Do you have ANY idea what "tangible" or "corporeal" means? Any at all?
Why yes I do Minna! Tangible is what I am and corporeal is what you are not. What you can't seem to get through your head is that even if left on a computer and never printed out a software program still resides as electrical information. It MUST RESIDE somewhere or else it can't be used by a computer to perform its task. Maybe you should take a few computer courses and learn what a software program is and is not. I know I have and I have since 1972. So from how you are writing your sentences I'd have to say I have known what tangible and corporeal has meant for a few more years than you have even been alive. So get over yourself.
Just wanted to repeat that again, because it's about the stupidest thing I've read in nearly 4 months. (This is the 2nd most stupid thing)
And you are THE DUMBEST PERSON presently on slashdot. There! Does that make you feel better? Like throwing a little slander around? Get a life Minna! Get a life!
No, I was correct. Nothing you wrote refutes me, or even makes approximate sense. It's true that Superman and Luke Skywalker are covered by both trademarks and copyrights, but copyrights are by far the more important consideration. If Luke Skywalker was only trademarked and not copyrighted, then many comic-book authors would be happy to use that name inside their works without paying George Lucas.
Ok! MINNA! PLEASE! First you say I'm wrong - then you say I'm right! MAKE UP YOU MIND MINNA - PLEASE! You can't have it both ways. Further, copyrights are NOT the most important! Patents and Trademarks supercede them. Copyrights, next to these two things, are not worth anything. Only when Patents and Trademarks are outside of the area you want to talk about do they come into play. Otherwise - the other two take president. As do Trade Secrets. That's why, a few years ago, there was this big court case when some professor (TOO BAD! I forget the specifics!) who had done some work under a Trade Secret agreement wrote documentation about the Trade Secrets and copyrighted them. That action caused him to be fined and he had to give up his copyrighted work. Because even Trade Secrets have more power than copyrights.
Ok, that doesn't parse too well as an English sentence. But it appears to be an agreement with me, which makes your recent usage of "Incorrect again!" even less comprehensible.
OH GOD MINNA! Are you now an english critic as well? GIVE ME A BREAK! It is a perfectly good English sentence. And at least I'm not contradicting myself and being wishy washy about whether someone or something is right or wrong. If you had read the sentence correctly you would have understood that only that one particular instance and usage of the terms "Superman" and "Luke Skywalker" are protected - but it doesn't mean I can't use the terms, processes, or ideas of Superman and Luke Skywalker in other ways.
FOR INSTANCE: You can write "My man is a Superman!" and not be sued. You can write "It stuck to the wall as if Spiderman had shot his web at it." and not be sued! WHY MINNA? WHY? Because the IDEAS behind "Superman" and "Spiderman" are being used and not the single special case. However, I can't write a book about the adventures of Superman or Spiderman because I WILL BE SUED! WHY MINNA? WHY? It is because then I'm treading on the formerly held copyrights! There's a difference there you can't seem to grasp.
No. It was a direct quote from USC copyright law, which you completely misinterpreted. And if you somehow thought that the text of an ancient, preexisting law somehow came "out of the case"... well, that suggests why nobody else bothered to reply to you.
OH GOD AGAIN MINNA! WILL YOU EVER GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT? I doubt it. The quote says, in unambiguous English that IDEAS, PROCESSES, etc... are NOT COVERED BY COPYRIGHT LAW! How much clearer can it be?
(Hint: by definition, all software is intangible. If it were tangible, it would be hardware)
Wrong. All software is tangible. It resides within a computer, floppy disk, hard drive, etc.... Therefore, your definition of intangible versus tangible is flawed. The ONLY reason you can copyright software is because it is, by extension, a form of writing and communication - which is why the Copyright Office opened this form of copyrighting at all. Well, big business had a lot do with it too but that was the underlying argument.
Superman and Luke Skywalker are both copyrighted and trademarked, even though they are inarguably the products of mental action, or "ideas".
Incorrect again! Damn! And here I thought you might be on to something. Superman is copyrighted as a comic book. However, Marvel has Superman also, BUT he isn't called Superman. And the reason he isn't called Superman is not because Superman is copyrighted. It's because he is a registered trademark and thus protected under the rules and regulations regarding trademarks. Look it up. As for Luke Skywalker. The name itself can not be copyrighted but it can (again) be trademarked for purposes of distinguishing it from other generic "Luke Skywalker" names (such as a person's name). Further, the books for both Superman and Luke Skywalker allow an extension of the copyright laws which deal with protecting specific instances of names. Thus, someone can not write (legally) about Luke Skywalker and his adventures except in the standard method of fair use. However, this doesn't amount to anything when you are talking about fans of the Star Wars saga because most fans don't really care. Which is why no one tries to do anything about fans. First, because they want fans, and second it gives the owners of the copyrights access to derivative works which they may be able to use to create monetary income. (ie: Hire the author if they like their writings.)
Prehaps you don't know what "idea" means- prehaps you don't know how all-ecompassingly generic it is:
And perhaps you don't know the difference between talking generally and talking specifically. This isn't legal class 101 - it's just a chat board and the quote was taken, literally from the article. Thus, if you have a problem with what he has said - maybe you should go discuss your differences with Mr. Eric Grimm himself. I am sure he would enjoy your saying he doesn't know what he is talking about.
And while we are on the subject of copyright and what is or is not protected I would like to draw your attention to BattleStar Glactica. This famed series originally starred Lorn Green and the entire basis of how everything worked in the series was done by none other than - George Lucas. George came up with the special effects and many of the other things which made the series a hit. Then George tried to sue. After all, these were his ideas, processes, and (just about) everything else. Know what? After a few years of listening to the case the judge threw the case out and told Mr. Lucas to "Get a life!" The judge went on to chastise Mr. Lucas because, in the judge's words "You don't own the universe Mr. Lucas." And here is where ideas met reality. Just as they did in this case. He couldn't own the ideas. Only the copyright's embodiment of the ideas and those had been bought and paid for by the TV studios who had hired him to do the special effects.
Actually, I would think this would be more along the lines of:
1. Convicted 2. Not Convicted because the computer hasn't hiccupped yet.
Let's see, how many different DNA labs have had their hands slapped for fabricating their results? Like the one in the city of Houston, Texas. (Where they are completely overhauling their labs because of problems.)
How many times has it been found out that someone went to jail not because they are guilty but because someone else wanted them out of the way?
How many death row inmates are being released (like in the state of Illinois where almost all of them were released from death row) because DNA evidence has shown that many of the people there are there only because they just happened to be a different color, nationality, height, weight, sexual disposition, and so on?
The rules are (from my perspective):
1. If you have a lot of money - you can get away with a lot of things. 2. If you are very influential/powerful - you can get away with a lot of things. 3. If you are an average kind of person (some money, some friends...) you might be able to get away with some things (like getting out of traffic tickets and the like). 4. If you are poor though - tough break. Because you don't dress as nicely, speak as fluently, have a reparte with others who are more powerful - it is a good guess that you will have run-ins with the law. Just because of how you look, talk, and act.
It has been proven time and time again that:
1. Powerful people do some really nasty things sometimes. (As in the case of the gentleman who was murdered in a small town in Texas (in the 60s). It is suspected that the head of the police department killed this guy. But almost everyone who lived during those times is now dead and those who are still alive either don't know or won't talk about what happened. Or take the case of one of my wife's cousins. Found tied to a chair, hands tied behind his back, gag in his mouth. Shot in the head. Cause of death? Suicide. Case closed.)
2. People who have any kind of authority tend to abuse that authority. (Look at not only how many high ranking people abuse authority [like fixing traffic tickets and such] but if you would only go to Federal Court where the IRS takes people who try to evade paying their taxes you would get a real eye opener on what these people try to pull all of the time.)
3. People who are first timers to power jobs tend to work more for the people than those who return to that (or a higher) office. This is simply because they are novices and are learning the ropes. Once they've got the techniques down pat it is very seldom that they do not succumb to the temtations of power. And those that do not succumb usually wind up dead. Which should tell you something.
Graft and corruption go hand in hand with power and the more power you have the easier it is to misuse that power. It is not just a fact of life. It is a fact that we are allowing ourselves to be this way. We could just as easily say no to the way things are and change our way of life. We've just chosen not to do so.
I thought that one of the important things to come out of the case was this:
The doctrine is now enshrined in 17 U.S.C. 102(b). The relevant section says:
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
A lot of people think that their ideas, procedures, processes, etc... are (or can be) protected by copyright. The answer here is - no. They can not be protected by copyright. These are protected by patents.
Tangibles => copyrights Intanigbles => patents
(I don't know about anyone else, but I do get a lot of questions on this when friends/relatives/and other stranger persons ask me about copyrights. And no, IANAL! I just like to read about the law. [Surprised my own lawyer by how much I knew about the law.:-) ])
Easy. Make a grid. Put the LED lights so they are centered one per square in the grid. Run the +/- lines back to a central board. Apply the proper power to the board. Use toggle switches. One per light. Toggle the switch and the light comes on on the grid. Toggle the switch the other way - the light goes off. (Or use push buttons.)
Like so:
+---+---+---+---+---+ | o | o | o | o | o | o = LED light +---+---+---+---+---+
You can make squares, circles, corridors, etc... just by turning on/off the various lights. (Note: I had five lines of grids but I get a Lameness message when I do that so I had to reduce it back to a single grid line.)
You can use the lights in two ways:
1. Put a piece of clear/frosted/black plastic over them and use them to show the actual room. (ie: Light up the squares which comprise the room.) 2. Put nothing over them and use them to make an outline of a room or whatever.
Get it?:-)
Hmmmmmm..... ECODE is broken. Hello ADMINS!!!!! When I try <ECODE> I get the "Lameness..." message instead of working like the PRE or CODE command is supposed to work. Can someone look into this? Had to switch this to "Code" so it would look right.
The expensive part isn't the laptop (which you can now get for around $500.00) but the projector. The least expensive projector I've found is around $1,000.00 now but doesn't do a good job in bright light (such as is found in a house). Also, you have to have a halfway descent amount of room to play/project the pictures.
