The emphasis of the test, I believe, was to check for the effect of glucose. This issue was not fairly dealt with in the article, IMHO, which is why it was posted to/. in the first place.
The next thing to do is to design a test that checks whether eating at all makes a difference, or if the nutrition matters. One might do this by using rice versus chicken versus the above vs not eating at all.
First off, I concur that the claim that potatos and barley help boost memory is misleading. This claim, as supported by the article, is true. However, it may be a subset of a larger category of statements: that any nutritious food will help your short term memory for events that occur after eating. This was briefly mentioned in the article (toward the end), but was not brought to light very much.
In general, this exposes the need to pay close attention to journalistic style, which is rather lacking in this article. The author should have mentioned the test, the results, and the conclusions as presented by the scientists. It should not have started with part of the conclusions (the sensationalist part of course), then portions of the test, and then the rest of the conclusion in small print.
Nevertheless, just so people understand, the experiment, as presented, was indeed well-crafted and tested the hypothesis that glucose would improve memory function very well. Given the results, the hypothesis was wrong and the experiment suggests another hypothesis that may be tested in another study. To critisize an experiment for having disproven a hypothesis is useless. The act of having shown that glucose, amoung these 20 people, has little or no affect on memory, is quite useful. It is a mark of a good researcher to note the possible expansion of this experiment.
It is also the mark of poor journalism for sensationalizing the story to the point that it got posted here and evoked a response from me.
Another liability is if the school *did* take action against the student (expulsion, counsellors, etc.) and some violent act still occurs, is the school liable then also? That's a nice little pondery -- how much action is enough; how much is too much? I'd hate to be a judge trying to judge that fine line.
Do you really think that *every* single monitor is listed in that list??? I personally have a PowerComputing 17" monitor, and it is *not* listed anywhere in that list. Nor do I know the chipset. When I first installed, I did not know the timing specifications either. The way I found out was to run a program in the MacOS that gave me the timings. I then converted them to the backward specifications the various configuration tools use (each is different) and I finally had the modeline I wanted. That was a lot of trouble.
What should be done is to have a recommended menu of screen sizes -- like the MacOS or Windows or BeOS or any other decent gui OS. If it cannot detect the correct timings, then it should tell you and interactively work with you to get it working. Right now, it leaves you in nobody's land should you fail to install your monitor. Why is it so hard???
I'm very suprised at Apple's actions today. Most people whould be able to tell you (meaning a corporation) that raising prices while lowering quality would piss a customer base off. I know that according to economics, raising price can raise profits even though it lowers the number of customers you have. However, in the PC market, the number of customers also affects the quality of the product (by enticing companies to write progams for it.) It also affects the customer satisfaction, which is incredibly important these days. Overall, pissing off so many people at once is a really bad idea.
I am impressed that Apple has reversed their decision, but Apple is beginning to act more and more like a mindless, heedless corporation than the benevolent underdog of a company Apple used to be.
Those look cool. I should get one for a friend who recently rolled over his laptop with his car!! Neither survived (note I didn't say drove over...)
I remember finding a site a long time ago that had super rugged laptops. There were a number of problems with those oldies though: They were slow, ugly, and heavy. The Panasonic's look much nicer IMHO.
However, I wonder how much they would cost! I do wish companies weren't so paranoid about posting prices. It makes it nearly impossible to even consider purchasing something if I cannot see the price when I actually visit the site on a whim.
I would be interested in hearing how they intend to get pine(1) to delete the key to these encrypted messages. Here is what I could think of for their (probably proprietary) system:
1) Use Javascript for people using Outlook. Scripts could encrypt and decrypt messages on the fly, erasing the key from the message after x days.
2) Use central server (ex: over a webpage) to delete the key from the server after some time.
3) Use a proprietary email format that requires it to be opened using their executable which manages the keys.
As someone else suggested, the entire security breaks down if someone saves a plaintext copy. Should their program not give you copy&paste, I would consider it crippleware. Assuming not, I ask what the point is for this scheme.
