Posted by (39% noise) ViewSkip
It’s been a longtimecoming (2007, 2005, and 2002 respectively), but the project to harness wave energy off the Scots coast is finally coming together. Reader krou writes: “The BBC is reporting that ten sites on the seabed off Scotland in Pentland Firth and around Orkney have been leased to energy companies with the hopes of generating wave and tidal energy. ‘Six sites have been allocated for wave energy developments potentially generating 600 megawatts of power and four for tidal projects, also generating 600 MW.’ The leases were awarded to SSE Renewables Developments, Aquamarine Power, ScottishPower Renewables, E.ON, Pelamis Wave Power, OpenHydro Site Developments, and Marine Current Turbines. Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said that ‘These waters have been described as the Saudi Arabia of marine power and the wave and tidal projects unveiled today — exceeding the initial 700MW target capacity — underline the rich natural resources of the waters off Scotland.’”
It figures - by PPH (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
If it involves messing around with waves, there’s usually a
Scottsman involved somehow.
Re:Should have an advantage over wind.. - by MichaelSmith (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Not only that but by converting gravitational potential energy into heat we create photons which transfer momentum to the moon and push it away faster. I propose that all future lunar landings be on the far side to compensate.
Removing this energy from the ocean may cause an imbalance in the gravitational effects between the Earth and the Moon. Well, not imbalance, but rather a rebalance.
If we cause the Moon to move away from our planet, we lose both our astrodebris sweeper and more importantly our tide maker. Anthropogenic effects are real, and I’m not sure I’m happy to see the deliberate removal of energy from the ocean without further study on longterm planetary effects.
We sometimes forget just how heavy water is, or how much energy ocean waves carry.
Some time ago, I did some statistical analysis of wave heights in Scapa Flow, not far away from the site proposed here in northern Scottish waters. It has very steady, large swells.
Imagine a wave (or swell) of 10m peak height, extending 2 km across, and 50m front-to-back. That’s a nice 0.3 * 10^6 kg of water… move it forward at 30kph… repeat every 10 or 20 seconds, and you’ve got 10^9 Joules/second, about 1GW. For the surface wave. (More energy is transferred more steadily by sub-surface currents.)
Lunar tidal flows are so much larger than these that the prospect of drawing enough energy from open waters to do anything to earth - moon movements seem to be off by many orders of magnitude.
Full disclosure: I used to be a pretty good physicist, but that was a long time ago.
The tidal bulge on the Earth actually drags on the moon and increases its orbital velocity. It does this because the rotation of the Earth drags the bulge ahead of the sub-lunar point. The gravitational field of the bulge attracts the moon so the earths rotation slows as the moons orbital velocity increases. Eventually we will be tidally locked like Pluto and Charon and tides will be much smaller.
My preferred solution is to dump a whole lot of nuclear waste on the far side of the moon and turn it into a bomb. I wanted my proposal implemented by 1999 but not enough people saw the gravity of the situation.
Posted by (76% noise) ViewSkip
An anonymous reader writes “Wondering where all that bloat comes from, causing even the classic ’Hello world’ to weigh in at 11 KB? An MIT programmer decided to make a Linux C program so simple, she could explain every byte of the assembly. She found that gcc was including libc even when you don’t ask for it. The blog shows how to compile a much simpler ‘Hello world,’ using no libraries at all. This takes me back to the days of programming bare-metal on DOS!”
Did similar back in MS-DOS 2.11 - by Brett Johnson (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
Back in the early 1980s, I was doing development on MS-DOS 2.11 - the first real working version of MS-DOS that resembled Xenix more than CP/M.
I was using a combination of Lattice C and assembly language to do my day job. But I was upset about the libc bloat that Lattice C would drag into the program. Over the Christmas break, I sat down and wrote a tiny version of libc, with the 60% of the calls I actually used. Most of them were either thin wrappers on top of MS-DOS Int21 calls, assembly language implementations (the string functions), or reduced functionality (printf didn’t handle strange alignments, floats or doubles), and custom startup/exit code. I also structured the library so that the linker would only link in functions that were actually used. For simple executables, I saw the on-disk file size drop from 10KB-20KB down to 400-600 bytes. Another thing that reduced on-disk file size was to create.com programs, rather than.exe programs.
I was also writing the handful of unix commands that I couldn’t do without (ls, cat, cut, paste, grep, fgrep, etc). Since I was implementing dozens of Unix commands, each statically linked to libc, it was very important to reduce the over-all size of each executable. Most of the smaller trivial commands were less than 1KB in size. I think the largest was 4KB. I also had an emacs clone* that was 36KB when compiled and linked against my tiny lib.
For the longest time, I carried around a bootable MS-DOS 2.11 floppy, with my dozens of Unix commands, an emacs-like editor, Lattice C compiler, tiny libc, and some core MS-DOS programs. It allowed my to have my entire development environment on a floppy that I could stick in anyone’s machine and make it usable.
* We had a source license for Mince, orphaned by Mark of the Unicorn, a tiny emacs-clone that ran on CP/M, MS-DOS, and Unix. We had enhanced it significantly.
Thank God we have finally crossed this hurdle. The baffling complexity of helloworld.c is no longer an obstacle to world domination.
I think we can now finally say once and for all that 2010 will be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Simpler “Hello World” in C? - by kenh (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
At the end, the code was assembler, and the compiler wasn’t even called - just the linker. I can’t say for sure where a C program ends and an assembler program begins, but I’m fairly certain that the last few iterations are assembler, based on the “let’s do away with the compiler” suggestion.
Also, “Hello World” programs have to, you know, actually display the message “Hello World” - this is a program that isn’t written in C, and doesn’t write “Hello World” - care to revisit the title of this entry?
Mainframers have been using this most simple of all utilities for decades - literally. The Wikipedia entry on it has a good write-up about this (literal) do-nothing program. It’s whole purpose is to provide a mechanisim to to exploit the various functions contained in JCL to create, delete, and otherwise manipulate datasets on mainframes.
Posted by (29% noise) ViewSkip
An anonymous reader sends word that C-Span has completed its project of making all of its footage available online. “The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday. Having free online access to the more than 160,000 hours of C-Span footage is like being able to Google political history using the “I Feel Lucky” button every time,’ said Rachel Maddow, the liberal MSNBC host.”
Amazing Achievement - by HaeMaker (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Consider the amount of processing power it took to compress 160,000 hours of video fully indexed and ready for viewing.
Incredible for a non-profit.
Like most of the national parks. . . - by Hero Zzyzzx (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I’m glad this exists but will probably never visit it.
Too bad… - by ThermalRunaway (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Half the health care debate wasn’t on CSPAN at all… we could go back and see the insanity over and over again
If you can find anything - by NaCh0 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
The video is only as good as the meta data associated with it.
Re:If you can find anything - by larry bagina (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I guess you’ve never watched 10 hours of c-cpan.
