I read this article and didn't find anything about impersonation of gender. If anything, part of detection algorithm is based on looking for terms like "my wife/my gf" vs. "my hubby/my boyfriend". I think these terms are pretty self-explanatory (well, at least the former, in most states, the latter may belong to a gay user). In any case, this is a fairly trivial method of determining gender and one that seems to be quite basic and naive, in a way that any impersonator, even not particularly determined, would be able to defeat. Like, omg, whatever.
Back in pre-online application days, Green Card lottery used to be pretty much a sure shot for anyone with half a brain and ability to follow basic instructions. They had no real form to fill, but rather a set of fairly simple and specific guidelines. You had to use a plain piece of paper, and write in order (numbered or not) your name, date of birth, mailing address, a few other items I now forget. You needed to attach a photo of specific size (with a staple, in the top right corner of the page). You had to mail it in an envelope of specific size (standard US, though not necessarily elsewhere) to a specific address that depended on your "origin". You had to specify your origin (more or less nationality) based on certain rules - primarily your place of birth. You could only send a single application per year.
Doesn't seem so complicated? Well, evidently they used to get about 1 - 2 million applications per year. Of these, well over 70-80% were discarded by failing to follow these rules. People would, evidently, include personal letters and stories, family photos and what not. Quite a few people sent multiple applications anyway.
That left perhaps 300-500K valid applications. Of these 100K "winning" applications were selected and half of those actually got a green card (evidently quite a few people do not apply etc, which is why more were selected).
So, for anyone able to submit a correct application, probability of winning was hovering about 20%, and realistically meant a virtually certain win over a course of about 5-6 years. Since winnings were allocated by area, some areas fared even better. In particular, those few educated persons from some of the countries with generally less educated population could approach a 100% win probability.
The internet based process changed it all. Now any application that is submitted is technically correct, nothing is being discarded and many more applications are being submitted. Probability of winning at this point is quite low (I would estimate it in single %)
I can't speak for others - but here is my story. I have a software product that would be perfect for tablets. iPad market is pretty crowded and I'd love to go the Android route. My product is currently multi-platform and I can easily build it for Linux. It's a graphics-heavy application with fairly extensive UI. And therein lies a problem - I don't mind re-writing the entire UI, but Android requires me to do so in Java. Now, I don't know about you, but to me the though of building a complex UI in Java and having 100s of interfaces to/from it into native code seems simply terrifying. I've seen the "basic examples" and they are extremely convoluted and unmaintainable. So my choice is to either write the entire product from scratch and in Java (no-go, don't even ask) or write a fully native Android product without UI (like game developers do it). Can't really go the second route, since unlike games - this application requires some amount of user interaction.
So, there you have it - I very much want to enter Android market, but technical design of that system (which to me seems braindead) - is a huge obstacle. It's not that it is impossible ot overcome. but the resulting product would likely be difficult to maintain and uneconomical.
On the other hand, I could easily develop similar product for iPad - but again, the money is not there anymore, too late for the party:)
I am guessing this post is vetted by higher ups at Apple. I think they realize that the new paradigm of Apple deskop/notebook OS does not sit too well with the geeks, and they feel the need to connect and explain in this fashion. I also think that if 10.7 Lion was something Apple wanted to distribute openly in earnest, they would have done so without resorting to the locked-in App store (even if the actual 10.7 is not locked in). Apple is playing a double game here - they want to hook in users with a new shiny OS and at the same time get them to embrace the lock-in of App store which will provide a stream of paid and DRMed applications. However, what worked for "consumption devices" like iPad may not necessarily work out so well for general purpose devices like a Macbook.
Amount of digital communication keeps rising and so does amount of investigations that needs to be performed that involve such communication. I am sure we all like "bad guys" to be caught and punished when they steal, lie and cheat. But noo - not wiretaps. Feds need to raise a bunch of Sherlock Holmes-clones who could solve crimes by tilting their head just so, squinting a bit and getting the whole story to us.
