I guess I was thinking along the lines of making a raw copy of the contents of the physical disk simply so that you could keep working on it long after the drive fails and/or simultaneously if he made multiple copies back to similar hard drives.
If the system is embedded into the hard drive then it would be much more difficult, but arguably you could even dismantle the drive if you wanted to. An encrypted message remains encrypted, but saying it is "unbreakable" because it is printed on paper that will disintegrate before the code is cracked doesn't make sense to me. Even something so heavily encrypted that you can't even view the contents to start cracking it without first supplying a key is still able to be copied if you have physical access to it (take it home with you in this case) provided you can crack it open and somehow read back what you "see" on the platters.
In principle, I agree entirely that if the encryption device is within the onboard electronics of the hard drive or if you were trying to crack it on display in a shop somewhere then it would be virtually impossible.
If further to this system taking the drive out of the TiVo would destroy the contents of the disk automatically then they really would have an unbreakable system. But let's not give them ideas...!
Quite true because at that point there is nothing to stop a person simply copying everything off the disk (just a raw copy even if it is still encrypted).
As soon as you can do that, 3 things are true:
(1) You can preserve it on something more reliable (longer life) than the original drive and work on cracking it from there.
(2) You can make multiple copies and work on it x times faster by attacking each drive/copy with a separate part of the list of possible solutions.
(3) You can spend as long as you like working on cracking it and when the drive reaches the end of it's life, pick up where you left off working on your clone disk.
More importantly how many copies would you need to make to solve it within a useful time period at all? Would you get the data within a useful time frame? Within years? Within your own life time?
Obviously if they have made it so that you can only access the drive with a specific controller then the idea of taking copies is significantly more difficult, but from what I've read it's just a regular Western Digital drive which means you could hook it up and take a raw image of the entire disk even without being able to decode the contents at that point. So as the parent said, you're not hacking it "in situ" and as soon as the drive gets into a consumer's home, you've handed of a the data to be copied.
This is just a patent for making hacking difficult, but since when does that stop anyone?
Meanwhile, I am not even going to bother trying to figure out how this is a solution for "securing networks".
Now the story has hit the media, with some insightful quotes such as "The president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said the Federal Government should block access to 'scurrilous American websites'."
Reminds me of some time ago when I got my first hard drive with "unlimited" capacity... and then accidentally filled it up with 5GB of movies in the first few days of using it.
I vowed next time to get a hard drive with at least twice unlimited capacity.
Take the number of [units] in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X... If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
The actual formula is (A x B x C) + D = X
Where A is units in the field, B is the rate of failure, C is the settlement cost and D is the cost of all the laptops IBM engineers had to drop to confirm the fault existed!
If X is still less than the cost of recall, we don't do one.
Since they were made by Sanyo, there's a good chance they can make Sanyo accountable for at least part of their loss.
Unless the design of the laptop failed to protect the battery in a way that exceeds or does not meet Sanyo's decision specifications.
Since the batteries are not exploding or overheating under normal operating conditions, the problem is largely just a liability issue for IBM/Lenovo since their laptop's (when dropped) can become dangerous. I doubt Sanyo were contracted to make a battery that will continue to operate with no ill side effects when dropped or broken apart...
Something to consider is that when you have a car accident and there is battery acid/radiator coolant/oil/fuel leaking from your car, to some extent it is up to the user to decide if they should still try and turn it over and drive it home and whether or not that would be safe. Though car manufacturers will still recall a car that becomes dangerous when crashed in a certain way and spend a lot of money making sure it crumples and bends in all the right ways, I doubt they hold the various part producers responsible for the particular component's behaviour in an accident unless it was actually faulty in a way that makes it less than what it was promised to be.
Of course there is a big difference when dropping a laptop in that no damage may be apparent, but either way, it's not like the batteries are spontaneously combusting due to a design flaw and no other external factors. Hence, I doubt Sanyo can be held (even partly) responsible for this.
Have you ever stopped an wonder why the heck do comments have subject at all.
Depending on your settings, some comments do not show up 'expanded' so the subject is the only clue you have as to what the reply is going to be about.
I get watery eyes, a blocked nose, slight trouble breathing and other 'allergy' symptoms around most other cats and some dogs, but I have never had any trouble with the Devon Rex breed. I've lived with two of them over the past 8 years and have often termed them 'hypo-allergenic' without needing them to be completely bald or paying $4000.
I'd recommend them as a 'budget alternative' plus they have wonderful personalities (like the Burmese but possibly smarter and friendlier) and make great indoor cats should you happen to live smack bang in the middle of the city like I do.
