Also tell me why my taxes fund the collection of data on innocent people. This is a costly process, and rife with potential for abuse. Why would I want my government to record this information?
For those that aren't disturbed by this. Consider the president of the Ukraine, Yushenko. What if instead of using Dioxin, they created a virus tailor made to attack his DNA?
What if they made all World Bank protestors sick?
If the government has access and control over our DNA they can use that data against us.
Don't forget that onerous password policies actually make your productivity and security go down.
Scenario:
New password policy requiring a new password every month and a password with 1 special character, 1 capital letter, 1 lower case letter, 1 number, at least 8 characters no duplicated characters, and not more than 75 percent similar to any of your last 10 passwords.
Your salesman is out of the office on a regular basis and needs to download the new data sheet before a customer pitch and can't remember the new password he chose 2 weeks ago and hasn't used since. (Lost productivity/sales)
Your help desk agents now get 5X the password reset requests as they normally do on a Monday morning. The call wait times have gone up to as much as an hour. The other job functions they perform get neglected, causing incresed system downtime. (Lost productivity)
The harried help desk agents no longer ask all of the verification questions they are required to in order to decrease their call times. Callers outside the bank claim to be harried salesmen in order to get access to confidential documents. (Decreased security)
Anyone still think more complicated passwords are the answer?
Biometrics (Voice for phone, fingerprint for physical access, and either for data are required to allow improve security without destroying productivity)
Something you have, something you know, something you are.
The best systems incorporate a little of each. For a phone banking application: A unique transaction number out of a booklet your bank sent you. (something you have) A voice sample of you saying the numbers (something you are) Your birthday (something you know)
Even though each of these individually is 95-97% secure at best, the combination is highly secure.
The profile for a voice is much different from that of a gunshot, and creating a multi-purpose system to do this would make both perform much worse.
Also speech recognition knowledge is very different from speaker recognition (one cares about what the person says regardless of how they say it, the other cares about how they say it regardless of what it is). The mathematical models for both are very different.
Also the microphones are likely specialized in the wrong frequency/volume range to be useful for speaker authentication.
I mean look at US News and World Report which is probably the widest read news weekly.
Look how straight-laced Kerry has had to go to even attempt to appeal to the Midwestern, Rust Belt, and Southern voters.
The US, like it or not, is a very conservative country.
1 drink of wine = 1 glass
1 drink of beer = 1 pony keg.
I personally prefer the weight of the glass, but some may prefer the durability of the keg.
But really a pint of beer vs. a glass of wine is hardly comparable at least from a calorie standpoint.
Could they want to redirect the bevy of free and cheap things listed on craigslist on a typical day to their site for auction?
Or are they interested in getting into the online classifieds market in general?
Microsoft patents three finger salute. Whiny boy scouts claim prior art. Bill Gates derides scouts as religious cult, and threatens to sue the pimply freaks into oblivion.
Yikes! Is he trying to get what little liberties we have left removed? And we thought the RIAA/MPAA were the biggest threat to P2P networks. They have nothing on a peeved military!
Is it a mere coincidence that this is the platform most favored by Tivo hackers for getting access to the unadulterated data stream from DirecTv.
Perhaps, but I doubt it.
The problem is the patent office doesn't have enough bandwidth to deal with current patents, much less overturn existing ones.
There's a quote in the article by a member of the patent office saying that the goal is accuracy balanced very heavily against speed. All of the reviewers have quotas they have to meet, and it takes a lot longer to review a hairy software patent than a physical invention with drawings, but they aren't given the time.
There wasn't even a mechanism for overturning patents until 1982, so its not suprising that they aren't good at it yet.
I could care less who me DSL/local/longdistance carrier is as long as it works reasonably well. If California gets rid of the discount for getting all 3 through SBC it would raise my bill by 40 bucks a month!
Sometimes regulation is not worth the taxes we pay for it, and this is one case where I don't think anyone will save money (unless they are willing to put up with a great deal of angst).
Not until someone ports either OpenGL or DirectX to Java. OpenGL has a JNI implementation (blech!), and last time I checked Microsoft was banned from ever touching Java again.
Summary: Fat chance.
The real problem with Diebold isn't the lack of a paper trail. It's that the machines can and are being changed after being certified as reliable. A machine that gives you a paper receipt of your vote isn't worth a damn if someone can hack the smartcard that records the votes to log something else after the certification is complete.
It says nothing about being ready to mass-produce the technology.
In fact, the way I read the article, the partnership is so that they can try to create any sort of working process that is even remotely cost-effective and works reliably. This is a long way from commercial viability.
Without this partnership, Nantero has no ability to fab this kind of technology at any volume on their own. It sounds as if they are using the joint partership to go hunting for funding. I don't even see a concrete product announcement
Elevator companies have been doing this for years. Everyone knows that if you push your floors button multiple times that it gets there faster! It's so obvious even 5 year olds know about it!
Slashdot Mirror
Also tell me why my taxes fund the collection of data on innocent people. This is a costly process, and rife with potential for abuse. Why would I want my government to record this information?
For those that aren't disturbed by this. Consider the president of the Ukraine, Yushenko. What if instead of using Dioxin, they created a virus tailor made to attack his DNA?
