I might argue that the creation of a novel cryptosystem is in fact a rather difficult task. Alternatives to the one time pad have been proposed for centuries - many of which were "unbreakable", but turn out to be surprisingly easy to subvert. You might consider reading something on the subject of cryptanalysis before you assert that good cryptosystems are easily understood.
I kinda forgot about SUN after an experience about five years ago.
I was asked to implement a significant GA system for a firm that bought a $25,000 SUN box to run it on. I did the development work (rather inefficiently as I was way new to UNIX at the time) and had some significant performance related issues at beta. On a lark we set up Linux on a 120 Mhz Pentium with 64 Meg RAM (call it 1/10 the cost of the SUN box) and recompiled the source. No special optimization (1st time ever with Linux). The Linux / Pentium combo came out to be about 4 X faster.
OK. Not apples-to-apples comparison by any means. The point is that a new SUN at $25K got beat out by a PC at one tenth the cost for a long iterative type problem - and not just by a little. Some experienced Solaris guys tried to optimize the code on sUN, but never beat the performance on the PC.
I'm sure sUN's got some fast boxes (see them around all the time at work) but any price / performance evaluation shows that PC based systems whip up on sUN almost every time. Need the high performance? Go Beowulf.
There's a major gap in the opinions / assertions I've seen with regard to this article so far. The article at one point alludes to the issue of visibility:
"A final consideration is whether the group needs to claim credit for a CBRN/Cyber attack. In fact, the reduced need to claim credit for such attacks signals the emergence of the "silent terrorists," and is another factor contributing to loosening self-imposed constraints against higher levels of lethality."
This statement betrays a bias that may not apply to cyber terrorism. It implicitly invokes a framework in which the objective of the terrorist is a classical one - gain "visibility" through the commission of heinous public acts and create an atmosphere in which the legitimate authorities "crack down" on ordinary citizens in effort to prevent further such acts. Desired result is to create an environment in which all citizens eventually revolt against the establishment.
Effective "cyber terrorism" may in fact bypass entirely the violence implied in the initial step of the classical terrorist paradigm by "cracking" the governmental systems and directly engender the perception of unacceptable governmental activity. For instance, what if government computers gradually became less accurate and tended with increasing frequency to send notice that the IRS was freezing bank accounts of normal law abiding citizens. At the same time, various department of motor vehicle computers indicate that licenses are not being paid and justice system computers are indicating that random vehicles may contain "armed and dangerous" felons? Electrical grids become unreliable, telephone service intermittent and so on. It's possible that future governments may not even perceive that they are under systematic attack until a lot of progress has already been made by their opponents. A new face of terrorism?
I disagree - powerful and flexible does not necessarily imply steep learning curve and compliance with arbitrary convention. An ideal system would facilitate usage at varying levels of user expertise.
Linux is an operating system. The purpose of an OS is to allow people - yes newbies are people too, as are mothers and teenagers - to expand their horizons and exercise their minds by using the computer as a tool. As cool as it may be to be a kernel hacker, there's really no need for the majority of computer users to know jack about kernels if they're well designed and implimented.
The "appropriate technology" argument - Mom really doesn't need the power of *nix - is really just an excuse for not empowering people because we're too lazy to create a better system. Microsoft in fact deserves some credit for following the lead of Apple, PARC and MIT media lab efforts to bring usability (albeit a dung laden unstable flavor of usability) to masses of people. Without such efforts geekdom would still be a closeted specialist tribe with little influence or impact on our daily lives. Anyone remember the old dumb terminal days when the realm of "information systems" was payroll and accounting support?
It sure doesn't appear that the "cyber war" was a very sophisticated one. I mean, how difficult can it be to block a web site from your ISP? Doesn't seem like India was very effective in responding to the redirection attack.
It also seems like the activities described in the article are more on the level of a spitball contest rather than warfare in any traditional sense of the word. There was no mention of attempts to disrupt communications or supply systems or gain access to sensitive operational information. While the lack of a description of such activities does not mean attempts weren't made, I'd have to judge the "cyber war" as a neighborhood cat fight - more "noise" than activity
The bummer is that the current beta (according to what they sent me as a potential beta tester) doesn't work on any "real" OS (e.g. Linux or even NT). Flame away for my implication that NT is somehow "real".
