I guess it is less for cost savings reasons (during production) and more about power savings (during operation) and probably also for performance reasons.
Caveat: I'm not a hardware specialist, not to mention a chip specialist, but I assume (from physics perspective) that shorter distances will reduce power consumption for same amount of transistors. Also, if the total die-size required for e.g. 1b transistors goes down from x to x-y, you could keep the die size but increase the transistor numbers.
Smaller chips as well as lower power consumption is a requirement especially in handheld devices, wearable computing, and also for "Internet of Things" (or whatever it is called today).
... where does it end? I had to actually check what the atomic size of Silicon is (111pm), so there are only a few years left (maybe 10-20) to reach the atomic level. Then what? I'm really curios as I'm quite impressed how this development came - actually how quick...
Out of my nearly three decades of work experience:
I was in a similar situation, i.e. I was an engineer and slowly switched to management/business and see myself as a manager with strong software engineering skills today.
I always recommend people to first learn a technical skill (actually engineering skill), then collect experiences over at least ten years and then learn business, preferably by going through an MBA program.
But, and this is really a BIIIG "but": before entering the MBA program define for yourself absolutely clearly, what your values are (ethical, moral, etc). You must be absolutely clear about these values that you would like to hold dear for quite some time. I suggest to have ethics-based values.
Without the ten-year experience and the ethics-based values, an MBA program (depending, of course, on where you do it) in the end *can* corrupt you, because you start becoming quite cynical during it (my experience is based on many different examples, but suffice to say, that it *can* result in cynicism and then in personal-corruption).
You can meet some quite brilliant people at an MBA-program, but you can also meet all those people who are just there to increase their salaries and to find ways of only making more money for themselves. Your values will help you - and with that, you can also influence the other MBA-participants by actively questioning a lot of what you learn there during the course.
On another note: a lot of those McKinsey, etc, consultants have started consultancy *without* years of experience in actually *doing* the work, because they joined McK right after college. This way they only learn the McK-way, which, IMHO, sucks because it is not oriented towards what you contribute to the society by running a business (the sole purpose) but towards how to make more money for yourself (Google "Up or Out Consultancies").
Good MBAs teach leadership and a lot of practical skills (accounting, book keeping, product, strategy, people management, etc). Bad MBAs teach how to run up the ladder as fast as possible without considering the (negative) side-effects of your actions. And no, the "Vow to Ethical Behavior" at the end doesn't help at all...
Thanks for the insight. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I have observed working for many big companies in my life: people join, after a while they drink the local kool-aid and then stop being critical.
I usually never criticize my company outside of the company itself. But within the company towards my superiors or peers, I'm quite critical of what we do and how we do it - provided I have an idea of how we could do it better.
I have experienced, many times, that at certain point group-thinking starts becoming a key trait of employees and they stop looking outside - to the "real world", where there are competitors, consumers and others that need to be observed. When people start believing in their own BS, it's, unfortunately, too late. And that's what has happened in many companies I have experienced. In such a situation, trying to change the company is really quite difficult - though not impossible.
From your explanation, your friend was young and inexperienced. I'd suggest to try to re-connect and mentor him to be critical in every company. Only with internal criticism can a company change and become better. If you are really as experienced as you seem to be, take the responsibility to mentor and coach such young people so that they are not lost in big corporations - especially if they are really brilliant people. They should not learn that the way the company works is the right way or the only right way. They should start being a lot more critical and think for themselves, through market research, critical thinking and inquiry.
Indeed, if I compare Apple's track record to Microsoft's, it seems a lot better. I have no idea on Android, but anecdotal evidence (read: stuff I read on the Internet), it seems better than Android, too - but I can't judge it as I haven't done an analysis myself.
But "better" doesn't, at least for me, mean "good". Apple could do better. I've seen too many security issues in Safari and some in OS X as well. I don't mean that there are more than Windows or Android, but some times Apple's reaction was not optimal. So, going from, let's say, 100 security vulnerabilities per year to 50 might sound better than going from (e.g., no real numbers) from 300 (e.g. Windows) to 200, or even 150 (though in latter case, both would be 50% reduction). But Apple could do a lot more. They have been doing some great strides but I wish they would do even more.
