A free VPN? What's the catch? What's that you say? All of my internet traffic patterns, identifiable by my IP, will be tracked (minus "personally-identifiable information")? Google will know exactly where, when, and how I surf the internet? Sweet.
This seems to be Google's primary business model... provide a great, free service to the end-user, mine a wealth of information received secondarily from end-user's use of the service, and use that information to improve Google's databases or sell more and better-targeted ads.
For those interested, here is Google's privacy policy for this service. Interesting parts are highlighted for your enjoyment.
Google Secure Access Privacy Policy
The
Google Privacy Policy describes how we
treat personal information when you use Google's services, including
information provided when you use the Google WiFi or Google Secure Access client.
In addition, the following describes our practices that are specific to the Google
Secure Access client:
Using Google Secure Access
We understand and respect that you are concerned
about your privacy, that's one of the driving reasons
why we created Google Secure Access. Using insecure
networks, such as public wireless networks, can leave
your internet traffic open to snooping by others in the
vicinity of the wireless network. Google Secure Access
helps address this problem by
encrypting all traffic from and to your machine and
passing it from the insecure network through a trusted
gateway. If you choose to use Google Secure Access, your
internet traffic will be encrypted and sent through
Google's servers to the internet, then received from
those servers to be encrypted and sent back through
our servers to your computer.
Google is committed to helping our users ensure their
privacy and understand their privacy choices. That's
why we want you to know that if you choose to use
Google Secure Access, all your internet traffic will pass through
Google's gateway servers. That means that your
internet traffic is sent through Google's servers and Google is
careful not to store any of that information except as noted here.
Google may log some information from your web
page requests as may the websites that you visit. We
do this to understand how Google Secure Access is being used
and to improve our services. Google Secure Access does not
log cookies and strips potentially sensitive query data
from the end of requests to help better protect your
privacy.
Google also logs a small set of non-personally
identifiable information -- such as routing information,
session durations and operating system and Google
Secure Access client version numbers -- in order to create your
Google Secure Access connection, understand how people are using
Google Secure Access and help us maintain the Google Secure Access
client.
Google will not sell or provide personally identifiable
information to any third parties except under the
limited circumstances described in the
Google Privacy Policy. If Google concludes that we are
required by law or have a good faith belief that collection,
preservation or disclosure of additional information is
reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or
safety of Google, our users or the public, such as if
we believe the Google Secure Access service is being abused,
we may for a limited period of time preserve additional
internet traffic or other information.
As FPGA's get larger and cheaper, I expect to see more and more functions that are traditionally performed on old-fashioned sequential computers like your desktop computer, and will be embedded into special purposes devices rather than general purpose computers.
From my understanding an FPGA (Force-Programmable Gate Array) is in fact a general-purpose computer that is hardware-reconfigurable. You essentially embed your software into the device's gate structure rather than reading it from memory and executing it piece by piece on a general-purpose processor. I don't think that this means that we will have many specialized devices instead of a main computer, however. It seems feasible that we might have an array of FPGAs within a CPU unit which can be quickly reprogrammed to suit the user's needs. Perhaps we might even have a traditional sequential computer that manages a set of reprogrammble devices that can perform various extraneous functions similar to the ones now performed by our PCI expansion cards. I've been working with CPLDs and FPGAs at my summer job at a UPenn lab specializing in neuromorphic VLSI design, and I know that even now the reprogramming time for a packet-routing system with external ram is only a matter of seconds, and that these systems can route tens of millions of packets per second successfully. While I may disagree with your vision of separate devices, I whole-heartedly agree with you that VLSI and FPGA/CPLD-based designs will be a very important part of the hardware market in the future. In fact, I know that a professional multi-track sound card that I almost bought last year uses a reconfigurable FPGA DSP as its central processor! Their speed and reconfigurability will make them an essential part of the market in a year or two's time.
Your post assumes that the Bush administration has some evil master plan for America (or at least part of America) to triumph, and I almost wish that were true. Instead, I feel that they (or at least a certain few among them) are grossly misinformed. They've spent most of their time ignoring science and focusing on their ideological and moral goals, so they lack the fundamental knowledge to understand the technology they hope to use to achieve their goals. One of the main criticisms of "bunker busters", for example, is that with even a slight miscalculation of location, material to penetrate, or size of the bunker, the nuclear device could fail to destroy all of any chemical/biological weapons that may be in a stockpile. In fact, such an error would not only fail to destroy these weapons, but would unleash them on the surrounding community, and possibly (especially with a large explosion) project them higher into the atmosphere, causing widespread harm to the people and environment of a region. This of course doesn't even mention the possibility of radioactive fallout exposure that comes with any nuclear weapon, especially those intended to be used near the general population.
