ajarmst

15 ms·

91.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Thanks very much.
92.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Quantum computing may eventually force us to move to OTPs. Of course it's going to be a pretty long time before we'll have quantum computers that can work across an 800-bit field.
93.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Yeah. I take up the key exchange problem (and Diffie-Hellman) as well as difficulty of achieving true randomness.
94.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Yeah, that's what got me. Doubling the length of the key only requires a single order of magnitude more work? . If that turns out to be true, I'm going to need to revise my beliefs about how the universe works. In particular, in
95.
by ajarmst 6y ago
He doesn't need to demonstrate it with an 800-bit number. Given the claims made about how much faster this is, the effect should show up even in fairly small numbers.
96.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I always enjoy the reaction when I tell students that we've had provably unbreakable encryption since the 19th century.
97.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I'd agree with that if he had merely tweeted about RSA. However, he put the claim to "destroy RSA" in the abstract . Claims made in the abstract do need to be substantiated, but RSA isn't discussed in the main text at a
98.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Yep. A paper has to substantiate any claims made in the abstract, and this failure already undermines my confidence that the result is correct.
99.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Note that (despite the ill-considered claim about RSA in the abstract) this isn't security research. It's a maths paper in a very important area of number theory. It doesn't disclose a patchable flaw in RSA---it claims that
100.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Internet and digital security? This strikes at the very foundations of number theory .
101.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Isn't the ability to sell targeted advertisements pretty much the foundation of their business plan? The business plan they showed investors and stockholders? Maybe they'll stop indexing my behaviour against my name or social sec
102.
by ajarmst 6y ago
The B2 was designed to stealthily penetrate long distances into the USSR. It was a 1980s black program that eventually (at absurd cost) only shipped about 20 aircraft for a mission role that no longer existed. It's not surprising tha
103.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Yes, but that would also apply if what I had was a used car, rather than bitcoin or gold, etc. The requirement for intermediate conversion to another currency in order to realize value implies that bitcoin isn’t (at least yet) a currency (e
104.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I always enjoy conversations with cryptocurrency cognoscenti: "Ok. Assume I have some bitcoin (a bitcoin? bitcoins?). How would I exchange it for, say, a carton of milk?" Don't get me wrong. I'm a math nerd. I think
105.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I'm less intrigued by the fact that this happened than by the fact that it was such a childishly incompetent effort at IP theft. I'm not sure how French courts would differ, but in my jurisdiction, if a company that was failing to
106.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I think you'll find the set of people simultaneously competent to maintain a python package and willing to take on potentially significant legal liability for free is too small to maintain a software ecosystem. This isn't necessa
107.
by ajarmst 6y ago
A lot of the maintenance of these packages is performed by volunteers. Putting, however well-intentioned, barriers up will often result not in a more secure maintenance process but no maintenance at all. I'm generally happy to donate
108.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I'd settle for a rough familiarity amongst science journalists and their editors, but I like the aspiration. Couple of questions, though: do we mean how science should work, or how it actually works in practice (and no, not just Kuhn:
109.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Yeah. Couldn’t find it. As always, the fastest way to get a correct answer to a question is to post an incorrect one. Thanks.
110.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Gnu has released an editor without including an associated emacs mode? I’m sorry, that’s just not acceptable.
111.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Heh. Warming up to writing a “I wish people would not use the adjective ‘categorical’ in a maths context because it implies Category Theory”. Reads abstract...”Oh, it is Category Theory. Wow, that’s a cool application.” <Starts Readin
112.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Agreed. The last one was pretty clearly a failure of a shaft or turbine, and the damage was much more obvious. This might be something completely different.
113.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Not 'kinda'. Debris exiting the engine housing with sufficient energy and in a direction that leads to damage of other systems is the literal definition of an unconfined engine failure (i.e. it can spit as many parts as it wants
114.
by ajarmst 6y ago
As well as two demonstrations that the aircraft meets the design specification that even a catastrophic failure in the worst stage of flight is easily recoverable. I'd expect an increased inspection rate, possibly some new mandated ND
115.
by ajarmst 6y ago
A couple of decades ago, I spent a few years teaching an introduction to network programming using C on an embedded board running uCLinux for Network Engineering students. While my primary text was Stevens, Beej's guides were an invalu
116.
by ajarmst 6y ago
I think the argument that Google is trying to make is that Privacy Sandbox is better because it's our trusted friend Google that will control this information, not all these other organizations who don't have your best interests a
117.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Time to accelerate the purge. To be honest, all I'll really miss are GMail spam filtering and Google Scholar.
118.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Their original "don't be evil" motto was always a little hypocritical, but now it represents a level of irony previously reserved for slave owners and religiously motivated genocide.
119.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Based on a single cohort study (all subjects born within a year or so of each other), UK only. Primary evaluation is questionnaire. No focused investigation or hypothesis testing. Correlational study only, no control group. no peer review
120.
by ajarmst 6y ago
Two of my favourite authors draft by hand, which I still do (we're all in our fifties). What I want is not yet another (sigh) editor for writers but OCR tools that can be trained for cursive and don't soil the bed on encountering

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