One thing with security, where Apple has a lot to do, is transparency: sometimes I feel Apple is not being transparent enough on what they do with regards to security. But again, it might be perception bias as I'm a lot closer to Apple and might be criticizing them a lot more than Microsoft or even Android.
TL;DR - Apple could do more just in absolute terms, and be more transparent. Comparing to Microsoft/Android, they seem "better", but not necessarily "good" - in my world only.
Either you are very young or you or just pulling my leg: ACK - ACKnowledge NACK - Not ACKnowledged (old school computer stuff, back from the 1960s-1990s)
Thanks, I'd wish it wouldn't even leave the finger-print scanner chip as that might allow for even higher security. But this is probably "good enough". Now the next question would be how it gets transferred from the finger-print scanner to the "Secure Enclave inside the A7 chip". If there is direct connection from the reader to the A7 chip, it's probably ok. If it goes through main memory, there could be possible attack vectors...
I don't mean to say I'm a better security expert than Apple has - but, even though I'm an Apple fan/user, I don't think Apple's security track-record is as clean as one might want it...
Thanks, I was actually in a different forum on a different website. Unfortunately, the discussion there was quite unfocused and what happened was that the first posting I did here was the result of my thoughts there... and, as you suggest, I thought a little bit more about it, I came to other insights. Being an author, it is sometimes weird to notice that my ideas are generated while I'm writing and not always while I'm thinking. In a book, it's no problem: I can just re-edit. Here, on slashdot, as there is no EDIT possibility, I can't do that. But the additional insights were, IMHO, interesting enough (I thought) to write down here.
I know it is really more than stupid to respond to yourself and I will definitely follow your suggestion to take more time before posting next time.
Thanks again - especially as your tone was really quite nice and positive, so it helps to think about your recommendation...
Couldn't it work like a smart card chip? Meaning: The chip that does the authentication is connected directly to the reader. The reader can communicate only with this specific chip. The chip itself receives the pictures, calculates the hash and stores the hash in its own non-volatile memory. The chip has only two api-calls: "Train" and 'Authenticate'.
With "Train", it would train on a users finger-print and return "DONE" or "NOT SUCCESSFUL". With "Authenticate", it would only return "ACK", or "NACK". I know, I know, the company building the chip would still be able to put in back-doors, etc, but at least this way the finger-print picture or hash would never leave the chip.
Also, best would be to open-source the chip code so that it can be verified. I know, it still doesn't GUARANTEE that the verified source is what is in the chip that is shipped but at least SOME security/privacy check would be in there..
This is going nuts (replying to own reply to own message): If I was Apple, I would generate a completely new hash every time I recognize the finger print with a completely new salt. This way, the system could get better over time as well as protect the users privacy because the hash and the salt keeps changing every time...
Oh, one more thing: if I was Apple, I would also salt the hash with a device-specific (device-unique) random code in order to make sure that the Government cannot send me a list of hashes asking: "We want data from users with these hashes..." - and the device salt could be generated anew every time the device is restored...
Basically, he is the guy legally overseeing German Privacy Laws in the State of Hamburg. He is not a privacy expert. The only two guys in Germany I would listen to (maybe three guys) is the Privacy Commissioner of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, the Federal Privacy Commissioner and someone from Chaos Computer Club.
That being said, the question rather should be how the fingerprint scanner is implemented. If it generates a hash that is stored on the device and never stores the finger-print itself outside of RAM, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
The devil usually is in the detail - and in this case in the details of implementation. I would assume that Apple generates a hash code, stores it on the device and compares only hashes and never has a finger-print picture stored on the device (which would be better in any case). One might even consider storing up to 3, 5 or 10 hashes in order to have some heuristics.
