Had a company that had just started doing retail sales via the net. Contacted me about doing a security review of their site. "We would like to know if it can be broken."
I asked them if I should attempt:
To make accessing the site difficult or impossible?
To modify the site?
To obtain merchandise via the site without paying?
To obtain customer info from their site.
To attack or coopt networking infrastructure at their site?
To attack or coopt infrastructure upstream from their site?
Then I mentioned some of the methods to accomplish some of that, including coming in at lunchtime and flipping through someones rolodex etc...
In other words I basically just listed some of the more obvious stuff and of course requested appropriate paperwork to cover any or all that they wanted tested.
Fear has a wonderful effect on management, pity it rarely lasts long enough.
I recall doing a simple scan with nmap and rather annoying the backup admin becuase it caused his amanda scripts to crap out. Unfortunatly the "cure" was to not run nmap scans.
I don't think he ever got the point.
Security is not and never will be a throw of a switch. It covers territories that include the physical, social, and electronic realms. It's constantly evolving and mutating, proactively in hope of avoiding attacks as well as in response to identified threats. Security is a constant battle against human nature, the better you understand people the better off you will be.
True geeks played napoleonics, hand painted hundreds of 15 mm castings, laid out terrain on a 8X16 foot table, and an 8 hour campaign took 6 months of realtime.
As for arguing rules, 3 of our guys (ages 17, 29, and 42) attended a game convention and were quoting the rules to other people even though they didn't take their rule books... We've argued the same way, or over a 1/4 inch or 2 degree's facing for several hours. *chuckle* once at 3 am we called the rule book author at his home in pheonix.
Group was computer geeks, coal miners, students, engineers, carpenters, and composed of all ages. The only defining characteristic was the desire and ability to creatively react to events.
Yes, when I read about Brazil's policy of treating foriegn nationals exactly as they Brazilians are treated in their country I was astounded at the wisdom.
Anything with a legislature generally doesn't do anything that reasonable or appropriate.
In addition to the uses already mentioned, it would be a boon to therapy. For instance for someone who has to rebuild muscles and such the system could start off supporting most of the users weight and be set to gradually over a period of time/activity to increase the amount of work the user's own muscles would have to perform.
Might make for an interesting way to acclimatize oneself to different environments as well.
For instance (a few years in the future...) if you're expecting to be on the moon but don't have the luxury of acclimatizing once your there you could set up something like this to gradually produce nearly equivalent muscle memories needed for that environment.
*chuckle* Ok, I'll stop now. Back to my Thorazine....mmmmm Thoraziinnnnneeeeee....
I figured that I would make a few guess's, the amount of education applicable to them is for you to decide.
Ok, Gravity 1/3 rd. (roughly, everything here is roughly and ballpark) Atmospheric pressure 1/10 th.
So for a given volume the amount of wind speed to push is going to be:
If I remember correctly it's double the wind speed and you quadruple the force. So it's 1/10 the pressure but it can only do 1/40 th the work for a given speed. So if you have a wind on earth that pushes against something with a force of 4 Kg at a speed of 10 Kph then on mars the same 10 Kph wind would only have a force of 62.5 grams, if you double the wind speed to 20 Kph you get 250 grams. Double it again to 40 kph and you get a force of 1.0 Kg and double a last time gets you to 4 kg with a wind speed of 80 Kph. So to get the same force you need 8 times the wind speed.
Of course it's not quite that simple. The 1/3 rd gravity means the same force seems to do more. What it really means is that it takes less force to do anything where gravity is a component. Friction for instance or any operation involving an up or down component.
I would guess that the best ways to simulate it here on earth would be to modify the other parameters to match our gravity. For instance, if your interested in how water might have worked on rock in that gravity then use something that is 3 times the density of water and see how it behaves on rock. Something as simple as a rock tumbling kit filled with an appropriate liquid mixture and compare the results with those produced by water.
To reflect the difference in air you might try to use a fluid to make the rocks have a similar weight as they would on mars then modify the size to match the density of the liquid vs. the Martian atmosphere which has the added benefit of letting you lower the flow speeds to match as well.
