Published by Robert Pogson October 6th, 2012
in technology.
“The temporary outlets will be open only during the holiday season, and are not permanent locations like the two-dozen brick-and-mortar Microsoft retail stores already in operation.”
see Microsoft to open 'pop-up' stores Oct. 26, battle Apple at most locations | ITworld.
How the mighty are fallen. Unable to get slaves to push enough product, M$ has become homeless, wandering the streets, begging for business.
How many of us would
- do business with transients?
- do business with someone who would not be “there” for a customer?
- go into a strange store when all the usual ones are right where they have been for years?
- buy an untried product in all of the above situations?
Not many? I thought so. This is just the dying dinosaur thrashing around trying to avoid evolution. They and their products can rot as far as I am concerned. The world can and does make its own software, GNU/Linux. There’s no longer any need for M$.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson October 6th, 2012
in technology.
A discussion has broken out about when the defeat of SHA-1 hashing will happen. That’s “when”, not “if”, because it’s just a matter of time and the growth of computing resources or the decline in the price of computing resources that matter. The method of attack is already known. If a better attack develops the defeat could come in just a few years bringing unprecedented chaos to IT. Rather than having to buy computing resources, the bad guys can just rent a botnet and have a million PCs doing what they want at any time. That means the bad guys will win if we do nothing.
Should we hedge our bets and use a variety of hashes so that whichever one is defeated first can just be dropped with minimal problems? Should we require simultaneous checks with multiple hashes? That would seem to make finding a collision more difficult. The first crack of SHA-1 is extremely unlikely to simultaneously collide with MD-5.
“A collision attack is therefore well within the range of what an organized crime syndicate can practically budget by 2018, and a university research project by 2021.”
see Schneier on Security: When Will We See Collisions for SHA-1?.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson October 6th, 2012
in horticulture.
A photographer came by to take some pictures. It was raining, a wind was blowing, darkness approached and it was cold but I obliged…
Welding in the wind with E6011 at 95A on some painted steel T-bars
Welding is so much fun. To think that people used to pay me overtime to have fun…
I need to get cracking before the winter overtakes my new greenhouse. I should still have a couple of weeks to get the job done. I’ve started the “winter beard” as you can see.
- Robert Pogson
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