Posts by Charles 267 publicly visible posts • joined 30 May 2008
I think part of the problems is that these older solutions do offer data protection, but *just as important* is access times. This is extremely important if the server is, say, a transaction server that has to go through millions of transactions per minute--if not *per second*. In this case, you *must* have the eggs in one basket or you can't get to them quickly enough.
That was *not* a typo. 25MHz represents the bandwidth to be made available for this project. 2155MHz happens to be the low-end frequency the stuff's supposed to transmit in.
@Paul: No way that'd fly in America. That flies smack into the 1st Amendment freedom of speech and/or freedom of the press. Since it's the government who's auctioning off the spectrum and dictating the rules, anything that involves a whitelist would soon find itself in front of a federal court explaining why the 1st Amendment is being overlooked. Blacklists at least have a chance (having a precedent with the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission), provided the blacklist is confirmed to contain material patently obscene.
Has anyone contacted the FCC about how it would be at all possible to filter out objectionable content without filtering out legitimate content? For example, encrypted porn look all the same to a content filter as an encrypted shopping transaction. On a different tack, how can a site differentiate between a home-built porn site and a blog criticizing abortion?
Actually, I watch reality TV more than movies, and seeing enough *actual* police videos of shootouts, PCP junkies, and crazies who can't get the clue after *five* tazer shocks let you know the police have their hands full. Yes, there are incidents of police abuse, but it's just like with gun control. If they don't have these to abuse, they'll just go for something else (and you can't take away a cop's fists--Rodney King again). You want to control police abuse? Get a better hold of the *cops*, not their weapons. After all, it ain't the guns that kill people.
And lglethal: the idea is to trigger biological reflexes that kick in whether the person wants to or not. They each trigger different areas, not all of which may be dampenable by drugs unless you can show us otherwise. About the only way you can resist all forms of less-than-lethal is to be incapable of feeling pain--which has its own problems.
And the whole riot-inducing Rodney King incident occurred without the use of any "less-than-lethal" alternative weapons--just truncheons and fists. The point is that you can abuse *anything*--even your hands and feet (and cops sometimes have to wonder if their perp has lethal hands and feet). Give cops a break. Most of them are honest law-enforcing individuals with a tough job to do. They have to do with the likes of people whose first response on seeing a cop is to flip him off or worse, drunks and druggies who show amazing strength and no sense of what's going on (PCP junkies have been known to break even *hinged* cuffs), and people who just charge at you (even without an obvious weapon) and leave you with just a split second to act. From my perspective, giving cops the ability to subdue miscreants from a distance without having to kill them is a mostly-good thing. Whether it's from the blunt force of bean bags, the sting of pepper spray, the debilitating shock of a tazer, or the brief but painful heat from a mm beam, it sometimes beats having to get up close and face a coked-up right fist or a hidden knife (or needle).
I'm considering making a big-time jump, and it's currently between this and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (due at the end of the month). I'm definitely gonna give the new One a whirl, particularly in the realm of updated hardware support.
But kudos to the Linux community for making the jump increasingly attractive.
Then how do you find your way around the community without need of a stick or a seeing-eye? Little problem with tinfoil is that it's *opaque*, so it's a little hard to see where one is going with them on.
But back to the LED networking technology, I would imagine the bandwidth capability is a lot higher than IrDA. I believe the first intention of the technology is for home or office cubicle applications, particularly those with lights on all the time. As for the reverse trip, I would imagine a receptor can be placed into the base of the bulb to pick up and transmissions made by the computer.
Privacy notices suffer from the same problem most any other legal document suffers these days: excessive use of "Legalese". Why all this "party in the first part" drivel?
Sometimes, I wonder if a law should be passed that demands that all future legal writings be written in terse but concise language that anyone can read and understand quickly. For example, a privacy notice could read:
"We may use information ABOUT you (but not tracable to you) to form statistics, and we may be forced to turn over information if demanded by the law, but we will keep your personal information private otherwise. Should this not be the case, you may sue us under the law."
Perhaps such an act could also include this line: "Make a bill or legal notice too lengthy, expect to spend up to a year in jail and to pay the costs of trying you."
The selection over-the-air is pretty paltry where I live, and that's in a city. Thing is, most US television stations are non-broadcast (part of this is regulatory--being non-broadcast means the FCC can't touch them--for now). Barring a few Superstations, only big network affiliates and independent local stations broadcast.
Unfortunately, anonymity has legitimate legal and moral concerns. Consider whistleblowers. Laws or no laws, they may not wish to reveal their identities (at least at first) when trying to uncover reprehensible action on the part of their employers, since doing so would paint a big target on their backs.
The correct term IS "Daylight SAVINGS Time". The "savings" in this case is being used as a noun, in which case the s-form is correct (as in "time savings" or "life savings"). This apparent adjustment seems to echo the modifications made in the United States in 2007 (in which DST was started three weeks earlier than before), only adjusted calendar-wise to account for Southern Hemisphere seasons.
