I suppose you mean to imply that TrueCrypt makes your computer slower. I
suppose that may be true, but I haven't noticed it. TrueCrypt seems to be
very, very well designed.
Note that there are TrueCrypt versions for both Windows XP and Vista,
Mac OS X, and Linux. All are free and open source.
Because my hotkey script contains a password, I've installed AutoHotkey in an encrypted
TrueCrypt container. (A TrueCrypt container is either a file or an entire partition.) So, every time I use a hotkey, the system must get it from
an encrypted file and be decrypted. I don't notice any difference in speed between that and
when AutoHotkey was installed on an unencrypted OS partition.
I've used TrueCrypt for years and had no problems with it. Most
software has numerous shortcomings. The biggest problem I can think of now
with TrueCrypt is that the documentation doesn't explain the/q command line
option very well. That's very minor, a problem not even in the program itself.
(Yes, I suggested a re-write in the TrueCrypt forum, and yes, I offered to do
the re-writing myself.)
I haven't yet experimented with encrypting the entire OS partition. I
have experimented with encrypting an entire data partition; I didn't notice a
speed difference. However, I found that it is better not to encrypt data
partitions, it is easier to make an encrypted container on the data partition.
That's especially true if the container can be the size of one DVD, 4.7
gigabytes, less the space necessary for the unencrypted TrueCrypt software.
Then you can just dismount the container and burn a DVD backup of the
container file and the TrueCrypt software.
TrueCrypt has been 100% reliable for me. There has never been a
hint of a problem that might cause loss of data.
TrueCrypt developers: TrueCrypt is a wonderful gift to the world.
Thanks!
My opinion is that it's necessary that encryption software be open source; I would never
run proprietary encryption software because of the possibility that some rogue
employee installed a back door. Also, the U.S. government believes it can force U.S.
commercial companies to install surveillance functions in both hardware and software; executives and
employees who disagree can be put in prison secretly. I suppose that isn't
done very often, but like everything a government does in secret, there are
unintended consequences. One of the consequences is that in some cases it may
be considered unsafe to use U.S. products. It isn't only the U.S. banking
system that is out of control.
Also, since I mentioned AutoHotkey, I will say that it is excellent,
although the programming language is a bit quirky. My main AutoHotkey script
is now 1563 lines; I use it a lot. It is Windows only.
AutoHotkey is great for Hotkeys and also open source and free. If you
want to run scripts that interact with a Windows GUI as though someone is
moving a mouse and typing at a keyboard, then AutoIt is better.
AutoHotkey and AutoIt co-exist perfectly. The two had a common origin.
TrueCrypt encrypted containers can be formatted as NTFS or FAT file systems.
I haven't tried other file systems. All the Windows file system utilities work perfectly inside TrueCrypt encrypted containers:
Windows Explorer, ChkDsk.exe, FsUtil.exe, Format.com, and Defrag.exe. I've found the free open source
JkDefrag to be a better defragmenter;
it works perfectly inside TrueCrypt containers.
"... its growing the high purity [silicon] crystal that's expensive and very slow."
It's expensive partly because it takes lots of energy to keep the crystal hot for long periods.
The shortage of silicon crystal, if there is a shortage, is due to there not being enough producers and large enough producers. Previously silicon was used for semiconductors, which require far less silicon than large areas of photocells.
Yes, there is a lot of silicon. There is a lot of oxygen. But the silicon is combined with oxygen in sand. The problem is separating the silicon from the oxygen.
"At least this way you get rid of a lot of solid waste..."
Yes, but should this be a worry? "Zymetis has genetically modified a rare, cellulose-eating bacterium to break down and convert cellulose into sugars necessary to make ethanol..."
And: ""It has the ability to break down whole plant material, and it excretes enzymes that break down cellulose,..."
And: "Hutcheson and his colleagues switched on certain genes to increase the activity of these enzymes, and turned off other genes that controlled inhibitory behaviors of the microbe, such as those that tell it to stop feeding."
When the bacteria gets loose, will it attack plants everywhere? During evolution, plants selected cellulose because it is structurally strong and can't be destroyed by bacteria.
Technology Review seems to me to be an advertising, public relations site. It doesn't seem to explore the obvious issues.
'The "them" will "do" what they can to steal an election here and there.'