Posted by (38% noise) ViewSkip
Coop’s Troops writes “An exploit writer at Core Security Technologies has discovered a serious vulnerability that exposes users of Microsoft’s Virtual PC virtualization software to malicious hacker attacks. The vulnerability, which is unpatched, essentially allows an attacker to bypass several major security mitigations — DEP, SafeSEH and ASLR — to exploit the Windows operating system. As a result, some applications with bugs that are not exploitable when running in a not-virtualized operating system are rendered exploitable if running within a guest OS in Virtual PC.”
How many people even use VirtualPC/XP mode anyway? - by jim_v2000 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
I mean, talk about small targets. I highly doubt that any hacker would find it worth his time to attempt to exploit this. I mean, first you have to find someone running XP mode. Then you have to get them to open an executable (or exploit some other vulnerability to get onto the system) on the guest OS instead of the host OS. Then the person still has to have more than 2 gigs of RAM and be utilizing more than 2 gigs at once. Then, after all that, you only have access to the XP VM, which may or may not have anything of worth on it.
I’m not surprised that MS shrugged it off for now.
An exploit writer at Core Security Technologies has discovered a serious vulnerability that exposes users of Microsoft’s Virtual PC virtualization software to malicious hacker attacks.
I would like to add that the exploit writer at Core Security Technologies that discovered this vulnerability is Nicolás Economou and congratulate him on the great work he has made.
Disclaimer: I also work at Core
Still can’t exploit the host OS - by cbhacking (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
This is definitley a bug, but all it does is allow bypassing of security features in the virtualized system. In other words, you can exploit the VM client, but you still can’t get at the host.
It’s worth of a patch, but not of a panic. If you’re virtualizing for security, you don’t really care what happens to the virtual system (that’s the point). If you’re virtualizing so you can run an old OS, it’s going to be full of holes anyhow. If you’re virtualizing for any other reason, why the hell are you using consumer-grade virtualization software?
Ugh, this isn’t good. - by mlts (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
The good news is that this doesn’t affect the big iron (Hyper-V). However, for people who have Windows 7 and XP mode, using it for Web browsing, this will cause them a world of hurt.
Since this essentially doesn’t affect servers, I’m going to recommend to people that they move to VMWare Workstation if they want commercial support, or VirtualBox if they desire an open source solution. Either one of these has as many features as VirtualPC (although VirtualPC has one nice advantage — it drops changes to the undo disk fast compared to the 2-3 minutes VMWare does.)
A hole in a hypervisor is a really bad thing. A lot of people use VMs for honeypots, and this would cause unintended infections, or other damage, perhaps catastrophic.
Re:Ugh, this isn’t good. - by cbhacking (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Honeypots are designed to get hit. This bug doesn’t make the host system vulnerable, it just means that the client OS is easier to exploit.
If it worked on Hyper-V, this would be a big problem; that’s a server-level technology where even the clients are expected to remain secure. On the other hand, Virtual PC isn’t even a hypervisor; it requires a full OS onderneath it, running itself as just another Windows app. Up until 2007 didn’t even require hardware support for virtualization.
Posted by (36% noise) ViewSkip
alphadogg writes “Zer01 Mobile — making promises of flat rate, no contract, unlimited cell phone service — made its grand entrance at the annual CTIA wireless convention about a year ago, but now the company’s Web site has disappeared. The site recently began redirecting visitors to Google.com. Zer01, which was lauded for its plans in the mainstream press, aligned itself with a multilevel marketing company called Global Verge (whose founder had earlier been convicted of securities fraud), and the two companies began recruiting salespeople who paid a monthly fee to be part of a sales program. (Since then, Global Verge and Zer01 parted ways and Global Verge filed a lawsuit against its former partner.) But no mobile service from Zer01 ever materialized. Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program, although few appear to have received payment. But as late as the fall CTIA show in October, Zer01’s CEO was still promising to launch the mobile service.”
Piramid scheme anybody? - by houghi (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
recruiting salespeople who paid a monthly fee to be part of a sales program. […] Salespeople were promised payment based on how many other salespeople they signed up to the program,
That has pyramid scheme written all over it. I wonder why it took so long and why no legal action was taken against them. Or are these scams legal in the US?
The moment somebody comes to me and tells me I can earn a lot of money, but first I need to pay a bit up front will NOT be my new employer. The will NOT be my business partner. They will be sorted under scammer. If I need to recruit people and payed on basis of how many people I can enlist, I will NOT work for that company (unless I am HR.)
Why were they not closed sooner? Even without the links to other dubious companies, this sounds like a first class pyramid scam.
Don’t infer hostility from a lawsuit. - by MarkvW (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Post makes the point that Global Verge is suing Zer01.
Don’t infer hostility!!!!!
Collusive (friendly) lawsuits are a fraudulent way one person can transfer money to another person (himself?), thereby dodging legitimate creditors.
Fyi.
The human condition… - by cosm (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
If you market to people’s hopes & dreams, you will always find suckers for your hollow ploys.
Cosmetics are generally useless from a utilitarian standpoint, and yet mass marketing pushes that shit out to the female demographic as if they would evaporate without it, and now we’re stuck with the fucking Barbie generation. Give somebody the hope that you can fulfill their dream, and you will have their wallet.
People never learn - by cytoman (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
A simple adage - “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”. People never seem to learn it. Always falling for scams. I’m not surprised.
Re:When will people learn - by SomeJoel (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Most people are bad at math and logical reasoning. The sooner you accept that, the sooner the world will suddenly make sense.
Posted by (44% noise) ViewSkip
indiavision writes “A host of young Japanese are drawn to the allure of ’therapeutic ringtones’ — a genre of melodies that promises to ease a range of day-to-day gripes, from chronic insomnia to a rotten hangover. Developed by Matsumi Suzuki, the head of the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory, an eight-year-old subsidiary of the Japan Acoustic Laboratory, the tones are a hit with housewives as well as teenagers.”
Well, the smart money is on it, at least. - by PaganRitual (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
the tones are a hit with housewives as well as teenagers.
Ah, the two most well-informed, fad-immune, money-conscious target markets out there. If anything was going to convince me that this wasn’t just total bullshit, it would be the take up of this concept by those two groups. I’ll take three, please.
Re:It’s pronounced “fewer” - by Locke2005 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Shouldn’t the first letter of a sentence be capitalized?
What’s the Japanese for “There’s a sucker born every minute”?
Sony.
Re:So… - by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Man, I thought that “Sony” meant “Coasting on the reputation you once deserved”.
No wonder they say that Japanese is tricky…
Re:Theraputic? - by icebike (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
I can’t speak to Theraputic, but having a loud annoying ring tone affects the way most people answer the phone.
Something soothing sets the mood. Something loud or annoying tends to make people snap at the caller.
This was found when the first electronic handsets were introduced to offices. They came with a selection of ring tones and office managers quickly determined that setting the phones to use the more pleasant sounding the ring, lead to more civil answering, even during hectic times.
