We use finger print readers where I work. This, of course, only applies to the system I'm familiar with, but I doubt the store one is that divergent. They don't store anything resembling an image, but rather a numerical encoding of a given number of key points. I get the impression the actual process involves some kind of hash number validation.
The reason that "the fingerprint image recorded is not the same as those collected by the federal government or law enforcement" may be chillingly pragmatic. We were told when implementing our system that if we stored fingerprint data up to government specs we would be required to provide that information to the government. As a result our company, and most others, store data below the threshold that will get them noticed by the feds.
The fingerprint validation itself is somewhat fluid. Most people don't press the reader the exact same way twice in a row, the finger distorts under different levels of pressure, reacts to environmental changes, and even the current health of the individual. This kind validation requires a level tolerance to be set.
Some individuals never seem to get a good read, the tolerance for such people needs to be loosened to get any kind of positive feedback. As a result, some of our employees could hoist a big toe on the reader and probably get a pass. I simply wouldn't trust these things not to mistake me for the granny with the bad fingerprints.
a bunch of automatically generated metadata was added to it, possibly without your knowledge. Think of all the trouble that has come from Word document metadata being put on the web.
I'm not sure that this is the gist of the article I read, but it is an interesting thought.
That's more under the heading of the cute, insecure ideas that just wont die. Why does a web server tell me it's name and build number? Why does web publishing software include the registered user's name in the meta data? It's value added but security daft.
The crux of the problem is that development is antithetical to security. A software designer wants to provide features that make the user happy and make their product more desirable to use. The problem is, every feature has the potential to be a hole and some of the more desirable features are the biggest holes.
I would agree that web publishing tools should have personal meta data turned off be default. Would be nice if they stuck in some useful Dublin core stuff, though...;)
"All of this data is public data already," said Mr Glaser. "The problem comes when it is processed."
The privacy and security concerns are bizarre. They're saying that there is currently an implicit "security through obscurity" and that's ok. However, if someone were to make available data more easily found, then it would be less secure?
Here's a radical thought; don't make any data public you don't want someone to see. Blaming Google because you put your home address on your blog and "bad people" found you is absurd. If data is sensitive it shouldn't be there now.
You can't really bitch about peeping Tom's if you built the glass house.
In the early 1950s, Communism was the root password for the Constitution. When I was a kid, we looked back on McCarthyism and congratulated ourselves that America was beyond such benighted, unreasoning, fear. Today, Terrorism is that password.
It's almost ironic that national paranoia has come full circle to focus on the "Red Menace" again.
This really looks like the ideal place to implement a P2P style model. Your server is a nice central target that the bad guys can attack. Distributing the load across a distributed archetecture means there's no head to attack or cut off.
They're essentially using the power of numbers for attack, adapt a defense to match.
Note: The volume of songs and other audio may vary depending on how the audio was recorded or encoded. Volume level may also vary if you use different earbuds or headphones.
This appears to be functionally useless as it only allows you to set the max on the volume slider. With a varied collection of music, some will blow out your ears at 75% while others will need to be 95% to even follow the words. Any kid wanting more hearing loss simply has to remaster their sound files.
I was honestly hoping for a max volume output, so the loud song that follows the soft song doesn't make me drive up a street pole.
Seriously, how many pages currently on the web would survive a simple XML validation? Most commercial tools I've seen, even those current, make no real attempt to break away from HTML 4 + cute junk standard. And XHTML 1.0 was introduced in January 2000...
Until the browsers that constitute the bulk of the market share support this kind of thing in a meaningful way, it's doomed. Period.
One way to move this stuff along would be a develop a fully compliant plugin for current browsers that could support standards in spite of the platform. Once it's clear you need 3rd party tools to support what's supposedly a web standard, maybe the bigger browsers will be guilted into supporting it natively.
I'd love to see something like XHTML 2.0 adopted with gusto, but if history is any indication then something major will have to change.
To be honest, I use either Linux or Windows. I've seen iTunes run nice under Mac, but the Windows version has it's issues.
I like GNUpod ( http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/ ). The XML is a little more XMLish and I don't have to deal with iTunes to get songs into and out of my iPod.
Not real surprising. I was all excited that iTunes had an XML export facility for the library, until I saw it.
I'd expected to apply some kind of transformation to the document to make it suit my needs, but this was tragic. It was painfully obvious that whoever wrote the export didn't even remotely "get" it. It was some horrid hodgepodge of tags all slapped together around what amounted to a CVS dump. It was well formed, basically useless as an XML document.
