If you really need to argue with these people d yourself a favor and study The Art of Beign Right. It's a how-to guide by Schopenhauer on how to win arguments whether yor position has any merit or not.
They think the sun rises and sets right our of your arse, don't they?
The rest of the thread nonwithstanding, the sun does rise and set out of/into Randall's ass. It's very uncomfortable and he has to take a lot of creams and salves.
Foxconn is one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers. In fact, Wikipedia notes that in 2007 they were China's largest exporter. Foxconn is really, really big (quoth Wikipedia: "Foxconn is the OEM for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Wii. [...] Foxconn is one of the OEMs for iPod nanos, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs and the iPhone." Also, the Kindle.). They just haven't sold their mainboards under their own brand name until recently.
By the way, the Wikipedia article already mentions the ACPI issues.
That would be mTAN. Certainly a valid approach and a rather secure one (the only known attack vector requires the attacker to have the user's account data, PIN and mobile phone). I'm sticking with the smartcard for now as most banks charge money for mTAN while HBCI cards are bought once and kept for years - an important factor when you're a student with no fixed income.
Another is probably the support nightmare that (even) a smart card reader can pose (the reader interface itself is not such a problem, but how do you connect it to the browser/internet/application?).
Well, in Germany we use smartcard-aware homebanking applications for that. The application uses PC/SC or CTAPI to look for smartcard reader and lets the interface handle the details of talking to the card. When setting up an account inside the program you can usually just insert the card and the account details are gathered from the card, so you don't even need to know the address of the bank's HBCI server (as the software has a database of banks and their servers).
The software company/bank (banks like to provide you with branded versions of their homebanking software of choice) doesn't have to explicitly support readers as they adhere to industry standards, although banks usually endorse a certain product and sell it to you at a reduced price. So far my homebanking software has liked any reader I've connected, even inside VMs.
Contrary to what some people think, not everything needs to run inside a browser. Of course standalone homebanking software costs money but you do get something for your $CURRENCY. For example, the newest version of my homebanking software manages (among others) transactional accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and even PayPal accounts. It also comes with a whole bunch of finance management functions I'll probably never use.
Actually, even smartcard-based security can be circumvented using man-in-the-browser attacks.
How, exactly? As I see it the attacker would have to replace either your homebanking application or the smartcard driver and rewrite the transaction before/as it is sent to the smartcard for signing. Of course in that case no security method will ever help you.
(which happens to be the same debit card you use in ATMs and POS devices, not sure why you specify in your earlier post that it should be a different card - what is the advantage of that?)
That way if one of your cards gets locked (for example due to you entering the wrong PIN three times in a row) you can still use the other to get to your money. If they were the same card and you locked it in your homebanking app you would have to wait for the bank to issue you a new card before you could get money from ATMs. Given the fact that it can take the bank weeks to send you the new card and PIN(s) it's a Good Thing to have the ATM and homebanking functionalities on separate cards.
That's a TAN generatr. I'm talking abut a smart card, i.e. a card that essentially contains a bit of memory and a crypto module. Your banking transaction is encrypted and signed by the card, which only works if you provide the correct PIN. That way you get secure transactions and true two-factor security (what you have and what you know).
Also, someone hijacking your PC won't be able to do much because modern smartcard readers have their own keypads, meaning that your PC is never actually involved with the PIN; it merely provides the transaction data to the reader and waits until it receives either an encrypted stream to send to the bank or an error code. Unless the attacker can break the encryption (usually 3DES, DSA or RSA) he can't do much.
Which is one reason why smartcard-based systems rock. If homebanking access to the account is only possible via the smartcard nobody can perform such an attack on your account without having access to the card. If the attacker does get hold of your card you're still protected by a password and you can go to the bank and have your homebanking card locked (note: The homebanking card should always be separate from any ther cards your bank issues).
And it's not like it's that difficult to do; PC/SC and CTAPI are well understood and implemented in all major OSes. Germany has a well-established smartcard standard for homebanking (HBCI aka FinTS) and there are clients for every major OS, even Linux (via a Gnucash plugin). It's certainly doable.
We just tell Uwe Boll that this is actually a video game. He will then turn it into a movie about a hacker who really is a magical fairy princess (there we do have the single gay parent again, ZING!) who has to save the world by hacking the city of Miami* and hiding the password in an abandoned mine** on a remote island***. Then the hacker will gun down the space aliens responsible for the whole mess before learning that he is one of them. It wil all be very suspenseful and by "suspenseful" I mean "confusing and hamfisted".
* Boll: "Von South American city or another - who can tell ze difference?"
** There always is an abandoned mine and an island.
*** Always.
Unfamiliar with the 14th Amendment [wikipedia.org] or just last 100 years of Constitutional precedent [wikipedia.org]? Its pretty black letter law, and certainly applies to New York [wikipedia.org].