Also, one wouldn't generate a has of the picture but rather the relationship of certain finger-print lines in order to not rely on a picture that might be different every time. But the line-relation is not so much different. I'm not an expert in biometrics, but I believe this is the same approach for face-recognition (certain specific face-points and their relationship to each other is analyzed, a hash generated and stored and next time compared against a new hash).
Being myself a German, I sometimes worry about German "alarmism". As Sigmund Freud said: "some times, a cigar is only really a cigar..."
Yeah, I meant firmware - but somehow, in my messed-up mind (with regards to security/encryption discussion), they are all under the heading "BIOS" (in fact, the heading should be the other way around: everything should be under the heading "Firmware"....)
Yes, that's actually my concern all the time. Of course, with open source, you could technically check the source of the system you are using. But then, you'd need to check every line of code, thinking exactly like the NSA (or what-not) in every piece of software you use, including the compiler you use to compile and the compiler compiler, etc, etc.
Additionally, you'd need to check the source of all the HW-components that come with their own BIOS, including the system's BIOS, networking chip's onboard software, and a lot more. Of course, you could reduce the number of checks if you would write your own code for encryption that sits between your keyboard/mouse, memory, etc - meaning, if you really want to sleep sound, you need to write your own encryption system end-to-end, i.e. from the first input (electricity flowing from.e.g keyboard) to the last output. Even then, I wouldn't be sure if I hadn't forgotten anything in-between...
Wow, a great documentary, thank you very much for the great YouTube link.
I was talking with my wife (in NYC) and saying: "You know what would be best for NYC? Having streetcars on every avenue and every second or third street. And then ban all private automobiles in Manhattan..." - I didn't know that it was similar to this idea in the 1920s until around 1950s... sad...
Re:If by "looking good", you mean "looking like iO
on
Inside OS X Mavericks
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Why is that hyperbole? I used to work on HP machines a long time ago (when they were running some HP-owned BASIC) and I loved the natural scrolling. It took some time get used to used, but I preferred it over the "non-natural" on all other machines.
Autohide scrollbars is also nice to have, though I'm not religious about that one - scrollbars just use up precious screen estate. Especially when using two-finger scrolling on touch pads, I don't really need to see the scrollbars all the time.
No, not an Apple fanboy - there is enough to criticize and I usually criticize Apple a lot - but not for these features, that you can actually turn OFF.
And on another note: taxis (with their drivers) don't communicate traffic-data to each other. Self-driving cars could do that and optimize the route. Then, of course, if I could also personalize the route with things like "please use scenic route", "use fast route", "use a county road", etc - it would be perfect...
Kind'o - without the annoying driver(s) I have experienced for decades now... And also with the ability to drive cross-country, etc - the thing with Taxis is that they are way too expensive and about 50% of the drivers I met were either annoying or just plain unfriendly. My idea is something like "Car2Go", but self-driving and available across the country.
I don't want to give up my driving freedom. Having seen how the rest of you drive, though, I want all of you to give up your driving freedom because I swear, I'd drive better sleepy, drunk, and texting all at the same time than some of you.
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. --- Item 12 on the list of "16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN - from Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist (found on the Internet a loooong time ago).
In fact, I wouldn't call it only 29%, but rather already 29%.
The reason is that the discussion about driverless cars is so new/recent that I wouldn't even have expected that many people saying that they would consider buying a driverless car.
My dream transport-solution is: (a) not owning a car at all; (b) call a car anytime I need one; (c) getting driven (automatically) to any place I want; (d) I pay for the time I use the car and can leave it anywhere in the country (obviously, in a village/town/city or so).
If we had a system like that and everybody would use it, it could be the solution to most of our traffic problems, including congestion (cars can communicate information faster and react faster than humans), parking problems, and more. Most of the time, cars are just parked somewhere and standing idle anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, that was quite helpful in understanding the manufacturer's perspective as well.
I guess it is less for cost savings reasons (during production) and more about power savings (during operation) and probably also for performance reasons.