Basically it seems that things would happen slower for the most part whenever anything with a gravity component is involved. Flows would be slower, on the other hand inertia is the same so when 2 particles collide you get the same bang for the buck.
I suspect that weathering based on moving water would be similar. I'm not sure if possible changes in elevation would make up for the lesser gravity, I suspect not though.
Atmospheric weathering should be more noticeable. Because of the density you should be able to sort out those rocks that can and can't be moved as opposed to rocks that could have been moved by water but not by air. The differences in weathering on the various sides of these rocks should answer some questions.
Ok enough of this, time to return to my thorazine and play with the pretty bits...
Thank you very much! An excellent and amusing read.
Additionally I do appreciate when someone or some group looks at a situation and uses a few neurons to produce a solution instead of the more typical knee-jerk reactions.
An excellent application of behavior modification in that case... hehheheh They must have nearly be spitting nails...
BTW I would appreciate any links to news articles on that or similar incidents, english preferable but I can always feed a page to translation service and puzzle it out from there.
If the value is high enough send it to a qualified recovery company. If your willing to risk it and you have the tools, swap the platters from the bad drive to an identical known good drive.
Odds of getting it running with cold or hot is low considering the reported noises.
Qualified recovery company figure 100% they get data and probably about 90% of it. Odds of switching platters yourself and getting most of your data figure 60%, odds of using cold (freezer) or heat (it can work...) 30% or so.
BTW if you do the freezer make sure and bag it. You don't want a lot of nice humid air on your drive when it's nice and chilly.
Now back to my Thorazine...mmmm thooraaaszzzzzhhhh....
I'm thinking that some nice thick mats of aerogel would make for nice armor. Considering it was used to gather samples from a comet perhaps it might have alternate use's...
Ok it's just an idea and I'm operating on an unusual alcohol level. I'll leave it to the conjecture of the reader as to if the existing level is lower or higher than normal.
I realize that it's far to late a post to have any impact but sometimes you just have to say it anyway.
Everyone has handles in their psyche that can be used by someone willing to do what's necessary.
Said individual that is willing to be blown up is easily diverted by a promise to kill all his male relatives and place their amputated penis's in their mouths. It's disgusting but if you review their religious and moral belief you will find it's more than enough to curb such a terrorist if it's believable.
Do I think that's what we need to do? I honestly don't know. I am limited by my own ignorance of the culture. I certianly hope there are solutions that are more inline with our concepts of reasonable treatment. But I don't know that to be true.
What I do know is that there are solutions. And if we are ever to be successful at implimenting any of them we must be know to be capable and willing to stand by our word.
If perchance I wanted to heavily invest in military space operations in as much secrecy as reasonably possible I would want to have a civilian but governmental program running.
Now ideally this civilian operation should serve some useful purpose in the military program in addition to being a helpful smokescreen.
Developing plans and assets that are designed for rescue type operations or other operations with a heavy investment in the ability to provide for rescue operations seems to meet that objective. Consider the requirements of rescue craft and operations.
Ability to operate with minimum warning. Designed to operate at extreme ranges or speeds. Designed to be very flexible and able to interface with various and/or new equipment.
BTW what would be the design criteria for a set of space fighter craft?
Good article overall. Points out that the extent of nanotechnology is likely to be less than some hope and fear.
The gray goo ideal is hampered by design, energy and speed/movement constraints which means that it's only going to be a problem if we haven't the technology to combat isolated outbreaks.
We can't put the genie back in the bottle, someone is going to study this technology and use it for unfriendly ends. The only question is will we have the knowledge and skills necessary to counter that.
I believe that restrictive regulation would make it more likely that we wouldn't have the resources to fight such threats. I also believe that there is a limited period of vulnerability until all citizens have defenses as part of their normal biotechnological compliment. The less restriction on research in the bio/nano technology arena the faster I believe we can get through this threatening period.
As an aside on "Prey", I've noticed over the years that Mr. Crichton has made it a point to use his status and writing talents against Bio and Nano technologies. I understand that he has every right to do so, but I also believe I've a right to point out such.
