Indeed. In fact, the one really critical lesson of the last 2 or so years, from both Fukushima and NYC/SuperStorm Sandy, is do ***NOT*** build critical or fragile structures near, at, or below sea-level in a near-ocean-shore environment.
...and yet New Orleans is rebuilding and NYC seems to have recovered just fine. Fukushima provides a few other lessons we're still learning.
so concerned about privacy = doesn't care about keeping up to date with web technology?
No, concerned about privacy = educating yourself as to the risks of data leakage.
Attempting to keep your information private = prefers tested and known implementations over keeping up to date with web technology.
Security works the same way; you need to fully analyze the implications of the new technology and give it some "burn in" time before jumping into using it, or you have unknown variables at play in privacy and security.
Exactly. For something like this, I'd base my code off something small and understandable, as much as any browser can be. Chances are, if you care about privacy enough to use this over another browser, you aren't concerned with HTML5, fancy javascript (any javascript), etc. etc, so why even bother using them?
This project sounds about as reputable as Iron. If you want real privacy, use {elinks,links,lynx,w3m} or Dillo or something, so you can at least have a chance at scanning the relevant parts of the source and proving something to yourself.
Personally, I figure browser choice isn't too big of an issue... it's what you're using between your browser and your network that counts the most -- such as privoxy/tor.
Do they have some magical break on AES that no one in academia knows about or can even fathom? No. Just some FUD.
That might be because NSA may have forward-engineered some tricks/backdoors into AES. Doing the reverse-engineering may be much harder.
No, not with AES. AES was not developed in the US, and has been thoroughly reviewed. However, the NSA may have forward-engineered some tricks into common implementations that use AES -- most likely in the form of reducing the actual-used keyspace.
No, you're more likely to find the NSA when dealing with public key-based cryptography, where they can just insert their own master key and not have to worry about the encryption method/implementation at all. It's easier to break a web of trust than a mathematical algorithm.
Yes, and general psychology can also predict what a person would choose on a given image -- i.e. what they consider foreground.
Good news, we have a dumb solution to the problem. "Your gesture must include at least one background element, one foreground element, and one circle."
Uhuh.
I like picture passwords... they let me provide a distraction while I write "12345" on the trackpad, irrespective of the image displayed. Of course, the benefit of this would be gone if everyone started doing it; but the security is roughly similar to entering a password with a keyboard (as long as you pick a strong one).
Hmm... I have a creeping feeling the NSA has already introduced a vulnerability into the rot13! If you click on encrypt twice the original contents are revealed!
Insidious!
Hit it a third time and we're all secure again! Quick!
ROT-13 has been cracked for years... I'd never use anything smaller than ROT-273 these days.
As long as you continue to use it, they will accumulate data and as long as you don't change all your friends at the same time, they can easily identify you based on your social circle (of course they could also use other behaviour for identification). So: No, it won't work.
That said, you could probably do it the other way around... Start 10 new identities, and feed them from different random sources. Also start one real identity. At the same time, turn your old identity into a fake one, filled with fake info (don't close it, it never really "closes" anyway).
Now, anyone filtering by IP, cookie, etc. won't know which information is legit at first glance. You'll hide better in the noise than by providing information analysts a fresh clean start with no noise and very strong correlations that starting up new accounts creates.
Every once in a while, you could spin off some new accounts; every once in a while, you can make one of them real.
Of course, this will really confuse real acquaintances, and you'd better be doing this with your credit cards as well, or you haven't really done much.
The problem you're not foreseeing is what happens when they run out of actual criminals to hunt down and have created a giant, profitable industry on spying. That database that can be used to track down every single person who is a $whatever turns into a motive with a universal applicator. Who could possibly protect that much power from misuse? Its already been demonstrated that they can not.
Indeed. What prevents NSA from eventually turning this over to the DHS' PreCrime unit?
"I'm sorry sir, anyone with access to that information who participated in those activities statistically could not help but committing a crime."
Bandwidth of a postal truck loaded with DVDs is still more than what is available to most people... the latency is measured in days but the throughput is crazy high.
Yes, but how many games do you play in a week? How many movies do you watch in a week? It doesn't matter if the throughput is crazy high if the demand fits inside the bandwidth available for instant gratification. "You could rent 500 movies and play 60 games through us in 3 days, versus only 5 movies and 2 games online, so we need to charge more for the service" is not going to work.
And what does this do to non-returnable optical disk deliveries?