Posted by (78% noise) ViewSkip
WeeBit writes “Researchers have different ideas as to why people fail to use security measures. Some feel that regardless of what happens, users will only do the minimum required. Others believe security tasks are rejected because users consider them to be a pain. A third group maintains user education is not working. [Microsoft Research’s Cormac] Herley offers a different viewpoint. He contends that user rejection of security advice is based entirely on the economics of the process.” Here is Dr. Herley’s paper, So Long, And No Thanks for the Externalities: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users (PDF).
It’s obvious - by vakuona (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
It’s obvious that most computer security practices are the equivalent of cracking the metaphorical nut with a sledgehammer. My personal pet hate is the password aging practice. It specifically does one of two things. It discourages people from choosing strong passwords because strong passwords are more difficult to create and remember than weak ones. The second is that users may resort to writing passwords down because some expert decided they needed to change their password every 30 days. And often you get thet password change prompt right when you are about to go on a long holiday, which guarantees that you will not be able to remember it
One reason for this is that organisations have to show that they are serious about security, and practices like password aging are easy ‘objective’ metrics to demonstrate, even if they do not provide a measurable improvement in security.
6. Change often - by hrimhari (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
TFA:
Rule 6 will help only if the attacker waits weeks before exploiting the password. So this amplies the burden for little gain. Only if it is changed between the time of the compromise and the time of the attempted exploit does Rule 6 help.
IANASE, but last time I checked this rule meant to make it difficult for attackers to have time to brute-force-guessing the password and profit from it. It had nothing to do with the attacker discovering the password then waiting quietly until nobody’s looking to profit from it.
In theory, if you change your password often enough before the brute-force being complete, the attacker would have to start all over again.
That said, it’s an extremelly difficult rule to enforce/comply, unless you have a wonderful “I forgot my password” system.
good advice versus bad advice; costs to others - by bcrowell (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
The paper is not entirely unreasonable. However, there are at least some holes in it.
It lumps good and bad security advice together. The economic benefit of following bad security advice (e.g., buying antivirus software) is zero or negative, so of course anybody would be rational to ignore such advice. That doesn’t mean it should be lumped together with *good* security advice. They’re hypothesizing that people are acting like the idealized economic free agents beloved of economists: people with perfect information, acting rationally. Under this hypothesis, people would have perfect information about which security advice is good and which is bad.
The article doesn’t talk about costs to others. People who get their computers owned by a botnet aren’t only suffering economic harm themselves, they’re inflicting harm on other people. On p. 5 Herley talks about how Wells Fargo limits customers’ liability to $50 if they’re victims of fraud. That doesn’t mean *nobody* pays the cost of the fraud. We all pay those costs, indirectly.
Another problem is that in many cases Herley relies on back-of-the-envelope estimates of the damage caused by security failures. E.g., on p. 2 he estimates the economic costs of a particular exploit. But these estimates aren’t based on any actual data. That particular calculation is also kind of stupid, because he says that a user shouldn’t spend more than “0.98 seconds” (doesn’t he understand significant figures?) protecting against a particular exploit. What his analysis ignores is that there may be hundreds of such exploits out there, and that anything you do that protects against one exploit (e.g., not using a dictionary word as your password) will also help to protect you against all the others. And forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of low-ball estimates originating from MS of the economic damage of computer security failures. That’s like trusting GM to estimate the economic effects of global warming.
Microsoft Researcher using TeX. - by Jason Earl (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
They aren’t kidding when they say that Microsoft Research is autonomous. I would have assumed that Microsoft would at least make its researchers use MS Word.
Some security advice is not rational - by Chemisor (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
People giving security advice often have no idea what the threat model is. For example, the typical home user’s computer has no chance of being physically attacked. Nobody breaks into people’s houses to install hardware keyloggers to steal their online banking passwords. And yet, some banks put up “security measures” like on-screen keyboards you have to type on with a mouse just to avoid keyloggers. Likewise, there’s no real security reason to password protect your account on your home computer that nobody but you uses, and no security reason to not use autologin.
Seriously, there is only one kind of threat the home user faces, and that’s software attacks, none of which are aimed specifically at him, and all of which are acquired either through his web browser or through infected executables given to him by his friends. If he runs NoScript, disables javascript in email, and gets executables only from reputable sources, there is simply no way he can get infected. If he’s on Linux, he’s safer than he’s ever going to be already.
Posted by (54% noise) ViewSkip
SpuriousLogic passes along this excerpt from the ChiTrib: “The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter, too. US law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting. … The document… makes clear that US agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target’s friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs, and video clips. Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects’ alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree… can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries.” The FoIA lawsuit was filed by the EFF, which has posted two documents obtained from the action, from the DoJ and Internal Revenue (more will be coming later). The rights group praises the IRS for spelling out limitations and prohibitions on deceptive use of social media by its agents — unlike the DoJ. The US Marshalls and the BATFE could not find any documents related to the FoIA request, so presumably they have no guidelines or prohibitions in this area.
Turn it against them - by MSRedfox (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
So if they want to use my tweets to break alibis, does this mean I can make tweets to reinforce them? ‘8:00 in bed and going to sleep’ ‘9:00 woke up to the sound of a gun shot in the distance, I hope Bob the snitch is okay’ ‘9:15 Going downtown with Officers for a cup of coffee, they are so nice’ ‘9:30 after officers read my tweets, they apologized for wasting my time and drove me home’
Good - by SoupGuru (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
If they weren’t doing something like this, I’d wonder what the hell was wrong with them.
Why is this different? - by captaindomon (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
How is this different than what the FBI does offline? It’s just an online version of an offline undercover sting, right?
Posted by (72% noise) ViewSkip
JoshuaInNippon writes “Four major Japanese car manufacturers and one power company (Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Tokyo Electric) have teamed up with over 150 business and government entities in Japan to form a group to promote standardization in electric vehicle chargers and charging stations. The group hopes to leverage current Japanese electric vehicle technology and spread standardization throughout the country, as well as aim towards worldwide acceptance of their standardized charger model. In a very Japanese manner, the group has decided to call themselves ‘CHAdeMO,’ a play on the English words ‘charge’ and ‘move,’ as well as a Japanese pun that encourages tea-drinking while waiting the 15+ minutes it will take to charge one’s vehicle battery.”
Induction vs. direct dry contact charging - by kriston (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread
Which is more efficient: induction charging, like old Chevrolets, or direct dry contact charging? From what I remember of my induction charging toothbrush it was safe but sure got hot to the touch.
Re:15 minutes? - by BobPaul (Score: 3, Interesting) Thread
That’s mostly a sourcing problem. If you only have a 20Amp source, you can’t ever charge at a rate greater than 20Amps. The thing is (and this varies quite a bit in the specifics with battery type), as a rule of thumb for the first 80% you can charge at extremely high charge rates. This is because internal resistance builds as you put charge into the battery.
