However, that would be an obvious marketing advantange. They would have an OS, Office Suite, AND Development Environments all designed to work together under their OS. It could be really scary if they started doing that, but i don't believe they have the market share just yet, thankfully
Ack! Sounds just like M$! Naw, there will be some requirements (probably graphical libs). But I would doubt they would get into the same pickle jar as M$. Let's trust them to do the right thing. RD
However, that would be an obvious marketing advantange. They would have an OS, Office Suite, AND Development Environments all designed to work together under their OS. It could be really scary if they started doing that, but i don't believe they have the market share just yet, thankfully
Ack! Sounds just like M$! Naw, there will be some requirements (probably graphical libs). But I would doubt they would get into the same pickle jar as M$. Let's trust them to do the right thing.
We will benefit because of better development tools.
I've been drooling of the prospect of having Delphi on Linux (aka Kylix (which also is a C++ environment). Our shop uses Delphi exclusively (on Windows (yuk)). I gave up C++ when Delphi became available (say what you want) simply because it gave the ease of development of VB with almost as much power as C++. Our products work and ship ahead of schedule. We owe that to Delphi being as well designed and capable as it is.
Linux development really demands knowing the internals of Linux AND the graphical libraries that are out there (not that this is bad, mind you). Being able to hide this complexity from the developer while providing the rich and full feature set of Delphi will only enhance the Linux development experience.
The only downsides I can see from this move is that Borland essentially redefined Pascal for the Windows environment. As such, it set a standard for Pascal which is not the same as the one everyone else is familiar with. This will mean that Open Sourced code will not be compilable by other pascal compilers.
The other is that there will be an infusion of garbage programs written by programmer wannabees.
However, the end result, I believe, will be more high quality and appropriately priced (or free) applications for Linux and, potentially, other *nix's. That can only be a good thing for power users and business/causual users alike.
The lego test is a step in the right direction. We need to stop worrying about how well a person has scored and more about what sort of potential is in a person.
This is ridiculus. First, they restructure and re-baseline the "standardized" tests to make them acceptable to minorities and the under priveledged. Heck, in may cases, facts don't even matter, it's whatever you THINK is right. Uh huh.
Now, its based on whether or not you an build/replicate something with lego? Great, my five year old is surely guaranteed a college education because he builds with Lego (and some pretty cool stuff at that).
This stunt seems like a team building exercise the military could benefit from. In that world, finding the leaders is essential. There, practical working knowledge and the ability to function in a team environment are the more desired attributes
To enter college, you're SUPPOSED to have a basic understanding of the material that will be taught there. Hence, you are expected to have a working knowledge of algebra and trig before you take Calculus. These skills are called prerequisites. If you don't have the skills, get them. If you're bright enough, you can teach yourself the prerequisites regardless of your background.
I'd much rather administer the lego test AFTER they qualify on the standarized tests. That would help seperate those with pure book knowledge from those with the ability to solve real world problems.
I'd be suspect of anyone who earns a degree from a college who uses this type of testing as the primary admittance criteria.
This is just downright sad. Next, we'll be expected to hire graduates speaking like Tarzan..."Me Tarzan. Me get degree. Me work for you. Me run company with Cheeta as VP".
If $20,000/year for a patent license represents a "fatal blow", then those startups must have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel...
In most circumstances, I would probably agree with you. However, not so in this case. Here's why...
Let's take the case of the small, independent programmer. They finally come up with a idea that could potentially enable them to make some real money. They hear the buzzwords like WAP and soon discover it's an Open Standard.
They then collaborate with other developers (the internet is a remarkable place) in their same situation and together they decide to build and market a system based on this technology. The classic garage business model
From their viewpoint, they followed all the rules and readily available information. They planned on selling their system for say, $1,000 (USD). Their business and marketing plans are based on this pricing and it looks like the business is going to take off. They build the product and begin selling it. Life is good.
But, then the Wicked Witch of the West comes and says..."Hey! You little creatons have stolen my patent leather shoes...I mean patent. Fork over $20,000 for each system and I might let you live."
What's the little startup to do?
What if they have sold dozens or hundreds of systems, bought a comfortable house, a modest car and clothes for their kids...Will they lose their homes?
Is the Wicked Witch of the West entitle to the money?
What if the WWOTW allowed the technology to be developed and refined for five years or so and took no effort to enforce their patent? Is the patent still enforceable?
Guess what??? That almost JUST happened to me on the WAP issue. Except I haven't build the system with my "partners" and we were just exploring WAP's potential to give us a competitive edge.
Perhaps, we should look at wireless IP and target the market now potentially opening up because of the Transmeta? Or, maybe we should simple forget the whole idea and relegate ourselves to being held captive to time in an hourglass by the Wicked Witch of the West....
While I wouldn't deny them their right to profit from their patent, I would say their patent is unenforcable since they did nothing to protect in quite some time. Either they are completely oblivious to what's been going on around them or they (rather their lawyers), see an opportunity to make big bucks.
In my mind, this just reeks of the stench created by the incompetance of the patent reviewers to know what is prior art in the computer industry and Shylock's out to make a buck by exploiting us all.
Method #2: * Get job at local store for approx. 1 hour
* Obtain tools: pen, paper, or a good memory
* Use tools to store credit card numbers
* Use credit card numbers to purchase online pron
To extend this algorithm to have it work with the customer present, do this...
1) Get a job a local store for about and hour
2) Arrange to have a phone ring in the back room hen a customer gives you their CC for purchase.
3) Go into backroom and make two carbon copies of the CC. Hide one, give the other to the customer (about 15 seconds)
4) Tell customer call was a wrong number.
5) Complete the sale.
6) A month or so later, break out the carbon, fill in an amount, sign it, and submit it.
This algorithm works best in countries that don't have extensive CC fraud laws or the ability to enforce them.
Trust me, I know. Happened to me while on deployment in Mediterranean (country unnamed).
I returned to the US only to get a bill for $400 for goods I did not purchase. The CC company made me PROVE that I wasn't in the country at the time of the purchase.
I had to get my signature notorized (the one on the slip wasn't even close), have a letter from my Commanding Officer that our ship wasn't in the area (we were in the US at the time of the supposed purchase) AND a letter from the ship's admin office showing that I was onboard the ship for that time period.
All this because I let my CC out of sight for about 15 seconds and didn't report a fraud that I didn't know about in the required time period.
Needless to say, I drop the CC company after the bill was paid.