So many inaccuracies, it's hard to know where to start...
The word is MANSION
Actually, mansion is a totally different word, I suspect they really did mean "manse".
However, I'll admit to *almost* emailing the editor to correct it, the difference being, I decided to check my facts first...
Manse (noun): A large and imposing residence.
Mansion (noun): A large stately house, a manor house.
Given the description of the house and the person we generally believe Bill Gates to be, "large and imposing" works a little better than "stately" and the old-fashioned images generally associated with "a manor house" don't gel well with the lifestyle and tastes of a software billionaire.
The summary at this time uses the phrase "Bill Gates' manse." This is clearly a subversive attempt to evoke "goatse," a web site formerly located at goatse.cx which features explicit sexual acts involving goats.
Since we've cleared up the meaning of the word 'manse' and we can assume it was used deliberately, in so far as it is a valid choice, why is this an attempt to subvert the meaning of the article?
In fact, why would you believe that having the same two letters at the end of a word automatically links the two concepts in some way? How many other words ending in 'se' also make you think of goatse??
...it helped to set the mood and give the universe a little bit of depth.
The last games I saw that had extras like that were Warcraft III and Tachyon: The Fringe.
The recent Grand Theft Auto San Andreas by Rockstar Games came with a fairly large paper map complete with advertising from the various imaginary companies you'll see in the game, and a hard-bound tour guide of the various cities: where to stay, what to see, places of interest, places to eat etc. including a general summary of the area and screenshots of landmarks that become familar as you arrive and look around. These extras to the game are great!
Arriving at each stage in the game having read the guide in advance, you begin to explore like you're on holiday in a place you've read about but have never been too instead of [the reality of] feeling like you've been dropped onto a new level in a computer game.
Also, the parent article way back seemed a little contradictory:
On the flip side of this, Walmart has done some good. The smaller packaging of games has made them easier to store, produced less waste, and has generally been good for consumers as a whole. Which is nice, because the GIGANTOR boxes was really getting out of hand for awhile there. Especially as game producers packed less and less in the box. Anyone remember how Wing Commander included Blueprints, a manual, offers, etc? Good luck finding that stuff in a modern game.:-/
To say that Walmart (and their equivalents in other countries) have done some good by encouraging smaller packaging is fair enough. I like the fact that my most recent 10 or so games (including San Andreas) all fit the small A5 size, DVD box standard and therefore take up little space and sit uniformly in a row on my shelf side by side - it looks good too. So I agree, the small packaging as encouraged by Walmart et al is a good idea.
At the same time, the parent is ruing the demise of extras in a box and with the Walmarts of the world pushing their guidelines as the only way a game will sell, innovations in marketing, extras in the box and so on, are actually far less likely to happen, so it's actually the flipside to the same argument.
To some extent though, this is the commercial democracy that exists. We vote for Walmart (or KMart or Harvey Norman or whoever) by giving them our dollars. They stay in power and have their own agenda to serve. We vote on which games and other products we like by buying them more heavily than others. They take that feedback back to the suppliers and the effects go all the way back to the game designers and producers. In effect, they are our "elected" representatives.
The question is, is their own "family friendly "Bible-belt" image" influencing the feedback they are giving to game houses more than the raw sales figures that show what is popular with the masses?
I.e. Are they telling us what we should buy (what they want to sell us) or are they telling the production companies what is popular with the people?
If it's the latter, I don't mind so much. If it's the former of the two, then I sincerely hope some innovation remains and succeeds from the people putting their products out into the market without the help of retail giants [good luck!].
Slashdot Mirror
I tried that with an old fridge. (Too big for the garbage truck obviously.)
It sat out there for over a week with a sign that said "Free to a good home" and no-one seemed to pay any attention.
As an experiment I put out a new sign: "For sale $100".
It disappeared overnight!
Don't worry. There are plenty of people here on
Are we to assume that they are serial numbered or can we just show up with any duck from that particular manufacturer...?
I guess I was thinking along the lines of making a raw copy of the contents of the physical disk simply so that you could keep working on it long after the drive fails and/or simultaneously if he made multiple copies back to similar hard drives.
If the system is embedded into the hard drive then it would be much more difficult, but arguably you could even dismantle the drive if you wanted to. An encrypted message remains encrypted, but saying it is "unbreakable" because it is printed on paper that will disintegrate before the code is cracked doesn't make sense to me. Even something so heavily encrypted that you can't even view the contents to start cracking it without first supplying a key is still able to be copied if you have physical access to it (take it home with you in this case) provided you can crack it open and somehow read back what you "see" on the platters.
