Microsoft pulling free development tools for Windows 8 desktop apps, only lets you ride the Metro for free

linucs · 1 day

I still annoyed that I cannot develop apps for my iOS devices, using the official tools, without ALSO buying a fucking Mac...

linucs · 1 day

Wait, what?

Prince_Jellyfish · 1 day

Didn't get a response quite fast enough, so I found my crypto book instead. All that is really needed is the definition of "full irreversible encryption", or rather it's called "Perfect Secrecy": the probability of guessing a message if you know the ciphertext, is no better than just guessing x without knowing the ciphertext. In layman terms, it means that if Alice encrypt a message m, and send it to Bob, then the probability of Claire guessing m does not improve if she knows the encrypted message.

The informal proof is simple. If the keyspace, K, is smaller than the ciphertext space, C, (and plaintext space P), then for any given element in P (think string to encrypt), it will not map onto every element of C, because there are not enough keys to do so.. Thus if I know the cipher text, I will be able to discard some elements in the plaintext space, and increase your chance of guessing correctly.

Prince_Jellyfish · 1 day

Side channel attacks don't attack the algorithm which is probably what EnragedMoose meant. Timing attacks, power analysis, and fault analysis all makes assumptions about implementation, and uses additional information garnered from attacking those implementations.

He specifically said component, but no matter. If you successfully break AES using a side-channel attack, you're generally able to break a specific implementation which did not know of this attack. Two different implementations might not possible to break using the same attack (but you already know this). I find it unlikely to a possibility, that they know of a side channel attack, but I'm by no means a security professional. My expertise is several semesters of security and theoretical crypto with Ivan Damgård (the Damgård in Merkel-Damgård contruction) as professor and mentor. Personally, I believe that this comment sums it up fairly well - it's possible, and if anyone is in position to do it, it would be the NSA - but it's not a given.

... are required to utilize, at minimum, FIPS PUB 186-3 / Curve P-384 (Not symmetric encryption algorithms [e.g. AES, DES, SKIPJACK] like you seem to be under the impression of) for use of Top Secret data ...

I did not know of this fact, but it is interesting. Though, we're now in the realm of PK crypto systems, so it might be because of other factors, such as anyone must be able to encrypt possible classified information, but only those with the highest clearance must be able to decrypt it. All speculation really.

Prince_Jellyfish · 1 day

You don't attack AES, you attack what makes up AES.

If you attack a component of AES, to break AES, you're by definition attacking AES.

It is widely believed in NETSEC circles that the NSA has extremely reliable side channel attacks.

Do you really believe that this conspiracy is widely believed in the professional security world? Do you also believe that NSA would approve an encryption scheme for it's most secret information, and recommend it to companies holding secrets worth billions of dollars (secrets very important to the stability of the financial markets) - if it know about one or more "extremely reliable side channel attacks". That is just so absurd I don't know what to say.

Prince_Jellyfish · 2 days

yes and yes

Prince_Jellyfish · 2 days

I'm not sure there is a proof, but I'm pretty sure that OTP is the only known algorithm that achieves this, thus acting as a fairly strong indicator that it might be the case - I'll shoot my crypto professor a mail and ask, and let you know.

Prince_Jellyfish · 2 days

By "mathematically very strong" I think he means that the best known attacks are infeasible even with "unlimited" resources. The term strong does not make much sense in this context if you're talking as a mathematician.

That said, the theory isn't mathematically sound, as we have not proved that it is impossible to break it faster than bruteforce (it has however been proved that it IS possible to break faster than bruteforce). That does not make it weak or bad, just means that no known attacks on AES are significant.

Beznet · 3 days

drumofny has written a very good comment, so I don't have much to add.

I used to feel that way when I was younger about anything that interested me. Now I openly talk about coffee with enthusiasm, but I don't look down on "regular" coffee. I just don't drink it, and when I'm offered a cup, I kindly decline. If they ask why (they know I'm a raging coffee addict) I tell them that I'm a bit of a coffee nerd, that prefer freshly ground and brewed coffee with recently roasted beans, because I think it tastes so much better - I also offer them a cup at my place if they want to try or point them to places I know make a good cup.

If someone on your facebook things that you're a snob, you probably don't want them on your friendslist anyway.

wordsmithie · 4 days

I may not be using the very advanced features, but I usually can find the tools I need in GDB, but the interface is in dire need of an overhaul. I suppose GDB is fine if you only have access to a CLI.

FOR_SClENCE · 4 days

They still don't hold a candle to the first two. Fallout 3 (and the later ones as well) was designed to work on consoles in the first place, and I'm sure that accounts for some of the blame.

kracekumar · 10 days

The problem of creating the spec in the first place is not the only problem to solve. How do you add the functionality so it's not a maintenance nightmare? What if the spec is optimization wrt speed or how to you create it with extensibility and modular design in mind?

viddy · 15 days

Ahh, yeah, I remember that now. Thanks for the refresh.

viddy · 15 days

I'm not. NP-Complete problems are NP-Hard by definition.

tompa_coder · 15 days

I think it's a case of: "less that can go wrong" kinda thing. In C++ you have a much more complex language, and thus have to be much more careful about what you write, and how you do certain things.

viddy · 15 days

So, what you're calling wrong is the fact that he doesn't mention that the oracle must run in polytime?

viddy · 16 days

I'm intrigued. From my complexity classes I remember the definition of HP-Hard being problems that all NP problems reduce to. Are you saying this is wrong? Also, a conjecture is just that, a conjecture - no proof exists.

modao · 16 days

Good, you've covered the first step: Identifying that something is bad. Now you need to learn the second step: Come with constructive criticism or just keep your mouth shut.

carsonbiz · 17 days

Where else would you suggest people to go for advice?

Nausea1 · 19 days

It clearly must have been reasonably close, so the minutes would have been saved. That said, no reason to chastise a person who obviously did the best they could.

ItsOppositeDayHere · 20 days

True, but imagine the outcry if he said "we will have a patch ready as soon as possible" and not giving a timeframe. My point is that 2-3 days is very short time to find a possibly non-trivial bug, fix it, and test the fix, possibly also test it at an actual customers having the problem in the first place.

ItsOppositeDayHere · 21 days

The tricky thing is, that you must not release a patch that will make anything even remotely worse. Even identifying the cause of a problem can take days, so I don't blame him for saying a fix will be out Monday - that is a reasonable estimate (2-3 days) if you don't have the complete knowledge of what is wrong and how to fix it.

hawk196 · 23 days

My old bodum had a stainless steel screw, but the replacement I bought had a plastic one. Luckily the glass is the same size so I just replaced that.

monkeyscreatesoftwar · 24 days

sigh, not again. Solving the halting problem involve solving the general case. It is still possible to solve it partially, i.e. detect the most common infinite loops.

CodyOdi · 24 days

I never said anything else, just that salting does not mean you can use a fast hashing algorithm.

hvidgaard

TROPHY CASE

hvidgaard

TROPHY CASE

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