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Encryption

Submission + - Do Slashdotters encrypt their email? 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many years ago when I first heard of PGP, I found an add-on that made it fairly simple to use PGP to encrypt my email. Despite the fact that these days most people know that email is a highly insecure means of communication, very few people that I know ever use any form of email encryption despite the fact that it is pretty easy to use. This isn't quite what I would have expected when I first set it up. So, my question to fellow Slashdotters is 'Do you encrypt your email? If not, 'Why not?' and 'Why has email encryption using PGP or something similar not become more commonplace?' The use of cryptography used to be a hot topic once upon a time.

Comment Re:Make the users fill in a form... (Score 1) 360

by el_tedward (#38366226) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Get Non-Developers To Send Meaningful Bug Reports?

If you can, try meeting with your users face to face. The more you can facilitate communication, the better. Relaying through email or ticket posts can be a slow and arduous process. If you can instead spend a few minutes IM'ing them, or talking to them on the phone, you may be able to make more progress.

There are two sides to this communication process. There is your users educating you about their needs and requirements and the problems they are facing with your software, and there is you educating the users on how to make better recommendations and bug reports.

Also, most of the stuff in here is just a bunch of despair and people saying "fuck it" to communicating with those who are less technical. It's always going to be a problem, and it will always be an impossible challenge if you look at it with the same attitude.

Submission + - Higgs Boson Explained 2

Submitted by
ahale
ahale writes: "The moment anyone finds out I research particle physics, the question is always asked: “Do you think we will find the Higgs Boson?” My immediate answer is always: No. Honestly, I do not really have any idea- I just like giving the short answer to avoid intense explanation. The Higgs Boson has received a lot of media attention. It is my aim to explain in plain terms: what is the Higgs Boson? And, why must it exist?

I should note: I am very much against the media hype of the Higgs Boson. It is just another part of the Standard Model (which I explain below), and there is no reason to pour so much money into crony corporate physics research. Had physics not been a political tinker toy of corporations and interested countries, the Higgs particle would have been experimentally verified years ago. In the explanation below, I put aside my own beliefs and just offer the facts.

The Higgs Boson is a mathematically proposed part of the Standard Model of Particle Physics (Which I will just abbreviate as: SM from now on). The SM is an explanation of the fundamental players in what actually constitutes all of reality. Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are made of quarks. Quarks are bound together by a force. That is the quick definition of the SM. There are other particles as well, but they do not concern us- at this time. Think of the SM as the Periodic Table for Particle Physics.

The Higgs Boson is an esoteric but relevant player in the SM. While its role is formal and mathematical- it is responsible for the defining characteristic of particles.

In nature we have 4 fundamental forces that act upon the constituents. These forces are: Gravity, Electromagnetism, Weak force, and the Strong force. The first two are very familiar to humans and we encounter these every day. I will not bother to explain these two.

The Weak force is what causes radioactive decay of subatomic particles. It has two force carrier particles associated with it: The W and Z boson.

The Strong force has little to do with what I am trying to explain here. The strong force is what binds quarks together.

It was discovered by three Nobel Prize winning Physicists in 1979 that the electromagnetic force and the weak force are actually derived from a single unified force. This force is not unified until a particle accelerator reaches the level of ~100 TeV (tera electron volts). At the early universe, when everything was still hot enough- these two forces were indistinguishable.

Leaving out the tedious mathematics, when these forces are combined it can be views as symmetry. That is, one is symmetrical to the other and there is no preferred point of reference.

As mentioned above, the force carriers for the weak force are the W and Z boson, which are extremely massive, but very short range. The force carrier for the electromagnetic force is massless. How is this mass lost? The mass is converted into energy, that energy is essentially a photon (The force carrier of the electromagnetic force): the particle of light. The photon never rests; it always travels at light speed. The mass from the electroweak force, somehow gets converted into the energy of the electromagnetic force. (Recall Einstein’s famous equation). The answer: there must be a particle responsible for this. What is this proposed particle? That is the Higgs particle.

Let us take a moment to get some terms straight. In quantum mechanics, specifically quantum field theory- you may use these three terms interchangeably: field, wave, and particle. A field is something that may permeate a space. If one is to wiggle that field, a wave develops. The resulting wave is a differential equation of probability. The area where the probability is high: is where it is likely to find the “particle”. This short definition I offer is a mix of three ideas: the Schrodinger equations, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum waves. You are welcome to research those further to get a better grasp.

To recap, the relationship is: fields: to wave: to particle. This explanation greatly ignores the particle wave duality. I do not intend to explain it here.

Going back to the Higgs particle.

  It was proposed by Peter Higgs that a field must permeate all of space. The space between atoms, the space between everything: the people, planets, galaxies, and the universe. Anywhere where the laws of physics as we know, hold true: exists the Higgs field.

This idea sounds crazy to most people. If there is some kind of uniform field that is everywhere, should we not feel it? This field is only agitated at high energies; therefore we would need to “pluck” this field with a high energy “guitar pick” for lack of a better analogy.

For the past thirty plus years physicists have attempted to “pluck” this field. By doing so, they hope to create a wave which can be described to have the properties of the Higgs Particle as predicted by the SM.

How does this field create all the mass properties of all the particles known?

Trying to explain this is trying to put very formal mathematics into terms, but I think it is something I would like to try. As particles move through this field, the same effect that reduces the electroweak force into the electromagnetic force can turn energy into mass, just as it turns mass into energy. As we go up on the TeV scale, that is- as we get hotter and hotter- ever closer to the early universe, the electromagnetic and the weak forces become a single unified force. Also, the strong force begins to have less influence, instead it is replaced by the electroweak force until eventually they are a single force. This is believed to happen because of the “drag”, produced by the Higgs field.

