usmcpanzer - Slashdot User

Encryption Could Make You More Vulnerable 126

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday February 11, 2008 @01:18PM from the also-condoms-give-you-aids dept.

narramissic writes "It sounds like a headline straight out of The Onion, but security researchers from IBM Internet Security Systems, Juniper, nCipher and elsewhere are warning that the use of data encryption could make organizations vulnerable to new risks and threats. There is potential for 'A new class of DoS attack,' says Richard Moulds, nCipher's product strategy EVP. 'If you can go in and revoke a key and then demand a ransom, it's a fantastic way of attacking a business.'"

Next Year's Laws, Now Out In Beta! 238

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday February 11, 2008 @12:30PM from the something-to-read dept.

Frequent Slashdot Contributor Bennett Haselton writes with his latest which starts "If I were writing laws such that I wanted everybody to agree on how to interpret them, I would use the software development life cycle: First, have lawmakers (analogous to "developers") write drafts of the laws. Then a second group (the "test case writers") would try to come up with situations that would be interpreted ambiguously under the law. Then a third group, the "testers", would read the proposed law, read the test case situations, and try to determine how the law should be applied to those cases, without communicating with the law writers, the test case writers, or each other. If there's too much disagreement in the third group on how the law should be applied, then it's too vague to be a proper law. The only laws which made it through this process would be ones such that when they were finally passed, most citizens (the "users") could agree on how to interpret them, in cases sufficiently similar to the ones the test case writers could come up with."

Submission + - Sex with Robots?

Submitted by

unixluv

on Sunday December 30, 2007 @04:09PM

unixluv writes: "Are we nearing a future that includes having sex with robots ala Bladerunner? Some seem to think so. David Levy has caused a stir with his book 'Love and Sex with Robots'. More discussions have followed with an interview with the author. Maybe we should find a better term than sex robot or replicant? How about RealDoll? These and these are not your dad's blowup dolls."

Submission + - Will Finding Mars Life Threaten the Space Program?

Submitted by

Daniel Markham

on Sunday May 27, 2007 @01:20PM

Daniel Markham writes: "Everybody assumes that when life is finally found in outer space, say on Mars, that this will be a good thing for the Space Program. But looking at our history with funding battles for space exploration, there's a compelling case to be made that finding life on Mars would be the worst thing possible for manned space exploration. The case is made here, and includes some twists and turns you might not expect, such as LBJ's decision to slowly strip space funding to pay for Vietnam and domestic programs."

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