While I admire your moral stance (and agree), your understanding is quite flawed in regards to the tax.
Any sufficient level of wealth is easily able to bypass the inheritance taxes under the current system. It's all a matter of gaming the system. With any level of pre-planning it is almost trivial to avoid the majority of estate taxes that would be levied. Most if not all wealthy individuals have excellent tax and business consultation. As such, most understand and compartmentalize their wealth into chunks that cannot be easily dissected by the tax you're referring to through the use of corporate structures, limited partnerships, LLCs, and reasonable precautions.
In effect, the inheritance tax really only affects those individuals who: 1) have wealth to pass on 2) did not have proper planning/strategy for their wealth.
Who is that? That would be the middle and upper middle class. Most of whom may have a house and some money or stocks all in their own name.
The Rich DO NOT hold money in their name anymore, They own corporate interests and other non-persuable assets, all with transfer clauses in their corporate bylaws.
So really your stance puts a lot of middle class Americans in a position of continual generational mediocrity or poverty, while transferring those funds to an already wasteful and inefficient system (ie, the US government). Hardly ideal for anyone I think...
That's why 9 out of 10 Malware authors now choose.NET as their preferred language of choice.
A testamonial: "I finally switched after being pwned by other Malware authors. All my other hack buddies laughed at me!" said 1337HaxX0r, author of AllYURComp.exe, "But now that I'm using.NET, my malicious software is sure to be undeniably secure! Thanks Microsoft!"
But how many times on Slashdot to you see somebody say "Nope, you're wrong. Look- it's in Wikipedia!"
Damn Skippy! There have been many times on the good ol'/. where I've said to myself: "You know, I have nothing important to say, but since I'm a karma whore, I'm going to go invent a wikipedia link to back up my unfounded, erroneous point of view and get modded insightful!"
And there you have it. I solve all my arguments here by changing wikipedia to agree with me. And don't argue, I'm always right.
Which is precisely why I stated " if the author if the quantum program knew what they were looking for". What makes RSA easily crackable using quantum computing is the fact that the solution is trivially verifiable. AKA, there's only one right answer. The "answer space" for DES3 or any other symmetric alogrithm is such that unless you know what you're looking for you won't be able to find it. If you don't know what's in the encrypted packet AT ALL, then yes, you're right.
However, if an attacker realized that certain headers or other recurring information was present (as exists in most such real implementations to date), they would be able to utilize this information to much more quickly narrow down their search for the actual key used in the transformation. If you read Grover's Algorithm carfully, you'll note this difference. Quantum computing is all about knowing how to verify the solutions coming out of the black box.
I haven't seen this mentioned in the threads yet so...
Quantum computing will NOT necessarily speed up all your porn browsing, DOOM playing arses. Instead, Quantum computing affects a set of computational problems that fall into the category of "Non-Determinstic time" algorithms. Non-Determinstic algorithms are identifiable by the fact that they all benefit hugely from being run in parallel. Basically a good rule of thumb is that quantum computing will affect algorithms that gain from being run on massive numbers of processors simultaneously given different (but not inter-communicating) inputs.
Some such problems are: --Most if not all current cryptography --SETI --Other problems where you're looking for one specific output given a potentially huge number of inputs.
As an example in cryptography, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer would be able to break your RSA, DSA, DES3 or any other symmetric or non-symmetric cypher instantaneously if the author of the quantum program knew what they were looking for.
I'm suprised no one has mentioned it so far in the threads...
Mod Parent Up. This is exactly right. In order for causality to be preserved, information can only travel as fast as light.
From Wikipedia, "Quantum Teleportation":
An experiment was conducted and repeated in which: 1. B and C are entangled. 2. C is moved away. 3. B and A are entangled. 4. The state of A and B are read, which affected C at a distance. 5. When a pulse of laser light was aimed at C, then C was turned into an A (but which destroyed the A,B state, by the no-cloning theorem)
Note that If I were left earth and took an entangled state particle to Alpha-Centauri, the above means that in order for me to know I was going to get a particle that changed from C to A, I would have to know what state the folks on earth measured for the AB pair. And that requires: traditional communication at (sub)luminal speeds.
Basically, though we have teleported particle C from earth to Alpha-Centauri, it does us no good from a communication standpoint, since I only have half the information. In effect, I wouldn't know whether my C was going to change into an A or a B, and the folks on earth wouldn't know either until we both read our hands and compared the results.