That panel does not consist of "friends" of his, as is clearly evident. Once shown to any outside party, source code is essentially shown to all, no matter how many nondisclosure agreements they may have signed. The only way to protect proprietary source code is to keep it proprietary and very-very secret. (Spoken from experience)
The behavior is quite logical, once you understand what the objective is. Usually the way we look at this is from the POV of corporation/corporate IT security. They find this behavior "stupid" - it potentially harms corporate systems. But consider that an individual employee quite likely cares very little for the well being of corporate IT system or corporation in general (why - is another story). He may be interested to find out what's on the USB device (could be something valuable, you never know) and at the same time he probably wouldn't want to harm his personal computer at home. Hence - using it at work, where if this turns out to be something nasty - it's someone elses problem. And if IT asks - 100% of the time he'll say that he did not do any such thing:)
People are not idiots, they just have their own objectives that are not very well aligned with yours.
Considering the amount of bitcoin related articles on/. (almost daily now?) in relation to its real world importance (extremely low and unlikely to grow), I wonder if this is "stuff that matters" or a paid (or otherwise incentivized) advertisement on part of/.?
FWIW I looked at bitcoint - it's usefulness in my personal opinion is virtually nil, it's either a scam or a pipe dream, and likely both.
Your face gives out about 25 bits:) (Depending on how acute the perception is of someone looking at it). Your fingerprints are good for pretty much the entire 32 bit. Even your voice is probably good for 20 bits or so, with appropriate equipment.
The only way to be untrackable is to be completely undistinguishable from a very large set of people. It is possible, but what fun would that kind of life be? You can't both *be* a unique individual and expect others not to notice that/not to treat you like such.
I only heard about this too. I also only heard about Windows viruses and trojans even though I also own a number of Windows machines. Bottom line - I don't expect my computers to ever be infected, but it's out there.
Tommy: What's coursing?
Turkish: Hare coursing. They set two lurchers – they're dogs, before you ask – on a hare. And the hare has to outrun the dogs.
Tommy: So, what if it doesn't?
Turkish: Well, the big rabbit gets fucked, doesn't it?
Tommy: [pauses and thinks] Proper fucked?
Turkish: Yeah, Tommy. Before zee Germans get there.
It's only downhill from here. Apple got itself a critical mass of un-skilled users sufficient to follow in footsteps of Microsoft. The price of popularity is quite well defined.
It's been years since Bill Gates did anything of value at MS, and it's been years since MS was anything like "the Borg". I wonder if slashdot will ever grow up enough to get rid of the idiotic icon they use to tag Microsoft stories. Google is the real "Borg" now yet they get away with a shiny green robot.
Please, slashdot - we are not the "radical" teenagers anymore (well, some of us) and it'd be great if you guys became a bit more adult. You are looking a bit ridiculous this way.
I was born and raised in a country that is firmly and decidedly "metric". I finished school and college knowing nothing but metric system. So, you could say that metric would be my "natural choice".
Then I moved to US. At first non-metric units were a PIA. Admittedly, conversions are not nearly as convenient - you can't just shuffle a decimal dot around.
After a while, though - it really started to "grow on me". The first shift occurred when I started driving a lot - both in US and in Europe. For reasons, that are purely subjective, I began to feel like a mile (statutory or nautical, your pick) is a more "natural" unit of distance. Kilometer always fell short. In a way mile represented what I feel a "decent distance" should feel like.
Then, as I took up a hobby (or a waste of money, depending on your take on it) that required significant amounts of engineering, machining and manual work - I started to feel the same way about other units. Inch is exactly what a "small but human scale" distance should be (it is unusually pretty close to what you'd get if you were to show a "very short distance" by making a semi-circle with your thumb and index fingers, like a slightly opened O), so did the foot, the ounce for "a small amount of weight" etc. I also began to appreciate division of inches into powers of two (rather than centimeters into powers of ten etc).