Seems to me that if businesses really want to keep going on this model, the solution is simple: switch from large breakable optical media to SD/microSD cards and rent customers the appropriate player if needed.
"Does anyone else ever notice the color of Mickey?"
Did you ever notice that Mickey has a peer, Goofy, who's a dog. He also has what's obviously a slave dog - Pluto.
Obviously Pluto is the field dog. Goofy is the house dog.
I noticed that Mickey is black AND white -- as is Goofy. Pluto, on the other hand, is brown, and is obviously not of the same intellectual level as Goofy.
So this isn't about black slaves; this is about brown individuals with limited intellect being treated as sub-people....
I've always thought it would be neat to have a server built into a wall of my house, in a ruggedized fire resistant case, that was connected directly into the wiring and communicated over the ground line. Then have a few NAS boxes inserted into the walls in the same way.
This way, I always have a network system and data backups, even if my house gets burgled or some TLA decides to raid the house for some random reason (if it's a specific reason, I'll have to let them know where the devices are, most likely).
Downsides: storage is always too small, moving would be a pain, natural disasters would still be an issue, might not pass safety inspection.
Hmm... another idea: a NAS-style system built into the ceiling that takes striped SD cards through slots?
To be fair, that's exactly how I taught my son; I also broke him out of being locked into base-10 math by showing how it works with powers of two. But then he still needed to memorize the basics in order to develop shortcuts for keeping the calculations moving in his head.
Memorizing a table's no fun, but I still argue that memorizing the results of the process, and then using them over and over again until they stick, is extremely foundational. The problem comes when there's a disconnect between rote learning and actual knowledge transfer.
If he was found in a dingy little basement with row upon row of servers. If he was still named (whatever he was called before dotcom) because he was too poor to afford the renaming fees, THEN I might distrust him a little less.
But honestly anyone with that name or house is pretty obviously trying to become part of the 1 percent, not take them down. (Or at least not without taking over their position.)
That's an unfair attack on Kim! He's not trying to become part of th 1%; he's obviously attempting to start up an alternate 0.1%....
If this wasn't a response to my post, I'd mod you up... very few people in the US education system appear to understand elementary mathematical concepts. They only understand the memorized "facts" but not how they're derived. This then gets passed on to their students.
Tell me... what's 6 x 6? Now don't tell me you don't have that memorized and worked it out in your head. The memorization was due to rote learning, not understanding that if you have 6 groups of 6 items, you add all four groups together to form a unit of 36.
What do you do if you're on fire? Stop, Drop and Roll. Why do you know this? Well, it makes sense, but if you have any sort of decent teacher, they train this into you when you're young with the phrase "stop drop and roll" -- the explanation that you want to contain the fire and starve it of oxygen is nice, but isn't what you need to learn to react appropriately (there ARE times when SDR isn't appropriate, and you still need to understand the concept).
I don't know of anyone who views elementary school education as job training. Maybe you do; That doesn't make it so. And for most job training, you need to be able to connect the dots, or your job is redundant in the first place.
I haven't even got into the "there are many different ways to learn, different children excel via different methods" bit, or all the other stuff that gets trotted out. It all comes down to 3 things in the end: learning by repetition to form habits, learning by problem solving/discussion to form concepts, and motivation/context to foster an environment where the first two can take place. The amount of each of these that's needed varies wildly from child to child, but all are needed, including repetition/rote. This is just as true for civics/socials studies/history/language studies as it is for maths and hard science.
People *should* understand the concepts, but often this doesn't happen until they understand the bigger picture... which doesn't happen until they've got the tools to step through the process. Plus... the "concepts" are often nebulous; ever tried to actually explain math? It's not as easy as you'd think -- it's all based on assumptions you've learned by rote.
Rote is extremely useful; it's how humans learn to do basic things.
Sure, if you call that 'learning.' Shouldn't you actually understand the material?
If I understand you correctly, nope; just like you don't explain to a toddler how perambulation works, you just show them examples and get them to mimic it.
If you mean "shouldn't the teacher actually understand the material?" -- I think you've nailed one of the issues with the current educational system.
I'll assuming you were not trying to take my rote comment out of context (rote is the basis upon which we build a framework of knowledge) and were instead arguing that rote, when needed, comes naturally while attempting to link concepts together. This is true, but assumes the learner is driven to learn the topic (that's a whole other issue) and has developed enough cognitive skills to actually make all the needed connections.
