(Indeed, the passport authority's key signature could be printed on the inside front page of every passport issued, just to get it as widely distributed as possible.)
Would a forger then be able to replace the printed key with one of their own and if so would anyone notice?
I agree it seems silly that most countries haven't signed up to share their public keys yet. Without them you can't verify who actually generated the data on the passport.
The Home Office has always argued that faked chips would be spotted at border checkpoints because they would not match key codes when checked against an international data-base. But only ten of the forty-five countries with e-passports have signed up to the Public Key Directory (PKD) code system, and only five are using it.
The researcher replaced the digital signatures on the passports with ones of his own creation when altering the photographs... if the equipment used to test had actually compared the digital signatures to those on file, it would have immediately spotted the tampering. Problem is most countries aren't sharing their signatures yet, making those checks impotent. For now, at least (and not saying there aren't other vulnerabilities).
In fact, the umpire does retain the power to overrule Hawkeye (or any human linesman) provided they do so immediately; such overrules are not uncommon. (There also seems at least one game every Wimbledon where Hawkeye appears to go off on one and ends up being turned off. If a human was that temperamental they'd be dismissed in short order...)
Are you thinking of Cyclops... oooh, a pigeon BEEP! Apparently (I've not seen any of this year's coverage yet) it's been turned off to allow Hawk-Eye to do all the line calls so perhaps Hawk-Eye has the same BEEP! issues.
No worries. As has been pointed out by an AC below, there were similar (though much less visible) attempted attacks in London the day before the Glasgow incident. So we were equally right/wrong!
Good example was a recent case where some "terrorists" had loaded their cars up with cans of gasoline and then planned on lighting them on fire believing this would lead to massive explosions (this happened over in England btw)
Pedantic correction but that was
Glasgow Airport in Scotland. Not that everyone in the countries involved would see it as pedantic...
...but yes, a good example of very inept terrorists where the reporting made it seem as if the end of the world were nigh.
Why, may I ask, must it (the projectile) be a guided one?
Probably because one of the grandparent posters above talks about "sniping" a target vessel's bridge from 200 miles away with the first shot. When naval battles were last fought with big guns, no ship expected to score a hit with its first salvo unless the range was very short. Here are a few things I can think of:
If the target is 200 miles away, at Mach 8 (~6000mph) the flight time is about 2 minutes. If the enemy ship's course wasn't precisely what you thought it was (or they change course), your shot will probably miss. Similar results will occur if you don't have a precise idea of their current location. You're not firing at a fixed point but a prediction of where the enemy will be, after all. All that means getting some very accurate data from someone's radar, which will probably alert the target.
If the first shot misses, the target is likely to notice the large splash and change course/speed. I guess you can mitigate this to an extent by firing multiple shots in quick succession.
From 200 miles away, can you observe the fall of shot? If not, how will you correct your follow-up shots? Presumably some kind of observer craft would be useful here, especially if it can remain undetected.
Even with high-precision engineering and a gun carriage that's able to keep the gun pointing in the same vector no matter what manoeuvres the host ship performs, the tolerances are absolutely miniscule if you want the shot to hit a precise point 200 miles away.
2 minutes' worth of flight gives plenty of time for winds to drive the shot slightly off course.
So even if the weapon system is very, very accurate, that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll score a high percentage of hits. You could forgo the age-old and slow process of firing ranging shots and instead blaze away with rapid fire; dumb, solid projectiles are very cheap after all. Perhaps this is how they intend to use the weapon, but first they need to work out how to make rail-guns that can fire more than five shots before wearing out.
If the targets are ground-based and static, quite a few of the issues I've mentioned do seem to disappear.
Did Nazi Germany kill six million Jews in the Holocaust? Class, today we present an alternative view from Mr. David Irving.
Hilariously enough, our school invited him to give a lecture to some of the older history students in... oooh, probably 1998. We all knew who he was and wondered if he'd turn out to be a complete nut-job
He spoke well, made some interesting points and also some very crazy ones. He didn't deny the Holocaust, though. It actually came as a bit of a surprise to me when he was later prosecuted for doing so. Oh well. I didn't know much about the Internet at the time but, looking back, he had the personality of a playful troll!
To properly spoil the joke, we did get taught about phlogiston (this was when I was about 12/13), how its existence was then disproved and the discoveries of oxygen. It often makes sense to go through some of the earlier ideas that weren't right, especially if the later theories evolved from the earlier ones, just as long as you don't spend too much time on them.
The catch is that your friends & family have to register with yahoo.
Not completely true. You can give friends and family special "guest pass" urls that allow them to look at non-public photos of your choice without needing to register with flickr/Yahoo.
Are you saying a large fraction of the UK-population actually observes november 11th ? (or even know about the spesific date for that matter!)
I'm not the original poster, but... yes, it's widely known and acknowledged in the UK, partly because of all the poppy sellers in the days leading up to it. Though we don't get a day off, most people donate a bit of change, wear a poppy and observe a two-minute silence at 11am on the 11th. A much smaller number attend Remembrance services on the 2nd Sunday of the month. This year, the 11th itself was a Sunday, but it usually falls on a weekday and most workplaces observe the silence.