*chuckle* it's going to be a VERY interesting couple of decades...
*now* back to my regularly scheduled Thorazine dose...
If you introduce a swirl wouldn't the end result be a layer flowing around the outer edge of the container with an empty center?
Unless you've a constant force (like the container boundary) to hold the atoms in a circular path it seems to me that they will migrate as far in the initial direction they can until the wall of the container forces them to modify their direction.
After reading some (not all) of the posts I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to think about this a bit.
1. Letting autonomous systems take control has some very very important repercussions.
2. Irrespective of those repercussions it's going to happen more and more throughout our society. The longterm advantages are just too useful.
Some interesting scenario's....
Perhaps a software update that enforces no-fly zones in such a way as to force the automatic systems to crash the plane where it's wanted.
Perhaps a device that transmits to the flight controls information that results in the previous example.
Perhaps an external device that can disrupt or worse, control the onboard systems.
Of course, some such dangers are inherient in any fly by wire system. So a balance between the degree of dificulty in compromising such and the increased accuracy, redundancy, and control that fly by wire allows must be made.
Of course having systems that can't be overridden by the "pilot" (legit or otherwise) on site has it's own dangers. A massive software glitch in the systems that may autonomous control... BAD. A purposeful version of such a glitch. And any other outside interferience.
Actually I'm surprised that there was any report in the news at all. Some enterprising reporter must have been keeping a close eye on minor publications or some such.
In the scheme of things and to put it into perspective.
People are going to be doing this sort of work either out in the open or as underground projects. The fact is that we've the best chance to have the skills and technology to deal with the possible accidental and/or bioterror release if we encourage as much work in this area as we can.
If we clamped down on it then only a small elite group will have access to the knowledge and tools and they will be of lower quality than in a more open scenario.
Yes I have considered that the "bad" guys will also have the advantage of better tools. Additionally there will be an increased risk of accidental release due to much more research being done. But I think the advantages of having many more people available and speeding up our advances far outweigh the added risk.
If the sunlight reaching the surface has gone down 10% in the last 40 years and at the same time the solar input has actually increased then the energy is going somewhere.
Is there any data on how much energy is being reflected and/or emitted into space?
I would think it would be a nice satellite that took measurements pointing toward and away from the planet in a variety of wavelengths. And yes I know it's not exactly that easy.
It's really a simple thing. Energy in and energy out. Of course in practice it's a bit more difficult. How much energy is from inside the planet for instance.
It's time they asked a lot more questions and then attempted to find answers.
Ok, I'll come quietly, just have my thorazine ready...
Actually I think the Dyson spheres would be black but mostly because that makes the best radiator and trust me, they would be wanting to get rid if waste heat. That or the inside keeps getting hotter until the whole thing glows...
This data just adds to the mystery of where are they. Fermi Paradox
By all that's reasonable, if life is common, and this data just increases that likelihood, then it's extremely likely that someone somewhere would have colonized the galaxy.
Of course there are only a few reasonable conclusions (reasonable as I see it anyway...)
1. We're the only "intelligent" life around. Meaning that life may be common but intelligence as we see it is such a long shot that we are the only or the first.
2. We're the only life around. Meaning that a unique combination of events combined to produce life on this planet.
3. We're not the only intelligent life but the other's haven't reached this neck of the galaxy yet.
4. We're not the only intelligent life but we're off limits for whatever reason.
Feel free to juggle the odds or toss in new ones...
Slashdot Mirror
Long ago and far away....
Had a company that had just started doing retail sales via the net. Contacted me about doing a security review of their site. "We would like to know if it can be broken."
I asked them if I should attempt:
To make accessing the site difficult or impossible?
To modify the site?
To obtain merchandise via the site without paying?
To obtain customer info from their site.
To attack or coopt networking infrastructure at their site?
To attack or coopt infrastructure upstream from their site?
Then I mentioned some of the methods to accomplish some of that, including coming in at lunchtime and flipping through someones rolodex etc...
In other words I basically just listed some of the more obvious stuff and of course requested appropriate paperwork to cover any or all that they wanted tested.
Fear has a wonderful effect on management, pity it rarely lasts long enough.