What if they made all World Bank protestors sick?
If the government has access and control over our DNA they can use that data against us.
Don't forget that onerous password policies actually make your productivity and security go down. Scenario: New password policy requiring a new password every month and a password with 1 special character, 1 capital letter, 1 lower case letter, 1 number, at least 8 characters no duplicated characters, and not more than 75 percent similar to any of your last 10 passwords. Your salesman is out of the office on a regular basis and needs to download the new data sheet before a customer pitch and can't remember the new password he chose 2 weeks ago and hasn't used since. (Lost productivity/sales) Your help desk agents now get 5X the password reset requests as they normally do on a Monday morning. The call wait times have gone up to as much as an hour. The other job functions they perform get neglected, causing incresed system downtime. (Lost productivity) The harried help desk agents no longer ask all of the verification questions they are required to in order to decrease their call times. Callers outside the bank claim to be harried salesmen in order to get access to confidential documents. (Decreased security) Anyone still think more complicated passwords are the answer? Biometrics (Voice for phone, fingerprint for physical access, and either for data are required to allow improve security without destroying productivity)
Breaks down into 3 realms
Something you have, something you know, something you are.
The best systems incorporate a little of each.
For a phone banking application:
A unique transaction number out of a booklet your bank sent you. (something you have)
A voice sample of you saying the numbers (something you are)
Your birthday (something you know)
Even though each of these individually is 95-97% secure at best, the combination is highly secure.
The profile for a voice is much different from that of a gunshot, and creating a multi-purpose system to do this would make both perform much worse.
Also speech recognition knowledge is very different from speaker recognition (one cares about what the person says regardless of how they say it, the other cares about how they say it regardless of what it is). The mathematical models for both are very different.
Also the microphones are likely specialized in the wrong frequency/volume range to be useful for speaker authentication.
Ooh, so ignorance is a valid defense after all! All right everyone, stop studying and you to can run a monopoly.
Darn it, look at all the cool toys we could have if we would just take some personal responsibility for our actions.
I mean look at US News and World Report which is probably the widest read news weekly. Look how straight-laced Kerry has had to go to even attempt to appeal to the Midwestern, Rust Belt, and Southern voters. The US, like it or not, is a very conservative country.
1 drink of wine = 1 glass 1 drink of beer = 1 pony keg. I personally prefer the weight of the glass, but some may prefer the durability of the keg. But really a pint of beer vs. a glass of wine is hardly comparable at least from a calorie standpoint.
The real reason for the delay is that the lawyers have their next scheduled stock sale next week!
Could they want to redirect the bevy of free and cheap things listed on craigslist on a typical day to their site for auction? Or are they interested in getting into the online classifieds market in general?
Interesting, it appears most of the jobs are consulting related. Polish up your Linux skills boys and get those resumes up to date.
Because that ferret is destined to go on a long dark journey!
Microsoft patents three finger salute. Whiny boy scouts claim prior art. Bill Gates derides scouts as religious cult, and threatens to sue the pimply freaks into oblivion.
Yikes! Is he trying to get what little liberties we have left removed? And we thought the RIAA/MPAA were the biggest threat to P2P networks. They have nothing on a peeved military!
Is it a mere coincidence that this is the platform most favored by Tivo hackers for getting access to the unadulterated data stream from DirecTv. Perhaps, but I doubt it.
The problem is the patent office doesn't have enough bandwidth to deal with current patents, much less overturn existing ones. There's a quote in the article by a member of the patent office saying that the goal is accuracy balanced very heavily against speed. All of the reviewers have quotas they have to meet, and it takes a lot longer to review a hairy software patent than a physical invention with drawings, but they aren't given the time. There wasn't even a mechanism for overturning patents until 1982, so its not suprising that they aren't good at it yet.
I mean I still can't watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy directors cut without swapping discs so whats the point!
I could care less who me DSL/local/longdistance carrier is as long as it works reasonably well. If California gets rid of the discount for getting all 3 through SBC it would raise my bill by 40 bucks a month! Sometimes regulation is not worth the taxes we pay for it, and this is one case where I don't think anyone will save money (unless they are willing to put up with a great deal of angst).
Not until someone ports either OpenGL or DirectX to Java. OpenGL has a JNI implementation (blech!), and last time I checked Microsoft was banned from ever touching Java again. Summary: Fat chance.
The real problem with Diebold isn't the lack of a paper trail. It's that the machines can and are being changed after being certified as reliable. A machine that gives you a paper receipt of your vote isn't worth a damn if someone can hack the smartcard that records the votes to log something else after the certification is complete.
It says nothing about being ready to mass-produce the technology. In fact, the way I read the article, the partnership is so that they can try to create any sort of working process that is even remotely cost-effective and works reliably. This is a long way from commercial viability. Without this partnership, Nantero has no ability to fab this kind of technology at any volume on their own. It sounds as if they are using the joint partership to go hunting for funding. I don't even see a concrete product announcement
Elevator companies have been doing this for years. Everyone knows that if you push your floors button multiple times that it gets there faster! It's so obvious even 5 year olds know about it!