I experimented (once) with putting the projector (a REALLY cheap/bad projector I found at college) under a plexiglass table top but the dice rolling on the table top was so loud it made playing unenjoyable.
However, someone gave me an idea on how to actually do this cheaply only not being an electrical engineer I never did it like they told me to. Maybe someone else would like to try it? The idea is to take a thick piece of cardboard (like that found in really sturdy corrigated boxes). Draw a grid onto the cardboard box or get one of those cheap plastic layers which already have a grid printed on them (but aren't so hard as to be like plexiglass). Depending on whether you draw or overlay the cardboard you go buy a bunch of those tiny leds for toy trains and such and put one in each of the squares (centered). Here is where the engineering comes in: You have to have all of those wires go back to some kind of a black box which has a cable going back to the computer. Using the computer you turn on or off the various leds. I was told it wouldn't be that hard but I tried a small board (1ft by 1ft) and couldn't get the electronics to work. It was cheap though. The lights cost only about $30.00. The piece of cardboard was about $5.00 and I just drew the squares. The closest I came to making the whole thing work was when I just got a bunch of on/off toggle switches at Radio Shack, mounted them on a metal surface, and just flicked them on and off in whatever pattern I needed. It worked ok. Probably a bigger area would look a lot better.:-/
I have also been working on an idea where laptops are used. The central server is the ref's machine and everyone else uses their browser to move around in the game. (Unfortunately, I just wiped my entire hard drive accidentally. Bought a new hard drive but referenced the wrong one when I went to partition it. I'm looking at recovery software to get everything back. I have never been so despressed as when I realized what I had done. And yes - I have backups but the last backup was about two months ago.:-( )
If he is drug to the US would this mean that he is covered by all US laws? If so - declare bankruptcy under US law after the case and go back to Australia. (Bankruptcy presently wipes out all debt in the US except for things like the IRS.)
If the US says he can't file in the US, then the US should not be able to file against him. (At least I would hope this is so since the US is claiming right of ownership against him and is having him extradited to the US he should not only be subject to US law while in the territory of the US but should also be given all of the rights everyone else is given while here. Thus, this would lead me to wonder about bankruptcy.
In fact, everyone who ever has to go through a court case with the MPAA and RIAA should look at bankruptcy. After all, it also gets rid of all credit card debt, usually allows you to keep on vehicle per person with a driver's license, and just about everything else. This would be a great way for everyone to slap the RIAA, MPAA, and all financial institutions for allowing such rampant misuse and abuse of the legal system. It would cause the MPAA and RIAA to think twice about filing suit since it costs a lot to prosecute someone but it is only $200.00 to file for bankruptcy.
And while we are on the subject let me clue everyone in on a little something. Did you know that if someone files suit against you or even tries to collect a debt against you that you can go down to the federal court house, file for bankruptcy, get your paper stamped, come back the next week, and drop the bankruptcy? You get all of your money back except for about $10.00 or so and everyone has to leave you alone until the information about you having dropped the bankruptcy has been processed. (Which takes about a month.) And did you know you have the right to do this as many times a year as you wish?
I've been trying to collect on a debt for three years now and can't get a penny because of the above. Think what it could do to the MPAA and RIAA's coffers if everyone they sued did this. I think they'd run through quite a bit of money in a very short span of time - don't you?
Just a thought.:-)
Remember: If they don't want to play nice - then neither do you.
I have to say that I think there should be an Open Source set up for independent reviews of things. Sort of like Consumer Reports (versus Consumer Review which was started by the major corporations to try to thwart Consumer Reports' highly accurate ratings). If done correctly, and an unbiased basis can be maintained, it might take off just like many of the software projects have done. Further, it could be used to show the actual state of where Open Source products are versus Closed Source products. In fact, Consumer Reports would be the place to do this since they are fairly independent and back up all of their statements with lots of test data.
So if anyone from any of the major OSS companies is listening - you might want to help fund the testing of the various OSs via Consumer Reports as well as some of the Open Source Software (OSS) itself versus the Closed Source Software (CSS) versions. Like Open Office versus MS-Office and the like.
I can agree with you in many of the areas you talked about. It is very hard, sometimes to get a company to even believe you know what you are talking about. The language barrier is the biggest hurdle to overcome. Many times, just because you don't know the key words to say to trigger a "Oh, is it doing that?" kind of response - you get snubbed.
But I think it is still worth it to at least try talking to the companies. If nothing else, then when they start complaining loudly you can send them their e-mails back to them and point out that you were trying to do the right thing but they just brushed you off. Again, in courts it is really important to at least have made a good faith effort to bring a problem to the attention of a company. Then, when they fail to heed your warnings, you can proceed on down the trail of releasing the information to everyone else.
With Netscape, Mozilla, (and I assume Thunderbird) you can create folders and subfolders by simply right-clicking the main folder icon. Just make a folder for whatever company you are dealing with or make a main company with, say "Companies" and then make subfolders with the company's actual name. You can even make subfolders in a particular company's folder and put some meaningful title on to that folder. (Like 01/01/2005 or Problem_25.) Then just organize things by putting all sent and received messages into those folders. In this way you don't lose track of what is going on where and if they start acting rather foolishly (like saying they are going to sue you) - don't fall into the trap of responding angrily. Just send them back their e-mails (via cut & paste) and your e-mails showing where you only were trying to alert them to a problem and their responses. Many people think that, once sent, most e-mails just disappear. It is usually a shock to have your entire e-mail sent back to you and it can make them see that if they go to court over something they caused to happen, then it will only go badly for them.
As an example of the above, I will relate an actual incident. A few years ago our house was flooded. After contacting the insurance company I received an e-mail stating that our car would be inspected by an insurance agent. He never showed. I called a couple of times and got the run-around and finally had to write another e-mail. This resulted in the guy coming out and just slapping a "We now own this car," sticker onto the windshield and leaving. I wasn't home at the time and came home to find this bright orange packet on my windshield. Needless to say I got on the phone and was told that the insurance company now owned my car. I just went "Oh really?" Because I held the title to the vehicle. I finally wound up writing yet another e-mail demanding that the insurance company fix the car and quit playing around. After investigating my statements I was told to just go get the car fixed and to let them know how much it was going to cost them. I did so. It wasn't much. (Which, on a side note, if your car is ever flooded and you want to keep the vehicle then never let them start your engine. It will suck whatever water is in the engine all through it and that will be the last of your car.) Anyway, the insurance agency refused to pay the bill (which was only $1,500.00 and if they had bought the car it would have been over $6,000.00.) So when they refused I sent them back their e-mails where they said they would fix the vehicle. This greatly infuriated the manager I was talking to but I just reminded them that if they had not of tried to back out of what they had said to me in the past I would not have had to send them their e-mails to remind them of their promises. The car was fixed and paid for by the insurance company.
So it does work. Maybe not all of the time. But it does work.:-)
I must disagree. To "Extort" means to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power. None of what I posted encourages anyone to do any of these things.
1. You are not forcing anyone to do anything. You are trying to work with the company(ies) to get the problem taken care of.
2. You are not using intimidation. You are asking them when you can release the information and working with them, in a positive manner, towards that goal.
3. You are not using undue or illegal power. At no time did I state that you should resort to lawyers and in fact - stated the opposite.
Therefore, saying that someone would be charged with extortion if they followed what I've written is like saying a whale can fly on its own. Further, your statement that it is far better to just post the information anonymously on the internet and not bother contacting the software companyis a sure fire way to get yourself in trouble. After all, it has been proven time and again that there is no such thing as anonymous if a company wants to put forth the effort to find out who did the posting.
In actuality, your suggestion of brashly just dumping your information onto the internet falls under the "Revenge" portion of what I wrote. You must obviously hate whatever company you are thinking of (and I can think of quite a few who probably DO deserve having this done to them) and want them to fail. Because they have not earned your trust. They may have even done something to you in the past. I don't really know you so I can't say really. Still, if you are not out "to get them" (which is really nothing more than a revenge motive), then you must be out to help them by default. Or I guess you could be neutral - but your statements seem to state otherwise.
So, since your statements fall into the revenge section you will get what you deserve by just dumping your vital information into the public domain. Which will cause the company to be mad that you didn't have the decency to contact them first and give them a chance to react. Or to put that in bus terms - you saw that the road was going to end so you shot the driver rather than try to help him stop the bus. Or you could say that you leapt from the bus but then the bus was going 100mph and you'd be killed instantly so either way it doesn't solve the problem. Which is what you need to do. You need to learn how to work with the bus driver to get the bus to slow down and stop. Screaming, throwing temper tantrums, killing the bus driver, leaping off of the bus, or trying any other method of escaping your responsibility to act in a logical manner in order to maintain control over the bus won't work.
To stop a bus - especially a bus that is stick shift driven - requires a lot of coordination. The same is true for presenting unpleasant, sometimes irritating news. Any company which puts its darling of a piece of software out there hates it when the sweetheart software comes home looking like it has been to a grundge party. I'm not saying you have to be sugary sweet. Mr. Nicey-nicey. But you don't have to be Mr. Pointy either. (To borrow from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.) You don't have to rant and rave against them any more than you have to do everything they ask you to do. But at least make the effort to offer them a chance to correct their mistakes.
And try to do it without all of the hate and fury that might have already built up inside of you because what they did was so stupid as to make you want to twist their heads off of their bodies or to kick their butts down the street and into the ocean. I know how frustrating it can be to try to deal with some of the idiots that are out there. But turn the mirror around. Can you, without anger or malice, put into words exactly what is the matter so that someone besides your l33t bro can understand it? Can you say more than just "It doesn't work!"? If so, then do this:
1. Layout exactly what the problem is in clear, easy to understand wh
1. You contact the company and ask them how long they think it will take to fix the problem. 2. You ask them when you may release it into the wild and get a definite date/time.
2a. If they won't give you a definite date/time, make some suggestions and work with them to try to come to some understanding about it.