I recall doing a simple scan with nmap and rather annoying the backup admin becuase it caused his amanda scripts to crap out. Unfortunatly the "cure" was to not run nmap scans.
I don't think he ever got the point.
Security is not and never will be a throw of a switch. It covers territories that include the physical, social, and electronic realms. It's constantly evolving and mutating, proactively in hope of avoiding attacks as well as in response to identified threats. Security is a constant battle against human nature, the better you understand people the better off you will be.
Joined...
Probably helped that it was only 1 am in Pheonix.
Now I Want to play...
Lamers all.
True geeks played napoleonics, hand painted hundreds of 15 mm castings, laid out terrain on a 8X16 foot table, and an 8 hour campaign took 6 months of realtime.
As for arguing rules, 3 of our guys (ages 17, 29, and 42) attended a game convention and were quoting the rules to other people even though they didn't take their rule books... We've argued the same way, or over a 1/4 inch or 2 degree's facing for several hours. *chuckle* once at 3 am we called the rule book author at his home in pheonix.
Group was computer geeks, coal miners, students, engineers, carpenters, and composed of all ages. The only defining characteristic was the desire and ability to creatively react to events.
D&D was for the shit's and giggles nights.
Ward
Yes, when I read about Brazil's policy of treating foriegn nationals exactly as they Brazilians are treated in their country I was astounded at the wisdom.
Anything with a legislature generally doesn't do anything that reasonable or appropriate.
Hmmm last time I checked sound is vibration. So basically they transmit and recieve sound via sound.
Ward
I rather hope you don't believe that leaving others alone garruntee's that they will leave you alone.
And if you do. Are you SURE your on the right planet because that doesn't balance with my knowledge of humanity.
Ward
*chuckle*
Don't forget, strength doesn't negate inertia.
You can go splat insided an exoskeleton just as nicely as you can outside one.
In addition to the uses already mentioned, it would be a boon to therapy. For instance for someone who has to rebuild muscles and such the system could start off supporting most of the users weight and be set to gradually over a period of time/activity to increase the amount of work the user's own muscles would have to perform.
Might make for an interesting way to acclimatize oneself to different environments as well.
For instance (a few years in the future...) if you're expecting to be on the moon but don't have the luxury of acclimatizing once your there you could set up something like this to gradually produce nearly equivalent muscle memories needed for that environment.
*chuckle* Ok, I'll stop now. Back to my Thorazine....mmmmm Thoraziinnnnneeeeee....
I figured that I would make a few guess's, the amount of education applicable to them is for you to decide.
Ok, Gravity 1/3 rd. (roughly, everything here is roughly and ballpark)
Atmospheric pressure 1/10 th.
So for a given volume the amount of wind speed to push is going to be:
If I remember correctly it's double the wind speed and you quadruple the force. So it's 1/10 the pressure but it can only do 1/40 th the work for a given speed. So if you have a wind on earth that pushes against something with a force of 4 Kg at a speed of 10 Kph then on mars the same 10 Kph wind would only have a force of 62.5 grams, if you double the wind speed to 20 Kph you get 250 grams. Double it again to 40 kph and you get a force of 1.0 Kg and double a last time gets you to 4 kg with a wind speed of 80 Kph. So to get the same force you need 8 times the wind speed.
Of course it's not quite that simple. The 1/3 rd gravity means the same force seems to do more. What it really means is that it takes less force to do anything where gravity is a component. Friction for instance or any operation involving an up or down component.
I would guess that the best ways to simulate it here on earth would be to modify the other parameters to match our gravity. For instance, if your interested in how water might have worked on rock in that gravity then use something that is 3 times the density of water and see how it behaves on rock. Something as simple as a rock tumbling kit filled with an appropriate liquid mixture and compare the results with those produced by water.
To reflect the difference in air you might try to use a fluid to make the rocks have a similar weight as they would on mars then modify the size to match the density of the liquid vs. the Martian atmosphere which has the added benefit of letting you lower the flow speeds to match as well.