I remember when www.terraserver.microsoft.com first came out, Microsoft used Java to prevent saving the images you saw. Of course, I just pulled out my trusty screen capture program and saved a copy of my hometown anyway... I guess this just shows how you can copy&paste things without permission from a program.
So how do they plan to integrate this with existing environments? I don't think they can.
Although the code for Win CE might have been rewritten, it still uses the *same* API, then *same* system calls, the *same* architectures. The main difference from a users or a programmers view is that a bunch of functionality is missing and that the screen is tiny. The only poeple to whom 'rewritten' matters are those who ignore the end user or the programmer and instead focus on the OS.
I too bought this book with the hopes that all 1114 pages would have a whole lot of information. Instead, I found myself reading pages on pages of nothingness. I still cannot figure out how the author managed to write so many pages of words on so little information. I really recommend you find a different book for yourself to read if you want to learn Linux.
The whole issue about adding-a-bit-doubles-the-cracking-time depends on three essential assumptions:
1) Factoring products of primes is an NP problem 2) That NP != P 3) That we live in a P world
One way to solve NP problems in linear time is to break assumption number 3. This is how they used DNA to solve a (rather short) travelling salesman problem by creating a parallel environment. Should quantum computing be used, we might be able to bring our computations into the NP realm, thus solving many complex problems. Kudo's to the person who actually does this though. I doubt the veracity of the article alot.
Official mirrors *do* have time to get a copy ahead of everybody else. As I understand it, there is a private server that mirrors can copy from. They get their copy a few days ahead of schedule, and should they abide by the rules, they do not open the directory until the official announcement.
This just caps the idea that the world is a very strange place. I do kinda like how this move helps both Apple and AMD. They fit together perfectly:
1) Apple solves part of its supply problem. They have been short handed on G4 processors, and need another manufacturer. 2) AMD has a new plant in Germany that they don't want to waste if the Athlon does not sell well.
I would have to disagree. If you require that the "GPL license is supposed to follow a product everywhere it goes", then you run into the following problem:
I, a college student on a coop during the summer with a 56k modem, download a copy of a GPL program and begin development. Then, out of the blue, someone sends me an email asking for a copy of the source code. Under your requirement, I would have to provide them with the source code.
Now perhaps you argue that I should charge them for a cd-burner (as I don't own one and the GPL covers asking for money for materials and transport.) However, this would mean taking the time to learn how to use a cd-burner, the space to keep a cd-burner. Perhaps I would need to send the files by email, thus occupying my entire bandwidth for a few minutes.
And this all would occur while I was in development in a little apartment off someplace away from home! Although I completely agree that the GPL should accompany a released product, requiring it to follow the source code during developement is ridiculous.
Therefore, I think the question posed by the ZDNet article is whether or not beta testing is considered releasing a product. Answer that my friend.
I was quite surprised by that article. It began like a sales pitch -- listing elite customers including sensitive government agencies. Then it switched gears and talked about the moral implications of this type of software.
Actually, in retrospect, this might be a ploy by the company to generate interest in its product. The more controversy surrounding this product, the more people who are informed about it -- kinda like Apple complaining about export policies in order to brag about how fast the G4 is.
Personally, I think monitoring is not a good idea. If an employee can double his/her productivity by taking short breaks to chat with friends online, then by all means that employee should do so. It should be painfully simple to discover when someone is making trouble online. At that point, convensional methods should suffice unless special surveilance is required. In general though, spying on employees betrays trust.
I just wanted to pipe in that I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is an excellent book that everyone should be required to read. I read it in high-school and it changed my outlook on life. My favorite part is when the girl describes her world changing from black and white to color. I remember the fear written into those words and it struck me as awesome. Unfortunately, nobody else, except for teachers, could understand what I had just grokked, so I kinda kept to myself. I'm glad someone else discovered this book.