There are other reasons as well. I'm from Europe and I'm not comfortable with what passes as politicians in America being able to strong-arm the EU into adopting their asinine laws via organizations like WIPO. International trade of goods is nice, international trade of governmental corruption less so.
Also, corporations setting up a factory somewhere living off the huge tax breaks and subventions they get for doing so and then firing everyone and relocating to a cheaper place once the temporary benefits bestowed upon them start wearing off. The result is regions losing milions of $CURRENCY they usually badly need and lots of people losing their jobs, hurting the region even further.
Alaska is a remnant of the old Terra Incognita. They just never got around to mapping the whole New World (I mean, who wants to? All they have over there are natural disasters and Indians) and they labeled the blank spots with made-up names like "Alaska", "Wyoming" or "Québec". Not to forget about the cruel practical joke that resulted in part of Columbia ending up somewhere in North America. I think they built some kind of rectangular city there or something.
However, of course you are trolling because it's widely known that California was made up by the psychologists to give everyone depressions about not being a supermodel.
I just wonder... Could the small companies pool their resources and contest the patent in one single case, putting the small cases on hold (because the patent is being challenged)?
If the GP's teenage son is really interested in learning programming perhaps a small microcontroller project would be a good place to start. PICs and AVR cores are quite simple to implement and program. Investigate a development kit instead of diving into programming the PC.
If he's also interested in electronics you can get a small Atmel and the neccessary components and build your own Lego Mindstorms workalike. Low-level programming and electronics sure sound interesting to a geeky kid if they allow him to build his own autonomous robot. Plus, he learns how to use a soldering iron, a skill I would dare call essential.
If we assume unstopped constant exponential growth a gas giant or two isn't going to be enough for long. Assuming, an exponent of 2, 20.000 earths per giant and three inhabited gas giant we're looking at sixteen generations tops; at 30 years per generation that's 480 years. We better use those 480 years to develop the Dyson sphere or we're in big trouble.
Or, of course, at some point we could instead stop multiplying exponentially. That would solve the problem, too. Given the fact that the first world countries generally have very low birth rates (and not because they historically had!) raising the living standard for everyone to our level might make a couple regular planets go a long time. Of course we still need to figure out where to get all the water and electricity, but we need to figure that out anyway.
We talked him out of unsolicited ads. I don't really know what his current model is or if he even intends to use the data he gathered. I think the latest idea was to see if someone who has already opted in to email ads is registered with StudiVZ and to use the data gathered from them to make the mails sent to him more relevant.
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One. I calculated it again myself and the math checks out.
If you really need to argue with these people d yourself a favor and study The Art of Beign Right. It's a how-to guide by Schopenhauer on how to win arguments whether yor position has any merit or not.
The rest of the thread nonwithstanding, the sun does rise and set out of/into Randall's ass. It's very uncomfortable and he has to take a lot of creams and salves.
It's hereditary, as far as I know.
Foxconn is one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers. In fact, Wikipedia notes that in 2007 they were China's largest exporter. Foxconn is really, really big (quoth Wikipedia: "Foxconn is the OEM for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Wii. [...] Foxconn is one of the OEMs for iPod nanos, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs and the iPhone." Also, the Kindle.). They just haven't sold their mainboards under their own brand name until recently.
By the way, the Wikipedia article already mentions the ACPI issues.
It comes from Microsoft Research so it isn't intended to ever be used anywhere.
You simply give the card and your account informtion to MR BRAIN BHEKI KHUMALO. He wants to talk to you about those fifteen million dollars anyway.
That would be mTAN. Certainly a valid approach and a rather secure one (the only known attack vector requires the attacker to have the user's account data, PIN and mobile phone). I'm sticking with the smartcard for now as most banks charge money for mTAN while HBCI cards are bought once and kept for years - an important factor when you're a student with no fixed income.
Those are valid points, but they are equally valid for any kind of homebanking. Homebanking inherently has a lot of attack vectors.
Well, in Germany we use smartcard-aware homebanking applications for that. The application uses PC/SC or CTAPI to look for smartcard reader and lets the interface handle the details of talking to the card. When setting up an account inside the program you can usually just insert the card and the account details are gathered from the card, so you don't even need to know the address of the bank's HBCI server (as the software has a database of banks and their servers).
The software company/bank (banks like to provide you with branded versions of their homebanking software of choice) doesn't have to explicitly support readers as they adhere to industry standards, although banks usually endorse a certain product and sell it to you at a reduced price. So far my homebanking software has liked any reader I've connected, even inside VMs.
Contrary to what some people think, not everything needs to run inside a browser. Of course standalone homebanking software costs money but you do get something for your $CURRENCY. For example, the newest version of my homebanking software manages (among others) transactional accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and even PayPal accounts. It also comes with a whole bunch of finance management functions I'll probably never use.
