Posts by Charles 9

In other words, the Stateful Internet, aka Big Brother.

Re: Why tallow?

"Because they are making a material to print currency on, not baking a fucking cake!"

Which doesn't answer the question. Why tallow and not vegetable shortening? No animals are harmed and it even has a higher melting point.

Re: Not much of a chemist then?

Shortening can top that, melting around 47C (~118F), so I doubt that's the reason. I will admit there could be other factors, though. I'm just trying to learn specifically which.

Most candles today are made from paraffin, which is petroleum-based. Modern soaps use plant-based oils in their manufacture. Thus the name Palmolive, for example (palm and olive oils).

Re: Not much of a chemist then?

"The raw material is turned into pellets which facilitates transport and processing, the slight presence of tallow is there to make all of that easier."

But why specifically tallow? Who not something vegetable based like a shortening?

Like I've said, give or take a second is OK for casual time synchronization, plus you have to consider the contention of the Internet itself when considering the precision of your responses. Beyond 1s precision probably requires a dedicated time source.

Re: Sub-second accuracy

From what I've read, HFT requires times precise AND accurate to within 1us.

Re: We have also a Google time now?

The problem there is that GPS signals can drift due to atmospheric interference (that's also why your GPS fix tends to drift even when you stand still). They're only good for casual time synchronization, in which case if you have an internet connection, it's easier to just sync to a time pool since the connection's so terse even a dialup connection can handle it.

For high-precision, high-accuracy demands, you're probably going to need your own source for consistency.

Re: We have also a Google time now?

"Now you might not care, and many others don't case, because all they want is some sort of time-of-day indicator. But heaven help you if you need millisecond or better accuracy for anything like financial HFT, log file forensics or any number of science applications."

If your application is SO time-sensitive as to require BOTH precise AND accurate time to less than a second (in the case of HFT, to within 1us), then you can probably justify the expense of your own authoritative time source.

Re: Smearing

"Second point - if you depend on precise time then do it properly!"

Always a bold claim until you're told the budget given to the job.

Re: Frustration

"Like everything else it cannot predict leap seconds, but an OS is already well placed to receive library updates as part of its regular maintenance."

Unless the OS (like XP and earlier) is at EOL. Or the OS is meant to operate in a fixed, non-upgradeable capacity such as an embedded device?

Re: We have also a Google time now?

Google could well have added its servers to the NTP time pool, which was established to make it as simple as possible to establish a time base. There's the baseline pool.ntp.org, and if you need a narrower scope, simply prepend your two-character country code (like us.pool.ntp.org).

As for other options, that depends on where you are. For example, WWV (the US clock radio station our of Colorado) is tricky to pick up east of the Appalachians, especially during the day.

"A better solution might be to reduce the amount of data bandwidth. Then the pedestrians might watch where they're walking instead of being fixated by their phones."

Opposite effect. They'll just be at it for longer waiting as things load piece by piece. You want the faster bandwidth so people finish faster.

Re: A small point

Hmm...I've tended to know it as a Forceful Unplanned Catastrophic Kinetic Unraveling Point.

Re: Empty pavements and buses

People just respond with the digitus impudicus. The people have to be receptive to the law first. You can't enforce a law no one wants to obey; force the issue and eventually the people turn on you.. Look what happened with America's Prohibition.

Re: "Ancient City with Narrow Lanes"

"Sometimes you just have to ignore the people who say something isn't possible, because they're wrong."

Works the other way, too. Many times, you just have to ignore the people who say something IS possible because THEY'RE wrong.

Simple question. How do you fit 13 eggs into a carton built for only 12 without breaking egg or carton?

Re: Don't ghettoise cyclists.

They counter with steel poles held VERTICALLY. They have the weight AND the inertia. Cyclist will win every time AND they can uphold it in court since at least a vertical pipe that doesn't go above the cyclist's head wouldn't be in anyone's way.

Re: Need a sense of proportion

"They're going to have a hard job making it look like an accident when the evidence of tampering is all over the device logs."

Pretty sure a clever git could construe the incident and spread it out over time to hide the tampering and slip it under the radar. Or perhaps find a way to pwn the device and tamper with the logs.

Re: Need a sense of proportion

"So what? A technically sophisticated attacker within 5 meters can kill anyone at all."

AND make it look like an accident? Consider inheritances and life insurance payouts.

Simple. Given the costs it's cheaper to bribe everyone and cover each other's kiesters when a problem DOES arise. Any attempt to use a third party (including the government itself) can have the same result because it could be THEIR turn in the hot seat next.

IOW, it's a cartel. No one wants to play by the rules because it saves mucho dinero to cheat. And with the money involved, they can play the lawyers, judges, and lawmakers to smooth over any issues.

Re: Nice paper title

Trouble is the blips may overshoot and KILL the wearer instead. Plus if they're old they may be war veterans meaning they'd likely fight back, preferring death to submission.

Re: "Security by obscurity is a dangerous design approach"

UNLESS you're trying to make it look like a heart attack, in which case money may not be an object because life insurance and a large inheritance may be at stake. People will pay to make death look like an accident since it means they get away with it.