It is not the site he linked to that is suing him... It is the recording industry. This legal battle is over whether providing the location of an opportunity to commit a crime is in itself a crime. Because so many people use analogies to explain these things, here are a few:
1. In one context, this would be telling a terrorist where he can purchase bombs and then telling him what to blow up. 2. Another context would be telling someone where the neighborhood dealer is. 3. Yet another circumstance would be pointing out an unlocked door to a stranger.
In each of these cases, a person is providing a link to an opportunity to do a crime. The first analogy will surely be brought up by the prosecuting attorneys. The last case should be mentioned by the defense attorney. The real question is how dangerous we, as a society, consider information to be. If information is harmless (Sticks and stone will break my bones, but words will never hurt me), then we should consider links to be completely benign as any other form of speech. If information is totally dangerous, then we should ban all three forms of linking. Obviously, neither extreme is correct, and it is left to us to decide what balance must be struck.
Personally, I believe that information is highly dangerous, but that it is best to let people use their own judgement in using it. We shouldn't police thoughts or communications, only actions.
To clear things up... RSA is encryption. It involves use of exponentials, and at the risk of national security, here is how it works:
Pick two big primes (p and q) and multiply them together to get n. Next, find two numbers, e and d, such that e*d === 1 mod n. This means that (a^e)^d == a and (a^d)^e == a all mod n. You then public your public key: e,n. You remember your private key: d. p and q remain private forever and are best forgotten.
The reason RSA is used for authentication is because it does have an overhead because you are running modular arithmetic on 512 (or more) bit numbers. This is how authentication works:
Same setup as before (p,q->n; get e,d) The challenger holds your public key (e,n) and sends you an unencrypted message, m. You send back m^d === c mod n. The challenger can verify your identity by raising c^e mod n, and comparing this to m.
This operation only has to be done once, so it is relatively efficient for the security it provides. When setting up a secure connection, you can use RSA to authenticate someone and then to transmit a less secure session key. This session key isn't as secure, but it arrived securely. This is done for efficiency, and one can argue that it is an insecure model.
-B
ps. All this info is available from the books and from the source to many encryption products (ssh for instance)
Re:I'm confused: GnuStep Gnome and WindowMaker
on
GNUstep 0.6.0
·
· Score: 2
I've been able to use WindowMaker with both Gnome and KDE. I haven't tried to use it with anything else. Here are the reasons I use it:
Much, much, much faster than Enlightenment. Menus and such load instantly (180 Mhz 604e here) and windows are quick on their feet. Even dragging if faster.
Full featured workspace environment. I have mine setup so that you can drag a window across workspaces, but you cannot move your mouse between them without dragging a window. You can use any workspace app you wish.
Gnome & KDE compatibility. I like the gnome-panel, so I use it. Simple as that.
Theme support. Window Maker comes with a number of pretty themes. Although they lack some of the features Enlightenment offers, they are configurable and lightning fast on my computer.
Solid. Of all the window managers I've tried, this one has the most solid feel. This is very important to me.
In short, I highly recomment Window Maker to anyone who is curious. Since it is interchangable with Englightenment, you can quickly try it out. Just remember that you need to configure things before you'll like you desktop. Enlightenment was the same way about this, so don't get annoyed that it uses different colors than you like at first -- everything can be changed.
I think giving moderators unlimited (-1) ability is a Bad Ideatm. It would invite abuse very quickly by removing the incentive for positive marking versus negative marking. This should be obvious without much thought.
My understanding was that it would start with Score:0, but that it would still get the Score:+1 if you have good Karma. Personally, I think this is a good idea. If you have the ability to log on, then posting anonymously holds less credibility and less accountability than posting regularly. As Rob Malda would prefer us to post under our normal accounts as often as possible, I should expect him to discourage anonymous coward posting as often as possible, very much as he does now.
I just want to add that Slashdot has so far been organized wonderfully. Its popularity reflects this to the extreme.
