At first, the concept of a global authentication system seems great. We all have too many passwords to remember, the idea behind Passport seems great.
But in reality, there isn't anyone who is secure enough, trustworthy enough, powerful enough and smart enough to pull off a system that would work and would be trusted.
You need to have the strength and power to be able to build such a system, and with those, trust invariably goes out of the window.
So for now I'll keep all my passwords in my brain, and pay the price of my mistrust.
Yep, just like that other NASA falsehood that the Spirit rover dug the first artificial hole in Mars recently, when we know that the European Beagle lander did that late last year.
Jolyon
Sort out their indexing problems first
on
Google's Bigger Index
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I do hope they manage to sort out their recent indexing problems first. For many searches altavista is now showing far better relevent result searches than google - since their attempted cull of 'spam' sites last december which kind of backfired. They have improved things this year, but the quality of their search results is not as good as it was last year. Now, they need to figure out how to get rid of all the useless sites that are just shopping directories full of espotting URLs and similar and with no real content. Funnily enough, their anti-spamsite code seemed to actually promote these up the rankings on many search terms, while penalising many sites containing genuine content.
Many people said that Google were using deliberate tactics to encourage small e-commerce websites to spend more on adwords, but I believe this wasn't deliberate - their index is so big that they simply can't tell what the results of their changes are going to do to the search orders for all the search options that people are going to use - and they simply didn't realise in advance the problems they were going to cause. And google have made efforts to minimise the damage since then, but they still need to do more.
Too many of the new lego products have so few generic bricks and too many specialist bricks that can't easily be used for other things, eg, you can build a lego buggy into, um, a slightly different buggy, but not a lot else.
Get back to providing big bags of ordinary bricks, and encourage creativity!
If you're in the UK and receive junk sales faxes, then you can block 99.9% of them by registering with the Fax Preference Services at www.fpsonline.org.uk.
After 1 May 1999 it became illegal to send faxes to individuals without prior consent, and businesses have the right to 'opt-out', which is what this list manages. I used to get dozens of junk faxes a week, after registering in August 2001 I have had no more than 2 or 3, so it definately works - although it takes 3-4 weeks for the block to become active.
Obviously, as it's a marketing industry-run scheme (which they had to do to prevent government-enforced action), they don't go out of their way to advertise this list, but it does work.
All single-format recorders, such as +RW drives, are effectively end-of-line items, so Dell can buy up inventories at knock-down prices. If they could have got -RW at a buck cheaper, they'd have gone that way, there is no other reason!
Jolyon
It must be hard to go through hundreds of thousands of documents looking for prior art. look how hard it is sometimes for the slashdot editors to read through a couple of plages to look for previous posts of the same story:) (and yes, I know this story is ok)
Yep, you'll be able to quite easily prove that the pr0n was never on your computer - the problem is that you'll have to wait until *after* the authorities have broken down your door at 6am and taken away all your computers for analysis.... And persuading your ISP to let you re-register as a customer once they've cut off your account.
It doesn't matter how easy to break a new system is, it's better than having no security.
I recently took my laptop on a trip across Toronto and in a couple of hours spotted around 60 wireless networks. Around 80% had NO encryption enabled at all. And yes, the most common SSIDs are 'default' and 'linksys'.
So make a system more complex and people won't use it - which defeats the whole object of it.
Well, this kind of thing will happen when you have a system where you have to pay for the airtime to receive calls. In the UK, we pay nothing to receive calls on mobile (excepting ongoing costs of the line rental of course), it costs more for a caller to call a mobile number than it does to call a land line, which is how it should be. If someone wants to call me on my mobile, I expect them to pay for it, especially if they're trying to sell something.
The system in the UK also relies on mobile numbers being easily identifiable, and they all start with 07... so you know when you're calling a normal line (starts with 01... or 02...) or a mobile, otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the caller.
Wait - Microsoft are going to be the first browser developers to release the new innovative "Do you want to run this plugin? [OK]" pop-up technology! They're way ahead of the game!
Reading back my own comment I realise I forgot about the possiblity of pawn promotion. Doh!
I guess you'll have to calculate it the expensive way after all.
Jolyon
Well, you could store each chessboard as the positions of each of the 32 pieces - that's 3 bits for X and 3 bits for Y position, plus another bit to state whether the piece is in play or not. 32 times 7 bits = 224 bits rather than 256.
Not that it will make a great any difference to the outcome, although if someone did try they would be pleased to know that they had saved about 1x10^126 Joules, which should reduce their electricity bill somewhat.
No, no crappy joke this time..
I for one enjoy playing violent games, in particular Grand Theft Auto Vice City... but if I had kids old enough to use a console, even as teenagers, I'd be very reluctant to let them play such a game. Am i a hypocrite?
Slashdot Mirror
Is it too late to raise comments now?
Particularly nauseating fact from this case was the company who proudly boasted "we are experts in drug cases" on the envelope.
Still, you shouldn't expect any more from these pond life.
Jolyon
At first, the concept of a global authentication system seems great. We all have too many passwords to remember, the idea behind Passport seems great.
But in reality, there isn't anyone who is secure enough, trustworthy enough, powerful enough and smart enough to pull off a system that would work and would be trusted.
You need to have the strength and power to be able to build such a system, and with those, trust invariably goes out of the window.
So for now I'll keep all my passwords in my brain, and pay the price of my mistrust.