I'd have been happier is the export was a simple delimited file or even a binary dump, at least it would have been smaller.
RSS fubar? Yep, they still have the same people doing their XML. Let hope this makes them rethink that...
Discriminating based on race is racism, pretty much by definition. It doesn't matter this manifests itself in a negative or positive way, it's the same thing. If someone says my race is better than your race, that's obvious. But also, anything like "those people" steal, are good workers, are bad workers, are smarter, are stupider, make better widgets, etc.
Pre judging someone based one their race, regardless of the type of judgement, is racist. There's no need for subcategorizing, unless you're trying to rationalize.
Two biggest questions any "computer guy" get are, probably, "Can you show me how to use a computer?" balanced with "What computer should I buy?"
The hidden question in what computer to buy is, which is better? The basic bits, CPU, RAM, and storage seem to bewilder. Particularly, since memory and HDD/storage use the same nomenclature, i.e. megabytes and gigabytes. The difference between memory and storage causes confusion all the time.
I often put it like this: storage is the big cabinet you keep all your files in. However, in order to use a file you have to get up, pull it out of the drawer it lives in, and open it on desk for perusal. Thus, RAM is the desk. Filing cabinet space can be massive, but without enough deskspace, you're constantly shuffling papers.
I tell newbies to by a mac or a dell, depending on how Windows oriented they are, and to "get all the tech support." If you can write a book that will stop the computer guy from getting all those calls for free tech support, your book with be a guaranteed preferred geek gift.
Today, much of a consumer's digital content is held hostage on a particular kind of device, such as an iPod or a PC...
This is, without doubt, one of the stupidest things I've ever read. It's storage folks; hostage is something completely different. This is what you get for letting sales try to figure out technology.
...because that is the only way to prevent massive piracy.
This is one of the other stupidest things I've ever read. If I never even opened the CDs from the wrapper, that would really prevent piracy.
Good point, but I believe it's even more broad that that.
Within the Anabaptist groups, both Amish and Mennonite, there are a number a distinct sub groups. While the Mennonites are generally the more liberal of the two, the polar end of Amish can appear like Mennonite to an outsider.
There are even Anabaptist groups that are much more modern than basic Mennonites, but outsiders often assume they are typical Mennonite and don't understand where the lines are. Unless you're part of the community, you'd never really know, anyway.
Research in the "heart of Pennsylvania", that's Lancaster County. Used to be a nice quiet place were Amish and non Amish farmers lived peacefully together. Now it's a tourist trap. They bus people in, there are outlet stores and stores full of plastic crap selling authentic Pennsylvania Dutch drek. Amish are, quietly and systematically, fleeing this area in droves.
Note, many posters assume the Amish is the base orthodoxy, with Mennonite being the relaxed offshoot. Curiously, it's slightly backwards from that. Menno Simons, an extremely early German protestant formed the group later called Mennonites. Jakob Ammann, a Mennonite, later branched off to form the Amish. He didn't think his group was being strict enough.
Seriously, I've you're into servlets and you haven't been caching non dynamic data, shame on you.
By same token, if you're on of those twits who caches five years of data warehouse information in the application layer, there's a special place in programmer hell for you...
Reasons to choose MySQL for a project: - It's small and simple. - The project will maintain logic in the application layer. - Other "Enterprise" databases seem like overkill for the project.
Reasons to choose a more bloated MySQL with new features already well established in other database servers: - None
Seriously, I can't imagine that this would be required or desired. Are they actively trying to move themselves out of the niche that they fill so well?
If the appeals panel decides that the consumers groups can't contest the FCC requirements, it would dismiss the case regardless of any concerns about the anti-piracy technology
This may be a naive question, but if not the people affected by the FCC cannot challenge them, who the hell can?
In the most basic case almost any security requires processing overhead. Authentication, encryption, validation, etc. No matter how you approach this, there's more work being done than if you didn't care. This makes a slower system. Longer response times impact usability directly.
This doesn't really hit on a side issue. Secure systems take a hell of a lot more work to design and implement. If a system is being developed on a schedule, chances are many minor enhancements that could have been incorporated in a product will be orphaned by lack of resources do to security requirements. This software is inevitably less functional do to the division of labor across the scope of the project.
I've been playing with Ubuntu for the last month. One of projects for TheOpenCD I had a hand in got onto it, so interest was piqued early.
Questions:
1. I enjoy focused nature of this distro. One desktop, a rather spartan Gnome. No multiple redundant program groups, clean graphic login, etc. However, while I admire this restraint, what is the rationale for not including gcc in the basic install? This drove nuts me when trying to set up VMWare, so had to ask.