Caveat: I'm not a hardware specialist, not to mention a chip specialist, but I assume (from physics perspective) that shorter distances will reduce power consumption for same amount of transistors. Also, if the total die-size required for e.g. 1b transistors goes down from x to x-y, you could keep the die size but increase the transistor numbers.
Smaller chips as well as lower power consumption is a requirement especially in handheld devices, wearable computing, and also for "Internet of Things" (or whatever it is called today).
... where does it end? I had to actually check what the atomic size of Silicon is (111pm), so there are only a few years left (maybe 10-20) to reach the atomic level. Then what? I'm really curios as I'm quite impressed how this development came - actually how quick...
Shakespeare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_(programming_language) - my favorite language...
(and yes, this is supposed to be funny)
Out of my nearly three decades of work experience:
I was in a similar situation, i.e. I was an engineer and slowly switched to management/business and see myself as a manager with strong software engineering skills today.
I always recommend people to first learn a technical skill (actually engineering skill), then collect experiences over at least ten years and then learn business, preferably by going through an MBA program.
But, and this is really a BIIIG "but": before entering the MBA program define for yourself absolutely clearly, what your values are (ethical, moral, etc). You must be absolutely clear about these values that you would like to hold dear for quite some time. I suggest to have ethics-based values.
Without the ten-year experience and the ethics-based values, an MBA program (depending, of course, on where you do it) in the end *can* corrupt you, because you start becoming quite cynical during it (my experience is based on many different examples, but suffice to say, that it *can* result in cynicism and then in personal-corruption).
You can meet some quite brilliant people at an MBA-program, but you can also meet all those people who are just there to increase their salaries and to find ways of only making more money for themselves. Your values will help you - and with that, you can also influence the other MBA-participants by actively questioning a lot of what you learn there during the course.
On another note: a lot of those McKinsey, etc, consultants have started consultancy *without* years of experience in actually *doing* the work, because they joined McK right after college. This way they only learn the McK-way, which, IMHO, sucks because it is not oriented towards what you contribute to the society by running a business (the sole purpose) but towards how to make more money for yourself (Google "Up or Out Consultancies").
Good MBAs teach leadership and a lot of practical skills (accounting, book keeping, product, strategy, people management, etc).
Bad MBAs teach how to run up the ladder as fast as possible without considering the (negative) side-effects of your actions. And no, the "Vow to Ethical Behavior" at the end doesn't help at all...
Thanks for the insight. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I have observed working for many big companies in my life: people join, after a while they drink the local kool-aid and then stop being critical.
I usually never criticize my company outside of the company itself. But within the company towards my superiors or peers, I'm quite critical of what we do and how we do it - provided I have an idea of how we could do it better.
I have experienced, many times, that at certain point group-thinking starts becoming a key trait of employees and they stop looking outside - to the "real world", where there are competitors, consumers and others that need to be observed. When people start believing in their own BS, it's, unfortunately, too late. And that's what has happened in many companies I have experienced. In such a situation, trying to change the company is really quite difficult - though not impossible.
From your explanation, your friend was young and inexperienced. I'd suggest to try to re-connect and mentor him to be critical in every company. Only with internal criticism can a company change and become better. If you are really as experienced as you seem to be, take the responsibility to mentor and coach such young people so that they are not lost in big corporations - especially if they are really brilliant people. They should not learn that the way the company works is the right way or the only right way. They should start being a lot more critical and think for themselves, through market research, critical thinking and inquiry.
Just my two cents.
Indeed, if I compare Apple's track record to Microsoft's, it seems a lot better. I have no idea on Android, but anecdotal evidence (read: stuff I read on the Internet), it seems better than Android, too - but I can't judge it as I haven't done an analysis myself.
But "better" doesn't, at least for me, mean "good". Apple could do better. I've seen too many security issues in Safari and some in OS X as well. I don't mean that there are more than Windows or Android, but some times Apple's reaction was not optimal. So, going from, let's say, 100 security vulnerabilities per year to 50 might sound better than going from (e.g., no real numbers) from 300 (e.g. Windows) to 200, or even 150 (though in latter case, both would be 50% reduction). But Apple could do a lot more. They have been doing some great strides but I wish they would do even more.