I was going to link to this lot, then I re-read the bit about "bigtime real world fame". Hmmm, I don't know how well they've fared outisde of the UK, and it remains to be seen how well they last, but they probably fit your bill. The traditional media hype machine really got behind them in the UK.
As a result, I'd say the traditional media are already trawling the 'net hoping to find the next big thing before other people do. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Not for me, as I tend to buy food every few days. I prefer it that way as everything stays fresh and I don't have to do much planning ahead! I admit I'm probably in a very small minority here, but it does mean I can usually fit all my shopping in my backpack to haul it home on foot. Helps that I work near the town centre so I can easily pop into a supermarket on my way back.
As for larger items... then it's a case of arranging a lift with someone who does have a car, getting a taxi or using home delivery.
Let's get the joke out of the way first... As this is Microsoft, we will have to keep updating to newer versions of Microsoft Immortal Computing? Will they be backwardly compatible?;)
I think we all wish our precious data would live forever, or at least a lot longer than it's likely to at the moment. My parents have stacks of old photographs in boxes... will I have such a collection when I'm older or will I only have a smattering of stuff I've taken recently? I'm just a couple of hard disk crashes away from losing most of my stuff, after all.
Oh, and did anyone else find the "youtube videos from beyond the graaaaaaaaaaave!" concept a little bit creepy?
Also, the start menu isn't finalised yet from anything I've heard, that's the start menu designed specifically for Suse - it's been on Slashdot before.
Glad you mentioned that before I posted! I was about to rant about how much I hate the look of that start menu. It looks too similar to the Windows XP, expanding-to-fill-the-screen-with-icons-all-over-t he-place one which drives me mad. That said, I do occasionally have trouble finding seldom-used stuff within my KDE start menu (is $APP under Settings, Utilities or System?), so I know my current set-up isn't brilliant either.
There are no "provisions in the constitution which protect anonymous voting". It could be argued to be part of our common-law heritage
Aye... it's not part of your constitution. I assume it's up to your states to decide individually.
Note regarding the heritage thing that a secret ballot was only introduced in the UK from 1872, some time after you'd split from us! That said, after the practise was introduced in Australia in the 1850s, it quickly spread to the other common law countries. People had been agitating for it for years, after all.
Intriguingly, that link suggests UK votes, using the old-fashioned pencil mark on paper way, aren't totally guaranteed to be anonymous (though you'd have to go to some lengths to find out who voted for whom) for reasons of combatting election fraud.
The UK secret ballot arrangements are sometimes criticised because it is possible to link a ballot paper to the voter that cast it. Each ballot paper is individually numbered and each elector has a number. When an elector is given a ballot paper, their number is noted down on the counterfoil of the ballot paper (which also carries the ballot paper number).
This measure is thought to be justified as a security arrangement so that if there was an allegation of fraud, false ballot papers could be identified. The process of matching ballot papers to voters is only permissible if an Elections Court requires it, and this is an extremely unlikely occurrence. The legal authority for this system is set out in the Parliamentary Elections Rules in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.
Why is it that they say devices on standby (TV being the obvious example) use so much power? I'd have thought standby took virtually no power; just an LED and an infrared receiver. What's suck up the rest? Anyone know?
I used to wonder about this too. From a previous discussion on here, I learnt that CRT teleisions keep the tube warm when on standby, which means it takes less time for the screen to become visible when turned on than from a cold start. Keeping the tube warm in this manner means that standby mode sucks up a lot more power than you'd expect. It's also a not-uncommon cause of fires, according to my friend whose father is a fireman.
Slashdot Mirror
The what?
Surely you'd need to try ThinkGreek instead?
I can't be the only one that mis-read that as blogosphere, can I? Curse you xkcd! ;)
Would a forger then be able to replace the printed key with one of their own and if so would anyone notice?
I agree it seems silly that most countries haven't signed up to share their public keys yet. Without them you can't verify who actually generated the data on the passport.
I'm sure they'll never be put on CD to be sent elsewhere then lost by a courier... or put on someone's laptop then left on the 18:15 from Waterloo. ;)
The researcher replaced the digital signatures on the passports with ones of his own creation when altering the photographs... if the equipment used to test had actually compared the digital signatures to those on file, it would have immediately spotted the tampering. Problem is most countries aren't sharing their signatures yet, making those checks impotent. For now, at least (and not saying there aren't other vulnerabilities).
But they're not planning to sue anyone, just send them "menacing" letters...
I have to admit to being rather surprised the ISPs have agreed to this - I like The Register's take on why they might have done so.
Are you thinking of Cyclops... oooh, a pigeon BEEP! Apparently (I've not seen any of this year's coverage yet) it's been turned off to allow Hawk-Eye to do all the line calls so perhaps Hawk-Eye has the same BEEP! issues.
No worries. As has been pointed out by an AC below, there were similar (though much less visible) attempted attacks in London the day before the Glasgow incident. So we were equally right/wrong!
Yes you're right about that. I'd been hoping no one would spot that!
