Apple IIci's? Man I decided to save money on my health insurance so the doctor I chose... I made sure he had enough punch cards on his machines. I may have a foot sticking out my head but man those punch cards
VeriChip (PDF file) is touted as the next thing to track missing children. It's an implantable chip with GPS capabilities, that can (supposedly) monitor vital life signs. Body temps, pulse, etc. it was also slated to have your health records on the chip as well. Originally it was (and is still being used on) made for cattle ranchers to keep track of their stock...
Now this is so cool its scary because of the types of abuses that can occur with the chip. Now reason for bringing this up? BOP, and DOD were looking at the chip. DoD as a method of replacing dotags, BOP (Bureau of Prisons...? Puzzling considering these chips are implantable.
Sex offenders? They should have something like this, but at the same time they shouldn't. If they've done their time, they should go through a vigorous psyche exam before being released. Why punish them twice if they've served their time. Now I think they're the biggest scum on earth, but at the same time you can't have your cake and eat it too...
What? The chip to replace the Social Security card? Scary thought... but in a way freakishly cool...
guy comes home. Guy doesn't lock door. Robber comes in, beats guy up. Guy goes to hospital, but insurance refuses to pay because he was too stupid to lock the dorr, so go bleed somewhere else.
Guy comes home after hospitalization and again leaves door open. Do you expect me to pity him? Ever hear the saying fool me once shame on you... etc etc...
Sure try explaining that to the 60 year old who doesnt have a clue or the moron in school who doesnt care as long as he sees his porn, and they'll be the repetitive callers...
Dell seems to have listened to the criticism handed to them last week, after their decision to forbid tech support persons from providing assistance to spyware-infected customers became public knowledge.
I'm all for helping people when necessary, and I would agree with Dell for not wanting to waste their own money on people's stupidities.
Now I work at an ISP and sub as IT staff at a mid sized college every here and there. (Fixing T1's, students' comps, all sorts of shit) main causes of students' issues? Spyware. I visited I think 80% of the campus based students for the same shit... Joe football player wants VirtuaGirl on his machine and clicks on everything in existence... Result? Spyware, viruses, and trojans. One chick had a 8k phone bill on her cellphone because she kept her info on a backdoored machine. All this after they receive bulletins, I've told the same ones over and over, etc.
I would side with Dell, just think about the costs of a persons moronicy on the Dell level. So you have say low ball figure of 100,000 morons calling you because they've just downloaded garbage...
TS = Tech Support (low ball salary) $10.00 an hour...
DU = duration of call say 5 minutes
CL = Calls (per 8 hour day)
Whats that an extra +1000 tech support staff that need to be hired? 20mill per year thrown away on morons...
*yawn* You know something if you look at it from a realistic perspective... Repulicants are under the highest form of scrutiny right now that if they breathed wrong someone is pointing the finger. Let me not go on into this but state this... Bush and his cabals are under a microscopic eye at all times... If he did something wrong illegally, what makes you think any party wouldn't have jumped out there and called for a special investigation? I know of plenty of beltway lawyers and prosecutors who would jump on this... Me a Bush supporter? Hell no... Realistic thinker... hell yes. The whole Rebulicant/Dumbercrat thing is so tiring... Political affiliation... me? Republicant, but even I would not vote for Bush.
But it would be a mistake to think that with touch screen voting we are necessarily giving up an auditing capability that we traditionally have had. The old lever voting machines that were used in the U.S. for most of the last century produced no paper trail, just lists of total votes.
Although the older machines left no paper trail the one thing they did leave is physical paper, we all remember the moronic media following chad ballots on the highway. With e-voting there are far too many variables to whole heartedly trust a machine as opposed to turning on the news to see a trailer being escorted with paper.
Now, not to sound trollish, but supposing an OS is chosen and that OS is problem prone, viruses, reboots, etc., what safeguards can be guaranteed against this, a power outage, etc.? Not many. Paper is paper unless there's a fire. or...//INSERT_JOKE_HERE// unless someone forgot to bring the Charmin.
Still, auditing in some form would be a good idea now because we seem to be entering a period when electronic elections can be subject to voter fraud on a massive scale.
This is what I don't understand... How would accountability be a 'good idea'? It should be a standard across the board. When I read articles like this firstly I look for tell tale signs like this... auditing in some form would be a good idea now The tone says to me... Hello I'm still mad I don't see Al Gore.
As President Kennedy once joked, his wealthy father might be willing to buy him an election, but he wouldn't buy a landslide.
When will people ever realize that nothing is impossible. Money talks bullshit walks and it doesn't matter how you got it what matters is that you have it.