One thing with security, where Apple has a lot to do, is transparency: sometimes I feel Apple is not being transparent enough on what they do with regards to security. But again, it might be perception bias as I'm a lot closer to Apple and might be criticizing them a lot more than Microsoft or even Android.
TL;DR - Apple could do more just in absolute terms, and be more transparent. Comparing to Microsoft/Android, they seem "better", but not necessarily "good" - in my world only.
Either you are very young or you or just pulling my leg:
ACK - ACKnowledge
NACK - Not ACKnowledged (old school computer stuff, back from the 1960s-1990s)
Thanks, I'd wish it wouldn't even leave the finger-print scanner chip as that might allow for even higher security. But this is probably "good enough". Now the next question would be how it gets transferred from the finger-print scanner to the "Secure Enclave inside the A7 chip". If there is direct connection from the reader to the A7 chip, it's probably ok. If it goes through main memory, there could be possible attack vectors...
I don't mean to say I'm a better security expert than Apple has - but, even though I'm an Apple fan/user, I don't think Apple's security track-record is as clean as one might want it...
Thanks, I was actually in a different forum on a different website. Unfortunately, the discussion there was quite unfocused and what happened was that the first posting I did here was the result of my thoughts there ... and, as you suggest, I thought a little bit more about it, I came to other insights. Being an author, it is sometimes weird to notice that my ideas are generated while I'm writing and not always while I'm thinking. In a book, it's no problem: I can just re-edit. Here, on slashdot, as there is no EDIT possibility, I can't do that. But the additional insights were, IMHO, interesting enough (I thought) to write down here.
I know it is really more than stupid to respond to yourself and I will definitely follow your suggestion to take more time before posting next time.
Thanks again - especially as your tone was really quite nice and positive, so it helps to think about your recommendation...
Oh, now I understand why everybody in Duckburgh uses gloves (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc...)
Couldn't it work like a smart card chip? Meaning: The chip that does the authentication is connected directly to the reader. The reader can communicate only with this specific chip. The chip itself receives the pictures, calculates the hash and stores the hash in its own non-volatile memory. The chip has only two api-calls: "Train" and 'Authenticate'.
With "Train", it would train on a users finger-print and return "DONE" or "NOT SUCCESSFUL". With "Authenticate", it would only return "ACK", or "NACK". I know, I know, the company building the chip would still be able to put in back-doors, etc, but at least this way the finger-print picture or hash would never leave the chip.
Also, best would be to open-source the chip code so that it can be verified. I know, it still doesn't GUARANTEE that the verified source is what is in the chip that is shipped but at least SOME security/privacy check would be in there..
This is going nuts (replying to own reply to own message):
If I was Apple, I would generate a completely new hash every time I recognize the finger print with a completely new salt. This way, the system could get better over time as well as protect the users privacy because the hash and the salt keeps changing every time...
Oh, one more thing: if I was Apple, I would also salt the hash with a device-specific (device-unique) random code in order to make sure that the Government cannot send me a list of hashes asking: "We want data from users with these hashes..." - and the device salt could be generated anew every time the device is restored...
Basically, he is the guy legally overseeing German Privacy Laws in the State of Hamburg. He is not a privacy expert. The only two guys in Germany I would listen to (maybe three guys) is the Privacy Commissioner of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, the Federal Privacy Commissioner and someone from Chaos Computer Club.
That being said, the question rather should be how the fingerprint scanner is implemented. If it generates a hash that is stored on the device and never stores the finger-print itself outside of RAM, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
The devil usually is in the detail - and in this case in the details of implementation. I would assume that Apple generates a hash code, stores it on the device and compares only hashes and never has a finger-print picture stored on the device (which would be better in any case). One might even consider storing up to 3, 5 or 10 hashes in order to have some heuristics.
