fsterman - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Problem with End-to-End Web Crypto (indolering.com)

Submitted by fsterman on Monday April 06, 2015 @02:43PM

fsterman writes: Since the Snowden revelations, E2E web crypto has become trendy. There are browser add-ons that bolt a PGP client onto webmail and both Yahoo and Google are planning to support PGP directly. They attempt to prevent UI spoofing with icons similar to the site-authentication banks use to combat phishing.

The problem is that a decade of research shows that users habituate to these icons and come to ignore them. An attacker can pull off UI spoofing with a 90%+ success rate.

Submission + - Research Shows RISC vs CISC Doesn't Matter 1

Submitted by fsterman on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @07:51PM

fsterman writes: The power advantages brought by the RISC instruction sets used in Power and ARM chips is often pitted against the X86's efficiencies of scale. It's difficult to asses how much the difference between instruction sets matter because teasing out the theoretical efficiency of an ISA from the proficiency of a chip's design team, technical expertise of its manufacturer, and support for architecture-specific optimizations in compilers is nearly impossible . However, new research examining the performance of a variety of ARM, MIPS, and X86 processors gives weight to Intel's conclusion: the benefits of a given ISA to the power envelope of a chip are minute.

Submission + - Counterfeit-Proof Physical Bitcoins

Submitted by fsterman on Saturday February 08, 2014 @08:37PM

fsterman writes: What do you get when you cross physical one-way-functions, a distributed and secure datastore, with physical Bitcoins? A viable alternative currency for micro-nations and dictatorships with hyper-inflation.

Submission + - Petition for metric in US halfway to requiring response from the White House (whitehouse.gov)

Submitted by

fsterman

on Sunday January 06, 2013 @08:48PM

fsterman writes: "Without any prompting from the US Metric Association, a We The People petition to standardize the US on the metric system has received 13,000 signatures in six days. That's half the number needed for an official response from the White House. It looks like ending the US's anti-metric alliance with Liberia and Burma (the only other countries NOT on the US metric system) might rank up there with building a death star."

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