I'd say XOR is a minor fifth up from rot-13, but that's beside the point. You're right that XOR is woefully easy to crack; in this case there is an easy, short-linear-time attack if you can sniff them once.
Nothing wrong with XOR, it is a primitive op in
many symetric systems. The weakness lies in what
you XOR against.
Re:Hard to understand?
on
Hacker's Delight
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
But those distinctive shortcuts that everyone
recognizes can cause you to "label" the code and
move on while reviewing code that is due for
maintenance.
Everyone recognizes what:
while (*dst++ = *src++);
is supposed to be doing, but I recently cleared a
mystery bug in a very old routine that used such
code. The problem had been missed for years
because people "recognized" the code and moved
on - despite the fact that there were several
problems with it.
Some of them are obviously trying to pull a fast one, though.
True, those are the people who need to be called
out.
I rarely complain (having done admin work and
support I know how crummy service jobs can be),
but will speak to the supervisor of someone
intentionally lying to customers. They
don't care,
but it does makes me feel better.
Or maybe they're really dumb and believe what they're trying to sell.
You have to be lucky to run into someone doing
retail sales or home user support that knows
anything about anything. The smart ones move
into a better job fast.
So many of them do believe what they are trying
to sell.
Funny thing is that most straight IT guys I know are fat and ugly while the gay IT guys are generally cute and slender
Hmm, the gay guys at my work are more likely to
work out, wear better clothes, have nice hair, and
all that. I just sort of figured that was part
of the gay lifestyle.
The best software people I know are the ones that finish the job and don't leave the company with an incomplete solution.
Exactly. Recent industry events taught me to be
very leery of computer genius science project
guy. Plenty of smart
people don't want to do the boring detail work
required to produce systems that do something
useful.
On my team I'd rather have a consistent producer
with
a work ethic than a genius who is going to get
distracted by the next shiny, shiny thing.
Women are as likely as men to have a work ethic
and work as part of a team.
Sad, but true that O'Reilly quality seems to be
on the way down. I loved the O'Reilly books when I
did a couple years as a sysadmin. DNS & Bind,
Programming Perl, Sendmail, the 4.4 BSD reference
series, etc. All earned classic status - I had
work copies, home copies, and always recomended
them to anyone who asked.
The newest stuff: ssh, RADIUS, 802.11, openssl,
etc.
have all been somewhat disapointing. Maybe this is
because my professional needs have changed, but it
really seems like the books are just not written
at the same level.
Maybe competing against Learn crap in a 10
seconds with no reading required!!! is taking
its toll.
Ok, anonymous unions are nice, and C++ style comments are sometimes useful. But there aren't many C compilers left which don't support those.
The features I was thinking of the new casts,
scoped local variable decleration at first use,
and the STL.
I agree that you can shoot yourself in the foot
with operator or function overloading, but I'd say
you are more likely to hurt yourself with a void
pointer or switch statement - both of which are
supported in C++ but are C idioms.
I still have mixed feelings about exceptions in
C++, I have not used them much in my current
environment but I admire the idea (and love them
in Python).
Saving registers and setting up stack frames happens below the level of the language; the code which is inserted to do that will not effect the sequence of lines of code which get executed
Saving registers and setting up
stack frames used to be part of the language.
The change from pre-structured code to the C
stack based implementations made certain
types of control stuctures unusable. This
type of thing kept game programmers on assembly
years after they should have switched to C.
The levels of abstraction added
to C as compared to assembler have some cost. The
levels of abstraction added to
C++ have some cost, but you have to choose to use
them.
Inheritance and overriding functions is different: It allows other people to insert their code in the middle of my code. If I want to have people doing that, I'll allow them to pass me a function pointer; but in most cases I want to be able to make internal assumptions about how my code works without having inheritors break them.
C++ does not mean OOP. In C you are exposed to the
same problem whenever you use a shared library,
you are counting on the library supplier.
There are plenty of no cost C++ features that are
reasons to use C++, even if you are just using it
as a "better C".
True. An engineer who has really specialized in
an environment always has a good understanding of
theory, while theory types can produce some mean
UML.
You can go too far in the specialization
direction.
