Whaa?
NOTE: Mepps is only interested in recycling tails taken from squirrels that have been harvested for the table.
Well perhaps it’s time to go squirrel fishing … Apparently, squirrels make good eatin’.
polyphase.ca
In Soviet Canuckistan, Blogs Read You!
[Eric Rescorla][ekr] wrote a [great synopsis][ekr-auth] of the problems facing merchants, banks and consumers around improving the authentication of client problem as it relates to credit-card transactions. In ekr’s summary, he mentions that there are three broad authentication classes (I won’t repeat them here, but it’s work looking at ekr’s original post).
One thing that he mentions is that :
…The way that all of these systems work is that the server has some verifier V that it stores with my record. I have some secret information S that corresponds to V. When I authenticate, I provide an authenticator A (based on S) which the server checks against V…
…
S,A, and V are all different.
This is how public key authentication works. You store the private key (S). The server stores the public key (V)) The server provides some challenge which you sign to create A. The server can verify that you know S but can’t use that information to impersonate you to anyone else. (Note for crypto-nerds: the non-password equivalent zero-knowledge password protocols fit roughly into this category as well.)
From a security perspective, public-key type systems are vastly superior. However, their deployment has been spotty at best. The major reason is that it requires changing both the client and the server. In particular, computing A from S is nontrivial and requires software on the client side, which is an obvious deployment hassle. [...] , it’s easy to see how it could be a problem with credit card systems, since the terminals used to authenticate credit cards are extremely primitive and the protocols are difficult to change.
I don’t know about in the States, but here in Canada, most of the major banks (and we don’t have that many, thanks to the Chartered Bank Act), are moving to a smart-card style system that will require a PIN to unlock a client-side private key (on the SIM card-cum-credit-card). The protocol follows exactly the model above — nobody at the bank will ever know S and S is unlocked not by possession of the card, but with some PIN, known only to the client.
This is basically two-factor authentication, something I have (S) and something I know (PIN to unlock S), combined with public-key cryptography to perform a zero-knowledge proof authentication.
Hurrah, it isn’t perfect, but it is a huge step forward. It’s worth noting that this system has been deployed and operating in France for a number of years (it was widely deployed in 2001 and if I recall correctly, 1999).
People will argue that you’ll need to handle the old style cards; true, but you can raise the level of scrutiny on the old (non-SIM) cards as they are phased out. The sooner this transition is put into play, the sooner (and higher) you can raise that bar.
[ekr]: http://www.educatedguesswork.org/ “Eric Rescorla”
[ekr-auth]: http://www.educatedguesswork.org/movabletype/archives/2005/06/password_equiva.html “Password equivalence and identity theft (I)”
…
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.
…
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer Corp (AAPL) recently gave the commencement address at Stanford. It’s outstandingly good reading. Even if you don’t fall prey to his reality distortion field, one thing is certain, Apple Computer has been on the move these last few years, with their iPod, PowerBook, iMac, mac mini and recent switch to Intel CPUs.
Apple has been behaving like they got hit in the head with that metaphoric brick and things have been looking up ever since.
(Via nslog();.)
Last night I was eating dinner with my wife at our favorite local Sushi restaurant. The owners have run Sushi restaurants for a number of years and even moved from Vancouver (where we first met) to Calgary. They have an outstanding restaurant in Calgary and are really thriving in a market that has only just started to appreciate real, authentic, Japanese sushi.
As we left the restaurant last night, I noticed an H2 (faux-4×4) parked very poorly on the sidewalk (see photo, complete with wheel up on walk).
This struck me as little obnoxious and I was willing to let it go as ‘one of those H2 owner things’. Apparently someone else who frequents my favorite sushi restaurant felt it was important to let the H2 operator know his or her feelings. They left the H2 operator this note:
Your car is an affront to common sense, dignity, and the environment. Please consider a less ridiculous choice next time.
PS: Just HOW small is your penis?
I’m still laughing…
While reading /dev/null, I came across a rather silly site with one truly hilarious photograph:
Which cat ate the coffee beans?
To be perfectly honest — I don’t even really like cats all that much. Poor little guy.
(Via /dev/null.)
CNN reports today that a woman living near Kennedy Airport (NY) discovered some grizzly remains on her lawn. Authorities figure that the parts fell from a South African Airways flight.
People really ought to get the word out:
* Airliner wheel wells do not have a lot of spare room, if any, and;
* Flights on commercial jets strive to get to altitudes that are close to the tropopause or max cruise efficiency for the aircraft. For jet powered aircraft this altitude is a high as the wing will permit safe margins. The reasons are complex, but the higher you go, the better the efficiency. You can expect the temperatures at these altitudes to be somwhere between -55°C and -65°C. No place for a stowaway.
A small part of me just died. *sigh*
Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips
So many other bloggers will write about this until the cows come home. I just sincerely hope that Apple will continue to make stylish designs with the same industrial design excellence and utility for which they are so well known. One should never abuse the loyalties of the “Artiste2” crowd.
(Via Daring Fireball.)
Of course one of the best quotes I can find about the announcement’s reception:
The news that Apple Computer is switching to Intel has not been met with wailing and gnashing of teeth, as many had predicted, nor did any Mac fans throw themselves in front of a trolley car.
Clearly written by someone who knows the Mac community.
1Don’t remind me about the Newton™
2 A co-worker’s exact words were “UNPRINTABLE” — I suppose that is politically incorrect, but I might be one of them so I cannot decide how I feel about it.
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