How much traffic in a given area's actually VoIP and not, say, MMORG or bitorrent?) Sure, they'll keep the funding for 911 and others, but if everyone's shifted to VoIP, then those services will need/have a budget a tiny fraction of the size they do now, since no-one's on copper lines anymore.
I should have stated more point more clearly. What I meant is that they'll tax ALL broadband communications - a communication tax of sorts.
I don't buy the 911 point either. You can simply design the system to "know" where you are. Government assigned IPs (esp if IPV6 comes in in a big way) to ISP gatway routers are probably going to be introduced as a way of determining the location of the punters.
In time all technology like this is regulated and most of the time the government does a good job. Governments are good at setting standards and that's exactly why we should trust them with this job.
Would you host a torrent for someone else's blog? I dunno, sharing a torrent for a music album or a linux distro is a bit different to someones home movie.
I'd love to see it take off but I'm yet to be convinced.
Great.. now I can measure measure how late the train is to an accuracy of a few attoseconds. hehe
The great thing about getting more accurate timing is that it should allow you to measure distances with
the same accuracy. I think that by shining two different coloured lasers against a mirror
and measuring the beats in the interference pattern of the returned beam it should be possible to measure a metre very exactly.
Anyone know if this is garbage or does more accurate time mean more accurate distance.
Do we have any way of knowing if the universe as a whole is rotating? Or if it is, in what plane and how fast?
One of the key axioms of Cosmology is that of isotropy. No matter which way you look the universe looks roughly the same. This has been a very successful conjecture and many a cosmologist wouldn't like to throw that principle away without a fight.
I'm no expert at cosmology but my immediate thought is that material would spread out along the plane of rotation like dust does with newly forming stars. Therefore we'd expect to see more stars in single plane than elsewhere in the sky.. which isn't true.
Of course, the rotation could just be very slow but I think it's unlikely.
President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss
of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost,'
In contrast to the fifty million jobs our children will lose? I mean I'm sure our kids will
love to watch New York disappear under a few metres of water.
I've seen other sites refer to Slashdot as a "blog" but I don't really think of it that way.
For starters, it's been around long before the term "blog" was coined.
Just wondering if others here think it's weird when Slashdot is called a blog.
Strictly speaking, yes it is a blog. However, I think slashdot is a lot different primarily because Slashdot is less about the news stories and more about the comments. In true blogs the reverse is true.
Internet wiretaps don't make the world safer they do the opposite - they make the world less safe. Any serious criminal will encrypt their connection meaning that the only people a wiretap would be useful against are idiots.
Wiretaps have been abused and these will also be abused - I'm not happy about giving police that power that the return is likely to be so small.
Who cares if the commission's view is shared
by the OSS crew. Their ruling should be final
and Microsoft should comply in good faith if they want to
continue to trade in the EU.
They'll probably get chance to appeal the descision but
I doubt the ruling will be overturned. Personally, I'm sick of them appealing on grounds they
should have brought up earlier in the process. I think that if you appeal
in a corporate case such as this and you lose the damages should be increased.
You can justify this
by lost interest due to the money sitting for in Microsoft's bank and not the EUs bank account for duration of the
appeal process plus a surcharge for wasting everybody's time
There will be some residual radioactivity in any nuclear waste forever - I presume that they meant far longer than the half-life...
I assume they probably mean until the radio activity falls to around background level.
Doing a quick back of the envelope calculation I computer that if the half-life is 10,000 years than after two hundred thousand years the radioactivity is about one hundred thousandth of a percent what it is today.
Yeah, that's great, just tell everyone so they can go attack it. That's really smart. If I were the shipper or receiver, or any territory between which this parcel traveled, I would want it to be at least SOMEWHAT of a secret.
Oh well. Security through obscurity is better than no security at all.
My guess is that it is a classic case of misdirection. You say "We're moving this nice chunk of plutonium on this ship here - look at all our heavy security" when in fact you've cut it all up in to small pieces and stuck it through the postal system.
