The only deeper exploit would be hard coded malware in the hardware.
AFAIK modern CPUs allow microcode updates. If you could embed a virus there, it would be one level deeper than BIOS. No, I don't know if it would even theoretically be possible (probably not, because at that level, you'd need quite complex logic; OTOH the space you could put that logic in is most probably very scarce).
There is no need to have the complete code in the BIOS. Basically, if you manage to get to the internet (probaby exploiting routines of the running OS), you just can load any amount of extra code from there.
Regardless, it is quite clear that with the rapidly Accelerating Returns towards the Singularity we will have nanomachines in as little as 10 that will be able to be injected into the FLASH device and repair the malware damage.
And viruses which are able to infect the nanomachines.
But without the attacker infecting the BIOS, you'd be safe after wiping the disk and reinstalling. Also think of a Live CD: Since CDs are non-writable, you generally assume that a system booted from a Live CD is clean. If your BIOS is infected, it isn't. And if the virus even survives re-flashing attempts, you basically have only two options: Either live with an infected computer, or throw the computer away.
Anything of 16 bit real mode is so old that I doubt that there's still any patent on it. So there wouldn't be any problem in keeping that (this might be important in order to use existing BIOS, which usually is entirely 16 bit real mode). Just add the possibility to switch to 64 bit protected mode directly from 16 bit real mode, without going through 32 bit first.
I think what could safely be removed in very short time is 16 bit protected mode (does anyone still use that?). Also 16 bit virtual mode could probably go quite soon. With 32 bit mode, I don't think it could already be removed. Possibly in one or two years.
Removing support for all those old modes should also free die space for new stuff (extended precision sse maybe, then also the x87 stuff could finally be removed).
Re:All I did was NOT work
on
Jurassic Web
·
· Score: 1
As good as Google generally is in UI questions, they managed to degrade the UI even more after getting it from Deja (ex DejaNews, which actually was good before they degraded it into Deja). And of course, mixing Usenet with the proprietary Google Groups into one service wasn't helpful as well.
"I'm a realist. I see things how they are, and not how people would 'like' them to be. The reality of it is, and I don't care what your argument is of 'property rights' need to be protected. The point is mute when it comes to land. A two year old child can walk over your land. It takes no skill and is readily available to virtually anyone with legs, which are as available now as ever before.
The reality is... this outdated propoerty rights 'rule', simply cannot be enforced anymore. So you can kick and scream and complain and sue all you want. It simply doesn't matter anymore. It can't be enforced. Doesn't matter how hard you try... fences, lobby for what ever law, sue everyone you know.. it can't be enforced.. Your trying to stop people from walking on land.. and well. that is their very nature."
The real question is not how effective a law can be enforced (after all, the law that people may not kill each other seems to be very hard to enforce, yet no one I know wants it removed). The real question is what effect the existence or non-existance of the law has on the society, and then decide which one is better.
I think the current copyright laws are bad. Not because they are hard to enforce, but because they make for a worse society. I'm not sure that removing all copyright laws would be the best solution, though. Instead, copyright law should be reworked to be reasonable. Give relatively short protection times (after all, why should you be entitled to earn money on things your grandfather wrote long ago), restrict the rights of third-party rights holders (i.e. anyone who didn't himself create that work) and forbid any technical measures to disable legal use of the content (including, but not limited to fair use).
SchrÃdinger never looked into the box, for fear of killing the cat. Unfortunately he didn't consider that by keeping the cat locked without food, it soon would be dead with certainty.
Actually this insight provides a new interpretation of quantum mechanics: Wave function collapse is caused by lack of food!
Indeed, I consider it problematic that there are incompatible licenses for code and documentation (and as I understand it, GPL and GFDL are indeed incompatible). Of course, at first glance, you'd think that both are not related, because they apply to inherently different types of work, but in reality that isn't true.
The most obvious way to see this is documentation generated by tools like Doxygen. If your code is GPLed, then of course the Doxygen-generated documentation is GPLed as well, and thus cannot be combined witth GFDLed documentation. While this isn't a problem for the original author (since he owns the copyright, he can simply license the generated documentation under the GFDL), but it's a problem for anyone creating derived code. He has to strictly separate generated and self-written documentation.