Interbase is loved by CS majors, but the apps are thoroughly hated by end users. You are a programmer, so I don't expect you to understand this statement. Aside from the innane licensing structure, what is it about IB that end users don't like? It... is easy to install and maintain. has transactions. has stored procs/triggers/generators. has a relatively small footprint. maintains itself. The only downsides I have encountered are potentially really slow apps if you keep autocommit enabled (by a factor of 100) and the automatic sweep (i.e. garbage collection) that can occur. This speed issue can easily be circumvented by decent programming on the application programmer's side. In fact, the automatic sweep issue can be handled by the programmer as well. The fact that either of these occur in released software indicated immaturity or ignorance of the developers. Interbase, just like any other database, will its preformance will be affected by those designing and maintaining the database as well as the skill level of the developers programming to it. Where IB could grow is to improve the speed of its queries and to develop a truly decent DBI:Interbase module.
I may be a Borland fan, but why must you classify that as zealotry? There are those who prefer certain tools such as egcs or VC++ or Borland tools. Why is it that just because a "for profit" company decided to enter a market makes it so bad or "smells like stanated and rotted sh&t to me"?
Is it because a corporate venture will promote competition for the less powerful databases (or overpriced) databases that already exist?
Does it scare you that something else may replace the tool you are so comfortable with? Why should it? Did you know that IB was designed originally with Unix in mind? Windows came second.
Interbase, unlike mySQL (which I do like, BTW), offers several things that mySQL does not.
First, it offers true transaction support.
Second, it offers stored procedures.
Thirdly, it is pretty robust and self-maintaining.
And, like mySQL, it is available for a multitude of platforms.
Where it lacks is in raw speed. Yet, with the proper settings, IB can be very fast. It's autocommitting after every update, delete or insert that slows things down. Do it all in a transaction and watch things fly.
They other disadvantage (hopefully soon to be rectified), is the concurrent user licensing arrangement for IB. We'll have to see just what Open Sourcing will do for that.
Surely, IB could benefit from the features that exist within other databases such as mySQL. But, IMHO, even the lowly IB 4.0 is already a serious contenter to mySQL.
While there are those who will look at the negative aspects of Inprise's action to release Interbase 6 as open source, I am not one.
Having been an avid IB user since the introduction of Delphi with various versions running on my hardware (IB 5.6 on Windows, 4.02G on Linux) I can hardly wait for 6.0. Delphi and IB for Linux make an awesome team with transactions, isolation, and a rich stored procedure language.
Interbase 6.0 was demonstrated at the Borland/Inprise conference this year. During one of the sessions, a fellow developer asked the pointed question of releasing Local Interbase for free or the creation of a run-time only engine to aid in the deployment of applications developed using Interbase. He cited M$ and Sybase's moves to do such things. They said they would look into it but didn't thing such a move was feasible. IB 6.0 never made it out the door (but it did look slick with that nice GUI admin tool).
But, we also heard Dale Fuller stating that the Interbase team had about six months to turn the corner and that Borland was fully dedicated to Linux. Looks to me like they are positioning themselves quite nicesly.
I just hope that the source will compile with egcs (or at least decent RPMs will be available).
Unfortunately, this problem isn't confined to just the denial of service to non-Windows users. Why...just last week, I tried to download some software for my Linux box from work where I use IE (for later transfer to my Linux box).
Instead of gaining access to the "Open Sourced" source code, I was flatly rejected simply because I was using IE. It even went so far as to suggest I use another non-M$ browser and join the non-M$ browser revolution. I left the site with the intention to never to come back and feeling like I needed to look for the "colored" water fountain.
So, I left the site and went back to freshmeat looking for another alternative to what was on the other site. As I tried to download the gzipped file, IE5 launched the VRML browser. Seems it thinks that all.gz files are VRML. Took some time to whip my browser and force a registry scrubbing before it would leave my gzipped files alone.
So much for this "uppity" web surfer.
Can't we all just get along?
Until the world realizes that browser diversity is necessary, we might as well be back in the 20th century.:-)
Happy New Year, Everyone! And, for those that believe its the new Millenium (see...another issue we can't all agree upon), "Happy 3rd Millenium".
I've read most of the posts that preceed mine. One thing I find peculiar is why all the Inprise bashing? Inprise has had its share of problems in the past is and is finally turning itself around.
At the Inprise Developer's conference, PrimeTime was demonstrated on Linux (and Solaris). Yes, it was buggy (the Linux version, that is). And, that was direct result of the Blackdown VM being buggy at the time. The PrimeTime Chief stated at that time that they were working with Blackdown to solidify the VM. I didn't get the impression that they were trying to screw over anybody.
In retrospect, I recall a lot of praise was given to Linux and the whole Open Source movement. But, you have to remember, Inprise is a for profit corporation. The fact they are giving JBuilder Foundation away is nothing short of miracle. And, the provided a JIT and bug fixes for Blackdown. So, why all the long faces?
I hear people complaining that its an IDE or that it uses this Linux or that enviroment and not mine. The argument is analogous as to why they don't support JBuilder on OS/2 or VAXVM or CPM. Hey, they have to draw the line somewhere, right? Why else do you think they are also working in conjuction with Corel? The fact that Corel and Redhat at the most popular Linux distributions (according to a recent study) just might have something to do with that?
All programs have certain hardware/software requirements. As developers, we know that is the case. The survey taken by Inprise earlier this year clearly showed that RedHat Linux and KDE were the most prevalent in the community. Is this not so? Or, are the figures they used askew? I'd bet that Inprise did its market research this time (other than just the survey). They can't afford to be wrong again. They made some choices. You don't have to agree with them. But, they made their choices based upon reliable information and business accumen and not on personal bias.
Now, all I want for Christmas is the forthcoming Kylix platform so I can move my legacy Win32 Delphi apps to Linux. To me, my belief is that RAD is GOOD and INPRISE is GOOD for the Linux community on the whole. I may be mistaken about some things, but I don't think so in this case.
Returning to the main topic (the detection of stealth aircraft), about eight years ago I was talking with a friend about techniques for detecting a stealthy aircraft. While we were thinking of using a thermal sensor rather than using radio, the principle was the same, namely to look for atmospheric disturbances. While the technology to accomplish this is non-trivial, I sincerely doubt it would require access to classified data.
Probably wouldn't work as the thermal emmissions from stealthy aircraft is extremely low. Detection of turbulance (aka doppler) or interferometric detection (as what is being proposed), is more likely to succeed.