Jolyon
Yep, just like that other NASA falsehood that the Spirit rover dug the first artificial hole in Mars recently, when we know that the European Beagle lander did that late last year.
Jolyon
I do hope they manage to sort out their recent indexing problems first. For many searches altavista is now showing far better relevent result searches than google - since their attempted cull of 'spam' sites last december which kind of backfired. They have improved things this year, but the quality of their search results is not as good as it was last year. Now, they need to figure out how to get rid of all the useless sites that are just shopping directories full of espotting URLs and similar and with no real content. Funnily enough, their anti-spamsite code seemed to actually promote these up the rankings on many search terms, while penalising many sites containing genuine content.
Many people said that Google were using deliberate tactics to encourage small e-commerce websites to spend more on adwords, but I believe this wasn't deliberate - their index is so big that they simply can't tell what the results of their changes are going to do to the search orders for all the search options that people are going to use - and they simply didn't realise in advance the problems they were going to cause. And google have made efforts to minimise the damage since then, but they still need to do more.
Jolyon
I agree with you, and I'm not the only one
Go to http://news.bbc.co.uk, and type in
shit movie
into the search box and see what comes up
Jolyon
The third world are not that stupid. They know what accepting these microsoft hand-outs would mean.
Microsoft are acting just the same as the drug dealer offering the first fix for free.
Jolyon
Too many of the new lego products have so few generic bricks and too many specialist bricks that can't easily be used for other things, eg, you can build a lego buggy into, um, a slightly different buggy, but not a lot else.
Get back to providing big bags of ordinary bricks, and encourage creativity!
Jolyon
If you're in the UK and receive junk sales faxes, then you can block 99.9% of them by registering with the Fax Preference Services at www.fpsonline.org.uk.
After 1 May 1999 it became illegal to send faxes to individuals without prior consent, and businesses have the right to 'opt-out', which is what this list manages. I used to get dozens of junk faxes a week, after registering in August 2001 I have had no more than 2 or 3, so it definately works - although it takes 3-4 weeks for the block to become active.
Obviously, as it's a marketing industry-run scheme (which they had to do to prevent government-enforced action), they don't go out of their way to advertise this list, but it does work.
Jolyon
All single-format recorders, such as +RW drives, are effectively end-of-line items, so Dell can buy up inventories at knock-down prices. If they could have got -RW at a buck cheaper, they'd have gone that way, there is no other reason! Jolyon
It must be hard to go through hundreds of thousands of documents looking for prior art. look how hard it is sometimes for the slashdot editors to read through a couple of plages to look for previous posts of the same story :) (and yes, I know this story is ok)
Indeed - I was annoyed to find that the acronym for the certification courses I was planning to set up was already taken
Certified Unix Network Technicians
So I'll have to think of something else.
Yep, you'll be able to quite easily prove that the pr0n was never on your computer - the problem is that you'll have to wait until *after* the authorities have broken down your door at 6am and taken away all your computers for analysis.... And persuading your ISP to let you re-register as a customer once they've cut off your account.
Jolyon
It doesn't matter how easy to break a new system is, it's better than having no security.
I recently took my laptop on a trip across Toronto and in a couple of hours spotted around 60 wireless networks. Around 80% had NO encryption enabled at all. And yes, the most common SSIDs are 'default' and 'linksys'.
So make a system more complex and people won't use it - which defeats the whole object of it.
Jolyon
that for each action, there is an equal, and opposite, reactionary.
Jolyon
15 comments and no 'I, for one' joke yet! What's wrong with the slashdotters tonight?
Jolyon
I think I'll wait until I can get a robot that'll go down to the Gym and exercise on my behalf.
Jolyon
Um, there's a reason why it's called the Science Fiction channel.
Just sit back and pretend to be entertained. Or switch over. Bah.
Well, this kind of thing will happen when you have a system where you have to pay for the airtime to receive calls. In the UK, we pay nothing to receive calls on mobile (excepting ongoing costs of the line rental of course), it costs more for a caller to call a mobile number than it does to call a land line, which is how it should be. If someone wants to call me on my mobile, I expect them to pay for it, especially if they're trying to sell something.
The system in the UK also relies on mobile numbers being easily identifiable, and they all start with 07... so you know when you're calling a normal line (starts with 01... or 02...) or a mobile, otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the caller.
Jolyon
That's nothing, there are 4 elements named after one town in Sweden (Ytterby)
Yttrium
Ytterbium
Terbium
Erbium
Jolyon
Wait - Microsoft are going to be the first browser developers to release the new innovative "Do you want to run this plugin? [OK]" pop-up technology! They're way ahead of the game!
Jolyon
Reading back my own comment I realise I forgot about the possiblity of pawn promotion. Doh!
I guess you'll have to calculate it the expensive way after all.
Jolyon
Well, you could store each chessboard as the positions of each of the 32 pieces - that's 3 bits for X and 3 bits for Y position, plus another bit to state whether the piece is in play or not. 32 times 7 bits = 224 bits rather than 256.
Not that it will make a great any difference to the outcome, although if someone did try they would be pleased to know that they had saved about 1x10^126 Joules, which should reduce their electricity bill somewhat.
Jolyon
No, no crappy joke this time..
I for one enjoy playing violent games, in particular Grand Theft Auto Vice City... but if I had kids old enough to use a console, even as teenagers, I'd be very reluctant to let them play such a game. Am i a hypocrite?
Jolyon
My 404 page redirects people to www.mavisbeacon.com if they mistype a URL.