Pedantic correction but that was Glasgow Airport in Scotland. Not that everyone in the countries involved would see it as pedantic...
...but yes, a good example of very inept terrorists where the reporting made it seem as if the end of the world were nigh.
Probably because one of the grandparent posters above talks about "sniping" a target vessel's bridge from 200 miles away with the first shot. When naval battles were last fought with big guns, no ship expected to score a hit with its first salvo unless the range was very short. Here are a few things I can think of:
So even if the weapon system is very, very accurate, that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll score a high percentage of hits. You could forgo the age-old and slow process of firing ranging shots and instead blaze away with rapid fire; dumb, solid projectiles are very cheap after all. Perhaps this is how they intend to use the weapon, but first they need to work out how to make rail-guns that can fire more than five shots before wearing out.
If the targets are ground-based and static, quite a few of the issues I've mentioned do seem to disappear.
Hilariously enough, our school invited him to give a lecture to some of the older history students in... oooh, probably 1998. We all knew who he was and wondered if he'd turn out to be a complete nut-job
He spoke well, made some interesting points and also some very crazy ones. He didn't deny the Holocaust, though. It actually came as a bit of a surprise to me when he was later prosecuted for doing so. Oh well. I didn't know much about the Internet at the time but, looking back, he had the personality of a playful troll!
To properly spoil the joke, we did get taught about phlogiston (this was when I was about 12/13), how its existence was then disproved and the discoveries of oxygen. It often makes sense to go through some of the earlier ideas that weren't right, especially if the later theories evolved from the earlier ones, just as long as you don't spend too much time on them.
Not completely true. You can give friends and family special "guest pass" urls that allow them to look at non-public photos of your choice without needing to register with flickr/Yahoo.
Linky
Of course, they can't comment etc. unless they register. They can only view.
I'm not the original poster, but... yes, it's widely known and acknowledged in the UK, partly because of all the poppy sellers in the days leading up to it. Though we don't get a day off, most people donate a bit of change, wear a poppy and observe a two-minute silence at 11am on the 11th. A much smaller number attend Remembrance services on the 2nd Sunday of the month. This year, the 11th itself was a Sunday, but it usually falls on a weekday and most workplaces observe the silence.
I was going to link to this lot, then I re-read the bit about "bigtime real world fame". Hmmm, I don't know how well they've fared outisde of the UK, and it remains to be seen how well they last, but they probably fit your bill. The traditional media hype machine really got behind them in the UK.
As a result, I'd say the traditional media are already trawling the 'net hoping to find the next big thing before other people do. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Don't forget this one too
The book sounds like Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics which I read a couple of months ago.
Then again, it also sounds like Peter Woit's Not Even Wrong which I've not read.
There is a growing trend of slagging off string theory and string theorists :)
Not for me, as I tend to buy food every few days. I prefer it that way as everything stays fresh and I don't have to do much planning ahead! I admit I'm probably in a very small minority here, but it does mean I can usually fit all my shopping in my backpack to haul it home on foot. Helps that I work near the town centre so I can easily pop into a supermarket on my way back.
As for larger items... then it's a case of arranging a lift with someone who does have a car, getting a taxi or using home delivery.
Let's get the joke out of the way first... As this is Microsoft, we will have to keep updating to newer versions of Microsoft Immortal Computing? Will they be backwardly compatible? ;)
I think we all wish our precious data would live forever, or at least a lot longer than it's likely to at the moment. My parents have stacks of old photographs in boxes... will I have such a collection when I'm older or will I only have a smattering of stuff I've taken recently? I'm just a couple of hard disk crashes away from losing most of my stuff, after all.
Oh, and did anyone else find the "youtube videos from beyond the graaaaaaaaaaave!" concept a little bit creepy?
Similar thoughts echoed in this comic
Glad you mentioned that before I posted! I was about to rant about how much I hate the look of that start menu. It looks too similar to the Windows XP, expanding-to-fill-the-screen-with-icons-all-over-t he-place one which drives me mad. That said, I do occasionally have trouble finding seldom-used stuff within my KDE start menu (is $APP under Settings, Utilities or System?), so I know my current set-up isn't brilliant either.
Aye... it's not part of your constitution. I assume it's up to your states to decide individually.
Note regarding the heritage thing that a secret ballot was only introduced in the UK from 1872, some time after you'd split from us! That said, after the practise was introduced in Australia in the 1850s, it quickly spread to the other common law countries. People had been agitating for it for years, after all.
Obligatory wikipedia link
Intriguingly, that link suggests UK votes, using the old-fashioned pencil mark on paper way, aren't totally guaranteed to be anonymous (though you'd have to go to some lengths to find out who voted for whom) for reasons of combatting election fraud.
I used to wonder about this too. From a previous discussion on here, I learnt that CRT teleisions keep the tube warm when on standby, which means it takes less time for the screen to become visible when turned on than from a cold start. Keeping the tube warm in this manner means that standby mode sucks up a lot more power than you'd expect. It's also a not-uncommon cause of fires, according to my friend whose father is a fireman.
A previous /. story, but probably not the one I was thinking of...