* Posts by Carpetsmoker

32 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Feb 2013

Mastercard and Visa to ERADICATE password authentication

Carpetsmoker

Re: Biometrics

Indeed. This is truly impossible to fake...

</sarcasm>

Carpetsmoker

So how secure are 'biometrics'?

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).

Hey, YouTube lovers! How about you pay us, we start paying for STUFF? - Google

Carpetsmoker

Re: Global Phenomenon?

"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.

What's that? A PHP SPECIFICATION? Surely you're joking, Facebook

Carpetsmoker

Re: Specless master of the web

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...

NO TIME to read Facebook? Delegate the task to your FUTURE SELF

Carpetsmoker

Reading your Facebook is like finding the few nuggets of gold buried is colossal amounts of shit. I suppose This is useful for marking the nuggets.

Cisco open-sources experimental cipher

Carpetsmoker

Why not a stream cipher?

Why not a stream cipher? In my limited understanding of cryptography, it won't require padding, and should be secure (if used correctly) even for small pieces of data? What's the advantage of the added complexity?

Move over, John Pilger, let us IT scandal-mongerers stick it to you

Carpetsmoker
Pint

All rejoice!

For the Dabbs is back!

Google's SPDY blamed for slowing HTTP 2.0 development

Carpetsmoker

Re: I stopped seeing SPDY as an alternative...

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...

Are you senior enough to sit around a table with The Register?

Carpetsmoker
Pint

I'll come, but only if Dabsy will be there to spout vulgarities.

Urinating teen polluted 57 Olympic-sized swimming pools - cops

Carpetsmoker

Urine is sterile

Urine is sterile, and quite safe to drink... But who ever lets science get in the way of a gut feeling, anyway.

Quick Q: How many FLOPPIES do I need for 16 MILLION image files?

Carpetsmoker

I remember copying my friend's installation of Duke Nukem 3D onto ~55 floppies... I had a lot of patience as a kid, apparently.

Stephen Hawking: The creation of true AI could be the 'greatest event in human history'

Carpetsmoker
Facepalm

AI does not emulate humans

If we want a machine to accurately emulate average humans, we would need artificial stupidity.

Carpetsmoker

Re: I was noodling on the idea of AI a few days ago

He was thinking about it in base 13, of course ;)

In plain base 10, Harlan Ellison's story "I have no mouth, and I must scream" also captures the point, more or less. Except with less sulking.

French software developers are all beautiful women

Carpetsmoker

Hard hats required!

Software development is dangerous! Wear a hard hat!

Firefox, is that you? Version 29 looks rather like a certain shiny rival

Carpetsmoker
Unhappy

Rejoice! Nothing left to choose.

Now all major browsers look & work almost exactly the same, except for details. How depressing.

JavaScript guru slots into Mozilla CTO seat left empty by anti-gay marriage ex-boss

Carpetsmoker

Re: Jim 59 Andreas Gal

By this reasoning a KKK clansman or Neo-Nazi assfuck would also be an excellent CEO. Or perhaps someone in favour of retracting woman's voting rights, because what does a skirt know about politics, right?

Brain surgery? Would sir care for a CHOC-ICE with that?

Carpetsmoker

"IT workers are not like Asterix, Obelix and their magic potion-enhanced chums"

You are obviously unaware of the deep relationship between programming skills & coffee.

Anatomy of OpenSSL's Heartbleed: Just four bytes trigger horror bug

Carpetsmoker

I didn't ask for no heartbeat...

No one mentioned this, but IMHO at least *part* of the problem is that a little used TLS extension was not only implemented, but *enabled by default* in the first place.

Security is one place where conservatism really pays off quite well.

Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won't save you from cancer

Carpetsmoker

"It stands to reason, doesn’t it? After all conventional crops depend on chemicals and organic food doesn't."

Yeah, that pesky photosynthesis, and all the nasty chemicals involved, is the worst of it.

Sick of walking into things while gawping at your iPhone? Apple has a patent app. for that

Carpetsmoker

Nice try. Won't work.

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.

Object to #YearOfCode? You're a misogynist and a snob, says the BBC

Carpetsmoker

Practical problem solving

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.

Developers: Behold the bug NOBODY can fix

Carpetsmoker

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 :-(

FreeBSD 10.0 lands, targets VMs and laptops

Carpetsmoker
Thumb Up

Because only having two or three OS's is a good thing?

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.

KC engineer 'exposed unencrypted spreadsheet with phone numbers, user IDs, PASSWORDS'

Carpetsmoker
WTF?

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.

Clink! Terrorist jailed for refusing to tell police his encryption password

Carpetsmoker
Alert

I think I have an encrypted USB drive, I experimented with various disk encryption techniques a few years ago for fun. Better find it and erase the drive, 'cuz I don't remember the password.

Microsoft buries Sinofsky Era... then jumps on the coffin lid

Carpetsmoker
Stop

Desktop sales go down, tables sales go up, and eventually a new equilibrium will be reached. Tada! I'm a business genius. I should buy a suit.

Blame Silicon Valley for the NSA's data slurp... and what to do about it

Carpetsmoker

Democratic scrutiny?

`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!

Internet Explorer 11 at it again, breaks Microsoft's own CRM software

Carpetsmoker

A lesson learned from SunOS/Solaris no doubt.

Vint Cerf: 'Privacy may be an ANOMALY, now over'. And it's no secret I think that

Carpetsmoker

This one's a red herring.

The problem isn't sharing a few crappy self-shots and status updates on Facebook, the problem is certain companies & governments collecting (& sharing!) as much data about everyone all the time.

Perfect sex minx calculated from 'deep' probe of X-rated flicks

Carpetsmoker
FAIL

This makes no sense

This makes no sense.

It assumes there is some `average' and `perfect' solution. There isn't. Different people like different things, average them out and you usually end up with something mediocre...

Higgs data shows alternate reality will SWALLOW UNIVERSE

Carpetsmoker

Bad news? I think not

In the current state of things as we understand them, everything will continue forever. At some point the stars run out of fuel though, and the universe will become a rather dull place.

This seems a much nicer alternative.