631 karma · joined February 3, 2011
Keyframes are a beautiful thing in CSS but boy oh boy I wish jQuery implemented them to reduce CSS size. It's becomming insane to have so many keyframes with 0%, 40%, 80%, 100% and so on.
This article totally pops to mind - http://www.uie.com/articles/facebook_mini_feed/
When Facebook introduced the feed - it was like the world had fallen in for Facebook users. "Quit Facebook", "Worst thing ever" - "I'm quitting facebook" and so on it went.
Nowdays - no one could envisage using Facebook without it - it's become one of the most successful design changes of the site and users generally now like it (sure it still has problems - as does any design for 1 billion users). Indeed the above article concludes
"In the months since the mini feed was introduced, the users' initial reactions have since gone the other way. The mini feed is now a critical part of the site's functionality, allowing users an easy way to keep tabs on their network."
Windows 8 is no different. "Oh my god it boots to the Metro panels" - who cares. All Mac's boot the same and the consistent design interface has made all Mac User's happy. Microsoft is eating humble pie in this regard and accepts that it needs consistency across all its UI interfaces - unifying it's offering is the only way to continue forward. Booting to Metro is probably will make "some people" more likely to go and buy a tablet or phone with Metro because its now familiar - that's not a "disaster" - thats simply innovation and consistency in design principles.
What annoys me about the article is comments like
"If Microsoft continues down this path, the strategy will backfire, and PC owners with a choice will likely skip this version of Windows, much as they did with ME and Vista."
Yep, except the next version will have Metro even more tightly integrated because this is an entire interface design change. Everyone hates change, people like staying with interfaces they are used too. Changing things creates confusion but sometimes its for the better.
I'm not advocating that this is necessarily for the better, but it's certainly not a "massive metro mistake" as much as it is a consistent interface change which is required (I assume) as part of Microsoft long term UI strategy.
a 4G chip, literally 1cm from your temple for 8-16 hours a day just cannot be something that is encouraged or that is recommended.
i just can't fathom how that could possibly be safe regardless of your view of electromagnetic radiation - having that against your head for 16 hours a day, 365 days a year. It accounts to 5840 hours of a 1cm differential of electromagnetic radiation to your brain ?
strapping a mobile phone to your head with a 4G chip and letting it sit there isn't something I can see myself doing and the entire utility of the glasses is designed to essentially be "always on" - i can't see you wearing them for 15 minutes and putting them away ? i love that Google are pushing the edge, but maybe they need to invent some sort of electromagnetic radiation wrapper so it doesn't permeate into your brain all day
Of course, the entire health effects of eye movements and constant electromagnetic radiation exposure are probably a different vertical than that however.
how possibly can it be healthy to be wearing a set of these around, all day long, with data beaming towards your temple as it processes what you are looking at ?
i love the idea and concept - im just not sure I like the idea of the electromagnetic radiation being so rawly exposed to your head for as long as you are wearing the glasses. at least with mobile phones you are subjected to "bursts" in the sense that its only for the duration that the phone is against your head (which many fear - regardless of whether you personally being FUD or not)
contrast this to glass however, it's there constantly and design to be so. i would just love to know the risks associated with the volume of data, the impact of such exposure and the level of heat generated etc. it just seems to be swept aside in my mind
http://www.quora.com/Quora-Infrastructure/Why-does-Quora-use...
Not if .nav li a{} and .nav a{} are specifically meant to be differing nests. They could but might not 'should'
a) no fish || b) genetically engineered fish
It's a dumb idea - flawed with millions of different problems and basically lends itself to favouring countries whose majority of national assets are heavily based on intellectual property [hence the reason ACTA was put forward by Japan and USA - the later mainly due to political lobbying]
The reality is - enforcing copyright laws based on one jurisdiction [ala USA] - on every other jurisdiction is a bad idea. Of course, the USA tries to "force" its bilateral and multilateral trade relations with new clauses requiring higher intellectual property standards. This 'stark picture' is already being painted on the 2010 USTR Special Report 301 [basically bad IP enforcement countries - primarily the BRIC [brazil/russia/india/china] block] where not one single African nation is listed on the reports Watch List - WTF ? Yes, why are some of the poorest african nations strongly enforcing IP rights ? You guessed it - trade preferences with the USA.
So yes - it sucks "only within the United States" - but I would rather that than some moron in a USA movie studio office, sipping cognac and lighting up a cigar telling me how my country should run its domestic law [pardon the gross generalization of movie studio executives painted from movie studio produced movies].
No thanks.
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-placeholder-a...
If Stallmans "dream" of "everythings free" truly prevailed. Most of the technology that we use would never have been invented anyway. The capitalist nature of society demands returns for injections of investment, and indeed, this is how investment generates advancement and so on. Stallman continually criticises closed environments - and while I do applaud what he is trying to advocate in terms of "open source" computing - I do strongly disagree with "we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing."