Seems like Big D. is killing Linux with kindness. NOT A GOOD THING (tm?).
The low end is where Linux should gravitate. By this I don't mean Pentiums running in offices. I mean on AMD chips in sub-$200 computers with small amounts of memory and $50 hard disks. Under a normal load Linux is quite remarkable.
Kinda condescending no? I agree that Linux can run nicely on very underresourced machines - but it seems to run fine and be stable on some powerhouses (e.g. 2 x 500 mhz P-III w/ 1 Gb. RAM 60+ Gb disks and so on). I'm no kernel hacker, but Linux has been great fo me in clusters and on major workstations for crunchinng numbers.
I don' think the issue is whether computers can emulate humans - it's whether a form of "life" can be in existence in a computer based environment. There's no need for this form of being to resemble humankind - probably even a requirement that it not. Let's not get too involved with the SF portrayal of "androids" that act like we expect humans to act. That's really just dead end silliness. Any "new life form" is highly unlikely to follow our evolutionary path even though we may initially attempt to guide it in that direction.
I guess that as long as our boxes are independent, i.e. not networked, machines are just machines. Cut the power and anything that may be considered "A-Life" gets nuked.
OTOH, once you create a program that "lives" on the net, is capable of replication and adaptation and so on, it's ecology becomes more stable and elimination of the entity may become difficult. I see no particular reason why this type of entity should not qualify as a sort of "life" although its universe is certainly rather different than our own.
As to the concern that humans are about to become obsolete - bring it on. We tend to be highly adaptable and are certainly aggressive competitors in the evolutionary arena.
so, what was all that commentary about excessive parinoia? It seems pretty clear that those of us who tend to trust in governments and big busines's good intentions should revise our opinions.
"Genetic Algorithms" are a different than "Genetic Programming" (see Koza's two (or more) books on genetic programming).
Genetic algorithms generally solve "problems" by efficiently searching some problem space, often a large or poorly understood one, to attain some fitness criteria. If you can define what is "better" in terms of a solution they are a potential choice. They are not mysterious in terms of the programming.
Genetic programming on the other hand is evolving a program (most often in a interpreted language like LISP) to accomplish some task. These programs can indeed be rather hard to understand and unravel because the evolved code is unlikely to follow human logic or program construction rules. In all honesty I've not played much with genetic programming because I'm not dead certain what it's good for (but it is interesing).
Theft? Whence arises this drivel? Are my ideas morally public property? Not unless I choose to make them so there not. You're also free to not accept ownership of my ideas - much like I reject ownership of your ridiculous stance on this issue.
Obviously algorithms are subject to patents. Whether or not you like this fact is irrelevant. You may be correct that patent protection may not extend to processes (then again you may not be - not my area), but they are specifically intended to protect the utility of an idea or invention. RSA is an example of an algorithm using basic mathematics which is prima facie patented. It's not the math - it's not the process that's patented - it's the utility arising from the math and process that's patented.
Your assertion of money and business interest winning out over the law is just FUD until you can support it.
"Patents are supposed to protect small-time inventors and operators, not be a bargaining chip for multinationals to use to bully people (which is just what this is---pure extortion on Unisys's part.)"
Just where does this idea come from? It may well be a valid personal perspective, but there's no basis that I'm aware of from a historical perspective that supports this view. A patent is intended to protect an inventor from competition for a time so that the inventor can realize a return for the work and risk that was undertaken to produce the invention. Whether this effort and risk is undertaken by a "small-time" inventor or a large multi-national corporation is of no import.
Researchers working for large corporations assign rights from their work to the corporate entity in return for access to resources necessary to undertake the research and protection from the personal risk involved with the possibility that the research time will be for naught. Corporations employing researchers (inventors) are certainly entitled to patent protection as much as the lone "garage" hobbyist / inventor.
Whether many of the software patents currently being awarded are legitimate is another question entirely.