Maybe it's time to go back to black glasses with tape, flood pants and pocket protectors. Perhaps a secret handshake too!
I've never worn glasses, or pocket protectors, and I think I'm as nerdy as you can get to an extent without being stereotypical. You on the other hand I believe are an nerd impostor who's probably never even seen the TV show "PI the final frontier" so I've reported you
The New York Times, February 20, 2001
The Key Vanishes: Scientist Outlines Unbreakable Code
By GINA KOLATA
A computer science professor at Harvard says he has found a way to send coded messages that cannot be deciphered, even by an all-powerful adversary with unlimited computing power. And, he says, he can prove it.
If he is right, and he does have some supporters, his code may be the first that is both practical and provably secure. While there are commercially available coding systems that seem very hard to break, no one can prove that they cannot be cracked, mathematicians say.
In essence, the researcher, Dr. Michael Rabin and his Ph.D. student Yan Zong Bing, have discovered a way to make a code based on a key that vanishes even as it is used. While they are not the first to have thought of such an idea, Dr. Rabin says that never before has anyone been able to make it both workable and to prove mathematically that the code cannot be broken.
"This is the first provably unbreakable code that is really efficient," Dr. Rabin said. "We have proved that the adversary is helpless."
Dr. Richard Lipton, a computer science professor at Princeton, who is visiting this year at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said, "It's like in the old `Mission Impossible,' where the message blows up and disappears."
Someone who uses one of today's commercially available coding systems, Dr. Lipton explained, uses the same key -- mathematical formulas for encoding and decoding -- over and over. Eventually, they may be forced, perhaps by a court order, to give up the key. Or the key may be stolen. But with Dr. Rabin's system, the message stays secret forever because the code uses a stream of random numbers that are plugged into the key for encoding and decoding. The numbers are never stored in a computer's memory, so they essentially vanish as the message is being encrypted and decrypted.
Because an eavesdropper cannot accurately measure the bit's value using both of these competing standards, the only parties who can know the value of a string of such bits are the sender and receiver. And since an outsider measuring the system disturbs it, the sender and receiver also know whenever their line has been tapped.
In fiber connections typically when a line is spliced connection is cut. According to historic sources, quotes, etc., the NSA managed to cut through fiber, get a tap in, without causing any flux or attenuation. First I would think some form of either mirroring or perhaps the use of a gem diamond, etc., but there would have to be some flux somewhere along the line, unless of course they hit up some of the repeaters or junctions in order to accomplish their goal. Think about a direct line of sight clearly... Even with Quantum crypto your line of sight is passing through channels, equipments, and if the NSA managed to break that light, sniff keys, AND THE CIPHERTEXT, etc., using a quantum computer themselves (the eavesdropper(s)), they'd be able to reconstruct a message (perhaps), maybe even using a distributed quantum network.
So long as the parties on both ends use their key only once and know that they are the only owners of this key -- a certainty which quantum crypto provides -- then they are guaranteed security.
Source for italics is an older Wired Article
Submarine cables now play a dominant role in international telecommunications, since - in contrast to the limited bandwidth available for space systems - optical media offer seemingly unlimited capacity. Save where cables terminate in countries where telecommunications operators provide Comint access (such as the UK and the US), submarine cables appear intrinsically secure because of the nature of the ocean environment. 49. In October 1971, this security was shown not to exist. A US submarine, Halibut, visited the Sea of Okhotsk off the eastern USSR and recorded communications passing on a military cable to the Khamchatka Peninsula Halibut was equipped with a deep diving chamber, fully in view on the submarine's stern. The chamber was described by the US Navy as a "deep submergence rescue vehicle". The truth was that the "rescue vehicle" was welded immovably to the submarine. Once submerged, deep-sea divers exited the submarine and wrapped tapping coils around the cable. Having proven the principle, USS Halibut returned in 1972 and laid a high capacity recording pod next to the cable. The technique involved no physical damage and was unlikely to have been readily detectable.
The Okhotsk cable tapping operation continued for ten years, involving routine trips by three different specially equipped submarines to collect old pods and lay new ones; sometimes, more than one pod at a time. New targets were added in 1979. That summer, a newly converted submarine called USS Parche travelled from San Francisco under the North Pole to the Barents Sea, and laid a new cable tap near Murmansk. Its crew received a presidential citation for their achievement. The Okhotsk cable tap ended in 1982, after its location was compromised by a former NSA employee who sold information about the tap, codenamed IVY BELLS, to the Soviet Union. One of the IVY BELLS pods is now on display in the Moscow museum of the former KGB. The cable tap in the Barents Sea continued in operation, undetected, until tapping stopped in 1992.