Really ? That "malign influence" across 4 decades is what has shaped computing. Indeed, the typefaces representing the letters in your poorly timed comment, Mr. Stallman, wouldn't even align. Malign indeed.
EXPECT_TRUE(state->IsEnabledForHost(&domain_state, "docs.google.com", true));
EXPECT_TRUE(state->IsEnabledForHost(&domain_state, "sites.google.com", true));
EXPECT_TRUE(state->IsEnabledForHost(&domain_state, "drive.google.com", true));1) In my mind, there is the disincentive to work at the US PTO [or any PTO for that matter] because the salaries suck, you're demanded to have unrealistic quota's and that means only so much time can be spent on each filing by examiners who are mostly beginning - because ones they are experienced leave to join firms who pay them a lot more because they have examined from "the other side of the table".
It's a talent glut that starts the cycle, approves poor patents, clogs the court with the attitude of "even if we are wrong [PTO] the Courts will resolve it - so we really can't make mistakes" and increases litigation costs for all involved.
2) I don't think removing patents is the solution - there have been 100's of instances where the "little guy has stopped the big guy" in all sorts of scenarios in innovation - tech or otherwise. The problem is that you have a system which is bursting because the pay cycle for PTO is low, pressure driven and this means you've inexperienced patent examiners who ultimately leave for high paying firms. Why wouldn't they ? There isn't any economic incentive to stay. Pay them more. Retain the best ones. Get better examination results, use an Open Source Prior Art system which allows community collaboration to increase prior art base and makes it harder to "prove" novelty.
3) Stopping the "patent trolls" [shell companies which no utility other than to litigate] is a completely other matter IMHO. The patent system is designed to protect innovation - I'm not sure it was designed to facilitate companies purchasing huge packets of IP protection to simply stiffle innovation. Llegislative restrictions should be placed around IP attaching to a product or service which looses it's enforceability if it abstracts itself too far from this product or service - meaning companies who acquire technology can continue to gain from their acquisition [product/service] as it is inferred they are in a similar field and therefore would satisfy any such test - but which ultimately means that trolls who acquire IP don't have anything to gain. They are too far abstracted which means their enforcability is dead.
i.e. A University developing and researching technology doesn't have an "abstract connection" to any patents they hold - they developed the technology and therefore have a direct association to the product/service - regardless of who they licence it to for further commercialization - arguably, without their initial cost of research and development the patent wouldn't exist and the world wouldn't benefit from their efforts. IF a troll acquired the patent and had no intention to develop the disclosed invention -they have no direct association and therefore it's useless. A "bad faith" test if you will.
"Trolls" - at least in my view - have no direct connection to the patentable subject matter - a so-called "abstract connection" - and therefore aren't actually "benefiting" from their effort in developing the patentable subject matter. They are essentially those entities who use patents purely as an enforceable mechanism in order to extract income from innovators and that's a sad by-product of patents unfortunately. In Trademark law, trademarks registered in "bad-faith" can be extinguished and it would not be that difficult to extend such a concept to patents such that owners who acquire patent rights in bad-faith [that is, purely to stifle innovation without any direct connection to the patentable material] - should loose them.
... "file:// ...."
Fail
Anyway, Feel free to browse this document - http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1496/PDF/01_Debt.pdf
"A government’s balance sheet comprises both assets and liabilities. This article has demonstrated that only considering gross debt can result in an incomplete picture of public finances. By taking into account assets the public sector owns, a more accurate view of a government’s ability to respond to economic conditions can be determined.
This article has shown that Australia has undergone several periods of debt accumulation, followed by periods of fiscal consolidation. Periods of strong economic growth following episodes of debt accumulation have helped support relatively quick improvements in the public sector’s net debt position. Australia has a low level of net debt both historically and when compared with G-7 economies."
Seemingly, the fundamental problem that exists in the United States is that the debt level has been never ending. The spending mentality of the U.S. government since Regean, Bush, Clinton [not so much], Bush and now even Obama [in my view - cleaning up the mess] was never one of fiscal or monetary conservatism. I'm an Aussie - our country doesn't have hardly any debt [queue smart-ass arrogance smirk]. Good fiscal and monetary policy ? Not really - as much as our politicians love to think so - it's just not over promising and over spending for political gains. "I'll give you tax-cuts of 5%" - "I'll do 10%" - "I've just discovered I can do 15%!" and so on it seems in the US - then the whole country argues about whether tax-cuts are better or worse or giving the wealthier socioeconomic bracket more money is better or worse. I don't premise to understand the entire US Financial or Political system - I'm merely an international observer. What you can observe - large socioeconomic cuts to fundamental social welfare results in those scenes unfortunately unfolding in London. You rip apart societies most vulnerable social fabric and it's not going to respond happily.