Now if only the Malda would implement the Slashdot Mirroring Service like was suggested for the Rusty-Case article.
There is a charity, exactly as you describe, operating in Cleveland near Case Western Reserve University. Unfortunately, I do not recall the name at the moment, but I highly suggest you investigate there. They take old computers (IBMs and such, pre 486 mostly) and repair them. These computers then are given to schools (I think).
The biggest problem with this analogyis that of hyperlinking. On a bike, parents are reasonably confidant that if you bike one block or even three blocks further than you should, you will still be safe. This is because neighborhoods traditionally are spread out over space. The danger varies smoothly.
On the Internet, however, content changes instantaneously. If the kid clicks on one link beyond Yahoo (a very safe site in itself), the kid might be looking at porn, or he could be reading Tomas Jefferson. This is why and where the analogy breaks down. This is also a demonstration that analogies, although extremely useful in propagating ideologies, are quite dangerous in that someone will use them to advance an opinion (ironic, huh.)
So lets use the one analogy that will not get us into trouble: A kid is browsing the web using a 'browser' (ooooh, aaaah). The parent, who is dutifully enjoying some quality time with the child and at the same time preventing the child from viewing inappropriate websites, wants to {walk the dog, cook dinner, do laundry, go to the bathroom, etc.} What to do? This is the analogy, and the problem we face.
Part of the problem is that news services are taking exacly what comes off the wire -- The problem with that is that the wire they are relaying is not a news source. It is a press-release source.
IDG is not a normal press source. Instead, they are industry analysts, who may or may not be paid to write a certain point of view. In this case, IDG is treating Linux, hackers, and Microsoft hypocritically. Microsoft doesn't release bugs, they release new features that run faster, smart, and save money over everyone else. With Linux, until recently, teenagers released hand-written code using 60's technology that ran no commercial programs, would cost more money in the long run, had no support, and was basically a bad idea. Hackers, malicious teenagers sitting in front of monitors (god forbid) release 'bugs' in M$ software (not expose bugs, they create them...) under the faulty premise of strong-arming (bad, bad word) good, beneficial software companies.
IMO, articles from IDG are not to be trusted at all. They tend to be biased extremely (or naively) toward the establishment (read contributors.) The sad part is that CNN is willing to blindly republish these articles, lending credibility to their worthlessness.
Comeback
My favorite comeback (mentioned elsewhere in these comments) is that if his analogy is correct, then this question arises: Why would someone taint meat? If noone will taint meat, why do we need protection and regulations? Therefore, we don't need security. Microsoft should eliminate all of those silly restrictions like passwords. We should lose the locks on our homes.
The underlying response is that analogies are powerful tools to befuddle issues. In this case, the analogy is biased. Don't listen to analogies, they are ALL flawed.
The reason Tom, and others, are taking a critical approach toward RMS is that RMS has the terrible stereotype of the respondant in the interview. Recently, RMS (through GNU) declared that Linux was not Linux. Linux had so much contribution from GNU that it would from that day forth be called GNU/Linux.
This has been seen as a grab for recognition, much to the refrain of
"I don't care for the word "E-commerce", and you've put your finger on exactly why. It disrespects how important we are. Don't you realize that without Good Software, the E-conomy would be nowhere?"
The reason this type of statement is so grating to some people is that it actually gives recognition to a specific party. Previously, we recognized Linus, the creator, and no-one else. People were given recognition through their contributions, individually, and not with a big media circus. RMS would like to change this. He wants to give much recognition to GNU, but only to GNU. You might say that adding GNU to the name does no harm, but in fact it seperates GNU from the rest of the coders. The other coders receive normal credit while GNU recieves a whole lot of credit. Is this jealosy? Yup! But one easy way to piss people off is to make demands that don't distribute income evenly (keep in mind the noosphere, wherein recognition is property, so lots of recognition is equivalent to being wealthy).