In time, conversions became a non-issue. In fact, it probably helps keep my "doing arithmetic in my head" skills less rusty.
I still occasionally use metrics as a way to do "thru conversions", in particular between volume and mass (because one deci-meter of water is one liter of water is approx 1 kg). I also use metrics where they are the only units - such as electricity, for example.
But at this point, I would not voluntarily go back to metric system for anything that's related to weights and dimensions.
YMMV. That said, perhaps there are other people who feel like me. If so - that's your answer as to why Imperial units are still here (and, hopefully, going to stay for a while)
why wouldn't it?:) It would be a monopoly and it would most certainly exercise monopoly power. it does so now where able - I don't see why that would change.
I know/. is for geeks, and you hold a skewed view of what motivates business. But google is not lead by geeks (any claims to the contrary notwithstanding). They are a business and the only thing that motivates them is making the most money. That's how you make the most money;)
If Google bought music labels - then there is little doubt that Amazon music service, iTunes and other direct Google competitors services would be out of licenses and out of business shortly. Isn't that obvious? What interest would Google have to provide these competing services with creative work licenses? None whatsoever.
Since general/. consensus (and I underscore that it is/. and not any of the other engineers I deal with) is that "ipv6 just works", I trried it on my Mac.
ifconfig en0 does helpfully suggest that there is an ipv6 address assigned (and it is based on my computer's Mac, leaking my identity all over the net, with Linux iptables developers specifically refusing to hide it for religious reasons, but that's another story) ok, easy - I'll just ping my own address then to begin with. ping - oops, "cannot resolve, unknown host" traceroute - same deal. clearly they don't recognize this as an IP address, and try to use it as a host name.
Hmm, may be Firefox? Let's try that Google ipv6 address - http://[2001:4860:0:2001::68]/ (oh, that'll be fun to explain to users) Here we go - "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at [2001:4860:0:2001::68]." Well, at least it knows that's an address, I think...
per 1 NATted IP address. But NAT does expand IPv4 address space by about 16 bit (say, 12 bit conservatively) which means that you could serve about 2^44 users or about 2E13. That would be 20,000,000,000,000 trillion users. Hopefully Earth human population isn't going to get into trillions for a little while.
NAT is the answer because that's what is being used. Most devices do not need universal identifier. My toaster does not have an individual phone number and you can't send it "snail mail" other than sending it to my home address "attn. Mr. Toaster". Neither should another device simply because it has more complicated electronic circuitry.
More importantly, over the last 20-30 years Internet as a whole took up and implemented on the wide scale dozens (or hundreds) of standards for everything from protocol handling to data visualization. Each standard was so accepted because it solved a real problem and was generally better at it than others (or so thought its users). NAT was one of those standards, yet IPv6 was not. Even now, as IPv4 addresses are running out - no one except religious adherents or government officials seems to be in a rush to go to IPv6. I think this should give everyone a good clue as to the pedigree and usefulness of that protocol.
IPv6 is poorly designed "by committee", badly defined and while it purports to solve issues of address shortage, it does so in ham-fisted manner that's not what users want to see. It's bad solution and as long as it remains a bad solution - its acceptance will be slow and painful.
I think you missed my point (as did most readers, which is unfortunate, this being/.).
The "fad" is not in the data center as a concept, that's something that exists and surely will continue. Much like electric company, though - all it is is a *utility*. It's necessary, technically complex but not at all exciting and not particularly special.
The *fad* is calling a data center by a mysteriously sounding and sales-created name in order to give it a different "feel" and generally sell more services, sometimes to those who otherwise would not have done so. Kinda like calling electric utility a "life energy source" or some such:)
When is this "cloud everything" fad going to be over? It's a data center that someone else runs for you. Big deal. (Sure, when you put it that way - it does not sound nearly as cool and does not sell so well, does it)
Slashdot Mirror
I read this article and didn't find anything about impersonation of gender. If anything, part of detection algorithm is based on looking for terms like "my wife/my gf" vs. "my hubby/my boyfriend". I think these terms are pretty self-explanatory (well, at least the former, in most states, the latter may belong to a gay user). In any case, this is a fairly trivial method of determining gender and one that seems to be quite basic and naive, in a way that any impersonator, even not particularly determined, would be able to defeat.