To suggest we are heading for another "dot-com" boom - at least in my opinion - is totally unfounded. The internet is in another era juxtaposed against the 2000's with widebroadband adoption and reliance. IPO's are not finished when they are based on real fundamental revenues and profits underlined with good talent. Any rational investment is unpinned by this - Facebook would still raise a huge IPO - because large financial institutions still have huge funds available to them and see the rationality of the investment. Similar to other business' that have real revenue and real values.
Solid business basics win as per Warren Buffet "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful". Convince investors to be greedy in the current climate and nothing matters. You'll win.
define: [word]
None-the-less. Handy plugin.
where have I made any such "apparent suggestion" in any of my comments. i haven't - i've stated that, and at least I believed I made quite clear, that the risk and practicality of using this hack is negligible. i haven't stated that it does not exist or that it should not be fixed. to the contrary - it should be fixed.
you're focusing on a singular aspect in a vacuum. "improper security implementation." - yes in this singular vacuum - you're correct and that's great - it's a concern. But what point is there focusing on security implementations in a vacuum when your dealing with real devices on real people and the practicality of using such improper implementations. The entire BlackHat conference is about exposing hacks in vendor-neutral software and devices that affect the real world. As I stated:
"Get realistic - security loopholes are only as important as what you are trying to practically protect and at what cost with what risk. This is what I am trying to make evident."
i'm focusing on the practicality in the real world as is the entire point of the BlackHat Security Conference. Arguably any device which opens itself to wireless communication could be hacked - and a device like this should have some cryptographic system requiring two separate keys - but at what practical cost is my point.
as hanslemen says in his article - the easiest way to resolve this is just to build in upper and lower limits of insulin delivery. at least you can't kill someone - but I acknowledge that even controlling it is a concern.
[peace, not trying to get all up and hot in here :)]
"but your dealing with minute hardware where every single ms of processing power counts. Simple encryption should be utilized [but then this might be easily hacked anyway ?] but for units placed inside the body [pacemakers and the like] - splitting the units resources between keeping the patient alive vs. encryption for wireless protocols seems to weigh more heavily on the former than the later given how unlikely - for the majority of the world - these 'attacks' are going to be."
So your solution is to increase security such that it compromises the functionality of the device itself through it's utility ? High security, poor battery life ? High security, high replacement cost ?
"Point 5 is the only one that I am concerning myself with." - and delivering insulin isn't important ?
Get realistic - security loopholes are only as important as what you are trying to practically protect and at what cost with what risk. This is what I am trying to make evident.
The assumption that every single manufacturer in the medical industry hasn't considered security of remote devices seems a far stretch to me given the prominence of medical litigation and the fact your dealing with someones life. Is a high security cost, high device cost, low battery life and therefore low adoption for patients and community accessibility acceptable? No, it's not.
The world is not based on everyone wanting to kill each other because entropy of serial numbers [which you nor I have any idea about] are low so they can hack insulin devices and kill someone. That said - it needs to be fixed with a balance to risk and all these other factors.
1) if a person has diabetes [in this context]
2) if you know where this person lives
3) if you know a person uses a remote insulin delivery pump
4) if you know the model of the device
5) if entropy of serial numbers, for this specific device, is low enough
6) if you are able place a device within range to where this person is living for a sustained period
7) if you are able to ensure remote wireless control is on for this period
8) if you are able to then hack the device [edit: remove - in order to find the exact serial number of the device]
9) if you are able to then change the insulin delivery such that it injects too much or too little
10) if the person is unaware of such a change through external bio-identifiable changes [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus#Signs_and_sym... ]
11) if the person consequentially is unable to reach medical assistance within such a period in order to receive more or less insulin resulting in their death
12) if you are able to remove any evidence of tampering with their device without being caught
yes, then this is a concern and low entropy is relevant. But pragmatically and realistically - if you can do all this - then you could execute a murder anyway :P
not really - if entropy is low in a lot of things - it's feasible to implement a disaster scenario. wireless systems across lots of things are not encrypted and so the same logic applies.
"you might know a bit about them"
we'll you really 'would' have to know 'a lot' about them if these devices had high entropy. which - if a person was indeed killed by this method - an autopsy would show either a spike or lapse in delivery of insulin. such a lapse would immediately lead to an investigation as to why the unit did not respond ?
evidentiary burden then progresses.
i'm not disagreeing with you in the seriousness of the discovery - i just think that these devices live in a nano-constrained world. implementing increased data encryption increases cost, power usage and the like - it's a difficult balance. now this has world attention - even 'basic' encryption is really useless since even it could be hammered.
so do you implement serious encryption - but in doing so - reduce the utility of the device so that it lacks the means to do what it is designed to do ? deliver insulin.
