Posts by Steve Knox 1972 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2011
Sniffing and recording your (unencrypted) WiFi data is akin to someone coming up to the window of your house with a video camera and recording what goes on inside.
No, it's the equivalent of YOU recording what goes on in your house and projecting it on a bloody great screen for all to see. YOU'RE the one transmitting the information.
No, I was thinking of the barriers that prevent internal code, deliberately installed for legitimate purposes, from doing rather more than those legitimate purposes. That's the traditional function of an OS and we have traditional ways of doing it.
Actually, the traditional function of an OS is to provide consistent hardware access to application components. User security came later, and application security even later. Regardless, tradition for tradition's sake is not a valid reason to do anything. Following tradition in security matters only makes sense if the tradition is supported by data showing it to be the best solution.
Traditional user-level security, as seen on mainframes, workstations, and PCs, has proven time and again that the weakest link is in fact the user -- even experts who know better get lazy with security. So the application-level security of Android, Windows Vista+ (UAC), and WinPhone fail as well as they, too, rely on the user to decide what to trust. Apple tries to get around this by vetting every app, but that too has shown to be insufficient. Putting more reliance on the weakest part of the system (by adding finer-grained controls and expecting the user to do more work) won't help.
The more far right or far left any group becomes, the more their increasing tyranny become indistinguishable from each other. Its why worrying about the definition of Fascism is such a complete distraction from why all extreme groups, left or right are a very serious danger to society.
There is no disagreement that tyranny from any source is unacceptable, and history shows that the end results of tyranny looks very much the same regardless of source. That is why getting the definitions right is so critically important, and simply complaining about the tyranny or trying to fight it without understanding it is the real distraction.
While the net result of tyranny is the same regardless of source, the methods and culture which lead to the tyranny are very different, and so are the methods necessary to fight it. Properly identifying the cause of a disease can mean the difference between a relatively inexpensive and painless regimen of therapy and pharmaceuticals, and a dangerous and expensive surgery.
Though it is important for US citizens to make their displeasure about this bill known and do everything they can to convince their elected officials to fix and/or prevent it's ultimate passage, it's equally important for us to identify the conditions causing this type of bill to be put forth with increasing frequency and to formulate a plan to resolve those issues.
"Fascism (play /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology." Check.
I can see where you might consider this bill authoritarian. But there are lost of authoritarian ideologies apart from fascism, so we need more.
"Fascism promotes political violence and war..." Check.
Where in the text of CISPA does it promote political violence and/or war?
"...the fascist state purges forces, ideas, people, and systems..." Check.
I like you cut just before the relevant "deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration." Since CISPA isn't about decadence or degeneration, this isn't really relevant either.
I think I'll tick the AC box on this one.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be associated with such shoddy analysis either.
Let's look at what Wikipedia actually says about fascism. Here's para. 1 uncut:
Fascism ( /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2] Fascists seek rejuvenation of their nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood through a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline, indoctrination, physical education, and eugenics.[3][4] Fascism seeks to purify the nation of foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture.[5]
Here's how I see it applying to CISPA:
radical authoritarian nationalist -- well, as said above, we have authoriarianism, so that could certainly be a component....
one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood -- CISPA is not relevant to this, but let's look at the environment. Do you think the US culture is one of national identity through connections of ancestry, culture, and blood? If so, you've never been here. The US culture is almost entirely about highlighting differences of ancestry and culture, although there is quite a bit of blood when those differences are highlighted a little too sharply.
through a totalitarian single-party state -- Again some may see CISPA as a move to totalitarianism, and some may argue that the US GOP is tending towards self-destruction, but we're not s single-party state just yet. I'll put this in the "maybe" column.
that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline, indoctrination, physical education, and eugenics. HA HA HAAAAAAA. No. This definitely does NOT apply to either CISPA or the US government.
Fascism seeks to purify the nation of foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture. -- again, this is not even in the same category as CISPA. The US government certainly has some elements that fit this description, but, as I said, the GOP is currently working very hard to destroy itself.
CISPA may be a step towards an authoritarian, totalitarian US government, and the US is certainly no paragon of honor, but fascist? Only for the most broad, inconsistent definition of the term. We have more precise terms to use (even the emotionally loaded "police state" is a closer fit than fascism) and it doesn't pay to dilute important terms by misusing them just to generate an emotional reaction.
Drawing is a subset of doing.
Every programming language is limited to a subset of the available machine functionality, with the occasional exception of straight machine code. So claiming that HTML is not a programming language solely because it's limited to display functionality* is not the correct answer. Please try again.
* Which is not even true. Many tags (< a >, < script >, < style >, < img >, < form > to name a few) instruct the system to reference external data sources. HTML is supposed to be semantic, not visual, in nature. Just because it's primarily used in visual media doesn't mean it's limited to visual media.
And... Steam _always_ wants a call home. Even on a single-user game. How about allowing for non-connected solo play?
Well, from my own experience, I've had Steam try to call home, fail (PC was not connected to the internet), and then allow me to play Skyrim with no issue. So I think the option is there -- question is whether developer/publisher allows it, perhaps?
