Is this real intelligence? "Absolutely," he says. EO-1 passes the basic test: "If you put the system in a box and look at it from the outside, without knowing how the decisions are made, would you say the system is intelligent?" Chien thinks so."
All the system does is basically to compute the score (interest) of the different points of the earth's surface using predetermined criteria (plume of smokes +5 points, flash-floods +2 points) set by humans, and then allocate observation time in priority to the points that have the highest score. This is not what I call intelligence.
An intelligent system would set its own goals, not follow predetermined ones. In this case an intelligent system would decide by itself that a certain phenomenon is interesting and decide to observe it, without being told about it beforehand.
If intelligence is their goal they have a long way to go.
Yep. Which is what permits it to use a signal-slot mechanism which spanks wxWidgets and any other C++ system out there. No more crashes due to dangling pointers, yay!
libsigc++ (used in gtkmm) gives you typesafe slots/signals in ISO C++, no need to invent your own language. (No granted this wasn't possible at the time QT was originally designed).
1. I don't understand why they use RFID. If you are not supposed to read it from further than two centimeters then why not use a contact chip (smartcard) ? It would be as practical to read and you would be sure that no one could read it without your knowledge.
2. The argument in the article that goes "if you can read it you can clone it" it completely bogus and make them sound like idiots. Have they never heard of challenge-request authentication ? The basic idea is that the reader authenticates the chip to ensure it is not a forged one. To do this you have a shared secret in both the chip and the reader. The reader then sends a random challenge to the chip, which encrypts it with the secret and send the result back. The reader does the same operation and compares the result. If it matches it considers that the chip knows the secret and is thus original.
The key idea then is that the chip never sends the secret directly, so a cloner could never guess it, even if it could issue an unlimited number of challenges to the original chip. And without the secret, it cannot produce a clone that would authenticate.
So in short to clone the chip you need more than the chip, you need to compromise the manufacturer of the system to get the secret.
I found out you could get away with very few technical books, if you choose them well. Mine are:
The C programming language
The C++ programming language
Effective C++
Design patterns
Teubner Taschenbuch der Mathematik
The art of computer programming
Numerical recipes in C
Cours de théorie des modèles
Categories for the working mathematician
Unfortunately the article doesn't explain in any way the really interesting points. For instance:
- How is the decryption key protected ? If it is included in the kernel binary you can read it.
- How is the kernel protected? Can you write a modified kernel that use the kernel extension unmodified and allows you to look at the decrypted code ?
- Can you run the kernel on an emulator (on a mac) that relays the calls to the TC chip so that the kernel thinks it is on a Mac while making it possible for you to look at the decrypted code and package an unencrypted binary back ? If not, why ?
These are some of the things I'd be interested in knowing.
Here is why:
Suppose you want to watch porn 24 hours a day from the age of 15 till 75. Thats 60 years = 60 * 365.25 * 24 * 60 * 60 s = 1.89 * 10^9 s
A DivX is around 600 MB / hour = 600 * 1000000 / (60 * 60) = 1.67 * 10^5 B/s
So for your lifetime porn collection you need 1.89 * 1.67 * 10^14 B = 315 TB.
I still do not understand why java applets were abandonned in favor of html+javascript applications. Applets are faster, they behave just like regular desktop applications, they are easier to develop, more secure, work the same on every platforms, and you don't have to install anything either.
It really seems we traded a nice technology perfectly suited to the purpose for a barely working hack. That's sad.
From the comments written so far I thought an exposition of the swiss system may be interesting.
For a few years now, whenever you buy a piece of electronics you have to pay a mandatory recycling tax, which the store gives back to a government managed recycling fund. The amount depends on the type of equipment.
Next, every electronics store is required by law to accept any piece of equipment for recycling. You can basically bring your old gear to any store for recycling for free, whether you bought it there or not.
Finally the store will then arrange for a recycling company to take these items. For every item processed, the two companies will receive back the corresponding tax amount from the global fund, which they will share in a law-mandated proportion.
The government only manages the fund. Any recycling company can do the job provided it is certified.
The system works well. For the buyer, it is a lot more convenient to bring his old gear to the next store than to get rid of it any other way. And since you were forced to pay for recycling anyhow, why not do it ? I don't rember the numbers but the percentage of recycled gear is quite high.
An RTG-powered rover will work longer and better than a MER rover, assuming all other things are equal (not breakdowns elsewhere)
Except that power is not necessarily the limiting factor. Spirit lost one wheel and won't be able to move at all if it loses one more. So in this case an RTG won't make it work longer.