I had a co-worker catch me reading through gcc
linker code to work around a weak implementation
of a C++ feature I was using (being used to the
Sun compiler rather than gcc).
The right answer was to step back and come up with
a simpler solution that did not use that feature.
I do. Inheritance breaks encapsulation. If I want to pass around function points, I'll pass around function pointers; I'll not have the compiler doing it behind my back.
Do you want your compiler saving registers and
setting up stack frames behind your back?
Anyone else harking for the days of gopher and html 3.2? Sure, the "market capitilization" was horrible, but you know what, NNTP was actually useful back then. No google? Some industrous person on would point you to the right place, as a common courtesy. Sharing of knowledge. Ahhhh... the good old days.
And you could talk to very cool people on Usenet
or though email: Vinge, Effinger, Abrash, and
Hawking.
Microsoft had never even thought about the
Internet, Spamford and his ilk were not yet at
work, AOL was in it's own little ghetto, no
javascript, no P2P, and no one was around to interupt our own
little elitist world. I do miss some of the things
about the weird old days.
There's a reason why shredders exist. And if you don't want to use one, that's your choice. But then don't complain when people go rummaging through your garbage looking for credit card statements and pay stubs. You put that stuff out on the curb of your own free will.
You seem to have missed the point of the entire
excercise. Three public officials who were
subject to a trash run felt angry, humiliated,
and violated by the experience.
Three people with nothing to hide felt that their
privacy was violated and I agree with them. It is
unreasonable to expect that if I don't draw the
curtains, don't shred my trash, and don't encrypt
all my network traffic that I am inviting people
to peek. Self preservation casues me to avoid
privacy risks of which I'm aware: cc receipts,
private mail, bank statements, etc. This does not
in any way excuse admins reading email, guards
using survellience to stalk co-workers, cops
getting female drivers info from license plates,
or any of the other abuses that routinely take
place.
It is true that I do not know as much about modern
India as I should. The fact that Pakistan
has aligned itself with North Korea convinces me that India
would likely not knowingly make proscribed
technology available to them.
My wondering is more motivated by the lengths to
which nations will go to prove themselves
free of US influence. There is often an assumption
that America is nothing more than an
arrogant behemoth and that any US-made rule that
can be be broken should be broken, with no regard
for consequences.
WDW: I promise to read a couple quality,
non-biased books on modern India next chance I
get.:)
The basics of building a nuclear pile are well
understood.
The value of a having a super-computer for
simulations is that you can discover more effective
reactions, develop better triggers, and study
deployment tactics.
It is the difference between building a zip gun and
building an artillery piece.
I am a going to get serious for a momment here and
ask each and every person reading this to not
write their own April 1 RFC. They had their day back
in the early 90's, but it has now become sad and not
at all funny.
Sometimes it sickens me to see people so proud to be Americans to just turn around and bitch about what they take for granted.
1026 changed everything.
I don't believe that Port Chicago
was a nuke test, but the
vicious stupidity displayed by the passage of the
patriot act makes me very afraid of what the US
will become.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that CE is not appropriate for the task, not that Microsoft is incompetent.
Do you really believe that a software product on the scale of Windows could be produced by incompetents?
Nothing wrong with XOR, it is a primitive op in many symetric systems. The weakness lies in what you XOR against.
Everyone recognizes what:
is supposed to be doing, but I recently cleared a mystery bug in a very old routine that used such code. The problem had been missed for years because people "recognized" the code and moved on - despite the fact that there were several problems with it.True, those are the people who need to be called out.
I rarely complain (having done admin work and support I know how crummy service jobs can be), but will speak to the supervisor of someone intentionally lying to customers. They don't care, but it does makes me feel better.
You have to be lucky to run into someone doing retail sales or home user support that knows anything about anything. The smart ones move into a better job fast.
So many of them do believe what they are trying to sell.
Hmm, the gay guys at my work are more likely to work out, wear better clothes, have nice hair, and all that. I just sort of figured that was part of the gay lifestyle.
Exactly. Recent industry events taught me to be very leery of computer genius science project guy. Plenty of smart people don't want to do the boring detail work required to produce systems that do something useful.
On my team I'd rather have a consistent producer with a work ethic than a genius who is going to get distracted by the next shiny, shiny thing.
