Flash has been known for its security vulnerabilities, such as this one:
Security hole in Macromedia Flash allows attack through any browser.
By editing the Flash header (SWF), it is possible to run any code on the
computer of a visitor to a web page, according to an eEye Digital
Security Alert. The vulnerability exists in all versions of Flash and in
all browsers that support Flash, making it "... trivial to bypass firewalls
and attack the user at his desktop." eEye
says they found 17 other vulnerabilities in Flash. eEye reported a
previous vulnerability last May.
I've always disliked how Flash tends to
be an advertisement for Flash. Visitors to a page with Flash often get upgrade
notices.
When I read the above security risk announcement, I disabled Flash in Mozilla, and now I often get the Macromedia advertisement: "Click here to get the plugin." Did the owners of those web sites intend to force me to install unsafe software or go elsewhere? No, probably they just trusted a web site builder who knew that flashy graphics is cheaper than useful content.
The problem with one-time keys is that they must be as long as the data to be encrypted.
The encryption chaining with byte-scrambling in between allows unbreakable encryption with only 3 passwords of perhaps 50 digits each. That's much more practical for people who have gigabytes to encrypt.
I noticed that something is going unsaid, though. Breaking a cipher through cryptographic analysis only works if the attacker knows or can guess the algorithm. If data is encrypted and then encrypted again with another algorithm, and in between the bytes are scrambled, no mathematical attack can ever be successful.
This method of encryption does not allow public-key encryption, of course, but it is 100% secure if only the sender and receiver know the encryption and byte-scrambling algorithms.
I'm an American, and I love the U.S. very much. I know that, when someone truly loves something, he or she will not fail to give attention when things go wrong.
A lot of Americans feel the way I do. Most Americans do not understand. TV stations in the U.S. are often owned by companies that also make weapons. TV news here is almost all about how wonderful it is to have a war. The cost is money is never discussed. The number of people killed on the other side is never discussed.
A short history of how the U.S. got into this mess
on
4l-j4z333ra 0wn3d
·
· Score: 2, Informative
From reading the comments, I've realized that few Slashdot commenters
know much about the history that leads to the present war in Iraq. So,
here is a very short recounting. The details given here have been
reported by many reputable news sources. There seems to be no
disagreement about these facts.
All the actions by the U.S. government mentioned here were largely hidden from
U.S. citizens. United States citizens paid the bill, but were mostly unaware
of what their government was doing.
Even though the U.S. government is presently at war with Iraq, only a small percentage of
Americans can find Iraq on a map. It is said that a high percentage support
the U.S. government's war in Iraq, but this is a blind kind of support that
does not mean that there is comprehension.
Thread 1, Iran: Hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew
a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he
wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing
business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the
Shah of Iran, who became very brutal toward his own citizens.
Eventually, people in Iraq overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's
actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence to come.
People in Iran began supporting terrorism against the United States, in
retaliaton for hidden U.S. government interference with the Iranian
government.
To counteract Iranian support of violence against the U.S., the U.S. goverment
began supporting and encouraging Iraq in a war against Iran. This was very
profitable for U.S. weapons manufacturers. Weapons manufacturers in the U.S.
were delivering weapons to Iraq under long-term contracts up until the same
month as the U.S. began war on Iraq the first time.
April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. She said,
"I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know
you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity
to rebuild your country. But we have
no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." [my emphasis]
She also said, "I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait
during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express
no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker
has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. [my emphasis]
Here is a complete transcript of the meeting between the U.S. ambassador and Saddam Hussein. (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspi e.html)
Ambassador Glaspie acted on instructions from Secretary of State James Baker,
as she said. Later, she denied knowing that she was encouraging war.
(Mr. Baker is a friend of George Bush and was later White House Chief
of Staff.)
It is not known why the U.S. government would support Iraq's invasion
of Kuwait. However, in the meeting mentioned above, April Glaspie said,
"We have many Americans who would like to see the price [of oil] go
above $25 because they come from oil-producing states."
The fortune of George H. W. Bush was heavily dependent on oil profits,
and Texas is an oil-producing state. If the U.S. government is
successful at gaining control of Iraq, profits for some companies in
the U.S. will increase enormously because Iraqi oil will be sold
directly to U.S. companies, rather than to Turkish companies, as it is
now.