You’ve probably seen 15minute quick chargers for AA NiMH and NiCAD batteries. These charge the first 80% or so with extremely high currents and then drop down to some fraction of C after that point as it builds towards full charge. Lithium based batteries can generally sustain even higher initial charge currents than Nickel based batteries, but are more prone to explosion if you don’t monitor changes in heat and internal resistance accurately. So the 15minutes quoted by the OP is totally realistic if the charge station could meet the current demands (ie, is at an electrical substation, has battery or super cap packs charged during off-hours on site, etc), but there really is no reason for the OP to have said 15+ instead of 3+, 60-, or “time it takes to charge”.
Keep in mind, the 3.5hours you quote for Tesla is only on 240V service at 20A. 120V service at 20A takes 7-8hours. 240V at 40A or 440V at 20A might be closer to 2hours. And that’s for the Tesla, which has a pretty wide range. A light weight commuter electric might only have 40-60miles of charge, so a full charge at standard 240V might only be an hour, meaning high current quick charges could be even faster.
Connector style? - by Yvan256 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
So, what does the connector look like? I bet it’s a tentacle of some sort.
Re:Replacable batteries? - by cayenne8 (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread “Why not just develop a design to swap out batteries through an automated crane? Pull in, the robot arm removes your empty battery and replaces it with a full one. The empty battery charges at whatever pace the ‘gas’ station deems necessary (maybe overnight when prices are lower) and the driver has a full charge within seconds. I’m almost certain I saw this idea put forth on/. in the past.”
How’s that going to help you at home? What if your car runs outta power at home after sitting for awhile, etc…?
Frankly, I don’t think it should only be one or the other…how about both? You can charge from an outlet when available, and swap out at a station while on the road?
Re:Wrong Solution! - by wowbagger (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
“Why wait around for the batteries to charge when you could have standard interchangeable battery packs?”
This comes up every time rechargeable cars comes up, and it is still just as wrong now as the first time.
First of all, not all batteries will be the same. Most of the battery chemistries in use for electric cars have a finite cycle life. So, you pull into the station with your brand-spanking-new, only one charge/discharge cycle battery, and you get it swapped out for the battery I left there with 10000 cycles on it, that has a quarter the capacity. True, you could have the pack record and report its charge cycle history, but that doesn’t stop the fact that the only “charged” battery the station has right now is my hammered to death pack, and you are getting screwed on the deal.
Second of all, these packs are HEAVY. Not just the 40 kg your gas tank is, but more like several HUNDRED kilograms. They have to be an integral part of the car’s frame, or else in a collision they are going to play Hulk and “HULK SMASH!” their way through the rest of the car (and likely you!). Making something that is BOTH well attached to the car’s frame AND easily removable is like making a pocket sized 52” display.
Third of all is the machinery to pull that pack out of your car. It has to be automated, or it has to be operated by a trained operator. When was the last time you had somebody else pump your gas? OK, so skip the trained operator, it has to be automated such that a) BillyBob can “run” it, b) it can handle the car being parked at any number of weird angles to the system, c) it won’t crush Little Billy who gets in the way, and d) it POSITIVELY CANNOT have ANY chance of scratching the paint, because BillyBob *WILL* accuse the station of just that, even when the “scratch” has doe fur and hoofprints!
Fourth of all is the issue of what happens if you run out of power out on the road. Right now it is no big deal for [AAA|The Highway Patrol|a passing motorist|A tow truck] to get you a gallon or two of gas so you can make it to a gas station. Good luck with swapping the battery pack in the road. OR you have to have a charging port + a special portable charging system to get you the equivalent of that “couple of gallons” of gas.
I see you are a fan of mine, and I hope my pointing this out won’t change that, but - there are good reasons swapping batteries, while great for your phone, doesn’t scale to your car.
Posted by (32% noise) ViewSkip
Trailrunner7 writes “After Microsoft’s actions to take down the Waledac botnet last month, there was some question about whether the operation was much more than a grab for headlines that would have little effect on actual spam levels or malware infections. But more than three weeks after the takedown, researchers say that Waledac has essentially ceased communications and its spam operations have dropped to near zero. One researcher said that Waledac now seems to be abandoned. ‘It looks crippled, if not dead,’ said Jose Nazario, a senior security researcher at Arbor Networks.”
Still however useless - by 0racle (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
question about whether the operation was much more than a grab for headlines that would have little effect on actual spam levels or malware infections
I think everyone knew the answer was, no it will not have an effect on spam levels or malware infections. Oh it succeeded in taking the botnet offline, MS did something real here, but taking just one offline doesn’t mean much.
There aren’t that many botnets out there. I think most reputable observers peg it at around 6 or 7 big ones, from a spam perspective anyway. So taking one down is actually pretty awesome. Remember when McColo disappeared and spam levels dropped massively overnight? It wasn’t that McColo itself pumped out spam, it was that the botnet C&C servers lived there.
As somebody who actually has to deal with the impacts of large botnets as part of my job at Google, I’d like to congratulate and thank the guys at Microsoft for this victory. Whether it has a noticeable impact on spam or not, it sends a powerful message to people thinking of making their own botnet - it can all end suddenly.
Building and maintaining a botnet is already pretty hard work… between AV firms, Microsofts MSRT, users noticing problems and wiping the OS, removals by rival botnets and generally improving PC security botnet building has gone from something every man and his dog was doing to something very few can do well. Hardly any botnets become big. Most abuse I deal with comes in via bots that are apparently being shared or rented out to different (sometimes competing) spammers. That’s an encouraging sign.
As long as the source of the spam/malware problem isn’t held accountable, nothing much will change.
The ultimate source (not cause!) of this problem is of course users that get spam, and then go on to send money to the folks that spammed them. But next in line are those companies that use spam, spread through malware-infected PC’s, to sell their products (or sell worthless/dangerous crap, for that matter). Such shady companies should be put out of business, their CEO’s thrown in jail ASAP (through whatever -legal- means), and profits confiscated to support the anti-spam operation.
Focussing on botnets is a good thing, but IMHO useless. Focussing on the folks running them is better, but the next botnet-operator-wannabee will step right in. Instead, efforts should focus on the businesses paying these fuckers.
Re:Still however useless - by plover (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
This was a lot larger than taking down a rogue host. This is 1,500,000,000 fewer spams per day on the net.
Cut out two billion spams here and there and pretty soon you’re talking about real effectiveness.
Sure, they could probably do more, but every journey begins with a single step. Shut down the easy ones first. Pick the low-hanging fruit. Then go back and take down another, and another. At this point it could be all they could get done in a short amount of time, and in any case it’s still a good start.
When the stars are once again right… - by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
Posted by (40% noise) ViewSkip
We’ve recently discussed China’s position as the linchpin of the world’s supply of rare earths, and their rumblings about restricting exports of of these materials crucial to the manufacture of everything from batteries to wind turbines. Now an anonymous reader sends this MSNBC piece on the status of the US’s supply of rare earths. “China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and cell phones, but the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation. Those reserves include deposits of both ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ rare earths… ‘There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can’t get enough material,’ said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. ‘No one [in the US] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,’ Hedrick explained. … [S]uch a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths. The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years. [But the CEO of a rare earth supply company said] ‘From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices.’”
