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Comment If you're stressing anonymity (Score 2) 307

Then you want everything in the same encrypted network and the lion's share of the usage of that network to be legitimate. Although BitTorrent over TOR is currently abusive of the TOR network, it would be better to find a means of making BitTorrent tolerable to TOR (or vice-versa) than to create a separate encrypted filesharing network.

When this all gets tested in a courtroom, it is far better for an encrypted network to appear to be protecting privacy than to enable lawbreaking. The difference between the two is just how closely the type of data over the encrypted network matches the type of data sent over the unencrypted Internet. Better to encourage the use of TOR to everybody than to have one encrypted network for privacy advocates and another made 99% of pirates -- the latter service lowers the bar for legal decisions and laws to be made that can then ruin all encrypted networks in general.

Comment Two quick book recommendations (Score 5, Informative) 330

...if you're a fan of late 70s/early 80s computer culture.

Somebody gave me Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution as a teen (thankfully missing the minefield of shitty books with the term "hacker" in their title) and it was amazing. Early days computer hobbyists, Paul Allen and Bill Gates writing BASIC for the Altair on a timeshare and dealing with the hobbyists who wanted to copy it instead of buy it, Ken and Roberta Williams and Sierra On-Line, and so much more.

Also loved the more recent Commodore: A Company on the Edge by Brian Bagnall. Just captivates the imagination to read about people hand-drawing their CPUs. There's an enthusiasm in the early computer industry that seems to have dampened over the years, as startups and corporations begin with the money in mind rather than the starry-eyed idealism and hobbyist tendencies that powered the first personal computer businesses.

Neither of these feature Ashton Kutcher, however, or even Steve Jobs to any great extent. But if your passion for computers is in their function rather than their form I highly recommend the above books.

Comment ASLR? More like ASLnotsoR. (Score -1) 208

This has been known in the industry for some time, and has always been considered something of a too-simple solution to a too-complex problem.

The workaround to increase the complexity of stack smashing in this regard is in ASLR/FMA, address space layout randomization with fuzzy memory allocation. Basically, reduce the predictability of memory locations from memory-fill attacks by causing memory allocation (in hardware, transparent to the OS) to return slightly more or less than what is called for. This has some implications for programmers to be sure; for example, for malloc(), if you think you'll need 1000 bytes, you just call for 1500 to make sure you get enough back from the OS to work with.

For this trivial increase in workload, fuzzy memory allocation means that all the same memory allocations that go on in the system will add up to different amounts of memory used at different times, making it improbable at best that guessing offsets will be successful in the future. And we can all agree this is only a good thing when most people are already running with 8GB or more.

Comment One possible interpretation (Score 1) 2

(from their developer documentation)

MEGA supports secure cross-account access to folders. The owner of the folder is solely responsible for managing access; shares are non-transitive. All participants in a shared folder gain cryptographic access through a common share-specific key, which is passed from the owner (theoretically, from anyone participating in the share, but this would create a significant security risk in the event of a compromise of the core infrastructure) to new participants through RSA. All keys of the nodes in a shared folder, including its root node, are encrypted to this share key.

So, you and some friends share a folder you can all upload to. If two of you happen to upload the same content within the folder, MEGA's servers can deduplicate that because the content will be encrypted (client side) with the same key and can be compared. On the other hand, if you each upload the same content into your private space, the two copies would not look the same in encrypted form and couldn't be deduplicated.

However, it is not safe IMHO to trust encryption that's outside your control. But somebody will hack together MEGA's API with client-side encryption, and the pirates won't use it because they won't think it's worth the bother.

Games

Submission + - Valve starts promoting Steam for Linux to Windows users (geek.com)

An anonymous reader writes: team is now being used by thousands of gamers running a Linux OS, and Valve has got to the point where they are happy to start urging Windows users to make the switch.

Proof of that comes from a “Join the Beta” promotion on the homepage of Steam suggesting you try Steam for Linux. There’s even a download link to get Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which removes yet another barrier to entry.

With Gabe Newell’s clear hatred of Windows 8, this shouldn’t be a surprising move. We aren’t going to see another version of Windows appear for a few years, so in Valve’s eyes pushing Linux to gamers makes a lot of sense.

Programming

Submission + - JavaScript Comes to Minecraft (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: JavaScript is the language of the client and it is becoming the language of the server. Now it seems set to be the language of Minecraft. ScriptCraft is a Minecraft mod that can be added to the game to allow the player to use JavaScript commands. Walter Higgins ported the Rhino JVM implementation of JavaScript in a few spare weeks over Xmas. Some additional JavaScript classes allow the construction of blocks making it possible to automate construction. It also provides a "turtle like" drone class that makes it easier to move in 3D. It makes use of a fluent API to create a domain specific language for movement. As its creator says:
"Ultimately I think the ScriptCraft mod could be used to take building in Minecraft to a whole new level. With a full-blown language at the Player's disposal, it should be possible to create not just castles and forts but entire road networks and cities."
Most importantly of all, it not only pushes the boundary of Minecraft it also provides a way to get kids who are already hooked on Minecraft to start learning JavaScript.
https://github.com/walterhiggins/ScriptCraft/

Science

Scientists Breed Big-Brained Guppies To Demonstrate Evolution's Trade-Offs 121

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have long suspected that big brains come with an evolutionary price — but now they've published the first experimental evidence to support that suspicion, based on their efforts to breed big-brained fish. A Swedish team found it relatively easy to select and interbreed common guppies to produce bigger (or smaller) brains — as much as 9.3 percent bigger, to be precise (abstract). But the bigger-brained fish also tended to have smaller guts and produce fewer babies."

Comment Does the guy really qualify as seasoned? (Score 3, Funny) 683

For example, nothing was said about GOTOs being liberally sprinkled throughout the code. If he's working in a non-optimal language that doesn't support GOTO, he should try hacking in the functionality with preprocessor defines. Maybe even hack in a preprocessor if the language designer forgot one, or add another preprocessor if not. With a few stacked preprocessors one can even write his own (better) computer language, and what seasoned programmer doesn't aspire to have one or two of those under his belt?
Programming

Ask Slashdot: How Can I Explain To a Coworker That He Writes Bad Code? 683

An anonymous reader writes "I have a coworker who, despite being very smart, and even very knowledgeable about software, writes the most horrible code imaginable. Entire programs are stuffed into single functions, artificially stretched thanks to relentless repetition; variable and class names so uninformative as to make grown men weep; basic language features ignored, when they could make everything shorter and more readable; and OOP abuse so sick and twisted that it may be considered a war crime. Of course, being a very smart person who has been programming since before I was born makes him fairly impervious to criticism, so even a simple 'Do you see how much better this function is when written this way?' is hopeless. How can I make him see the light, realize the truth, and be able to tell good code from bad?"

Comment Use of language (Score 2) 59

Also among the business practices Google has agreed to stop is 'scraping Web content from rivals and allegedly passing it off as its own, said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.'"

So, would there be a problem if Google scraped Web content from rivals and proudly proclaimed it was passing it off as its own?

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