How, exactly? As I see it the attacker would have to replace either your homebanking application or the smartcard driver and rewrite the transaction before/as it is sent to the smartcard for signing. Of course in that case no security method will ever help you.
That way if one of your cards gets locked (for example due to you entering the wrong PIN three times in a row) you can still use the other to get to your money. If they were the same card and you locked it in your homebanking app you would have to wait for the bank to issue you a new card before you could get money from ATMs. Given the fact that it can take the bank weeks to send you the new card and PIN(s) it's a Good Thing to have the ATM and homebanking functionalities on separate cards.
That's a TAN generatr. I'm talking abut a smart card, i.e. a card that essentially contains a bit of memory and a crypto module. Your banking transaction is encrypted and signed by the card, which only works if you provide the correct PIN. That way you get secure transactions and true two-factor security (what you have and what you know).
Also, someone hijacking your PC won't be able to do much because modern smartcard readers have their own keypads, meaning that your PC is never actually involved with the PIN; it merely provides the transaction data to the reader and waits until it receives either an encrypted stream to send to the bank or an error code. Unless the attacker can break the encryption (usually 3DES, DSA or RSA) he can't do much.
Which is one reason why smartcard-based systems rock. If homebanking access to the account is only possible via the smartcard nobody can perform such an attack on your account without having access to the card. If the attacker does get hold of your card you're still protected by a password and you can go to the bank and have your homebanking card locked (note: The homebanking card should always be separate from any ther cards your bank issues).
And it's not like it's that difficult to do; PC/SC and CTAPI are well understood and implemented in all major OSes. Germany has a well-established smartcard standard for homebanking (HBCI aka FinTS) and there are clients for every major OS, even Linux (via a Gnucash plugin). It's certainly doable.
We just tell Uwe Boll that this is actually a video game. He will then turn it into a movie about a hacker who really is a magical fairy princess (there we do have the single gay parent again, ZING!) who has to save the world by hacking the city of Miami* and hiding the password in an abandoned mine** on a remote island***. Then the hacker will gun down the space aliens responsible for the whole mess before learning that he is one of them. It wil all be very suspenseful and by "suspenseful" I mean "confusing and hamfisted".
* Boll: "Von South American city or another - who can tell ze difference?"
** There always is an abandoned mine and an island.
*** Always.
Not if New York secedes! Zing!
Come on, admit it. Everyone in the UK drives a Bobbycar.
There are other reasons as well. I'm from Europe and I'm not comfortable with what passes as politicians in America being able to strong-arm the EU into adopting their asinine laws via organizations like WIPO. International trade of goods is nice, international trade of governmental corruption less so.
Also, corporations setting up a factory somewhere living off the huge tax breaks and subventions they get for doing so and then firing everyone and relocating to a cheaper place once the temporary benefits bestowed upon them start wearing off. The result is regions losing milions of $CURRENCY they usually badly need and lots of people losing their jobs, hurting the region even further.
Everything has its downsides.
It's a screwed up version of a screwed up DOOM fanfic.
Alaska is a remnant of the old Terra Incognita. They just never got around to mapping the whole New World (I mean, who wants to? All they have over there are natural disasters and Indians) and they labeled the blank spots with made-up names like "Alaska", "Wyoming" or "Québec". Not to forget about the cruel practical joke that resulted in part of Columbia ending up somewhere in North America. I think they built some kind of rectangular city there or something.
However, of course you are trolling because it's widely known that California was made up by the psychologists to give everyone depressions about not being a supermodel.
I just wonder... Could the small companies pool their resources and contest the patent in one single case, putting the small cases on hold (because the patent is being challenged)?
If he's also interested in electronics you can get a small Atmel and the neccessary components and build your own Lego Mindstorms workalike. Low-level programming and electronics sure sound interesting to a geeky kid if they allow him to build his own autonomous robot. Plus, he learns how to use a soldering iron, a skill I would dare call essential.
I hate to tell it to you but the instruction booklets for Lego sets don't count as graphic novels.
(Might it be possible that you accidentally replied to the wrong story?)
If we assume unstopped constant exponential growth a gas giant or two isn't going to be enough for long. Assuming, an exponent of 2, 20.000 earths per giant and three inhabited gas giant we're looking at sixteen generations tops; at 30 years per generation that's 480 years. We better use those 480 years to develop the Dyson sphere or we're in big trouble.
Or, of course, at some point we could instead stop multiplying exponentially. That would solve the problem, too. Given the fact that the first world countries generally have very low birth rates (and not because they historically had!) raising the living standard for everyone to our level might make a couple regular planets go a long time. Of course we still need to figure out where to get all the water and electricity, but we need to figure that out anyway.
I did acknowledge it in the very first sentence on my post...
We talked him out of unsolicited ads. I don't really know what his current model is or if he even intends to use the data he gathered. I think the latest idea was to see if someone who has already opted in to email ads is registered with StudiVZ and to use the data gathered from them to make the mails sent to him more relevant.