Thread #2, Afghanistan: There is a huge amount of oil in one of
the countries inland from Afghanistan. However, the only good way to
get the oil to people who would buy it is to build a pipeline through
Afghanistan. The Soviets wanted to get
Yes, exactly. Killing Arabs will make them more friendly.
Other stupid thoughts of the same nature:
1) Americans are real people, killing anyone else is just an adult video game.
2) The rich are better than you. Support their desire to make easy money in
weapons and oil.
3) U.S. government violence is justified. All other violence is immoral.
True thoughts:
Killing is the least socially sophisticated way of solving problems.
What you do comes back to you. The level of fear in the U.S. has risen even
higher. The quality of life has fallen to a new low. People are losing their
jobs as money is sucked into the violence economy.
Throwing away resources on killing other people and destroying their property
makes everyone poorer.
Tomahawk cruise missile: Rich country's car bomb.
A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force.
If you support violence, you are, at least partly, violent person.
The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries in the last 58 years:
Afghanistan 1998
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Cambodia 1969-70
China 1945-46
Congo 1964
Cuba 1959-1961
El Salvador 1980s
Grenada 1983
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69
Indonesia 1958
Iran 1987
Iraq 1991-2000
Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
Kuwait 1991
Laos 1964-73
Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
Exactly. $100 for the hardware, $200 for very friendly, but stupid, Cisco support. They want more than $200 to fix bugs on a DSL router that came free with the DSL service.
The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,000,000 people in the Vietnam war.
The bombing of Cambodia killed a huge number.
I find the arguments credible that the bombing of Cambodia destabilized the
society there, and the U.S. government must take some responsibility for the
deaths of millions after the bombing. But only those killed directly are
included in the 3,000,000. Note that no one in Vietnam or Cambodia ever
directly threatened anyone in the United States. I often heard military people
speculating why the U.S. was in Vietnam. Some said oil. Most said that the
military was tired of waiting so long to have a war to fight.
There have been many "smaller" killings. The U.S. government killed an
estimated 6,000 people in the war in Panama. Remember that? They called it Operation Just
Cause.
It always shocks me when I realize that most people have no idea of the extent
of the violence of the U.S. government.
U.S. government agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI function as a world-wide
secret police force. If they make trouble, they get more attention and
funding. There is a huge conflict of interest.
Big weapons makers in the U.S. like GE own media companies, so they can make
sure that war is seen as necessary and even interesting and fun. For many
people in the U.S. war is an adult video game. They don't really think of the
pain and suffering the U.S. government has caused. The U.S. government has
bombed 14 countries in 35 years and killed more than 3,000,000 people.
U.S. taxpayers pay Israel $900 per year for every man woman and child in
Israel. That money must be used to buy weapons from U.S. weapons makers. So
much money for war tends to prevent peace.
The U.S. interferes with needed governmental change in Saudia Arabia. I don't
think violence is justified. However, Saudi friends have told me that Osama
bin Laden's complaints about the U.S. government are justified.
I find it deeply painful to realize that the government of the U.S. is partly
corrupt.
"Nothing is stopping the next Sun or Microsoft or Oracle or Intel from
sprouting up as a home-grown venture in India, or wherever, given the supposed
incredible talent and work ethics. Why haven't they?"
They haven't because the Indian Hindu culture is, in some ways, one of the
most disfunctional in the world. When a U.S. company hires a Hindu worker, it
usually gets someone who accepts the caste system, for example. The worker
generally has a long history of accepting things the way they are and
overlooking even major defects. (I spelled the word "disfunctional" because I
don't like the original spelling.)
Remember that most heads of technically oriented companies are not technically
knowledgeable enough to know whether a programmer is doing a good job. They
hire on the basis of price and a little understanding.
What hasn't become apparent to the companies that hire Indian programmers is
that they aren't getting the same quality of work as they would from U.S.
citizens. Good programming requires someone who constantly asks whether what
he or she is doing makes sense. Good programming requires constant creativity.
There are, of course, many Indian programmers who are excellent in every way.
But most are the followers that their culture requires them to be.