Re: We have just all been hacked

They probably wouldn't care, as they'll be more interested in keeping things at home.

"It's not always that easy to jump ship. If they want to trade on any substantial scale in a particular country they'll have to consider have some footprint even if it's only a local sales office. These days regulators are starting to think in terms of fines based on global turnover so the days of being able to shrug off responsibilities might be coming to an end."

Expect that to change as the transnationals start to push BACK. The obvious answer to trying to nail mother companies is to further separate subsidiaries on paper. Meanwhile, they'll continue to pressure legislatures while those legislatures are becoming more permissive to businesses (look at the changing stances concerning privacy).

Re: We have just all been hacked

The offshore VPNs will be blocked soon, leaving you with no choice but the hacked ones.

Re: Alternatively.

"Why bother to try and breach all these firms security when the government will have all of your details. Just breach them and hit the jackpot. Then where are you going to turn?"

IOW, just assume your cover is blown and instead stock up on the canned food and petrol. At least Americans also have easy access to shotguns.

"Nothing's going to change things at the majority of organisations where security's a tickbox exercise at best until firms go bust and directors go to jail. And I've been waiting for that to happen for a decade or more."

Which won't happen because many of those firms are transnational and can play sovereignty against countries. It's an extortion game: "You wouldn't want us pulling up stakes, would you?" Same with the corporate structure. It's designed to deflect responsibility, and with their transnational nature, they can make sure the laws never get to the people up top.

Transnational companies have more power than most sovereign nations in that regard. Unlike the countries, they can jump ship.

ISPs are a utility. Utilities are a natural monopoly because of the high upfront infrastructure costs (in this case, laying down the data lines). That's why utility incumbents are so hard to unseat without either significant help (which is unlikely to be forthcoming here) or deep pockets (who in this case tend to be the incumbents, so that's out).

Re: Why is this even a discussion?

"To do this they need to wait for the ad content to download and render before delivering the content. With video or animations that is impossible. Even for simple images or text you would be adding substantial lag to your page display time for the 80%ish users who aren't using them."

They couldn't wait for the GET request which is standard in HTTP?

Re: Why is this even a discussion?

"If a hardware vendor did that, we won't buy their hardware. Pretty simple huh?"

And if ALL of them do that? Would you go without that class of hardware?

The User Port is controlled directly by the MOS 6526 CIA (Complex Interface Adapter), while the video was done on the VIC-II, a separate chip. I don't think the 6526 could halt the CPU, but the VIC-II certainly could (thus the CPU's speed limit, the two normally alternate clock cycles). Perhaps without something like a REU for faster memory transfer, the processing needed to render the video is what's limiting the throughout at the User Port.

If it weren't for PETSCII, a C128 in Fast Mode and with an RS-232 adapter on the User Port and a CGA monitor probably would've made for an interesting dumb terminal. Once upon a time, I direct-connected a C128's 1200bps modem to a PC's modem in order to transfer files between them (was migrating at that point).

Re: Can you imagine Facebook, Apple, Google or other big companies liking this?

"Further, dont forget most of the orders for this come with a side regulation that they cant disclose it!"

And thanks to recent court cases, that INCLUDES "by inaction," which defeats warrant canaries by (a) allowing court orders to compel you to lie, and (b) rendering tampering with the canary a contempt of court offense (because you violated the court order): no jury necessary.

Re: FB, Google, Twitter etc release our data anyway

"Step one towards banning on private-use VPNs?"

How about just step one towards banning all unsanctioned encryption? And thanks to automated media manglers and data parsers, it'll be hard to hide enough pure cryptogaphic data passing those systems without leaving tells.

Re: "Over 100 million people" ?

Sorry. Was thinking Germany. Still, abandoning an entire country and its numerous people usually isn't a move to be taken lightly since that's denying potential customers. Why do you think so few people are so eager to abandon China (with its 1-billion-plus top-of-the-world population) in spite of its shameless human rights abuse?

To paraphrase, money talks, all else walks.

Re: It's simple

"Right. Two things -- (1) if they do that, they're banning internet commerce and online banking, so I can't really see it happening, can you? and (2) if they ever DO try to do it, that's when I'll start giving a toss. Right now, they're not."

They could and consider it a GOOD thing. Most e-commerce will be international in nature, and domestic people can always go back to bricks & mortar. More secure and keeps the money home. Win-win.

"Which, obviously, they will never ever do, because that would be impossible as well as utterly insane. How do you propose they'd order the OpenVPN or OpenSSL or OpenSSH developers to add backdoors for the UK government?"

They wouldn't. They'll just block all offshore encrypted connections by law. That should limit things to steganography which could be sniffed at automatically (to look for odd color patterns, spacings, etc.) and then further checked by the humans since they won't have to check the points of entry so much.

Re: What is the point in this complete waste of resources

And if England BLOCKs all such foreign points? Changing VPNs (especially OpenVPN ones) is nontrivial because you need new config files, usually.

Re: VPN?

And what if England just blocks the IPs?