Comment Re: RSA sold you out (Score 1) 464
It would only work if they got the keys that only the designers at the NSA would know. However, this does show how back doors are self-defeating.
It would only work if they got the keys that only the designers at the NSA would know. However, this does show how back doors are self-defeating.
If my entropy is real then knowing the algorithm doesn't help. The problem with the dual elliptical approach used by the spec was that the "randomness" was baked in, and then made to be the default used by RSA. The spec actually allowed for users to change the baked-in numbers; this hack by the NSA relied on success through the ignorance of customers rather than real cryptography. More social engineering than computer engineering.
You can actually get a lot more useful pseudo-random data by asking the user to move their mouse around for a few seconds or access their web can (as you mentioned). No need to leave the house.
Americans have historically held the attitude that ousting people out of their land is their God-given right, using that justification to murder millions of people. Why shouldn't we start doing it to each other? The irony is delicious.
Meanwhile the percentage of poor people in the United States is about to become the majority, and in a democracy, the majority rules, whether by ballot or by baseball bat. Saying "let them eat cake" is usually not a good sign of where things are going.
I'm assuming your comment was meant ironically? You know the whole point of this was that people who have always lived in San Francisco are getting driven out by Johnny-come-lately techies, right?
I think they're pretty deserving of scorn. Especially when the corrected their findings after using the non-obtrusive method, which they could have done the first time around except that "it would have been hard".
Apple develops many things that never go to market. Inside sources usually give up this information for a chance at being important.
The majority of the large-screen demographic in Asia is women, not men. They want a single device and have bags to carry them in regardless of size. Men are more likely to have a smaller smartphone and a tablet to go with it.
Unlike you, I live downwind of China, in Japan. Uncontrolled particulate pollution is a serious issue. And it's not the count, it's the size. Ask your average veteran coming back from a war what health problems they've incurred living next to the burn pits they use at the encampments. People are dying from this stuff.
You want to reduce the chance that particulate pollution is going to cause problems? Just go out and reduce the population by 90%. As long as we insist on reproducing with no limitations, we should be willing to accept the consequences. There are trade-offs in everything. Particulates are a real thing, and inhaling them, regardless of source, is bad. So the government found a way to take a technology that was outmoded a century ago and forced people to upgrade or stop using it. It's a pragmatic solution to stopping people from poisoning their neighbors.
People bitch and moan and say, "this didn't use to be a problem". But there didn't used to be as many people, or as many other ways to pollute (industry, for example). It sucks to be the guy stuck at the end of the law where you have to change how you live, but it's just "poor me" whining. Why should the minority be exempt from harming the majority (and themselves to boot) through ignorance and stubbornness? The fact is that particulate matter put out by such stoves is worse for you than living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant meltdown (e.g. Fukushima). All of those soldiers that come home from war with "mysterious illnesses"? It has everything to do with the open burn pits they used to dispose of garbage; worse even than second-hand smoke from cigarettes, the particulate matter from open smoke fires is bad for you. There is no safe level of exposure. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07burn.html)
In any cae, buying what you need is all about prioritizing your budget, and a new wood stove is not beyond reasonable expectations. Even poor Americans are hardly hurting for expendable income. So you have to forgo a few nights of take-out from Pizza Hut. The government actually stepping in to prevent people from not only killing themselves, but their neighbors, out of wanton ignorance is a good thing.
In other words, fear of losing control and power. Using fear to keep that control is simply following the straightest course to the objective.
Pity their research was so slow. Steve Gibson of grc.com and the "Security Now!" podcast is in talks with the W3C about his new SQRL authentication protocol. Uniquely individual, completely anonymous.
So Mark thinks his failure is the obvious blueprint for Apple's success? Interesting.
You forgot bestiality.
Nope.
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -- Ambrose Bierce