Also, one wouldn't generate a has of the picture but rather the relationship of certain finger-print lines in order to not rely on a picture that might be different every time. But the line-relation is not so much different. I'm not an expert in biometrics, but I believe this is the same approach for face-recognition (certain specific face-points and their relationship to each other is analyzed, a hash generated and stored and next time compared against a new hash).
Being myself a German, I sometimes worry about German "alarmism". As Sigmund Freud said: "some times, a cigar is only really a cigar..."
TL;DR - Yea, I find the human need to piss and moan about how other people express their freedoms pretty fucked up, too
I'm having problems understanding this. Can you explain, please?
Thanks
Feminism, Sexism, Machoism, ...ism, ...ism, ...ism...
I'm still searching for Humanism, believing that that would be the solution. But, alas, it seems I'm always searching in all the wrong places...
Yeah, I meant firmware - but somehow, in my messed-up mind (with regards to security/encryption discussion), they are all under the heading "BIOS" (in fact, the heading should be the other way around: everything should be under the heading "Firmware"....)
Mod up the parent!
Yes, that's actually my concern all the time. Of course, with open source, you could technically check the source of the system you are using. But then, you'd need to check every line of code, thinking exactly like the NSA (or what-not) in every piece of software you use, including the compiler you use to compile and the compiler compiler, etc, etc.
Additionally, you'd need to check the source of all the HW-components that come with their own BIOS, including the system's BIOS, networking chip's onboard software, and a lot more. Of course, you could reduce the number of checks if you would write your own code for encryption that sits between your keyboard/mouse, memory, etc - meaning, if you really want to sleep sound, you need to write your own encryption system end-to-end, i.e. from the first input (electricity flowing from .e.g keyboard) to the last output. Even then, I wouldn't be sure if I hadn't forgotten anything in-between...
Wow, a great documentary, thank you very much for the great YouTube link.
I was talking with my wife (in NYC) and saying: "You know what would be best for NYC? Having streetcars on every avenue and every second or third street. And then ban all private automobiles in Manhattan..." - I didn't know that it was similar to this idea in the 1920s until around 1950s... sad...
Why is that hyperbole? I used to work on HP machines a long time ago (when they were running some HP-owned BASIC) and I loved the natural scrolling. It took some time get used to used, but I preferred it over the "non-natural" on all other machines.
Autohide scrollbars is also nice to have, though I'm not religious about that one - scrollbars just use up precious screen estate. Especially when using two-finger scrolling on touch pads, I don't really need to see the scrollbars all the time.
No, not an Apple fanboy - there is enough to criticize and I usually criticize Apple a lot - but not for these features, that you can actually turn OFF.
And on another note: taxis (with their drivers) don't communicate traffic-data to each other. Self-driving cars could do that and optimize the route. Then, of course, if I could also personalize the route with things like "please use scenic route", "use fast route", "use a county road", etc - it would be perfect...
Kind'o - without the annoying driver(s) I have experienced for decades now... And also with the ability to drive cross-country, etc - the thing with Taxis is that they are way too expensive and about 50% of the drivers I met were either annoying or just plain unfriendly. My idea is something like "Car2Go", but self-driving and available across the country.
I don't want to give up my driving freedom. Having seen how the rest of you drive, though, I want all of you to give up your driving freedom because I swear, I'd drive better sleepy, drunk, and texting all at the same time than some of you.
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. --- Item 12 on the list of "16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN - from Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist (found on the Internet a loooong time ago).
In fact, I wouldn't call it only 29%, but rather already 29%.
The reason is that the discussion about driverless cars is so new/recent that I wouldn't even have expected that many people saying that they would consider buying a driverless car.
My dream transport-solution is: (a) not owning a car at all; (b) call a car anytime I need one; (c) getting driven (automatically) to any place I want; (d) I pay for the time I use the car and can leave it anywhere in the country (obviously, in a village/town/city or so).
If we had a system like that and everybody would use it, it could be the solution to most of our traffic problems, including congestion (cars can communicate information faster and react faster than humans), parking problems, and more. Most of the time, cars are just parked somewhere and standing idle anyway.
So, yes, count me in...