2b. If they still won't give you a definite date/time, ask them if you can release a general statement to everyone via something like BugTraq pointing everyone in the general direction of the problem but not giving specifics. Be sure to talk to the company and ask them who, in the (for want of a better place) BugTraq community they have dealt with in the past and that you can contact to have your problem verified (so you CAN post something to the site).
2b1. Contact the person the company is familiar with and have dealt with in the past. Show that person the problem and ask for their verification of the problem.
2b2. Using 2b1's verification post a general posting of "There is a problem with X" and let everyone know that you have already contacted the company as well as having verified the problem with Y. But that you can not yet release more information until date/time when the company has said the problem should be fixed and released to everyone.
2c. Once date/time has passed, post the entire set of information you wanted to release originally.
2c1. If someone contacts you via e-mail, phone, or flying saucer for more information then you should contact the company, let them know who has contacted you and why and let them handle any/all requests for information. In other words - keep them in the loop. If the person who contacted you does not want to talk to the company for some reason then you can be the go-between for the company and the person (and thus not reveal who it is that is dealing with you).
There are lots of reasons why the above is not done. Some are:
1. Fame. People get a rush for showing they are smarter than the programmers who wrote the software.
2. Misunderstanding. Sometimes there are language barriers which prevent people from being able to talk to other people. The usage of d00d, l8r, and the like are not the only reasons. Someone from Poland who is talking to someone from Africa may not use the same words in the same way. So people may take something as a threat when it is not. Three or four years ago a similar incident happened where someone gave a company five days to fix a problem. Then they went public with their information. This is a ridiculous amount of time to ask a company to fix something. Think of a bus. It is going 100mph down the road. Suddenly, within ten feet of the bus is a sign which reads "Road Out". A bus, going 100mph, can not stop in time to prevent a disaster from happening. Neither can a company. It takes time just to assign someone to either fix the problem or just to insert the code given and to test the code to see if it really does fix the problem or not. To put that in bus terms: It takes time to slow the bus down so it can come to a stop without killing everyone on board.
3. Revenge. Usually for some slight a company did or something the company said or boasted about. Like the "Our software can't be broken!" That, to many people, is a challenge and if the software can be broken some people like to take revenge for the company's boasts. This, again, is like #2 above - a misunderstanding. All companies say their software is the greatest or best. Would you ever buy the worst software ever made? Or second rate software? So (not that I want to defend companies but...) we have forced them to always say "Our software is the best," when it might be just so-so or even just plain bad. Because if they do not it is highly unlikely that the company will be around for long.
3a. This is one of the big differences between Open Source and Closed Source. In Open Source everyone can see the problems
A long time ago (I know I'm dating myself here!) Dr. Dobbs had a book called:
Dobbs (extracts from Dr. Dobbs Journal)
Dr. Dobb's Toolbox of C
Prentice-Hall 1986
This book laid out the various methods which they used in the creation of Small C. I took those lessons to heart and programed by them. Although a lot of other methods have been forced down my throat by would-be managers or people who knew something about coding - these techniques have been, IMHO, the most help I have ever had when it comes to coding software.
The book explained the WHY of "why should you indent", and WHY you should use meaningful names for variables. In fact, it explained a lot of the WHYs and WHEREFOREs of programming.
If you can get your hands on a copy of this book - you should do so. Mine died a sudden death when, around Christmas time, the ceiling in my computer room came down. I was living in an apartment at the time and a water leak caused the ceiling to collapse. Know what gypsum becomes with some water? GLUE! So several of my really good books died that day from being glued together. Unfortunately, Dr. Dobb's book was one of them.
Luckily, the ceiling collapsed where the books were stacked and not where the computers were stacked. That would have been an even worse nightmare.:-/
To bring this back on topic: I haven't read this new book, but from the overview - it sounds a lot like Dr. Dobb's book. So I may be off to buy it soon just to check it out.:-)
But what happens if someone (like myself) uses a single machine with various OSs on it? The Linux part is exactly on time, the Windows98se part is months off due to a test I am doing, the WindowsXP part rarely comes up but has an entirely different date/time on it as do the other partitions. Each OS, basically, has a different time associated with it. Would this, then, cause the verification to fail?
The company I was working for (subcontracted to NASA) needed to lay someone off. I volunteered to be laid off. I'd worked at the job for almost twenty years and wanted to go do something (anything!) else. I was laid off January 31st, 2003.
The next day the Space Shuttle blew up. There were no jobs available after that. So my wife and I lived on unemployment while I looked around for a new job. I worked on some projects for friends but those only worked out kind-of ok. There were problems. As there are always problems with being a contractor on a job where the people you are working for think that 200 web pages is a simple task to be done in a month's time. At any rate, this got us through 2003 and into 2004.
Surprisingly, in 2004 I was asked to come back (via a different company) to work on the same stuff I'd been working on before. I agreed to do it part time and haven't regretted it since. Now I only work half the time I used to work and yet I still make enough to pay for everything and have some money left over.
So the morale of the story is: Be sure to have something else ready to go to. But if, as I felt, you feel strongly that you need to just leave - then do so. It may be tough. You may have to go back to where you were working. But some times there are just too many pressures to deal with and you just can't take it anymore and need to get away. By leaving my job and then coming back with a different company - I am being treated entirely differently than I was before. Further, there are only four people in my new company (including the owner and his partner). So there is a much nicer feel to the entire place. I only wish this was how things were for the past almost twenty years.
For the others with whom I work - they found out rather quickly just how much work I had been doing for them before I left. I think this is one of the reasons they wanted me back so badly. When you are one of the two people who understand all of a million line program and you can quickly and easily make changes to the entire program when it takes other months to just understand what is going on - it does make you rather indispensable.:-)
The largest databus I've seen was a 512 databus for a specialized graphics card. But that was a few years back at SIGGRAPH 2001. I'm sure they are past that point even now.:-)
For the majority of people - they probably either have a 32bit databus or a 64bit databus. The more you know about computers though - usually the better equipped the person becomes. Like Tom's Hardware. I knew nothing about Tom's Hardware until around 2002. Now I check it any time I am going to buy new hardware because they have very good in-depth articles about the state of computer products. I've even recommended them to several people here at NASA to check out before making a purchase.
Chaining together playstations... or any other form of parallel processing, is not going to break hashes like SHA-1. That's not an opinion.
Ok, so the fact that they:
1. Used a super computer to test their algorithms on. 2. That because most super computers operate in parallel they were able to either break the problem up into multiple parts or were able to test against multiple situations at the same time. 3. The super computer they used is probably doing terraflops worth of computations on this problem whereas older computers can't even do a terraflop. 4. That, because of their tests they were able to circumvent the N! problem and came up with a solution which only entailed 269 steps on their super computer. (And we still do not know exactly how many substeps or iterations are required in their program to reach an unencrypted state. We only know it took them a certain number of steps in their program.)
So I don't get it. The article specifically stated that they were using a super computing facility to do their work. We also know that super computers now-a-days are not one CPU but are multiple CPUs (like the recently talked about supercomputers purchased from IBM, HP, and even Apple Computer) strung together. That these CPUs work in parallel. They have a special OS and compilers which can break apart a program into individual chunks which are then fed to the multiple CPUs at the same time.
So given all of the above facts (items #1-4). And knowing (using common sense) that the breaking of SHA-1 would have been impossible on old, slower systems. You are still going to insist on saying they didn't use a super computer to break SHA-1? And knowing that all of today's super computers are really a large set of cpus stacked one against the other and that they run in parallel to process the given equations - you are still going to say it makes no difference?
If so, then please illuminate me with just how they went about breaking SHA-1. And please! Do not insult me by saying they did it by hand. Anyone who has had anything to do with encryption knows that you could not do this by hand. So tell me - how did they break SHA-1? And you better not try to tell me they used a computer after ranting and raving about how a computer can't help you solve this problem.
As for your post being modded up - I have not seen that. However, as you stated in your last post - we are fairly far down the ladder now and not many people will see anything we post to each other. Still, I do have two mod'ed messages. Both originally were mod'ed up and both are still positively mod'd. If, when you post something high on the list, I were to yell for people to mod you down and stated that your message was erroneous. Do you not think that some people might, as a knee-jerk reaction, just mod you down without really thinking for themselves as well?
Ok, I know I'm going to hate myself for even lending a modicum of credence to your message but since this message was a bit more subdued in tone as well as a bit more reasonable I felt I should answer.
Those are cute quips but you didn't back them up with anything.
Neither did you. All you did was to state your opinions (as I have) on this subject.
Your statement about me contridicting myself further shows you don't understand the subject matter.
First, this is a jibe or slur. Whichever way you wish to take it and shows that instead of being able to stick to the subject matter you must resort to junvenile behavior in order to attempt to degrade your opponent rather than just stick to the subject matter and present facts, figures, and links to back up your stance.
Note: When you knowingly first said I was right about computing power and then I was wrong about computing power you did a flip flop on your stance. This is also known as "talking out of both sides of your mouth", "being two faced", and so on. (And here I must pause. Because I already know that you will take the above as an insult - which it is not. It is simply a statement about a state of being. Children will take it as a personal insult and some adults will do so as well. But it is not. Which is why I have placed the colloquialisms in double quotes.)
Jumping from one side of an argument to the other and back again makes people think you do not know what you are talking about. Further, my stating your jumping back and forth has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter and therefore your logic is terribly flawed. It is like saying I know nothing about Australia because radeon gas inflitrates a person's house.
If you really had any kind of point to make in this matter, then you should have just said so. Like: The reason I said you were right and then wrong was becasue of X. Instead, you have to resort to childish, immature jabs in an attempt to goad me. *YAWN* Boring.
And it looks like I have to reiterate: growing computing power, in the form of playstations or whatever other crap you come up with, would never have had an effect on SHA-1 as it is used in public key crypto.
So again we start with a put-down which just makes be go bleck. Why even bother trying to hold a conversation with someone who can't do anything but try to bully you into submission.
So don't spread disinformation.
So look who's talking? Turn the mirror around and ask if you are helping or hurting? Don't see any help here.
And your call for me to be modded down is futile.