The result is that programs are being written that will have to be re-written,
and much sooner than they would if they were done by programmers from a
culture that prizes independent thinking. The real cost of Indian programmers
is higher than U.S. programmers, not lower.
The U.S. has been through something like this before. In the early 70's it
became fashionable in the U.S. to hire PhDs. The reasoning was that better
educated people would be better employees. But, after about 12 or 15 years,
companies realized that people who had PhDs were often robotic crank-turners.
Sure, some PhDs were interested in education, but most had just put in their
time getting an advanced degree. The policy of hiring PhDs brought about some spectacular failures; they often did not have sufficient knowledge outside a narrow field.
Most math writers are terrible writers.
on
Imagining Numbers
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"It did no good, he said, to just start plowing through the theorems because that brought confusion. The key was to skim the book five or six times to get an idea of what the writer was trying to do."
I agree with this advice. However, it wouldn't be this way if math writers were good writers. I have never seen a math book in which the author did all that could be done to make the subject clear. Maybe subconsciously they don't really want you to know what they know. Mathemeticians did not get into the field because they like people.
Just to give an accurate picture, I should say that New Zealand is the most beautiful country in the world. It has every beautiful geographical feature found in other countries: Mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, hot springs, flat savannas with lazy rivers, rushing streams, fjords, hills with wild wheat grass and occasional oak trees like in California, tropical islands, a small desert, and other features I can't remember now.
Slashdot Mirror
Flash has been known for its security vulnerabilities, such as this one:
Security hole in Macromedia Flash allows attack through any browser.
By editing the Flash header (SWF), it is possible to run any code on the computer of a visitor to a web page, according to an eEye Digital Security Alert. The vulnerability exists in all versions of Flash and in all browsers that support Flash, making it "... trivial to bypass firewalls and attack the user at his desktop." eEye says they found 17 other vulnerabilities in Flash. eEye reported a previous vulnerability last May.
I've always disliked how Flash tends to be an advertisement for Flash. Visitors to a page with Flash often get upgrade notices.
When I read the above security risk announcement, I disabled Flash in Mozilla, and now I often get the Macromedia advertisement: "Click here to get the plugin." Did the owners of those web sites intend to force me to install unsafe software or go elsewhere? No, probably they just trusted a web site builder who knew that flashy graphics is cheaper than useful content.
The problem with one-time keys is that they must be as long as the data to be encrypted.
The encryption chaining with byte-scrambling in between allows unbreakable encryption with only 3 passwords of perhaps 50 digits each. That's much more practical for people who have gigabytes to encrypt.
I very much liked reading the interview.
I noticed that something is going unsaid, though. Breaking a cipher through cryptographic analysis only works if the attacker knows or can guess the algorithm. If data is encrypted and then encrypted again with another algorithm, and in between the bytes are scrambled, no mathematical attack can ever be successful.
This method of encryption does not allow public-key encryption, of course, but it is 100% secure if only the sender and receiver know the encryption and byte-scrambling algorithms.
LOL. Funny!!!! Mod parent up!!!!
Thanks for the thanks. No negative mods yet.
I'm an American, and I love the U.S. very much. I know that, when someone truly loves something, he or she will not fail to give attention when things go wrong.
A lot of Americans feel the way I do. Most Americans do not understand. TV stations in the U.S. are often owned by companies that also make weapons. TV news here is almost all about how wonderful it is to have a war. The cost is money is never discussed. The number of people killed on the other side is never discussed.
From reading the comments, I've realized that few Slashdot commenters know much about the history that leads to the present war in Iraq. So, here is a very short recounting. The details given here have been reported by many reputable news sources. There seems to be no disagreement about these facts.
All the actions by the U.S. government mentioned here were largely hidden from U.S. citizens. United States citizens paid the bill, but were mostly unaware of what their government was doing. Even though the U.S. government is presently at war with Iraq, only a small percentage of Americans can find Iraq on a map. It is said that a high percentage support the U.S. government's war in Iraq, but this is a blind kind of support that does not mean that there is comprehension.
Thread 1, Iran: Hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, the Shah of Iran, who became very brutal toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iraq overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence to come.
People in Iran began supporting terrorism against the United States, in retaliaton for hidden U.S. government interference with the Iranian government.
