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Comment: Re:bedroom spy camera (Score 1) 105

by Sloppy (#45747875) Attached to: BitTorrent Unveils Secure Chat To Counter 'NSA Dragnet Surveillance'

I agree. Someone once told me I should not go out at night, walk naked (except for a hundred dollar bill pasted to each of my nipples) to the highest-crime district in my city, and start yelling "Some of my best friends are you people!" They said I would be safer if I behaved differently, stayed home instead, and STFU-ed up with my crazy rants.

I explained that even if I behaved differently, that doesn't stop the Russians from launching a nuclear ICBM strike, killing us all, including me. Safe is safe, unsafe is unsafe, there are no degrees in between, and all of us face one single adversary who has one simple agenda.

Comment: Hope they were smart enough to use PGP keys (Score 1) 105

by Sloppy (#45747471) Attached to: BitTorrent Unveils Secure Chat To Counter 'NSA Dragnet Surveillance'

Hopefully they weren't stupid enough to roll their own key format, and instead, they use standard OpenPGP keys. That way, people can have MitM-proof verified-identity conversations if they want that (and can tune the degree of MitM-proofing that is needed) but also have MitM-vulnerable pseudonymous conversations if they don't (for cases where you'd prefer to be anonymous).

When you're talking to your wife, it's ok for her to know who you are, and you to know you're talking to her, so you'd use the keys that you've exchanged out-of-band and that each of you have signed. When you're talking to your pirate buddies, you just to have the keyid that has in the past, been associated with uber-31337ness, but has never been signed by anyone. And when you're talking to another person in the company, you know who each other is and have at least some company CA as your introducer, any maybe signed yourselves too if it's a small enough company where everyone eventually meets each other in person.

Whatever your case, OpenPGP fits perfectly. The only thing it doesn't handle well, is tricking users into thinking they have a secure connection but really letting a third party listen in. For some reason, PGP isn't well-suited for that. Whenever I see someone not use PGP, I assume that's the reason they chose to use weaker tech.

Comment: Re:A&E is fiscally stupid (Score 1) 8

by Jeremiah Cornelius (#45746475) Attached to: When did A&E become a public entity?

The term "Christian" means so many different things to so many different people that it doesn't have much meaning at all any more.

There, that is your arrogance, right there. It has TREMENDOUS meaning for those who identify themselves as Christians. This is true even if it does not serve your purposes of taxonomy. The taxonomist is the most onerous of oppressors, along with the statistician.

Technology

Company That Made the First 3D Printed Metal Gun Is Selling Them For $11,900 161

Posted by samzenpus
from the print-and-shoot dept.
Lucas123 writes "Solid Concepts, which last month revealed the first fully-functional, metal 3D gun, announced today that they're putting 100 limited-edition models of the 1911 .45 caliber pistol on sale for $11,900 each. Solid Concept demonstrated the gun by initially firing 50 rounds through it. Since then, the company said it has fired nearly 2,000 rounds through the pistol without a single malfunction. Unlike the very first 3D printed gun — the single-shot, plastic Liberator — Solid Concepts says is not trying to promote the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. Its purpose in printing the firearm was to demonstrate its ability to turn out precision, durable parts that could withstand the massive pressure created by firing a bullet. People who purchase one of the limited-edition guns will also have the chance to tour Solid Concept's Texas facility to see their gun being printed, and to join their lead additive manufacturing engineers on the range for the first test firing of their limited 1911 gun."

Comment: Re:Turd Polishing (Score 2) 116

by msobkow (#45744231) Attached to: Bill Gates Plays Secret Santa To Reddit User

Maybe because he wanted to give her something memorable instead of just donating to charity in her name?

Personally I'd think that note and photo were the far more valuable portion of the gift. For anyone who collects things like signatures, it'd be a family treasure. I know I'd be framing it and putting it on the wall, as proof that I once was contacted by the elusive Bill Gates.

Privacy

BitTorrent Unveils Secure Chat To Counter 'NSA Dragnet Surveillance' 105

Posted by samzenpus
from the sheilds-up dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Jacob Kastrenakes reports on The Verge that as part a response to the NSA's wide-reaching surveillance programs, BitTorrent is unveiling a secure messaging service that will use public key encryption, forward secrecy, and a distributed hash table so that chats will be individually encrypted and won't be stored on some company's server. 'It's become increasingly clear that we need to devote hackathons, hours and resources to developing a messaging app that protects user privacy,' says Christian Averill, BitTorrent's director of communications. Because most current chat services rely on central servers to facilitate the exchange of messages, 'they're vulnerable: to hackers, to NSA dragnet surveillance sweeps.' BitTorrent chat aims to avoid those vulnerabilities through its encryption methods and decentralized infrastructure. Rather than checking in with one specific server, users of BitTorrent chat will collectively help each other figure out where to route messages to. In order to get started chatting, you'll just need to give someone else your public key — effectively your identifier. Exchanging public keys doesn't sound like the simplest way to begin a chat, but Averill says that BitTorrent hopes to make it easy enough for anyone interested. 'What we're going to do is to make sure there are options for how this is set up,' says Averill. 'This way it will appeal to the more privacy conscious consumer as well as the less technically inclined.' For now, it remains in a private testing phase that interested users can apply for access to. There's no word on when it'll be open to everyone, but with all of the recent surveillance revelations, it's easy to imagine that some people will be eager to get started."

Comment: Re:Moo (Score 1) 5

by stoolpigeon (#45744017) Attached to: Upgrading from Fedora 19 to 20 with fedup

I'm getting more involved in mobile development - and I need to be able to do work for Android and Mac - so that means I'll be picking up my first Apple machine this year. I'm still trying to decide if I'll get a Mac Mini or a MacBook Air.

I'll need to make up my mind by February. Reading that you like yours helps me feel a little better about it. If I didn't need to be able to build stuff for iOS I wouldn't be buying one.

The video issue with this Linux box is fine. It's a very inexpensive Acer with a pretty small case so I new my expansion options would be limited. I just wish Intel sold video cards because if they did, I would be all over that.

Science

Scientific Data Disappears At Alarming Rate, 80% Lost In Two Decades 144

Posted by samzenpus
from the here-today-gone-tomorrow dept.
cold fjord writes "UPI reports, 'Eighty percent of scientific data are lost within two decades, disappearing into old email addresses and obsolete storage devices, a Canadian study (abstract, article paywalled) indicated. The finding comes from a study tracking the accessibility of scientific data over time, conducted at the University of British Columbia. Researchers attempted to collect original research data from a random set of 516 studies published between 1991 and 2011. While all data sets were available two years after publication, the odds of obtaining the underlying data dropped by 17 per cent per year after that, they reported. "Publicly funded science generates an extraordinary amount of data each year," UBC visiting scholar Tim Vines said. "Much of these data are unique to a time and place, and is thus irreplaceable, and many other data sets are expensive to regenerate.' — More at The Vancouver Sun and Smithsonian."

The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and add ten percent.

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