During 1985, cable-tapping operations were extended into the Mediterranean, to intercept cables linking Europe to West Africa. (30) After the cold war ended, the USS Parche was refitted with an extended section to accommodate larger cable tapping equipment and pods. Cable taps could be laid by remote control, using drones. USS Parche continues in operation to the present day, but the precise targets of its missions remain unknown. The Clinton administration evidently places high value on its achievements, Every year from 1994 to 1997, the submarine crew has been highly commended.(31) Likely targets may include the Middle East, Mediterranean, eastern Asia, and South America. The United States is the only naval power known to have deployed deep-sea technology for this purpose.
Miniaturised inductive taps recorders have also been used to intercept underground cables.(32) Optical fibre cables, however, do not leak radio frequency signals and cannot be tapped using inductive loops. NSA and other Comint agencies have spent a great deal of money on research into tapping optical fibres, reportedly with little success. But long distance optical fibre cables are not invulnerable. The key means of access is by tampering with optoelectronic "repeaters" which boost signal levels over long distances. It follows that any submarine cable system using submerged optoelectronic repeaters cannot be considered secure from interception and communications intelligence activity.
Harnessing light particles to store and process data could aid the still distant goal of so-called quantum computers, as well as methods for communicating information over long distances without risk of eavesdropping.
But today the NSA's snooping capabilities are in jeopardy, undermined by advances in telecommunications technology. Much of the information the agency once gleaned from the air waves now travels in the form of light beams through fiber-optic cables crisscrossing continents and ocean floors. That shift has forced the NSA to seek new ways to gather intelligence -- including tapping undersea cables, a technologically daunting, physically dangerous and potentially illegal task.
In the mid-1990s, the NSA installed one such tap, say former intelligence officials familiar with the covert project. Using a special spy submarine, they say, agency personnel descended hundreds of feet into one of the oceans and sliced into a fiber-optic cable. The mixed results of the experiment -- particularly the agency's inability to make sense of the vast flood of data unleashed by the tap -- show that America's pre-eminent spy service has huge challenges to overcome if it hopes to keep from going deaf in the digital age.
Details of the NSA cable-tapping project are sketchy. Individuals who confirm the tap won't specify where or when it occurred. It isn't known whether the cable's operator detected the intrusion, though former NSA officials say they believe it went unnoticed. Nor is it known whether the NSA has attempted other taps since. Efforts to intercept all sorts of signals -- ranging from military radar to international phone calls -- are among the most highly classified U.S. government operations. Leaking information about interception methods is a federal crime punishable by imprisonment. [Source]
If the NSA supposedly managed to tap into fiber (light) what makes this guy so sure his studies would minimize/cut/halt the risk of eavesdropping? "Splice the line, and you cut off the light, at least momentarily," says Wayne Siddall, an optical engineer at Corning Fiber in Corning, N.Y. Even a second's interruption could be noticed by a cable's operator. Cable companies typically build systems with duplicate lines that take diverging routes, in case one of them is damaged or severed.
One retired NSA optical specialist insists that the NSA devised a way to splice a fiber without being detected. "Getting into fiber is delicate work, but by no means impossible," the former specialist says. Neither he nor the NSA will discuss the matter further.
And the list goes on and on. Bear in mind the NSA's date of achieving this, in comparison to the tech growth scale, I'd be willing to say that whatever Harvard is doing in being closely watched, if not already known.
Coincidentally, the majority of members of the WI-FI Alliance are American companies, so I would be skeptical to pass this off as nothing more than a `shit China is gonna kill us with their low manufacturing costs' response. If the security is supposedly better as the post states, than why not verify this, and migrate to it. Wouldn't that make more sense than basically stating "you're security is good! but it's not a standard so we don't want it"
However, to redo the systems right now, and have them made secure by professional people would probably cost even more, so... Not necessarily so. Trusted Solaris meets gov C2 security specs out of the box. It would cost a slight bit more as opposed to normal Solaris, but the TCO in the long run is better than using normal Solaris.
Security breaches are pretty rare because physical security people are everywhere in these places, (james bond stuff aside). Unsure of what's been going on nowadays since I stay away from the security scene, but in the mid - late 90's gov servers were getting hit up pretty much everyday.
Hacking I can't comment on because I don't really know how often that happens, but if it does, i'm sure they wouldn't tell anyone...;) That's not the case either. The gov would do everything to whore a case like that out in order to fetch more money for their departments. "We need X_AMOUNT more to secure our systems against hackers." You would then see an entire slew of arrests for anything and everything under the sun. If you take the time to view the casefiles at Cybercrime.gov, you will see a boom in cases. I heard a `rumor' a while back that some database system was initiated during the Janet Reno regime, that the feds undertook to map out aliases with names, etc., and whenever they needed some budget funds, they yanked names out of this DB. This is only a rumor however, and even if I could prove it, I wouldn't obviously.