"PS In any case, these people we're talking about are black, and therefore poor mainly as the historical result of the single most horrific act of violence by one group of people toward another. America (and England, and Portugal, Belgium, France and Italy) owes them, big style."
I'd don't care what color they are - it's not relevant. If you think that episode of slavery was in any way unique you're misinformed. Slavery has been a historical fact for all of known history. The various justifications over time change - but the fact is it's always been part of human culture. Happened to my ancestors, to yours, to everyone at one point or another. Still going on in case you're so ignorant to not realize it.
The logic of your assertion that various political entities should now make some sort of restitution relies on whether or not the "body politic" would support such activities. As a member of that body in the US, I tend to think that we've already gone a long way toward making restitution (ever heard of the civil war? Seems like several white folk sacrificed lives in support of the emancipation proclamation and national unity ).
Sounds like good advice to me. The main thing I would add is to watch your competition - even those who aren't directly competing with you now. Internet based organizations generally have a tough time building anything like barriers to entry for potential competitors. "Branding" is the primary strategy most web entrepreneurs rely on and branding is a high risk approach at the start.
It may be B-school - but there's some worthwhile things even techies can draw from there.
This poster seems completely ignorant of history. To assert "they [Founding Fathers]would have supported the ability to infringe on those folks rights (who would commit such crimes) for the greater good of the nation." Is utterly ridiculous. In case the poster doesn't realize it, the "Founding Fathers" were revolutionaries who used armed force to overthrow the "legitimate authority" and laws of the colony.
I suggest that the poster read a little Jefferson, Madison etc. before he further embarrasses himself by displaying such ignorance.
Needless to say - I strongly disagree with the posters position in addition to being offended by the asinine assertions with respect to the historical context of this type of behavior. Remember, they were just enforcing the law and following the orders of "legitimate" authority in WWII era Germany, in Cambodia, in Argentina, in Chili and so on.
Of course any strategist would tell you that a "bomb, gun, knife or sharp stick" is a terribly inefficient way to kill a LOT of people. A well designed biological weapon would be an ideal way to kill a LOT of people. Relatively easy to transport/handle/store once it's been created - compact with a long shelf life - lots of advantages.
As to the whole issue of sanctions and reprisals - there's the problem of identifying the creator/user (as is evidenced by the paranoid suggestion that HIV is such a "created" virus).
Moreover, a weapon does not have to be used to be effective in influencing outcomes - the threat of use is often enough to attain the objective. Do you think that the recent interventions in eastern Europe would have taken place if Milosivech (sp) had had a jar of 80% lethal, highly contagious viri that he could have credibly threatened NATO countries with?
Yeah, we've got a proto-Beowulf with (usually) four nodes (seems like you've got to have something like 16 nodes to make the claim to fame) so I'm somewhat familiar with them. This story sounds like BS to me. Even with a reasonable setup (hypercube, n-tori or such) the communications overhead makes it hardly worthwhile to use old i368 based boxen.
More science FUD. Last time I checked the facts seemed like the inevitable conclusion was that coal mining, and the subsequent burning of such for fuel, caused many more annual fatalities than nuclear energy. This analysis of course omitted the fatalities that were purposely induced in the 1940's and took place pre-Chernoble. I suspect that even if the Chernoble were included, that nuclear power generation would still appear safer in at least the medium term (next several hundred years) in spite of what Nader might believe.
about some underrepresented constituency that could be shafted without recourse. Bureaucrats are always looking for some way to get more power / money, no?
I agree that I'd be in favor of having a highly moral, respectful, dedicated - or even a lying cheating womanizer - like Billy C. in charge than I would a "jack booted thug". Probably because a weasel like Clinton would not be as effective in his repression as someone more focused on getting the job done right. Having been "detained" in a police state many years ago, I believe that any totalitarian regime is a pretty scary thing . . . even one run by an ass like Clinton.
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How about "talk walkers"? maybe "code stalkers" or "code balkers" "balktalkers" ?