To counteract Iranian support of violence against the U.S., the U.S. goverment began supporting and encouraging Iraq in a war against Iran. This was very profitable for U.S. weapons manufacturers. Weapons manufacturers in the U.S. were delivering weapons to Iraq under long-term contracts up until the same month as the U.S. began war on Iraq the first time.
April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. She said,
"I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." [my emphasis]
She also said, "I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. [my emphasis]
Here is a complete transcript of the meeting between the U.S. ambassador and Saddam Hussein. (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspi e.html)
Ambassador Glaspie acted on instructions from Secretary of State James Baker, as she said. Later, she denied knowing that she was encouraging war. (Mr. Baker is a friend of George Bush and was later White House Chief of Staff.)
It is not known why the U.S. government would support Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. However, in the meeting mentioned above, April Glaspie said, "We have many Americans who would like to see the price [of oil] go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states."
The fortune of George H. W. Bush was heavily dependent on oil profits, and Texas is an oil-producing state. If the U.S. government is successful at gaining control of Iraq, profits for some companies in the U.S. will increase enormously because Iraqi oil will be sold directly to U.S. companies, rather than to Turkish companies, as it is now.
Thread #2, Afghanistan: There is a huge amount of oil in one of the countries inland from Afghanistan. However, the only good way to get the oil to people who would buy it is to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. The Soviets wanted to get
Statue of Liberty if the U.S. loses. From a New Zealand anti-war protest.
New York city if the U.S. loses. From a New Zealand anti-war protest.
Microsoft Windows if the U.S. loses the war: MS Windows if the U.S. loses.
What if the U.S. loses? I happen to have a photo: G. W. Bush if the U.S. loses.
Yes, exactly. Killing Arabs will make them more friendly.
Other stupid thoughts of the same nature:
1) Americans are real people, killing anyone else is just an adult video game.
2) The rich are better than you. Support their desire to make easy money in weapons and oil.
3) U.S. government violence is justified. All other violence is immoral.
True thoughts:
Killing is the least socially sophisticated way of solving problems.
What you do comes back to you. The level of fear in the U.S. has risen even higher. The quality of life has fallen to a new low. People are losing their jobs as money is sucked into the violence economy.
Throwing away resources on killing other people and destroying their property makes everyone poorer.
Tomahawk cruise missile: Rich country's car bomb.
A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force.
If you support violence, you are, at least partly, violent person.
The U.S. government has bombed 24 countries in the last 58 years:
- Afghanistan 1998
- Bosnia 1994, 1995
- Cambodia 1969-70
- China 1945-46
- Congo 1964
- Cuba 1959-1961
- El Salvador 1980s
- Grenada 1983
- Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69
- Indonesia 1958
- Iran 1987
- Iraq 1991-2000
- Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
- Kuwait 1991
- Laos 1964-73
- Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
- Libya 1986
- Nicaragua 1980s
- Panama 1989
- Peru 1965
- Somalia 1993
- Sudan 1998
- Vietnam 1961-73
- Yugoslavia 1999
Source: Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only SuperpowerYes, but, if you want to fix the published security bugs in a Cisco 675, you have to pay $245 to Cisco support.
Exactly. $100 for the hardware, $200 for very friendly, but stupid, Cisco support. They want more than $200 to fix bugs on a DSL router that came free with the DSL service.
The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,000,000 people in the Vietnam war. The bombing of Cambodia killed a huge number.
I find the arguments credible that the bombing of Cambodia destabilized the society there, and the U.S. government must take some responsibility for the deaths of millions after the bombing. But only those killed directly are included in the 3,000,000. Note that no one in Vietnam or Cambodia ever directly threatened anyone in the United States. I often heard military people speculating why the U.S. was in Vietnam. Some said oil. Most said that the military was tired of waiting so long to have a war to fight.
There have been many "smaller" killings. The U.S. government killed an estimated 6,000 people in the war in Panama. Remember that? They called it Operation Just Cause.
It always shocks me when I realize that most people have no idea of the extent of the violence of the U.S. government.
For more about this, see a comment in this story by someone else: #5552921. The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries. Note that some of the information is from a U.S. government web site.