Do some quick analysis of cases, crimes, and the govs response to situations, something isn't always picture perfect, but at times it is understandable as they aren't clued in to what exactly is happening at times. It's how they make laws sometimes
Compsec... and they had so called mapped out plans for years now too... (NATIONAL PLAN FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROTECTION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY). One quote I will always remember is something to the extent of "the feds are good at carrying guns not locking down machines."
There are so many variables involved with government, that they are the ones shooting themselves in the foot. Considering if you're using a machine right, and you know it's insecure, if you took it upon yourself to fix it, you could be charged with a crime. Hell slightly off topic but look at what the gov did with the so called chaplain spy (charged with downloading porn).
I'm sure gov's IT staff throughout the branches are overwhelmed with things, so it's a bit unfair to call them all clueless gimps or similar. However, and I will throw this out as a `story` someone stated they worked for a gov agency. Person stated the procedures for daily wipes to ensure things are wiped, etc.,... According to person he had never seen it done, because they never bothered with it.' Now imagine if one of these machines were thrown out and the machine had material on it that was highly sensitive. It happens more often than some think.
How sofisticated, the company really loves me Ever think they could have fired you for your spelling? I've been out of real work for more than a year. I'm not really happy to have lots of company. Or your cheery outlook? Get a grip and go to Dice I get calls and offers all the time via Dice and Hotjobs and haven't had my resume listed their in eons.
Somebody tell me that little icon fscker running man was included in those layoffs, and also will some of their users be laid off...
source http://www.antioffline.com/aolstory.html
Confident with the US government's standing on its purchases, AOL announced today they will purchase themselves in a hostile takeover move in an effort to ensure they don't compete with themselves.
Time Warner an AOL subsidiary backed AOL's decision with the company's spokesperson stating "We as a company are please to announce that customers will have the ability to choose between AOL and the new line of products titled XAOL which simply translates to eXtended AOL which will feature more robust happy face icons with a slightly higher 102 megabyte overhead of icons and sounds.
"In addition we are now ceasing the abilities of hackers by bundling XAOL with the latest in our very own firewall which features will include packet filtering, AOHell punters for our chatters, and SpamGod v.1 for our users who send bulk mail."
As for the takeover plans include an overhaul of the technical support group which will now have mandatory classes at Romper Room and a new set of AOL for Dummies, Internet for Idiots in 21 days for Dummies, and The Internet Who'd of Thunk it, books in order to facilitate their skills.
"Customers will also have new screen names to keep up to date with the changes of the net, so a user named billybob will have all aliases associated with that name to keep AOL as hip as ever. BiLLyBoB, xXxBiLLyBoBxXx, b1llyb0b, are some of the combinations available at this time." states Justin Case CTO Operations.
Along with these added new functionalities in AOL, monopolies will be built around Time Warner's existing empire and the entire cast of the WB's popular will fill chat rooms from 6-9pm and the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will also join popular chatroom channels such as DesperateAndDumbHousewives.
Investors are delighted to this deal and are pouring millions of dollars into this new venture in hopes of someday being able to interpret anything related to technology. "As long as its on the Internet it must be profitable, so we filled out portfolios and dumped our life savings into this wonderful idea."
I wonder if someone has sick livestock should they be held liable should anthrax start forming on it right? Sure it's not along the same lines, FYI I didn't bother RTFA since I have no time right now however, if this was a project for scientifical purposes and there was no danger (meaning explosives but simply a missile), any government should take a look at the shit going on in University labs across the world and get a grip. On the other hand though, if it was for 'hey look at me and my cruise missile' purposes then I'd side with any gov. What would happen if say the inventor got drunk and launched it say into a hospital or school? Even without any explosives it is still a dangerous thing to have around.
taco Taco Taco... IBM is Reinventing Email does this mean I can send my thoughts to IBM and let them compose my emails? Does this mean they're unleashing a new protocol?
People report feeling pressure to be more responsive to their email. Messages arrive continuously throughout the day, contributing to the sense of urgency to respond quickly. Sometimes I wonder where they hold these studies, and I always wonder why they don't post metadata stats on this... (Age, Profession, Sex, etc) I'd like to see who feels pressured into responding to email. Me for one inbox +300 per day mailing lists, friends, fam, work... Pressure = 0 When I get to it, I get to it. I'm human not a machine and if someone would ever attempt to pressure me I would not deal with them anymore. My sanity, and health are more important than email. If it was that important, s'what phones are for.