However, it's not restricted to automatically generated documentation. You might want to manually add some text from a source code comment into your documentation. Or you might even want to inlcude some parts of the code itself in your documentation, to explain it (for example, if you write an internals manual). Again, if the code and comments within are GPLed and the documentation you want to change is GFDLed, you can't.
On the other hand, you might also want to use code from documentation. The documentation might contain some example code e.g. to explain usage of a library, and you might find it useful to use that exact code or something derived from it in your own project. But being part of the GFDLed documentation, the example code is GFDLed, and unless you can and want distribute your code under the GFDL (quite unlikely, I'd say), you therefore can't use it.
And then there's literate programming. In literate programming, code and documentation are written in the very same file (actually, one could also see it as generating the code from the documentation, i.e. actually being the reverse of tools like Doxygen). Now, what license do you give those files? GPL? GFDL? Or maybe a complex system which tells you which (interwoven!) parts of the file are GPL and which are GFDL (so you may violate the license even by editing inside a file)? Maybe GPL/GFDL dual-licensing would work, but then, maybe that would have other, unintended consequences.
IMHO there should be one single license covering both code and documentation. It's probably not easy to write such a license, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Instead of differentiating according to the type of the work, differentiate according to the usage types (producing an executable vs. producing a file or print in a format to be read).
But if the replacement internet is to be a success, it must enable sending mail from/to the original internet, because otherwise no one will go to the new net because it would just disrupt normal communications to all the rest who are still on the old internet. And as soon as you allow mail coming from the original internet to get into your replacement internet, you'll inevitably get the spam as well.
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK modern CPUs allow microcode updates. If you could embed a virus there, it would be one level deeper than BIOS. No, I don't know if it would even theoretically be possible (probably not, because at that level, you'd need quite complex logic; OTOH the space you could put that logic in is most probably very scarce).
There is no need to have the complete code in the BIOS. Basically, if you manage to get to the internet (probaby exploiting routines of the running OS), you just can load any amount of extra code from there.
How much do you trust your BIOS vendor? After all, the unmodified BIOS might already contain malicious code.
Regardless, it is quite clear that with the rapidly Accelerating Returns towards the Singularity we will have nanomachines in as little as 10 that will be able to be injected into the FLASH device and repair the malware damage.
And viruses which are able to infect the nanomachines.
But without the attacker infecting the BIOS, you'd be safe after wiping the disk and reinstalling. Also think of a Live CD: Since CDs are non-writable, you generally assume that a system booted from a Live CD is clean. If your BIOS is infected, it isn't. And if the virus even survives re-flashing attempts, you basically have only two options: Either live with an infected computer, or throw the computer away.
Anything of 16 bit real mode is so old that I doubt that there's still any patent on it. So there wouldn't be any problem in keeping that (this might be important in order to use existing BIOS, which usually is entirely 16 bit real mode). Just add the possibility to switch to 64 bit protected mode directly from 16 bit real mode, without going through 32 bit first.
I think what could safely be removed in very short time is 16 bit protected mode (does anyone still use that?). Also 16 bit virtual mode could probably go quite soon. With 32 bit mode, I don't think it could already be removed. Possibly in one or two years.
Removing support for all those old modes should also free die space for new stuff (extended precision sse maybe, then also the x87 stuff could finally be removed).
500 Kelvin = 440.33 Fahrenheit
Carbon nano-ants?
I want an intersection-free Klein bottle! But then, I'd also be satisfied with a tesseract crystal.
Funny is overrated. :-)
What about the persons you meet in real? OK, their look still might be changed by make-up, colored hair, etc ...
of a world without patents.
You should patent that idea! :-)
Well, good old FTP also still exists.
Make it scriptable in Unlambda!
As good as Google generally is in UI questions, they managed to degrade the UI even more after getting it from Deja (ex DejaNews, which actually was good before they degraded it into Deja). And of course, mixing Usenet with the proprietary Google Groups into one service wasn't helpful as well.
Really? I remember reading Usenet a lot ...
Anyone remember nn? Googling for it I found this page.
There was also all the porn I couldn't imagine too.