2. This may be a small thing, but the default splash screens are not appropriate for some work environments. The three folks holding hands is nice, but the loading screen with said folks sans clothing is not really anything I'd want to install at work. In the states, we may be a little prudish about that sort of thing, but it's still an issue. Any plans for something more professional looking?
3. Will there ever be a time that the Debian source tree will be useless for this distribution?
I think all the "let's go improve on SQL" folks are missing the point. Indeed, the article touched on it but didn't understand it.
Databases are about storing and retrieving DATA. Tables with rows in a fixed structure are an excellent way of maintaining data. Using key values to associate one collection of data with another is a logical way to approach organization of resources.
Now, you don't like the language ( SQL ) that's a standard for manipulating that data? Why? Because there are huge joins, poor logic to retrieve information, etc. Sorry, that's implementation and has little to do with DATA. If you have to join 30 tables to get some useful information, you're asking wrong the question. The right question is, "is the information there, is it available and understandable, how do I present it in a timely fashion?"
Any system that functions on nightmarish SQL constructs is only going to give way to some other "alternative" that has similar problems.
Now, how will this odd math centric "Tutorial D" store it's data? In tables, maybe? That's called a front end. That's what developers are for, to abstract storage into function representations. End users never need see SQL, just as they'd never see this. So, what's new?
Fat doesn't evaporate. It also has an interesting tendency to bond with plastics. If you've ever tried to get the stink of some fatty dish out of tupperware, you've experienced this phenomena.
Ask your local cops who they use in crime scene clean ups. The guys who clean up after dead bodies have the technology you're looking for. In the previously mentioned episode of Myth Busters, I believe they ultimately appealed to these type of experts.
Slashdot Mirror
We use finger print readers where I work. This, of course, only applies to the system I'm familiar with, but I doubt the store one is that divergent. They don't store anything resembling an image, but rather a numerical encoding of a given number of key points. I get the impression the actual process involves some kind of hash number validation.
The reason that "the fingerprint image recorded is not the same as those collected by the federal government or law enforcement" may be chillingly pragmatic. We were told when implementing our system that if we stored fingerprint data up to government specs we would be required to provide that information to the government. As a result our company, and most others, store data below the threshold that will get them noticed by the feds.
The fingerprint validation itself is somewhat fluid. Most people don't press the reader the exact same way twice in a row, the finger distorts under different levels of pressure, reacts to environmental changes, and even the current health of the individual. This kind validation requires a level tolerance to be set.
Some individuals never seem to get a good read, the tolerance for such people needs to be loosened to get any kind of positive feedback. As a result, some of our employees could hoist a big toe on the reader and probably get a pass. I simply wouldn't trust these things not to mistake me for the granny with the bad fingerprints.
a bunch of automatically generated metadata was added to it, possibly without your knowledge. Think of all the trouble that has come from Word document metadata being put on the web.
I'm not sure that this is the gist of the article I read, but it is an interesting thought.
That's more under the heading of the cute, insecure ideas that just wont die. Why does a web server tell me it's name and build number? Why does web publishing software include the registered user's name in the meta data? It's value added but security daft.
The crux of the problem is that development is antithetical to security. A software designer wants to provide features that make the user happy and make their product more desirable to use. The problem is, every feature has the potential to be a hole and some of the more desirable features are the biggest holes.
I would agree that web publishing tools should have personal meta data turned off be default. Would be nice if they stuck in some useful Dublin core stuff, though... ;)
"All of this data is public data already," said Mr Glaser. "The problem comes when it is processed."
The privacy and security concerns are bizarre. They're saying that there is currently an implicit "security through obscurity" and that's ok. However, if someone were to make available data more easily found, then it would be less secure?
Here's a radical thought; don't make any data public you don't want someone to see. Blaming Google because you put your home address on your blog and "bad people" found you is absurd. If data is sensitive it shouldn't be there now.
You can't really bitch about peeping Tom's if you built the glass house.
Just when I thought all popular media was as usless as a Newspeak talking head, they go and do this?!?
Thanks, I feel as if a little light just broke through the clouds.
In the early 1950s, Communism was the root password for the Constitution. When I was a kid, we looked back on McCarthyism and congratulated ourselves that America was beyond such benighted, unreasoning, fear. Today, Terrorism is that password.
It's almost ironic that national paranoia has come full circle to focus on the "Red Menace" again.
This really looks like the ideal place to implement a P2P style model. Your server is a nice central target that the bad guys can attack. Distributing the load across a distributed archetecture means there's no head to attack or cut off.