That seems to be the correct interpretation, that the flaws are deliberate. If there were a few defects and they were corrected immediately, that could be accidental. But we've been discussing Diebold flaws for years. Most Slashdot readers, I'm guessing, would be fired for living with something so buggy.
There is a Diebold ATM machine in Brazil, São Paulo state, that regularly crashes. When it crashes, you can see that it is running Microsoft Windows 98.
That amazes me. It seems that even someone with very little understanding would not use an OS that is known to have literally thousands of vulnerabilities.
Continuing my comment above: Gamespot has a story about the beginning of the case.
Unfortunately, we cannot depend on Slashdot editors to do much research before they post a story.
Here are 10 Microsoft patents. I haven't investigated further, I'm not in a position to be a Slashdot editor, but the descriptions give the impression that what is being patented are obvious extensions of what is already available, or extensions of what should be open standards. They seem to be the kind of "advance" that would be routine when doing new development.
Unfortunately, there is at present a heavy dependence on using U.S. government power to make money. There also seems to be a lot of trolls trolling other trolls.
"I've become convinced that the reason America has been on top is our peculiar form of laziness. We're always looking for a better, smarter, and most of all easier way to do things, and that is precisely where innovation comes from."
MOD PARENT UP. It's interesting what you said about the Indian culture. That is my understanding, also.
Parts of China are doing very, very well. That's partly because of a successful partnership with the U.S., in which products are built to U.S. specifications by Chinese who can hire other Chinese who are willing to turn themselves into manufacturing machines for very little money. It's improvement, but a long ways from a sensible, sustainable way of living.
I didn't intend to cause a controversy. My understanding is that outsourcing is not working well. There is a huge sociological question: Why are some societies more successful financially than others?
Also, to do truly successful research about why women have babies, it is necessary to do research about fundamental issues, such as why do they so often have babies when the outcome is self-destructive for them?
Apparently one reason why sociology research is usually done so poorly is that many people can't consider the questions without becoming upset.
In fact, women often have babies with no consideration of the man. One of the first stories in Jewish literature, which is now also the Christian bible, is of two women, isolated from other people, who got their father drunk so they could have sex with him and get pregnant.
Most people don't handle issues involving conflict well.
How, then, did U.S. society get the money? At one time it was only a poor farming colony.
This is a big issue: Why are some societies very well-developed, and others not? It's not the natural resources of the U.S., because the Japanese culture is well-developed, and Japan has very few natural resources such as metals or oil.
Outsourcing: "Why pay a north american a decent middle class wage
when you can farm science, technology and engineering careers to lower wage
countries?"
My understanding is that outsourcing is not working well. If the less
successful, and therefore cheaper, societies were able to do science work
well, they wouldn't be less successful, would they?
Outsourcing seems to work in the near term only. It was "useful" when
a CEO wanted to show a short-term profit so that he or she could get a big
bonus and retire or go somewhere else.
I sent a message to my bank. I got a nonsensical reply from a person
with an Indian name. The reply was entirely a waste of time. Maybe the
underlying purpose is anti-customer, to discourage people from questioning
anything a bank does. That works only when the banks are in control of the
government, which they seem to be.
Why do women have babies? Often women have babies even though
they have little ability to take care of them. So the theorizing at Cornell is
very limited. The first step would be to understand why women have babies.
Sociology research is rarely scientific. It's mostly wild
guessing.
In my own research, I was able to find many examples of women having
babies when it was definitely not good for the man, for the society, or even
for the woman.
Thanks for the explanation. However, names that require explanation are not good choices for the names of companies.
I remember when I first saw a very poorly drawn, shaky image of an animal and read that it was a Gnu, and read how clever the name was considered to be since it was, they said, "recursive": GNU is Not Unix.
It didn't bother the enthusiasts that most people in the world can't pronounce the name and have never seen a Gnu.
They found someone with artistic ability to make a better image of a GNU, but I've seen no evidence that
anyone with technical knowledge realizes the depth of the self-defeat in choosing an obscure reference to an obscure animal.
To most people the word "caustic" means only "capable of burning, corroding, or dissolving".