Losing Track of Email and the increasing fear of doing so. High volumes of email cause important items to quickly move out of view. Users must hunt down their mail, often having to scroll to other parts of their mailbox. This problem is exacerbated as email arrives in a single, undifferentiated stream. The mailbox becomes an assortment of items requiring action, informational items, and items with no value to the user at all (e.g., spam). I disagree with this. Having worked in numerous sorts of tech industry, I take stupidity to be the number one cause. Porly trained individuals who don't have enough in them to learn something new. EG I used to work on a help desk in the 90's, and remember vividly how etards would call because they didn't know where they saved something.
The headline is misguiding. I took it to be a new protocol coming out, should be changed to IBM's new email client nothing more
Slashdot Mirror
Apple IIci's? Man I decided to save money on my health insurance so the doctor I chose... I made sure he had enough punch cards on his machines. I may have a foot sticking out my head but man those punch cards
Now this is so cool its scary because of the types of abuses that can occur with the chip. Now reason for bringing this up? BOP, and DOD were looking at the chip. DoD as a method of replacing dotags, BOP (Bureau of Prisons...? Puzzling considering these chips are implantable.
Sex offenders? They should have something like this, but at the same time they shouldn't. If they've done their time, they should go through a vigorous psyche exam before being released. Why punish them twice if they've served their time. Now I think they're the biggest scum on earth, but at the same time you can't have your cake and eat it too...
What? The chip to replace the Social Security card? Scary thought... but in a way freakishly cool...
Guy comes home after hospitalization and again leaves door open. Do you expect me to pity him? Ever hear the saying fool me once shame on you... etc etc...
Sure try explaining that to the 60 year old who doesnt have a clue or the moron in school who doesnt care as long as he sees his porn, and they'll be the repetitive callers...
I'm all for helping people when necessary, and I would agree with Dell for not wanting to waste their own money on people's stupidities.
Now I work at an ISP and sub as IT staff at a mid sized college every here and there. (Fixing T1's, students' comps, all sorts of shit) main causes of students' issues? Spyware. I visited I think 80% of the campus based students for the same shit... Joe football player wants VirtuaGirl on his machine and clicks on everything in existence... Result? Spyware, viruses, and trojans. One chick had a 8k phone bill on her cellphone because she kept her info on a backdoored machine. All this after they receive bulletins, I've told the same ones over and over, etc.
I would side with Dell, just think about the costs of a persons moronicy on the Dell level. So you have say low ball figure of 100,000 morons calling you because they've just downloaded garbage...
TS = Tech Support (low ball salary) $10.00 an hour...
DU = duration of call say 5 minutes
CL = Calls (per 8 hour day)
Whats that an extra +1000 tech support staff that need to be hired? 20mill per year thrown away on morons...
Oh never fear I have a mirror up whats the big deal
*yawn* You know something if you look at it from a realistic perspective ... Repulicants are under the highest form of scrutiny right now that if they breathed wrong someone is pointing the finger. Let me not go on into this but state this... Bush and his cabals are under a microscopic eye at all times... If he did something wrong illegally, what makes you think any party wouldn't have jumped out there and called for a special investigation? I know of plenty of beltway lawyers and prosecutors who would jump on this... Me a Bush supporter? Hell no ... Realistic thinker... hell yes. The whole Rebulicant/Dumbercrat thing is so tiring... Political affiliation... me? Republicant, but even I would not vote for Bush.
Two election based articles...One day? I think Slashdot is now trying to sway the vote.
Vote No to proposal #4839562358096-2385178934569384560345934(a(b)(d)) titled "More Electoral Based Articles on Slashdot"
Although the older machines left no paper trail the one thing they did leave is physical paper, we all remember the moronic media following chad ballots on the highway. With e-voting there are far too many variables to whole heartedly trust a machine as opposed to turning on the news to see a trailer being escorted with paper.
Now, not to sound trollish, but supposing an OS is chosen and that OS is problem prone, viruses, reboots, etc., what safeguards can be guaranteed against this, a power outage, etc.? Not many. Paper is paper unless there's a fire. or... //INSERT_JOKE_HERE// unless someone forgot to bring the Charmin.
Still, auditing in some form would be a good idea now because we seem to be entering a period when electronic elections can be subject to voter fraud on a massive scale.
This is what I don't understand... How would accountability be a 'good idea'? It should be a standard across the board. When I read articles like this firstly I look for tell tale signs like this... auditing in some form would be a good idea now The tone says to me... Hello I'm still mad I don't see Al Gore.
As President Kennedy once joked, his wealthy father might be willing to buy him an election, but he wouldn't buy a landslide.
