice power tools.
See! Power tools can be used for evil! Better get rid of those too. Never mind that the benefit they provide to society far outweighs the cost. Never mind that this is supposed to be a "free" society. Won't someone please think of the terrorists?
Currently there is nothign to secure wi-fi connections,
Yes there is. SSH/IPsec/SSL/whatever. There are plenty of ways. The whole problem is that people just don't do anything to protect their privacy.
Wireless networks should be treated as just another unsecured network, like the internet itself. Since you're most likely using 802.11? to connect to the internet, you already have all that stuff set up don't you?
The problem isnt the traffic being sniffed...i can fix that with a simple ssh tunnel...my problem is with the machine authentication...its basicly a clear text (well not quite...but from a security stand point it basiclly is) protocol
So is wired ethernet, I can lie about my MAC address. Use IPsec. There's nothing that prevents you from using it on a wireless LAN. All this stuff can be and should be dealt with in software. This way, you don't have to create new hardware standards and throw out tons of equipment.
I really cant say i think wi-fi is ready for this
Wi-fi is ready. It does the job it needs to. Security can easily be implemented on top of it. It the exact security software you'd like doesn't exist yet, it's not a wi-fi problem, it's a software problem.
This is a last attempt by independent business units to make pay phones viable. The fact is that pay phones are very obsolete technology but very expensive to maintain. The business units responsible for them need to find SOME way to survive but ultimately they are a decade behind the curve..
Payphones are no more obsolete than your home phone.
I don't understand some people's obsession with new technology ONLY. There are good reasons to keep pay phones around, just like there are good reasons to keep the existing phone system.
Personally, I'm dying to get both wired and wireless VOIP, but it's just not here yet. Since it's not, I'll keep using my wired "obsolete" phone. The only problem is when I talk to people on cell phones I have to keep going "What? What did you say? I can't hear you?". There is no technology out there right now that is sufficiently developed to completely replace wired phones.
The way I would do is to sue them for a DOS attack.
If you could show that the traffic they were generating is crippling your ability to download linux ISO's you would probably have a very valid case. They are, after all, intentionally broadcasting data designed to interfere with the network's operation. This should easily fall under the jurisdiction of anti-DOS laws.
But for this very reason, more advanced math can't be used. While many students are given the opportunity to excel, others are held back by circumstance. This could only widen the gulf between the scores of privledged and underprivledged students even further.
Tests like the SATs are supposed to test both you raw abilities, and your level of achievement. This what they should be designed for. You're saying, "Oh, well that discriminates against those who haven't had opportunities." Of course it does. Those people aren't as well educated. The just haven't had the same opportunities to grow. This isn't a flaw in the test, it's a flaw in our educational system.
Test scores shouldn't be adjusted to "lie" about your performance if you're from a disadvantaged group. The opportunities availible to the group should be adjusted based on the test score.
A test should be a meaningful measure of your abilities. Obviously your performance is going to be affected by the opportunities you've had to prepare of the test.
It was simply that advanced math concepts aren't necessarily required to test for advanced math ability.
I can partially agree with this, but I wouldn't be so sure about it. Either way, I definately don't think the SAT tests for it. I can respect that we of looking at things but I just don't agree.
I think what really needs to be done, is to give up on the whole "one test for everybody" idea. I think the spread of abilities of those who take the test is just to wide to get meaningful results anywhere but the middle.
If I were "King of the World" kids would take periodic subject placement tests. Kids like Gauss could would then be able to move at their pace through the school system. If a kid can handle calculus in 8th grade, he should be able to take it.
As far as the SATs, there would be multiple levels of test for each subject. If your previous test scores indicate that you'll probably get a 500 score on a certain subject, you'd take one test. If you're more likely to get a 700 you would take a different test. Anyone could take whatever test they wanted, but they would be warned that scoring very highly on a lower level test is not necessarily a good as scoring average on a higher level test.
People should be allowed to work up to their potential (and then tested at that level), and that fact that others are underprivileged should not interfere with this.