Is there Chinese espionage of American military and industrial data? Sure. And French espionage, and Japanese, and Israeli, and so on. As long as the United States has the world's most sophisticated trove of military technology, people will attempt to steal it. Occasionally they will succeed.
Seems they are succeeding more often than not (if you can believe what is in the media). Funny how we keep channelling money to those nations, isn't it.
I do accept your statement that it is the big business who, through lobbyiest, are given away the store. But, they need help in doing it or they won't be in business very long. That help is given to them by the gov't.
I personally don't need a domestic enemy to sleep better at night. As a former military officer, I've seen how our forces have be diluted to a point to being almost ineffective. That's why I left military service. Add to this the "selling" of technology to other nations by corporations and gov't alike, and we are quickly equalizing the playing field.
Maybe that's a good thing; If no one can gain an advantage on the battlefied, then nobody will dare attempt war.
But, this view is unrealistic. There is always somebody out there who thinks they can win. Hate is always present (just look at Kosovo, Somalia, Ethiopia, and the dozens of other places where fighting is going on). Somebody has to have the edge. If I'm going into battle, I want that edge. Period.
Personnally, I'd like to walk softly and carry a pretty damn big stick and ignore the liberal yahoos who think we live in idealistic society. Placidity is the root of demise of great nations.
Your right. If anything, it should be Anti-Clinton/Gore sentiment. Before I am label a troll, check out the facts. At the very least, it'll make you think that perhaps character DOES count.
First, let's understand how this system supposedly works:
It takes passive RF signals and looks for changes in the beam. Sort of link interferometry. A sufficient number of antennas (let's say 3) with a reference signal can detect the aborations and compute a 3-d picture. Anything in that distorts the RF field (say a plane) can be detected. Period (Remember the tacyeon (sp) beams in Star Trek to detect cloaked ships???).
We used a similar technology to detect minute stresses in optical fiber. This is just on a larger scale. Heck, they're probably using Beowolf clusters to do the math.
Now, let's see where they got this technology - Lockheed Aircraft. Isn't Lockheed the developers of the F-117 and F-22? They sold the technology as a under the guise of low-cost Airtraffic Control System. Uh huh.
Now, let's consider AWAC technology recently aquired by the Chinese. Did we sell it to them? No. It was sold to them by Isreal (who created the techology on what the US sold them).
Now, let's consider nuclear warhead technology. Where did they get it? Supposedly from the accused Dr. Lee or a system integrator (or both).
Now, let's consider ballistic missle technology. Where did they get it? Martin-Marietta.
Now, let's consider the Panama Canal. Where did they get it???? Yup...you guessed right.
When did all these trangressions occur? During the Clinton Regime.
Who purchased a Naval shipyard facility in, I think Washington State? The Chinese.
Who gave money to the Clinton campaign? The Chinese.
Who is quickly being accepted into the WTO? Yup.
Who helped them get accepted? Yup. Right again.
Oh yeah....who recently established a cryptologic laboratory in China? Can you say RSA Data Security, Inc.? How? Isn't the export of strong crypto illegal (at least at THAT time). They (RSADSI), found a loophole in the law. Doesn't the NSA usually patch those holes when something is able to slip through? Uh huh.
There are dozens of events during the Clinton administration that point directly to the aquisition of military technology by the Chinese.
Makes one think, eh? Let's not blame the Chinese. They are only being enterprising and resourceful. It's just a sad state of affairs when our own gov't is selling us out and everyone (i.e. the media) is turning a deaf-ear and wearing blinders.
Yes and No. Guess I need to explain myself a little better. With SSH1, if you have had prior contact and established a key for a particular user, then you are authenticating the user (as you have already generated a unique key).
But, if someone is connecting for the first time, ssh appears to let you do so. It will generate a one time session key. All you achieve in this situation is an encrypted link.
Validation to known hosts can be compromised by spoofing an IP. If there was an exchange of trusted X.509 certificates and a protocol used to exchange a session key with a "trusted" host in ssh1 as their is, I believe, in ssh2, then authentication is actually being performed to determine the indentify of the remote user.
If I am wrong, please correct me. I don't claim to be infallible. I'll just go back to making radios from coconuts and sea-shells.
Actually, you, generally, will not find RC5 used as block cipher. It, like it's precedessors, RC2 and RC4, was designed for use on streaming data as you've pointed out via OFC.
Most cipher implementations in software are based on a byte as the fundamental unit for encryption. A byte, is eight bits. So, yes, it is a block. But, a byte (or multiple of) is used because the processor can effectively manipulate it. Most processors aren't designed with the primary purpose of working on single bits.
The primary difference between a stream and block cipher is how it is designed and its intended application with Stream ciphers designed primarly for speed.
Software implementations of the typical block encryption algorithms are extremely inefficient for applications requiring stream encryption. One would not consider using Blowfish, IDEA, or even DES in a stream cipher application unless the encryption engine was hardware based. It's simply not practical.
I, personally, have not done a thorough analysis of RC5 (I will leave that as an exercise for the reader). The security of the likes of RC5 is based primarily on the entropy introduced by a large key. But, the overall complexity of the algorithm is sufficiently low that it can be readily implemented in software without significant bandwidth degradation. Hence, it is widely used in applications requiring video and audio encryption.
Would I trust my personal finances to it? Sorry, (and not offense to Ron Rivest), not in this lifetime. I would more likely trust them to the likes of Triple-DES, Blowfish, probably TwoFish, and eventually, AEC.
One must remember that RC5 was a proprietary algorithm right up until the momement when it was illegally published. Security by obscurity is no security at all.
SSH does not authenticate the connection (at least not SSH1...SSH2 does), it only uses asymetric cryptography (aka public-key) to exchange a session key. Once the connection is established, a block cipher (i.e triple-DES) is often used. I do not believe that RC2, RC4, or RC5 (all stream ciphers) are used.
Stream ciphers have a considerable speed (10x or more) advantage over typical block ciphers such as DES, Blowfish, Triple-DES, CAST, and IDEA. They are primarly used where high transfer rates are required (such as video or real-time audio).
Forget trying to use public-key algorithms for stream ciphers for the following reasons:
a) Pathetically slow (i.e 10-100x times SLOWER than block encryption and 1000's X SLOWER than good stream implementations.
b) Block size must be greater than or equal to the size of your keys. Making the encrypted block size (say 1 byte) would be subject to many attacks. That is why blocks are often padded to the minimal recommended block size with random characters when a small block is introduced.