Other than that, I agree. Cautious optimism for all!
"When a police officer who has no particular qualifications with regards to childcare..."
So you researched this particular officer's training history, then? Or did you just presume that because he's a cop, he "has no particular qualifications with regards to childcare"?
You DO realize that there are officers specifically trained to work with minors (particularly difficult ones), and that police departments do try, when possible, to send out individuals qualified for the task at hand -- don't you?
A modest temperature change of 0.8 - 1 degree is far less than what we experience between night and day, let alone summer and winter.
Yeah, but the thing is, the temperature changes we see between night and day (or even summer and winter) are offset by the other side of the globe experiencing essentially the opposite shift. If you add up all of those localized and offsetting shifts, you get close to 0, which, multiplied by the mass involved, remains relatively close to 0.
The temperature change of 0.8-1 degree is systemic -- experienced over the entire globe. Multiply the energy inherent in 1 Kelvin by the mass of the earth.
IF and DO are not requisites of programming; they are requisites of procedural programming. There are many non-procedural programming languages out there (SQL being the most obvious.)
This highlights the biggest issue: nobody agrees on what programming is. This is partly because programming has evolved so many layers that it's no longer what it was. Programming was developing a set of instructions to tell the hardware of a system what to do. Then we made assemblers and it became creating a document that the assembler would convert into a set of instructions to tell the hardware what to do. Then we assembled compilers, and programming became writing a set of documents that the compiler would compile together and send to the assembler, which would create a set of instructions to tell the hardware what to do.
What I believe programming should be defined as is akin to translation: the skills, knowledge, and tools needed to translate a set of requirements to a system-readable set of documents (be they instructions and/or data), and to be able to verify and test said documents for accuracy, consistency and performance.
Would this make HTML a programming language? Well, yes, and it would be the right one if the requirements were simple and specific enough to make HTML the proper fit. The same argument applies to BASIC, PHP, JavaScript, C++, and all of the other languages that various zealots have decreed "not a language" because of their own biases.
Would this make a class on HTML a programming class? Absolutely not. One absolute requirement for a programming class under this definition would be identifying the correct language to use for the requirements given.
I believe programming (and computer science in general) should start without computers at all, and teach logic and planning skills for at least the first year. That's what real programming is. The language used is a red herring.
How many will be extradited to the UK under that treaty to face charges of hacking here?
I don't believe the current active extradition treaty covers numbers of any form. I believe it's still limited to people. Still, recent moves in the US regarding phone number portability do give hope that, someday, we may be able to transfer such rogue IP addresses and hold them accountable for their role in facilitating these heinous crimes.
I am saying that in the current climate, extreme anti-women sentiments are likely to emerge from the US. There seems to be a lot of encouragement for such views in some Republican circles.
That is in no way stating that everyone in the US has such sentiments. Many of my friends in the US are appalled and horrified by them.
Then you really need to improve your writing skills
"I mean, who would expect those wonderful Yanks to treat vulnerable women as easy victims..."
"Those wonderful Yanks", without qualifier, implies generalization.
"... to be viciously attacked? I expect there's several microseconds go by when the rednecks aren't thinking anything like that."
"The rednecks" -- do you intend this as a description of people in the US or a specific subset? Your phrasing is vague here.
"After all this is the country that's home to such civilised ideas as forcing women whose foetus has died to carry the corpse around inside them until it emerges 'naturally'."
This is not even vague. Here you're directly ascribing the idea not to an individual in the country, but to the country itself.
Combating such views is not likely to be helped by denying that they exist and that a large number of people hold them.
Nobody here is denying that those views exist. As for a large number of people holding those views, how large? In relation to what? Are these people concentrated in specific areas? Do they share common educational heritage?
Combating such views is directly hindered by vague, general statements about the sources and causes of them.
"That’s the meat of the prosecution’s copyright case."
That pretty much sums up this article. Had you even tried to include the defense's side, the article would be a very different thing indeed.
"So... it doesn’t look great for Google."
Not with the one-sided presentation you've given, no. But it didn't look good for OJ Simpson, either -- until the defense had their say.
It has been shown repeatedly throughout history that the opinion of the masses is no substitute for genuine critical ability. Popularity and quality are simply not related.
As for el reg readers being a strange crowd, I think most would agree. But, again, that's not relevant.
Not the only one. I liked it too, but not just for ZD...
As Sean Timarco Baggaley said, the only reason it got such a panning is because fans went in with contradicting expectations, because a) they wanted it to suck because Douglas Adams didn't finish the screenplay, so whoever (Karey Kirkpatrick, for the record) finished it must have wrecked it, and b) they wanted to see a remake whatever previous iteration was their favorite.
But (and I don't have the source handy on this) I recall reading Douglas Adams saying that he took some perverse pleasure in the fact that every iteration of HHGTG was significantly different from the previous. When watched as its own entity, the movie stands up quite well, even when watched as a work of Douglas Adams.
No, every original expression of an idea has copyright unless put in the public domain. (Well, that's the gist; there are all sorts of other factors that a copyright lawyer could explain to you if you had a year or two.)
