Bluetooth PC adapter supporting headset profile?
[Yes, there is a crypto relevance to this post]. I am trying to find a Bluetooth adapter that will permit the use of a Bluetooth headset as the input to a PC's sound mixer under Windows XP. Various websites claim that such products exist, but attempts to purchase such devices in my experience invariably lead to other websites that require the installation of double-byte character sets which I would not be able to read at any rate. If you have first-hand experience using a PC Bluetooth adapter with a Bluetooth headset, please get in touch with me. TIA, --Lucky Green
RE: DNA databases to be classified
keyser-soze wrote: Scientists build polio virus from scratch Scientists have built the virus that causes polio from scratch in the lab, using nothing more than genetic sequence information from public databases and readily available technology. The feat proves that even if all the polio virus in the world were destroyed, it would be easily possible to resurrect the crippling disease. It also raises the worrying possibility that bioterrorists could use a similar approach to create devastating diseases such as ebola and smallpox without having to gain access to protected viral stocks. I hope they don't try to patent this since I produced prior art for the in vitro generation of human pathogens from genetic sequences going back to at least 1995. To quote Eric Hughes: In the end it is all software. --Lucky Green
RE: IP: SSL Certificate Monopoly Bears Financial Fruit
Adam wrote: On Fri, Jul 12, 2002 at 11:18:12AM -0400, Trei, Peter wrote: A 'second hand' root key seems to have some trust issues | - the thing you are buying is the private half of a public key pair | but that's just a piece of information. How can you be sure that, | as purchaser, you are the *only* possessor of the key, and no one else | has another copy (the seller, for example)? Who cares? If I can get a key thats in the main browsers for 90% off, who cares if other people have it? I understand that getting the public half of the 2 main browsers will run you about $250k in fees, plus all the setup work. If I can buy a slightly used Ncipher box whose public key bits are in the browsers for a 10th to a 5th of that, the extra copies of the bits aren't all that worrisome to me. Precisely. Nor would worrying make any difference, since all CAs preinstalled into the browser are equal from a user perspective. The security your CA, or VeriSign's CA, or anybody's CA can afford their customer is subject to an upper bound set by the preinstalled CA with the laxest certificate issuance standards in existence. In other words, anybody who selects a public CA on a factor other than price likely fails to understand the trust models that underlie today's use of Certificate Authorities. However, $250k will not nearly get you into the major browsers. Getting into Netscape is easy. You just hand them the cash and the floppy with your public key. Getting into MSIE is a lot harder. MSFT has never charged to include a CA's key in MSIE and MSFT does not intend on charging in the future. But after the root CA bonanza for MSIE 5, MSFT instituted policy changes. To get your CA's key included in MSIE, the CA must have passed an SAS 70 audit. (The CA also must offer its certificates to the public). The infrastructure, policy, staff, and auditing costs of passing such an audit will run you upwards of $500k. By the end of the day, getting a new root into the browsers will cost you about, give or take a few hundred k, $1M. Which makes the slightly used nCipher box an even better value. :-) --Lucky Green
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 12:13 PM, Adam Back wrote: Tim describes how US national debt may be as high as US$200k / household. Now some interesting question related questions are: - who is that debt owed to? A partial list (not in any particular order, especially not necessarily in order of amount of overall indebtness): * holders of U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills, and other U.S. Treasury-backed instruments * pensions for government employees (other than the parts of government which opted out, a provision not offered to any non-government folks!). Notably, military pensions, which have been getting more and more lucrative. * the default fraction (estimated) of loan guarantees and loan insurance for programs like the Student Loan Guaranty program, mortgages for vets and other favored persons, etc. (Note that we are _not_ including the overall loan amount, only the fraction that is very likely to be a debt to the government...actuarial and risk assessors have pretty good models.) (By the way, as an aside, this practice of co-signing for a loan, of agreeing to be the repayer of last resort, is humorously called suicide with a fountain pen.) * Social Security. A massive overhang, not carried on the books. * promises made to other governments to keep their coffers full in exchange for siding with the U.S., or not blowing up as many of our airliners, or not launching rusting nukes at us, or not sending millions of immigrants to our shores (These promises could in fact be broken. And they should be. The U.S. should pull its troops out of Europe--57 years after the end of WW II--and out of South Korea and of course out of the Mideast. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and all of the other basket cases should be cut off. If Jews in America want to keep bailing out Israel's economy, fine. But none of my money or anyone else's should be coerced out of them.) - what proportion of current year US tax revenues go to service that debt? Between 20 and 35 %, depending on the cost of money, smoothed over several years. This is only for the officially counted part of the debt. some of the debt may not be being serviced (no interest paid and just left to increase -- eg pensions etc, but this just makes the problem worse as the future debt will grow faster with no interest paid). This is the same reason to vote against _most_ bond issues. While there are legitimate uses of debt, and for spreading repayments over the useful lifetime of a school, prison, or whatever, too often a bond issue is advertised as not costing the taxpayer. This results in building that is not needed, or in outright fraud. (As in many countries, where bonds and lotteries are set up to build nuclear reactors in the jungle that are never really intended to be started up.) Some completely back of the envelope calculation: if the average US household has an annual income of US$50k, and the interest rate on the US national debt is 5%, that interest payments represent 20% of the average US households gross income. But isn't 20% fairly close to what the average household's direct tax rate? Don't forget corporate taxes. The official national debt is $67K per household (100 million households). 