‘There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can’t get enough material,’ said Jim Hedrick
May be, it’s not just a shortage, but a cost of doing business. The real question is: if those companies were willing to pay ten times the amount for those rare earth minerals, would they be able to get them? Probably, I think. Personally, I think this is just another industry that’s trying to get the government to subsidize 90% of its infrastructure costs.
Re:No one’s thinking long term anymore - by Eravnrekaree (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
The real reason we are not drilling offshore, is that it will not reduce gas prices more than 2 cents and will not make the US energy independant. There have been extensive studies on this and the oil is not just there. The EIA estimated that offshore drilling would reduce US gas prices by 2 cents. The areas offshore entire states contain enough oil to supply the US for only a few months. We could save more energy if people installed some more insulation in their homes and inflated their tires than we would ever get from offshore oil drilling. The idea that we can solve our problems with domestic drilling is a lie told by the public relations of the Oil Industry and Republican puppets.
The second point is it cannot be done safely. That is a fact. Last year there was a massive oil spill off of Australia using the same “Clean safe” technology that the oil companies wanted to use offshore in the US. The fact is, it would take just one spill to destroy miles of beaches and pollute and contaminate the very seafood we eat. A study of the environment around oil rigs found fish around there with vastly higher levels of heavy metals and the seafloor covered with heavy metals and toxic carcinogens including arsenic. Unfortunately there are some who seem to think it is acceptable to pollute our environment with toxic waste that will kill us in order for oil companies to make some more profit.
Here again we see the oil company propoganda at work. In the real world unexpected things happen, pipes break. An oil rig can have a drill shaft miles deep, a leak anywhere in that can pollute and contaminate ground water, cause long running leaks into the ocean which can last for months and destroy hundreds of miles of ocean environment and beaches.
All of this means offshore drilling simply isnt worth the risk. Just one spill and we have ruined the environment, and for nothing at all, it simply will not solve energy problems.
What Problem? - by Sponge Bath (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Buy cheap stuff from abroad while available and cheap. Mine locally if overseas supplies are restricted or prices get too high.
Supply and demand? - by spun (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
If these rare earths are so rare and valuable, and only going to become more so, why should the upfront cost matter? The plant should still make a huge profit, unless I am misunderstanding basic economics.
Seems people in America only want to invest in fraudulent get rich quick gambling schemes these days. Actual resource extraction and manufacturing is for the peons.
Posted by (84% noise) ViewSkip
suraj.sun sends this excerpt from CNET on Microsoft’s preview of IE9 in Las Vegas just now. “At its Mix 10 conference Tuesday, Microsoft gave programmers, Web developers, and the world at large a taste of things to come with its Web browser. Specifically, Microsoft released what it’s calling the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview, a prototype designed to show off the company’s effort to improve how the browser deals with the Web as it exists today and, as important, to add support for new Web technologies that are coming right now. Coming in the new version is support for new Web standards including plug-in-free video; better performance with graphics, text, and JavaSript by taking advantage of modern computing hardware. One big change in the JavaScript engine Hachamovitch is proud of is its multicore support. As soon as a Web page is loaded, Chakra assigns a processing core to the task of compiling JavaScript in the background into fast code written in the native language of the computer’s processor.” Microsoft didn’t say what codec they were using for the HTML5 video demo, but the Technologizer says it’s H.264.
“A new release every month! That’s our goal!” said sweaty, vaguely simian MS CEO Steve Ballmer. The new Hachamovitch Javascript engine will interface with the Millajovovich subsystem to spawn independent processes to more effectively deliver those animated ads everyone loves!”
“Like that punch the monkey ad! I love that one!” Ballmer said and began his patented monkey dance. “C’mon everyone! Punch the monkey!”
When asked about MS simply adopting WebKit and making everyone’s life easier and even saving themselves piles of money, Ballmer pulled out a shotgun and killed the reporter.
“Oops! Thought he was zombie,” said Ballmer and shot the reporter’s body again. “Double tap!”
Slew of recent marketting… - by nschubach (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
I know this is going to sound trollish, but hear me out.
I can’t be the only one noticing that there is a recent upswing in what I’d call Microsoft “prototype news.” All the blogs are full of Win Mobile 7 System Phone (or whatever they are calling it…), something called Courier that’s probably vaporware, Natal, and now IE enhancements that aren’t quite done yet. It feels to me like Microsoft shifted a good chunk of change into marketing for some reason.
It kind of feels like they are saying “Oh, don’t look at that, we’ll have something soon…”
Re:Standard compliance? - by Tumbleweed (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
So with all of the nifty, new stuff they are finally compliant, right? I mean no more body {text-align: center;} instead of body { margin: 0px auto; } to center a fixed width layout, right?
Those are two different things. text-align: center centers stuff in a div. the margin: 0 auto you set to a div to center that block (the div) in its container. Even IE6 works correctly with this, so I don’t know what the issue is here.
For those having box-model issues with IE6, you can easily fix this by using the HTML 4.01 Strict DTD, FYI.
New Javascript Record - by K-Man (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
This should be able to serve over 2000 popunder ads per second.
plug-in-free video? - by mpapet (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread
Meaning Microsoft controls the kinds of video IE can stream?
This is a big opportunity for Microsoft to force the Internet media standards AND generate some meaningful license fees. Those fees would be paid to Microsoft to enable streaming your hot-new-VC-backed media format. Microsoft would never have to deal with those pesky media streaming competitors they used to call partners.
If I made decisions at Microsoft, that’s how I’d do it.
Posted by (87% noise) ViewSkip
An anonymous reader writes “Chris Jarvis, 31, is described as a Star Wars fan and member of the International Church of Jediism. Said church’s intergalactic hoodie uniform is at odds with the strict doctrine of the Department for Work and Pensions, which may require Jobcentre ‘customers’ to remove crash helmets or hoods for ‘security reasons.’ Following his ejection, Jarvis filled out a complaint form and within three days got a written apology from branch boss Wendy Flewers. She said: ‘We are committed to provide a customer service which embraces diversity and respects customers’ religion.’”
He needs to go back to Jedi school. - by dwiget001 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Had he been a real Jedi, he would have just waved his hand and said “You don’t have to remove your hood”, to which security would have said “You don’t have to remove your hood” and waved him on through.
Might not be PC, but… - by Trip6 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
…Jediism carries the same credibility as other religions directly based on science fiction stories. Just ask Tom Cruise.
A little extreme? - by filesiteguy (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I generally hire staff that have an affinity for Star Wars - and at least one replica lightsaber. I also have systems named JEDI (Joint Enterprise Document Ifrastructre) and YODA (Your Online Document Archive) but do not insist on Jedi robes.