Clearly only a few people on/. actually RTFA, so I'll respond to your questions with a quote from the referenced website, as you seem to have enough time to read the myriad comments on each article if not the article itself.
Atom Chip Corporation has developed and designed the new ultra-high density, ultra-high speed and extremely compact size non-volatile integrated optoelectronic Random Access Memory (NvIOpRAM). 3.2GB of non-volatile RAM are contained in one cubic millimeter.
[...]
In this NvIOpRAM the information is recorded and read by a laser beam. The density of information of this memory is 128MB/square millimeter having the thickness of the recording media (array) of 20microns. 3.2GB of NvIOpSRAM are contained in one cubic millimeter. Also, this new Quantum-Optical technology allows NvIOpRAM to be built up to 256GB in one package. 256GB of memory fits in a recording media with the physical dimensions of: length- 10mm, width- 4mm and thickness- 4mm.
[...]
Beam splitter divides a laser beam to reference and object beams. Then spatial light modulator imposes the image of data to be stored onto an object beam, and through a transform lens focuses interference figure (of the image) from object and reference beams onto an area 1m in diameter in a particular region in the recording media. In order to record information to a recording media an electromagnetic field is formed, which allows to fix the light interference figure (of the image) to be fixed on the focused area. In order to record numerous words onto the same area, the angle where the reference beam crosses the object beam is changed. This is done using the invented ultra-high speed optoelectronic mirror.
The data is retrieved by disconnecting the object beam and allowing only the reference beam with necessary angle of multiplex transformation to pass through the recording media. The source of the electromagnetic field in the recording media is also disconnected, being needed only during the recording of information. Light image from the recording media is projected onto a matrix decoder where optical display is transformed into digital electrical signals.
"What?", you say? "So how does that connect to the computer?"
Again with the website:
The non-volatile integrated optoelectronic random access memory device consists of three functional units: Decoder/transceiver, memory cartridge and adapter with optical fiber.
DECODER/TRANSCEIVER is mounted on the motherboard of the computer (or other electronic devices) and is electrically hooked up to the processor. The following devices are located in the decoder/transceiver: laser beam splitter, spatial light modulator, optoelectronic word mirror with transform lens, matrix converter of the optical display in electrical signals and other circuits for the interface.
MEMORY CARTRIDGE -removable memory chip or removable memory module has only a few pinouts (Power, Ground and Read/Write enable) and optical input/output for the laser beam. Memory array, optoelectronic address mirror with transform lens and detector are located in the cartridge.
ADAPTER is permanently mounted on the outer case of the computer (or other electronic devices) and is intended for the hook up of the removable memory cartridges and for the transfer of light through the optical fiber and electrical signal through the electrical cable between the cartridge and the decoder/transceiver . The optical fiber has two independent optical lines intended for reading and recording of information. There are a few versions of the adapter.
Basically, the processor connects electrically to the decoder. The decoder connects optically to the memory chip, and information read optically from memory is fed optically back through the decoder and then electrically back to the processor. The memory chip itself only has three pinouts: power,
Perhaps we could allocate more money to domestic causes like the USPTO and education rather than to most probably fruitless squanderings of our tax dollars like a manned mission to Mars or attacks on Afghanistan.
Actually, I'd say this article's writer practiced some very Intelligent Design. My advisor at work is writing his thesis on his VLSI silicon model of a subset of the human hippocampus, and he'll be lucky to get a hundred readers. John P. A. Ioannidis made only some "simulated" postulations and he's already got hundreds of thousands of eyes on/.!
I usually trust the military to have the most advanced technologies. After checking out Darpa's Grand Challenge last year, my hopes of having a car that would understand its surroundings and react to them accurately were fairly dashed...
In addition, fusion may provide yet another satisfying actualization of our sci-fi dreams...
Seriously though, a controlled, contained fusion reactor could provide a viable power source for our spacecraft as they venture farther and farther from earth, not to mention for our large navy destroyers and subs.
That of course begs the question: would we really want to trust the makers of the Columbia/Discovery and the planners of the recent middle east invasion with such a delicate and possibly (read:probably) catastrophic technology?
Moot points, however: the technology in this article still can't even achieve ignition in a lab environment.