When will people ever realize that nothing is impossible. Money talks bullshit walks and it doesn't matter how you got it what matters is that you have it.
I've never worn glasses, or pocket protectors, and I think I'm as nerdy as you can get to an extent without being stereotypical. You on the other hand I believe are an nerd impostor who's probably never even seen the TV show "PI the final frontier" so I've reported you
How long before someone screams Big Brother... A GPS receiver in the helmet is used to calculate position and speed of the wearer"
Oh Parodies gotta love them... I smell a lawsuit
The New York Times, February 20, 2001
The Key Vanishes: Scientist Outlines Unbreakable Code
By GINA KOLATA
A computer science professor at Harvard says he has found a way to send coded messages that cannot be deciphered, even by an all-powerful adversary with unlimited computing power. And, he says, he can prove it.
If he is right, and he does have some supporters, his code may be the first that is both practical and provably secure. While there are commercially available coding systems that seem very hard to break, no one can prove that they cannot be cracked, mathematicians say.
In essence, the researcher, Dr. Michael Rabin and his Ph.D. student Yan Zong Bing, have discovered a way to make a code based on a key that vanishes even as it is used. While they are not the first to have thought of such an idea, Dr. Rabin says that never before has anyone been able to make it both workable and to prove mathematically that the code cannot be broken.
"This is the first provably unbreakable code that is really efficient," Dr. Rabin said. "We have proved that the adversary is helpless."
Dr. Richard Lipton, a computer science professor at Princeton, who is visiting this year at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said, "It's like in the old `Mission Impossible,' where the message blows up and disappears."
Someone who uses one of today's commercially available coding systems, Dr. Lipton explained, uses the same key -- mathematical formulas for encoding and decoding -- over and over. Eventually, they may be forced, perhaps by a court order, to give up the key. Or the key may be stolen. But with Dr. Rabin's system, the message stays secret forever because the code uses a stream of random numbers that are plugged into the key for encoding and decoding. The numbers are never stored in a computer's memory, so they essentially vanish as the message is being encrypted and decrypted.
Rest of article mirrored at Cryptome
In fiber connections typically when a line is spliced connection is cut. According to historic sources, quotes, etc., the NSA managed to cut through fiber, get a tap in, without causing any flux or attenuation. First I would think some form of either mirroring or perhaps the use of a gem diamond, etc., but there would have to be some flux somewhere along the line, unless of course they hit up some of the repeaters or junctions in order to accomplish their goal. Think about a direct line of sight clearly... Even with Quantum crypto your line of sight is passing through channels, equipments, and if the NSA managed to break that light, sniff keys, AND THE CIPHERTEXT, etc., using a quantum computer themselves (the eavesdropper(s)), they'd be able to reconstruct a message (perhaps), maybe even using a distributed quantum network.
Strangely I wish I had this link up for Los Alamos' Quantum crypto labs but it looks like it was taken down.
So long as the parties on both ends use their key only once and know that they are the only owners of this key -- a certainty which quantum crypto provides -- then they are guaranteed security. Source for italics is an older Wired Article
Dr. Lloyd added, "Who ever thought that you could make light stand still?"
Possible responses:
Mulletboy: Hell Bobby Jo 'an I do it all da time we juss turn on dat dag gon lite dare and it don move a noggin
Psychologist: Well the light has to be willing to move itself you know
Moses: God saith it so Let there be light
Dalai Lama: The light suffers in this state. It learns compassion it is enlightened
k let me actually get a life and some sleep
Submarine cable interception
Submarine cables now play a dominant role in international telecommunications, since - in contrast to the limited bandwidth available for space systems - optical media offer seemingly unlimited capacity. Save where cables terminate in countries where telecommunications operators provide Comint access (such as the UK and the US), submarine cables appear intrinsically secure because of the nature of the ocean environment. 49. In October 1971, this security was shown not to exist. A US submarine, Halibut, visited the Sea of Okhotsk off the eastern USSR and recorded communications passing on a military cable to the Khamchatka Peninsula Halibut was equipped with a deep diving chamber, fully in view on the submarine's stern. The chamber was described by the US Navy as a "deep submergence rescue vehicle". The truth was that the "rescue vehicle" was welded immovably to the submarine. Once submerged, deep-sea divers exited the submarine and wrapped tapping coils around the cable. Having proven the principle, USS Halibut returned in 1972 and laid a high capacity recording pod next to the cable. The technique involved no physical damage and was unlikely to have been readily detectable.