As it is, the guy was wearing a hoodie, not a Jedi robe.
Seems a bit extreme.
He would also have a legitmate complaint in the US - by Locke2005 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Under the ADA, discrimination against retards is unlawful here too!
Since when do Jedi have to wear hoodies with the hood up? There are numerous points in the movies where Jedi do not wear their hoods up, and numerous occasions where they even wearing a garment that has a hood at all. Clearly, mandatory hoodies is not one of the precepts of Jediism as it existed in the Galactic Republic/Empire.
This reminds me of all the rituals and requirements Catholics make up that was never mentioned in the Bible. But at least they can point at a section in the Bible that can be read to say that the church leaders are allowed to make this stuff up.. As far as I know, not only is there no such statement in Star Wars, Lucas is quite serious about restricting who is allowed to expand upon Star Wars. Is there some Expanded Universe novel in which the Hoodie Requirement is created?
So dude, I mean Mr. Jedi, put your hood down. You don’t need it up to be a Jedi. Insisting on putting it up isn’t holding fast to your religion, it’s playing dress-up.
Posted by (53% noise) ViewSkip angry tapir writes “The Xbox 360 RROD coffin was created by Aussie designer Alexis Vanamois, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s the ultimate final resting place for ‘bricked’ Xbox 360 consoles that have suffered the Red Ring of Death; it even has a cavity for your controller!”
(1) Clean, clean, clean the prematurely (less than 2 years) dead X360 so it looks new. (2) Buy new one from microsoft.com. (3) Put old unit in new box. (4) Return for refund because “it doesn’t turn on”. Get refund. (5) If MS refuses, then provide tracking to credit card. They will Force a refund per the contract MS signed with the credit company.
Done.
I just did this with a USB drive that went “click click click” before finally spinning up. i.e. It was almost dead before I ever used it! Even though I had just opened the drive, my receipt was a month old, so the store refused the return. Next I bought a new one, put broken drive in new box, and returned it a few days later saying, “This doesn’t work.” Done.
I do this everytime a corporation tries to screw me. They almost-never succeed.
(1) Clean, clean, clean the prematurely (less than 2 years) dead X360 so it looks new. (2) Buy new one from microsoft.com. (3) Put old unit in new box. (4) Return for refund because “it doesn’t turn on”. Get refund. (5) If MS refuses, then provide tracking to credit card. They will Force a refund per the contract MS signed with the credit company.
Done.
As you say, this is theft.
You can argue that it’s a faulty product and you’re entitled to your money’s worth and whatnot… But that seems more like a discussion you should be having with technical support, over their warranty. Or maybe with some lawyer.
I just did this with a USB drive that went “click click click” before finally spinning up. i.e. It was almost dead before I ever used it!
Not trying to tell you that you’re wrong here… But it’s entirely possible that the USB port you happened to be using had insufficient power.
My USB HDD does something similar if I plug it into an under-powered USB port or if I use too long a USB cable. Sounds for all the world like a dead drive. But if I plug it in to a good port or use a shorter cable it spins up just fine.
I bought a new one, put broken drive in new box, and returned it a few days later saying, “This doesn’t work.” Done.
I’ve got a co-worker who does this all the time.
We had a bad thunderstorm a while back and the power supply blew on his fancy TV. He bought a new one, put the bad one in the box, and returned it.
Last year he bought a new artificial Christmas tree from SAM’s Club… Put his old, smaller tree in the box, and returned it.
I do this everytime a corporation tries to screw me. They almost-never succeed.
Generally speaking, they aren’t trying to screw you. It can certainly seem unfair when you’re bit in the ass by their return policies… And it may not be a very fair policy in the first place… But they aren’t generally actually trying to screw you.
I used to work at Electronic’s Boutique back in the day. When I started there they had a virtually “no questions asked” return policy. You could even return a game if you didn’t like it.
So we’d have customers basically using us for free rentals. They’d buy a game, play it, beat it, return it, and get something else for no charge. And then do the same thing with that.
So then we stipulated that it was only on non-working merchandise… And folks just lied and said it didn’t work on their system.
Then we stipulated that you could only return non-working merchandise for another copy of the same thing. And folks would tell us that they bought it was a gift and had been purchased for the wrong system.
So we stipulated that it had to be un-opened merchandise. And folks will just use somebody’s shrink wrap machine to repackage the game and make it look un-opened.
The end result of all this is that somebody who has a legitimate reason to return a game to the store is going to have one hell of a hard time accomplishing that. And they’re going to feel like they’re being screwed. But it isn’t that the company wants to screw them… It’s that so many people screwed the company over the years that there’s no way for anyone to win at this point.
I would think the Xbox 360 has serial numbers. Buying from a game store, you might be lucky and they won’t check (probably only would if the process is automated).
Posted by (51% noise) ViewSkip
Zen found this story about a blind soldier using a lollypop-sized tongue sensor to ‘see.’ The system actually enables him to walk and read unaided. The guy says, “It feels like licking a nine-volt battery or like popping candy. The camera sends signals down onto the lollypop and onto your tongue, you can then determine what they mean and transfer it to shapes.”
before long, he won’t be thinking about deciphering “square”, “circle”, “room” etc. If my understanding is correct, he really will be able to see with his tongue, in the same way you or I see with our eyes. It’ll wire the tongue up to the vision center.
The brain is flippin’ cool.
Re:Cool thing is… - by StuartHankins (Score: 5, Funny) Thread The pasta is noticeably triangular, with mild hints of rhomboids and parallelograms. The finish is decidedly circular, which earns this dish a top rating. Four stars!
Interesting observations from the article - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
From this guy’s experience, a majority of stuff looks just like chicken.
It looks like… - by Mantis8 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
He has his problem licked!
Sweet! Another example of the human mind! - by ircmaxell (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Yet another example of the adaptability of the human brain. I wonder what the resolution of such a system would be? What’s the possibility of being able to read with it?
And a minor pedantic point. It’s not a sensor on his tongue. A sensor is an input device. This is an output device (relative to the computer “device”)…
Posted by (77% noise) ViewSkip
Sagelinka writes “Both Google and the Chinese government appear to be leaking word that the search firm may soon shutter its operations there as negotiations between the two break down. Google first threatened to halt its operations in China after disclosing in January that an attack on its network from inside China was aimed at exposing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. At the time, Google also said it was reconsidering its willingness to censor search results of users in China as required by the government. ‘I think Google thought China would be flexible,’ said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group. Google has since been negotiating with the Chinese government to find a way to continue operating in the country. Google did not respond today to requests for comment on the state of the negotiations with China.”
Well that is good but. - by LWATCDR (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Will Google stop buying stuff from China. The Nexus 1 is made by HTC probably in China. The iPhone and most of Apples products are made in China so no Google isn’t alone. We as a nation need to stop sending our money to China. How about it Google. Take that big monster pile of cash and build some factories in the US. Start making phones and motherboards in the US again. Would you pay $10 more for a Google Motherboard built in Iowa or Idaho over an Asus built in China if it was the same quality? Think of it Google you could pay workers in the US that would then spend that money in the US and buy stuff made in the US “hopefully” How about not just trying to not be evil but trying to be good?