When I showed up at college, I didn't need the potential to learn X. I needed to already know X so I could take Y. The test shouldn't be a roundabout test of whether I could potentially function at the level required by the program I'm about to enter. It should test whether I can actually function at that level.
I get really scared when I start hearing people who believe in freedom so much they are going to force you to be free (at a metaphorical gunpoint). Just because *I* like that I can get workalike functionality of thousands of $$s of software, doesn't mean I should force people to use it. Free will rules. Of course, government should *want* to use free software anyway, to save our money. But don't force them.
If you don't want to use free software, fine, but government information is public property. This means that is should be stored in a manner in which it will be accessible to ALL of the public.
The government's business is not to support Microsoft, it is to provide the greatest possible benefit to the people of America.
Look at it this way. Consider how much the gov't must spend a year on MS Office. If they were to use that money instead to hire programmers to actively develop and support OO for their needs, they would get a product better tailored to their needs and the rest of the country gets a great office suite for free.
And don't try to say this is bad because it competes with industry/Microsoft. It is actually bad for the economy for the gov't to support MS if there is an alternative which creates more value for the same amount of money.
Look, the gov't is special. They should be able to guarantee that they can retrive today's data in 100 years if they need to. They only way for them to do that is to have the source code for all the apps they use. You aren't obligated to be able to do that, so it doesn't really matter than much what software you use. You aren't storing any data that's my property.
Replacing SDRAM (or RAMBUS or whatever) with some type of NVRAM will require a whole new approach to security. Otherwise, when you go home at night, what's to stop me from booting your computer (off a CD or floppy if it's reasonably secure), or rebooting it if you left it running but locked, and running an app that allocates a couple gigs of memory without initializing it then lets me browse it?
Technically, you're right. If someone wanted real security, they would have to make some changes to the OS&Apps and/or system acritecture.
But really, you have to look at the reality of your system right now. Unless your disk is encrypted, and you need something like a smartcard to access the data, you're hosed if someone gets physical access to your machine even once.
There's nothing that stops them popping open your case or booting from CD and copying your whole HD onto their Ipod or whatever. Even if the important bit of info they want is your password, they can always install a keylogger, and have that send them an email with your password (or even post is to a messageboard somewhere, just to aviod being traced).
Actually, I'm willing to state a stronger case. You are screwed if someone can get (unsupervised) physical access to your machine. Period. Even if you encrypt everything. There are so many clever things someone could do to your system in order to get your data that you just could never know you're safe.
I mean, even if you have the system wipe passwords from this new RAM on power down, it won't protect you. I could just open up your case, and stop the clock. All of a sudden, none of that stuff designed to wipe your data is working. I can then hook a logic analyzier and pattern generator up to your RAM, and just read out all your data. If your system wipes its RAM too frequently for that, I could just have an ASIC fabbed and put in on a little board which plugs in between your motherboard, and your RAM.
The only way to stop this is to basically turn your RAM into and uber-smartcard, but even then, it's possible to hack a smartcard too.
I guess my point is your thoughts are basically academic. Yes, this tecnology would add another way to exploit physical access to a PC, but there are already so many of those that I really don't think it matters. The only way you're going to get real security from someone with physical access to the system is to encrypt all chip-to-chip interconnections, and use whatever neat packaging technology the military uses for the chips in its military GPS units. Not very likely to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of improved apps....did you know that Sharp just yesterday released a ROM update for the Zaurus?
As the ex-owner of a Psion Revo+ (replaced with a Zaurus), I will say that I expect symbian to dominate the cellphone market.
The Symbian OS (formerly known as EPOC) was designed from the ground up for small devices with small screens. Even the older version that my Revo ran was more feature-rich and polished than any other PDA OS I've touched. Most importantly (for cellphone use) the OS itself was rock solid. I can't remember a single time when I was forced to reboot.
Simply put, Microsoft is offering too little, too late. Most of the major cellphone manufacturers has signed on for Symbian.
I see the ISP more like the phone company. You don't blame the phone company because people can trade kiddie porn or plot crimes or terrorism over the phone.
You don't blame them if they don't know about it. Once they've been informed that someone has been placing 500 prank calls/day or whatever, and they refuse to do anything, it's perfectly reasonable to blame them.