Perhaps your Office Depot is run better than others. Office Depot advertised a "Centrino 2" laptop. I went to buy two. I tried one in the store, and discovered that the processor was not Centrino 2, but Pentium mobile. False advertising. I suppose a lot of people bought them and didn't discover until later that what they had was not what was offered.
Circuit City had a bad reputation. If you could buy something somewhere else,
you would probably go there. Now it looks to me as though Office Depot is ODing on the same foolish
management ideas.
It would be interesting if we could
know two things: 1) Exactly how much Office Depot makes by selling overpriced
"protection" plans. 2) How much it will cost Office Depot because of stories
about the company being abusive on Reddit.com, Digg.com, and Slashdot.
That Digg link leads to a New York Times article about the Office Depot CEO. Quoting: "The worst chief
executive of the year was Steve Odland of Office Depot, according to
Glassdoor.com's reviewers. He had an 80 percent disapproval rating."
CEOs in the U.S. often make 475 times the pay of the average person. I suppose it doesn't matter to
many CEOs if the company they are managing dies. The CEOs make millions as fast as
possible, and when the company dies, they retire or do something else.
That isn't honest, I think it is psychologically self-destructive, but
it seems to me that's the way things often are.
Warren Buffett warned about
bank failures in 2003. It was certainly no secret; anyone with any
interest in financial business knew about the problem. Bank executives knew
that what they were doing would be the end of their companies. I suppose they
were making so much money (sometimes $40 million per year) that they didn't
feel it was necessary to care. It was understood, and often discussed even on TV,
that the U.S. taxpayer would pay for any problems that were created; that is
happening exactly the way it was planned.
Yes, exactly: "... you may want to be careful with IP address filtering since that can result in unexpected disadvantages when a local is out traveling."
Don't expect that your users stay in one place.
Do expect that they sometimes travel to other countries.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose you mean to imply that TrueCrypt makes your computer slower. I suppose that may be true, but I haven't noticed it. TrueCrypt seems to be very, very well designed.
/q command line
option very well. That's very minor, a problem not even in the program itself.
(Yes, I suggested a re-write in the TrueCrypt forum, and yes, I offered to do
the re-writing myself.)
Note that there are TrueCrypt versions for both Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux. All are free and open source.
Because my hotkey script contains a password, I've installed AutoHotkey in an encrypted TrueCrypt container. (A TrueCrypt container is either a file or an entire partition.) So, every time I use a hotkey, the system must get it from an encrypted file and be decrypted. I don't notice any difference in speed between that and when AutoHotkey was installed on an unencrypted OS partition.
I've used TrueCrypt for years and had no problems with it. Most software has numerous shortcomings. The biggest problem I can think of now with TrueCrypt is that the documentation doesn't explain the
I haven't yet experimented with encrypting the entire OS partition. I have experimented with encrypting an entire data partition; I didn't notice a speed difference. However, I found that it is better not to encrypt data partitions, it is easier to make an encrypted container on the data partition. That's especially true if the container can be the size of one DVD, 4.7 gigabytes, less the space necessary for the unencrypted TrueCrypt software. Then you can just dismount the container and burn a DVD backup of the container file and the TrueCrypt software.
TrueCrypt has been 100% reliable for me. There has never been a hint of a problem that might cause loss of data.
TrueCrypt developers: TrueCrypt is a wonderful gift to the world. Thanks!
My opinion is that it's necessary that encryption software be open source; I would never run proprietary encryption software because of the possibility that some rogue employee installed a back door. Also, the U.S. government believes it can force U.S. commercial companies to install surveillance functions in both hardware and software; executives and employees who disagree can be put in prison secretly. I suppose that isn't done very often, but like everything a government does in secret, there are unintended consequences. One of the consequences is that in some cases it may be considered unsafe to use U.S. products. It isn't only the U.S. banking system that is out of control.
Also, since I mentioned AutoHotkey, I will say that it is excellent, although the programming language is a bit quirky. My main AutoHotkey script is now 1563 lines; I use it a lot. It is Windows only.
AutoHotkey is great for Hotkeys and also open source and free. If you want to run scripts that interact with a Windows GUI as though someone is moving a mouse and typing at a keyboard, then AutoIt is better. AutoHotkey and AutoIt co-exist perfectly. The two had a common origin.
