The idea of a digital divided appears to have an underlying assumption that poor people - regardless of where they live - are poor because they do not have access to information in general and the Internet in particular.
Lack of internet access may sound like a small thing where we have ubiquitous phone service, but in parts of the world where it's the only means of communication, the difference between having and not having internet connectivity is enormous.
Imagine a hypothetical country where group A is at war against group B. Suppose A and B work out their issues through negatiation, and the war is over. A small village belonging to group A in the middle of nowhere doesn't get the message, and attacks and kills some people from group B. The war starts up again over the misunderstanding, which could have been prevented through reliable communication.
Also, lack of communication infrastructure is one thing that keeps poor countries from becoming not poor, and good communication may help resolve some of the other problems (tyranical governments, corruption, etc...).
Interesting. Looks like RSA sells a usb token that can do signatures with keys up to 1024 bits. According to froogle, they sell for about thirty bucks. Does anyone out there have experience using one of these? Is it easy to set up linux to use one for login (remotely or locally)? Can you set your own private key, or do you have to use the one preset at the factory?
That's cool. price is $53.21 for the most recent version, $34.22 for the older model. Do you know what RSA key size they use? Also, my inate tin-foil-hat suspicion makes me wonder if there's any way to set my own key so it's not the one pre-set by the factory (who knows if they keep copies of the keys of all the products they sell...). Also, it would be good to know what the private key is, so I can keep it in a safe place in case I lose the device.
I wonder how long until my passport and drivers license is replaced by one of these...
One day we'll have Biometrics, so we won't have to remember our passwords.
It seem to me that the ideal solution is public key cryptography. Maybe you carry around a simple usb device that stores your private key. To log into a computer, you plug it in, the computer sends a text string, the usb device replies with a digital signature for the text string. The computer validates the signature with the users public key and if it's good, the computer lets the user log on. (Does anyone manufacture such a device? It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to mass produce.)
Much simpler than biometrics, it can be used to log into untrusted machines, and no need to install clunky retina scanners on all my computers.
I prefer the concept of storing a large key on your thumbdrive, which you then need to plug in in order to log into your machine.
That would be a step in the right direction, but it's still dangerous. I would rather have a "thumbdrive" that authenticates the user through public key cryptography. For instance, you plug it into a computer, the computer transmits a text string, the "thumbdrive" signs the text string with its private key. The private key never leaves the device, so its safe to use to log into untrusted computers.
Does anyone manufacture such a device? If not, why not? If yes, where can I get one?
An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel's analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.
Your (and the article's) point may be valid, but 328 gallons is still more than 140 gallons. (the difference in energy density doesn't quite make up the difference (9.7 kwh/l for gasoline, 6.1 kwh/l for ethanol)
I'm not an expert on this issue, but I found more information here,
and a study with results showing that ethanol production does indeed produce more energy than we put into it can be found here.
What's the deal with 802.11 and cordless phones intefering anyways? I thought this was the problem spread spectrum was supposed to solve: Direct sequence radios should be relatively immune to narrow band interference, and frequency hopping radios should not be affected much by direct sequence signals.
If they work at all, they work by adaptively locating an empty part of the 2.4 GHz spectrum
IIRC the FCC part 15 rules forbid this: for frequency hopping radios, they must hop to every channel in the hopping pattern with equal frequency. Or are cordless phones usually direct sequence?
Interesting - that gives a window of about 8.3 milliseconds. (1/120th of a second, if I understand you correctly.) A full size packet takes about a millisecond to transmit at 11mbps, plus a few hundred microseconds for the ack. That should be well within the window.
Unfortunately, after repeatedly losing packets, most 802.11 gear will probably drop the transmission rate to its slowest rate: 1mbps. 1500*8 bits at 1 mbps is about 12 milliseconds (plus a few hundred microseconds for the header), which no longer fits in the window. In other words, by falling back on a more reliable transmission mechanism, 802.11 shoots itself in the foot.
Maybe if you can pin the rate at 11mbps and enable short headers (an option in the 802.11b standard supported by some hardware) it could work reasonably well, but fragmenting packets should help as well.