Unless you have a very fast hardware implementation of a PK system (say it's contained within a Star Trek like Warp field), then I'd take the key exchange approach as recommended in my and the other posts that preceed mine.
Unfortunately, there is a greater issue at hand of which most americans are unaware (it ends up on page 21 of the paper). Unfortunately, it may already be too late to do anything about it.
Why is it that one of the most important trade routes in the world, the Panama Canal, will be run jointly by the Panamanians and the Chinese come 01 JAN 2000?
Why the sudden shift toward making the Chinese "upstanding" members in the WTO or even the EU? Why are we basically overlooking the sale of AWAC technology by the Isrealis to the Chinese or the supposedly "stolen" nuclear technology? It is this type of technology that can give a nation a significant offensive capability rather than the defensive one. Already, the Chinese are starting readying production of the F-10, an aircraft with similar capabilities to our F-16.
Presently, the Chinese ICMB capability is unable to reach the continental United States (except for, perhaps, the West Coast. With the alleged help of our own aerospace industry, they have allegedly made significant advances in rocket propulsion and guidance. Now, they may get bases in Panama. If they place their medium range missiles down there, they will have a capability of striking just about anywhere in the USA.
I'd love to know how THIS one slipped through the cracks.
All this, while Bill and Al have been in office. Did you ever really wonder where all that soft campaign money went?
Yeah, like I'll sleep better knowing that AL and BillG are working together in ANY fashion. Isn't the anti-christ supposed to enlist the aid of a powerful, charismatic individual who pushes technology to unify the world (I think that was in one of Nostradameous' quatrains)?
Before dismissing my allegations and calling me a conspiracy nut or whatever, review the facts of the matter. It may frighten you to realize just what the New World Order is all about.
Your assumption is based upon a point source of RF energy. With a little ingenuity and engineering know how, you can create a set of reflectors to redirect the energy into a fairly tight beam. The resulting beam pattern doesn't follow the inverse law in the same manner as a point source (Or does it?). Perfect example is using the Aribico (sp) Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico to send radar signals deep into space.
I've tried to find the equations that describe the resulting beam pattern and decay of RF signals under these conditions, but to no avail.
Now, can someone tell me how it is that a pencil thin laser beam (say HeNe) can only expand to circle of 1/4 mile by the time it gets to the moon (250K miles)? Or, what law governs the power of a coherent beam at a specific point along the axis of the beam?
AM is easy to jam simply because of the way the information is encoded...varying the amplitude of the RF signal. This makes them vulnerable to spark gaps ( a great white noise source) and such.
But, FM, on the other hand, is a bit harder to jam as it involves the deviation of a carrier wave from its base frequency. The circuitry used to detect an FM signal is, by nature, far more immune to the occassional(or continous) burst of RF energy (like a lightning discharge). To jam FM, you pretty much need to zero in on the carrier frequency and then modulate it with white noise (or similar). But, the effect is localized to a specific frequency +/- the bandwidth.
Spread spectrum takes FM a bit futher by encoding the digital signals over multiple carriers. Interference on one is corrected by the redundancy of the information carried by the others. Of course, total power output is distributed among all the frequencies involved, thus a significanly shorter range. This is also why wireless LANS like spread specture.
In high school, I constructed a particle accelerator for a science fair project (1982) using plexiglass tubing, iodine gas (for my ions), and a high voltage power supply (200KV) whose parts and plans I purchased from Scientific Unlimited for about $100, a coil of wire and a electrostatic lens to accelerate the ions.
The coil was used to generate a magnetic field to help direct the ions (created from a point source).
Cool thing was I could light up a neon bulb at 50 feet (very directional) or charge up an individual in the beam (within 6 feet) so that they had four inch sparks jumping from their body when they got near a grounded object (Larger body mass...bigger the spark!).
The whole thing was originally supposed to be an ion propulsion engine using mercury ions, but I was denied access to the local university's vacuum chamber after the prof went on sabatical. So, I made something that worked under standard atmospheric conditions. Can't exactly shoot mercury ions into the atmosphere...can we?
As a disclaimer, No permanent harm came to any person or equipment (current far to low), but it sure did scare a few people who thought I was nuts anyway when I said I would zap them with my ray gun (even when not plugged in). It's amazing how easy it is to scare people who don't understand the basic physics behind such contraptions.
The author of this story went on to obtain a physics degree and entered military service where he got play with things that go boom in the night. Doesn't that just make you feel just swell?
Actually, Microsoft did say why they have two keys...for backup/disaster recovery purposes.
Supposedly, if the primary key were lost or destroyed (say in an earthquake or fire), they could still sign components using the backup key.
As I mentioned before, I don't buy this explanation totally as there is no reason they didn't have the primary key distributed using an n-threshold key sharing algorithm. The same holds true for the backup key.
Had they taken this approach, they would have parts of the key in each office. They would need only N parts to reconsitute the key. And, since the parts would be given to supposely responsible individuals, the only way the key could be reconsituted is through a deliberate act or collusion of those holding the parts. My guess there are ways to prevent even the later.
If their issue was key compromise, then what provisions are in the CryptoAPI to revoke the primary key and activate the backup key? How about being able to replace a superceded/revoked key so that the can not/will be used again? How are they handling certificate revocation lists (CRLs)? Can anyone answer that question? I'd love to know.
Maybe I sound like a conspiracy nut, but something just isn't right here. Either this is an act of ignornace on Microsoft's part or this is just a lame attempt to put another chink in our freedom's armor. But, I guess we'll never know for sure.
I, too, would tend to believe the NSA wouldn't be so blatant as this. But, one has to take Microsoft's position on a backup key tonge-in-cheek.
The argument that they keep the primary key in one facility and the backup key in another just doesn't hold water. Sounds like a nice disaster recovery policy, but not realistic as a true disaster would destroy the primary key.
Hasn't Microsoft heard of distributing the key via an n-threshold key algorithm? Heck, the algorithm is in the public domain and published code can be found in Bruce's book, "Applied Cryptography".
I have inherited a box full of 8mm, Super8mm, 35mm slides and photographs dating back as far as the 1940's. My aim is to scan and encode each film and store them on CD or DVD before they deteriorate. Part of the process is designing and building an 8mm/Super8 film scanner (which I can do). The other aspect is figuring out how to store them efficiently.
I am assuming that since these are JPEGS, I should be able to manipulate them (i.e. color enhance, etc.) and save an important aspect of family history.