More boorish statements. *YAWN* Listen, you asked that I be mod'ed down as a Troll so I requested you be mod'ed down as flamebait. My call is just as stupid as yours was.
This story is way off the front page.
So what? If you look back just a few short messages you'll see I was mod'ed Interesting. So someone must be reading.
You are only talking to me now. Not that I would have cared.
If you don't care then why bring it up in the first place? Because you really do care.
I've been at the karma cap since before the cap existed.
Ok - so what? On SlashDot, once you reach a certain point it is almost impossible to do back down unless: 1)You really try hard at it, or 2)One of the SlashDot people reset you back down. Otherwise, by the very nature of posting your karma increases. But that is another subject for another day.
I'm sorry I was so harsh on you, but you were just wrong.
That is your stance. But I beg to differ. I know I am not wrong and you can talk until you are blue in the face. It will make no difference. Perhaps you should re-read the original posting and take it as it was meant - an opinion/general statement and not cold hard facts.
A lot of dumb people have worked for the DoD and NASA.
This is true.
That doesn't mean you know anything about mathematics or crypto.
This is not.
This article was about consequences of finding a weakness in SHA-1.
This is true.
You started spouting off about how "computing power" is what is needed to break crypto.
This is true.
You said something silly about all crypto being broken with more computing power
This is false. Or would you like to go buy, from a junk dealer, an old Apple ][+ and try to break SHA-1? Can't do it? Oh, but I thought you said more computing power isn't needed. Maybe I'm mistaken, but these people didn't use toliet paper to figure this stuff out. They tried various algorithms on their nice supercomputer. Which is where the PS3 came in. Only you really failed to think about it in that light.
Since you were interested enough to reply, I'll elaborate. I didn't in my previous post because I just wanted you modded down--you really were posting just plain wrong information and saying it confidently.
PLEASE! The pity ploy! Gack! I think I'm going to get sick.
First of all, increased computing power is a given.
Oh my god! You agreed with me! And after bashing me so terribly before about saying this same thing! Oh still my beating heart!
But SHA-1 was broken by finding a mathematical way to find colisions with many orders of magnitude less computing power (perhaps I should say "fewer" since computing power is discrete?).
Oh my god! You agree with me again! I can't believe it! They used a mathematical algorithm to do this! Oh! This is too funny!
Secondly, your remark about increased computing power breaking all crypto is absurd.
Now wait! First you agree with me then you disagree with yourself! Oh god! This is too funny! I'm sorry! I just can't go on with a conversation with someone who can't even get stay with one stance! Either you agree with me or you don't!
Tell you what! You go ahead and say whatever you want. Just, if everyone will mod this person into flamebait city I'd appreciate it. Cause I have a lot of better things to do with my time than to go through such obviously stupid reasoning.
How would they know you wanted it if they didn't ask you?
To wit, most people would respond:
I'll let you know when I need it.
Which they will then respond:
How do you know you need it if you don't know about it?
And so on...
Which, to me, is sort of like a cat/dog chasing its tail. It didn't know it was there until it looked and then the elusive tail is hard to catch. But round and round they go until at last they are either exhausted from trying or they've managed to catch it. Whereupon they usually find out the hard way that the tail is actually attached to themselves. Which is similar to this situation.
The problem is that people want to know about things and then be given a chance to poke and prod at whatever (or kick the tires so to speak). While sales people want to just show you the item and immediately make a sale. The reason things are like this so much is because if the sales people do not meet their sales quota each month it is highly likely that they will be fired and replaced by someone else who will try harder to meet that sales quota. These sales quotas are in place because many businesses have embraced these bean counter methodologies (ie: ISO1960 or whatever they are called - we have them here as well). These bean counter technologies are really demented. They work like this:
Year #1: You set everything up to start counting. Year #2: You count everything. Year #3: You look at what the numbers say while counting everything again. Year #4: If Year #2 was worse than Year #3 you are doing well. If Year #2 was better than Year #3 you are doing worse. If things remained at about the same level look around for ways to cut costs and improve output. (This usually means layoffs, more work for those left behind, and higher levels of output production.)
Year #5: Repeat Year #4.
The idiotic outcome of this methodology is the diametrically opposed views of one or two workers and unrealistict output. What it usually causes is more sick leave, worker burnout, and yes - higher output. I can not name names, nor point fingers, but I have known others who have left because of this bean counting.
To bring this back on track though, it is the above kind of mentality that causes many of the companies to at least try mass marketing through e-mail. Because it requires very few people, doesn't cost more than a few pennies to send each missive (so low overhead), and they do get responses (improved output).
I actually was asked to work at one such company. I refused. I was to be their internet person to grab people's e-mail addresses and to put them onto a list for e-mails to be sent out to. As I said - I refused. I tried to get them to set up a website where people could come to view their products instead (like Amazon.com or maybe eBay does it) but they didn't want to work it that way. I can not see helping such an endeavor, and took a different job.
In any event, if your e-mail address is made publicly available in any of the mediums, then you can rest assured that you will probably get junk/spam mail. Not that you want it, not that I want it, but you will probably get it. I applaud the Canadian Government's attempts to curb this problem as I applaud any government which tries to make laws which favor their citizens more than their corporations or companies.
Ok, I realize this is just flamebait but I have to say that this is just untrue. First you know absolutely nothing about me or my background. Second my statements are true.
Let's look at the second one first:
1. No matter how brainy you are, it requires a computer (now-a-days) to break any kind of cryptology which is in place.
2. No matter how smart you may be, you won't be able to test your premise without the usage of a computer. Further, it is not so much hard core number crunching (as in testing each and every possible combination which would take millions or billions of years to do) as it is coming up with an algorithm which will work.
3. In the case of DRM, we are using and following rules which we have devised to tell us how we can make use of Quantum particles to generate random numbers. As such, it is not impossible for someone to accidentally stumble upon or even develop on purpose an algorithm which will undo what was done. It is just a matter of when this will happen.
Now let's look at the first one:
1. I have never said I was a genius or even brilliant at cryptography.
2. But I have studied the field since I have worked with DoD before in various ways.
3. I have also let it be known that I do work at NASA without any degree at all. However, NASA does consider me to have several masters. Both in mathematics as well as computer science.
Finally, you are entitled to your opinion and I probably could do with some more reading in the area of cryptology. Unfortunately, presently I'm helping NASA rebuild their CAD system of information about the Space Shuttle and do not have the time. Maybe later.
64bit computers [...] can move the data around a lot faster
No, they can't.
Last time I looked, 16bit computers could transfer more data than 8bit computers because the 8bit databus was updated to 16bits. The 32bit computers could transfer more data than 16bit computers because the databus was upgraded again. It stands to reason then that with a 64bit system it too will be able to transfer information at a more rapid rate than the 32bit systems. Not only because the databus would again be updated to allow larger reads and writes, but just because of improvements in overall speed of the system.
Still if a 32bit system was attempting to do 64bit manipulations and a 64bit system was attempting to do 64bit manipulations, then the 64bit system would (and should) out perform the 32bit system. Maybe not 2:1 but it should be faster because it requires fewer reads and writes to memory and/or other external devices.
I will admit that the databus itself has a lot to do with the overall speed of a given system. After all, IBM once sent us their top of the line graphic computer which had a 32bit graphics system built into it. Only it ran slower than our 16bit systems. This was because (after weeks of dealing with the IBM reps and engineers who always returned to "It was our fault") we found out they were using an 8bit databus on the graphics pipeline. Not the brightest thing IBM has ever done.
But all things being equal (that being that each system uses and/or has an appropriate structure (such as the proper databus, memory units, and such) then a 64bit system will be a 32bit system every time.
As a side note - Even if you want to talk about multiple cpus you have to have apples and apples. Thus if the CELL cpu has 6 million cpus on its chip running at 64bits each then you have to have the same with the 32bit cpus in order to properly compare them.
This reminds me of the DRM debate of about a month ago here on SlashDot. I took the stance that DRM would be broken just like any of the other algorithms that anyone has come up with. I was told by one person that DRM could never be broken. Well, when SHA-0 came along they thought it could never be broken either. Then SHA-1, now SHA-256, and later it will be SHA-512. As someone else pointed out - it is just a matter of how much computing power do you want to put behind your attempt to break an encryption.
But here's a scarey thought for you: The new Playstation 3 is packed with at least three CELL CPUs and a maximum of eight. The PS3 is supposed to be an order of magnitude faster than any currently existing microcomputer. It is, therefore, a supercomputer in its own right. But that's not the scarey part. The scarey part is that the PS3 runs Linux, can be programmed just like a regular computer, and is stackable. At SIGGRAPH 2001 Sony displayed a box you could buy where you could stack up to ten PS2s and they would act like a networked supercomputer. They had a really neat display of a girl in a space station with the earth and stars outside of the window. One PS2 controlled the earth simulation and stars. One did the interior of the space station. One did the hair (so they could do individual hairs), one did the body (breathing, texture, etc...), one for facial expressions, and the rest did arms, hands, legs, feet, and some special effects (like the weightlessness). All of these functions can be done on one PS3.
Ok, so if you can buy a PS3 for an estimated cost of $350.00 USD, how many PS3s would it take to break SHA-512? DRM? Or any other encryption method? Remember that they are 64bit computers also so they can move the data around a lot faster. And - they may also be able to handle many GIGABYTES of memory (which means they will be able to break codes even faster).
We basically are building our own nightmare. We want the faster computers so we can do things faster but that means those who are destructive are also getting the same toys to play with to make our lives miserable.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have ANY idea what "tangible" or "corporeal" means? Any at all?
Why yes I do Minna! Tangible is what I am and corporeal is what you are not. What you can't seem to get through your head is that even if left on a computer and never printed out a software program still resides as electrical information. It MUST RESIDE somewhere or else it can't be used by a computer to perform its task. Maybe you should take a few computer courses and learn what a software program is and is not. I know I have and I have since 1972. So from how you are writing your sentences I'd have to say I have known what tangible and corporeal has meant for a few more years than you have even been alive. So get over yourself.