I don't know of any blacklist that adds ISPs simply because one or two spams have come from their network. The ISP has to refuse to stop known spammers in order to end up on the list (usually).
Why don't we just create a system where we all only accept mail that has been PGP encrypted with our public keys? That way spammers will have to burn through a whole lot of clock cycles to get their crap out and as an added benefit, we will get a bit more privacy.
:)
There's only one major problem with this:
Mailing lists.
The solution is to allow for whitelisting of emails, if they have been signed with the proper key. This way LKML doesn't have to encrypt one email a gazillion times, but can instead rely on signing a single message, and sending the same message a gazillion times.
Ideally all mail would be PGP-encrypted and signed, allowing this to be done for other sources as well.
Other than that, the idea is fine.
Now all you have to do is get everyone to implement it
I bet they would be laughed out of court.
Come on. Mod this up already.
I just have t say that I completely agree.
Where do you set books? Where do you put paper?
Maybe if there was a tablet the size of one of those old-style wacom tablet that you could use to set things on, and enter notes into a virtual labnotebook......
You still need some damned shelves and a table somewhere though.
Don't know about you, but the time it takes to test would be worth more to me than the difference in price between an MP and an XP.
Me too. But say you had the opportunity to save $60 by buying pre-modded, tested XP chips, might be woth it then right?
As a single person project, I don't see this going anywhere. As a collaboration between a large group of people, sharing their results, or as a company selling modded chips, I think it has a chance.
Even if you test the same system with MPs and XPs (as I said, something which rather defeats the purpose of saving money), you still don't know whether you just happened to have a good set of XPs, or if you failed to find the test case that would show up problems with them.
Come on now. Are you trying to say it's impossible to test to see if chips are operating properly? Look... say you run into an error using the modded chips. Your next step is to be able to consistently reproduce this error. Then you drop in your MPs and go through the steps which always reproduce the error. Testing will tell you what the cause of your problems are, if you actually do it right.
Look. It's possible to do all the testing necessary to know if this is going to work. It just is. There may be questions as to how difficult it will be to do so, but you can't expect anyone to believe that it just can't be done.
Er... you're failing to refute what I said. If you run into obscure problems, then you have no way of determining the cause if you've used this hack.
You quoted what refutes this statement: "There's a simple solution. Test with both modded XPs and regular MPs."
If you've tested a particular pair of hacked XPs and they appear to work, well done - it doesn't mean that the same hack will always work
Maybe. I don't know. It sounds like this is something that needs to be tested.
rather defeats the point of this hack (i.e. to get a cheap SMP system) if you have to test with MPs anyway
But what if you're building more than one system? There are companies the do a good business selling modded/overclocked chips. My video card (A Gainward GF2Ti Golden Sample) shipped overclocked, and was guaranteed to run overclocked. There's always room for some company to come in and make the connection on XPs, test them, and resell them in cheap SMP systems.
Guess what? You can't guarantee they'll work - people on LKML have refused to help users who have done this, as it simply makes it impossible to determine whether problems are the fault of the kernel or of the CPU itself.
Bah. You don't know anything for sure, neither to these LKML people. They're just trying to eliminate unknow quantities from their debugging (not like I blame them). For all we know right now (being that the article is slashdotted) there is no difference between the XP and MP except a jumper setting. I honestly wouldn't be suprised if it's true. Why go through all the trouble to fab seperate chips when you can just use external jumpers?
This wouldn't be the first time someone could upgrade their hardware by connecting two contacts.
What really matters is determining if there is any actual difference between an XP and an MP. If there is none, then this isn't just for "the overclockers who couldn't care less about stability". There are plenty of others who would love to save $40/cpu.
Since you don't know either way. You're not really contributing much to the discussion. Yeah, without any testing I wouldn't use a modded chip for critical data, but it's not impossible to verify whether or not the modded chip is stable. "it simply makes it impossible to determine whether problems are the fault of the kernel or of the CPU itself" No, it doesn't. There's a simple solution. Test with both modded XPs and regular MPs.
What needs to happen is testing. Without that, we don't really know how useful this mod will be.