I might argue that the creation of a novel cryptosystem is in fact a rather difficult task. Alternatives to the one time pad have been proposed for centuries - many of which were "unbreakable", but turn out to be surprisingly easy to subvert. You might consider reading something on the subject of cryptanalysis before you assert that good cryptosystems are easily understood.
I kinda forgot about SUN after an experience about five years ago.
I was asked to implement a significant GA system for a firm that bought a $25,000 SUN box to run it on. I did the development work (rather inefficiently as I was way new to UNIX at the time) and had some significant performance related issues at beta. On a lark we set up Linux on a 120 Mhz Pentium with 64 Meg RAM (call it 1/10 the cost of the SUN box) and recompiled the source. No special optimization (1st time ever with Linux). The Linux / Pentium combo came out to be about 4 X faster.
OK. Not apples-to-apples comparison by any means. The point is that a new SUN at $25K got beat out by a PC at one tenth the cost for a long iterative type problem - and not just by a little. Some experienced Solaris guys tried to optimize the code on sUN, but never beat the performance on the PC.
I'm sure sUN's got some fast boxes (see them around all the time at work) but any price / performance evaluation shows that PC based systems whip up on sUN almost every time. Need the high performance? Go Beowulf.
There's a major gap in the opinions / assertions I've seen with regard to this article so far. The article at one point alludes to the issue of visibility:
"A final consideration is whether the group needs
to claim credit for a CBRN/Cyber attack. In fact, the reduced need
to claim credit for such attacks signals the emergence of the
"silent terrorists," and is another factor contributing to loosening
self-imposed constraints against higher levels of lethality."
This statement betrays a bias that may not apply to cyber terrorism. It implicitly invokes a framework in which the objective of the terrorist is a classical one - gain "visibility" through the commission of heinous public acts and create an atmosphere in which the legitimate authorities "crack down" on ordinary citizens in effort to prevent further such acts. Desired result is to create an environment in which all citizens eventually revolt against the establishment.
Effective "cyber terrorism" may in fact bypass entirely the violence implied in the initial step of the classical terrorist paradigm by "cracking" the governmental systems and directly engender the perception of unacceptable governmental activity. For instance, what if government computers gradually became less accurate and tended with increasing frequency to send notice that the IRS was freezing bank accounts of normal law abiding citizens. At the same time, various department of motor vehicle computers indicate that licenses are not being paid and justice system computers are indicating that random vehicles may contain "armed and dangerous" felons? Electrical grids become unreliable, telephone service intermittent and so on. It's possible that future governments may not even perceive that they are under systematic attack until a lot of progress has already been made by their opponents. A new face of terrorism?
I disagree - powerful and flexible does not necessarily imply steep learning curve and compliance with arbitrary convention. An ideal system would facilitate usage at varying levels of user expertise.
Linux is an operating system. The purpose of an OS is to allow people - yes newbies are people too, as are mothers and teenagers - to expand their horizons and exercise their minds by using the computer as a tool. As cool as it may be to be a kernel hacker, there's really no need for the majority of computer users to know jack about kernels if they're well designed and implimented.
The "appropriate technology" argument - Mom really doesn't need the power of *nix - is really just an excuse for not empowering people because we're too lazy to create a better system. Microsoft in fact deserves some credit for following the lead of Apple, PARC and MIT media lab efforts to bring usability (albeit a dung laden unstable flavor of usability) to masses of people. Without such efforts geekdom would still be a closeted specialist tribe with little influence or impact on our daily lives. Anyone remember the old dumb terminal days when the realm of "information systems" was payroll and accounting support?
More users of all stripes is good for everybody.
It sure doesn't appear that the "cyber war" was a very sophisticated one. I mean, how difficult can it be to block a web site from your ISP? Doesn't seem like India was very effective in responding to the redirection attack.
It also seems like the activities described in the article are more on the level of a spitball contest rather than warfare in any traditional sense of the word. There was no mention of attempts to disrupt communications or supply systems or gain access to sensitive operational information. While the lack of a description of such activities does not mean attempts weren't made, I'd have to judge the "cyber war" as a neighborhood cat fight - more "noise" than activity
The bummer is that the current beta (according to what they sent me as a potential beta tester) doesn't work on any "real" OS (e.g. Linux or even NT). Flame away for my implication that NT is somehow "real".