Just wanted to repeat that again, because it's about the stupidest thing I've read in nearly 4 months. (This is the 2nd most stupid thing)
And you are THE DUMBEST PERSON presently on slashdot. There! Does that make you feel better? Like throwing a little slander around? Get a life Minna! Get a life!
No, I was correct. Nothing you wrote refutes me, or even makes approximate sense. It's true that Superman and Luke Skywalker are covered by both trademarks and copyrights, but copyrights are by far the more important consideration. If Luke Skywalker was only trademarked and not copyrighted, then many comic-book authors would be happy to use that name inside their works without paying George Lucas.
Ok! MINNA! PLEASE! First you say I'm wrong - then you say I'm right! MAKE UP YOU MIND MINNA - PLEASE! You can't have it both ways. Further, copyrights are NOT the most important! Patents and Trademarks supercede them. Copyrights, next to these two things, are not worth anything. Only when Patents and Trademarks are outside of the area you want to talk about do they come into play. Otherwise - the other two take president. As do Trade Secrets. That's why, a few years ago, there was this big court case when some professor (TOO BAD! I forget the specifics!) who had done some work under a Trade Secret agreement wrote documentation about the Trade Secrets and copyrighted them. That action caused him to be fined and he had to give up his copyrighted work. Because even Trade Secrets have more power than copyrights.
Ok, that doesn't parse too well as an English sentence. But it appears to be an agreement with me, which makes your recent usage of "Incorrect again!" even less comprehensible.
OH GOD MINNA! Are you now an english critic as well? GIVE ME A BREAK! It is a perfectly good English sentence. And at least I'm not contradicting myself and being wishy washy about whether someone or something is right or wrong. If you had read the sentence correctly you would have understood that only that one particular instance and usage of the terms "Superman" and "Luke Skywalker" are protected - but it doesn't mean I can't use the terms, processes, or ideas of Superman and Luke Skywalker in other ways.
FOR INSTANCE: You can write "My man is a Superman!" and not be sued. You can write "It stuck to the wall as if Spiderman had shot his web at it." and not be sued! WHY MINNA? WHY? Because the IDEAS behind "Superman" and "Spiderman" are being used and not the single special case. However, I can't write a book about the adventures of Superman or Spiderman because I WILL BE SUED! WHY MINNA? WHY? It is because then I'm treading on the formerly held copyrights! There's a difference there you can't seem to grasp.
No. It was a direct quote from USC copyright law, which you completely misinterpreted. And if you somehow thought that the text of an ancient, preexisting law somehow came "out of the case"... well, that suggests why nobody else bothered to reply to you.
OH GOD AGAIN MINNA! WILL YOU EVER GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT? I doubt it. The quote says, in unambiguous English that IDEAS, PROCESSES, etc... are NOT COVERED BY COPYRIGHT LAW! How much clearer can it be?
Ok....
(Hint: by definition, all software is intangible. If it were tangible, it would be hardware)
Wrong. All software is tangible. It resides within a computer, floppy disk, hard drive, etc.... Therefore, your definition of intangible versus tangible is flawed. The ONLY reason you can copyright software is because it is, by extension, a form of writing and communication - which is why the Copyright Office opened this form of copyrighting at all. Well, big business had a lot do with it too but that was the underlying argument.
Superman and Luke Skywalker are both copyrighted and trademarked, even though they are inarguably the products of mental action, or "ideas".
Incorrect again! Damn! And here I thought you might be on to something. Superman is copyrighted as a comic book. However, Marvel has Superman also, BUT he isn't called Superman. And the reason he isn't called Superman is not because Superman is copyrighted. It's because he is a registered trademark and thus protected under the rules and regulations regarding trademarks. Look it up. As for Luke Skywalker. The name itself can not be copyrighted but it can (again) be trademarked for purposes of distinguishing it from other generic "Luke Skywalker" names (such as a person's name). Further, the books for both Superman and Luke Skywalker allow an extension of the copyright laws which deal with protecting specific instances of names. Thus, someone can not write (legally) about Luke Skywalker and his adventures except in the standard method of fair use. However, this doesn't amount to anything when you are talking about fans of the Star Wars saga because most fans don't really care. Which is why no one tries to do anything about fans. First, because they want fans, and second it gives the owners of the copyrights access to derivative works which they may be able to use to create monetary income. (ie: Hire the author if they like their writings.)
Prehaps you don't know what "idea" means- prehaps you don't know how all-ecompassingly generic it is:
And perhaps you don't know the difference between talking generally and talking specifically. This isn't legal class 101 - it's just a chat board and the quote was taken, literally from the article. Thus, if you have a problem with what he has said - maybe you should go discuss your differences with Mr. Eric Grimm himself. I am sure he would enjoy your saying he doesn't know what he is talking about.
And while we are on the subject of copyright and what is or is not protected I would like to draw your attention to BattleStar Glactica. This famed series originally starred Lorn Green and the entire basis of how everything worked in the series was done by none other than - George Lucas. George came up with the special effects and many of the other things which made the series a hit. Then George tried to sue. After all, these were his ideas, processes, and (just about) everything else. Know what? After a few years of listening to the case the judge threw the case out and told Mr. Lucas to "Get a life!" The judge went on to chastise Mr. Lucas because, in the judge's words "You don't own the universe Mr. Lucas." And here is where ideas met reality. Just as they did in this case. He couldn't own the ideas. Only the copyright's embodiment of the ideas and those had been bought and paid for by the TV studios who had hired him to do the special effects.
Later.
Actually, I would think this would be more along the lines of:
1. Convicted
2. Not Convicted because the computer hasn't hiccupped yet.
Let's see, how many different DNA labs have had their hands slapped for fabricating their results? Like the one in the city of Houston, Texas. (Where they are completely overhauling their labs because of problems.)
How many times has it been found out that someone went to jail not because they are guilty but because someone else wanted them out of the way?
How many death row inmates are being released (like in the state of Illinois where almost all of them were released from death row) because DNA evidence has shown that many of the people there are there only because they just happened to be a different color, nationality, height, weight, sexual disposition, and so on?
The rules are (from my perspective):
1. If you have a lot of money - you can get away with a lot of things.
2. If you are very influential/powerful - you can get away with a lot of things.
3. If you are an average kind of person (some money, some friends...) you might be able to get away with some things (like getting out of traffic tickets and the like).
4. If you are poor though - tough break. Because you don't dress as nicely, speak as fluently, have a reparte with others who are more powerful - it is a good guess that you will have run-ins with the law. Just because of how you look, talk, and act.
It has been proven time and time again that:
1. Powerful people do some really nasty things sometimes. (As in the case of the gentleman who was murdered in a small town in Texas (in the 60s). It is suspected that the head of the police department killed this guy. But almost everyone who lived during those times is now dead and those who are still alive either don't know or won't talk about what happened. Or take the case of one of my wife's cousins. Found tied to a chair, hands tied behind his back, gag in his mouth. Shot in the head. Cause of death? Suicide. Case closed.)
2. People who have any kind of authority tend to abuse that authority. (Look at not only how many high ranking people abuse authority [like fixing traffic tickets and such] but if you would only go to Federal Court where the IRS takes people who try to evade paying their taxes you would get a real eye opener on what these people try to pull all of the time.)
3. People who are first timers to power jobs tend to work more for the people than those who return to that (or a higher) office. This is simply because they are novices and are learning the ropes. Once they've got the techniques down pat it is very seldom that they do not succumb to the temtations of power. And those that do not succumb usually wind up dead. Which should tell you something.
Graft and corruption go hand in hand with power and the more power you have the easier it is to misuse that power. It is not just a fact of life. It is a fact that we are allowing ourselves to be this way. We could just as easily say no to the way things are and change our way of life. We've just chosen not to do so.
I thought that one of the important things to come out of the case was this:
:-) ])
The doctrine is now enshrined in 17 U.S.C. 102(b). The relevant section says:
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
A lot of people think that their ideas, procedures, processes, etc... are (or can be) protected by copyright. The answer here is - no. They can not be protected by copyright. These are protected by patents.
Tangibles => copyrights
Intanigbles => patents
(I don't know about anyone else, but I do get a lot of questions on this when friends/relatives/and other stranger persons ask me about copyrights. And no, IANAL! I just like to read about the law. [Surprised my own lawyer by how much I knew about the law.
Easy. Make a grid. Put the LED lights so they are centered one per square in the grid. Run the +/- lines back to a central board. Apply the proper power to the board. Use toggle switches. One per light. Toggle the switch and the light comes on on the grid. Toggle the switch the other way - the light goes off. (Or use push buttons.)
:-)
Like so:
+---+---+---+---+---+
| o | o | o | o | o | o = LED light
+---+---+---+---+---+
You can make squares, circles, corridors, etc... just by turning on/off the various lights. (Note: I had five lines of grids but I get a Lameness message when I do that so I had to reduce it back to a single grid line.)
You can use the lights in two ways:
1. Put a piece of clear/frosted/black plastic over them and use them to show the actual room. (ie: Light up the squares which comprise the room.)
2. Put nothing over them and use them to make an outline of a room or whatever.
Get it?
Hmmmmmm..... ECODE is broken. Hello ADMINS!!!!! When I try <ECODE> I get the "Lameness..." message instead of working like the PRE or CODE command is supposed to work. Can someone look into this? Had to switch this to "Code" so it would look right.
The expensive part isn't the laptop (which you can now get for around $500.00) but the projector. The least expensive projector I've found is around $1,000.00 now but doesn't do a good job in bright light (such as is found in a house). Also, you have to have a halfway descent amount of room to play/project the pictures.
:-/
:-( )
I experimented (once) with putting the projector (a REALLY cheap/bad projector I found at college) under a plexiglass table top but the dice rolling on the table top was so loud it made playing unenjoyable.