They're essentially using the power of numbers for attack, adapt a defense to match.
Note: The volume of songs and other audio may vary depending on how the audio was recorded or encoded. Volume level may also vary if you use different earbuds or headphones.
This appears to be functionally useless as it only allows you to set the max on the volume slider. With a varied collection of music, some will blow out your ears at 75% while others will need to be 95% to even follow the words. Any kid wanting more hearing loss simply has to remaster their sound files.
I was honestly hoping for a max volume output, so the loud song that follows the soft song doesn't make me drive up a street pole.
Personally, I'm still waiting for XHTML 1.0.
Seriously, how many pages currently on the web would survive a simple XML validation? Most commercial tools I've seen, even those current, make no real attempt to break away from HTML 4 + cute junk standard. And XHTML 1.0 was introduced in January 2000...
Until the browsers that constitute the bulk of the market share support this kind of thing in a meaningful way, it's doomed. Period.
One way to move this stuff along would be a develop a fully compliant plugin for current browsers that could support standards in spite of the platform. Once it's clear you need 3rd party tools to support what's supposedly a web standard, maybe the bigger browsers will be guilted into supporting it natively.
I'd love to see something like XHTML 2.0 adopted with gusto, but if history is any indication then something major will have to change.
Thanks, that's useful.
To be honest, I use either Linux or Windows. I've seen iTunes run nice under Mac, but the Windows version has it's issues.
I like GNUpod ( http://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/ ). The XML is a little more XMLish and I don't have to deal with iTunes to get songs into and out of my iPod.
Not real surprising. I was all excited that iTunes had an XML export facility for the library, until I saw it.
I'd expected to apply some kind of transformation to the document to make it suit my needs, but this was tragic. It was painfully obvious that whoever wrote the export didn't even remotely "get" it. It was some horrid hodgepodge of tags all slapped together around what amounted to a CVS dump. It was well formed, basically useless as an XML document.
I'd have been happier is the export was a simple delimited file or even a binary dump, at least it would have been smaller.
RSS fubar? Yep, they still have the same people doing their XML. Let hope this makes them rethink that...
Discriminating based on race is racism, pretty much by definition. It doesn't matter this manifests itself in a negative or positive way, it's the same thing. If someone says my race is better than your race, that's obvious. But also, anything like "those people" steal, are good workers, are bad workers, are smarter, are stupider, make better widgets, etc.
Pre judging someone based one their race, regardless of the type of judgement, is racist. There's no need for subcategorizing, unless you're trying to rationalize.
Two biggest questions any "computer guy" get are, probably, "Can you show me how to use a computer?" balanced with "What computer should I buy?"
The hidden question in what computer to buy is, which is better? The basic bits, CPU, RAM, and storage seem to bewilder. Particularly, since memory and HDD/storage use the same nomenclature, i.e. megabytes and gigabytes. The difference between memory and storage causes confusion all the time.
I often put it like this: storage is the big cabinet you keep all your files in. However, in order to use a file you have to get up, pull it out of the drawer it lives in, and open it on desk for perusal. Thus, RAM is the desk. Filing cabinet space can be massive, but without enough deskspace, you're constantly shuffling papers.
I tell newbies to by a mac or a dell, depending on how Windows oriented they are, and to "get all the tech support." If you can write a book that will stop the computer guy from getting all those calls for free tech support, your book with be a guaranteed preferred geek gift.
Today, much of a consumer's digital content is held hostage on a particular kind of device, such as an iPod or a PC...
This is, without doubt, one of the stupidest things I've ever read. It's storage folks; hostage is something completely different. This is what you get for letting sales try to figure out technology.
This is one of the other stupidest things I've ever read. If I never even opened the CDs from the wrapper, that would really prevent piracy.
In a recent e-mail interview with CNN.com's Lila King, the Briton, now Sir Berners-Lee...
That's Sir Tim you illiterate twit! Stop reading the Internet and check you honorific syntax.
I love that name.
When I think Vista I think of a great open landscape, pretty but devoid of anything substantial.
Curiously, Merriam-Webster defines vista as "a distant view through or along an avenue or opening," which isn't really that much better.
Good point, but I believe it's even more broad that that.
Within the Anabaptist groups, both Amish and Mennonite, there are a number a distinct sub groups. While the Mennonites are generally the more liberal of the two, the polar end of Amish can appear like Mennonite to an outsider.
There are even Anabaptist groups that are much more modern than basic Mennonites, but outsiders often assume they are typical Mennonite and don't understand where the lines are. Unless you're part of the community, you'd never really know, anyway.