TrueCrypt encrypted containers can be formatted as NTFS or FAT file systems. I haven't tried other file systems. All the Windows file system utilities work perfectly inside TrueCrypt encrypted containers: Windows Explorer, ChkDsk.exe, FsUtil.exe, Format.com, and Defrag.exe. I've found the free open source JkDefrag to be a better defragmenter; it works perfectly inside TrueCrypt containers.
Truecrypt can encrypt the entire OS partition.
"... its growing the high purity [silicon] crystal that's expensive and very slow."
It's expensive partly because it takes lots of energy to keep the crystal hot for long periods.
The shortage of silicon crystal, if there is a shortage, is due to there not being enough producers and large enough producers. Previously silicon was used for semiconductors, which require far less silicon than large areas of photocells.
Yes, there is a lot of silicon. There is a lot of oxygen. But the silicon is combined with oxygen in sand. The problem is separating the silicon from the oxygen.
"At least this way you get rid of a lot of solid waste..."
Yes, but should this be a worry? "Zymetis has genetically modified a rare, cellulose-eating bacterium to break down and convert cellulose into sugars necessary to make ethanol..."
And: ""It has the ability to break down whole plant material, and it excretes enzymes that break down cellulose,..."
And: "Hutcheson and his colleagues switched on certain genes to increase the activity of these enzymes, and turned off other genes that controlled inhibitory behaviors of the microbe, such as those that tell it to stop feeding."
When the bacteria gets loose, will it attack plants everywhere? During evolution, plants selected cellulose because it is structurally strong and can't be destroyed by bacteria.
Technology Review seems to me to be an advertising, public relations site. It doesn't seem to explore the obvious issues.
'The "them" will "do" what they can to steal an election here and there.'
That seems to be the correct interpretation, that the flaws are deliberate. If there were a few defects and they were corrected immediately, that could be accidental. But we've been discussing Diebold flaws for years. Most Slashdot readers, I'm guessing, would be fired for living with something so buggy.
Diebold changed the name of its unit that sells voting hardware and software to Premier Election Solutions. Don't be confused; it's still Diebold.
Slightly off topic: Is there a compiler for Perl, that is not based on bytecode, and therefore is difficult to decompile?
Funny.
Already Slashdotted, 2009-03-18, 11:36 AM PDT
MOD PARENT UP! First non-cynical comment.
It's good that we have organizations that supervise privacy issues. The issues are far too complicated for an individual to supervise.
There is a Diebold ATM machine in Brazil, São Paulo state, that regularly crashes. When it crashes, you can see that it is running Microsoft Windows 98.
That amazes me. It seems that even someone with very little understanding would not use an OS that is known to have literally thousands of vulnerabilities.
Continuing my comment above: Gamespot has a story about the beginning of the case.
Unfortunately, we cannot depend on Slashdot editors to do much research before they post a story.
Here are 10 Microsoft patents. I haven't investigated further, I'm not in a position to be a Slashdot editor, but the descriptions give the impression that what is being patented are obvious extensions of what is already available, or extensions of what should be open standards. They seem to be the kind of "advance" that would be routine when doing new development.
Unfortunately, there is at present a heavy dependence on using U.S. government power to make money. There also seems to be a lot of trolls trolling other trolls.
Fenner Investments has had other cases of the same nature.
"I've become convinced that the reason America has been on top is our peculiar form of laziness. We're always looking for a better, smarter, and most of all easier way to do things, and that is precisely where innovation comes from."
Very interesting.
MOD PARENT UP. It's interesting what you said about the Indian culture. That is my understanding, also.
Parts of China are doing very, very well. That's partly because of a successful partnership with the U.S., in which products are built to U.S. specifications by Chinese who can hire other Chinese who are willing to turn themselves into manufacturing machines for very little money. It's improvement, but a long ways from a sensible, sustainable way of living.
Wow! My original comment: First step: Understand why women have babies, has 131 comments at present, and is marked "(Score: -1, Troll)". That's got to be some sort of record.
I didn't intend to cause a controversy. My understanding is that outsourcing is not working well. There is a huge sociological question: Why are some societies more successful financially than others?
Also, to do truly successful research about why women have babies, it is necessary to do research about fundamental issues, such as why do they so often have babies when the outcome is self-destructive for them?
