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Comment Re:Information density (Score 1) 150

Here's some more handy links about this research:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

Unfortunately, Latin was not one of the languages they investigated in this research, but I do find it very interesting how Latin, which is one of Spanish's parent languages, is far, far more efficient (in dI/dS terms) than Spanish is, and in fact is probably more efficient and complex than any of its derivatives.

Comment Re:"We didn't do it. Shutup or we'll do it again." (Score 1) 153

Um, have you ever thought that maybe the reason there wasn't any response until June 2014 was because the movie wasn't hyped until then? Do you really think there is someone deep in the bowels of Pyongyang scraping TMZ looking for any hints of a movie that may not be portraying North Korea in a glowing fashion?

Comment Interesting (Score 3, Interesting) 115

It'll be interesting to see how they choose to go. Perhaps they'll actually get something set up that is owned by the people, as their social system alleges a strong preference for.

It'd be fascinating to see how it works without big corporations in there making choices for them on a constant basis, if they can manage to avoid that.

Somehow, though, I keep coming back to the fact that no socialist or communist system has ever been seriously tried without some kind of de-facto dictatorship making the end goal impossible to reach. Equality is fine until the idiots who disagree want to be equal, too... All systems seem to have that particular fundamental problem. Equal unless different, otherwise ostracized.

My cynical side tells me palms will be greased, corporations will heavily engage, and your Cuban surfer will have a pretty typical bill to pay. Be delighted to be proven wrong, though.

Comment Re:Old news. (Score 1) 285

That is wonderful if everyone is a perfect driver such as yourself. Some people are not great drivers, some are distracted even for a second, that 4-5 is easily dropped to 1-2 just by checking your rear view mirror and dash gauges before looking up again.

If the world were full of perfect drivers, with endless patients and no emotion, then your theory would hold mostly true. Until then we have to adjust for the world we live in.

Comment Re:"very advanced"? More likely... (Score 1) 212

I've audited enough crappy systems to say with some faith that there are VERY few systems out there that would stand their ground against an at least halfway organized assault.

And I'm not really disclosing anything that is under tight NDA or similar bull. Anyone who has an inkling of a clue about IT security will come to that conclusion by the hacks that get public alone. Take the Anonymous/LulzSec (or whatever that was called) hacks of some time ago. Now, I don't want to belittle their effort, but when you look at how high profile the targets were and what simple tricks were involved, you can't help but wonder.

I can't think of a single published attack vector they used that was not part of the OWASP Top 10, which is pretty much the baseline for IT security. That's essentially the very least of what you have to have "down" when you're at least remotely concerned about the security of your IT assets. We're talking about the equivalent of having your door locked at night or closing your windows. Very basic stuff that makes you wonder just why it was possible for them to overcome.

You stop wondering when you spend a bit of time in the corporate IT security business. The problem boils down to a single factor: money. And that's where security really has a problem: It costs a ton of money, but makes none. Every cent spent on security is gone with no chance to ever see it again. And you spend a lot of cents on it because not only the people who can do it sensibly are quite expensive, but because security is also usually anathema to productivity. Of all the companies I know, only in a single one security trumps productivity and availability in cases where they are mutually exclusive (and they are usually numerous). One. Out of hundreds.

IT security is much like an insurance. And just like with many "unnecessary" insurances, companies have it mostly due to either legal or contractual requirements. And just as with insurances, they will "waste" only the bare minimum of resources on it, just enough to abide to contract or law.

I think it goes without explanation just why such a Potemkin village of security straw huts won't stand a breeze, let alone some dedicated storm.

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