Until 9/11, you would've said the same thing about airplanes flying into buildings.
Nope, not really. It's not like 9/11 was the first time a plane was ever hijacked. Know what I have?
A poster with the WTC bombing on one side and the Air France hijacking on the other side. It was produced by the US government prior to 9/11.
9/11 exploited a flaw in policy. It doesn't require much of a stretch of the imagination that someone who hijacks a plane could be suicidal, yet our policy was not to resist the hijacker. It's not like 100 people couldn't have kicked the ass of a few guys with box cutters.
I'm also rather skeptical of the statement that it will take infinite resources to clog the Post Office
You should be. But I never said that. I said all those companies that send out free catalogs don't have infinate resources. Big difference. The point is that an attack of this type can only be of very limited proportions. It won't take long before AOL notices that it is sending 2/3 of it's CDs to Somewhere, Somestate. It does cost them money to procude them.
If inserting the word 'terrorism' is the only way things get done these days, so be it.
Not for me. When someone tries to tie terroism to something silly, they look like an idiot. If you really think fear-mongering is a valid way of getting things done, that's a real shame.
Now, if the RIAA were to hack into your computer an access data, that would be another thing, though stupid claims about your data being worth $1/kb (Not even Oracle costs that much) will label you as an idiot for the court.
The RIAA seemed to get away with it.
Right for some people wired phones are no longer the best option. That's a far cry from them being completely replaced though.
For some people cellphones are the best choice. For some they aren't. As long as there isn't a better technology in place that offers every advantage the wired phones do, they can't really be considered obsolete.
Rubin isn't proposing that we ban anything.
Way to miss the point.
He's simply pointing out that such possibilities exist. Security experts are paid to think up of unlikely, yet problematic scenarios, and he's doing exactly that. His statement WAS insightful, and doesn't all have to do with terrorism, but rather with disruption of service (which is one of the subheaders of terrorism).
I don't think his statement was insightful. As I said, it reqires extreme strteches of the imagination just to even come up with a scenario where this could become a real problem. Using bulk mail to clog the USPS is not likely to happen. It's not as if the companies have infinate resources and are going to send out an infinate number of catalogs, with no checking. The whole idea is just silly fear-mongering.
This reeks of an "Oh, well maybe if I can figure out a way to associate this with terrorism people will pay attention." line of thinking.
Anyway, point being the man was simply making a true statement.
Yeah, because the USPS is clogged by terrorist junk mail as we speak.
Security experts are paid to think or scenarios that could actually happen. They aren't paid to think of things like: "Wait...I got one! What if the terrorists start calling everyone up on the phone, every time they try and get some work done! It could bring our nation's economy to a standstill."
First the script you mention does not exist. The reason this attack actually worked on the spammer is bacuse of a HUGE number of people who signed this guy up for crap BY HAND.
Second, creating such a script would be incerdibly time comsuming. Each site that lets you submit catalog requests, etc does it in a different way.
Third, all those requests would be coming from one IP address.
Even if such a script were to be created, it would be possible to sue anyone using it. Right now its saftey in numbers. He can't possibly go after everyone, and even if he did, a judge is going to wonder if maybe he did do something to deserve it. This won't be the same for a single person attack.
You missed the point here. The problem is not spam email, its a DOS attack using snail mail which damages both the target and the bulk mailers.
Nope. The problems is spammers. The "target" of that DOS attack you're talking about is a spammer. Do you think this is a coincidence or something?
What you see as a problem, I don't really see as one. Replace "target" with "spammer" and you get:
The problem is not spam email, its a DOS attack using snail mail which damages both the spammer and the bulk mailers.
Sounds like killing two birds with one stone to me. What's the problem again?
or even worse, to serve as a diversion for a terrorist act, such as the mailing of a contaminated letter.'
God damn. This just makes me want to punch him in the face. Why the fuck does everyone always have to bring terrorism into everything? Ever since 9/11 we have had idiots, making comments like this about EVERYTHING. I am so sick of it.
This guy's statement require ridiculous stretches of the imagination of one to even think of a way it might benefit a terrorist. I mean, seriously, use some common sense here. If you're trying to send someone a letter full of anthrax, you want it to actually get there.