Slashdot Mirror
Ack! Sounds just like M$! Naw, there will be some requirements (probably graphical libs). But I would doubt they would get into the same pickle jar as M$. Let's trust them to do the right thing. RD
However, that would be an obvious marketing advantange. They would have an OS, Office Suite, AND Development Environments all designed to work together under their OS. It could be really scary if they started doing that, but i don't believe they have the market share just yet, thankfully
Ack! Sounds just like M$! Naw, there will be some requirements (probably graphical libs). But I would doubt they would get into the same pickle jar as M$. Let's trust them to do the right thing.
RD
I've been drooling of the prospect of having Delphi on Linux (aka Kylix (which also is a C++ environment). Our shop uses Delphi exclusively (on Windows (yuk)). I gave up C++ when Delphi became available (say what you want) simply because it gave the ease of development of VB with almost as much power as C++. Our products work and ship ahead of schedule. We owe that to Delphi being as well designed and capable as it is.
Linux development really demands knowing the internals of Linux AND the graphical libraries that are out there (not that this is bad, mind you). Being able to hide this complexity from the developer while providing the rich and full feature set of Delphi will only enhance the Linux development experience.
The only downsides I can see from this move is that Borland essentially redefined Pascal for the Windows environment. As such, it set a standard for Pascal which is not the same as the one everyone else is familiar with. This will mean that Open Sourced code will not be compilable by other pascal compilers.
The other is that there will be an infusion of garbage programs written by programmer wannabees.
However, the end result, I believe, will be more high quality and appropriately priced (or free) applications for Linux and, potentially, other *nix's. That can only be a good thing for power users and business/causual users alike.
RD
This is ridiculus. First, they restructure and re-baseline the "standardized" tests to make them acceptable to minorities and the under priveledged. Heck, in may cases, facts don't even matter, it's whatever you THINK is right. Uh huh.
Now, its based on whether or not you an build/replicate something with lego? Great, my five year old is surely guaranteed a college education because he builds with Lego (and some pretty cool stuff at that).
This stunt seems like a team building exercise the military could benefit from. In that world, finding the leaders is essential. There, practical working knowledge and the ability to function in a team environment are the more desired attributes
To enter college, you're SUPPOSED to have a basic understanding of the material that will be taught there. Hence, you are expected to have a working knowledge of algebra and trig before you take Calculus. These skills are called prerequisites. If you don't have the skills, get them. If you're bright enough, you can teach yourself the prerequisites regardless of your background.
I'd much rather administer the lego test AFTER they qualify on the standarized tests. That would help seperate those with pure book knowledge from those with the ability to solve real world problems.
I'd be suspect of anyone who earns a degree from a college who uses this type of testing as the primary admittance criteria.
This is just downright sad. Next, we'll be expected to hire graduates speaking like Tarzan..."Me Tarzan. Me get degree. Me work for you. Me run company with Cheeta as VP".
Not.
In most circumstances, I would probably agree with you. However, not so in this case. Here's why...
Let's take the case of the small, independent programmer. They finally come up with a idea that could potentially enable them to make some real money. They hear the buzzwords like WAP and soon discover it's an Open Standard.
They then collaborate with other developers (the internet is a remarkable place) in their same situation and together they decide to build and market a system based on this technology. The classic garage business model
From their viewpoint, they followed all the rules and readily available information. They planned on selling their system for say, $1,000 (USD). Their business and marketing plans are based on this pricing and it looks like the business is going to take off. They build the product and begin selling it. Life is good.
But, then the Wicked Witch of the West comes and says..."Hey! You little creatons have stolen my patent leather shoes...I mean patent. Fork over $20,000 for each system and I might let you live."
What's the little startup to do?
What if they have sold dozens or hundreds of systems, bought a comfortable house, a modest car and clothes for their kids...Will they lose their homes?
Is the Wicked Witch of the West entitle to the money?
What if the WWOTW allowed the technology to be developed and refined for five years or so and took no effort to enforce their patent? Is the patent still enforceable?
Guess what??? That almost JUST happened to me on the WAP issue. Except I haven't build the system with my "partners" and we were just exploring WAP's potential to give us a competitive edge.
Perhaps, we should look at wireless IP and target the market now potentially opening up because of the Transmeta? Or, maybe we should simple forget the whole idea and relegate ourselves to being held captive to time in an hourglass by the Wicked Witch of the West....
While I wouldn't deny them their right to profit from their patent, I would say their patent is unenforcable since they did nothing to protect in quite some time. Either they are completely oblivious to what's been going on around them or they (rather their lawyers), see an opportunity to make big bucks.
In my mind, this just reeks of the stench created by the incompetance of the patent reviewers to know what is prior art in the computer industry and Shylock's out to make a buck by exploiting us all.
Ugh.
RD
* Obtain tools: pen, paper, or a good memory
* Use tools to store credit card numbers
* Use credit card numbers to purchase online pron
To extend this algorithm to have it work with the customer present, do this...
1) Get a job a local store for about and hour
2) Arrange to have a phone ring in the back room hen a customer gives you their CC for purchase.
3) Go into backroom and make two carbon copies of the CC. Hide one, give the other to the customer (about 15 seconds)
4) Tell customer call was a wrong number.
5) Complete the sale.
6) A month or so later, break out the carbon, fill in an amount, sign it, and submit it.
This algorithm works best in countries that don't have extensive CC fraud laws or the ability to enforce them.
Trust me, I know. Happened to me while on deployment in Mediterranean (country unnamed).
I returned to the US only to get a bill for $400 for goods I did not purchase. The CC company made me PROVE that I wasn't in the country at the time of the purchase.
I had to get my signature notorized (the one on the slip wasn't even close), have a letter from my Commanding Officer that our ship wasn't in the area (we were in the US at the time of the supposed purchase) AND a letter from the ship's admin office showing that I was onboard the ship for that time period.
All this because I let my CC out of sight for about 15 seconds and didn't report a fraud that I didn't know about in the required time period.
Needless to say, I drop the CC company after the bill was paid.