Basically it seems that things would happen slower for the most part whenever anything with a gravity component is involved. Flows would be slower, on the other hand inertia is the same so when 2 particles collide you get the same bang for the buck.
I suspect that weathering based on moving water would be similar. I'm not sure if possible changes in elevation would make up for the lesser gravity, I suspect not though.
Atmospheric weathering should be more noticeable. Because of the density you should be able to sort out those rocks that can and can't be moved as opposed to rocks that could have been moved by water but not by air. The differences in weathering on the various sides of these rocks should answer some questions.
Ok enough of this, time to return to my thorazine and play with the pretty bits...
Thank you very much! An excellent and amusing read.
Additionally I do appreciate when someone or some group looks at a situation and uses a few neurons to produce a solution instead of the more typical knee-jerk reactions.
An excellent application of behavior modification in that case... hehheheh They must have nearly be spitting nails...
BTW I would appreciate any links to news articles on that or similar incidents, english preferable but I can always feed a page to translation service and puzzle it out from there.
Anyway, thanks very much for your post.
From the sound of it it was a nasty head crash.
If the value is high enough send it to a qualified recovery company. If your willing to risk it and you have the tools, swap the platters from the bad drive to an identical known good drive.
Odds of getting it running with cold or hot is low considering the reported noises.
Qualified recovery company figure 100% they get data and probably about 90% of it. Odds of switching platters yourself and getting most of your data figure 60%, odds of using cold (freezer) or heat (it can work...) 30% or so.
BTW if you do the freezer make sure and bag it. You don't want a lot of nice humid air on your drive when it's nice and chilly.
Now back to my Thorazine...mmmm thooraaaszzzzzhhhh....
I'm thinking that some nice thick mats of aerogel would make for nice armor. Considering it was used to gather samples from a comet perhaps it might have alternate use's...
Ok it's just an idea and I'm operating on an unusual alcohol level. I'll leave it to the conjecture of the reader as to if the existing level is lower or higher than normal.
I realize that it's far to late a post to have any impact but sometimes you just have to say it anyway.
Everyone has handles in their psyche that can be used by someone willing to do what's necessary.
Said individual that is willing to be blown up is easily diverted by a promise to kill all his male relatives and place their amputated penis's in their mouths. It's disgusting but if you review their religious and moral belief you will find it's more than enough to curb such a terrorist if it's believable.
Do I think that's what we need to do? I honestly don't know. I am limited by my own ignorance of the culture. I certianly hope there are solutions that are more inline with our concepts of reasonable treatment. But I don't know that to be true.
What I do know is that there are solutions. And if we are ever to be successful at implimenting any of them we must be know to be capable and willing to stand by our word.
This is just a flight of fantasy.
If perchance I wanted to heavily invest in military space operations in as much secrecy as reasonably possible I would want to have a civilian but governmental program running.
Now ideally this civilian operation should serve some useful purpose in the military program in addition to being a helpful smokescreen.
Developing plans and assets that are designed for rescue type operations or other operations with a heavy investment in the ability to provide for rescue operations seems to meet that objective. Consider the requirements of rescue craft and operations.
Ability to operate with minimum warning. Designed to operate at extreme ranges or speeds. Designed to be very flexible and able to interface with various and/or new equipment.
BTW what would be the design criteria for a set of space fighter craft?
Ok back to my thorazin drip... mmmm
If your in a room with a lawyer and a marketer and only have a gun with one bullet....
Point gun at marketer and tell him to eat the lawyer. When he's full, shot him.
Why do you think, even a lawyer won't eat a marketer...
After having read the article, Yep I RTFA.
Good article overall. Points out that the extent of nanotechnology is likely to be less than some hope and fear.
The gray goo ideal is hampered by design, energy and speed/movement constraints which means that it's only going to be a problem if we haven't the technology to combat isolated outbreaks.
We can't put the genie back in the bottle, someone is going to study this technology and use it for unfriendly ends. The only question is will we have the knowledge and skills necessary to counter that.
I believe that restrictive regulation would make it more likely that we wouldn't have the resources to fight such threats. I also believe that there is a limited period of vulnerability until all citizens have defenses as part of their normal biotechnological compliment. The less restriction on research in the bio/nano technology arena the faster I believe we can get through this threatening period.