In principle, I agree entirely that if the encryption device is within the onboard electronics of the hard drive or if you were trying to crack it on display in a shop somewhere then it would be virtually impossible.
If further to this system taking the drive out of the TiVo would destroy the contents of the disk automatically then they really would have an unbreakable system. But let's not give them ideas...!
Quite true because at that point there is nothing to stop a person simply copying everything off the disk (just a raw copy even if it is still encrypted).
As soon as you can do that, 3 things are true:
(1) You can preserve it on something more reliable (longer life) than the original drive and work on cracking it from there.
(2) You can make multiple copies and work on it x times faster by attacking each drive/copy with a separate part of the list of possible solutions.
(3) You can spend as long as you like working on cracking it and when the drive reaches the end of it's life, pick up where you left off working on your clone disk.
More importantly how many copies would you need to make to solve it within a useful time period at all? Would you get the data within a useful time frame? Within years? Within your own life time?
Obviously if they have made it so that you can only access the drive with a specific controller then the idea of taking copies is significantly more difficult, but from what I've read it's just a regular Western Digital drive which means you could hook it up and take a raw image of the entire disk even without being able to decode the contents at that point. So as the parent said, you're not hacking it "in situ" and as soon as the drive gets into a consumer's home, you've handed of a the data to be copied.
This is just a patent for making hacking difficult, but since when does that stop anyone?
Meanwhile, I am not even going to bother trying to figure out how this is a solution for "securing networks".
According to the story, his name was David Mullins. So I guess, he was in fact a scumbag!
In Soviet Russia, application puts finger on you.
Damn. Can't believe I just typed my first ever "In Soviet Russia..." joke and I wasn't even actually making the joke.
Sheesh.
Who the hell modded that insightful?
How about (-1) flamebait instead?
But the Great Firewall of Oz could become a significant landmark!
I have heard the Great Firewall of China can be seen from SPACE!
Made me think of the one from "One Of Us" by Michael Marshall Smith.
I am not sure how much I would really enjoy appliances with too much attitude...
Reminds me of some time ago when I got my first hard drive with "unlimited" capacity... and then accidentally filled it up with 5GB of movies in the first few days of using it.
I vowed next time to get a hard drive with at least twice unlimited capacity.
Even one the biggest nerds in the world is still getting teased and/or made fun of???
I guess regardless of its origins, you still can't change the natural order of things!
The actual formula is (A x B x C) + D = X
Where A is units in the field, B is the rate of failure, C is the settlement cost and D is the cost of all the laptops IBM engineers had to drop to confirm the fault existed!
If X is still less than the cost of recall, we don't do one.
Unless the design of the laptop failed to protect the battery in a way that exceeds or does not meet Sanyo's decision specifications.
Since the batteries are not exploding or overheating under normal operating conditions, the problem is largely just a liability issue for IBM/Lenovo since their laptop's (when dropped) can become dangerous. I doubt Sanyo were contracted to make a battery that will continue to operate with no ill side effects when dropped or broken apart...
Something to consider is that when you have a car accident and there is battery acid/radiator coolant/oil/fuel leaking from your car, to some extent it is up to the user to decide if they should still try and turn it over and drive it home and whether or not that would be safe. Though car manufacturers will still recall a car that becomes dangerous when crashed in a certain way and spend a lot of money making sure it crumples and bends in all the right ways, I doubt they hold the various part producers responsible for the particular component's behaviour in an accident unless it was actually faulty in a way that makes it less than what it was promised to be.
Of course there is a big difference when dropping a laptop in that no damage may be apparent, but either way, it's not like the batteries are spontaneously combusting due to a design flaw and no other external factors. Hence, I doubt Sanyo can be held (even partly) responsible for this.
Thus, if you happen to be inside one of these buildings when they catch fire, you are really screwed!
The biggest clue in fact, should have been that many of the recordings were made after June 2006...
Clearly some people have not [downloaded and] watched enough movies to know better than to be this foolhardy.
RIAA Claims P2P Has Been Contained
That's they said about the Aliens too...
Have you ever stopped an wonder why the heck do comments have subject at all.
Depending on your settings, some comments do not show up 'expanded' so the subject is the only clue you have as to what the reply is going to be about.
For AUD$350 I have a Devon Rex.