In summary, the problem with GNU/Linux is that the name ignores all those non-GNU coders who have contributed to the distributions. What about RedHat/Linux, or YDL/Linux? Or should we call it RedHat/LinuxPPC/YDL/GNU/Linux to give fair credit? Perhaps we should just simplify everything and call it Linux.
As to good old politics, I think RMS is politiking right now. He wants his name (or at least GNU's name) all over everything. He wants visitors to his webpage (to read the license). He wants to be in the lime-light.
However, I would not take the stance that GNU is being attacked because it is communist-like. Far from it. The entire Linux community is communist-like. We all share our goods! So would it make sense for one coder to accuse or shun another for the reason that the accused is a coder??? Nope. RMS/GNU is being attacked for reasons I discussed previously.
Slashdot Mirror
The experiment was indeed setup with proper controls. The individuals were given one of four substances:
/. in the first place.
1) Potato
2) Barley
3) Glucose drink
4) Placebo (non-Glucose) drink
The emphasis of the test, I believe, was to check for the effect of glucose. This issue was not fairly dealt with in the article, IMHO, which is why it was posted to
The next thing to do is to design a test that checks whether eating at all makes a difference, or if the nutrition matters. One might do this by using rice versus chicken versus the above vs not eating at all.
-B
First off, I concur that the claim that potatos and barley help boost memory is misleading. This claim, as supported by the article, is true. However, it may be a subset of a larger category of statements: that any nutritious food will help your short term memory for events that occur after eating. This was briefly mentioned in the article (toward the end), but was not brought to light very much.
In general, this exposes the need to pay close attention to journalistic style, which is rather lacking in this article. The author should have mentioned the test, the results, and the conclusions as presented by the scientists. It should not have started with part of the conclusions (the sensationalist part of course), then portions of the test, and then the rest of the conclusion in small print.
Nevertheless, just so people understand, the experiment, as presented, was indeed well-crafted and tested the hypothesis that glucose would improve memory function very well. Given the results, the hypothesis was wrong and the experiment suggests another hypothesis that may be tested in another study. To critisize an experiment for having disproven a hypothesis is useless. The act of having shown that glucose, amoung these 20 people, has little or no affect on memory, is quite useful. It is a mark of a good researcher to note the possible expansion of this experiment.
It is also the mark of poor journalism for sensationalizing the story to the point that it got posted here and evoked a response from me.
-B
BTW, nice humor in other posts!
Another liability is if the school *did* take action against the student (expulsion, counsellors, etc.) and some violent act still occurs, is the school liable then also? That's a nice little pondery -- how much action is enough; how much is too much? I'd hate to be a judge trying to judge that fine line.
-B
Uh oh -- If The Register reported on this, then it must be true.
As a reminder -- a while back The Register reported that Apple was switching to Intel chips. That came true -- didn't it?
-B
Do you really think that *every* single monitor is listed in that list??? I personally have a PowerComputing 17" monitor, and it is *not* listed anywhere in that list. Nor do I know the chipset. When I first installed, I did not know the timing specifications either. The way I found out was to run a program in the MacOS that gave me the timings. I then converted them to the backward specifications the various configuration tools use (each is different) and I finally had the modeline I wanted. That was a lot of trouble.
What should be done is to have a recommended menu of screen sizes -- like the MacOS or Windows or BeOS or any other decent gui OS. If it cannot detect the correct timings, then it should tell you and interactively work with you to get it working. Right now, it leaves you in nobody's land should you fail to install your monitor. Why is it so hard???
-B
I just can't wait to see what happens to their stock price on Monday. I imagine it will not fare very well.
-B
I'm very suprised at Apple's actions today. Most people whould be able to tell you (meaning a corporation) that raising prices while lowering quality would piss a customer base off. I know that according to economics, raising price can raise profits even though it lowers the number of customers you have. However, in the PC market, the number of customers also affects the quality of the product (by enticing companies to write progams for it.) It also affects the customer satisfaction, which is incredibly important these days. Overall, pissing off so many people at once is a really bad idea.