Yes, terrorists could use cars too. Maybe we should ban cars! That way a terrorist can't get his hands on a car and start running people over. Just imagine how many people he could kill by driving down a busy sidewalk! We better hurry!
Then we'll have to ban chair-lifts too. Imagine how many people would be injured or killed if someone cut the cable! We can't have that, now can we?
Ya know, they used fertilizer to make that there Oklahoma City bomb. We better get rid of fertilizer too.
But wait! That still leaves arson! We better make matches a restricted item. Can't have a terrorist going around burning down houses, no can we?
This kind of moronic reasoning makes me want to get this guy alone and "exploit the automation properties" of a few choice power tools.
See! Power tools can be used for evil! Better get rid of those too. Never mind that the benefit they provide to society far outweighs the cost. Never mind that this is supposed to be a "free" society. Won't someone please think of the terrorists?
Currently there is nothign to secure wi-fi connections,
Yes there is. SSH/IPsec/SSL/whatever. There are plenty of ways. The whole problem is that people just don't do anything to protect their privacy.
Wireless networks should be treated as just another unsecured network, like the internet itself. Since you're most likely using 802.11? to connect to the internet, you already have all that stuff set up don't you?
The problem isnt the traffic being sniffed...i can fix that with a simple ssh tunnel...my problem is with the machine authentication...its basicly a clear text (well not quite...but from a security stand point it basiclly is) protocol
So is wired ethernet, I can lie about my MAC address. Use IPsec. There's nothing that prevents you from using it on a wireless LAN. All this stuff can be and should be dealt with in software. This way, you don't have to create new hardware standards and throw out tons of equipment.
I really cant say i think wi-fi is ready for this
Wi-fi is ready. It does the job it needs to. Security can easily be implemented on top of it. It the exact security software you'd like doesn't exist yet, it's not a wi-fi problem, it's a software problem.
This is a last attempt by independent business units to make pay phones viable. The fact is that pay phones are very obsolete technology but very expensive to maintain. The business units responsible for them need to find SOME way to survive but ultimately they are a decade behind the curve..
Payphones are no more obsolete than your home phone.
I don't understand some people's obsession with new technology ONLY. There are good reasons to keep pay phones around, just like there are good reasons to keep the existing phone system.
Personally, I'm dying to get both wired and wireless VOIP, but it's just not here yet. Since it's not, I'll keep using my wired "obsolete" phone. The only problem is when I talk to people on cell phones I have to keep going "What? What did you say? I can't hear you?". There is no technology out there right now that is sufficiently developed to completely replace wired phones.
The way I would do is to sue them for a DOS attack.
If you could show that the traffic they were generating is crippling your ability to download linux ISO's you would probably have a very valid case. They are, after all, intentionally broadcasting data designed to interfere with the network's operation. This should easily fall under the jurisdiction of anti-DOS laws.
But for this very reason, more advanced math can't be used. While many students are given the opportunity to excel, others are held back by circumstance. This could only widen the gulf between the scores of privledged and underprivledged students even further.
Tests like the SATs are supposed to test both you raw abilities, and your level of achievement. This what they should be designed for. You're saying, "Oh, well that discriminates against those who haven't had opportunities." Of course it does. Those people aren't as well educated. The just haven't had the same opportunities to grow. This isn't a flaw in the test, it's a flaw in our educational system.
Test scores shouldn't be adjusted to "lie" about your performance if you're from a disadvantaged group. The opportunities availible to the group should be adjusted based on the test score.
A test should be a meaningful measure of your abilities. Obviously your performance is going to be affected by the opportunities you've had to prepare of the test.
It was simply that advanced math concepts aren't necessarily required to test for advanced math ability.
I can partially agree with this, but I wouldn't be so sure about it. Either way, I definately don't think the SAT tests for it. I can respect that we of looking at things but I just don't agree.
I think what really needs to be done, is to give up on the whole "one test for everybody" idea. I think the spread of abilities of those who take the test is just to wide to get meaningful results anywhere but the middle.