The general consensus seems to have been that the languages and the APIs are the ideas, not the expression. I'm not sure if I agree with that or not, but it's a valid argument that apparently hasn't yet been fully tested in court.
although not likely the intended word. But instead of loosing rivers of blood and bile about this online*, you could have just sat smug in the knowledge that you are slightly better at spelling than your average commentard.
* italics taken directly from dictionary.com's all-too-relevant example on "loosing".
Number of solutions isn't the right metric to use to detemine the validity of the data. Number of submissions is more appropriate. Unfortunately their leaderboard doesn't allow custom sorting so mining that information would mean wading through their interminably slow interface, something I don't care to do at 4 in the morning*.
As the site is apparently for evaluating prospective employees, I'd say finishing what you start or sticking it through a trial is very relevant. These numbers may not solve your particular problem, but they are relevant to the purpose of that site, and they do answer the question originally posed by this thread.
*Yes, I'm from the USA, what's that you say about finishing something you started? ; )
Re-read the article and check out the site. It's not about security hacking, but about software hacking -- writing a quick and efficient application to solve a given problem. The problems are pretty standard programming puzzles: string manipulation, mathlogic, etc. One was a variant of the traveling salesman problem.
Nothing on the site, but you can filter the leaderboard for country. Unfiltered, there are 6,368 members on the leaderboard. Filtering for the countries in the top 20:
China: 213 (~3.3%)
USA: 1036 (~16.3% !!)
Russia: 63 (~1%)
Argentia: 12 (~0.2%)
Brazil: 37 (~0.6%)
NB: #8 listed "N/A" as country, but filtering on N/A failed to produce coherent results. Neither did "UK" - but that was not in the top 20 anyway.
As a side note, I think they should ask the best hackers to work on their leaderboard. It shouldn't take several seconds to filter a mere 6,368 records.
According to a quick google*, China has approximately 1.3 billion people. World population is approximately 7.0 billion. That means China has roughly 19% of the world population.
If we assume all else to be equal, China's numbers would give them roughly 19% of the top x spots, or about 4 of the top 20. Since they have 14 spots, we can conclude that variables other than population are at play. My guess is on training and knowledge of and incentive to compete on the given site.
*Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Actually, I'm more tempted by the relative lack of a brand:
Huawei states that an Android 4.0 ICS patch is inbound this summer and as the UI customisation is minimal, apparently it can be implemented quicker and easier than some rivals.
I wish more Android manufacturers would stop messing with a good thing (and usually making it a crappy thing) with their attempts to "own" the UI.
"Assuming the Earth is a single static system that can be "understood", and that we can somehow control the system to arrive at some optimum result for humans is a bit ambitious for a species that can't even work out in advance which five numbers will be picked out of a pool of forty nine!"
You're crazy too. Please refer to my earlier post on this subject.
Tell me what make/model the next 14 vehicles you will see on the road will be.
Then do a little research and tell me what the most popular vehicles in your area are.
Can you see where the first is actually more difficult than the second?
It's the same way with weather and climate.
It's generally the same with any specific prediction compared to a general statistical model.
Oh, and "you're crazy". Happy?
"This use of dedicated hardware flies in the face of general IT assumptions that commodity hardware wins out over specialised processing hardware such as FPGAs and ASICs. "
As I understand it, the general IT rule is that dedicated hardware is faster, commodity systems are cheaper. Often this means that you can get more bang for your buck from commodity hardware (because you can buy more). But I've never heard it said that commodity systems are faster (or even as fast as) dedicated hardware on a 1:1 basis. Since price isn't even mentioned in the article, I don't think we have a basis for comparison.
No they didn't. They specifically wanted a system which ISN'T "play anywhere". And how do you get "buy once" from "You have to pay for the disc. Then you have to surrender personal information to get a UV account. Then if the disc didn't explicitly include a "Digital Copy" key (or if you want the HD version, since most discs "free" digital copies are the most degraded SD copies available, you have to pay some retail outlet to 'copy' the disc into UV. Then you have to regularly authenticate to UV and if anything goes titsup you have to pay yet again"?
If they had wanted true buy once, they'd have made it retroactive. But I'll admit that will probably never happen.
And if they'd wanted true play anywhere, they'd have not included DRM. Before you say "that'll never happen", look at the music industry.
Simple microeconomics means profit is preferable to market share.
Market economics, however, is based on market share; profit technically doesn't even enter into it.
As for a race to the bottom, well, yes. That's generally where focusing solely on market share puts you.
(See, Jeebus, it is possible to win an argument and be a condescending arse without resorting to ad hominem!)
I'd believe (and by believe I mean use until a better one comes along) the model whose predictions have thus far come closest to the observed data. That's science in a nutshell.
You see, the point of this article wasn't "Look, here's a climate paper from the 80's! It must be true!" It was "Look, here's a climate paper from the 80's -- and the prediction matches the last 30 years pretty well." So just chucking another 30-year-old paper into the mix is meaningless. Check that paper's predictions against the observed data and then get back to us. Thanks.
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