The Okhotsk cable tapping operation continued for ten years, involving routine trips by three different specially equipped submarines to collect old pods and lay new ones; sometimes, more than one pod at a time. New targets were added in 1979. That summer, a newly converted submarine called USS Parche travelled from San Francisco under the North Pole to the Barents Sea, and laid a new cable tap near Murmansk. Its crew received a presidential citation for their achievement. The Okhotsk cable tap ended in 1982, after its location was compromised by a former NSA employee who sold information about the tap, codenamed IVY BELLS, to the Soviet Union. One of the IVY BELLS pods is now on display in the Moscow museum of the former KGB. The cable tap in the Barents Sea continued in operation, undetected, until tapping stopped in 1992.
During 1985, cable-tapping operations were extended into the Mediterranean, to intercept cables linking Europe to West Africa. (30) After the cold war ended, the USS Parche was refitted with an extended section to accommodate larger cable tapping equipment and pods. Cable taps could be laid by remote control, using drones. USS Parche continues in operation to the present day, but the precise targets of its missions remain unknown. The Clinton administration evidently places high value on its achievements, Every year from 1994 to 1997, the submarine crew has been highly commended.(31) Likely targets may include the Middle East, Mediterranean, eastern Asia, and South America. The United States is the only naval power known to have deployed deep-sea technology for this purpose.
Miniaturised inductive taps recorders have also been used to intercept underground cables.(32) Optical fibre cables, however, do not leak radio frequency signals and cannot be tapped using inductive loops. NSA and other Comint agencies have spent a great deal of money on research into tapping optical fibres, reportedly with little success. But long distance optical fibre cables are not invulnerable. The key means of access is by tampering with optoelectronic "repeaters" which boost signal levels over long distances. It follows that any submarine cable system using submerged optoelectronic repeaters cannot be considered secure from interception and communications intelligence activity.
If the NSA supposedly managed to tap into fiber (light) what makes this guy so sure his studies would minimize/cut/halt the risk of eavesdropping? "Splice the line, and you cut off the light, at least momentarily," says Wayne Siddall, an optical engineer at Corning Fiber in Corning, N.Y. Even a second's interruption could be noticed by a cable's operator. Cable companies typically build systems with duplicate lines that take diverging routes, in case one of them is damaged or severed. One retired NSA optical specialist insists that the NSA devised a way to splice a fiber without being detected. "Getting into fiber is delicate work, but by no means impossible," the former specialist says. Neither he nor the NSA will discuss the matter further.
Spy agency taps into undersea cable
NSA Tapping Underwater Fiber Optics
And the list goes on and on. Bear in mind the NSA's date of achieving this, in comparison to the tech growth scale, I'd be willing to say that whatever Harvard is doing in being closely watched, if not already known.
ncie catch (:
Coincidentally, the majority of members of the WI-FI Alliance are American companies, so I would be skeptical to pass this off as nothing more than a `shit China is gonna kill us with their low manufacturing costs' response. If the security is supposedly better as the post states, than why not verify this, and migrate to it. Wouldn't that make more sense than basically stating "you're security is good! but it's not a standard so we don't want it"
However, to redo the systems right now, and have them made secure by professional people would probably cost even more, so... Not necessarily so. Trusted Solaris meets gov C2 security specs out of the box. It would cost a slight bit more as opposed to normal Solaris, but the TCO in the long run is better than using normal Solaris.
Security breaches are pretty rare because physical security people are everywhere in these places, (james bond stuff aside). Unsure of what's been going on nowadays since I stay away from the security scene, but in the mid - late 90's gov servers were getting hit up pretty much everyday.
Hacking I can't comment on because I don't really know how often that happens, but if it does, i'm sure they wouldn't tell anyone... ;) That's not the case either. The gov would do everything to whore a case like that out in order to fetch more money for their departments. "We need X_AMOUNT more to secure our systems against hackers." You would then see an entire slew of arrests for anything and everything under the sun. If you take the time to view the casefiles at Cybercrime.gov, you will see a boom in cases. I heard a `rumor' a while back that some database system was initiated during the Janet Reno regime, that the feds undertook to map out aliases with names, etc., and whenever they needed some budget funds, they yanked names out of this DB. This is only a rumor however, and even if I could prove it, I wouldn't obviously.
Do some quick analysis of cases, crimes, and the govs response to situations, something isn't always picture perfect, but at times it is understandable as they aren't clued in to what exactly is happening at times. It's how they make laws sometimes
Compsec... and they had so called mapped out plans for years now too... (NATIONAL PLAN FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROTECTION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY). One quote I will always remember is something to the extent of "the feds are good at carrying guns not locking down machines."
There are so many variables involved with government, that they are the ones shooting themselves in the foot. Considering if you're using a machine right, and you know it's insecure, if you took it upon yourself to fix it, you could be charged with a crime. Hell slightly off topic but look at what the gov did with the so called chaplain spy (charged with downloading porn).