I am impressed that Apple has reversed their decision, but Apple is beginning to act more and more like a mindless, heedless corporation than the benevolent underdog of a company Apple used to be.
-B
Those look cool. I should get one for a friend who recently rolled over his laptop with his car!! Neither survived (note I didn't say drove over...)
I remember finding a site a long time ago that had super rugged laptops. There were a number of problems with those oldies though: They were slow, ugly, and heavy. The Panasonic's look much nicer IMHO.
However, I wonder how much they would cost! I do wish companies weren't so paranoid about posting prices. It makes it nearly impossible to even consider purchasing something if I cannot see the price when I actually visit the site on a whim.
-B
I would be interested in hearing how they intend to get pine(1) to delete the key to these encrypted messages. Here is what I could think of for their (probably proprietary) system:
1) Use Javascript for people using Outlook. Scripts could encrypt and decrypt messages on the fly, erasing the key from the message after x days.
2) Use central server (ex: over a webpage) to delete the key from the server after some time.
3) Use a proprietary email format that requires it to be opened using their executable which manages the keys.
As someone else suggested, the entire security breaks down if someone saves a plaintext copy. Should their program not give you copy&paste, I would consider it crippleware. Assuming not, I ask what the point is for this scheme.
I remember when www.terraserver.microsoft.com first came out, Microsoft used Java to prevent saving the images you saw. Of course, I just pulled out my trusty screen capture program and saved a copy of my hometown anyway... I guess this just shows how you can copy&paste things without permission from a program.
So how do they plan to integrate this with existing environments? I don't think they can.
-Ben
Although the code for Win CE might have been rewritten, it still uses the *same* API, then *same* system calls, the *same* architectures. The main difference from a users or a programmers view is that a bunch of functionality is missing and that the screen is tiny. The only poeple to whom 'rewritten' matters are those who ignore the end user or the programmer and instead focus on the OS.
-Ben
I too bought this book with the hopes that all 1114 pages would have a whole lot of information. Instead, I found myself reading pages on pages of nothingness. I still cannot figure out how the author managed to write so many pages of words on so little information. I really recommend you find a different book for yourself to read if you want to learn Linux.
-B
The whole issue about adding-a-bit-doubles-the-cracking-time depends on three essential assumptions:
1) Factoring products of primes is an NP problem
2) That NP != P
3) That we live in a P world
One way to solve NP problems in linear time is to break assumption number 3. This is how they used DNA to solve a (rather short) travelling salesman problem by creating a parallel environment. Should quantum computing be used, we might be able to bring our computations into the NP realm, thus solving many complex problems. Kudo's to the person who actually does this though. I doubt the veracity of the article alot.
-B
Official mirrors *do* have time to get a copy ahead of everybody else. As I understand it, there is a private server that mirrors can copy from. They get their copy a few days ahead of schedule, and should they abide by the rules, they do not open the directory until the official announcement.
-Ben
This just caps the idea that the world is a very strange place. I do kinda like how this move helps both Apple and AMD. They fit together perfectly:
1) Apple solves part of its supply problem. They have been short handed on G4 processors, and need another manufacturer.
2) AMD has a new plant in Germany that they don't want to waste if the Athlon does not sell well.
-B
I would have to disagree. If you require that the "GPL license is supposed to follow a product everywhere it goes", then you run into the following problem:
I, a college student on a coop during the summer with a 56k modem, download a copy of a GPL program and begin development. Then, out of the blue, someone sends me an email asking for a copy of the source code. Under your requirement, I would have to provide them with the source code.
Now perhaps you argue that I should charge them for a cd-burner (as I don't own one and the GPL covers asking for money for materials and transport.) However, this would mean taking the time to learn how to use a cd-burner, the space to keep a cd-burner. Perhaps I would need to send the files by email, thus occupying my entire bandwidth for a few minutes.