I'd be very suprised if there's any plutonium on that ship at all. It looks like they almost wanted the BBC to report it.
I'm sorry but I don't see why this is such a surprise. If you're a multinational company and you set-up office in the United Kingdom then you have to adhere to European and UK law and if you set-up office in Turkey you have to adhere to Turkish law. So what's the problem with adhering to Chinese law if you set up office in China?
Now you might not like the political stance of the Chinese government but that's your business after all it's their country and their jurisdiction. If you don't want to adhere to their laws don't set-up office there.
The principle motive of any company is to maximise its profits. If Google thinks working in China will enhance their profitability and they don't mind the draconian laws then it makes sense for them to enter that market.
We should not expect companies to make political statements - we have politicians for that - Companies are driven by different forces than politics and in the highly competitive market of internet search taking such a stance could damage the company immensely.
The article didn't say "100% secure", and with good reason (IMO). Historically, that "100% secure" claim hasn't panned out. Sooner or later, some obnoxious killjoy always seems to come along and break the encryption.
Damn right. Everyone harps on about the quantum security proof. Great stuff! Except it's not *really* that secure.
What if the attacker puts too much current into the laser generator and it makes two identical photons instead of one?
What if the attacker destroys the laser completly what do they use then? The insecure channel of course.
What people tend to forget is that encryption only has to be a little stronger than the weakest link to be enough (although encryption is usually designed far more secure than it ever needs to be) - people will still read your data even with quantum cryptography - they'll just attack the end points of the connection.
Lemley's distinction also points to the unusual fact that in IP,
traditional liberals are often calling for less and less government,
while conservatives demand regulation in order to protect their
exclusive right to use their intellectual creations.
I don't think this is all that suprising. Conservatives believe what's good for the corporations is good for everyone. Liberals
believe that what is good for the people is good for everyone. Strong IP laws favour
the big companies - weak IP laws favour the little guy more.
IP isn't property. It never has and never will be.
For example, A granted patent isn't valid if there's prior art.
How could you apply that principle to say the ownership of a car? I don't think you can.
I can smash, steal, set fire to or urinate on a car - I can't do any of these things with a patent! When patent
infringement occurs it isn't even stealing in the traditional sense. When someone steal something wealth is transfered
atomically. When infringement occurs wealth can be diverted (and that's a dodgy word) away from the patent holder but it's
never a transfer from the patent holder directly to the infringer. It's just
not correct to call IP property in the traditional sense of the word.
You are missing the point. It makes it easy to convert from Microsoft SQL. Imagine thousands of independent software developers with an alternative to MSQL within easy reach. Their entire solution cost is now reduced, and they will sell better. At least the ones that take the chance.
OR they could keep running their ASP.NET applications on IIS and use SQL Server 2005 Express which happens to have the 1cpu limit, 1gb memory and 4gb database and is free as in beer. You're right.. the solution cost is reduced but not in the way you intended.:)
Wikipedia is taking a leaf out of Debian's book. There going to create a "stable" version of the wikipedia that isn't editable by everyone and only factual errors will be corrected in this stable version.
Then users will have a choice between the bleeding edge and possibly factually incorrect or the stable version that's had some kinda of audit done on it. Another straw man argument exposed for what it is:)
I think to some extent we've got more technology than society
has learned how to put to good use yet. E-mail in the workplace, for example,
can be very destructive to productivity. I personally don't get that many e-mails
at work but i've heard the Finance director saying he gets 400 e-mails a week.
I fail to accept that reading all these e-mail is a productive use of his time and companies
ran just fine before e-mail. Only uses the technology if it helps you work more efficiently. Being
connected for the sake of being connected is no good.
I've found that when someone gets a text message in a pub it takes the priority over
the guy sat across from the table. This is the technology working badly for you.. the guy who sent you
the text message can wait.. the guy infront of you is more important.
My dad is around 50 years old but he's no technophobe. He says that the trick is to make the technology work for you
. Make it your slave rather than your master. He doesn't leave his mobile phone on all the time but he turns it on to make a phone-call. He doesn't
want to be contactable all the time but he wants to be able to contact others at any time. That's making the technology
work for him!
