According to the Microsoft Blog link on the Wiki page, it's randomly assigned at dll/exe lauch and can be one of any 256 combinations. I would presume the 256 random combinations are preassigned and just randomly picked...
I was at a Microsoft Vista technical review where they explained this as being an anti-buffer overflow attack; since the locations of the specific items within an assigned memory space are randomized, the chances of targeting a buffer overflow to a specific chunk of the program's assigned memory is drastically reduced.
However, the spectrum is licensed by the FCC as part of the public airwaves. A powerful case could be made that the government should give that spectrum up to garage door owners, because they get more public use out of it.
After all, the government really doesn't need it, and garage doors are already using it.
Right. It doesn't work that way. The way to jam a transmitter with power 10X is by puting out a signal with power 100X. It doesn't work the other way. It might raise the noise floor, but it certainly won't jam the more powerful transmitter. That's why one of the easiest ways to cut through jamming is to just raise the transmission power of the transciever- it makes the signal easier to distinguish from the background noise.
You'd need a big enough bomb that it turned the components into vapor, or at least tiny fragments. How about "Engine failure triggers drag chute deployment, followed shortly by multiple main chute deployment"?
...I really fail to see why we are arguing the merits of bomb-detonation techniques. Ah, slashdot, the things you learn.
I simply suggested that phones have a large number of disadvantages, the main one being their traceability, jammability, etc, etc. In turn, I suggested a way that solves those problems, while having it's own problems. I don't dispute that.
Plus, where the hell is everyone getting these fucking cheap phones? Last time I was in New York, about 15 months ago, the cheapest prepaid phone I could get (that was actually legit, came with time, etc.) was 189.99.
Well, I think the ability to carry or transport something other than itself (passengers or other cargo) would differentiate vehicles and drones.
...heh, heh, heh. Can you say civillian UAV with hellfire missiles?
(I started my last message before seeing your other response that explained your setup can do computer control.)
Actually, it's not hard. The real difficulty (and I suppose the true difference between a drone and a UAV) is that the range of my plane is negligable. If I'm lucky, I get 150 meters, line of sight, at which point the plane basically keeps doing exactly what it was doing when it's within range. If I'm again lucky, the controls will start flaking out and give me a warning that I'm nearing the edge of range in time to turn the thing around (so I don't have to run after it), but sometimes they just seem to drop out.
A true UAV (and what I figure I'll do... someday when I get off my lazy ass and actually work on this thing) is write some basic logic to have it do a 180 when it loses communication with the base station and fly back into radio range. At that point, there are lots of things you can do, because the logic processor is no longer with the pilot (ie, on the ground); it's with the plane, in the air, which means it can be out of communication with the pilot for the entire length of the program it's supposed to execute.
I suppose you could run some automated collision-avoidance detection and so on, but that sounds way too much like AI programming for my taste. IT is a hobby. If I wanted to take up AI programming, I'd be at MIT- the little I have done of pseudo-AI programming (mostly a fuckton of If/Then/Or statements) was extremely tedious and prone to horrible failure. (and thankfully had nothing at all to do with my plane.)
They have no on-board capability whatsoever, other than basically a radio reciever. However, they have remote automated guidance; the computer they connect to over the 2.4 GHz band can be programed in basically any way you please, including doing autonomous parking orbits, semi-random courses, etc, etc.
If I really wanted to, I suppose, I could move the computer (since it doesn't really require anything more than a small PDA- we're not talking magic super processing here) onto the plane itself and just remotely control the control application, if that makes any sense...humm... now you have me thinking about getting a PDA with an onboard camera, hooking it up to a bluetooth GPS, rigging a serial cable for the actual flight controls, and remotely controlling it to get an upgradable UAV surveillance drone...
That system is more prone to interference and the laser pointer has to be aimed at exactly the right angle. Not to mention, if a crowd of people happens to stand next to the bombmobile, your Evil Master Plan(tm) is sunk.
Heh, trust me, it actually works better than you think. What happens is that the laser beam disperses over distance, so at about 150 meters from the target, the beam spread is approximately 15 centimeters or so. If you're using a simple IR laser pointer and an IR reciever (like a PDA or cell phone), the dispersed laser is still greatly effective. It's also totally invisible in the standard spectrum.
Sure people standing in the way will be a problem, but it's a workable problem. I didn't say the solution was perfect, just that it was essentially unjammable, untraceable, and cheap.
You can get a mobile phone, with no contract or anything similar, for around $30. You need to activate it, but that's generally a matter of finding a phone you can't be traced on, and following the prompts.
I wouldn't describe them as "too expensive" by a long sho
Why does no one understand context anymore? Too expensive compared to the alternatives. (Not to mention a hell of a lot less secure.)
Compared to a five dollar laser pointer and a fifty cent photovoltaic cell, yeah.