5% of that is $3350, which is about 6.7% of the $50K per year figure you cite. Which is about 33% of the 20% tax figure you cite. If one computes the _true_ national debt, the one I talked about, then the numbers are roughly as you describe. The actual national debt is as if every household were paying for a second $200K house on top of the one they now live in or rent. (And despite the figures on current home prices, which are at the margin, the average household does not pay for a $200K mortgage.) Looking at the demographics of the work force, as the pig in the python of the Boomers move into retirement, their earning contribution to income taxes will drop sharply. Will it be made up by having skilled younger people, Hispanics, Taiwanese, Indians, etc. paying these costs? Personally, I doubt it. I don't think the 20-year-old kids of today are going to have the job skills to make the backbreaking payments necessary. Nor should they. Why should they be indentured servants to a generation which just said Charge it! How close is the US to reaching a standstill where 100% of collectible tax revenue goes to fund debt service, and all current spending comes from increased future debt? If unfunded liabilities are counted, which they should be, we are approaching that point now. (By not counting them, we are setting up a future where those 20-year-olds are paying 80% of their income in taxes. I don't think that's viable, for multiple reasons.) By the way, there are already many countries in the world already in the situation where all of the tax revenues go into servicing the national debt, and where that debt is still compounding annually. --Tim May How we burned in the prison camps later
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
- who is that debt owed to? You never, ever, collect debt from one that has a bigger gun than you do. 'debt' as a notion has meaning only between equal parties. Everything's OK and taken care for, no need for panic or doomsday predictions. = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free http://sbc.yahoo.com
Re: Rant: The U.S. facing the largest financial collapse ever
On Friday, July 12, 2002, at 04:16 PM, John Young wrote: Bear in mind that the holders of US debts do not want the debts paid, only the interest, and in fact want both to increase as they have consistently since the US government went into hock. Most such debts have finite lifetimes. For example, the 10-year Treasury note, which is currently the de facto standard. At the end of 10 years, it's done with, period. The principal is repaid (unless the debt was of the kind that pays an interest rate and a principal reduction part). Now the debt holders may well buy other instruments, and usually do, but it isn't an especially accurate or useful model to say holders of US debts paid, only the interest. Gigantic debts by well to do are signs of accomplishment and no wealthy person wants to be large-debt-free. I know many wealth people, and this is not so. (*) Most of them have no significant large debts. Many of them have mortgages on houses, because of the way the IRS subsidizes mortgages over other kinds of debts. Net worth is this: assets minus debts. This is why high net worth individuals are so characterized. (* The high net worth individuals I know range from people with several billion in assets, down to tens of millions (I believe, but most don't say publically or to me), and on down to the few millions or less.) The biggest debtors are the super rich, and their combined debts exceed that of the US Government. Such debts are customarily called investments purchased with borrowed money or other forms of investments. Current margin requirements are about 50%. When stocks or other assets drop, margin calls result. Bernie Ebbers got a big one a year or two ago on Worldcom. I've known folks who have gotten margin calls, and it isn't pretty. Most folks I know, the wealthy ones, tend to keep their margin debts at a small fraction of the allowable maximum. --Tim May, Occupied America They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
S-DART
This seems to be related to the Stego Watch program sold by Wetstone Technologies. Does anyone have more information about it? I've found citations for a few papers on it, but none are online. I'll go to the library later, but in the meantime has anyone read these papers or had experience with the system in action? How does it compare to Provos' stegdetect? -David Molnar
Re: Microsoft censors Newsweek - and new version of TCPA FAQ
Ross said MSNBC had pulled the Palladium story, not Newsweek. Other Levy stories remain available on MSNBC. A search on MSNBC for Palladium produces Steven Levy's chat about Palladium: http://www.msnbc.com/m/nw/talk/archive.asp?lt=062502_levy Still, it may policy for MSNBC to pull Newsweek stories after a few days that don't contribute to the MS shine. Further still, shine thine eyes on this line-up of TCPA wiseguys: Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 18:39:50 -0500 From: Jolley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [dvd-discuss] Technology Admin comments To: dvd-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message-id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The US Dept. of Commerce Technology Administration is inviting the public to make comments for the upcomming Workshop on Digital Entertainment and Rights Management. The workshop will be held on July 17. http://www.ta.doc.gov/comments/comments.htm Co-chairs Bond and Rogan will be joined by: - Jack Valenti, of Motion Picture Association of America - Rhett Dawson, of Information Technology Industry Council - Joe Tasker, of Information Technology Association of America - Mitch Glazier, Record Industry Association of America - Jon Potter, Digital Media Association - Stewart Vendery, Vivendi Universal - Preston Padden, Disney - Mike Miron, ContentGuard - Rick Lane, News Corp - Gordon Lyon, NIST - Rob Reid, Listen.com - Phillip Maggi, Computer Systems Policy Project - Tim Sheehy, IBM - Andrew Moss, Microsoft - Ted Cohen, EMI - Doug Comer, Intel - Bob Schwartz, McDermott, Will Emery (representing CEA and the Home Recording Rights Coalition.) They are asking for comments on the following: * The effectiveness of efforts to pursue technical standards or solutions that are designed to provide a more predictable and secure environment for digital transmission of copyrighted material; * Major obstacles facing an open commercial exchange of digital content; * What a future framework for success might entail; * Current consumer attitude towards online entertainment.