Unfortunately, this issue cannot be dismissed as just another evil of technology. The evil you perceive is simply greed, pursued through whatever channel is available.
If technology were used in a more productive (and admittedly uncommonly selfless) manner, we might all have our entire college library distributed to us every year of our schooling on a complementary iPod (I'm looking at you Duke), ours to keep for generations to come.
We could pretend that he meant that your friends now don't even have to switch to Gentoo to experience its full splendor.
Or we could just ignore the article completely.
I would assume that most clandestine documents would be in some written form, and unless you're a 12-year-old girl who wants little colored butterflies to flap around her words, why can't you just remove the color cartridge from your printer (whether toner or liquid)?
Alternatively, why not manufacture your own paper complete with millions of randomly positioned microdots, or at least include that as a background image in your document?
Even simpler, as previously mentioned, we still have Kinko's almost everywhere you go. Why not just copy your document there with some kind of low-pass color filter to conver the document to monotone? If you're worried about anonymity, just drive to a Kinko's in another county/state.
It seems like if one was worried enough about one's anonymity to even begin to ponder this technology, it would be a fairly simple matter to bypass it.
The same can certainly be said for the NASA scientists, who are now scrambling to explain the differences (at least an order of magnitude worth) between their predictions and the data they've received.
And as an aside, rationalization (read: hypothesising) is what the scientific method is all about. So yes, seeing how the Electric Universe proponents rationalize the data they've received will not only be interesting, but essential to the growth of scientific theory in general.
Slashdot Mirror
This seems to be Google's primary business model... provide a great, free service to the end-user, mine a wealth of information received secondarily from end-user's use of the service, and use that information to improve Google's databases or sell more and better-targeted ads.
For those interested, here is Google's privacy policy for this service. Interesting parts are highlighted for your enjoyment.
Google Secure Access Privacy Policy
The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google's services, including information provided when you use the Google WiFi or Google Secure Access client. In addition, the following describes our practices that are specific to the Google Secure Access client:
Using Google Secure Access
We understand and respect that you are concerned about your privacy, that's one of the driving reasons why we created Google Secure Access. Using insecure networks, such as public wireless networks, can leave your internet traffic open to snooping by others in the vicinity of the wireless network. Google Secure Access helps address this problem by encrypting all traffic from and to your machine and passing it from the insecure network through a trusted gateway. If you choose to use Google Secure Access, your internet traffic will be encrypted and sent through Google's servers to the internet, then received from those servers to be encrypted and sent back through our servers to your computer.
Google is committed to helping our users ensure their privacy and understand their privacy choices. That's why we want you to know that if you choose to use Google Secure Access, all your internet traffic will pass through Google's gateway servers. That means that your internet traffic is sent through Google's servers and Google is careful not to store any of that information except as noted here.
Google may log some information from your web page requests as may the websites that you visit. We do this to understand how Google Secure Access is being used and to improve our services. Google Secure Access does not log cookies and strips potentially sensitive query data from the end of requests to help better protect your privacy.
Google also logs a small set of non-personally identifiable information -- such as routing information, session durations and operating system and Google Secure Access client version numbers -- in order to create your Google Secure Access connection, understand how people are using Google Secure Access and help us maintain the Google Secure Access client.
Google will not sell or provide personally identifiable information to any third parties except under the limited circumstances described in the Google Privacy Policy. If Google concludes that we are required by law or have a good faith belief that collection, preservation or disclosure of additional information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public, such as if we believe the Google Secure Access service is being abused, we may for a limited period of time preserve additional internet traffic or other information.
As FPGA's get larger and cheaper, I expect to see more and more functions that are traditionally performed on old-fashioned sequential computers like your desktop computer, and will be embedded into special purposes devices rather than general purpose computers.
From my understanding an FPGA (Force-Programmable Gate Array) is in fact a general-purpose computer that is hardware-reconfigurable. You essentially embed your software into the device's gate structure rather than reading it from memory and executing it piece by piece on a general-purpose processor. I don't think that this means that we will have many specialized devices instead of a main computer, however. It seems feasible that we might have an array of FPGAs within a CPU unit which can be quickly reprogrammed to suit the user's needs. Perhaps we might even have a traditional sequential computer that manages a set of reprogrammble devices that can perform various extraneous functions similar to the ones now performed by our PCI expansion cards. I've been working with CPLDs and FPGAs at my summer job at a UPenn lab specializing in neuromorphic VLSI design, and I know that even now the reprogramming time for a packet-routing system with external ram is only a matter of seconds, and that these systems can route tens of millions of packets per second successfully. While I may disagree with your vision of separate devices, I whole-heartedly agree with you that VLSI and FPGA/CPLD-based designs will be a very important part of the hardware market in the future. In fact, I know that a professional multi-track sound card that I almost bought last year uses a reconfigurable FPGA DSP as its central processor! Their speed and reconfigurability will make them an essential part of the market in a year or two's time.