Apparently one reason why sociology research is usually done so poorly is that many people can't consider the questions without becoming upset.
In fact, women often have babies with no consideration of the man. One of the first stories in Jewish literature, which is now also the Christian bible, is of two women, isolated from other people, who got their father drunk so they could have sex with him and get pregnant.
Most people don't handle issues involving conflict well.
How, then, did U.S. society get the money? At one time it was only a poor farming colony.
This is a big issue: Why are some societies very well-developed, and others not? It's not the natural resources of the U.S., because the Japanese culture is well-developed, and Japan has very few natural resources such as metals or oil.
Outsourcing: "Why pay a north american a decent middle class wage when you can farm science, technology and engineering careers to lower wage countries?"
My understanding is that outsourcing is not working well. If the less successful, and therefore cheaper, societies were able to do science work well, they wouldn't be less successful, would they?
Outsourcing seems to work in the near term only. It was "useful" when a CEO wanted to show a short-term profit so that he or she could get a big bonus and retire or go somewhere else.
I sent a message to my bank. I got a nonsensical reply from a person with an Indian name. The reply was entirely a waste of time. Maybe the underlying purpose is anti-customer, to discourage people from questioning anything a bank does. That works only when the banks are in control of the government, which they seem to be.
Why do women have babies? Often women have babies even though they have little ability to take care of them. So the theorizing at Cornell is very limited. The first step would be to understand why women have babies.
Sociology research is rarely scientific. It's mostly wild guessing.
In my own research, I was able to find many examples of women having babies when it was definitely not good for the man, for the society, or even for the woman.
Those who make the final decisions to buy a lot of very expensive video cards are unlikely to know that unusual meaning of "caustic".
Thanks for the explanation. However, names that require explanation are not good choices for the names of companies.
I remember when I first saw a very poorly drawn, shaky image of an animal and read that it was a Gnu, and read how clever the name was considered to be since it was, they said, "recursive": GNU is Not Unix.
It didn't bother the enthusiasts that most people in the world can't pronounce the name and have never seen a Gnu.
They found someone with artistic ability to make a better image of a GNU, but I've seen no evidence that anyone with technical knowledge realizes the depth of the self-defeat in choosing an obscure reference to an obscure animal.
To most people the word "caustic" means only "capable of burning, corroding, or dissolving".
"Caustic" Graphics? Would you want to do business with a video company that names itself after a chemical that damages your eyes?
If you are not interested in a story, please don't comment on it.
Perhaps your Office Depot is run better than others. Office Depot advertised a "Centrino 2" laptop. I went to buy two. I tried one in the store, and discovered that the processor was not Centrino 2, but Pentium mobile. False advertising. I suppose a lot of people bought them and didn't discover until later that what they had was not what was offered.
Circuit City had a bad reputation. If you could buy something somewhere else, you would probably go there. Now it looks to me as though Office Depot is ODing on the same foolish management ideas.
It would be interesting if we could know two things: 1) Exactly how much Office Depot makes by selling overpriced "protection" plans. 2) How much it will cost Office Depot because of stories about the company being abusive on Reddit.com, Digg.com, and Slashdot.
That Digg link leads to a New York Times article about the Office Depot CEO. Quoting: "The worst chief executive of the year was Steve Odland of Office Depot, according to Glassdoor.com's reviewers. He had an 80 percent disapproval rating."
CEOs in the U.S. often make 475 times the pay of the average person. I suppose it doesn't matter to many CEOs if the company they are managing dies. The CEOs make millions as fast as possible, and when the company dies, they retire or do something else.
That isn't honest, I think it is psychologically self-destructive, but it seems to me that's the way things often are.
Warren Buffett warned about bank failures in 2003. It was certainly no secret; anyone with any interest in financial business knew about the problem. Bank executives knew that what they were doing would be the end of their companies. I suppose they were making so much money (sometimes $40 million per year) that they didn't feel it was necessary to care. It was understood, and often discussed even on TV, that the U.S. taxpayer would pay for any problems that were created; that is happening exactly the way it was planned.
Yes, exactly: "... you may want to be careful with IP address filtering since that can result in unexpected disadvantages when a local is out traveling."
Don't expect that your users stay in one place.
Do expect that they sometimes travel to other countries.