Research in the "heart of Pennsylvania", that's Lancaster County. Used to be a nice quiet place were Amish and non Amish farmers lived peacefully together. Now it's a tourist trap. They bus people in, there are outlet stores and stores full of plastic crap selling authentic Pennsylvania Dutch drek. Amish are, quietly and systematically, fleeing this area in droves.
Note, many posters assume the Amish is the base orthodoxy, with Mennonite being the relaxed offshoot. Curiously, it's slightly backwards from that. Menno Simons, an extremely early German protestant formed the group later called Mennonites. Jakob Ammann, a Mennonite, later branched off to form the Amish. He didn't think his group was being strict enough.
Seriously, I've you're into servlets and you haven't been caching non dynamic data, shame on you.
By same token, if you're on of those twits who caches five years of data warehouse information in the application layer, there's a special place in programmer hell for you...
So, who will be spending the millions of dollars a year to produce the content that everyone will happily share this way?
TV is good because it assumes that I watch the commercials and endure some content I'd rather not. That's the current model that pays for things.
In a choose your own feed senario advertising becomes pruned. So, who makes new content and who pays for it?
Hmm, Troll for simply stating a point of view? Not even condescending or inflammatory?
/. mod system has been wounded. I have to metamod more...
Crap, now I'm going have to turn my filters off on topics in case a similar narrow minded pinhead modded out some other unpopular view.
My faith in the
Reasons to choose MySQL for a project:
- It's small and simple.
- The project will maintain logic in the application layer.
- Other "Enterprise" databases seem like overkill for the project.
Reasons to choose a more bloated MySQL with new features already well established in other database servers:
- None
Seriously, I can't imagine that this would be required or desired. Are they actively trying to move themselves out of the niche that they fill so well?
If the appeals panel decides that the consumers groups can't contest the FCC requirements, it would dismiss the case regardless of any concerns about the anti-piracy technology
This may be a naive question, but if not the people affected by the FCC cannot challenge them, who the hell can?
In the most basic case almost any security requires processing overhead. Authentication, encryption, validation, etc. No matter how you approach this, there's more work being done than if you didn't care. This makes a slower system. Longer response times impact usability directly.
This doesn't really hit on a side issue. Secure systems take a hell of a lot more work to design and implement. If a system is being developed on a schedule, chances are many minor enhancements that could have been incorporated in a product will be orphaned by lack of resources do to security requirements. This software is inevitably less functional do to the division of labor across the scope of the project.
I've been playing with Ubuntu for the last month. One of projects for TheOpenCD I had a hand in got onto it, so interest was piqued early.
Questions:
1. I enjoy focused nature of this distro. One desktop, a rather spartan Gnome. No multiple redundant program groups, clean graphic login, etc. However, while I admire this restraint, what is the rationale for not including gcc in the basic install? This drove nuts me when trying to set up VMWare, so had to ask.
2. This may be a small thing, but the default splash screens are not appropriate for some work environments. The three folks holding hands is nice, but the loading screen with said folks sans clothing is not really anything I'd want to install at work. In the states, we may be a little prudish about that sort of thing, but it's still an issue. Any plans for something more professional looking?
3. Will there ever be a time that the Debian source tree will be useless for this distribution?
I think all the "let's go improve on SQL" folks are missing the point. Indeed, the article touched on it but didn't understand it.
Databases are about storing and retrieving DATA. Tables with rows in a fixed structure are an excellent way of maintaining data. Using key values to associate one collection of data with another is a logical way to approach organization of resources.
Now, you don't like the language ( SQL ) that's a standard for manipulating that data? Why? Because there are huge joins, poor logic to retrieve information, etc. Sorry, that's implementation and has little to do with DATA. If you have to join 30 tables to get some useful information, you're asking wrong the question. The right question is, "is the information there, is it available and understandable, how do I present it in a timely fashion?"
Any system that functions on nightmarish SQL constructs is only going to give way to some other "alternative" that has similar problems.
Now, how will this odd math centric "Tutorial D" store it's data? In tables, maybe? That's called a front end. That's what developers are for, to abstract storage into function representations. End users never need see SQL, just as they'd never see this. So, what's new?
Fat doesn't evaporate. It also has an interesting tendency to bond with plastics. If you've ever tried to get the stink of some fatty dish out of tupperware, you've experienced this phenomena.
Ask your local cops who they use in crime scene clean ups. The guys who clean up after dead bodies have the technology you're looking for. In the previously mentioned episode of Myth Busters, I believe they ultimately appealed to these type of experts.
Good luck.