They've included a nice analysis of the types of
attacks including the Ex-Girlfriend attack, Marc Canter attack, and Dictionary Attacks in the writeup
The configurable false positive rate can make Bloom filters resistant to dictionary attack, but it also renders them less useful. Given a false positive rate of c, and a dictionary with k elements, a dictionary attack will result in ck false hits. This rate goes down if you can collect multiple filters from the same user that are either 1) of different length, or 2) use different hash functions (salts, in our implementation). False positives in either case will be different, so for n filters the false positive rate will drop to c^n.
This implies that the truly paranoid should use a presized filter large enough to contain as many correspondents as they ever expect to have on record, and an invariant set of salts. Under those conditions, collecting multiple filters will not change the false positive rate. A mostly empty large filter might have an unacceptably low false positive rate, so you would want to pad the list of real emails out with random data, to maintain a constant ratio of on/off bits as well.
The tradeoff with a high false positive rate is that the filter will be less useful to legitimate recipients. An intriguing possibility is that of sending out very inaccurate filters that are updated on a regular basis (for example weekly) so that a user has to accumulate a certain number of the filters in order to run queries with a good degree of certitude. This spreads private information over several filters and ensures that an eavesdropper who intercepts only one file will find it of very limited value.
And most importantly they say:
Of course, the truly paranoid would be crazy to use LOAF.
But the important question remains...
on
The Spyware Inferno
·
· Score: 3, Funny
When using your 100Gb fiber-optic internet at the campgrounds, always practice safety. Surround your network card with rocks to keep the fire from spreading. Be sure when you're done with your internet to put it out with a bucket of water and make sure it has stopped smoking before you leave the area.
Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your 100Gb fiber-optic internet connection from starting a forest fire.
BBC ran this article a few days back about DownHillBattle.org offering a bittorrent.
They summarize the new features offered by the SP as follows:
CHANGES DUE IN SP2
Pop-up ads blocked
Revamped firewall on by default
Outlook Express, Internet Explorer and Windows Messenger warn about attachments Origins of downloaded files logged
Web graphics in e-mail no longer loaded by default
Some spyware blocked
Users regularly reminded about Windows Updates
Security Center brings together information about anti-virus, updates and firewall
Protection against buffer over-runs
Windows Messenger Service turned off by default
The "Origins of downloaded files logged" feature troubles me a little. What do they mean by "downloaded files"? Do HTML files count as "downloaded files"? What do they want to keep track of and log my downloaded files? How will they know if I use another browser and download files using that instead of IE? What about the other files I download through File sharing applications?
What log "origins of downloaded files" at all? Does it improve security in any way? If they were logging keys/certificates of software updates (to AV software for example), it would make a little sense (but not a whole lot, it shouldn't concern the OS at all), but this feature sounds a heck lot more like a Big Brother OS thing, something like IE tracking all websites visited in a hidden+undeletable folder for the suits.
Are the submitter/editors trying to make a point that a PC is available for
Walmart has been selling PCs for under $300 for quite a while now. Those with Windows preloaded routinely cost about $298.00 or similar (without a monitor, mind you), and the ones with Lindows sell for about $20 less.
The specs are similar or even higher in some cases, and they don't ship with the crippled Celeron processors. I'll take an AMD processor over the yucky Intel Celeron processor any time.
Sorry, but this story reads more like an advertisement than a story.
The floor moves in the opposite direction from the user so that the motion of each step is canceled and the user's position remains fixed in the real world.
I like to call it a "treadmill". Sounds much better than "shifty tiles" IMHO.
The judge said it was 'nearly identical' to the registered trademark 'Jerry Falwell' name and was likely to be confusing to Web surfers." (This was a Federal case, held in the 4th Circuit Court; the judge held that the disputed fallwell.com was "'nearly identical' to the registered trademark 'Jerry Falwell.'" )
and the 'helpful' 'little' snippet by the editor was 'nearly identical' to what the submitter already said in the original writeup.
Video projectors will play a major role in future home entertainment and edutainment applications - ranging from movies and television, over computer games, to multimedia presentation.
Before televisions became the norm, projectors were a common sight around middle-class homes. I remember my father used to show us home movies, Disney cartoons, and science documentaries on a compact Super 8mm projector on idle evenings.
I don't remember the size or even the presence of the "canvas screen" being a big issue. A blank wall did just fine (without any significant loss of picture quality IMHO). If a smaller/larger image was desired, the projector was just moved nearer/away from the wall as necessary. Not such a big deal. Ofcourse the room had to be pitch dark because of the low contrast produced by the projector.
