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Encryption

+ - Stopping Side-Channel Attacks->

Submitted by blinkin247
blinkin247 (971822) writes "In the last 10 years, cryptography researchers have demonstrated that even the most secure-seeming computer is shockingly vulnerable to attack. The time it takes a computer to store data in memory, fluctuations in its power consumption and even the noises it emits can betray information to a savvy assailant. Fortunately, even as they've been researching side-channel attacks, cryptographers have also been investigating ways of stopping them. Shafi Goldwasser, the RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and her former student Guy Rothblum, who's now a researcher at Microsoft Research, recently posted a long report on the website of the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, describing a general approach to mitigating side-channel attacks."
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Comment: Re:Bunch of BUNK! (Score 4, Interesting) 577

by blinkin247 (#39860789) Attached to: Oracle and the End of Programming As We Know It

The API copyright is but one part of the whole trial. Even after the jury comes back, there is still a patent issue and then damages portion (though this depends on how the jury decides in the prior two phases). And IIRC, the API copyright issue is but one part of the copyright complaints brought by Google (though I think most/all of the others were already tossed).

Judges do things like this a lot. If the Oracle legal team presented what he thought to be a good case in favor of the copyrightability of the APIs, then he might've decided to let it go to the jury rather than let Oracle appeal. This way, Oracle can't say they lost because they couldn't present their argument, and the judge can use case law later on so that Google can't appeal because the jury had no clue what they were talking about.

Finally, just because case law has set a precedent does not necessarily mean that the precedent is correct or that a future case can't lead to that precedent being overturned. This is in large part why our system exists as it does, with courts of increasing national authority that can step in and correct a lower court for decisions which should not have been rendered or for the abdication of due process.

Understand, I certainly don't want Oracle to win this one, but I do understand the judge's thinking. This isn't an inefficiency of the judge, it's the judge exploiting his knowledge of the system he works in every day.

Comment: FUD (Score 1) 2

by blinkin247 (#39859723) Attached to: The end of Android as we know it

Take each of those points, s/Android/Linux, change some dates and company names, and its the same old arguments by the same groups of people: those who couldn't succeed by invention or ingenuity seek to bring down what they couldn't build.

If Google abandons Android it'll be a bigger fumble than the one they are accused of having made with Google+ (an accusation that seems odd considering the continuing increase in userbase). And to say that Android will fade because Oracle will win the lawsuit? It was thought that SCO's victory over Novell, IBM, and others was a sure thing. That has turned out to be as baseless a position as the assumption that Oracle will win is. This is FUD, pure and simple.

Science

+ - Insects develop pesticide resistance through symbiosis with gut flora->

Submitted by blinkin247
blinkin247 (971822) writes "The indiscriminate spraying of pesticides has probably caused as many problems as it has solved, but here's one that was not expected: some bacteria have decided that one insecticide is a very tasty meal. Unfortunately for us, one of the strains of bacteria that has evolved the ability to digest the toxin happens to be able to find a home in an insect's gut. When it does so, it provides the insect with resistance."
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You know, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to...

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