On the basis of a huge number of "if's" involved. i'm not convinced.
tl;dr
Scott's most relevant points:
1. "This is a key fob that looks like a car alarm beeper that some pump users use to discretely give themselves insulin doses. However, I feel the need to point out as a pump wearer myself that:
Not every Insulin Pump has a remote control feature. Not every remote-controllable insulin pump has that feature turned on. Mine does not, for example."
2. "all he requires to perpetrate the hack is the target pump's serial number. This is like saying "I can open your garage door with a 3rd party garage door opener. Just give me the numbers off the side of your unit..."
3. If you are a diabetic on a pump who is concerned about this kind of thing, my suggestion is to turn off your pump's remote control feature (which is likely off anyway) and turn off your sensor radio when you are not wearing your CGM. Most of all, don't panic. Call the manufacturer and express your concern. In my experience, pump manufacturers do not mess around with this stuff. I'm not overly concerned.
--
Also - someone asked how much entropy was in the serial ID's on these units ?
Even if entropy is low are - how are you going to randomly select a person, and know their serial ID ? Unless you know what units are distributed to what hospitals/doctors - at exact times - at exact shipments and then from the sample delivered know the exact unit given to any person at any particular time.
Sure, if you know a "set of id's" you could try each one sequentially until you finally get a hit - but even then, you must somehow ensure the person being targeted has remote connection turned on. I'm pretty sure walking up to them and saying "oh, hai 'dere! ... plz turn on ur remotz connetz'n 4 me?" [ said in this voice - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_9QhRzJEs ] - is going to make them pretty suspicious.
There's a lot of "ifs" in there and frankly - if your aim was kill them - it would be a lot faster to do it some other way because to actually get all these things to line up perfectly .... your chances are pretty slim.
I'm a bit of sceptic on this 'hacking' - not to say that it's great that it has been uncovered - but your dealing with minute hardware where every single ms of processing power counts. Simple encryption should be utilized [but then this might be easily hacked anyway ?] but for units placed inside the body [pacemakers and the like] - splitting the units resources between keeping the patient alive vs. encryption for wireless protocols seems to weigh more heavily on the former than the later given how unlikely - for the majority of the world - these 'attacks' are going to be.
Even if entropy is low are - how are you going to randomly select a person, and know their serial ID ? Unless you know what units are distributed to what hospitals/doctors - at exact times - at exact shipments and then from the sample delivered know the exact unit given to any person at any particular time.
Sure, if you know a "set of id's" you could try each one sequentially until you finally get a hit - but even then, you must somehow ensure the person being targeted has remote connection turned on. I'm pretty sure walking up to them and saying "oh, hai 'dere! ... plz turn on ur remotz connetz'n 4 me?" [ said in this voice - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh_9QhRzJEs ] - is going to make them pretty suspicious.
There's a lot of "ifs" in there and frankly - if your aim was kill them - it would be a lot faster to do it some other way because to actually get all these things to line up perfectly .... your chances are pretty slim.
Scott's most relevant points:
1. "This is a key fob that looks like a car alarm beeper that some pump users use to discretely give themselves insulin doses. However, I feel the need to point out as a pump wearer myself that:
Not every Insulin Pump has a remote control feature. Not every remote-controllable insulin pump has that feature turned on. Mine does not, for example."
2. "all he requires to perpetrate the hack is the target pump's serial number. This is like saying "I can open your garage door with a 3rd party garage door opener. Just give me the numbers off the side of your unit..."
3. If you are a diabetic on a pump who is concerned about this kind of thing, my suggestion is to turn off your pump's remote control feature (which is likely off anyway) and turn off your sensor radio when you are not wearing your CGM. Most of all, don't panic. Call the manufacturer and express your concern. In my experience, pump manufacturers do not mess around with this stuff. I'm not overly concerned.
Is this a good thing ? I think that Google and Apple are intent on killing Microsoft and Adobe respectively and they believe the best way is to strike at their respective hearts is by reducing their core platform reliance. I'm not necessarily of the view this is the best way forward, and data security and privacy laws having a long way to go before we all start using "Chrome Books". I just sometimes wonder whether Google/Apple self-interest in pushing ahead HTML5 is, and will, benefit the developer community as a whole in development of web technologies or rather create some sort of HCJ hybrid "gadget" '@web application@' community.
Further, I'm not always convinced that writing lines of HTML5 and Javascript will replace the eons of work [flagrant exaggeration intended] that has gone into traditional languages. Just like the HTML4 spec, it will be a while before the HTML5 spec is "truly adopted". A simple DocType switch and you're "technically" in HTML5.
"The HTML5 boom is coming. Fast" - maybe it is, but I don't know whether that represents the "super exciting" future we all dream of - or whether it represents a flood of new poor constructed web technologies aiming to be the next "Facebook". Call me a cynic - I just think we need to preserve our roots as much as we do need to forge a better web future.