IMHO, this is a solution looking for a problem. I agree the ability to project on curved surfaces might be a bonus, but the pictures did not reveal any significant advantage.
I was more impressed by the "light insensitive" projector that was on/. a few weeks back - it could display images/video effectively in bright light - can't find the link.
Would've been nice to link to...
on
3D Monitor
·
· Score: 4, Informative
the numerous articles on 3D displays that have made it to/. over the past few months (including Sharp's 3D laptop):
I've personally seen the crisis that the College of Computing at Georgia Tech is going through and heard stories of similar conditions at other CS departments at major schools.
Atleast at GaTech, there was a huge surplus of networks/systems/labs which were built during the "boom". Most of this equipment is now underused and/or outdated, with less students and consequently less funds to upgrade or maintain them. A lot of sysadmins have left due to better jobs in the industry or other departments.
It's a vicious cycle - unless the schools can attract more CS students (mainly grad students, because they bring in research grants through company/science grants etc) to enroll, their funds decrease, and they can afford less Teaching/Research Assistants which are essential to the smooth and lucrative functioning of the department. As the quality of teaching/research reduces, it further brings down enrollment, etc. Hope the state governments do something constructive other than cut down grants to these schools.
I've been assigned a task of choosing the best IM service/client for our group at work and will be recommending Gaim (correct capitalization) at a meeting today.
The decision was mostly because of it's cross-platform, cross-service compatibility and "Buddy Pounce" features (and because it's my personal favorite too:)). This way folks can continue to use their personal MSN/AIM IDs without a problem. The Buddy Pounce feature allows a script/macro to be run in response to an event - this feature is particularly useful for us because we can kick of an SMS message for example in response to a message or another event.
Though they don't release Solaris binaries, I did get it to build on Solaris/SPARC with a little effort. I know the Yahoo Messenger UNIX version is open source now, so I could probably try and build it for obscure platforms, but it is IMHO severely cripped compared to the Windows counterpart.
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
on
Broken Angels
·
· Score: 0
I'll take the hint
Seriously, that's what it said before the link was fixed.
Slashdot Mirror
the long-awaited OS is finally taking "concrete" form.
Sorry, couldn't resist the pwn.
OSDN = Open Source Development Network
Frankly, I liked "Development Network" better because it sounded more open-sourcish than "Technology Group" which sounds more like a company.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2004 OSTG.
They've included a nice analysis of the types of attacks including the Ex-Girlfriend attack, Marc Canter attack, and Dictionary Attacks in the writeup
The configurable false positive rate can make Bloom filters resistant to dictionary attack, but it also renders them less useful. Given a false positive rate of c, and a dictionary with k elements, a dictionary attack will result in ck false hits. This rate goes down if you can collect multiple filters from the same user that are either 1) of different length, or 2) use different hash functions (salts, in our implementation). False positives in either case will be different, so for n filters the false positive rate will drop to c^n.
This implies that the truly paranoid should use a presized filter large enough to contain as many correspondents as they ever expect to have on record, and an invariant set of salts. Under those conditions, collecting multiple filters will not change the false positive rate. A mostly empty large filter might have an unacceptably low false positive rate, so you would want to pad the list of real emails out with random data, to maintain a constant ratio of on/off bits as well.
The tradeoff with a high false positive rate is that the filter will be less useful to legitimate recipients. An intriguing possibility is that of sending out very inaccurate filters that are updated on a regular basis (for example weekly) so that a user has to accumulate a certain number of the filters in order to run queries with a good degree of certitude. This spreads private information over several filters and ensures that an eavesdropper who intercepts only one file will find it of very limited value.
And most importantly they say: Of course, the truly paranoid would be crazy to use LOAF.
is it Spyware or spyware?
When using your 100Gb fiber-optic internet at the campgrounds, always practice safety. Surround your network card with rocks to keep the fire from spreading. Be sure when you're done with your internet to put it out with a bucket of water and make sure it has stopped smoking before you leave the area.
Remember what Smokey the Bear says. Only you can prevent your 100Gb fiber-optic internet connection from starting a forest fire.
the intarweb should still be treated with teh proper name
Women. Hopefully.
Pretty interesting, though it could be argued that the article is biased/flaimbate.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
and now coming soon to a theater near you...