Women are as likely as men to have a work ethic and work as part of a team.
The newest stuff: ssh, RADIUS, 802.11, openssl, etc. have all been somewhat disapointing. Maybe this is because my professional needs have changed, but it really seems like the books are just not written at the same level.
Maybe competing against Learn crap in a 10 seconds with no reading required!!! is taking its toll.
The features I was thinking of the new casts, scoped local variable decleration at first use, and the STL.
I agree that you can shoot yourself in the foot with operator or function overloading, but I'd say you are more likely to hurt yourself with a void pointer or switch statement - both of which are supported in C++ but are C idioms.
I still have mixed feelings about exceptions in C++, I have not used them much in my current environment but I admire the idea (and love them in Python).
Saving registers and setting up stack frames used to be part of the language. The change from pre-structured code to the C stack based implementations made certain types of control stuctures unusable. This type of thing kept game programmers on assembly years after they should have switched to C.
The levels of abstraction added to C as compared to assembler have some cost. The levels of abstraction added to C++ have some cost, but you have to choose to use them.
Inheritance and overriding functions is different: It allows other people to insert their code in the middle of my code. If I want to have people doing that, I'll allow them to pass me a function pointer; but in most cases I want to be able to make internal assumptions about how my code works without having inheritors break them.
C++ does not mean OOP. In C you are exposed to the same problem whenever you use a shared library, you are counting on the library supplier.
There are plenty of no cost C++ features that are reasons to use C++, even if you are just using it as a "better C".
You can go too far in the specialization direction. I had a co-worker catch me reading through gcc linker code to work around a weak implementation of a C++ feature I was using (being used to the Sun compiler rather than gcc). The right answer was to step back and come up with a simpler solution that did not use that feature.
Do you want your compiler saving registers and setting up stack frames behind your back?
You need to go back a few years to find any cyberpunk. I'd suggest Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, and When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger.
Well, despite his frat-boy like demeanor, Bush does not qualify as a kid. I'd probably call him an irresponsible fool.
or what would you call Bin Laden for what he did on 11/9/2001 ?
Despite his proclivity for sex with goats Laden does not qualify as a kid. I'd probably call him a murderous scum.
Nope, anyone under the age of 26 is subject to being called a kid when they do something stupid.
If there is anything more boring than an intro CS class I never want to experience it. I'd rather eat a urinal cake than take those courses again.
Oh and as someone else already mentioned, the female population is practically non-existant.
Expect this to continue after you finish school. If you work engineering in the US the only women you will work with will be in HR.
And you could talk to very cool people on Usenet or though email: Vinge, Effinger, Abrash, and Hawking.
Microsoft had never even thought about the Internet, Spamford and his ilk were not yet at work, AOL was in it's own little ghetto, no javascript, no P2P, and no one was around to interupt our own little elitist world. I do miss some of the things about the weird old days.
You seem to have missed the point of the entire excercise. Three public officials who were subject to a trash run felt angry, humiliated, and violated by the experience.
Three people with nothing to hide felt that their privacy was violated and I agree with them. It is unreasonable to expect that if I don't draw the curtains, don't shred my trash, and don't encrypt all my network traffic that I am inviting people to peek. Self preservation casues me to avoid privacy risks of which I'm aware: cc receipts, private mail, bank statements, etc. This does not in any way excuse admins reading email, guards using survellience to stalk co-workers, cops getting female drivers info from license plates, or any of the other abuses that routinely take place.
My wondering is more motivated by the lengths to which nations will go to prove themselves free of US influence. There is often an assumption that America is nothing more than an arrogant behemoth and that any US-made rule that can be be broken should be broken, with no regard for consequences.
WDW: I promise to read a couple quality, non-biased books on modern India next chance I get. :)
It is the difference between building a zip gun and building an artillery piece.
I Wonder if some of the Indian exports assisted in DPRK weapons systems development?
I am a going to get serious for a momment here and ask each and every person reading this to not write their own April 1 RFC. They had their day back in the early 90's, but it has now become sad and not at all funny.
1026 changed everything.
I don't believe that Port Chicago was a nuke test, but the vicious stupidity displayed by the passage of the patriot act makes me very afraid of what the US will become.
Please.