Simon.
6 gmail invites are available by sending a message to the above address with the word 'slashdot' in the body
So even IF the P?=NP question applies, it doen't mean that cryptography itself is doomed. Just that harder problems might need to be used as the basis.
Let me illustrate this a bit clearer. P could equal NP but lets say that the result is that for every NP problem the P time solution has a O(n^100). At infinity this is still quicker than the old solution NP-time based solution but at the usable key ranges it's totally useless.
Simon.
Nope, wrong, invalid.. nothing to see here.
on
The End of Encryption?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
No no no no no. How many more times? Cryptography has absolutely nothing to do with the question of P?=NP.
P?=NP refers to the asymptotic complexity as the problem. i.e. as the input size goes to infinity. It quite possible to have a problem
whos complexity is approximately linear at the 100-1000-bit range and still NP-Complete. Conversely, it's possible to have a
p-time algorithm for solving a problem that has a O(n^100) so it's still difficult to solve. While resolving P?=NP might bring new tricks to
the table it's difficult to legislate for these tricks. There might not even be any we don't already know.
Another point, p?=np has no bearing on the security proof of the one-time pad or quantum mechanical key exchange.
The latter will become practical over large distances to enable the former long before p?np is resolved. Cryptography will die when
the last human draws its breath.
Slashdot Mirror
Now only Kilingon and Yiddish remain..
Simon.
A void method that returns a value? Oh dear oh dear :)
Simon
How much traffic in a given area's actually VoIP and not, say, MMORG or bitorrent?) Sure, they'll keep the funding for 911 and others, but if everyone's shifted to VoIP, then those services will need/have a budget a tiny fraction of the size they do now, since no-one's on copper lines anymore.
I should have stated more point more clearly. What I meant is that they'll tax ALL broadband communications - a communication tax of sorts.
I don't buy the 911 point either. You can simply design the system to "know" where you are. Government assigned IPs (esp if IPV6 comes in in a big way) to ISP gatway routers are probably going to be introduced as a way of determining the location of the punters.
In time all technology like this is regulated and most of the time the government does a good job. Governments are good at setting standards and that's exactly why we should trust them with this job.
Simon.
Simon.
.. but have netcraft confirmed it? Seriously, they'll just place a tax on a per megabyte basis.. Nothing to see here move along.. Simon.
Would you host a torrent for someone else's blog? I dunno, sharing a torrent for a music album or a linux distro is a bit different to someones home movie.
I'd love to see it take off but I'm yet to be convinced.
Simon.
Great.. now I can measure measure how late the train is to an accuracy of a few attoseconds. hehe
The great thing about getting more accurate timing is that it should allow you to measure distances with the same accuracy. I think that by shining two different coloured lasers against a mirror and measuring the beats in the interference pattern of the returned beam it should be possible to measure a metre very exactly.
Anyone know if this is garbage or does more accurate time mean more accurate distance.
Simon.
Do we have any way of knowing if the universe as a whole is rotating? Or if it is, in what plane and how fast?
One of the key axioms of Cosmology is that of isotropy. No matter which way you look the universe looks roughly the same. This has been a very successful conjecture and many a cosmologist wouldn't like to throw that principle away without a fight.
I'm no expert at cosmology but my immediate thought is that material would spread out along the plane of rotation like dust does with newly forming stars. Therefore we'd expect to see more stars in single plane than elsewhere in the sky.. which isn't true.
Of course, the rotation could just be very slow but I think it's unlikely.
Simon.
My guess is that they'll inject adverts in to your e-mail when you download it using pop. The move wouldn't make sense otherwise.
Simon.
(x) Microsoft will not put up with it
a ck/demo/lbdgn.pdf
Except that Microsoft are *ahead* of the hash cash scheme. They've developed a scheme that does the computation with something memory intensive.
Main memory is much much slower than the CPU and the difference in memory access speeds in a cell phone and a PC are much less than their CPU speed.