You can buy anonymous prepaid cell phones at 7/11 (a US chain of convenience stores).
It can be traced via cellular company records as due to location and behavior, and from that they can probably backtrack to where you got it... which might have video camera surveilance... yeah, it's a little annonymous, but not much.
Assuming anyone realizes what you're up to before it's too late. The whole idea is not to get caught before you perpetrate your crimes. Underrating criminals is dangerous.
Seeing as a jammer would be useless afterward, does it really matter? Either they don't block you before hand, in which case you were stupid for using a cellphone at all, but at least it worked, or they do, in which case your plan doesn't work anyway and they shoot you for attempting to detonate a bomb...
I think the telecoms might cooperate without a court order in the case of a bona-fide emergency. If the software is written correctly, they might even allow calls to 911 and the police to go through, just not calls to non-emergency phones.
I don't know if they would. Maybe if it was more specific, ie "require operator vetting of all calls from a three block radius of X", but I think it's a big risk they run, legally. Even so, however, doing it in conjunction with the telecoms means a lot more granularity in the level of blocking they can invoke (and backtracing they can run).
Assassination weapon. Just as the limo in the Grand Poohbah of Ruritania's convoy passes the red Taurus, the red Taurus explodes due to an observer in a fifth-story window of a nearby brownstone dialing a certain number. Easier than machine vision technology, wouldn't you say? Then again, such triggering may be more easily done with normal walkie-talkie type radios.
Cellphones are expensive, leave a substantial paper trail, and are going to be the first thing blocked if anyone figured that's what you were up to. You want a cheap, unjammable, untraceable remote bomb detonator? photovoltaic cell and a laser pointer.
That would be the only effective method, yes- get a court order and require the telecoms to force shutdown their switches. They could even run firewall-esque rules against the calls, and do things like still allowing 911 calls through the cordon.
The problem with that is twofold; 1) DHS would need to get their hands on a court order, something they're apparently loathe to do, and 2), cell phone jammers wouldn't actually solve the problem anyway- cutting through jamming is not a difficult technical challenge, unlike attempting to hack through a telecom firewall that's preventing calls from being connected.
BTW, hasn't anyone heard of timer-triggered bombs? What's up with cellular-triggered bombs? That just seems like a horribly pointless overcomplication...
You're not looking at it from the right point of view. It's not to stop a terrorist attack from occuring- it's to stop people from talking about the terrorist attack that's just occured. It's one of the best ways to enforce a telecommunications blackout cordon around an area, and that's why DHS wants it.
Not to prevent a terrorist attack, if ever one happened, but to prevent you from being able to learn anything about it that hasn't been carefully vetted by DHS first.
Slashdot Mirror
No, what he is is a liberal. Go look it up.
Not exactly. More 'security through complexity'. The memory spaces are not hidden- they're just not always the same.
According to the Microsoft Blog link on the Wiki page, it's randomly assigned at dll/exe lauch and can be one of any 256 combinations. I would presume the 256 random combinations are preassigned and just randomly picked...
I was at a Microsoft Vista technical review where they explained this as being an anti-buffer overflow attack; since the locations of the specific items within an assigned memory space are randomized, the chances of targeting a buffer overflow to a specific chunk of the program's assigned memory is drastically reduced.
Wiki has it here, as Address Space Layout Radomization.
However, the spectrum is licensed by the FCC as part of the public airwaves. A powerful case could be made that the government should give that spectrum up to garage door owners, because they get more public use out of it.
After all, the government really doesn't need it, and garage doors are already using it.
Right. It doesn't work that way. The way to jam a transmitter with power 10X is by puting out a signal with power 100X. It doesn't work the other way. It might raise the noise floor, but it certainly won't jam the more powerful transmitter. That's why one of the easiest ways to cut through jamming is to just raise the transmission power of the transciever- it makes the signal easier to distinguish from the background noise.
To be spent on transportation analysis projects, not creationist research.
Explosive bolts that trigger on engine failure to release the hatch and deploy the chutes, I think is the standard method for this sort of thing.
You'd need a big enough bomb that it turned the components into vapor, or at least tiny fragments. How about "Engine failure triggers drag chute deployment, followed shortly by multiple main chute deployment"?
Sssh! This is slashdot! We'll have none of your rational thinking here!
...I really fail to see why we are arguing the merits of bomb-detonation techniques. Ah, slashdot, the things you learn.
I simply suggested that phones have a large number of disadvantages, the main one being their traceability, jammability, etc, etc. In turn, I suggested a way that solves those problems, while having it's own problems. I don't dispute that.
Plus, where the hell is everyone getting these fucking cheap phones? Last time I was in New York, about 15 months ago, the cheapest prepaid phone I could get (that was actually legit, came with time, etc.) was 189.99.