Interbase is loved by CS majors, but the apps are thoroughly hated by end users. You are a programmer, so I don't expect you to understand this statement. Aside from the innane licensing structure, what is it about IB that end users don't like? It... is easy to install and maintain. has transactions. has stored procs/triggers/generators. has a relatively small footprint. maintains itself. The only downsides I have encountered are potentially really slow apps if you keep autocommit enabled (by a factor of 100) and the automatic sweep (i.e. garbage collection) that can occur. This speed issue can easily be circumvented by decent programming on the application programmer's side. In fact, the automatic sweep issue can be handled by the programmer as well. The fact that either of these occur in released software indicated immaturity or ignorance of the developers. Interbase, just like any other database, will its preformance will be affected by those designing and maintaining the database as well as the skill level of the developers programming to it. Where IB could grow is to improve the speed of its queries and to develop a truly decent DBI:Interbase module.
I may be a Borland fan, but why must you classify that as zealotry? There are those who prefer certain tools such as egcs or VC++ or Borland tools. Why is it that just because a "for profit" company decided to enter a market makes it so bad or "smells like stanated and rotted sh&t to me"?
Is it because a corporate venture will promote competition for the less powerful databases (or overpriced) databases that already exist?
Does it scare you that something else may replace the tool you are so comfortable with? Why should it? Did you know that IB was designed originally with Unix in mind? Windows came second.
Interbase, unlike mySQL (which I do like, BTW), offers several things that mySQL does not.
First, it offers true transaction support.
Second, it offers stored procedures.
Thirdly, it is pretty robust and self-maintaining.
And, like mySQL, it is available for a multitude of platforms.
Where it lacks is in raw speed. Yet, with the proper settings, IB can be very fast. It's autocommitting after every update, delete or insert that slows things down. Do it all in a transaction and watch things fly.
They other disadvantage (hopefully soon to be rectified), is the concurrent user licensing arrangement for IB. We'll have to see just what Open Sourcing will do for that.
Surely, IB could benefit from the features that exist within other databases such as mySQL. But, IMHO, even the lowly IB 4.0 is already a serious contenter to mySQL.
RD
While there are those who will look at the negative aspects of Inprise's action to release Interbase 6 as open source, I am not one.
Having been an avid IB user since the introduction of Delphi with various versions running on my hardware (IB 5.6 on Windows, 4.02G on Linux) I can hardly wait for 6.0. Delphi and IB for Linux make an awesome team with transactions, isolation, and a rich stored procedure language.
Interbase 6.0 was demonstrated at the Borland/Inprise conference this year. During one of the sessions, a fellow developer asked the pointed question of releasing Local Interbase for free or the creation of a run-time only engine to aid in the deployment of applications developed using Interbase. He cited M$ and Sybase's moves to do such things. They said they would look into it but didn't thing such a move was feasible. IB 6.0 never made it out the door (but it did look slick with that nice GUI admin tool).
But, we also heard Dale Fuller stating that the Interbase team had about six months to turn the corner and that Borland was fully dedicated to Linux. Looks to me like they are positioning themselves quite nicesly.
I just hope that the source will compile with egcs (or at least decent RPMs will be available).
RD
Unfortunately, this problem isn't confined to just the denial of service to non-Windows users. Why...just last week, I tried to download some software for my Linux box from work where I use IE (for later transfer to my Linux box).
.gz files are VRML.
:-)
Instead of gaining access to the "Open Sourced" source code, I was flatly rejected simply because I was using IE. It even went so far as to suggest I use another non-M$ browser and join the non-M$ browser revolution. I left the site with the intention to never to come back and feeling like I needed to look for the "colored" water fountain.
So, I left the site and went back to freshmeat looking for another alternative to what was on the other site. As I tried to download the gzipped file, IE5 launched the VRML browser. Seems it thinks that all
Took some time to whip my browser and force a registry scrubbing before it would leave my gzipped files alone.
So much for this "uppity" web surfer.
Can't we all just get along?
Until the world realizes that browser diversity is necessary, we might as well be back in the 20th century.
Happy New Year, Everyone! And, for those that believe its the new Millenium (see...another issue we can't all agree upon), "Happy 3rd Millenium".
Peace to all.
I've read most of the posts that preceed mine. One thing I find peculiar is why all the Inprise bashing? Inprise has had its share of problems in the past is and is finally turning itself around.
At the Inprise Developer's conference, PrimeTime was demonstrated on Linux (and Solaris). Yes, it was buggy (the Linux version, that is). And, that was direct result of the Blackdown VM being buggy at the time. The PrimeTime Chief stated at that time that they were working with Blackdown to solidify the VM. I didn't get the impression that they were trying to screw over anybody.
In retrospect, I recall a lot of praise was given to Linux and the whole Open Source movement. But, you have to remember, Inprise is a for profit corporation. The fact they are giving JBuilder Foundation away is nothing short of miracle. And, the provided a JIT and bug fixes for Blackdown. So, why all the long faces?
I hear people complaining that its an IDE or that it uses this Linux or that enviroment and not mine. The argument is analogous as to why they don't support JBuilder on OS/2 or VAXVM or CPM. Hey, they have to draw the line somewhere, right? Why else do you think they are also working in conjuction with Corel? The fact that Corel and Redhat at the most popular Linux distributions (according to a recent study) just might have something to do with that?
All programs have certain hardware/software requirements. As developers, we know that is the case. The survey taken by Inprise earlier this year clearly showed that RedHat Linux and KDE were the most prevalent in the community. Is this not so? Or, are the figures they used askew? I'd bet that Inprise did its market research this time (other than just the survey). They can't afford to be wrong again. They made some choices. You don't have to agree with them. But, they made their choices based upon reliable information and business accumen and not on personal bias.
Now, all I want for Christmas is the forthcoming Kylix platform so I can move my legacy Win32 Delphi apps to Linux. To me, my belief is that RAD is GOOD and INPRISE is GOOD for the Linux community on the whole. I may be mistaken about some things, but I don't think so in this case.
Returning to the main topic (the detection of stealth aircraft), about eight years ago I was talking with a friend about techniques for detecting a stealthy aircraft. While we were thinking of using a thermal sensor rather than using radio, the principle was the same, namely to look for atmospheric disturbances. While the technology to accomplish this is non-trivial, I sincerely doubt it would require access to classified data.
Probably wouldn't work as the thermal emmissions from stealthy aircraft is extremely low. Detection of turbulance (aka doppler) or interferometric detection (as what is being proposed), is more likely to succeed.
Is there Chinese espionage of American military and industrial data? Sure. And French espionage, and Japanese, and Israeli, and so on. As long as the United States has the world's most sophisticated trove of military technology, people will attempt to steal it. Occasionally they will succeed.
Seems they are succeeding more often than not (if you can believe what is in the media). Funny how we keep channelling money to those nations, isn't it.