Like, omg, whatever.
Back in pre-online application days, Green Card lottery used to be pretty much a sure shot for anyone with half a brain and ability to follow basic instructions.
They had no real form to fill, but rather a set of fairly simple and specific guidelines. You had to use a plain piece of paper, and write in order (numbered or not) your name, date of birth, mailing address, a few other items I now forget. You needed to attach a photo of specific size (with a staple, in the top right corner of the page). You had to mail it in an envelope of specific size (standard US, though not necessarily elsewhere) to a specific address that depended on your "origin". You had to specify your origin (more or less nationality) based on certain rules - primarily your place of birth. You could only send a single application per year.
Doesn't seem so complicated? Well, evidently they used to get about 1 - 2 million applications per year. Of these, well over 70-80% were discarded by failing to follow these rules. People would, evidently, include personal letters and stories, family photos and what not. Quite a few people sent multiple applications anyway.
That left perhaps 300-500K valid applications. Of these 100K "winning" applications were selected and half of those actually got a green card (evidently quite a few people do not apply etc, which is why more were selected).
So, for anyone able to submit a correct application, probability of winning was hovering about 20%, and realistically meant a virtually certain win over a course of about 5-6 years. Since winnings were allocated by area, some areas fared even better. In particular, those few educated persons from some of the countries with generally less educated population could approach a 100% win probability.
The internet based process changed it all. Now any application that is submitted is technically correct, nothing is being discarded and many more applications are being submitted. Probability of winning at this point is quite low (I would estimate it in single %)
I can't speak for others - but here is my story. I have a software product that would be perfect for tablets. iPad market is pretty crowded and I'd love to go the Android route. My product is currently multi-platform and I can easily build it for Linux. It's a graphics-heavy application with fairly extensive UI. And therein lies a problem - I don't mind re-writing the entire UI, but Android requires me to do so in Java. Now, I don't know about you, but to me the though of building a complex UI in Java and having 100s of interfaces to/from it into native code seems simply terrifying. I've seen the "basic examples" and they are extremely convoluted and unmaintainable.
So my choice is to either write the entire product from scratch and in Java (no-go, don't even ask) or write a fully native Android product without UI (like game developers do it). Can't really go the second route, since unlike games - this application requires some amount of user interaction.
So, there you have it - I very much want to enter Android market, but technical design of that system (which to me seems braindead) - is a huge obstacle. It's not that it is impossible ot overcome. but the resulting product would likely be difficult to maintain and uneconomical.
On the other hand, I could easily develop similar product for iPad - but again, the money is not there anymore, too late for the party:)
I am guessing this post is vetted by higher ups at Apple.
I think they realize that the new paradigm of Apple deskop/notebook OS does not sit too well with the geeks, and they feel the need to connect and explain in this fashion.
I also think that if 10.7 Lion was something Apple wanted to distribute openly in earnest, they would have done so without resorting to the locked-in App store (even if the actual 10.7 is not locked in).
Apple is playing a double game here - they want to hook in users with a new shiny OS and at the same time get them to embrace the lock-in of App store which will provide a stream of paid and DRMed applications. However, what worked for "consumption devices" like iPad may not necessarily work out so well for general purpose devices like a Macbook.
Amount of digital communication keeps rising and so does amount of investigations that needs to be performed that involve such communication. I am sure we all like "bad guys" to be caught and punished when they steal, lie and cheat. But noo - not wiretaps. Feds need to raise a bunch of Sherlock Holmes-clones who could solve crimes by tilting their head just so, squinting a bit and getting the whole story to us.