Learn to grammar.
I didn't know that "grammar" is a verb.
Well, let's see ...
"I'm a realist. I see things how they are, and not how people would 'like' them to be. The reality of it is, and I don't care what your argument is of 'property rights' need to be protected. The point is mute when it comes to land. A two year old child can walk over your land. It takes no skill and is readily available to virtually anyone with legs, which are as available now as ever before.
The reality is... this outdated propoerty rights 'rule', simply cannot be enforced anymore. So you can kick and scream and complain and sue all you want. It simply doesn't matter anymore. It can't be enforced. Doesn't matter how hard you try... fences, lobby for what ever law, sue everyone you know.. it can't be enforced.. Your trying to stop people from walking on land.. and well. that is their very nature."
The real question is not how effective a law can be enforced (after all, the law that people may not kill each other seems to be very hard to enforce, yet no one I know wants it removed). The real question is what effect the existence or non-existance of the law has on the society, and then decide which one is better.
I think the current copyright laws are bad. Not because they are hard to enforce, but because they make for a worse society. I'm not sure that removing all copyright laws would be the best solution, though. Instead, copyright law should be reworked to be reasonable. Give relatively short protection times (after all, why should you be entitled to earn money on things your grandfather wrote long ago), restrict the rights of third-party rights holders (i.e. anyone who didn't himself create that work) and forbid any technical measures to disable legal use of the content (including, but not limited to fair use).
Is that the new name for the promiscuous mode?
Slashdot effect? :-)
Here's the button: http://www.turnofftheinternet.com/
Note that to see the effect, you have to allow popups for that site.
SchrÃdinger never looked into the box, for fear of killing the cat. Unfortunately he didn't consider that by keeping the cat locked without food, it soon would be dead with certainty.
Actually this insight provides a new interpretation of quantum mechanics: Wave function collapse is caused by lack of food!
I guess you don't charge the visitors of your webite, do you? 4% of nothing is still nothing.
Indeed, I consider it problematic that there are incompatible licenses for code and documentation (and as I understand it, GPL and GFDL are indeed incompatible). Of course, at first glance, you'd think that both are not related, because they apply to inherently different types of work, but in reality that isn't true.
The most obvious way to see this is documentation generated by tools like Doxygen. If your code is GPLed, then of course the Doxygen-generated documentation is GPLed as well, and thus cannot be combined witth GFDLed documentation. While this isn't a problem for the original author (since he owns the copyright, he can simply license the generated documentation under the GFDL), but it's a problem for anyone creating derived code. He has to strictly separate generated and self-written documentation.
However, it's not restricted to automatically generated documentation. You might want to manually add some text from a source code comment into your documentation. Or you might even want to inlcude some parts of the code itself in your documentation, to explain it (for example, if you write an internals manual). Again, if the code and comments within are GPLed and the documentation you want to change is GFDLed, you can't.
On the other hand, you might also want to use code from documentation. The documentation might contain some example code e.g. to explain usage of a library, and you might find it useful to use that exact code or something derived from it in your own project. But being part of the GFDLed documentation, the example code is GFDLed, and unless you can and want distribute your code under the GFDL (quite unlikely, I'd say), you therefore can't use it.
And then there's literate programming. In literate programming, code and documentation are written in the very same file (actually, one could also see it as generating the code from the documentation, i.e. actually being the reverse of tools like Doxygen). Now, what license do you give those files? GPL? GFDL? Or maybe a complex system which tells you which (interwoven!) parts of the file are GPL and which are GFDL (so you may violate the license even by editing inside a file)? Maybe GPL/GFDL dual-licensing would work, but then, maybe that would have other, unintended consequences.
IMHO there should be one single license covering both code and documentation. It's probably not easy to write such a license, but that doesn't mean it is impossible. Instead of differentiating according to the type of the work, differentiate according to the usage types (producing an executable vs. producing a file or print in a format to be read).
But if the replacement internet is to be a success, it must enable sending mail from/to the original internet, because otherwise no one will go to the new net because it would just disrupt normal communications to all the rest who are still on the old internet. And as soon as you allow mail coming from the original internet to get into your replacement internet, you'll inevitably get the spam as well.