I think rote as a primary mover in secondary and higher education is totally worthless; if you're intentionally taking courses to learn, you're taking them so someone can help you connect the dots, not so they can train your mind to think in one specific way. But for elementary education, rote learning is required. How it's accomplished can be beneficial or detrimental (providing no context is just stupid, providing too much context is distracting), but rote learning itself, even without understanding, is needed.
Sure, given sufficient time, a student could reverse engineer the problem, but it's also trendy for teachers to hand out way too many problems as homework, without permitting the students time to understand.
Teachers use rote repetition to make up for actual learning. It's easier for a kid to apply the same pattern 20 times on a sheet of problems than it is for them to sit and think and "reverse engineer" one problem. But that time spent thinking about one problem teaches the kid far more than they could ever learn by repetition.
You identify the problem correctly, but you blame the wrong party. It's bad teachers, not bad textbooks.
The study cited here says it's bad teachers AND bad textbooks, with textbooks being a bigger issue (likely because it's easier to study a textbook than to study a teacher).
Rote is extremely useful; it's how humans learn to do basic things. Teaching requires rote to build up basic skills, and then teaching to show how to use those skills in combination to accomplish tasks. If a teacher OR a textbook depends too much on application or on explanations, learning will be hampered. Both (and a number of other things) are needed.
I believed I could fly I believed I could touch the sky I thought about it every night and day Just board a plane and fly away I believed I could soar Now agents are running through that open door I believed I could fly I believed I could fly I believed I could fly
There are a lot of people coming in here, saying "about time" or something similar.
You must be prescient... your post is the second comment on this article, and the other one says nothing of the sort. Unless by "here" you mean where you're physically located. Good point, but I don't see the a lot of people you're responding to.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. In fact, the one really critical lesson of the last 2 or so years, from both Fukushima and NYC/SuperStorm Sandy, is do ***NOT*** build critical or fragile structures near, at, or below sea-level in a near-ocean-shore environment.
...and yet New Orleans is rebuilding and NYC seems to have recovered just fine. Fukushima provides a few other lessons we're still learning.
so concerned about privacy = doesn't care about keeping up to date with web technology?
No, concerned about privacy = educating yourself as to the risks of data leakage.
Attempting to keep your information private = prefers tested and known implementations over keeping up to date with web technology.
Security works the same way; you need to fully analyze the implications of the new technology and give it some "burn in" time before jumping into using it, or you have unknown variables at play in privacy and security.
Exactly. For something like this, I'd base my code off something small and understandable, as much as any browser can be. Chances are, if you care about privacy enough to use this over another browser, you aren't concerned with HTML5, fancy javascript (any javascript), etc. etc, so why even bother using them?
This project sounds about as reputable as Iron. If you want real privacy, use {elinks,links,lynx,w3m} or Dillo or something, so you can at least have a chance at scanning the relevant parts of the source and proving something to yourself.
Personally, I figure browser choice isn't too big of an issue... it's what you're using between your browser and your network that counts the most -- such as privoxy/tor.
Do they have some magical break on AES that no one in academia knows about or can even fathom? No. Just some FUD.
That might be because NSA may have forward-engineered some tricks/backdoors into AES. Doing the reverse-engineering may be much harder.
No, not with AES. AES was not developed in the US, and has been thoroughly reviewed. However, the NSA may have forward-engineered some tricks into common implementations that use AES -- most likely in the form of reducing the actual-used keyspace.
No, you're more likely to find the NSA when dealing with public key-based cryptography, where they can just insert their own master key and not have to worry about the encryption method/implementation at all. It's easier to break a web of trust than a mathematical algorithm.
Yes, and general psychology can also predict what a person would choose on a given image -- i.e. what they consider foreground.
Good news, we have a dumb solution to the problem. "Your gesture must include at least one background element, one foreground element, and one circle."
Uhuh.
I like picture passwords... they let me provide a distraction while I write "12345" on the trackpad, irrespective of the image displayed. Of course, the benefit of this would be gone if everyone started doing it; but the security is roughly similar to entering a password with a keyboard (as long as you pick a strong one).
Hmm... I have a creeping feeling the NSA has already introduced a vulnerability into the rot13! If you click on encrypt twice the original contents are revealed!
Insidious!
Hit it a third time and we're all secure again! Quick!
ROT-13 has been cracked for years... I'd never use anything smaller than ROT-273 these days.
As long as you continue to use it, they will accumulate data and as long as you don't change all your friends at the same time, they can easily identify you based on your social circle (of course they could also use other behaviour for identification). So: No, it won't work.