However, someone gave me an idea on how to actually do this cheaply only not being an electrical engineer I never did it like they told me to. Maybe someone else would like to try it? The idea is to take a thick piece of cardboard (like that found in really sturdy corrigated boxes). Draw a grid onto the cardboard box or get one of those cheap plastic layers which already have a grid printed on them (but aren't so hard as to be like plexiglass). Depending on whether you draw or overlay the cardboard you go buy a bunch of those tiny leds for toy trains and such and put one in each of the squares (centered). Here is where the engineering comes in: You have to have all of those wires go back to some kind of a black box which has a cable going back to the computer. Using the computer you turn on or off the various leds. I was told it wouldn't be that hard but I tried a small board (1ft by 1ft) and couldn't get the electronics to work. It was cheap though. The lights cost only about $30.00. The piece of cardboard was about $5.00 and I just drew the squares. The closest I came to making the whole thing work was when I just got a bunch of on/off toggle switches at Radio Shack, mounted them on a metal surface, and just flicked them on and off in whatever pattern I needed. It worked ok. Probably a bigger area would look a lot better.
I have also been working on an idea where laptops are used. The central server is the ref's machine and everyone else uses their browser to move around in the game. (Unfortunately, I just wiped my entire hard drive accidentally. Bought a new hard drive but referenced the wrong one when I went to partition it. I'm looking at recovery software to get everything back. I have never been so despressed as when I realized what I had done. And yes - I have backups but the last backup was about two months ago.
If he is drug to the US would this mean that he is covered by all US laws? If so - declare bankruptcy under US law after the case and go back to Australia. (Bankruptcy presently wipes out all debt in the US except for things like the IRS.)
:-)
If the US says he can't file in the US, then the US should not be able to file against him. (At least I would hope this is so since the US is claiming right of ownership against him and is having him extradited to the US he should not only be subject to US law while in the territory of the US but should also be given all of the rights everyone else is given while here. Thus, this would lead me to wonder about bankruptcy.
In fact, everyone who ever has to go through a court case with the MPAA and RIAA should look at bankruptcy. After all, it also gets rid of all credit card debt, usually allows you to keep on vehicle per person with a driver's license, and just about everything else. This would be a great way for everyone to slap the RIAA, MPAA, and all financial institutions for allowing such rampant misuse and abuse of the legal system. It would cause the MPAA and RIAA to think twice about filing suit since it costs a lot to prosecute someone but it is only $200.00 to file for bankruptcy.
And while we are on the subject let me clue everyone in on a little something. Did you know that if someone files suit against you or even tries to collect a debt against you that you can go down to the federal court house, file for bankruptcy, get your paper stamped, come back the next week, and drop the bankruptcy? You get all of your money back except for about $10.00 or so and everyone has to leave you alone until the information about you having dropped the bankruptcy has been processed. (Which takes about a month.) And did you know you have the right to do this as many times a year as you wish?
I've been trying to collect on a debt for three years now and can't get a penny because of the above. Think what it could do to the MPAA and RIAA's coffers if everyone they sued did this. I think they'd run through quite a bit of money in a very short span of time - don't you?
Just a thought.
Remember: If they don't want to play nice - then neither do you.
I have to say that I think there should be an Open Source set up for independent reviews of things. Sort of like Consumer Reports (versus Consumer Review which was started by the major corporations to try to thwart Consumer Reports' highly accurate ratings). If done correctly, and an unbiased basis can be maintained, it might take off just like many of the software projects have done. Further, it could be used to show the actual state of where Open Source products are versus Closed Source products. In fact, Consumer Reports would be the place to do this since they are fairly independent and back up all of their statements with lots of test data.
So if anyone from any of the major OSS companies is listening - you might want to help fund the testing of the various OSs via Consumer Reports as well as some of the Open Source Software (OSS) itself versus the Closed Source Software (CSS) versions. Like Open Office versus MS-Office and the like.
Just a thought.
"Intel continues to believe its business practices are both fair and lawful."
;-)
I thought they said "...air and awful."
I can agree with you in many of the areas you talked about. It is very hard, sometimes to get a company to even believe you know what you are talking about. The language barrier is the biggest hurdle to overcome. Many times, just because you don't know the key words to say to trigger a "Oh, is it doing that?" kind of response - you get snubbed.
:-)
But I think it is still worth it to at least try talking to the companies. If nothing else, then when they start complaining loudly you can send them their e-mails back to them and point out that you were trying to do the right thing but they just brushed you off. Again, in courts it is really important to at least have made a good faith effort to bring a problem to the attention of a company. Then, when they fail to heed your warnings, you can proceed on down the trail of releasing the information to everyone else.
With Netscape, Mozilla, (and I assume Thunderbird) you can create folders and subfolders by simply right-clicking the main folder icon. Just make a folder for whatever company you are dealing with or make a main company with, say "Companies" and then make subfolders with the company's actual name. You can even make subfolders in a particular company's folder and put some meaningful title on to that folder. (Like 01/01/2005 or Problem_25.) Then just organize things by putting all sent and received messages into those folders. In this way you don't lose track of what is going on where and if they start acting rather foolishly (like saying they are going to sue you) - don't fall into the trap of responding angrily. Just send them back their e-mails (via cut & paste) and your e-mails showing where you only were trying to alert them to a problem and their responses. Many people think that, once sent, most e-mails just disappear. It is usually a shock to have your entire e-mail sent back to you and it can make them see that if they go to court over something they caused to happen, then it will only go badly for them.
As an example of the above, I will relate an actual incident. A few years ago our house was flooded. After contacting the insurance company I received an e-mail stating that our car would be inspected by an insurance agent. He never showed. I called a couple of times and got the run-around and finally had to write another e-mail. This resulted in the guy coming out and just slapping a "We now own this car," sticker onto the windshield and leaving. I wasn't home at the time and came home to find this bright orange packet on my windshield. Needless to say I got on the phone and was told that the insurance company now owned my car. I just went "Oh really?" Because I held the title to the vehicle. I finally wound up writing yet another e-mail demanding that the insurance company fix the car and quit playing around. After investigating my statements I was told to just go get the car fixed and to let them know how much it was going to cost them. I did so. It wasn't much. (Which, on a side note, if your car is ever flooded and you want to keep the vehicle then never let them start your engine. It will suck whatever water is in the engine all through it and that will be the last of your car.) Anyway, the insurance agency refused to pay the bill (which was only $1,500.00 and if they had bought the car it would have been over $6,000.00.) So when they refused I sent them back their e-mails where they said they would fix the vehicle. This greatly infuriated the manager I was talking to but I just reminded them that if they had not of tried to back out of what they had said to me in the past I would not have had to send them their e-mails to remind them of their promises. The car was fixed and paid for by the insurance company.
So it does work. Maybe not all of the time. But it does work.
I must disagree. To "Extort" means to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power. None of what I posted encourages anyone to do any of these things.
1. You are not forcing anyone to do anything. You are trying to work with the company(ies) to get the problem taken care of.
2. You are not using intimidation. You are asking them when you can release the information and working with them, in a positive manner, towards that goal.
3. You are not using undue or illegal power. At no time did I state that you should resort to lawyers and in fact - stated the opposite.
Therefore, saying that someone would be charged with extortion if they followed what I've written is like saying a whale can fly on its own. Further, your statement that it is far better to just post the information anonymously on the internet and not bother contacting the software company is a sure fire way to get yourself in trouble. After all, it has been proven time and again that there is no such thing as anonymous if a company wants to put forth the effort to find out who did the posting.
In actuality, your suggestion of brashly just dumping your information onto the internet falls under the "Revenge" portion of what I wrote. You must obviously hate whatever company you are thinking of (and I can think of quite a few who probably DO deserve having this done to them) and want them to fail. Because they have not earned your trust. They may have even done something to you in the past. I don't really know you so I can't say really. Still, if you are not out "to get them" (which is really nothing more than a revenge motive), then you must be out to help them by default. Or I guess you could be neutral - but your statements seem to state otherwise.
So, since your statements fall into the revenge section you will get what you deserve by just dumping your vital information into the public domain. Which will cause the company to be mad that you didn't have the decency to contact them first and give them a chance to react. Or to put that in bus terms - you saw that the road was going to end so you shot the driver rather than try to help him stop the bus. Or you could say that you leapt from the bus but then the bus was going 100mph and you'd be killed instantly so either way it doesn't solve the problem. Which is what you need to do. You need to learn how to work with the bus driver to get the bus to slow down and stop. Screaming, throwing temper tantrums, killing the bus driver, leaping off of the bus, or trying any other method of escaping your responsibility to act in a logical manner in order to maintain control over the bus won't work.
To stop a bus - especially a bus that is stick shift driven - requires a lot of coordination. The same is true for presenting unpleasant, sometimes irritating news. Any company which puts its darling of a piece of software out there hates it when the sweetheart software comes home looking like it has been to a grundge party. I'm not saying you have to be sugary sweet. Mr. Nicey-nicey. But you don't have to be Mr. Pointy either. (To borrow from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.) You don't have to rant and rave against them any more than you have to do everything they ask you to do. But at least make the effort to offer them a chance to correct their mistakes.
And try to do it without all of the hate and fury that might have already built up inside of you because what they did was so stupid as to make you want to twist their heads off of their bodies or to kick their butts down the street and into the ocean. I know how frustrating it can be to try to deal with some of the idiots that are out there. But turn the mirror around. Can you, without anger or malice, put into words exactly what is the matter so that someone besides your l33t bro can understand it? Can you say more than just "It doesn't work!"? If so, then do this:
1. Layout exactly what the problem is in clear, easy to understand wh
Neither and both. You do the following:
1. You contact the company and ask them how long they think it will take to fix the problem.
2. You ask them when you may release it into the wild and get a definite date/time.
2a. If they won't give you a definite date/time, make some suggestions and work with them to try to come to some understanding about it.
2b. If they still won't give you a definite date/time, ask them if you can release a general statement to everyone via something like BugTraq pointing everyone in the general direction of the problem but not giving specifics. Be sure to talk to the company and ask them who, in the (for want of a better place) BugTraq community they have dealt with in the past and that you can contact to have your problem verified (so you CAN post something to the site).
2b1. Contact the person the company is familiar with and have dealt with in the past. Show that person the problem and ask for their verification of the problem.
2b2. Using 2b1's verification post a general posting of "There is a problem with X" and let everyone know that you have already contacted the company as well as having verified the problem with Y. But that you can not yet release more information until date/time when the company has said the problem should be fixed and released to everyone.