For links to stories about how hidden elements of the U.S. government sell everyone else on war, see What should be the Response to Violence?
U.S. government agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI function as a world-wide secret police force. If they make trouble, they get more attention and funding. There is a huge conflict of interest.
Big weapons makers in the U.S. like GE own media companies, so they can make sure that war is seen as necessary and even interesting and fun. For many people in the U.S. war is an adult video game. They don't really think of the pain and suffering the U.S. government has caused. The U.S. government has bombed 14 countries in 35 years and killed more than 3,000,000 people.
U.S. taxpayers pay Israel $900 per year for every man woman and child in Israel. That money must be used to buy weapons from U.S. weapons makers. So much money for war tends to prevent peace.
The U.S. interferes with needed governmental change in Saudia Arabia. I don't think violence is justified. However, Saudi friends have told me that Osama bin Laden's complaints about the U.S. government are justified.
I find it deeply painful to realize that the government of the U.S. is partly corrupt.
"Nothing is stopping the next Sun or Microsoft or Oracle or Intel from sprouting up as a home-grown venture in India, or wherever, given the supposed incredible talent and work ethics. Why haven't they?"
They haven't because the Indian Hindu culture is, in some ways, one of the most disfunctional in the world. When a U.S. company hires a Hindu worker, it usually gets someone who accepts the caste system, for example. The worker generally has a long history of accepting things the way they are and overlooking even major defects. (I spelled the word "disfunctional" because I don't like the original spelling.)
Remember that most heads of technically oriented companies are not technically knowledgeable enough to know whether a programmer is doing a good job. They hire on the basis of price and a little understanding.
What hasn't become apparent to the companies that hire Indian programmers is that they aren't getting the same quality of work as they would from U.S. citizens. Good programming requires someone who constantly asks whether what he or she is doing makes sense. Good programming requires constant creativity.
There are, of course, many Indian programmers who are excellent in every way. But most are the followers that their culture requires them to be.
The result is that programs are being written that will have to be re-written, and much sooner than they would if they were done by programmers from a culture that prizes independent thinking. The real cost of Indian programmers is higher than U.S. programmers, not lower.
The U.S. has been through something like this before. In the early 70's it became fashionable in the U.S. to hire PhDs. The reasoning was that better educated people would be better employees. But, after about 12 or 15 years, companies realized that people who had PhDs were often robotic crank-turners. Sure, some PhDs were interested in education, but most had just put in their time getting an advanced degree. The policy of hiring PhDs brought about some spectacular failures; they often did not have sufficient knowledge outside a narrow field.
We are seeing a wave of self-destruction in the United States. The U.S. government has killed perhaps 3,000,000 people and bombed 14 countries in the last 35 years. (See What should be the Response to Violence?.) United States companies are destroying themselves. (Microsoft is, for example, driving people to Linux by annoying its customers: Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going.) The U.S. is becoming a country in which law is disregarded and disrepected. (See Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.)
"It did no good, he said, to just start plowing through the theorems because that brought confusion. The key was to skim the book five or six times to get an idea of what the writer was trying to do."
I agree with this advice. However, it wouldn't be this way if math writers were good writers. I have never seen a math book in which the author did all that could be done to make the subject clear. Maybe subconsciously they don't really want you to know what they know. Mathemeticians did not get into the field because they like people.
My experience is that Windows XP does not crash, but it does become unusable if you load so many programs that you begin using virtual memory. See Windows XP Shows the Direction Microsoft is Going..
Treat everyone like a criminal because some people are criminals?
Just to give an accurate picture, I should say that New Zealand is the most beautiful country in the world. It has every beautiful geographical feature found in other countries: Mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, hot springs, flat savannas with lazy rivers, rushing streams, fjords, hills with wild wheat grass and occasional oak trees like in California, tropical islands, a small desert, and other features I can't remember now.
After counting all those sheep, they must have been very, very sleepy.
12 sheep for every person in N.Z.
But they aren't allowed to vote.
Relevant fact: The population of N.Z. is about 4,000,000.
By messing with its customers, Intuit is heavily marketing the competitor's product, TaxCut.
Technically oriented people are sometimes amazing for their lack of insight into marketing.
It's, "Work hard for years, destroy it all in an afternoon with bad public relations."