Slashdot Mirror
All the system does is basically to compute the score (interest) of the different points of the earth's surface using predetermined criteria (plume of smokes +5 points, flash-floods +2 points) set by humans, and then allocate observation time in priority to the points that have the highest score. This is not what I call intelligence.
An intelligent system would set its own goals, not follow predetermined ones. In this case an intelligent system would decide by itself that a certain phenomenon is interesting and decide to observe it, without being told about it beforehand.
If intelligence is their goal they have a long way to go.
As a human you might be fooled, but a well designed browser could tell the difference and alert you. So this shouldn't be a problem.
Right from the source: http://www.st.com/stonline/products/literature/ds/ 11115.pdf
These things are not exactly new. They are used in the automotive sector, or for "stabilizers" in camcorders.
I want my DynaTAC 8000X back!
1. I don't understand why they use RFID. If you are not supposed to read it from further than two centimeters then why not use a contact chip (smartcard) ? It would be as practical to read and you would be sure that no one could read it without your knowledge. 2. The argument in the article that goes "if you can read it you can clone it" it completely bogus and make them sound like idiots. Have they never heard of challenge-request authentication ? The basic idea is that the reader authenticates the chip to ensure it is not a forged one. To do this you have a shared secret in both the chip and the reader. The reader then sends a random challenge to the chip, which encrypts it with the secret and send the result back. The reader does the same operation and compares the result. If it matches it considers that the chip knows the secret and is thus original.
The key idea then is that the chip never sends the secret directly, so a cloner could never guess it, even if it could issue an unlimited number of challenges to the original chip. And without the secret, it cannot produce a clone that would authenticate.
So in short to clone the chip you need more than the chip, you need to compromise the manufacturer of the system to get the secret.
I found out you could get away with very few technical books, if you choose them well. Mine are: The C programming language The C++ programming language Effective C++ Design patterns Teubner Taschenbuch der Mathematik The art of computer programming Numerical recipes in C Cours de théorie des modèles Categories for the working mathematician
Unfortunately the article doesn't explain in any way the really interesting points. For instance:
- How is the decryption key protected ? If it is included in the kernel binary you can read it.
- How is the kernel protected? Can you write a modified kernel that use the kernel extension unmodified and allows you to look at the decrypted code ?
- Can you run the kernel on an emulator (on a mac) that relays the calls to the TC chip so that the kernel thinks it is on a Mac while making it possible for you to look at the decrypted code and package an unencrypted binary back ? If not, why ?
These are some of the things I'd be interested in knowing.
Exactly. Assembly works, why bother with so called "high level" languages?
This guy: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=us er.viewprofile&friendid=9897862
One pixel should be enough for anybody.
It's about time their office include an Animal Protection Institute for their code monkeys.
Here is why:
Suppose you want to watch porn 24 hours a day from the age of 15 till 75. Thats 60 years = 60 * 365.25 * 24 * 60 * 60 s = 1.89 * 10^9 s
A DivX is around 600 MB / hour = 600 * 1000000 / (60 * 60) = 1.67 * 10^5 B/s
So for your lifetime porn collection you need 1.89 * 1.67 * 10^14 B = 315 TB.
...does it come with a cooler for my wallet ?
I still do not understand why java applets were abandonned in favor of html+javascript applications. Applets are faster, they behave just like regular desktop applications, they are easier to develop, more secure, work the same on every platforms, and you don't have to install anything either.
It really seems we traded a nice technology perfectly suited to the purpose for a barely working hack. That's sad.
From the comments written so far I thought an exposition of the swiss system may be interesting.
For a few years now, whenever you buy a piece of electronics you have to pay a mandatory recycling tax, which the store gives back to a government managed recycling fund. The amount depends on the type of equipment.
Next, every electronics store is required by law to accept any piece of equipment for recycling. You can basically bring your old gear to any store for recycling for free, whether you bought it there or not.
Finally the store will then arrange for a recycling company to take these items. For every item processed, the two companies will receive back the corresponding tax amount from the global fund, which they will share in a law-mandated proportion.
The government only manages the fund. Any recycling company can do the job provided it is certified.
The system works well. For the buyer, it is a lot more convenient to bring his old gear to the next store than to get rid of it any other way. And since you were forced to pay for recycling anyhow, why not do it ? I don't rember the numbers but the percentage of recycled gear is quite high.
... and here I tought naively we could kiss goodbye to Macrobe Flash.