Rick.C - Slashdot User

Comment PTAM (Score 2, Informative) 406

by Rick.C on Thursday September 10, 2009 @08:26AM (#29377023) Attached to: Pigeon Turns Out To Be Faster Than S. African Net

Back in the day (mid 1970s) when IBM appended "AM" (for Access Method) to all of their protocols, we had BTAM (Basic Telecommunications), TCAM (TeleCommunications), and VTAM (Virtual Telecommunications, which is still around today) to move data. It was widely acknowledged that when it came to raw bandwidth, even over long distances, PTAM (Pickup Truck Access Method) beat them all. You load up a pickup truck with hundreds or thousands of 200MB tapes and drive it across the country.

With 16GB micro SD cards, the statement holds true even today.

Comment Re:It was only "open source" becuz...... (Score 1) 102

by Rick.C on Friday August 21, 2009 @12:10PM (#29147361) Attached to: ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Apps

That's scary that you used the HALT-AND-CATCH-FIRE opcode so often that you still remember its decimal equivalent!

Comment New Dictionary Entry Needed (Score 2, Funny) 304

by Rick.C on Thursday October 23, 2008 @07:25AM (#25480123) Attached to: The Walking House

... under "squatters".

Cracking the GPS Galileo Satellite 364

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sunday July 09, 2006 @05:49AM from the giving-people-a-reason dept.

Glyn writes "Newswise is reporting the the encryption in the Galileo GPS signal has been broken. The pseudo random number generator used to obscure the information stored in the Galileo GPS signal has been broken. From the article: 'Members of Cornell's Global Positioning System (GPS) Laboratory have cracked the so-called pseudo random number (PRN) codes of Europe's first global navigation satellite, despite efforts to keep the codes secret. That means free access for consumers who use navigation devices -- including handheld receivers and systems installed in vehicles -- that need PRNs to listen to satellites.'"

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