Re: Biometrics
Indeed. This is truly impossible to fake...
</sarcasm>
32 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Feb 2013
I don't understand the focus on 'biometrics'.
Given that it's not that difficult to fake a fingerprint, this means we will all have to wear gloves? Because otherwise anyone could swipe my fingerprints, and have my "secret" code (ie. my fingerprint).
Even if through some technological breakthrough somehow a brand new 'biometric' system will spring to life, it's not at all inconceivable someone will find a way to fake this in such a way that will fool the detectors.
This is a problem with *all* biometric authorisation (iris scans, etc.) ...
Passwords, on the other hand, are something only *I* know, and reading my thoughts is not only impossible today, it's quite possibly not even physically possible.
There are also more practical concerns, how will this work? Will I need a fingerprint reader? Will that work with my BSD system? Or do I need a smartphone? What if I don't have a smartphone? Will this system even be secure? History has thought us that these sort of systems often contain flaws (sometimes quite serious ones). At least the current systems are well understood (flaws and all).
The "password problem" is also very solvable: by a password manager. I remember exactly 2 passwords, both are quite secure; all the others are randomly generated passwords. While this isn't perfect, and a second ("2 factor") authorization is indeed desirable for financial systems, but that's nothing new; every bank already does that, as do some services like Dropbox.
In any case, I don't see how 'biometric authorisation' will make matters better, especially if this means it *replaces* passwords (rather than supplement them).
"1 in 4 people on the planet can sing Gangnam Style. And he didn't even pocket enough to buy a decent yacht."
What an amazing contribution to the global community of this planet.
Meanwhile, people doing actual useful stuff, like say, cleaning your office, or picking up your trash, making your clothes, etc. get paid next to nothing.
Although, now I think again, maybe Gangnam Style did do something useful, as it proved that about 1 in 4 people on the planet are dumb & boring people with nothing more fulfilling to do with their lives than watch retarded YouTube videos; although that already have been proved by the likes of Rebecca Black & Justin Bieber.
Unfortunately, it's not just the language itself that's broken, the standard library is also broken; stuff like launching a process, creating temporary files, creating a fucking file, etc. are all *MORE* difficult that any other language. EVER. All of the existing options are a weak and/or broken counterpart of the C version.
This is probably an even bigger problem, since it's more difficult to fix... I could probably live with PHP if it had a sane standard library...
I've always suspected that SPDY was just a way for Google to save costs.
Given Google's size, even a fairly small advantage in efficiency (bandwidth, cpu power) for only a fairly small part of it's visitors (ie. Chrome users) would mean a large sums of money can be saved.
Giving it away for free only increased their benefits, since other browser makers also implemented it...
While this is a nice try, but I'm afraid it won't work very well. It *might* make a small difference, but I would surprised if it would be very large.
The problem isn't so much what you *see*, it's what you *pay attention to*. If you're paying attention to your text messages, you're not paying attention to whatever is in front of you. Our brains also can't really do two things at once very well. (many studies published on this).
To make matters worse, humans have a very limited vision, we only see a centimetre at arm's length in focus, the rest is composed of memory & expectations; our brain fools our conciousness rather well.
My first programming experience was on the MSX, I had this list of games, and I wanted to sort it by name. It quite probably was the ugliest, slowest, most unsightly sorting algorithm that has ever been written. Ever. It did work though.
I've learned the most by solving actual practical problems, such as my sorting program. Give kids a practical problem, and let them solve it. Along the way, they should learn how to program.
Actually, I find that this works a lot of stuff, not just programming. Of course theory is important too, I can now write a *proper* sorting program, but practical problem solving not only keeps you motivated, but you'll also grasp the immediate benefits of what you're learning (which is not always immediately obvious, especially for newcomers and/or kids). I certainly find it the best way to start things off with.
There's another error, : (colon) is a special shell builtin, you can't override them with a function.
See: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_09_01_01
FreeBSD's /bin/sh even gives an error:
$ :() { }
Syntax error: Cannot override a special builtin with a function
Sorry :-(
Let's not dismiss FreeBSD, or any other OS for that matter, for having a relatively small install base. Having only 2 or 3 options (Windows, Linux, OSX) is *not* something I look forward too. I'd like to have at least 10 options, just as I can choose between 10 different car brands.
I once phoned the customer support for a fairly large Dutch company. During the support call they checked some personal info such as name, address (not unreasonable) ... and also my password...
The attempts of the support-person to read my random-generated password aloud as a word was somewhat amusing.
`Yet at least the NSA is subject to democratic scrutiny.'
To paraphrase Arthur Ford: `This is obviously some strange usage of the word "democratic" that I hadn't previously been aware of.'
Almost nothing of significance about the NSA is known. Not even how many people work there or not what the budget is. How can I, as a citizen, scrutinize something I know almost nothing about?
Secret government, such as the NSA, is by it's very nature anti-democratic, It's a few chosen ones deciding what's good for the people at large, it's the exact opposite!