For example, 83% of the experts said e-voting is less or much less secure against election tampering than paper ballots, compared with just 19% of the general public."
From the number it is apparent that this cluelessness can be found in both parties.
I dont know if its possible, but could you actualy use the metal in the walls as an antenna?
If the antenna isn't properly matched to the radio you can end up with high SWR (standing wave ratio), which could potentially damage the radio. The energy, instead of being transmitted out the antenna, gets reflected back to the transmitter, which can cause it to overheat. That's my understanding, at least. If someone else knows better, feel free to correct me.
It also taught me not to look at the keyboard at all (as the keys don't match)
This is an oft-overlooked feature of dvorak - you have to learn to touch-type. This advantage of dvorak can easily be applied to qwerty keyboards, though. All it takes is a little sandpaper (I've done this on a smaller scale by erradicating the logo off of the windows keys). If I was teaching a high school keyboarding class, the first assignment would be to sand all the letters off the keys. Then everyone would learn in half the time.
citeseer has full text available for for most of its articles, and its a free service, so maybe copyright isn't such a big deal for some reason. Maybe it's because most papers in computer science are available from the author's website.
Is it just me or is a scientific database every idiot can add to a bad idea?
Maybe. On the other hand, an encyclopedia every idiot can add to turned out alright. But they have a certain amount of centralized control to keep things from getting out of hand.
Fortunately, few idiots (or anyone else) have much of an incentive to falsify bibliographic data.
People accept the limitations of html and http because its currently the best thing out there. It does have problems, though:
Scalability. A server that isn't well provisioned can easily be slashdotted or DDOSed into oblivion. Not everyone can afford a DS3 or akamai. This problem could be solved through replication.
Document identity. A document's location is a permanent part of its file name. If a document moves, its contents are the same, yet its name changes. Sometimes, its nice to be able to retrieve a document knowing only its name, hash or, md5sum. This how many distributed hash table-based p2p systems, like chord, tapestry, freenet, and CAN work.
Lack of Backlinks. There's no way to ask "what points to this page?" without crawling the whole web. (I know google allows backlink querries, but they're not necessarily up to date.)
Lack of meaning in links. I would like to be able to associate adjectives and weights with my links, as a hint to search engines. As in "a href=http://slashdot.org relevance=1.0, accuracy=-0.5, novelty=0.8". I think this sort of thing is supposed to be addressed by the semantic web.
What happens a few years around the road when a little corosion sets in, and the little motor attached to the screw can no longer back it out. If you took advantage of the fact that it does not need access how do you remove it when the mechanism fails?
Thanks to modern technology, we can combine the most confounding problems of automotive maintenance in one place. A bolt in an inaccessible location, which must be removed with a proprietary tool, is stuck due to rust and/or faulty wiring! Yay!
You would have to throw away the whole car
From the auto-industry perspective, this probably doesn't sound like a big problem...
The auditors would have to audit every bit of the toolchain, the compiler and linker, and the rest of the system to be able successfully rely on the code audit.
Even that might be insufficient. Ken Thompson showed in his '95 Turing award speech how a compiler trojan can exist even if the backdoor is not present in the compiler's source code.
This would be a good use of APRS (automatic position reporting system). The basic idea is that you plug a gps into a handheld HAM radio, and the radio transmits your position at periodic intervals.
He's actually not proposing a fork per se, more like a place to collect patches to the mainline gnome that are unlikely to be accepted into mainline gnome anytime soon.
It's pretty hard to exceed the legal limit for antenna gain with a pringles can (unless you're using it in conjunction with an amplifier). 15 dbm card + 12 dbi cantenna = 27 dbm effective radiated power, which is significantly less than 36 dhm erp (4 watts), which is the limit for most applications.
See also part 15 section 23 (home built devices), which seems to imply that its perfectly okay to build your own custom antennas in some situations regardless of what the article says.
How is it clearly illegal? I didn't know it was illegal to use your own attenas? Was it illegal to put a coat hanger on a walkee talkee with a broken antenna?
If I understand correctly (which I may not), the article is not entirely correct. There are exceptions for "homebrew" equipment, as long as you don't make more than five of a device:
Subpart A--General
Sec. 15.23 Home-built devices.