To put the problem in terms of a Computer Science example, let's say I took a little black-box memory block with me to Alpha-Centauri that had 2 bit in it. An identical (entagled) box was left on earth that contained the EXACT same information bits. However, neither earth nor I knows what's in the box until we look, we just know it's the same thing. The boxes, however unfortunate, only return cryptic information though when we ask them what they contain. They each return two bits and one piece of information: One box returns two bits and an operation that should be applied to the first bit in both boxes in order to get the TRUE value of the first bit. This Operation will either be a NOT or a NO-OP. The other box does the inverse, it returns two bits, but returns an operation that should be applied to the second bit in both boxes (either a NOT or a NO-OP) in order to get the real value of the second bit. As you can quickly see, you can't get two bits worth of information out of EITHER box without knowing what the other person got out of their box. If I'm in Alpha-Centari when I open my box, I'm going to have to wait for a telegram from earth in order to know what my box contains. And I will have to send a telegram to earth before they know what's in their's. Therefore, causality is not effected, even though the updated state of the box was instantaneously transferred when the first of us opened our box, since we don't know it means unless we know what the other person got too.
Re:Culture of Empire vs. Culture of Exploration.
on
The Future of NASA
·
· Score: 1
You know, I don't normally post. Mostly because I feel it's a lot like voting: Mental Masterbation.
However, in this case I feel I have to say something about LLCs. You see, I own several and frankly anyone who thinks they should be abolished probably doesn't know the first goddamn thing about them.
Why am I so vehement about it? Well, as anyone living in the US knows, litigious behaviour has reached an all time high here. What if someone slips in front of one of my buildings? What if an tenant burns down a apartment building and the rest of the tenants don't have rental insurance? Who do you think they're coming after? I own several of them as liability shields specifically because of this attitude.
I really take exception to would-be trolls who think that they can just spout off some Bullshit Theory that they read and assume that it's God's Truth.
LLCs are a great way of allowing small business owners a chance at better tax breaks, liability protection in a scary environment, and simple accounting. You can't get this any other way.
Do some people use LLCs for nefarious use? I'm sure. Do some people use any tool for nefarious use? Yes. So please don't stand there with your small, narrow, infantile point of view and spout off general nonsense on issues you clearly know nothing about.
It's easy to critique, but very few critics could ever back it up their "views" if it came down to it.
Someone please mod parent down.
Actually you can get copies of XP for $99 so long as you can get in touch with a PC vendor. It's called the OEM version. Obviously, if you go into OfficeMax (which is what 80 percent of all normal computer users do) you're going to find an overpriced version of windows. Just like anything else, you can find a cheaper price if you look.
"It seems that when people buy a computer, they expect the software to last as long as the hardware."
Actually I think all people really want is the "look and feel" or comfort of their software interfaces to last as long as their hardware. Like running XP in "windows classic" mode because their new intereface is even MORE dumbed down and reminds you of some variant of a fisher price toy.
"20 megs of it to pound these nails in. And the nails end up pounded in exactly the same as NT does it."
Err.. I'm getting mixed messages here. Do you mean that I should be pounding dirt into my NT box with an 80 year old hammer, or are you saying that I should trash the hammer and use my NT box?
I know computers are great general purpose tools, but I never imagined that one could pound in a nail with the "flinty dependability" of NT!
Read an interesting take on biometrics in the last Cryptogram that Schneier puts out. If you think about it, biometrics really have NO positive impact on actual security. They're more of a placebo for the average non-security minded person. This is precisely why you see a great deal of hype around them and very little real security. Government officials, last I checked, aren't the most savvy people in the world. Especially the ones who graduated last in their class...
Blurb out of the Cryptogram:
"So it is our opinion, that as long as the manufacturers of fingerprint equipment do not solve the live detection problem (i.e. detect the difference between a live finger and a dummy), biometric fingerprint sensors should not be used in combination with identity cards, or in medium to high security applications. In fact, we even believe that identity cards with fingerprint biometrics are in fact weaker than cards without it. The following two examples may illustrate this statement. 1. Suppose, because of the fingerprint check, there is no longer visual identification by an official or a controller. When the fingerprint matches with the template in the card then access is granted if it is a valid card (not on the blacklist). In that case someone who's own card is on the blacklist, can buy a valid identity card with matching dummy fingerprint (only 15 minutes work) and still get access without anyone noticing this. 2. Another example: Suppose there still is visual identification and only in case of doubt--the look-alike problem with identity cards--the fingerprint will be checked. When the photo on the identity card and the person do not really match and the official asks for fingerprint verification, most likely the positive result of the fingerprint scan will prevail. That is, the "OK" from the technical fingerprint system will remove any (legitimate) doubt. It is our opinion that especially the combination of identity cards and biometric fingerprint sensors results in risks of which not many people are aware."