As an aside on "Prey", I've noticed over the years that Mr. Crichton has made it a point to use his status and writing talents against Bio and Nano technologies. I understand that he has every right to do so, but I also believe I've a right to point out such.
*chuckle* it's going to be a VERY interesting couple of decades...
*now* back to my regularly scheduled Thorazine dose...
If you introduce a swirl wouldn't the end result be a layer flowing around the outer edge of the container with an empty center?
Unless you've a constant force (like the container boundary) to hold the atoms in a circular path it seems to me that they will migrate as far in the initial direction they can until the wall of the container forces them to modify their direction.
Mmmmmm Thorazine....
Who wants to bet many future eula's will include a clause that requires you to certify your complience with the terms upon request...
After reading some (not all) of the posts I'm thinking that it might be a good idea to think about this a bit.
1. Letting autonomous systems take control has some very very important repercussions.
2. Irrespective of those repercussions it's going to happen more and more throughout our society. The longterm advantages are just too useful.
Some interesting scenario's....
Perhaps a software update that enforces no-fly zones in such a way as to force the automatic systems to crash the plane where it's wanted.
Perhaps a device that transmits to the flight controls information that results in the previous example.
Perhaps an external device that can disrupt or worse, control the onboard systems.
Of course, some such dangers are inherient in any fly by wire system. So a balance between the degree of dificulty in compromising such and the increased accuracy, redundancy, and control that fly by wire allows must be made.
Of course having systems that can't be overridden by the "pilot" (legit or otherwise) on site has it's own dangers. A massive software glitch in the systems that may autonomous control... BAD. A purposeful version of such a glitch. And any other outside interferience.
*chuckle* If politician's just talked about what they know it would be a much quieter world...
Hey! Where's my thorazine!!!
Actually I'm surprised that there was any report in the news at all. Some enterprising reporter must have been keeping a close eye on minor publications or some such.
In the scheme of things and to put it into perspective.
People are going to be doing this sort of work either out in the open or as underground projects. The fact is that we've the best chance to have the skills and technology to deal with the possible accidental and/or bioterror release if we encourage as much work in this area as we can.
If we clamped down on it then only a small elite group will have access to the knowledge and tools and they will be of lower quality than in a more open scenario.
Yes I have considered that the "bad" guys will also have the advantage of better tools. Additionally there will be an increased risk of accidental release due to much more research being done. But I think the advantages of having many more people available and speeding up our advances far outweigh the added risk.
Mmmmm thorazine....
If the sunlight reaching the surface has gone down 10% in the last 40 years and at the same time the solar input has actually increased then the energy is going somewhere.
Is there any data on how much energy is being reflected and/or emitted into space?
I would think it would be a nice satellite that took measurements pointing toward and away from the planet in a variety of wavelengths. And yes I know it's not exactly that easy.
It's really a simple thing. Energy in and energy out. Of course in practice it's a bit more difficult. How much energy is from inside the planet for instance.
It's time they asked a lot more questions and then attempted to find answers.
Ok, I'll come quietly, just have my thorazine ready...
Actually I think the Dyson spheres would be black but mostly because that makes the best radiator and trust me, they would be wanting to get rid if waste heat. That or the inside keeps getting hotter until the whole thing glows...
BTW I always preferred...
yip...yip...yip...BANG!......NO TERRIER
This data just adds to the mystery of where are they. Fermi Paradox
By all that's reasonable, if life is common, and this data just increases that likelihood, then it's extremely likely that someone somewhere would have colonized the galaxy.
Of course there are only a few reasonable conclusions (reasonable as I see it anyway...)
1. We're the only "intelligent" life around. Meaning that life may be common but intelligence as we see it is such a long shot that we are the only or the first.
2. We're the only life around. Meaning that a unique combination of events combined to produce life on this planet.
3. We're not the only intelligent life but the other's haven't reached this neck of the galaxy yet.
4. We're not the only intelligent life but we're off limits for whatever reason.
Feel free to juggle the odds or toss in new ones...