Actually, it's not hard. The real difficulty (and I suppose the true difference between a drone and a UAV) is that the range of my plane is negligable. If I'm lucky, I get 150 meters, line of sight, at which point the plane basically keeps doing exactly what it was doing when it's within range. If I'm again lucky, the controls will start flaking out and give me a warning that I'm nearing the edge of range in time to turn the thing around (so I don't have to run after it), but sometimes they just seem to drop out.
A true UAV (and what I figure I'll do... someday when I get off my lazy ass and actually work on this thing) is write some basic logic to have it do a 180 when it loses communication with the base station and fly back into radio range. At that point, there are lots of things you can do, because the logic processor is no longer with the pilot (ie, on the ground); it's with the plane, in the air, which means it can be out of communication with the pilot for the entire length of the program it's supposed to execute.
I suppose you could run some automated collision-avoidance detection and so on, but that sounds way too much like AI programming for my taste. IT is a hobby. If I wanted to take up AI programming, I'd be at MIT- the little I have done of pseudo-AI programming (mostly a fuckton of If/Then/Or statements) was extremely tedious and prone to horrible failure. (and thankfully had nothing at all to do with my plane.)
Hey, police brutality is a form of state-sponsored terrorism!
The difference between 'remotely manned drone' and 'unmanned aerial vehicle' is me putting an eraser on the 'go forward' button.
They have no on-board capability whatsoever, other than basically a radio reciever. However, they have remote automated guidance; the computer they connect to over the 2.4 GHz band can be programed in basically any way you please, including doing autonomous parking orbits, semi-random courses, etc, etc.
..humm... now you have me thinking about getting a PDA with an onboard camera, hooking it up to a bluetooth GPS, rigging a serial cable for the actual flight controls, and remotely controlling it to get an upgradable UAV surveillance drone...
If I really wanted to, I suppose, I could move the computer (since it doesn't really require anything more than a small PDA- we're not talking magic super processing here) onto the plane itself and just remotely control the control application, if that makes any sense.
Heh, trust me, it actually works better than you think. What happens is that the laser beam disperses over distance, so at about 150 meters from the target, the beam spread is approximately 15 centimeters or so. If you're using a simple IR laser pointer and an IR reciever (like a PDA or cell phone), the dispersed laser is still greatly effective. It's also totally invisible in the standard spectrum.
Sure people standing in the way will be a problem, but it's a workable problem. I didn't say the solution was perfect, just that it was essentially unjammable, untraceable, and cheap.
Why does no one understand context anymore? Too expensive compared to the alternatives. (Not to mention a hell of a lot less secure.)
Compared to a five dollar laser pointer and a fifty cent photovoltaic cell, yeah.
It can be traced via cellular company records as due to location and behavior, and from that they can probably backtrack to where you got it... which might have video camera surveilance... yeah, it's a little annonymous, but not much.
Seeing as a jammer would be useless afterward, does it really matter? Either they don't block you before hand, in which case you were stupid for using a cellphone at all, but at least it worked, or they do, in which case your plan doesn't work anyway and they shoot you for attempting to detonate a bomb...
Civil UAV's are illegal? Then what the fuck have I been flying around the local park for the past year, a mechanical bird?
Their wish has been granted!
I'll see your punch in the face when you hear me talking and raise you a beating with my nightstick for punching me in the face!
I don't know if they would. Maybe if it was more specific, ie "require operator vetting of all calls from a three block radius of X", but I think it's a big risk they run, legally. Even so, however, doing it in conjunction with the telecoms means a lot more granularity in the level of blocking they can invoke (and backtracing they can run).
Cellphones are expensive, leave a substantial paper trail, and are going to be the first thing blocked if anyone figured that's what you were up to. You want a cheap, unjammable, untraceable remote bomb detonator? photovoltaic cell and a laser pointer.
That would be the only effective method, yes- get a court order and require the telecoms to force shutdown their switches. They could even run firewall-esque rules against the calls, and do things like still allowing 911 calls through the cordon.
The problem with that is twofold; 1) DHS would need to get their hands on a court order, something they're apparently loathe to do, and 2), cell phone jammers wouldn't actually solve the problem anyway- cutting through jamming is not a difficult technical challenge, unlike attempting to hack through a telecom firewall that's preventing calls from being connected.
BTW, hasn't anyone heard of timer-triggered bombs? What's up with cellular-triggered bombs? That just seems like a horribly pointless overcomplication...
You're not looking at it from the right point of view. It's not to stop a terrorist attack from occuring- it's to stop people from talking about the terrorist attack that's just occured. It's one of the best ways to enforce a telecommunications blackout cordon around an area, and that's why DHS wants it.
Not to prevent a terrorist attack, if ever one happened, but to prevent you from being able to learn anything about it that hasn't been carefully vetted by DHS first.
I don't have a problem with antenna gain boosters that up the power output of cellular phones so they can cut through jamming signals!