Terminator 4: Rise of the Penguins
Featuring the lovable Tux as the TERMINATORR
"HE IS BACK"
And now back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot story.
Microsoft Apologist Apologizes for Microsoft
Rob Enderle Announces Death of Bluetooth
and
Enderle's Ferrari Laptop
have appeared on Slashdot in the past.
This "technology analyst" is also the author of In Defense Of the Microsoft Monoculture and ranted and raved in an "informative" Eweek article about his Windows Ferrari theme and gushed happily about how his colleagues were impressed by it's cool shutdown and startup sounds.
CHANGES DUE IN SP2
Pop-up ads blocked
Revamped firewall on by default
Outlook Express, Internet Explorer and Windows Messenger warn about attachments
Origins of downloaded files logged
Web graphics in e-mail no longer loaded by default Some spyware blocked
Users regularly reminded about Windows Updates
Security Center brings together information about anti-virus, updates and firewall
Protection against buffer over-runs
Windows Messenger Service turned off by default
The "Origins of downloaded files logged" feature troubles me a little. What do they mean by "downloaded files"? Do HTML files count as "downloaded files"? What do they want to keep track of and log my downloaded files? How will they know if I use another browser and download files using that instead of IE? What about the other files I download through File sharing applications?
What log "origins of downloaded files" at all? Does it improve security in any way? If they were logging keys/certificates of software updates (to AV software for example), it would make a little sense (but not a whole lot, it shouldn't concern the OS at all), but this feature sounds a heck lot more like a Big Brother OS thing, something like IE tracking all websites visited in a hidden+undeletable folder for the suits.
P01NT CL1CK W00T!
The specs are similar or even higher in some cases, and they don't ship with the crippled Celeron processors. I'll take an AMD processor over the yucky Intel Celeron processor any time.
Sorry, but this story reads more like an advertisement than a story.
Treadmill.
I like to call it a "treadmill". Sounds much better than "shifty tiles" IMHO.
doesn't show up to throw a wrench in the works.
and the 'helpful' 'little' snippet by the editor was 'nearly identical' to what the submitter already said in the original writeup.
Before televisions became the norm, projectors were a common sight around middle-class homes. I remember my father used to show us home movies, Disney cartoons, and science documentaries on a compact Super 8mm projector on idle evenings.
I don't remember the size or even the presence of the "canvas screen" being a big issue. A blank wall did just fine (without any significant loss of picture quality IMHO). If a smaller/larger image was desired, the projector was just moved nearer/away from the wall as necessary. Not such a big deal. Ofcourse the room had to be pitch dark because of the low contrast produced by the projector.
IMHO, this is a solution looking for a problem. I agree the ability to project on curved surfaces might be a bonus, but the pictures did not reveal any significant advantage.
I was more impressed by the "light insensitive" projector that was on /. a few weeks back - it could display images/video effectively in bright light - can't find the link.
More 3D displays to come
Future of Visual Gadgets Rolled Out
PC Magazine Reviews Sharp's 3D Notebook
Sharp to Sell 3D laptop for $3299
and many more right here.
Atleast at GaTech, there was a huge surplus of networks/systems/labs which were built during the "boom". Most of this equipment is now underused and/or outdated, with less students and consequently less funds to upgrade or maintain them. A lot of sysadmins have left due to better jobs in the industry or other departments.
It's a vicious cycle - unless the schools can attract more CS students (mainly grad students, because they bring in research grants through company/science grants etc) to enroll, their funds decrease, and they can afford less Teaching/Research Assistants which are essential to the smooth and lucrative functioning of the department. As the quality of teaching/research reduces, it further brings down enrollment, etc. Hope the state governments do something constructive other than cut down grants to these schools.
The decision was mostly because of it's cross-platform, cross-service compatibility and "Buddy Pounce" features (and because it's my personal favorite too :)). This way folks can continue to use their personal MSN/AIM IDs without a problem. The Buddy Pounce feature allows a script/macro to be run in response to an event - this feature is particularly useful for us because we can kick of an SMS message for example in response to a message or another event.
Though they don't release Solaris binaries, I did get it to build on Solaris/SPARC with a little effort. I know the Yahoo Messenger UNIX version is open source now, so I could probably try and build it for obscure platforms, but it is IMHO severely cripped compared to the Windows counterpart.
Seriously, that's what it said before the link was fixed.
Well, I better go and line my TFH with some Anti-Wi-Fi wallpaper.
If it'll help them squeeze in some witty one-liners than the same old boring FP posts.