That panel does not consist of "friends" of his, as is clearly evident. Once shown to any outside party, source code is essentially shown to all, no matter how many nondisclosure agreements they may have signed. The only way to protect proprietary source code is to keep it proprietary and very-very secret. (Spoken from experience)
The behavior is quite logical, once you understand what the objective is. Usually the way we look at this is from the POV of corporation/corporate IT security. They find this behavior "stupid" - it potentially harms corporate systems. But consider that an individual employee quite likely cares very little for the well being of corporate IT system or corporation in general (why - is another story). He may be interested to find out what's on the USB device (could be something valuable, you never know) and at the same time he probably wouldn't want to harm his personal computer at home. Hence - using it at work, where if this turns out to be something nasty - it's someone elses problem. And if IT asks - 100% of the time he'll say that he did not do any such thing :)
People are not idiots, they just have their own objectives that are not very well aligned with yours.
Considering the amount of bitcoin related articles on /. (almost daily now?) in relation to its real world importance (extremely low and unlikely to grow), I wonder if this is "stuff that matters" or a paid (or otherwise incentivized) advertisement on part of /.?
FWIW I looked at bitcoint - it's usefulness in my personal opinion is virtually nil, it's either a scam or a pipe dream, and likely both.
Clearly, you are young and not married.
gov.my is Malaysian government.
Your face gives out about 25 bits :) (Depending on how acute the perception is of someone looking at it). Your fingerprints are good for pretty much the entire 32 bit. Even your voice is probably good for 20 bits or so, with appropriate equipment.
The only way to be untrackable is to be completely undistinguishable from a very large set of people. It is possible, but what fun would that kind of life be? You can't both *be* a unique individual and expect others not to notice that/not to treat you like such.
mod parent up
I only heard about this too. I also only heard about Windows viruses and trojans even though I also own a number of Windows machines.
Bottom line - I don't expect my computers to ever be infected, but it's out there.
Tommy: What's coursing?
Turkish: Hare coursing. They set two lurchers – they're dogs, before you ask – on a hare. And the hare has to outrun the dogs.
Tommy: So, what if it doesn't?
Turkish: Well, the big rabbit gets fucked, doesn't it?
Tommy: [pauses and thinks] Proper fucked?
Turkish: Yeah, Tommy. Before zee Germans get there.
It's only downhill from here. Apple got itself a critical mass of un-skilled users sufficient to follow in footsteps of Microsoft. The price of popularity is quite well defined.
It's been years since Bill Gates did anything of value at MS, and it's been years since MS was anything like "the Borg". I wonder if slashdot will ever grow up enough to get rid of the idiotic icon they use to tag Microsoft stories. Google is the real "Borg" now yet they get away with a shiny green robot.
Please, slashdot - we are not the "radical" teenagers anymore (well, some of us) and it'd be great if you guys became a bit more adult. You are looking a bit ridiculous this way.
I was born and raised in a country that is firmly and decidedly "metric". I finished school and college knowing nothing but metric system. So, you could say that metric would be my "natural choice".
Then I moved to US. At first non-metric units were a PIA. Admittedly, conversions are not nearly as convenient - you can't just shuffle a decimal dot around.
After a while, though - it really started to "grow on me". The first shift occurred when I started driving a lot - both in US and in Europe. For reasons, that are purely subjective, I began to feel like a mile (statutory or nautical, your pick) is a more "natural" unit of distance. Kilometer always fell short. In a way mile represented what I feel a "decent distance" should feel like.
Then, as I took up a hobby (or a waste of money, depending on your take on it) that required significant amounts of engineering, machining and manual work - I started to feel the same way about other units. Inch is exactly what a "small but human scale" distance should be (it is unusually pretty close to what you'd get if you were to show a "very short distance" by making a semi-circle with your thumb and index fingers, like a slightly opened O), so did the foot, the ounce for "a small amount of weight" etc. I also began to appreciate division of inches into powers of two (rather than centimeters into powers of ten etc).
In time, conversions became a non-issue. In fact, it probably helps keep my "doing arithmetic in my head" skills less rusty.