The planned mission to replace the A Unit is more in the nature of a maintenance call; something broke and someone's gotta go up there to fix it, but there's no rush. It's mostly in the nature of a "Plan B". They've never tried to start up the B side in the 18-year history of the Hubble, and there's no telling what kinds of space gremlins could've gotten into the thing in the lengthy interim. They're going to go ahead with the B-side startup and equipment reset, but just in case...
They're working on self-driven cars. It's mostly a matter of trust now. Besides, can you trust the horse to know the way home in the middle of the night? Anyway, the big reason cars replaced horses was that it eliminated three onerous requirements: shovels, air freshener, and a daily supply of perishable feed.
I've always had a few qualms about super-lightweight vehicles. It goes to simple collision physics. When a massive object collides with a not-massive object, the results can get pretty messy--the faster the collision, the messier. So I have to ask how an Axon will fare in crash testing for starters, and then proceed to the worst-case scenario--getting broadsided by a fully-loaded lorry/truck.
Perhaps a hypothesis: when boys turn 13 and are first seen as true teenagers (and thus why it doesn't happen at 14 or 15 a lot), parents give them a phone to help keep an ear on them as they start to roam more. As for 16, that's the legal driving age in most of the USA, so again it becomes a check and balance when a teen behind the wheel starts to roam even further.
I would imagine, since it involves most browsers, that it must involve something common between them. If it's tricky to solve, then it probably involves a basic function, such that crippling it would result in collateral damage. I once recall a simple JavaScript function that allowed one to post arbitrary text to the status line. Combined with an onMouseOver event you can create a false address that can't be detected unless one had the gall to look at source code.
Then again, this exploit may be similar but different, but it must use a common link to affect so many browsers.
A common strategy of some disreputable providers is to slip themselves into the same web servers as perfectly-legitimate services. That way, if the IP is blocked, then so is the legitimate service. It's been reported here before IIRC. This is one reason for drive-by attacks--it works on the same principle of slipping the malware into genuine websites that cannot be filtered without undue consequences (such as say blocking CNN or the BBC).
Please take a look at the question I posted. This is part of the problem. If the provider is located in a country hostile to Western interests, then they'll *want* to keep the service running, since they are hostile to the services of the West who would be complaining about it (think Baidu). Also, disreputable providers aren't going to follow the rules and will be stationed in locations not subject to ICANN. It's like the phrase, "If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns."
Firefox detects AbEnds when you restart the application. If you AbEnd, just start it again, and it should detect it and perform a cleanup. Then just close it again and you're in the clear.
Hmm...as someone said, perhaps another move that could be made is a command-line option to *default* to privacy mode, a handy feature for public computer terminals.
USB is the modern floppy--only larger in capacity and easier to lose track. That's why a basic measure of a locked-down computer is to seal or remove the USB ports, making them impossible to use. Then you can get to work on securing the other avenues of egress such as through the network (which would be done by locking down the network privileges to all but the techies--who would NOT have access to the computer's data--JUST the networking systems).
Unfortunately, the one avenue that can't be dealt with anytime soon is the human brain. It can itself store information if trained properly and cannot be dealt with in any reasonable manner.
There's also the matter of conspiracies--getting *all* the proper people in the right places to knock out any safeguard imaginable.
1. That's assuming these people actually have electric power (not guaranteed) and the technical know-how to actually use the Internet (also not guaranteed).
2. Priorities, my friend. Just as you gotta stand before you can walk, so too should one be concerned about getting dinner and a drink (since you can *die* from lack thereof) over getting the latest articles. That being said, perhaps using it in a more limited sense to help propagate information on a community-to-community basis (like a modern-day telegraph) has better potential and intrinsic use.
3. OLPC still hasn't reached critical mass yet. I wonder why...
The US already has an arm dedicated to this purpose: the US Peace Corps, mentioned a lot 20 years ago but not now. There are also a lot of western-based charities functioning in the third world.
Anywya, it's hard to teach a man to fish when there are no fish. For many parts of the world, the place is too full of too many people too poor to even try to find someplace better. It's sorta like being stuck in the middle of the Sahara with a bullet hole in your canteen--sometimes, you're basically just up Crap Creek.
Neither mirror finishes nor spinning will work if the beam is hot enough and/or focused enough that a fraction of a second is all that is required to perform the job. The mirror finish would distort, and a spinning missile can't spin out of the kill zone quickly enough. As for targeting, a targeting laser would welcome a reflective finish since it would make range finding *easier*--targeting lasers *work by reflection*.
As for protecting the plane, the US already has a plan for it. Otherwise, such planes as AWACS and tanker planes would not be able to function.
Even mirrors have their limits, as there are no such things as perfect mirrors. Heat something hot enough quickly enough and the reflective material will distort and become useless. From there, it's just another target. And aerial escorts for the missile can be met with planes covering the ABL--and anyone wanting to take on either the USAF or USN CAW better know what they're up against.