Memory based computations are harder to run in parrell. In principle you could have many computers working on signing a single message.
They've made is very difficult to run their algorithm in parrell. The Microsoft scheme is much better.
More information here: http://research.microsoft.com/research/sv/PennyBl
Simon.
President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job, let alone the nearly 5 million jobs Kyoto would have cost,'
In contrast to the fifty million jobs our children will lose? I mean I'm sure our kids will love to watch New York disappear under a few metres of water.
Simon.
I've seen other sites refer to Slashdot as a "blog" but I don't really think of it that way.
For starters, it's been around long before the term "blog" was coined.
Just wondering if others here think it's weird when Slashdot is called a blog.
Strictly speaking, yes it is a blog. However, I think slashdot is a lot different primarily because Slashdot is less about the news stories and more about the comments.
In true blogs the reverse is true.
Simon.
until he's got the proposed orbital prize? I bet 2010.
Simon.
Internet wiretaps don't make the world safer they do the opposite - they make the world less safe. Any serious criminal will encrypt their connection meaning that the only people a wiretap would be useful against are idiots.
Wiretaps have been abused and these will also be abused - I'm not happy about giving police that power that the return is likely to be so small.
Simon
Who cares if the commission's view is shared by the OSS crew. Their ruling should be final and Microsoft should comply in good faith if they want to continue to trade in the EU.
They'll probably get chance to appeal the descision but I doubt the ruling will be overturned. Personally, I'm sick of them appealing on grounds they should have brought up earlier in the process. I think that if you appeal in a corporate case such as this and you lose the damages should be increased. You can justify this by lost interest due to the money sitting for in Microsoft's bank and not the EUs bank account for duration of the appeal process plus a surcharge for wasting everybody's time
Simon.
There will be some residual radioactivity in any nuclear waste forever - I presume that they meant far longer than the half-life...
I assume they probably mean until the radio activity falls to around background level.
Doing a quick back of the envelope calculation I computer that if the half-life is 10,000 years than after two hundred thousand years the radioactivity is about one hundred thousandth of a percent what it is today.
Simon.
Yeah, that's great, just tell everyone so they can go attack it. That's really smart. If I were the shipper or receiver, or any territory between which this parcel traveled, I would want it to be at least SOMEWHAT of a secret.
Oh well. Security through obscurity is better than no security at all.
My guess is that it is a classic case of misdirection. You say "We're moving this nice chunk of plutonium on this ship here - look at all our heavy security" when in fact you've cut it all up in to small pieces and stuck it through the postal system.
I'd be very suprised if there's any plutonium on that ship at all. It looks like they almost wanted the BBC to report it.
Simon.
I'm sorry but I don't see why this is such a surprise. If you're a multinational company and you set-up office in the United Kingdom then you have to adhere to European and UK law and if you set-up office in Turkey you have to adhere to Turkish
law. So what's the problem with adhering to Chinese law if you set up office in China?
Now you might not like the political stance of the Chinese government but that's your business after all it's their country and their jurisdiction. If you don't want to adhere to their laws don't set-up office there.
The principle motive of any company is to maximise its profits. If Google thinks working in China will enhance their profitability and they don't mind the draconian laws then it makes sense for them to enter that market.
We should not expect companies to make political statements - we have politicians for that - Companies are driven by different forces than politics and in the highly competitive market of internet search taking such a stance could damage the company immensely.
Simon.
The article didn't say "100% secure", and with good reason (IMO). Historically, that "100% secure" claim hasn't panned out. Sooner or later, some obnoxious killjoy always seems to come along and break the encryption.
Damn right. Everyone harps on about the quantum security proof. Great stuff! Except it's not *really* that secure.
What if the attacker puts too much current into the laser generator and it makes two identical photons instead of one?
What if the attacker destroys the laser completly what do they use then? The insecure channel of course.
What people tend to forget is that encryption only has to be a little stronger than the weakest link to be enough (although encryption is usually designed far more secure than it ever needs to be) - people will still read your data even with quantum cryptography - they'll just attack the end points of the connection.