If I were "King of the World" kids would take periodic subject placement tests. Kids like Gauss could would then be able to move at their pace through the school system. If a kid can handle calculus in 8th grade, he should be able to take it.
As far as the SATs, there would be multiple levels of test for each subject. If your previous test scores indicate that you'll probably get a 500 score on a certain subject, you'd take one test. If you're more likely to get a 700 you would take a different test. Anyone could take whatever test they wanted, but they would be warned that scoring very highly on a lower level test is not necessarily a good as scoring average on a higher level test.
People should be allowed to work up to their potential (and then tested at that level), and that fact that others are underprivileged should not interfere with this.
When I showed up at college, I didn't need the potential to learn X. I needed to already know X so I could take Y. The test shouldn't be a roundabout test of whether I could potentially function at the level required by the program I'm about to enter. It should test whether I can actually function at that level.
If you do not like the license you do not have to purchase and are free to find an alternative.
Right, because you won't need access any data from your old system. You can just throw out all your company's information and start anew.
I get really scared when I start hearing people who believe in freedom so much they are going to force you to be free (at a metaphorical gunpoint). Just because *I* like that I can get workalike functionality of thousands of $$s of software, doesn't mean I should force people to use it. Free will rules. Of course, government should *want* to use free software anyway, to save our money. But don't force them.
If you don't want to use free software, fine, but government information is public property. This means that is should be stored in a manner in which it will be accessible to ALL of the public.
The government's business is not to support Microsoft, it is to provide the greatest possible benefit to the people of America.
Look at it this way. Consider how much the gov't must spend a year on MS Office. If they were to use that money instead to hire programmers to actively develop and support OO for their needs, they would get a product better tailored to their needs and the rest of the country gets a great office suite for free.
And don't try to say this is bad because it competes with industry/Microsoft. It is actually bad for the economy for the gov't to support MS if there is an alternative which creates more value for the same amount of money.
Look, the gov't is special. They should be able to guarantee that they can retrive today's data in 100 years if they need to. They only way for them to do that is to have the source code for all the apps they use. You aren't obligated to be able to do that, so it doesn't really matter than much what software you use. You aren't storing any data that's my property.
Replacing SDRAM (or RAMBUS or whatever) with some type of NVRAM will require a whole new approach to security. Otherwise, when you go home at night, what's to stop me from booting your computer (off a CD or floppy if it's reasonably secure), or rebooting it if you left it running but locked, and running an app that allocates a couple gigs of memory without initializing it then lets me browse it?
Technically, you're right. If someone wanted real security, they would have to make some changes to the OS&Apps and/or system acritecture.
But really, you have to look at the reality of your system right now. Unless your disk is encrypted, and you need something like a smartcard to access the data, you're hosed if someone gets physical access to your machine even once.
There's nothing that stops them popping open your case or booting from CD and copying your whole HD onto their Ipod or whatever. Even if the important bit of info they want is your password, they can always install a keylogger, and have that send them an email with your password (or even post is to a messageboard somewhere, just to aviod being traced).
Actually, I'm willing to state a stronger case. You are screwed if someone can get (unsupervised) physical access to your machine. Period. Even if you encrypt everything. There are so many clever things someone could do to your system in order to get your data that you just could never know you're safe.
I mean, even if you have the system wipe passwords from this new RAM on power down, it won't protect you. I could just open up your case, and stop the clock. All of a sudden, none of that stuff designed to wipe your data is working. I can then hook a logic analyzier and pattern generator up to your RAM, and just read out all your data. If your system wipes its RAM too frequently for that, I could just have an ASIC fabbed and put in on a little board which plugs in between your motherboard, and your RAM.
The only way to stop this is to basically turn your RAM into and uber-smartcard, but even then, it's possible to hack a smartcard too.
I guess my point is your thoughts are basically academic. Yes, this tecnology would add another way to exploit physical access to a PC, but there are already so many of those that I really don't think it matters. The only way you're going to get real security from someone with physical access to the system is to encrypt all chip-to-chip interconnections, and use whatever neat packaging technology the military uses for the chips in its military GPS units. Not very likely to happen.