On a more cynical note. Google isn’t making a lot of money in China, odds are the Chinese search engine is benefiting from stolen Google tech will get government support, and they could leverage that tech to start going head to head with Google in world markets. So they have nothing really to loose by bailing out of China.
> ‘I think Google thought China would be flexible,’ said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group.
And I think you’re an idiot Robert. If there is one word NO ONE in the West would use to describe the Chinese government, it is ‘flexible’.
Duality in Leadership - by eldavojohn (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
“I think Google thought China would be flexible,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group.
My opinion is that the CEO, Eric Schmidt, differs from the young idealism of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. I do not mean that either side of this leadership is right or wrong but instead simply that they have different motivations. Brin’s past has come up before as a source for this (seemingly) new found anti-censorship campaign.
Google’s leadership is conflicted. Brin & Page see the ethics of the situation most important because their motivation seems to be less devoted to money. It certainly seemed to be an exercise in indexing when they started “Google.” Schmidt, however, owes his allegience to the shareholders. Or at least feels the pull and responsibility of profit more so than any sort of ethical dilemma. And that’s why he was put in that position: to keep investors investing. And, honestly, this last point is why I think this ‘removal’ is nothing but a rumor or a bluff. Because money is one of the most important things to Google. I don’t think the young idealism will stand up to stock prices… and I think everyone involved knows it. Until you tell me that Google.cn is dead and I go to the site and confirm it, I will not believe for a second this is possible.
Brin and Page’s cashing out is really just symbolic of what’s already happened at Google. Their motivations are like any other company’s. Some of it is about the customer and some of it is about profit… and that’s it. Pesky ideals and ethics have no place in corporate America. Step aside. It’s the safest path to churn out tons of cash. They’re walking away from too much money and market to pull out of China. It would be bad for stocks and any investors would flip out… probably even sue.
What money? People keep talking about China as if it is some huge source of profit for google. It is not. Google has a few side startups but its main business, advertising is NOT present in China. There are some chinese advetisers but they advertise OUTSIDE China.
The amount of revenue is around 300 million dollar. A pathetic amount and that is revenue, not profit.
The MBA’s have long since declared China as some kind of holy grail, were the streets are made of gold and profits just happen. But it just ain’t turning out that way.
For europeans, the US of A was much the same. Oh if we can only launch our product over there, we will have it made. Forget, if you are big in Holland then a flea can squash you in the US. You are nothing. Do 10 miljoen euro’s and you will be a tiny blip as a Humvee drives over you. Conquer the german market, go south to france. Not instantly across the ocean, with insane transportation costs, gap in working hours, cultural differences.
Google did have long term plans for China, but they might be wondering that with the little result so far, it is actually worth the hassle.
And I think China might be bluffing as well. If Google moves out, they might not loose all that much, but others could start to examine their own future in China.
In itself, it is not unusual for a company to rethink its activities in a region.
Posted by (61% noise) ViewSkip
An anonymous reader writes “ElcomSoft accelerates the recovery of Wi-Fi passwords and password-protected iPhone and iPod backups by using ATI video cards. The support of ATI Radeon 5000 series video accelerators allows ElcomSoft to perform password recovery up to 20 times faster compared to Intel top of the line quad-core CPUs, and up to two times faster compared to enterprise-level NVIDIA Tesla solutions. Benchmarks performed by ElcomSoft demonstrate that ATI Radeon HD5970 accelerated password recovery works up to 20 times faster than Core i7-960, Intel’s current top of the line CPU unit.”
Re:103000 passwords per second. So? - by WuphonsReach (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread At 103000 attempts per seconds, that’s… 421 years oh.
Still within the realm of cracking, especially if those passwords guard a few million dollars of assets. 421 years sounds like a lot until you add things like:
- Crossfire or SLI where you have multiple boards installed
- Setup half a dozen machines to work on the problem
- Apply a botnet to the problem
- Future improvements in technology
- Apply some heuristics to the guessing process
All of which can easily shave off at least 2 orders of magnitude and possibly 3 orders of magnitude. Which reduces that 421 years down to a few months (or worse).
8 character passwords are pretty much dead in the water now. Or at least they need to be phased out within the next few years. Or protected by rate-limiters which control how fast passwords can be tried. (Personally, I always assume that the attacker has the stored hash and can apply parallelism to the attack. Which means that rate limiters should not be relied on to prevent cracks.)
You forgot a link to the buying page For as low as 1.399,- € you can start cracking^Wrecovering passwords today.
GPUs - by Thyamine (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
This isn’t the first story about how crazy fast GPUs are for crunching. I know very little about that level of hardware, but why aren’t we incorporating these types of things into CPUs? Is the coding/assembly so different that it doesn’t translate? Do they only do certain kinds of processing really well (it is a GPU after all), so it couldn’t handle other more ‘mundane’ OS needs?
Is the coding/assembly so different that it doesn’t translate? Do they only do certain kinds of processing really well (it is a GPU after all), so it couldn’t handle other more ‘mundane’ OS needs?
Yes, exactly. CPUs are built from the ground up to do scalar math really, really fast. That lends itself well to doing tasks that must be performed in sequence, such as running an individual thread. However, they’ve only recently gained the ability to do more than one thing at a time (dual core processors), and even now high end CPUs can only do six calculations at once (6 core processors).
Meanwhile, GPUs are built to do vector math really, really fast. They can’t do individual adds anywhere near as fast as a CPU can, but they can do dozens of them at the same time.
Which type of processor is best for which job depends entirely on the nature of the math involved and how parallelizable the task is. In the case of 3D graphics, drawing a frame involves tons of vector arithmetic work, which is why your 1 GHz GPU will run circles around your 3 GHz CPU for that task (and is also where the GPU gets its name from). In the case mentioned in the article, password cracking is highly parallelizable: you’ve gotta run 100 million tests, and the outcome of any one test has zero influence on the other tests, so the more you can run at the same time, the better. By running it on the GPU, each individual test will take a bit longer than running it on the CPU would, but you’ll be able to run dozens simultaneously instead of just a few, and will thus get your results much faster.
CPUs certainly have their place, though. Some tasks simply must be done in sequence and cannot be easily divided up in to seperate parallel tasks. The CPU will get these done much faster, since running them on the GPU would incur the speed penalty without realizing any benefit.
I’ve simplified it a bit for the sake of explanation, but that’s the gist of it. Hope that helps!
Posted by (70% noise) ViewSkip
OnlyJedi writes “Hot on the news of Netflix canceling its latest contest over privacy concerns, news has spread that MySpace is going in the opposite direction. Apparently, the one-time leading social network is now selling user data to third party collection firms. From the article, the data that InfoChimps has listed includes ’user playlists, mood updates, mobile updates, photos, vents, reviews, blog posts, names and zipcodes.’ InfoChimps is a reseller that deals with individuals and groups, from academic researchers to marketers and industry analysts. So if you’re worried about your data on MySpace being sold off to anybody with a few hundred dollars, now’s the time to delete that little-used account.”