Simon.
Lemley's distinction also points to the unusual fact that in IP, traditional liberals are often calling for less and less government, while conservatives demand regulation in order to protect their exclusive right to use their intellectual creations.
I don't think this is all that suprising. Conservatives believe what's good for the corporations is good for everyone. Liberals believe that what is good for the people is good for everyone. Strong IP laws favour the big companies - weak IP laws favour the little guy more.
IP isn't property. It never has and never will be. For example, A granted patent isn't valid if there's prior art. How could you apply that principle to say the ownership of a car? I don't think you can. I can smash, steal, set fire to or urinate on a car - I can't do any of these things with a patent! When patent infringement occurs it isn't even stealing in the traditional sense. When someone steal something wealth is transfered atomically. When infringement occurs wealth can be diverted (and that's a dodgy word) away from the patent holder but it's never a transfer from the patent holder directly to the infringer. It's just not correct to call IP property in the traditional sense of the word.
Simon.
You are missing the point. It makes it easy to convert from Microsoft SQL. Imagine thousands of independent software developers with an alternative to MSQL within easy reach. Their entire solution cost is now reduced, and they will sell better. At least the ones that take the chance.
OR they could keep running their ASP.NET applications on IIS and use SQL Server 2005 Express which happens to have the 1cpu limit, 1gb memory and 4gb database and is free as in beer. You're right.. the solution cost is reduced but not in the way you intended. :)
Simon.
Most of you thought this was funny when it's actually informative :)
Check it out!
Simon
Wikipedia is taking a leaf out of Debian's book. There going to create a "stable" version of the wikipedia that isn't editable by everyone and only factual errors will be corrected in this stable version.
:)
Then users will have a choice between the bleeding edge and possibly factually incorrect or the stable
version that's had some kinda of audit done on it. Another straw man argument exposed for what it is
Simon.
I think to some extent we've got more technology than society has learned how to put to good use yet. E-mail in the workplace, for example, can be very destructive to productivity. I personally don't get that many e-mails at work but i've heard the Finance director saying he gets 400 e-mails a week. I fail to accept that reading all these e-mail is a productive use of his time and companies ran just fine before e-mail. Only uses the technology if it helps you work more efficiently. Being connected for the sake of being connected is no good.
I've found that when someone gets a text message in a pub it takes the priority over the guy sat across from the table. This is the technology working badly for you.. the guy who sent you the text message can wait.. the guy infront of you is more important.
My dad is around 50 years old but he's no technophobe. He says that the trick is to make the technology work for you . Make it your slave rather than your master. He doesn't leave his mobile phone on all the time but he turns it on to make a phone-call. He doesn't want to be contactable all the time but he wants to be able to contact others at any time. That's making the technology work for him!
Simon.
6 gmail invites are available by sending a message to the above address with the word 'slashdot' in the body
So even IF the P?=NP question applies, it doen't mean that cryptography itself is doomed. Just that harder problems might need to be used as the basis.
Let me illustrate this a bit clearer. P could equal NP but lets say that the result is that for every NP problem the P time solution has a O(n^100). At infinity this is still quicker than the old solution NP-time based solution but at the usable key ranges it's totally useless.
Simon.
No no no no no. How many more times? Cryptography has absolutely nothing to do with the question of P?=NP.
P?=NP refers to the asymptotic complexity as the problem. i.e. as the input size goes to infinity. It quite possible to have a problem whos complexity is approximately linear at the 100-1000-bit range and still NP-Complete. Conversely, it's possible to have a p-time algorithm for solving a problem that has a O(n^100) so it's still difficult to solve. While resolving P?=NP might bring new tricks to the table it's difficult to legislate for these tricks. There might not even be any we don't already know.
Another point, p?=np has no bearing on the security proof of the one-time pad or quantum mechanical key exchange. The latter will become practical over large distances to enable the former long before p?np is resolved. Cryptography will die when the last human draws its breath.
Simon.