That said, you could probably do it the other way around...
Start 10 new identities, and feed them from different random sources. Also start one real identity. At the same time, turn your old identity into a fake one, filled with fake info (don't close it, it never really "closes" anyway).
Now, anyone filtering by IP, cookie, etc. won't know which information is legit at first glance. You'll hide better in the noise than by providing information analysts a fresh clean start with no noise and very strong correlations that starting up new accounts creates.
Every once in a while, you could spin off some new accounts; every once in a while, you can make one of them real.
Of course, this will really confuse real acquaintances, and you'd better be doing this with your credit cards as well, or you haven't really done much.
The problem you're not foreseeing is what happens when they run out of actual criminals to hunt down and have created a giant, profitable industry on spying. That database that can be used to track down every single person who is a $whatever turns into a motive with a universal applicator. Who could possibly protect that much power from misuse? Its already been demonstrated that they can not.
Indeed. What prevents NSA from eventually turning this over to the DHS' PreCrime unit?
"I'm sorry sir, anyone with access to that information who participated in those activities statistically could not help but committing a crime."
"OK, so why aren't YOU in jail?"
"I work for the government."
Bandwidth of a postal truck loaded with DVDs is still more than what is available to most people... the latency is measured in days but the throughput is crazy high.
Yes, but how many games do you play in a week? How many movies do you watch in a week? It doesn't matter if the throughput is crazy high if the demand fits inside the bandwidth available for instant gratification. "You could rent 500 movies and play 60 games through us in 3 days, versus only 5 movies and 2 games online, so we need to charge more for the service" is not going to work.
And what does this do to non-returnable optical disk deliveries?
Seems to me that if businesses really want to keep going on this model, the solution is simple: switch from large breakable optical media to SD/microSD cards and rent customers the appropriate player if needed.
"Does anyone else ever notice the color of Mickey?"
Did you ever notice that Mickey has a peer, Goofy, who's a dog. He also has what's obviously a slave dog - Pluto.
Obviously Pluto is the field dog. Goofy is the house dog.
I noticed that Mickey is black AND white -- as is Goofy. Pluto, on the other hand, is brown, and is obviously not of the same intellectual level as Goofy.
So this isn't about black slaves; this is about brown individuals with limited intellect being treated as sub-people....
Ah; there's an idea for his next project:
MegaLeaks. He could even start a political party dedicated to fostering information leaks while protecting privacy.
I've always thought it would be neat to have a server built into a wall of my house, in a ruggedized fire resistant case, that was connected directly into the wiring and communicated over the ground line. Then have a few NAS boxes inserted into the walls in the same way.
This way, I always have a network system and data backups, even if my house gets burgled or some TLA decides to raid the house for some random reason (if it's a specific reason, I'll have to let them know where the devices are, most likely).
Downsides: storage is always too small, moving would be a pain, natural disasters would still be an issue, might not pass safety inspection.
Hmm... another idea: a NAS-style system built into the ceiling that takes striped SD cards through slots?
To be fair, that's exactly how I taught my son; I also broke him out of being locked into base-10 math by showing how it works with powers of two. But then he still needed to memorize the basics in order to develop shortcuts for keeping the calculations moving in his head.
Memorizing a table's no fun, but I still argue that memorizing the results of the process, and then using them over and over again until they stick, is extremely foundational. The problem comes when there's a disconnect between rote learning and actual knowledge transfer.
If he was found in a dingy little basement with row upon row of servers. If he was still named (whatever he was called before dotcom) because he was too poor to afford the renaming fees, THEN I might distrust him a little less.
But honestly anyone with that name or house is pretty obviously trying to become part of the 1 percent, not take them down. (Or at least not without taking over their position.)
That's an unfair attack on Kim! He's not trying to become part of th 1%; he's obviously attempting to start up an alternate 0.1%....
If this wasn't a response to my post, I'd mod you up... very few people in the US education system appear to understand elementary mathematical concepts. They only understand the memorized "facts" but not how they're derived. This then gets passed on to their students.
Tell me... what's 6 x 6?
Now don't tell me you don't have that memorized and worked it out in your head. The memorization was due to rote learning, not understanding that if you have 6 groups of 6 items, you add all four groups together to form a unit of 36.
