thetinytoon - Slashdot User

Comment please don't mess with what you don't understand (Score 1) 4

by thetinytoon on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @06:29AM (#30591792) Attached to: Maintaining algorithmic secrecy

Either I don't get your question right or you have no idea about the basic principles of cryptography. One of those is that the security of an algorithm lies in the key alone. Every algorithm needs to be open to the public to be evaluated. Making your own modifications to an (already insecure) algorithm for "security reasons" will most likely result in a *weaker* algorithm than it was before. If you want to secure this messages, public/private-key cryptography is your way to go. But honestly, I'm very sure that your system will definetly not meet any necessary standards for any election whatsoever.

Submission + - Password management in distributed networks

Submitted by thetinytoon on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @06:17AM

thetinytoon writes: As many of the readers, I'm one admin in a team running a network of servers, switches and client computers, with each and every system having some username and password to access the administrative interfaces. For obvious reasons, you don't want to have one combination for them all, but for still being productive, you don't want to look up some obscure 16-digit password in a secure container anytime you need to do something. Password generation rules are mostly so obvious, that you could use one password anyways, and most hardware devices don't allow the use of Challenge/Response-algorithms like OPIE. So I'm asking: how do you solve this dilemma in your networks?

Submission + - Ginkgo Doesn't Improve Memory or Cognative Skills (cnn.com)

Submitted by JumperCable on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @05:41AM

JumperCable writes: CNN reports

Ginkgo biloba has failed — again — to live up to its reputation for boosting memory and brain function. Just over a year after a study showed that the herb doesn't prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease, a new study from the same team of researchers has found no evidence that ginkgo reduces the normal cognitive decline that comes with aging.
In the new study, the largest of its kind to date, DeKosky and his colleagues followed more than 3,000 people between the ages of 72 and 96 for an average of six years. Half of the participants took two 120-milligram capsules of ginkgo a day during the study period, and the other half took a placebo. The people who took ginkgo showed no differences in attention, memory, and other cognitive measures compared to those who took the placebo, according to the study, which was published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

And of course, the link to the study. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/302/24/2663?home

Submission + - Wanna join the EcoStasi? There's an app for that. (mnn.com)

Submitted by Dreadneck on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @05:36AM

Dreadneck writes: Karl Burkart at the Mother Nature Network opines that "EcoSnoop starts a new class of vigilante green apps for the iPhone. Now you can report neighborhood polluters."

EcoSnoop claims on its website that "EcoSnoop is Not Big Brother" in BIG bold letters.

It seems to me that if you have to declare that you're not Big Brother that you probably are, at the least, a kissing-cousin of Emmanuel Goldstein's arch-nemesis. Speaking for myself, this app — and the mindset it represents — smacks of the public shaming inflicted in "The Scarlet Letter" combined with the East German Stasi's encouraging of the population to be snitches for the state, with just a pinch of the Spanish Inquisition's anti-heresy effort thrown in for good measure. What else are we going to be encouraged to snitch on our neighbors about?

What say you, Slashdotters?

Submission + - The Best Job In the World Takes a Wrong Turn (nytimes.com)

Submitted by snl2587 on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @03:59AM

snl2587 writes: You may remember the story of the man who was selected for "the best job in the world" as a blogging island caretaker in Australia for the tidy sum of 150,000 Australian dollars ($120,000). Now it seems that the stunt may have backfired as a tourism boost since the man has been stung by a potentially fatal jellyfish in his last days there. As he said, though, he "really should have been wearing a full stinger suit".

Submission + - Solar dye directs light to PV on sides of glass (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Eclipse-now on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @01:30AM

Eclipse-now writes: "MIT’s solar concentrator maximizes its mileage by using an efficient expanse of light-collecting glass to guide sunlight into a minute array of potent photovoltaics. The glass panels are coated with a dye that absorbs sunlight and channels it along the pane’s edges while altering its wavelength to reduce energy loss from light transportation. The result is a system that can collect light over a very large area, but requires a very small array of solar cells."

In other words, it's way cheap!

Submission + - German president refuses to sign censorship law

Submitted by thetinytoon on Saturday November 28, 2009 @06:28PM

thetinytoon writes: German federal president Horst Köhler has refused to sign the censorship treaty that passed parlament earlier this year, stating that he 'needs more information'. In germany, the federal president has the right to reject a law only by reasons of an unlawful realisation in the legislative process, but not for reasons of being unconstitutional (as long as it's not obviously against the constitution).

Political observers guess, that the political parties would like to get rid of the law without loosing face, but since it already passed the parlament, they can't simply abandon it. Politics — everyone knows what needs to be done, but no one wants to admit he was wrong in the first place.

Source (google translation): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.golem.de/0911/71529.html
Original story (german): http://www.golem.de/0911/71529.html

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