I get watery eyes, a blocked nose, slight trouble breathing and other 'allergy' symptoms around most other cats and some dogs, but I have never had any trouble with the Devon Rex breed. I've lived with two of them over the past 8 years and have often termed them 'hypo-allergenic' without needing them to be completely bald or paying $4000.
I'd recommend them as a 'budget alternative' plus they have wonderful personalities (like the Burmese but possibly smarter and friendlier) and make great indoor cats should you happen to live smack bang in the middle of the city like I do.
My own 'hypo-allergenic' kitten is right here.
Hooray!
So many inaccuracies, it's hard to know where to start...
The word is MANSION
Actually, mansion is a totally different word, I suspect they really did mean "manse".
However, I'll admit to *almost* emailing the editor to correct it, the difference being, I decided to check my facts first...
Manse (noun): A large and imposing residence.
Mansion (noun): A large stately house, a manor house.
Given the description of the house and the person we generally believe Bill Gates to be, "large and imposing" works a little better than "stately" and the old-fashioned images generally associated with "a manor house" don't gel well with the lifestyle and tastes of a software billionaire.
The summary at this time uses the phrase "Bill Gates' manse." This is clearly a subversive attempt to evoke "goatse," a web site formerly located at goatse.cx which features explicit sexual acts involving goats.
Since we've cleared up the meaning of the word 'manse' and we can assume it was used deliberately, in so far as it is a valid choice, why is this an attempt to subvert the meaning of the article?
In fact, why would you believe that having the same two letters at the end of a word automatically links the two concepts in some way? How many other words ending in 'se' also make you think of goatse??
"sexual acts involving goats" ??? I think not...
Perhaps you should read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse.cx
Actually, save yourself some time and click this.
WARNING TO EVERYONE ELSE - DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK!
Organic LEDs "are far more energy efficient and should last longer".
What's the bet a few light globe manufacturers will get together, buy the rights and then put it away in the archives?
...but a wafer thin sheet of organic material shining above a cartoon character's head is never going to look as good...!
...it helped to set the mood and give the universe a little bit of depth.
:-/
The last games I saw that had extras like that were Warcraft III and Tachyon: The Fringe.
The recent Grand Theft Auto San Andreas by Rockstar Games came with a fairly large paper map complete with advertising from the various imaginary companies you'll see in the game, and a hard-bound tour guide of the various cities: where to stay, what to see, places of interest, places to eat etc. including a general summary of the area and screenshots of landmarks that become familar as you arrive and look around. These extras to the game are great!
Arriving at each stage in the game having read the guide in advance, you begin to explore like you're on holiday in a place you've read about but have never been too instead of [the reality of] feeling like you've been dropped onto a new level in a computer game.
Also, the parent article way back seemed a little contradictory:
On the flip side of this, Walmart has done some good. The smaller packaging of games has made them easier to store, produced less waste, and has generally been good for consumers as a whole. Which is nice, because the GIGANTOR boxes was really getting out of hand for awhile there. Especially as game producers packed less and less in the box. Anyone remember how Wing Commander included Blueprints, a manual, offers, etc? Good luck finding that stuff in a modern game.
To say that Walmart (and their equivalents in other countries) have done some good by encouraging smaller packaging is fair enough. I like the fact that my most recent 10 or so games (including San Andreas) all fit the small A5 size, DVD box standard and therefore take up little space and sit uniformly in a row on my shelf side by side - it looks good too. So I agree, the small packaging as encouraged by Walmart et al is a good idea.
At the same time, the parent is ruing the demise of extras in a box and with the Walmarts of the world pushing their guidelines as the only way a game will sell, innovations in marketing, extras in the box and so on, are actually far less likely to happen, so it's actually the flipside to the same argument.
To some extent though, this is the commercial democracy that exists. We vote for Walmart (or KMart or Harvey Norman or whoever) by giving them our dollars. They stay in power and have their own agenda to serve. We vote on which games and other products we like by buying them more heavily than others. They take that feedback back to the suppliers and the effects go all the way back to the game designers and producers. In effect, they are our "elected" representatives.
The question is, is their own "family friendly "Bible-belt" image" influencing the feedback they are giving to game houses more than the raw sales figures that show what is popular with the masses?
I.e. Are they telling us what we should buy (what they want to sell us) or are they telling the production companies what is popular with the people?
If it's the latter, I don't mind so much. If it's the former of the two, then I sincerely hope some innovation remains and succeeds from the people putting their products out into the market without the help of retail giants [good luck!].
This is a really cool creation and the scientists responsible will slap (100 times harder than you've ever been slapped) anyone who disagrees!