And this all would occur while I was in development in a little apartment off someplace away from home! Although I completely agree that the GPL should accompany a released product, requiring it to follow the source code during developement is ridiculous.
Therefore, I think the question posed by the ZDNet article is whether or not beta testing is considered releasing a product. Answer that my friend.
-B
Actually, in retrospect, this might be a ploy by the company to generate interest in its product. The more controversy surrounding this product, the more people who are informed about it -- kinda like Apple complaining about export policies in order to brag about how fast the G4 is.
Personally, I think monitoring is not a good idea. If an employee can double his/her productivity by taking short breaks to chat with friends online, then by all means that employee should do so. It should be painfully simple to discover when someone is making trouble online. At that point, convensional methods should suffice unless special surveilance is required. In general though, spying on employees betrays trust.
I just wanted to pipe in that I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is an excellent book that everyone should be required to read. I read it in high-school and it changed my outlook on life. My favorite part is when the girl describes her world changing from black and white to color. I remember the fear written into those words and it struck me as awesome. Unfortunately, nobody else, except for teachers, could understand what I had just grokked, so I kinda kept to myself. I'm glad someone else discovered this book.
-B
You got it backwards...
It is not the site he linked to that is suing him... It is the recording industry. This legal battle is over whether providing the location of an opportunity to commit a crime is in itself a crime. Because so many people use analogies to explain these things, here are a few:
1. In one context, this would be telling a terrorist where he can purchase bombs and then telling him what to blow up.
2. Another context would be telling someone where the neighborhood dealer is.
3. Yet another circumstance would be pointing out an unlocked door to a stranger.
In each of these cases, a person is providing a link to an opportunity to do a crime. The first analogy will surely be brought up by the prosecuting attorneys. The last case should be mentioned by the defense attorney. The real question is how dangerous we, as a society, consider information to be. If information is harmless (Sticks and stone will break my bones, but words will never hurt me), then we should consider links to be completely benign as any other form of speech. If information is totally dangerous, then we should ban all three forms of linking. Obviously, neither extreme is correct, and it is left to us to decide what balance must be struck.
Personally, I believe that information is highly dangerous, but that it is best to let people use their own judgement in using it. We shouldn't police thoughts or communications, only actions.
-B
To clear things up... RSA is encryption. It involves use of exponentials, and at the risk of national security, here is how it works:
Pick two big primes (p and q) and multiply them together to get n. Next, find two numbers, e and d, such that e*d === 1 mod n. This means that (a^e)^d == a and (a^d)^e == a all mod n. You then public your public key: e,n. You remember your private key: d. p and q remain private forever and are best forgotten.
The reason RSA is used for authentication is because it does have an overhead because you are running modular arithmetic on 512 (or more) bit numbers. This is how authentication works:
Same setup as before (p,q->n; get e,d)
The challenger holds your public key (e,n) and sends you an unencrypted message, m. You send back m^d === c mod n. The challenger can verify your identity by raising c^e mod n, and comparing this to m.
This operation only has to be done once, so it is relatively efficient for the security it provides. When setting up a secure connection, you can use RSA to authenticate someone and then to transmit a less secure session key. This session key isn't as secure, but it arrived securely. This is done for efficiency, and one can argue that it is an insecure model.
-B
ps. All this info is available from the books and from the source to many encryption products (ssh for instance)
In short, I highly recomment Window Maker to anyone who is curious. Since it is interchangable with Englightenment, you can quickly try it out. Just remember that you need to configure things before you'll like you desktop. Enlightenment was the same way about this, so don't get annoyed that it uses different colors than you like at first -- everything can be changed.
-Ben
- I think giving moderators unlimited (-1) ability is a Bad Ideatm. It would invite abuse very quickly by removing the incentive for positive marking versus negative marking. This should be obvious without much thought.