Full article is here: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0311.ht ml
Slashdot Mirror
While I admire your moral stance (and agree), your understanding is quite flawed in regards to the tax.
Any sufficient level of wealth is easily able to bypass the inheritance taxes under the current system. It's all a matter of gaming the system. With any level of pre-planning it is almost trivial to avoid the majority of estate taxes that would be levied. Most if not all wealthy individuals have excellent tax and business consultation. As such, most understand and compartmentalize their wealth into chunks that cannot be easily dissected by the tax you're referring to through the use of corporate structures, limited partnerships, LLCs, and reasonable precautions.
In effect, the inheritance tax really only affects those individuals who:
1) have wealth to pass on
2) did not have proper planning/strategy for their wealth.
Who is that? That would be the middle and upper middle class. Most of whom may have a house and some money or stocks all in their own name.
The Rich DO NOT hold money in their name anymore, They own corporate interests and other non-persuable assets, all with transfer clauses in their corporate bylaws.
So really your stance puts a lot of middle class Americans in a position of continual generational mediocrity or poverty, while transferring those funds to an already wasteful and inefficient system (ie, the US government). Hardly ideal for anyone I think...
Security is one of the core goals of .NET.
.NET as their preferred language of choice.
.NET, my malicious software is sure to be undeniably secure! Thanks Microsoft!"
That's why 9 out of 10 Malware authors now choose
A testamonial:
"I finally switched after being pwned by other Malware authors. All my other hack buddies laughed at me!" said 1337HaxX0r, author of AllYURComp.exe, "But now that I'm using
Damn Skippy! There have been many times on the good ol' /. where I've said to myself: "You know, I have nothing important to say, but since I'm a karma whore, I'm going to go invent a wikipedia link to back up my unfounded, erroneous point of view and get modded insightful!"
And there you have it. I solve all my arguments here by changing wikipedia to agree with me. And don't argue, I'm always right.
You're notation is very confusing, and I can't follow it.
Which is precisely why I stated " if the author if the quantum program knew what they were looking for". What makes RSA easily crackable using quantum computing is the fact that the solution is trivially verifiable. AKA, there's only one right answer. The "answer space" for DES3 or any other symmetric alogrithm is such that unless you know what you're looking for you won't be able to find it. If you don't know what's in the encrypted packet AT ALL, then yes, you're right. However, if an attacker realized that certain headers or other recurring information was present (as exists in most such real implementations to date), they would be able to utilize this information to much more quickly narrow down their search for the actual key used in the transformation. If you read Grover's Algorithm carfully, you'll note this difference. Quantum computing is all about knowing how to verify the solutions coming out of the black box.
I haven't seen this mentioned in the threads yet so...
Quantum computing will NOT necessarily speed up all your porn browsing, DOOM playing arses. Instead, Quantum computing affects a set of computational problems that fall into the category of "Non-Determinstic time" algorithms. Non-Determinstic algorithms are identifiable by the fact that they all benefit hugely from being run in parallel. Basically a good rule of thumb is that quantum computing will affect algorithms that gain from being run on massive numbers of processors simultaneously given different (but not inter-communicating) inputs.
Some such problems are:
--Most if not all current cryptography
--SETI
--Other problems where you're looking for one specific output given a potentially huge number of inputs.
As an example in cryptography, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer would be able to break your RSA, DSA, DES3 or any other symmetric or non-symmetric cypher instantaneously if the author of the quantum program knew what they were looking for.
I'm suprised no one has mentioned it so far in the threads...
Mod Parent Up. This is exactly right. In order for causality to be preserved, information can only travel as fast as light.
From Wikipedia, "Quantum Teleportation":
An experiment was conducted and repeated in which:
1. B and C are entangled.
2. C is moved away.
3. B and A are entangled.
4. The state of A and B are read, which affected C at a distance.
5. When a pulse of laser light was aimed at C, then C was turned into an A (but which destroyed the A,B state, by the no-cloning theorem)
Note that If I were left earth and took an entangled state particle to Alpha-Centauri, the above means that in order for me to know I was going to get a particle that changed from C to A, I would have to know what state the folks on earth measured for the AB pair. And that requires: traditional communication at (sub)luminal speeds.
Basically, though we have teleported particle C from earth to Alpha-Centauri, it does us no good from a communication standpoint, since I only have half the information. In effect, I wouldn't know whether my C was going to change into an A or a B, and the folks on earth wouldn't know either until we both read our hands and compared the results.