What do you do if you're on fire? Stop, Drop and Roll. Why do you know this? Well, it makes sense, but if you have any sort of decent teacher, they train this into you when you're young with the phrase "stop drop and roll" -- the explanation that you want to contain the fire and starve it of oxygen is nice, but isn't what you need to learn to react appropriately (there ARE times when SDR isn't appropriate, and you still need to understand the concept).
I don't know of anyone who views elementary school education as job training. Maybe you do; That doesn't make it so. And for most job training, you need to be able to connect the dots, or your job is redundant in the first place.
I haven't even got into the "there are many different ways to learn, different children excel via different methods" bit, or all the other stuff that gets trotted out. It all comes down to 3 things in the end: learning by repetition to form habits, learning by problem solving/discussion to form concepts, and motivation/context to foster an environment where the first two can take place. The amount of each of these that's needed varies wildly from child to child, but all are needed, including repetition/rote. This is just as true for civics/socials studies/history/language studies as it is for maths and hard science.
People *should* understand the concepts, but often this doesn't happen until they understand the bigger picture... which doesn't happen until they've got the tools to step through the process. Plus... the "concepts" are often nebulous; ever tried to actually explain math? It's not as easy as you'd think -- it's all based on assumptions you've learned by rote.
Rote is extremely useful; it's how humans learn to do basic things.
Sure, if you call that 'learning.' Shouldn't you actually understand the material?
If I understand you correctly, nope; just like you don't explain to a toddler how perambulation works, you just show them examples and get them to mimic it.
If you mean "shouldn't the teacher actually understand the material?" -- I think you've nailed one of the issues with the current educational system.
I'll assuming you were not trying to take my rote comment out of context (rote is the basis upon which we build a framework of knowledge) and were instead arguing that rote, when needed, comes naturally while attempting to link concepts together. This is true, but assumes the learner is driven to learn the topic (that's a whole other issue) and has developed enough cognitive skills to actually make all the needed connections.
I think rote as a primary mover in secondary and higher education is totally worthless; if you're intentionally taking courses to learn, you're taking them so someone can help you connect the dots, not so they can train your mind to think in one specific way. But for elementary education, rote learning is required. How it's accomplished can be beneficial or detrimental (providing no context is just stupid, providing too much context is distracting), but rote learning itself, even without understanding, is needed.
Just wait until the new titanium-graphite (TiGr) and beryllium-argon (BeAr) batteries reach the market.
I'm partial to LiGr technology myself....
Sure, given sufficient time, a student could reverse engineer the problem, but it's also trendy for teachers to hand out way too many problems as homework, without permitting the students time to understand.
Teachers use rote repetition to make up for actual learning. It's easier for a kid to apply the same pattern 20 times on a sheet of problems than it is for them to sit and think and "reverse engineer" one problem. But that time spent thinking about one problem teaches the kid far more than they could ever learn by repetition.
You identify the problem correctly, but you blame the wrong party. It's bad teachers, not bad textbooks.
The study cited here says it's bad teachers AND bad textbooks, with textbooks being a bigger issue (likely because it's easier to study a textbook than to study a teacher).
Rote is extremely useful; it's how humans learn to do basic things. Teaching requires rote to build up basic skills, and then teaching to show how to use those skills in combination to accomplish tasks. If a teacher OR a textbook depends too much on application or on explanations, learning will be hampered. Both (and a number of other things) are needed.
Might be a matter of execution rather than concept. Integrated math worked perfectly fine at my school.
Likely there's an issue of differentiation between learning methods.
Quantum Cryptogaphy exists in a superposition of simultaneously being secure and not-secure.
(Eh, somebody was gonna...)
=Smidge=
But now that we know that, does it actually exist?
Pre-emptively prescient, as I was honestly wondering why he was watering down his good point with an outright fabrication.
Although it's really more like:
I shot for the sky
I’m stuck on the ground
So why do I try, I know I’m gonna fall down
I thought I could fly, so why did I drown?
I'll never know why it’s coming down, down, down.
Oh I am going down, down, down
Can’t find another way around
And I don’t want to hear the sound, of losing what I never found.
I believed I could fly
I believed I could touch the sky
I thought about it every night and day
Just board a plane and fly away
I believed I could soar
Now agents are running through that open door
I believed I could fly
I believed I could fly
I believed I could fly
There are a lot of people coming in here, saying "about time" or something similar.
You must be prescient... your post is the second comment on this article, and the other one says nothing of the sort. Unless by "here" you mean where you're physically located. Good point, but I don't see the a lot of people you're responding to.