It is the death sigh… - by odin84gk (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
Circuit City did the same thing when it went bankrupt. It sold all of its user data to other companies. This is just another sign that MySpace is dying. (I went to Microcenter (AMAZING STORE! Better than Newegg!) and bought something. They already had my information and informed me that they bought it from Circuit City. I don’t really mind, but it was still strange.)
MySpace? Who cares? You should be concerned about. - by i_want_you_to_throw_ (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
Facebook. Obviously all that matters in any of these enterprises is that the owners make money. Facebook is hard charging and building pretty solid for the inevitable day, in the very near future is going to come when..
1. Facebook is bought by someone with DEEP pockets
2. The said purchasers looks to make money from all that data that has been amassed.
MySpace is Sunday School by comparison.
What’s in the data? - by mea37 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
Yes, I see that it includes playlists and crap like that.
So what’s the level of detail? Can I see an individual user, or just summaries at some predetermined granularity? If I can see individual users, can I see their name? If I buy a location-based dataset, can I see the exact GPS coordinates of a data point, or just ZIP code clusters, or what?
TFS is definitely worded to spread fear. As much as I dislike companies taking liberties with data they’ve collected - especially with no accountable opt-out for people who’ve already handed their data over with no expectation of this sort of behavior - I’d still like to know more about what’s actually gonig on before jumping on the FUD bandwagon.
Oh, and seriously… if they are up to no good, do you really think deleting your account is going to make a difference? We’re talking about the Internet; once you put something in, you can’t take it back out.
Deleting does no good - by Jessta (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
I don’t think deleting your Myspace account will do anything. They already have your data and you already agreed to allow them to redistribute it, just because you delete your account doesn’t mean they have to delete your data. Facebook has the same agreement and will get to selling your data to the highest bidder sooner or later.
It’s amazing that people will trade the labours of their mind for mere web hosting.
Posted by (84% noise) View
Artefacto writes “Last Thursday, the Eleventh Circuit handed down a Fourth Amendment case, Rehberg v. Paulk, that takes a very narrow view of how the Fourth Amendment applies to e-mail. The Eleventh Circuit held that constitutional protection in stored copies of e-mail held by third parties disappears as soon as any copy of the communication is delivered. Under this new decision, if the government wants get your e-mails, the Fourth Amendment lets the government go to your ISP, wait the seconds it normally takes for the e-mail to be delivered, and then run off copies of your messages.”
Why the court is wron - by ral (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
In TFA Volokh, a distinguished law professor, explains why he thinks the court got it wrong:
For a real-world example, imagine you write a letter and photocopy it before you put it in the mail. You file the copy in your closet and send the original. During the course of delivery, the original is protected by the Fourth Amendment; when it arrives, you lose Fourth Amendment protection. But the fact that you lose Fourth Amendment protection in the original does not mean that the Government can break into your house and read the copy you made. Conversely, the fact that the recipient of the mail does not have Fourth Amendment rights in the copy does not mean that the government can break into the recipient’s house to read the original.
Re:Why the court is wron - by geekoid (Score: 3, Informative) Thread
“Rehberg does not allege Hodges and Paulk illegally searched his home computer for emails, but alleges Hodges and Paulk subpoenaed the emails directly from the third-party Internet service provider to which Rehberg transmitted the messages.”
So there was a subpoena, and the court says when you send someone information, the receiver can share your letter with anyone.
I may have missed it, but I didn’t red where the government broke into anyones home without a Subpoena.
“Conversely, the fact that the recipient of the mail does not have Fourth Amendment rights in the copy does not mean that the government can break into the recipient’s house to read the original.” Yes it does, if the “government” has a subpoena. For clarifications, the 4th Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Email is like Postcards… - by EXTomar (Score: 3, Informative) Thread
Email is like sending a message on a postcard. How much expectation of privacy did you have doing that? The onus is up to the sender to protect the message instead of whining about any number of people who can and will inspect the email or the back of the postcard as it goes through the system.
Re:Email is like Postcards… - by Null Nihils (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
I strongly disagree. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: It’s not like mailing a postcard, it’s like sending an electrically encoded text message over a packet-switched data network where the only expected viewing point is at the intended recipient’s terminal; this is how the e-mail protocol was designed to work. Sure, a malicious party can read it because it’s not encrypted, but someone can easily slice open a postal mail envelope and read the contents of that, too. (You can encrypt the text of your postal-mail letters, but one already has an expectation of privacy, so few people bother. Same as e-mail.)
The bottom line is, since a non-trivial effort has to be made to read the contents, and since the service has always been presented as a “sealed letter” (via GUI icons, ISP adverts, etc), the average user is not unreasonable in expecting privacy.
It should be obvious that the 4th amendment applies to e-mail.
Why the law is so hard to understand… - by MikeRT (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
To the outrage of a number of people I’ve met, I’ve suggested that the legal profession is actually not inherently an extremely intellectually rigorous profession on the grounds that most of its “complexities” are what programmers and engineers call “hacks” and in more layman terms, “making shit up as you go along.” Exhibit A:
To see where the 11th Circuit is getting this argument, you need to know a little bit about how the Fourth Amendment protects postal mail and packages. The Fourth Amendment ordinarily protects postal mail and packages during delivery. The same rule applies to both government postal mail and private delivery companies like UPS: As soon as the sender drops off the mail in the mailbox, both the sender and recipient enjoy Fourth Amendment protection in the contents of the mail during delivery. When the mail is delivered to the recipient, the sender loses his Fourth Amendment protection: The Fourth Amendment rights are transfered solely to the recipient. In practice, this works pretty simply: Each party has Fourth Amendment protection in the mail when they’re in possession of it, and both the sender and receiver have Fourth Amendment rights in the contents of the mail when the postal service or private mail carrier is holding the mail on their mutual behalf.
Exhibit B:
The Supreme Court “consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.”
Now, a person of **reasonable** intelligence has to ask why the Post Office is holding it in care of the parties and an ISP is not. Even if you expand this out, each party in the routing from point A to point B of the packets of the email message is holding that data temporarily in care of party A until it reaches the email provider of party B who, in turn holds it in care of party B. The very essence of this is that each third party is acting, in a daisy chained relationship, like the Post Office with respect to the transportation of that communication.
Mr. “I have a doctorate in law judge Joe Shmoe” apparently doesn’t have the basic sense once attributed to the peasantry to apply the existing rulings to a new scenario. It’s not rocket science. There is no reason why email should be subjected to a different standard than snail mail, unless that standard is even more restrictive of the government since some email systems even go so far as to use systems like SSL to explicitly add a level of privacy expectation to the communication not readily had by the average person with snail mail.
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