The experimental discovery of the Higgs field by producing a Higgs Boson, would greatly explain the SM. It would explain why the fundamental forces converge and decohere (not to be confused with quantum decoherence). The discovery would complete the particle physics most successful model and lead to more accurate predictions about reality, cosmology, and the universe as a whole.

While it may not be the Higgs field that lends all the particles their mass and other properties, there is something out there. Something must cause these forces to converge and act differently upon the particles. Failure to find the Higgs would just give researchers another route to travel. Perhaps another force of nature? Or- Perhaps we misunderstand the high energy excitation of particles and forces. Either way, it is not likely the SM will be scrapped any time soon."

Comment Re:Hookers vs Aldous Huxley (Score 1) 473

by el_tedward (#38251842) Attached to: Half Life of a Tech Worker: 15 Years

So, basically.. If one was to rewrite this in a way that isn't an intentional mind fuck:

Corporations hire young people, but don't know how to nurture someone to be useful to the corp when they get older.

A better way of doing things would be to try to keep your good talent around and murder your not so talented talent. Then mentor them so they can continue to develop and be useful when they're older.

NOW WAS THAT SO COMPLICATED?
Security

Submission + - Bradley Manning Finally Scheduled For Court (net-security.org)

Submitted by dinscott
dinscott writes: After being held in custody for over 17 months, former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning will finally see the inside of a court as his Article 32 pretrial hearing is scheduled for December 16 at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Manning was arrested in May 2010, after having boasted about providing WikiLeaks with combat videos (including that of the helicopter attack made public by the site in April) and a massive amount of classified State Department records.

Comment Re:Defective as designed. (Score 1) 145

by el_tedward (#37686678) Attached to: RSA Blames Nation State For Cyber Attack

Bit of a plug for some people I have met, but if you check out Duo Security, they have some neat stuff where you can avoid the whole adding a second password as two factor authentication. Instead, you're authenticating a login through your phone (can either be through their app, or a phone call from a nice robotic lady). They also offer methods similar to RSA's. I don't know off the top of my head if you can configure it to only allow certain types of two factor auth.

Submission + - Patent Troll Says Anyone Using WiFi Infringes (patentexaminer.org) 1

Submitted by akahige
akahige writes: The Patent Examiner blog has the incredible story of Innovatio IP, a patent troll that recently acquired a portfolio of patents that its lawyers (what, you think there are any employees?) appear to believe cover pretty much any WiFi implementation. They've been suing coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants and hotels first — including Caribou Coffee, Cosi, Panera Bread Co, certain Marriotts, Best Westerns, Comfort Inns and more. The lawyer representing the company, Matthew McAndrews, seems to imply that the company believes the patents cover everyone who has a home WiFi setup, but they don't plan to go after such folks right now, for "strategic" reasons. More info at Tech Dirt.

Submission + - FBI Cellphone Tracking Techniques Revealed (wsj.com)

Submitted by glittermage
glittermage writes: The WSJ reports on an ongoing case regarding alleged "Hacker" Daniel David Rigmaiden regarding the governments tools used to track mobile devices with or without a warrant. The Judge may allow Daniel to defend himself against the governments claims by putting the technology into the light. Sounds good to me.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Netflix Now Limited To One Stream At A Time (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by
tekgoblin
tekgoblin writes: "Until recently, Netflix users could stream to two devices at the same time per account. This feature was very useful say if you had a family and wanted to watch different things on each TV.

Now Netflix has removed that ability to watch more than one stream at a time and has added higher pricing if you wish to continue to do so"
Technology

Submission + - Why the Fax Machine Refuses to Die (infoworld.com) 1

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Deep End's Paul Venezia waxes befuddled on the ongoing existence of the fax machine. 'Consider what a fax machine actually is: a little device with a sheet feeder, a terrible scanning element, and an ancient modem. Most faxes run at 14,400bps. That's just over 1KB per second — and people are still using faxes to send 52 poorly scanned pages of some contract to one another. Over analog phone lines. Sometimes while paying long-distance charges! The mind boggles,' Venezia writes. 'If something as appallingly stupid as the fax machine can live on, it makes you wonder how we make progress at all. Old habits die hard. It just goes to show you: Bad technology generally isn't the problem; it's the people who persist in using that technology rather than embracing far superior alternatives.'"

Submission + - Security firm settles Ohio woman's privacy lawsuit (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by
Maow
Maow writes: "An Ohio woman who sued a Vancouver company for releasing to police explicit images from her laptop has accepted a settlement only a short time after the judge rejected a motion to dismiss.

One thing never made clear (to me) was: did they intercept her email and instant messages, or take the web cam shots themselves, coincidentally at the same time she was naked-chatting with her boyfriend.

One thing made explicit in aforementioned link is that charges of is that "But charges of receiving stolen property were quickly dropped.""
Security

Submission + - Evidence of SCADA Hacks Emerges in Support Forums (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: While security experts and lawmakers debate the seriousness of cyber threats to critical infrastructure, one security researcher says that evidence that viruses and spyware already have access to industrial control systems is hiding in plain sight: on Web based user support forums.

Close to a dozen log files submitted to a sampling of online forums show evidence that laptops and other systems used to connect to industrial control systems are infected with malware and Trojan horse programs, including one system that was used to control machinery for UK based energy firm Alstom UK, according to industrial control systems expert Michael Toecker.

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