- My understanding was that it would start with Score:0, but that it would still get the Score:+1 if you have good Karma. Personally, I think this is a good idea. If you have the ability to log on, then posting anonymously holds less credibility and less accountability than posting regularly. As Rob Malda would prefer us to post under our normal accounts as often as possible, I should expect him to discourage anonymous coward posting as often as possible, very much as he does now.
I just want to add that Slashdot has so far been organized wonderfully. Its popularity reflects this to the extreme.Now if only the Malda would implement the Slashdot Mirroring Service like was suggested for the Rusty-Case article.
There is a charity, exactly as you describe, operating in Cleveland near Case Western Reserve University. Unfortunately, I do not recall the name at the moment, but I highly suggest you investigate there. They take old computers (IBMs and such, pre 486 mostly) and repair them. These computers then are given to schools (I think).
The biggest problem with this analogyis that of hyperlinking. On a bike, parents are reasonably confidant that if you bike one block or even three blocks further than you should, you will still be safe. This is because neighborhoods traditionally are spread out over space. The danger varies smoothly.
On the Internet, however, content changes instantaneously. If the kid clicks on one link beyond Yahoo (a very safe site in itself), the kid might be looking at porn, or he could be reading Tomas Jefferson. This is why and where the analogy breaks down. This is also a demonstration that analogies, although extremely useful in propagating ideologies, are quite dangerous in that someone will use them to advance an opinion (ironic, huh.)
So lets use the one analogy that will not get us into trouble: A kid is browsing the web using a 'browser' (ooooh, aaaah). The parent, who is dutifully enjoying some quality time with the child and at the same time preventing the child from viewing inappropriate websites, wants to {walk the dog, cook dinner, do laundry, go to the bathroom, etc.} What to do? This is the analogy, and the problem we face.
-B
IDG is not a normal press source. Instead, they are industry analysts, who may or may not be paid to write a certain point of view. In this case, IDG is treating Linux, hackers, and Microsoft hypocritically. Microsoft doesn't release bugs, they release new features that run faster, smart, and save money over everyone else. With Linux, until recently, teenagers released hand-written code using 60's technology that ran no commercial programs, would cost more money in the long run, had no support, and was basically a bad idea. Hackers, malicious teenagers sitting in front of monitors (god forbid) release 'bugs' in M$ software (not expose bugs, they create them...) under the faulty premise of strong-arming (bad, bad word) good, beneficial software companies.
IMO, articles from IDG are not to be trusted at all. They tend to be biased extremely (or naively) toward the establishment (read contributors.) The sad part is that CNN is willing to blindly republish these articles, lending credibility to their worthlessness.
Comeback
This has been seen as a grab for recognition, much to the refrain of
The reason this type of statement is so grating to some people is that it actually gives recognition to a specific party. Previously, we recognized Linus, the creator, and no-one else. People were given recognition through their contributions, individually, and not with a big media circus. RMS would like to change this. He wants to give much recognition to GNU, but only to GNU. You might say that adding GNU to the name does no harm, but in fact it seperates GNU from the rest of the coders. The other coders receive normal credit while GNU recieves a whole lot of credit. Is this jealosy? Yup! But one easy way to piss people off is to make demands that don't distribute income evenly (keep in mind the noosphere, wherein recognition is property, so lots of recognition is equivalent to being wealthy).
In summary, the problem with GNU/Linux is that the name ignores all those non-GNU coders who have contributed to the distributions. What about RedHat/Linux, or YDL/Linux? Or should we call it RedHat/LinuxPPC/YDL/GNU/Linux to give fair credit? Perhaps we should just simplify everything and call it Linux.
As to good old politics, I think RMS is politiking right now. He wants his name (or at least GNU's name) all over everything. He wants visitors to his webpage (to read the license). He wants to be in the lime-light.
However, I would not take the stance that GNU is being attacked because it is communist-like. Far from it. The entire Linux community is communist-like. We all share our goods! So would it make sense for one coder to accuse or shun another for the reason that the accused is a coder??? Nope. RMS/GNU is being attacked for reasons I discussed previously.
-B