If only Google could end its legal woes with plastic beads...
Your post assumes that the Bush administration has some evil master plan for America (or at least part of America) to triumph, and I almost wish that were true. Instead, I feel that they (or at least a certain few among them) are grossly misinformed. They've spent most of their time ignoring science and focusing on their ideological and moral goals, so they lack the fundamental knowledge to understand the technology they hope to use to achieve their goals. One of the main criticisms of "bunker busters", for example, is that with even a slight miscalculation of location, material to penetrate, or size of the bunker, the nuclear device could fail to destroy all of any chemical/biological weapons that may be in a stockpile. In fact, such an error would not only fail to destroy these weapons, but would unleash them on the surrounding community, and possibly (especially with a large explosion) project them higher into the atmosphere, causing widespread harm to the people and environment of a region. This of course doesn't even mention the possibility of radioactive fallout exposure that comes with any nuclear weapon, especially those intended to be used near the general population.
"What?", you say? "So how does that connect to the computer?"
Again with the website:
Basically, the processor connects electrically to the decoder. The decoder connects optically to the memory chip, and information read optically from memory is fed optically back through the decoder and then electrically back to the processor. The memory chip itself only has three pinouts: power,
Perhaps we could allocate more money to domestic causes like the USPTO and education rather than to most probably fruitless squanderings of our tax dollars like a manned mission to Mars or attacks on Afghanistan.
Actually, I'd say this article's writer practiced some very Intelligent Design. My advisor at work is writing his thesis on his VLSI silicon model of a subset of the human hippocampus, and he'll be lucky to get a hundred readers. John P. A. Ioannidis made only some "simulated" postulations and he's already got hundreds of thousands of eyes on /.!
I usually trust the military to have the most advanced technologies. After checking out Darpa's Grand Challenge last year, my hopes of having a car that would understand its surroundings and react to them accurately were fairly dashed...
TheRegister Report
As much as I'd love a "smart car", I'd also like to go more than a mile without crashing into things.
In addition, fusion may provide yet another satisfying actualization of our sci-fi dreams...
Seriously though, a controlled, contained fusion reactor could provide a viable power source for our spacecraft as they venture farther and farther from earth, not to mention for our large navy destroyers and subs.
That of course begs the question: would we really want to trust the makers of the Columbia/Discovery and the planners of the recent middle east invasion with such a delicate and possibly (read:probably) catastrophic technology?
Moot points, however: the technology in this article still can't even achieve ignition in a lab environment.
Well... actually... http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/nanocell.html
They're getting closer.
It seems that Start.com has stopped... it has only a simple gif served from the front page. ./ed?
Unfortunately, this issue cannot be dismissed as just another evil of technology. The evil you perceive is simply greed, pursued through whatever channel is available.
If technology were used in a more productive (and admittedly uncommonly selfless) manner, we might all have our entire college library distributed to us every year of our schooling on a complementary iPod (I'm looking at you Duke), ours to keep for generations to come.
We could pretend that he meant that your friends now don't even have to switch to Gentoo to experience its full splendor. Or we could just ignore the article completely.
I would assume that most clandestine documents would be in some written form, and unless you're a 12-year-old girl who wants little colored butterflies to flap around her words, why can't you just remove the color cartridge from your printer (whether toner or liquid)? Alternatively, why not manufacture your own paper complete with millions of randomly positioned microdots, or at least include that as a background image in your document? Even simpler, as previously mentioned, we still have Kinko's almost everywhere you go. Why not just copy your document there with some kind of low-pass color filter to conver the document to monotone? If you're worried about anonymity, just drive to a Kinko's in another county/state. It seems like if one was worried enough about one's anonymity to even begin to ponder this technology, it would be a fairly simple matter to bypass it.
The same can certainly be said for the NASA scientists, who are now scrambling to explain the differences (at least an order of magnitude worth) between their predictions and the data they've received. And as an aside, rationalization (read: hypothesising) is what the scientific method is all about. So yes, seeing how the Electric Universe proponents rationalize the data they've received will not only be interesting, but essential to the growth of scientific theory in general.