I'm sure gov's IT staff throughout the branches are overwhelmed with things, so it's a bit unfair to call them all clueless gimps or similar. However, and I will throw this out as a `story` someone stated they worked for a gov agency. Person stated the procedures for daily wipes to ensure things are wiped, etc., ... According to person he had never seen it done, because they never bothered with it.' Now imagine if one of these machines were thrown out and the machine had material on it that was highly sensitive. It happens more often than some think.
How sofisticated, the company really loves me Ever think they could have fired you for your spelling? I've been out of real work for more than a year. I'm not really happy to have lots of company. Or your cheery outlook? Get a grip and go to Dice I get calls and offers all the time via Dice and Hotjobs and haven't had my resume listed their in eons.
Somebody tell me that little icon fscker running man was included in those layoffs, and also will some of their users be laid off ...
source http://www.antioffline.com/aolstory.html
Confident with the US government's standing on its purchases, AOL announced today they will purchase themselves in a hostile takeover move in an effort to ensure they don't compete with themselves.
Time Warner an AOL subsidiary backed AOL's decision with the company's spokesperson stating "We as a company are please to announce that customers will have the ability to choose between AOL and the new line of products titled XAOL which simply translates to eXtended AOL which will feature more robust happy face icons with a slightly higher 102 megabyte overhead of icons and sounds.
"In addition we are now ceasing the abilities of hackers by bundling XAOL with the latest in our very own firewall which features will include packet filtering, AOHell punters for our chatters, and SpamGod v.1 for our users who send bulk mail."
As for the takeover plans include an overhaul of the technical support group which will now have mandatory classes at Romper Room and a new set of AOL for Dummies, Internet for Idiots in 21 days for Dummies, and The Internet Who'd of Thunk it, books in order to facilitate their skills.
"Customers will also have new screen names to keep up to date with the changes of the net, so a user named billybob will have all aliases associated with that name to keep AOL as hip as ever. BiLLyBoB, xXxBiLLyBoBxXx, b1llyb0b, are some of the combinations available at this time." states Justin Case CTO Operations.
Along with these added new functionalities in AOL, monopolies will be built around Time Warner's existing empire and the entire cast of the WB's popular will fill chat rooms from 6-9pm and the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will also join popular chatroom channels such as DesperateAndDumbHousewives.
Investors are delighted to this deal and are pouring millions of dollars into this new venture in hopes of someday being able to interpret anything related to technology. "As long as its on the Internet it must be profitable, so we filled out portfolios and dumped our life savings into this wonderful idea."
Phil McGroin analyst Meryll Lurch
I wonder if someone has sick livestock should they be held liable should anthrax start forming on it right? Sure it's not along the same lines, FYI I didn't bother RTFA since I have no time right now however, if this was a project for scientifical purposes and there was no danger (meaning explosives but simply a missile), any government should take a look at the shit going on in University labs across the world and get a grip. On the other hand though, if it was for 'hey look at me and my cruise missile' purposes then I'd side with any gov. What would happen if say the inventor got drunk and launched it say into a hospital or school? Even without any explosives it is still a dangerous thing to have around.
taco Taco Taco... IBM is Reinventing Email does this mean I can send my thoughts to IBM and let them compose my emails? Does this mean they're unleashing a new protocol?
People report feeling pressure to be more responsive to their email. Messages arrive continuously throughout the day, contributing to the sense of urgency to respond quickly. Sometimes I wonder where they hold these studies, and I always wonder why they don't post metadata stats on this... (Age, Profession, Sex, etc) I'd like to see who feels pressured into responding to email. Me for one inbox +300 per day mailing lists, friends, fam, work... Pressure = 0 When I get to it, I get to it. I'm human not a machine and if someone would ever attempt to pressure me I would not deal with them anymore. My sanity, and health are more important than email. If it was that important, s'what phones are for.
Losing Track of Email and the increasing fear of doing so. High volumes of email cause important items to quickly move out of view. Users must hunt down their mail, often having to scroll to other parts of their mailbox. This problem is exacerbated as email arrives in a single, undifferentiated stream. The mailbox becomes an assortment of items requiring action, informational items, and items with no value to the user at all (e.g., spam). I disagree with this. Having worked in numerous sorts of tech industry, I take stupidity to be the number one cause. Porly trained individuals who don't have enough in them to learn something new. EG I used to work on a help desk in the 90's, and remember vividly how etards would call because they didn't know where they saved something.
The headline is misguiding. I took it to be a new protocol coming out, should be changed to IBM's new email client nothing more