Seems like Big D. is killing Linux with kindness. NOT A GOOD THING (tm?).
The low end is where Linux should gravitate. By this I don't mean Pentiums running in offices. I mean on AMD chips in sub-$200 computers with small amounts of memory and $50 hard disks. Under a normal load Linux is quite remarkable.
Kinda condescending no? I agree that Linux can run nicely on very underresourced machines - but it seems to run fine and be stable on some powerhouses (e.g. 2 x 500 mhz P-III w/ 1 Gb. RAM 60+ Gb disks and so on). I'm no kernel hacker, but Linux has been great fo me in clusters and on major workstations for crunchinng numbers.
Forget the low end.
I don' think the issue is whether computers can emulate humans - it's whether a form of "life" can be in existence in a computer based environment. There's no need for this form of being to resemble humankind - probably even a requirement that it not. Let's not get too involved with the SF portrayal of "androids" that act like we expect humans to act. That's really just dead end silliness. Any "new life form" is highly unlikely to follow our evolutionary path even though we may initially attempt to guide it in that direction.
I guess that as long as our boxes are independent, i.e. not networked, machines are just machines. Cut the power and anything that may be considered "A-Life" gets nuked.
OTOH, once you create a program that "lives" on the net, is capable of replication and adaptation and so on, it's ecology becomes more stable and elimination of the entity may become difficult. I see no particular reason why this type of entity should not qualify as a sort of "life" although its universe is certainly rather different than our own.
As to the concern that humans are about to become obsolete - bring it on. We tend to be highly adaptable and are certainly aggressive competitors in the evolutionary arena.
so, what was all that commentary about excessive parinoia? It seems pretty clear that those of us who tend to trust in governments and big busines's good intentions should revise our opinions.
"Genetic Algorithms" are a different than "Genetic Programming" (see Koza's two (or more) books on genetic programming).
Genetic algorithms generally solve "problems" by efficiently searching some problem space, often a large or poorly understood one, to attain some fitness criteria. If you can define what is "better" in terms of a solution they are a potential choice. They are not mysterious in terms of the programming.
Genetic programming on the other hand is evolving a program (most often in a interpreted language like LISP) to accomplish some task. These programs can indeed be rather hard to understand and unravel because the evolved code is unlikely to follow human logic or program construction rules. In all honesty I've not played much with genetic programming because I'm not dead certain what it's good for (but it is interesing).
Theft? Whence arises this drivel? Are my ideas morally public property? Not unless I choose to make them so there not. You're also free to not accept ownership of my ideas - much like I reject ownership of your ridiculous stance on this issue.
Obviously algorithms are subject to patents. Whether or not you like this fact is irrelevant. You may be correct that patent protection may not extend to processes (then again you may not be - not my area), but they are specifically intended to protect the utility of an idea or invention. RSA is an example of an algorithm using basic mathematics which is prima facie patented. It's not the math - it's not the process that's patented - it's the utility arising from the math and process that's patented.
Your assertion of money and business interest winning out over the law is just FUD until you can support it.
You wrote:
"Patents are supposed to protect small-time inventors and operators, not be a bargaining chip for multinationals to use to bully people (which is just what this is---pure extortion on Unisys's part.)"
Just where does this idea come from? It may well be a valid personal perspective, but there's no basis that I'm aware of from a historical perspective that supports this view. A patent is intended to protect an inventor from competition for a time so that the inventor can realize a return for the work and risk that was undertaken to produce the invention. Whether this effort and risk is undertaken by a "small-time" inventor or a large multi-national corporation is of no import.
Researchers working for large corporations assign rights from their work to the corporate entity in return for access to resources necessary to undertake the research and protection from the personal risk involved with the possibility that the research time will be for naught. Corporations employing researchers (inventors) are certainly entitled to patent protection as much as the lone "garage" hobbyist / inventor.
Whether many of the software patents currently being awarded are legitimate is another question entirely.