I do accept your statement that it is the big business who, through lobbyiest, are given away the store. But, they need help in doing it or they won't be in business very long. That help is given to them by the gov't.
I personally don't need a domestic enemy to sleep better at night. As a former military officer, I've seen how our forces have be diluted to a point to being almost ineffective. That's why I left military service. Add to this the "selling" of technology to other nations by corporations and gov't alike, and we are quickly equalizing the playing field.
Maybe that's a good thing; If no one can gain an advantage on the battlefied, then nobody will dare attempt war.
But, this view is unrealistic. There is always somebody out there who thinks they can win. Hate is always present (just look at Kosovo, Somalia, Ethiopia, and the dozens of other places where fighting is going on). Somebody has to have the edge. If I'm going into battle, I want that edge. Period.
Personnally, I'd like to walk softly and carry a pretty damn big stick and ignore the liberal yahoos who think we live in idealistic society. Placidity is the root of demise of great nations.
Your right. If anything, it should be Anti-Clinton/Gore sentiment. Before I am label a troll, check out the facts. At the very least, it'll make you think that perhaps character DOES count.
First, let's understand how this system supposedly works:
It takes passive RF signals and looks for changes in the beam. Sort of link interferometry. A sufficient number of antennas (let's say 3) with a reference signal can detect the aborations and compute a 3-d picture. Anything in that distorts the RF field (say a plane) can be detected. Period (Remember the tacyeon (sp) beams in Star Trek to detect cloaked ships???).
We used a similar technology to detect minute stresses in optical fiber. This is just on a larger scale. Heck, they're probably using Beowolf clusters to do the math.
Now, let's see where they got this technology - Lockheed Aircraft. Isn't Lockheed the developers of the F-117 and F-22? They sold the technology as a under the guise of low-cost Airtraffic Control System. Uh huh.
Now, let's consider AWAC technology recently aquired by the Chinese. Did we sell it to them? No. It was sold to them by Isreal (who created the techology on what the US sold them).
Now, let's consider nuclear warhead technology. Where did they get it? Supposedly from the accused Dr. Lee or a system integrator (or both).
Now, let's consider ballistic missle technology. Where did they get it? Martin-Marietta.
Now, let's consider the Panama Canal. Where did they get it???? Yup...you guessed right.
When did all these trangressions occur? During the Clinton Regime.
Who purchased a Naval shipyard facility in, I think Washington State? The Chinese.
Who gave money to the Clinton campaign? The Chinese.
Who is quickly being accepted into the WTO? Yup.
Who helped them get accepted? Yup. Right again.
Oh yeah....who recently established a cryptologic laboratory in China? Can you say RSA Data Security, Inc.? How? Isn't the export of strong crypto illegal (at least at THAT time). They (RSADSI), found a loophole in the law. Doesn't the NSA usually patch those holes when something is able to slip through? Uh huh.
There are dozens of events during the Clinton administration that point directly to the aquisition of military technology by the Chinese.
Makes one think, eh? Let's not blame the Chinese. They are only being enterprising and resourceful. It's just a sad state of affairs when our own gov't is selling us out and everyone (i.e. the media) is turning a deaf-ear and wearing blinders.
Yes and No. Guess I need to explain myself a little better. With SSH1, if you have had prior contact and established a key for a particular user, then you are authenticating the user (as you have already generated a unique key).
But, if someone is connecting for the first time, ssh appears to let you do so. It will generate a one time session key. All you achieve in this situation is an encrypted link.
Validation to known hosts can be compromised by spoofing an IP. If there was an exchange of trusted X.509 certificates and a protocol used to exchange a session key with a "trusted" host in ssh1 as their is, I believe, in ssh2, then authentication is actually being performed to determine the indentify of the remote user.
If I am wrong, please correct me. I don't claim to be infallible. I'll just go back to making radios from coconuts and sea-shells.
The Professor
Actually, you, generally, will not find RC5 used as block cipher. It, like it's precedessors, RC2 and RC4, was designed for use on streaming data as you've pointed out via OFC.
Most cipher implementations in software are based on a byte as the fundamental unit for encryption. A byte, is eight bits. So, yes, it is a block. But, a byte (or multiple of) is used because the processor can effectively manipulate it. Most processors aren't designed with the primary purpose of working on single bits.
The primary difference between a stream and block cipher is how it is designed and its intended application with Stream ciphers designed primarly for speed.
Software implementations of the typical block encryption algorithms are extremely inefficient for applications requiring stream encryption. One would not consider using Blowfish, IDEA, or even DES in a stream cipher application unless the encryption engine was hardware based. It's simply not practical.
I, personally, have not done a thorough analysis of RC5 (I will leave that as an exercise for the reader). The security of the likes of RC5 is based primarily on the entropy introduced by a large key. But, the overall complexity of the algorithm is sufficiently low that it can be readily implemented in software without significant bandwidth degradation. Hence, it is widely used in applications requiring video and audio encryption.
Would I trust my personal finances to it? Sorry, (and not offense to Ron Rivest), not in this lifetime. I would more likely trust them to the likes of Triple-DES, Blowfish, probably TwoFish, and eventually, AEC.
One must remember that RC5 was a proprietary algorithm right up until the momement when it was illegally published. Security by obscurity is no security at all.
SSH does not authenticate the connection (at least not SSH1...SSH2 does), it only uses asymetric cryptography (aka public-key) to exchange a session key. Once the connection is established, a block cipher (i.e triple-DES) is often used. I do not believe that RC2, RC4, or RC5 (all stream ciphers) are used.
Stream ciphers have a considerable speed (10x or more) advantage over typical block ciphers such as DES, Blowfish, Triple-DES, CAST, and IDEA. They are primarly used where high transfer rates are required (such as video or real-time audio).
Forget trying to use public-key algorithms for stream ciphers for the following reasons:
a) Pathetically slow (i.e 10-100x times SLOWER than block encryption and 1000's X SLOWER than good stream implementations.
b) Block size must be greater than or equal to the size of your keys. Making the encrypted block size (say 1 byte) would be subject to many attacks. That is why blocks are often padded to the minimal recommended block size with random characters when a small block is introduced.
Unless you have a very fast hardware implementation of a PK system (say it's contained within a Star Trek like Warp field), then I'd take the key exchange approach as recommended in my and the other posts that preceed mine.