2c. Once date/time has passed, post the entire set of information you wanted to release originally.
2c1. If someone contacts you via e-mail, phone, or flying saucer for more information then you should contact the company, let them know who has contacted you and why and let them handle any/all requests for information. In other words - keep them in the loop. If the person who contacted you does not want to talk to the company for some reason then you can be the go-between for the company and the person (and thus not reveal who it is that is dealing with you).
There are lots of reasons why the above is not done. Some are:
1. Fame. People get a rush for showing they are smarter than the programmers who wrote the software.
2. Misunderstanding. Sometimes there are language barriers which prevent people from being able to talk to other people. The usage of d00d, l8r, and the like are not the only reasons. Someone from Poland who is talking to someone from Africa may not use the same words in the same way. So people may take something as a threat when it is not. Three or four years ago a similar incident happened where someone gave a company five days to fix a problem. Then they went public with their information. This is a ridiculous amount of time to ask a company to fix something. Think of a bus. It is going 100mph down the road. Suddenly, within ten feet of the bus is a sign which reads "Road Out". A bus, going 100mph, can not stop in time to prevent a disaster from happening. Neither can a company. It takes time just to assign someone to either fix the problem or just to insert the code given and to test the code to see if it really does fix the problem or not. To put that in bus terms: It takes time to slow the bus down so it can come to a stop without killing everyone on board.
3. Revenge. Usually for some slight a company did or something the company said or boasted about. Like the "Our software can't be broken!" That, to many people, is a challenge and if the software can be broken some people like to take revenge for the company's boasts. This, again, is like #2 above - a misunderstanding. All companies say their software is the greatest or best. Would you ever buy the worst software ever made? Or second rate software? So (not that I want to defend companies but...) we have forced them to always say "Our software is the best," when it might be just so-so or even just plain bad. Because if they do not it is highly unlikely that the company will be around for long.
3a. This is one of the big differences between Open Source and Closed Source. In Open Source everyone can see the problems
I used to date myself - but then I found out what I was like and stopped doing it! ;-)
A long time ago (I know I'm dating myself here!) Dr. Dobbs had a book called:
:-/
:-)
Dobbs (extracts from Dr. Dobbs Journal)
Dr. Dobb's Toolbox of C
Prentice-Hall 1986
This book laid out the various methods which they used in the creation of Small C. I took those lessons to heart and programed by them. Although a lot of other methods have been forced down my throat by would-be managers or people who knew something about coding - these techniques have been, IMHO, the most help I have ever had when it comes to coding software.
The book explained the WHY of "why should you indent", and WHY you should use meaningful names for variables. In fact, it explained a lot of the WHYs and WHEREFOREs of programming.
If you can get your hands on a copy of this book - you should do so. Mine died a sudden death when, around Christmas time, the ceiling in my computer room came down. I was living in an apartment at the time and a water leak caused the ceiling to collapse. Know what gypsum becomes with some water? GLUE! So several of my really good books died that day from being glued together. Unfortunately, Dr. Dobb's book was one of them.
Luckily, the ceiling collapsed where the books were stacked and not where the computers were stacked. That would have been an even worse nightmare.
To bring this back on topic: I haven't read this new book, but from the overview - it sounds a lot like Dr. Dobb's book. So I may be off to buy it soon just to check it out.
But what happens if someone (like myself) uses a single machine with various OSs on it? The Linux part is exactly on time, the Windows98se part is months off due to a test I am doing, the WindowsXP part rarely comes up but has an entirely different date/time on it as do the other partitions. Each OS, basically, has a different time associated with it. Would this, then, cause the verification to fail?
The company I was working for (subcontracted to NASA) needed to lay someone off. I volunteered to be laid off. I'd worked at the job for almost twenty years and wanted to go do something (anything!) else. I was laid off January 31st, 2003.
:-)
The next day the Space Shuttle blew up. There were no jobs available after that. So my wife and I lived on unemployment while I looked around for a new job. I worked on some projects for friends but those only worked out kind-of ok. There were problems. As there are always problems with being a contractor on a job where the people you are working for think that 200 web pages is a simple task to be done in a month's time. At any rate, this got us through 2003 and into 2004.
Surprisingly, in 2004 I was asked to come back (via a different company) to work on the same stuff I'd been working on before. I agreed to do it part time and haven't regretted it since. Now I only work half the time I used to work and yet I still make enough to pay for everything and have some money left over.
So the morale of the story is: Be sure to have something else ready to go to. But if, as I felt, you feel strongly that you need to just leave - then do so. It may be tough. You may have to go back to where you were working. But some times there are just too many pressures to deal with and you just can't take it anymore and need to get away. By leaving my job and then coming back with a different company - I am being treated entirely differently than I was before. Further, there are only four people in my new company (including the owner and his partner). So there is a much nicer feel to the entire place. I only wish this was how things were for the past almost twenty years.
For the others with whom I work - they found out rather quickly just how much work I had been doing for them before I left. I think this is one of the reasons they wanted me back so badly. When you are one of the two people who understand all of a million line program and you can quickly and easily make changes to the entire program when it takes other months to just understand what is going on - it does make you rather indispensable.
L8r!
Remember the guy who had an article on SlashDot a while back about how to create your own magnetic card reader?
:-)
Well, I was just sitting here reading the articles and replies and thought to myself:
"Myself," I said.
"Yes?" I replied.
"What if we took one of the new readers, set it up so it would charge anyone $20.00 who got near me with one of those new cards." I said.
"You might be on to something," I said to myself, "Like ten to twenty if you aren't careful!"
Sounds good. :-)
:-)
The largest databus I've seen was a 512 databus for a specialized graphics card. But that was a few years back at SIGGRAPH 2001. I'm sure they are past that point even now.
For the majority of people - they probably either have a 32bit databus or a 64bit databus. The more you know about computers though - usually the better equipped the person becomes. Like Tom's Hardware. I knew nothing about Tom's Hardware until around 2002. Now I check it any time I am going to buy new hardware because they have very good in-depth articles about the state of computer products. I've even recommended them to several people here at NASA to check out before making a purchase.
Chaining together playstations... or any other form of parallel processing, is not going to break hashes like SHA-1. That's not an opinion.
Ok, so the fact that they:
1. Used a super computer to test their algorithms on.
2. That because most super computers operate in parallel they were able to either break the problem up into multiple parts or were able to test against multiple situations at the same time.
3. The super computer they used is probably doing terraflops worth of computations on this problem whereas older computers can't even do a terraflop.
4. That, because of their tests they were able to circumvent the N! problem and came up with a solution which only entailed 269 steps on their super computer. (And we still do not know exactly how many substeps or iterations are required in their program to reach an unencrypted state. We only know it took them a certain number of steps in their program.)
So I don't get it. The article specifically stated that they were using a super computing facility to do their work. We also know that super computers now-a-days are not one CPU but are multiple CPUs (like the recently talked about supercomputers purchased from IBM, HP, and even Apple Computer) strung together. That these CPUs work in parallel. They have a special OS and compilers which can break apart a program into individual chunks which are then fed to the multiple CPUs at the same time.
So given all of the above facts (items #1-4). And knowing (using common sense) that the breaking of SHA-1 would have been impossible on old, slower systems. You are still going to insist on saying they didn't use a super computer to break SHA-1? And knowing that all of today's super computers are really a large set of cpus stacked one against the other and that they run in parallel to process the given equations - you are still going to say it makes no difference?
If so, then please illuminate me with just how they went about breaking SHA-1. And please! Do not insult me by saying they did it by hand. Anyone who has had anything to do with encryption knows that you could not do this by hand. So tell me - how did they break SHA-1? And you better not try to tell me they used a computer after ranting and raving about how a computer can't help you solve this problem.
As for your post being modded up - I have not seen that. However, as you stated in your last post - we are fairly far down the ladder now and not many people will see anything we post to each other. Still, I do have two mod'ed messages. Both originally were mod'ed up and both are still positively mod'd. If, when you post something high on the list, I were to yell for people to mod you down and stated that your message was erroneous. Do you not think that some people might, as a knee-jerk reaction, just mod you down without really thinking for themselves as well?
Ok, I know I'm going to hate myself for even lending a modicum of credence to your message but since this message was a bit more subdued in tone as well as a bit more reasonable I felt I should answer.
Those are cute quips but you didn't back them up with anything.
Neither did you. All you did was to state your opinions (as I have) on this subject.
Your statement about me contridicting myself further shows you don't understand the subject matter.
First, this is a jibe or slur. Whichever way you wish to take it and shows that instead of being able to stick to the subject matter you must resort to junvenile behavior in order to attempt to degrade your opponent rather than just stick to the subject matter and present facts, figures, and links to back up your stance.
Note: When you knowingly first said I was right about computing power and then I was wrong about computing power you did a flip flop on your stance. This is also known as "talking out of both sides of your mouth", "being two faced", and so on. (And here I must pause. Because I already know that you will take the above as an insult - which it is not. It is simply a statement about a state of being. Children will take it as a personal insult and some adults will do so as well. But it is not. Which is why I have placed the colloquialisms in double quotes.)
Jumping from one side of an argument to the other and back again makes people think you do not know what you are talking about. Further, my stating your jumping back and forth has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter and therefore your logic is terribly flawed. It is like saying I know nothing about Australia because radeon gas inflitrates a person's house.
If you really had any kind of point to make in this matter, then you should have just said so. Like: The reason I said you were right and then wrong was becasue of X. Instead, you have to resort to childish, immature jabs in an attempt to goad me. *YAWN* Boring.
And it looks like I have to reiterate: growing computing power, in the form of playstations or whatever other crap you come up with, would never have had an effect on SHA-1 as it is used in public key crypto.
So again we start with a put-down which just makes be go bleck. Why even bother trying to hold a conversation with someone who can't do anything but try to bully you into submission.
So don't spread disinformation.
So look who's talking? Turn the mirror around and ask if you are helping or hurting? Don't see any help here.
And your call for me to be modded down is futile.