To put the problem in terms of a Computer Science example, let's say I took a little black-box memory block with me to Alpha-Centauri that had 2 bit in it. An identical (entagled) box was left on earth that contained the EXACT same information bits. However, neither earth nor I knows what's in the box until we look, we just know it's the same thing. The boxes, however unfortunate, only return cryptic information though when we ask them what they contain. They each return two bits and one piece of information: One box returns two bits and an operation that should be applied to the first bit in both boxes in order to get the TRUE value of the first bit. This Operation will either be a NOT or a NO-OP. The other box does the inverse, it returns two bits, but returns an operation that should be applied to the second bit in both boxes (either a NOT or a NO-OP) in order to get the real value of the second bit. As you can quickly see, you can't get two bits worth of information out of EITHER box without knowing what the other person got out of their box. If I'm in Alpha-Centari when I open my box, I'm going to have to wait for a telegram from earth in order to know what my box contains. And I will have to send a telegram to earth before they know what's in their's. Therefore, causality is not effected, even though the updated state of the box was instantaneously transferred when the first of us opened our box, since we don't know it means unless we know what the other person got too.
You know, I don't normally post. Mostly because I feel it's a lot like voting: Mental Masterbation. However, in this case I feel I have to say something about LLCs. You see, I own several and frankly anyone who thinks they should be abolished probably doesn't know the first goddamn thing about them. Why am I so vehement about it? Well, as anyone living in the US knows, litigious behaviour has reached an all time high here. What if someone slips in front of one of my buildings? What if an tenant burns down a apartment building and the rest of the tenants don't have rental insurance? Who do you think they're coming after? I own several of them as liability shields specifically because of this attitude. I really take exception to would-be trolls who think that they can just spout off some Bullshit Theory that they read and assume that it's God's Truth. LLCs are a great way of allowing small business owners a chance at better tax breaks, liability protection in a scary environment, and simple accounting. You can't get this any other way. Do some people use LLCs for nefarious use? I'm sure. Do some people use any tool for nefarious use? Yes. So please don't stand there with your small, narrow, infantile point of view and spout off general nonsense on issues you clearly know nothing about. It's easy to critique, but very few critics could ever back it up their "views" if it came down to it. Someone please mod parent down.
I hate to point this out to everyone, and this is not a troll, but you've all missed the boat on LoTR reviews until you check out:
www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=16641
Actually you can get copies of XP for $99 so long as you can get in touch with a PC vendor. It's called the OEM version. Obviously, if you go into OfficeMax (which is what 80 percent of all normal computer users do) you're going to find an overpriced version of windows. Just like anything else, you can find a cheaper price if you look.
"It seems that when people buy a computer, they expect the software to last as long as the hardware."
Actually I think all people really want is the "look and feel" or comfort of their software interfaces to last as long as their hardware. Like running XP in "windows classic" mode because their new intereface is even MORE dumbed down and reminds you of some variant of a fisher price toy.
"20 megs of it to pound these nails in. And the nails end up pounded in exactly the same as NT does it."
Err.. I'm getting mixed messages here. Do you mean that I should be pounding dirt into my NT box with an 80 year old hammer, or are you saying that I should trash the hammer and use my NT box?
I know computers are great general purpose tools, but I never imagined that one could pound in a nail with the "flinty dependability" of NT!
Read an interesting take on biometrics in the last Cryptogram that Schneier puts out. If you think about it, biometrics really have NO positive impact on actual security. They're more of a placebo for the average non-security minded person. This is precisely why you see a great deal of hype around them and very little real security. Government officials, last I checked, aren't the most savvy people in the world. Especially the ones who graduated last in their class...
t ml
Blurb out of the Cryptogram:
"So it is our opinion, that as long as the manufacturers of fingerprint equipment do not solve the live detection problem (i.e. detect the difference between a live finger and a dummy), biometric fingerprint sensors should not be used in combination with identity cards, or in medium to high security applications. In fact, we even believe that identity cards with fingerprint biometrics are in fact weaker than cards without it. The following two examples may illustrate this statement.
1. Suppose, because of the fingerprint check, there is no longer visual identification by an official or a controller. When the fingerprint matches with the template in the card then access is granted if it is a valid card (not on the blacklist). In that case someone who's own card is on the blacklist, can buy a valid identity card with matching dummy fingerprint (only 15 minutes work) and still get access without anyone noticing this.
2. Another example: Suppose there still is visual identification and only in case of doubt--the look-alike problem with identity cards--the fingerprint will be checked. When the photo on the identity card and the person do not really match and the official asks for fingerprint verification, most likely the positive result of the fingerprint scan will prevail. That is, the "OK" from the technical fingerprint system will remove any (legitimate) doubt.
It is our opinion that especially the combination of identity cards and biometric fingerprint sensors results in risks of which not many people are aware."
Full article is here:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0311.h