(a) Equipment authorization is not required for devices that are not
marketed, are not constructed from a kit, and are built in quantities of
five or less for personal use.
(b) It is recognized that the individual builder of home-built
equipment may not possess the means to perform the measurements for
determining compliance with the regulations. In this case, the builder
is expected to employ good engineering practices to meet the specified
technical standards to the greatest extent practicable. The provisions
of Sec. 15.5 apply to this equipment.
So, buying and using a cantenna would be illegal, but building your own would be fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Lack of internet access may sound like a small thing where we have ubiquitous phone service, but in parts of the world where it's the only means of communication, the difference between having and not having internet connectivity is enormous.
Imagine a hypothetical country where group A is at war against group B. Suppose A and B work out their issues through negatiation, and the war is over. A small village belonging to group A in the middle of nowhere doesn't get the message, and attacks and kills some people from group B. The war starts up again over the misunderstanding, which could have been prevented through reliable communication.
Also, lack of communication infrastructure is one thing that keeps poor countries from becoming not poor, and good communication may help resolve some of the other problems (tyranical governments, corruption, etc...).
-jim
Interesting. Looks like RSA sells a usb token that can do signatures with keys up to 1024 bits. According to froogle, they sell for about thirty bucks. Does anyone out there have experience using one of these? Is it easy to set up linux to use one for login (remotely or locally)? Can you set your own private key, or do you have to use the one preset at the factory?
-jim
That's cool. price is $53.21 for the most recent version, $34.22 for the older model. Do you know what RSA key size they use? Also, my inate tin-foil-hat suspicion makes me wonder if there's any way to set my own key so it's not the one pre-set by the factory (who knows if they keep copies of the keys of all the products they sell...). Also, it would be good to know what the private key is, so I can keep it in a safe place in case I lose the device.
I wonder how long until my passport and drivers license is replaced by one of these...
-jim
It seem to me that the ideal solution is public key cryptography. Maybe you carry around a simple usb device that stores your private key. To log into a computer, you plug it in, the computer sends a text string, the usb device replies with a digital signature for the text string. The computer validates the signature with the users public key and if it's good, the computer lets the user log on. (Does anyone manufacture such a device? It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to mass produce.)
Much simpler than biometrics, it can be used to log into untrusted machines, and no need to install clunky retina scanners on all my computers.
-jim
That would be a step in the right direction, but it's still dangerous. I would rather have a "thumbdrive" that authenticates the user through public key cryptography. For instance, you plug it into a computer, the computer transmits a text string, the "thumbdrive" signs the text string with its private key. The private key never leaves the device, so its safe to use to log into untrusted computers.
Does anyone manufacture such a device? If not, why not? If yes, where can I get one?
-jim
LO, praise of the prowess of moderators of troll-armed Slashdotters, in days long sped, we have heard, and what honor the NASA reasearchers won!
The story you cite does not show this.
Your (and the article's) point may be valid, but 328 gallons is still more than 140 gallons. (the difference in energy density doesn't quite make up the difference (9.7 kwh/l for gasoline, 6.1 kwh/l for ethanol)
I'm not an expert on this issue, but I found more information here, and a study with results showing that ethanol production does indeed produce more energy than we put into it can be found here.
-jim
What's the deal with 802.11 and cordless phones intefering anyways? I thought this was the problem spread spectrum was supposed to solve: Direct sequence radios should be relatively immune to narrow band interference, and frequency hopping radios should not be affected much by direct sequence signals.
IIRC the FCC part 15 rules forbid this: for frequency hopping radios, they must hop to every channel in the hopping pattern with equal frequency. Or are cordless phones usually direct sequence?
-jim
Interesting - that gives a window of about 8.3 milliseconds. (1/120th of a second, if I understand you correctly.) A full size packet takes about a millisecond to transmit at 11mbps, plus a few hundred microseconds for the ack. That should be well within the window.