I still occasionally use metrics as a way to do "thru conversions", in particular between volume and mass (because one deci-meter of water is one liter of water is approx 1 kg). I also use metrics where they are the only units - such as electricity, for example.
But at this point, I would not voluntarily go back to metric system for anything that's related to weights and dimensions.
YMMV. That said, perhaps there are other people who feel like me. If so - that's your answer as to why Imperial units are still here (and, hopefully, going to stay for a while)
I think "mass production" in terms of rockets means "a dozen". It's the kind of "mass production" where China has little to offer.
why wouldn't it? :) It would be a monopoly and it would most certainly exercise monopoly power. it does so now where able - I don't see why that would change.
I know /. is for geeks, and you hold a skewed view of what motivates business. But google is not lead by geeks (any claims to the contrary notwithstanding). They are a business and the only thing that motivates them is making the most money. That's how you make the most money ;)
If Google bought music labels - then there is little doubt that Amazon music service, iTunes and other direct Google competitors services would be out of licenses and out of business shortly. Isn't that obvious? What interest would Google have to provide these competing services with creative work licenses? None whatsoever.
Since general /. consensus (and I underscore that it is /. and not any of the other engineers I deal with) is that "ipv6 just works", I trried it on my Mac.
ifconfig en0 does helpfully suggest that there is an ipv6 address assigned (and it is based on my computer's Mac, leaking my identity all over the net, with Linux iptables developers specifically refusing to hide it for religious reasons, but that's another story)
ok, easy - I'll just ping my own address then to begin with.
ping - oops, "cannot resolve, unknown host"
traceroute - same deal. clearly they don't recognize this as an IP address, and try to use it as a host name.
Hmm, may be Firefox?
Let's try that Google ipv6 address - http://[2001:4860:0:2001::68]/ (oh, that'll be fun to explain to users)
Here we go - "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at [2001:4860:0:2001::68]."
Well, at least it knows that's an address, I think...
I think I'll try again in 10 years.
vast majority of home applications *already* work behind double NAT all the time, while you were typing this up.
per 1 NATted IP address. But NAT does expand IPv4 address space by about 16 bit (say, 12 bit conservatively) which means that you could serve about 2^44 users or about 2E13. That would be 20,000,000,000,000 trillion users. Hopefully Earth human population isn't going to get into trillions for a little while.
Mod parent up.
NAT is the answer because that's what is being used. Most devices do not need universal identifier. My toaster does not have an individual phone number and you can't send it "snail mail" other than sending it to my home address "attn. Mr. Toaster". Neither should another device simply because it has more complicated electronic circuitry.
More importantly, over the last 20-30 years Internet as a whole took up and implemented on the wide scale dozens (or hundreds) of standards for everything from protocol handling to data visualization. Each standard was so accepted because it solved a real problem and was generally better at it than others (or so thought its users). NAT was one of those standards, yet IPv6 was not. Even now, as IPv4 addresses are running out - no one except religious adherents or government officials seems to be in a rush to go to IPv6. I think this should give everyone a good clue as to the pedigree and usefulness of that protocol.
IPv6 is poorly designed "by committee", badly defined and while it purports to solve issues of address shortage, it does so in ham-fisted manner that's not what users want to see. It's bad solution and as long as it remains a bad solution - its acceptance will be slow and painful.
I think you missed my point (as did most readers, which is unfortunate, this being /.).
The "fad" is not in the data center as a concept, that's something that exists and surely will continue. Much like electric company, though - all it is is a *utility*. It's necessary, technically complex but not at all exciting and not particularly special.
The *fad* is calling a data center by a mysteriously sounding and sales-created name in order to give it a different "feel" and generally sell more services, sometimes to those who otherwise would not have done so. Kinda like calling electric utility a "life energy source" or some such :)
When is this "cloud everything" fad going to be over? It's a data center that someone else runs for you. Big deal. (Sure, when you put it that way - it does not sound nearly as cool and does not sell so well, does it)