Unfortunately, there is a greater issue at hand of which most americans are unaware (it ends up on page 21 of the paper). Unfortunately, it may already be too late to do anything about it.
Why is it that one of the most important trade routes in the world, the Panama Canal, will be run jointly by the Panamanians and the Chinese come 01 JAN 2000?
Why the sudden shift toward making the Chinese "upstanding" members in the WTO or even the EU? Why are we basically overlooking the sale of AWAC technology by the Isrealis to the Chinese or the supposedly "stolen" nuclear technology? It is this type of technology that can give a nation a significant offensive capability rather than the defensive one. Already, the Chinese are starting readying production of the F-10, an aircraft with similar capabilities to our F-16.
Presently, the Chinese ICMB capability is unable to reach the continental United States (except for, perhaps, the West Coast. With the alleged help of our own aerospace industry, they have allegedly made significant advances in rocket propulsion and guidance. Now, they may get bases in Panama. If they place their medium range missiles down there, they will have a capability of striking just about anywhere in the USA.
I'd love to know how THIS one slipped through the cracks.
All this, while Bill and Al have been in office. Did you ever really wonder where all that soft campaign money went?
Yeah, like I'll sleep better knowing that AL and BillG are working together in ANY fashion. Isn't the anti-christ supposed to enlist the aid of a powerful, charismatic individual who pushes technology to unify the world (I think that was in one of Nostradameous' quatrains)?
Before dismissing my allegations and calling me a conspiracy nut or whatever, review the facts of the matter. It may frighten you to realize just what the New World Order is all about.
Could we soon be kneeling and saying, "Sir Linus"?
Will he have a Penguin on his Coat of Arms?
Your assumption is based upon a point source of RF energy. With a little ingenuity and engineering know how, you can create a set of reflectors to redirect the energy into a fairly tight beam. The resulting beam pattern doesn't follow the inverse law in the same manner as a point source (Or does it?). Perfect example is using the Aribico (sp) Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico to send radar signals deep into space.
I've tried to find the equations that describe the resulting beam pattern and decay of RF signals under these conditions, but to no avail.
Now, can someone tell me how it is that a pencil thin laser beam (say HeNe) can only expand to circle of 1/4 mile by the time it gets to the moon (250K miles)? Or, what law governs the power of a coherent beam at a specific point along the axis of the beam?
AM is easy to jam simply because of the way the information is encoded...varying the amplitude of the RF signal. This makes them vulnerable to spark gaps ( a great white noise source) and such.
But, FM, on the other hand, is a bit harder to jam as it involves the deviation of a carrier wave from its base frequency. The circuitry used to detect an FM signal is, by nature, far more immune to the occassional(or continous) burst of RF energy (like a lightning discharge). To jam FM, you pretty much need to zero in on the carrier frequency and then modulate it with white noise (or similar). But, the effect is localized to a specific frequency +/- the bandwidth.
Spread spectrum takes FM a bit futher by encoding the digital signals over multiple carriers. Interference on one is corrected by the redundancy of the information carried by the others. Of course, total power output is distributed among all the frequencies involved, thus a significanly shorter range. This is also why wireless LANS like spread specture.
In high school, I constructed a particle accelerator for a science fair project (1982) using plexiglass tubing, iodine gas (for my ions), and a high voltage power supply (200KV) whose parts and plans I purchased from Scientific Unlimited for about $100, a coil of wire and a electrostatic lens to accelerate the ions.
The coil was used to generate a magnetic field to help direct the ions (created from a point source).
Cool thing was I could light up a neon bulb at 50 feet (very directional) or charge up an individual in the beam (within 6 feet) so that they had four inch sparks jumping from their body when they got near a grounded object (Larger body mass...bigger the spark!).
The whole thing was originally supposed to be an ion propulsion engine using mercury ions, but I was denied access to the local university's vacuum chamber after the prof went on sabatical. So, I made something that worked under standard atmospheric conditions. Can't exactly shoot mercury ions into the atmosphere...can we?
As a disclaimer, No permanent harm came to any person or equipment (current far to low), but it sure did scare a few people who thought I was nuts anyway when I said I would zap them with my ray gun (even when not plugged in). It's amazing how easy it is to scare people who don't understand the basic physics behind such contraptions.
The author of this story went on to obtain a physics degree and entered military service where he got play with things that go boom in the night. Doesn't that just make you feel just swell?
Actually, Microsoft did say why they have two keys...for backup/disaster recovery purposes.
Supposedly, if the primary key were lost or destroyed (say in an earthquake or fire), they could still sign components using the backup key.
As I mentioned before, I don't buy this explanation totally as there is no reason they didn't have the primary key distributed using an n-threshold key sharing algorithm. The same holds true for the backup key.
Had they taken this approach, they would have parts of the key in each office. They would need only N parts to reconsitute the key. And, since the parts would be given to supposely responsible individuals, the only way the key could be reconsituted is through a deliberate act or collusion of those holding the parts. My guess there are ways to prevent even the later.
If their issue was key compromise, then what provisions are in the CryptoAPI to revoke the primary key and activate the backup key? How about being able to replace a superceded/revoked key so that the can not/will be used again? How are they handling certificate revocation lists (CRLs)? Can anyone answer that question? I'd love to know.
Maybe I sound like a conspiracy nut, but something just isn't right here. Either this is an act of ignornace on Microsoft's part or this is just a lame attempt to put another chink in our freedom's armor. But, I guess we'll never know for sure.
I, too, would tend to believe the NSA wouldn't be so blatant as this. But, one has to take Microsoft's position on a backup key tonge-in-cheek.
The argument that they keep the primary key in one facility and the backup key in another just doesn't hold water. Sounds like a nice disaster recovery policy, but not realistic as a true disaster would destroy the primary key.
Hasn't Microsoft heard of distributing the key via an n-threshold key algorithm? Heck, the algorithm is in the public domain and published code can be found in Bruce's book, "Applied Cryptography".
Thanks for the input. Natually, I want to do this project right and you make some really good points.
Where can I get good, low-cost MPEG encoders?
This is wonderful news!
I have inherited a box full of 8mm, Super8mm, 35mm slides and photographs dating back as far as the 1940's. My aim is to scan and encode each film and store them on CD or DVD before they deteriorate. Part of the process is designing and building an 8mm/Super8 film scanner (which I can do). The other aspect is figuring out how to store them efficiently.
I am assuming that since these are JPEGS, I should be able to manipulate them (i.e. color enhance, etc.) and save an important aspect of family history.