There should be a best of /. award for this !! Were I am a moderator (of course) this would off the real number scale be.
"PS In any case, these people we're talking about are black, and therefore poor mainly as the historical result of the single most horrific act of violence by one group of people toward another. America (and England, and Portugal, Belgium, France and Italy) owes them, big style."
I'd don't care what color they are - it's not relevant. If you think that episode of slavery was in any way unique you're misinformed. Slavery has been a historical fact for all of known history. The various justifications over time change - but the fact is it's always been part of human culture. Happened to my ancestors, to yours, to everyone at one point or another. Still going on in case you're so ignorant to not realize it.
The logic of your assertion that various political entities should now make some sort of restitution relies on whether or not the "body politic" would support such activities. As a member of that body in the US, I tend to think that we've already gone a long way toward making restitution (ever heard of the civil war? Seems like several white folk sacrificed lives in support of the emancipation proclamation and national unity ).
Sounds like good advice to me. The main thing I would add is to watch your competition - even those who aren't directly competing with you now. Internet based organizations generally have a tough time building anything like barriers to entry for potential competitors. "Branding" is the primary strategy most web entrepreneurs rely on and branding is a high risk approach at the start.
It may be B-school - but there's some worthwhile things even techies can draw from there.
This poster seems completely ignorant of history. To assert "they [Founding Fathers]would have supported the ability to infringe on those folks rights (who would commit such crimes) for the greater good of the nation." Is utterly ridiculous. In case the poster doesn't realize it, the "Founding Fathers" were revolutionaries who used armed force to overthrow the "legitimate authority" and laws of the colony.
I suggest that the poster read a little Jefferson, Madison etc. before he further embarrasses himself by displaying such ignorance.
Needless to say - I strongly disagree with the posters position in addition to being offended by the asinine assertions with respect to the historical context of this type of behavior. Remember, they were just enforcing the law and following the orders of "legitimate" authority in WWII era Germany, in Cambodia, in Argentina, in Chili and so on.
Of course any strategist would tell you that a "bomb, gun, knife or sharp stick" is a terribly inefficient way to kill a LOT of people. A well designed biological weapon would be an ideal way to kill a LOT of people. Relatively easy to transport/handle/store once it's been created - compact with a long shelf life - lots of advantages.
As to the whole issue of sanctions and reprisals - there's the problem of identifying the creator/user (as is evidenced by the paranoid suggestion that HIV is such a "created" virus).
Moreover, a weapon does not have to be used to be effective in influencing outcomes - the threat of use is often enough to attain the objective. Do you think that the recent interventions in eastern Europe would have taken place if Milosivech (sp) had had a jar of 80% lethal, highly contagious viri that he could have credibly threatened NATO countries with?
Perhaps passanger pigeon? Thought the carrier pigeon was still around crapping on statues and whatnot.
;-)
Yeah, we've got a proto-Beowulf with (usually) four nodes (seems like you've got to have something like 16 nodes to make the claim to fame) so I'm somewhat familiar with them. This story sounds like BS to me. Even with a reasonable setup (hypercube, n-tori or such) the communications overhead makes it hardly worthwhile to use old i368 based boxen.
Pipe dream anyone?
More science FUD. Last time I checked the facts seemed like the inevitable conclusion was that coal mining, and the subsequent burning of such for fuel, caused many more annual fatalities than nuclear energy. This analysis of course omitted the fatalities that were purposely induced in the 1940's and took place pre-Chernoble. I suspect that even if the Chernoble were included, that nuclear power generation would still appear safer in at least the medium term (next several hundred years) in spite of what Nader might believe.
about some underrepresented constituency that could be shafted without recourse. Bureaucrats are always looking for some way to get more power / money, no?
I agree that I'd be in favor of having a highly moral, respectful, dedicated - or even a lying cheating womanizer - like Billy C. in charge than I would a "jack booted thug". Probably because a weasel like Clinton would not be as effective in his repression as someone more focused on getting the job done right. Having been "detained" in a police state many years ago, I believe that any totalitarian regime is a pretty scary thing . . . even one run by an ass like Clinton.