The big criticisms would come from using non-missile means to deliver a payload (ie. smuggled within a container cargo and wrapped with enough insulation--or a high-lead cargo--to block geiger counters). But the US is aware of this avenue, too, which is why they're working on means of scanning container cargo for radioactivity or "dead zones" which would imply a shielded cargo--preferably far from shore. A less-likely scenario (but still to be considered) is a hot-launched missile--any attack on a hot-launched missile would result in its detonation.
The 8.10 "I" is due next month: Intrepid Ibix, I think it's called.
As for what happens after the 26th distribution (which would make it about 13 years since it first started), I would imagine that (like an alphabetic insulting game), you simply roll over and start again at A, only using new names this time.
I'm pretty sure one can take the "four hours" claim in context with the average battery usage for that laptop.
In any event, what I want to see is a battery-life test that is more in line with typical real-world activities--activities that normally thrash a battery to death such as working in a weak WiFi zone, having Bluetooth on all the time because you're using a BT modem, etc..
The high-end crooks are too savvy to fall that easily. They are smart enough to encrypt their connections to make the material look like so much trash and/or use obfuscation that makes it look indistinguishable from a simple HTTP request. Fast-flux botnets and decentralized administration mean there is no single point of weakness to track or take down. Furthermore, many of these organization have international if not intercontinental reach, making any kind of legal proceedings difficult should they be caught (for example, suppose the head of one of these botnets turns out to live in a country hostile to the accusing country).
But to counter your counter, what if you bought your copy brick-and-mortar and have no Internet access to speak of? You've essentially bought a "coaster" and can possibly file a legal claim for not being able to use the product you purchased...and/or for assuming everyone who wants to play the game possesses a usable Internet connection.
They need not be mutually exclusive. The game can indeed be released in a finished and complete state, and then later on the developers may choose to provide additional content that is not critical to the game--extras, in other words.
As for the ability to re-download games, this kicks in if a player gets tired of a game, uninstalls it to make room for another game, and then changes his/her mind down the road and wants to play the first game again.
If you want an 11th right for gamers, here's a good one: "Gamers shall have the right to be addressed by developers and publishers in a straightforward and completely honest manner. Statements from developers and publishers must be completely and solely truthful."
They have one advantage the old builders didn't: adhesion.
Yes, an arch made of *blocks* or other loose members will need external structural support until it is complete, but the idea of this kind of project is to build it up little bit by little bit so that it builds up as at most two solid members which can potentially hold themselves up by the fact they're each one solid piece. A dome is even easier to achieve since the three-dimensional nature of the dome adds extra areas of adhesion and lateral support.
Of course, such a card may be a hard sell in the USA. We already have an abysmally low trust of our or practically *any* government (sorry, folks; it's part of our history). It is true that unsigned cards can be taken at the retailer's discretion, though this usually involves a request for a current photo ID with signature (in the US, this usually takes one of three forms--state-issued driver license/ID card, military ID, or passport). And depending on your clearing house, they may let slide small (under $10 or $25) purchases without need for a signature (this is due to an increase in the issue of contactless cards--they'll let slide the occasional bum transaction so as to get faster transactions and thus more of them). And due to increasing fraud, manual card entry is increasingly being tabooed.
A similar situation occurred some months ago. It was a fake obit for a notable personality that got accidentally posted on a news site. Turned out the fake article is used for training purposes to help newcomers get used to the system. Somehow, the training article got leaked into the mainstream feed. When the goof was discovered, the decision was made to move training computers off the network to prevent it from happening again. Thus my line earlier:
"Don't put trainer computers on the same network as the main works."
Some of the parts that would get fried in an EMP blast (from conventional *or* nuclear sources) are probably going to be among the toughest to replace--especially on the field. It's not like outfits will carry spare microprocessors and circuit boards lying around the place. It's spare tech just *asking* to be stolen by spies. So, like a walled city that still needs to do business, you put guards to the gates. That is what this technology does, along with electrical surge suppressors and the like.
Not a bad concept, really. Isolate the part of the works that *must* be exposed to radiation from the rest of the works (which would of course have its own shielding). Sorta like an inline surge suppressor. If things really hit the fan, only the exposed part should go, leaving the heart of the outfit "blind" but otherwise intact.
Rail DARPA all you like, but this could be considered an honest step forward in safeguarding important electronics.
It may be petty, but it's their identity, and they don't want to give it up. When it comes to sovereignty and identity, there's only one thing every country in the world will agree to when it comes to some overarching governmental authority with actual powers to enforce: they will agree *to disagree*. Fundamental thinking is just to different in too many parts of the world to find any common ground.
Going to the "bomb in the plane" scenario (we all know where this comes from, so I'll skip it). Suppose a person from one jurisdiction plants a lethal device in a second jurisdiction, the device activates in a third jurisdiction and happens to kill a person from a fourth jurisdiction, and there is no overarching jurisdiction covering all three at once...who gets to try the bastard? Jurisdiction 1 (the perpetrator's home), jurisdiction 2 (the place where the delayed action began), jurisdiction 3 (the place where the delayed action ended), or jurisdiction 4 (the victim's home)? Is there a precedent for such cases?
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