More boorish statements. *YAWN* Listen, you asked that I be mod'ed down as a Troll so I requested you be mod'ed down as flamebait. My call is just as stupid as yours was.
This story is way off the front page.
So what? If you look back just a few short messages you'll see I was mod'ed Interesting. So someone must be reading.
You are only talking to me now. Not that I would have cared.
If you don't care then why bring it up in the first place? Because you really do care.
I've been at the karma cap since before the cap existed.
Ok - so what? On SlashDot, once you reach a certain point it is almost impossible to do back down unless: 1)You really try hard at it, or 2)One of the SlashDot people reset you back down. Otherwise, by the very nature of posting your karma increases. But that is another subject for another day.
I'm sorry I was so harsh on you, but you were just wrong.
That is your stance. But I beg to differ. I know I am not wrong and you can talk until you are blue in the face. It will make no difference. Perhaps you should re-read the original posting and take it as it was meant - an opinion/general statement and not cold hard facts.
Forwards:
I do not mind being wrong - when I am wrong. I
A lot of dumb people have worked for the DoD and NASA.
This is true.
That doesn't mean you know anything about mathematics or crypto.
This is not.
This article was about consequences of finding a weakness in SHA-1.
This is true.
You started spouting off about how "computing power" is what is needed to break crypto.
This is true.
You said something silly about all crypto being broken with more computing power
This is false. Or would you like to go buy, from a junk dealer, an old Apple ][+ and try to break SHA-1? Can't do it? Oh, but I thought you said more computing power isn't needed. Maybe I'm mistaken, but these people didn't use toliet paper to figure this stuff out. They tried various algorithms on their nice supercomputer. Which is where the PS3 came in. Only you really failed to think about it in that light.
Since you were interested enough to reply, I'll elaborate. I didn't in my previous post because I just wanted you modded down--you really were posting just plain wrong information and saying it confidently.
PLEASE! The pity ploy! Gack! I think I'm going to get sick.
First of all, increased computing power is a given.
Oh my god! You agreed with me! And after bashing me so terribly before about saying this same thing! Oh still my beating heart!
But SHA-1 was broken by finding a mathematical way to find colisions with many orders of magnitude less computing power (perhaps I should say "fewer" since computing power is discrete?).
Oh my god! You agree with me again! I can't believe it! They used a mathematical algorithm to do this! Oh! This is too funny!
Secondly, your remark about increased computing power breaking all crypto is absurd.
Now wait! First you agree with me then you disagree with yourself! Oh god! This is too funny! I'm sorry! I just can't go on with a conversation with someone who can't even get stay with one stance! Either you agree with me or you don't!
Tell you what! You go ahead and say whatever you want. Just, if everyone will mod this person into flamebait city I'd appreciate it. Cause I have a lot of better things to do with my time than to go through such obviously stupid reasoning.
Later Lord Gator!
Wouldn't the question then become:
How would they know you wanted it if they didn't ask you?
To wit, most people would respond:
I'll let you know when I need it.
Which they will then respond:
How do you know you need it if you don't know about it?
And so on...
Which, to me, is sort of like a cat/dog chasing its tail. It didn't know it was there until it looked and then the elusive tail is hard to catch. But round and round they go until at last they are either exhausted from trying or they've managed to catch it. Whereupon they usually find out the hard way that the tail is actually attached to themselves. Which is similar to this situation.
The problem is that people want to know about things and then be given a chance to poke and prod at whatever (or kick the tires so to speak). While sales people want to just show you the item and immediately make a sale. The reason things are like this so much is because if the sales people do not meet their sales quota each month it is highly likely that they will be fired and replaced by someone else who will try harder to meet that sales quota. These sales quotas are in place because many businesses have embraced these bean counter methodologies (ie: ISO1960 or whatever they are called - we have them here as well). These bean counter technologies are really demented. They work like this:
Year #1: You set everything up to start counting.
Year #2: You count everything.
Year #3: You look at what the numbers say while counting everything again.
Year #4: If Year #2 was worse than Year #3 you are doing well. If Year #2 was better than Year #3 you are doing worse. If things remained at about the same level look around for ways to cut costs and improve output. (This usually means layoffs, more work for those left behind, and higher levels of output production.)
Year #5: Repeat Year #4.
The idiotic outcome of this methodology is the diametrically opposed views of one or two workers and unrealistict output. What it usually causes is more sick leave, worker burnout, and yes - higher output. I can not name names, nor point fingers, but I have known others who have left because of this bean counting.
To bring this back on track though, it is the above kind of mentality that causes many of the companies to at least try mass marketing through e-mail. Because it requires very few people, doesn't cost more than a few pennies to send each missive (so low overhead), and they do get responses (improved output).
I actually was asked to work at one such company. I refused. I was to be their internet person to grab people's e-mail addresses and to put them onto a list for e-mails to be sent out to. As I said - I refused. I tried to get them to set up a website where people could come to view their products instead (like Amazon.com or maybe eBay does it) but they didn't want to work it that way. I can not see helping such an endeavor, and took a different job.
In any event, if your e-mail address is made publicly available in any of the mediums, then you can rest assured that you will probably get junk/spam mail. Not that you want it, not that I want it, but you will probably get it. I applaud the Canadian Government's attempts to curb this problem as I applaud any government which tries to make laws which favor their citizens more than their corporations or companies.
Later.
Ok, I realize this is just flamebait but I have to say that this is just untrue. First you know absolutely nothing about me or my background. Second my statements are true.
Let's look at the second one first:
1. No matter how brainy you are, it requires a computer (now-a-days) to break any kind of cryptology which is in place.
2. No matter how smart you may be, you won't be able to test your premise without the usage of a computer. Further, it is not so much hard core number crunching (as in testing each and every possible combination which would take millions or billions of years to do) as it is coming up with an algorithm which will work.
3. In the case of DRM, we are using and following rules which we have devised to tell us how we can make use of Quantum particles to generate random numbers. As such, it is not impossible for someone to accidentally stumble upon or even develop on purpose an algorithm which will undo what was done. It is just a matter of when this will happen.
Now let's look at the first one:
1. I have never said I was a genius or even brilliant at cryptography.
2. But I have studied the field since I have worked with DoD before in various ways.
3. I have also let it be known that I do work at NASA without any degree at all. However, NASA does consider me to have several masters. Both in mathematics as well as computer science.
Finally, you are entitled to your opinion and I probably could do with some more reading in the area of cryptology. Unfortunately, presently I'm helping NASA rebuild their CAD system of information about the Space Shuttle and do not have the time. Maybe later.
Enjoy life.
the PS3 runs Linux
No, it doesn't.
Reply: The CELL process can run linux (and therefore the PS3 will be able to run linux) (Not to mention that the PS2 can already run Linux and why the PS3 would be unable to do so just doesn't make sense. After all, Sony is one of the companies who has come on-line for pushing Linux as the operating system.)
can be programmed just like a regular computer
No, it can't.
If caveat #1 is correct, then #2 must follow.
64bit computers [...] can move the data around a lot faster
No, they can't.
Last time I looked, 16bit computers could transfer more data than 8bit computers because the 8bit databus was updated to 16bits. The 32bit computers could transfer more data than 16bit computers because the databus was upgraded again. It stands to reason then that with a 64bit system it too will be able to transfer information at a more rapid rate than the 32bit systems. Not only because the databus would again be updated to allow larger reads and writes, but just because of improvements in overall speed of the system.
Still if a 32bit system was attempting to do 64bit manipulations and a 64bit system was attempting to do 64bit manipulations, then the 64bit system would (and should) out perform the 32bit system. Maybe not 2:1 but it should be faster because it requires fewer reads and writes to memory and/or other external devices.
I will admit that the databus itself has a lot to do with the overall speed of a given system. After all, IBM once sent us their top of the line graphic computer which had a 32bit graphics system built into it. Only it ran slower than our 16bit systems. This was because (after weeks of dealing with the IBM reps and engineers who always returned to "It was our fault") we found out they were using an 8bit databus on the graphics pipeline. Not the brightest thing IBM has ever done.
But all things being equal (that being that each system uses and/or has an appropriate structure (such as the proper databus, memory units, and such) then a 64bit system will be a 32bit system every time.
As a side note - Even if you want to talk about multiple cpus you have to have apples and apples. Thus if the CELL cpu has 6 million cpus on its chip running at 64bits each then you have to have the same with the 32bit cpus in order to properly compare them.
This reminds me of the DRM debate of about a month ago here on SlashDot. I took the stance that DRM would be broken just like any of the other algorithms that anyone has come up with. I was told by one person that DRM could never be broken. Well, when SHA-0 came along they thought it could never be broken either. Then SHA-1, now SHA-256, and later it will be SHA-512. As someone else pointed out - it is just a matter of how much computing power do you want to put behind your attempt to break an encryption.
But here's a scarey thought for you: The new Playstation 3 is packed with at least three CELL CPUs and a maximum of eight. The PS3 is supposed to be an order of magnitude faster than any currently existing microcomputer. It is, therefore, a supercomputer in its own right. But that's not the scarey part. The scarey part is that the PS3 runs Linux, can be programmed just like a regular computer, and is stackable. At SIGGRAPH 2001 Sony displayed a box you could buy where you could stack up to ten PS2s and they would act like a networked supercomputer. They had a really neat display of a girl in a space station with the earth and stars outside of the window. One PS2 controlled the earth simulation and stars. One did the interior of the space station. One did the hair (so they could do individual hairs), one did the body (breathing, texture, etc...), one for facial expressions, and the rest did arms, hands, legs, feet, and some special effects (like the weightlessness). All of these functions can be done on one PS3.
Ok, so if you can buy a PS3 for an estimated cost of $350.00 USD, how many PS3s would it take to break SHA-512? DRM? Or any other encryption method? Remember that they are 64bit computers also so they can move the data around a lot faster. And - they may also be able to handle many GIGABYTES of memory (which means they will be able to break codes even faster).
We basically are building our own nightmare. We want the faster computers so we can do things faster but that means those who are destructive are also getting the same toys to play with to make our lives miserable.