Unfortunately, after repeatedly losing packets, most 802.11 gear will probably drop the transmission rate to its slowest rate: 1mbps. 1500*8 bits at 1 mbps is about 12 milliseconds (plus a few hundred microseconds for the header), which no longer fits in the window. In other words, by falling back on a more reliable transmission mechanism, 802.11 shoots itself in the foot.
Maybe if you can pin the rate at 11mbps and enable short headers (an option in the 802.11b standard supported by some hardware) it could work reasonably well, but fragmenting packets should help as well.
-jim
From the number it is apparent that this cluelessness can be found in both parties.
-jim
If the antenna isn't properly matched to the radio you can end up with high SWR (standing wave ratio), which could potentially damage the radio. The energy, instead of being transmitted out the antenna, gets reflected back to the transmitter, which can cause it to overheat. That's my understanding, at least. If someone else knows better, feel free to correct me.
-jim
This is an oft-overlooked feature of dvorak - you have to learn to touch-type. This advantage of dvorak can easily be applied to qwerty keyboards, though. All it takes is a little sandpaper (I've done this on a smaller scale by erradicating the logo off of the windows keys). If I was teaching a high school keyboarding class, the first assignment would be to sand all the letters off the keys. Then everyone would learn in half the time.
-jim
citeseer has full text available for for most of its articles, and its a free service, so maybe copyright isn't such a big deal for some reason. Maybe it's because most papers in computer science are available from the author's website.
-jim
Maybe. On the other hand, an encyclopedia every idiot can add to turned out alright. But they have a certain amount of centralized control to keep things from getting out of hand.
Fortunately, few idiots (or anyone else) have much of an incentive to falsify bibliographic data.
-jim
Isn't that what nanotechnology is all about?
-jim
People accept the limitations of html and http because its currently the best thing out there. It does have problems, though:
Scalability. A server that isn't well provisioned can easily be slashdotted or DDOSed into oblivion. Not everyone can afford a DS3 or akamai. This problem could be solved through replication.
Document identity. A document's location is a permanent part of its file name. If a document moves, its contents are the same, yet its name changes. Sometimes, its nice to be able to retrieve a document knowing only its name, hash or, md5sum. This how many distributed hash table-based p2p systems, like chord, tapestry, freenet, and CAN work.
Lack of Backlinks. There's no way to ask "what points to this page?" without crawling the whole web. (I know google allows backlink querries, but they're not necessarily up to date.)
Lack of meaning in links. I would like to be able to associate adjectives and weights with my links, as a hint to search engines. As in "a href=http://slashdot.org relevance=1.0, accuracy=-0.5, novelty=0.8". I think this sort of thing is supposed to be addressed by the semantic web.
-jim
Thanks to modern technology, we can combine the most confounding problems of automotive maintenance in one place. A bolt in an inaccessible location, which must be removed with a proprietary tool, is stuck due to rust and/or faulty wiring! Yay!
From the auto-industry perspective, this probably doesn't sound like a big problem...
-jim
Replace "long hill" with "free fall" and "around the US" with "around the world" and you get the international space station.
-jim
Even that might be insufficient. Ken Thompson showed in his '95 Turing award speech how a compiler trojan can exist even if the backdoor is not present in the compiler's source code.
Here's the link.
Klystron
-jim
This would be a good use of APRS (automatic position reporting system). The basic idea is that you plug a gps into a handheld HAM radio, and the radio transmits your position at periodic intervals.
-jim
He's actually not proposing a fork per se, more like a place to collect patches to the mainline gnome that are unlikely to be accepted into mainline gnome anytime soon.
-jim
It's pretty hard to exceed the legal limit for antenna gain with a pringles can (unless you're using it in conjunction with an amplifier). 15 dbm card + 12 dbi cantenna = 27 dbm effective radiated power, which is significantly less than 36 dhm erp (4 watts), which is the limit for most applications.
See also part 15 section 23 (home built devices), which seems to imply that its perfectly okay to build your own custom antennas in some situations regardless of what the article says.
-jim
It looks rather like a moire pattern.
jim
If I understand correctly (which I may not), the article is not entirely correct. There are exceptions for "homebrew" equipment, as long as you don't make more than five of a device:
So, buying and using a cantenna would be illegal, but building your own would be fine.
-jim