As you can see, parallelized operations boost the speed tremendously on my Q6600 system with a pretty standard MB and RAM. Finally some useful perk that comes from having a quad core system I guess. Mean speed used to be 85-87 MB/s at best and is now around 340 MB/s.

This could mean that other schemes besides AES, which I think most people use, will be feasible since the processing speed will no longer be the bottleneck. But as you can see, AES defeats the competition even more soundly in this implementation and so it will probably still be the algorithm of choice for most benchmark lovers. It will be interesting to see the results on my other dual core (Wolfdale) system, which scored really, really well in Truecrypt 5.

Before:

After:

Encrypt and resist!

The conclusion from their report:

Contrary to popular belief, DRAMs hold their values for surprisingly long intervals without power or refresh. Our experiments show that this fact enables a variety of security attacks that can extract sensitive information such as cryptographic keys from memory, despite the operating system’s best efforts to protect memory contents. The attacks we describe are practical—for example, we have used them to defeat several popular disk encryption systems.

Other types of software may be similarly vulnerable. DRM systems often rely on symmetric keys stored in memory, which may be recoverable using the techniques outlined in our paper. As we have shown, SSL-enabled web servers are vulnerable, since they often keep in memory private keys needed to establish SSL sessions. Furthermore, methods similar to our key-?nder would likely be effective for locating passwords, account numbers, or other sensitive data in memory.

There seems to be no easy remedy for these vulnerabilities. Simple software changes are likely to be ineffective; hardware changes are possible but will require time and expense; and today’s Trusted Computing technologies appear to be of little help because they cannot protect keys that are already in memory. The risk seems highest for laptops, which are often taken out in public in states that are vulnerable to our attacks. These risks imply that disk encryption on laptops may do less good than widely believed. Ultimately, it might become necessary to treat DRAM as untrusted, and to avoid storing sensitive con?dential data there, but this will not be feasible until architectures are changed to give software a safe place to keep its keys.

Executive Executive Summary
The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history

And not just for Microsoft but for the entire industry as Microsoft’s privileged position is bound to change not only the software side and competition but the hardware business as well. No one can avoid Vista in the long run and the long arm of Microsoft, and incidentally the MPAA et al, will get to you no matter if have a Mac or run Linux. And the worst part about it is that you can’t escape. Unlike when XP came out you cannot linger on like you did in Windows 98SE or Windows 2000. Not if you want to keep up with new games in particular. DX10 may not matter to some developers, but those developers are often the same that champion OpenGL anyway. For the end user, Vista is simply unavoidable in the long run.

The rest of us are just going to have to wait and see. Between us and Vista is a whole array of problems, ranging from slow or incompatible hardware, programs to the fact that Vista currently needs at least half a service pack and a proper activation crack.

GPU is a Gnutella client that creates ad-hoc supercomputers by allowing individual PCs on the network to share CPU resources with each other. That’s intriguing enough, but the really interesting thing about GPU is the license its developers have given it. They call it a “no military use” modified version of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Tiziano Mengotti and Rene Tegel are the lead developers on the GPU project. Mengotti is the driving force behind the license “patch,” which says “the program and its derivative work will neither be modified or executed to harm any human being nor through inaction permit any human being to be harmed.”

Mengotti says the clause is specifically intended to prevent military use. “We are software developers who dedicate part of our free time to open source development. The fact is that open source is used by the military industry. Open source operating systems can steer warplanes and rockets. [This] patch should make clear to users of the software that this is definitely not allowed by the licenser.”

He says some might think an attempt to prevent military use might be “too idealistic” and would not work in practice, but he references the world of ham radio, whose rules specify that the technology is not to be used commercially. “Surprisingly enough, this rule is respected by almost every ham operator.”

With the 0.5 release, Miranda IM introduces Unicode support, to further improve integration into multi-language systems. Available now are 2 separate download options. The Unicode version is available for Windows NT, 2000, and XP users and a non-Unicode version is available for Windows 9x and ME users. Another new feature of this release is the introduction of AIM Oscar. This provides users with the ability to transfer files and receive away messages that previous versions did not support. This release also increases the support for avatars among many of the protocols. Along with plenty of bug fixes and new features, we hope you will find Miranda IM 0.5 a satisfying release.

Amazing work really. The entire program and its plugin library has really matured a lot since its last iteration. Unicode is great obviously. The enhanced contact lists work like a charm. There is even a brand new History++ plugin that fixes one of the last remaining issues with the Miranda experience.

Way to go. Especially since you know the scene releases are going to be stripped of any such obstacle and the only people to actually suffer will no doubt be the average user who may have to provide constant authentication whenever changing the setup. And much like, say, alcolocks in cars, the risk that something will prevent you from using your product increases dramatically.
One could speculate that MS is not so certain that this technology will work as intended that they would tie it into any deeper processes than the glossy interface. If they really followed through with the alcolock metaphor, there would be scores of people who’d get their setups effectively trashed because something triggered the integrity alert.

Then again, as has been recently pointed out again, Microsoft isn’t at a total loss when its software is infringed upon. Like Bill Gates let slip a few years back: “[...] as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”

So this is tilting at windmills. For most people, the main problem with Vista remains the implementation of media DRM (like HDCP), its almost limitless hogging of resources and the fact that product tie-ins (like Halo 2 on the software side and an entire generation of graphics hardware) will be delayed as Vista is delayed. Plus its break with backward software compatibility of course.

While I for one couldn’t be happier if the damned thing never was released, the exclusive content being developed for Vista does present a problem. With the delay that was announced the other day we can of course deduct that Halo 2 PC wont be released for xmas either. Not to mention the hardware which will go hand in hand with DX10 and the new GUI. Needless to say, people aren’t very happy with this.

Today there is the rumour that MS will have to rewrite up to 60% of the code before the launch, particularly in the entertainment and media centre portion of the OS. Not to mention the indication that actually doing anything besides just booting Vista will require at least 2GB of memory.

What immediately ensued of course upon learning of this shocking bid, and the integrity of MySQL AB was a slew of attacks on the company and their flagship database product. Despite recent tests putting MySQL neck to neck with the far more expensive and boastful competition, some people just can’t get over how good MySQL really is. Nor can they stomach MySQL’s insistence upon open-source GPL and fighting the good fight against software patents. Bottom line, there are more than one reason for Oracle and other greedy corporations wanting to break MySQL. For some time now, Oracle has been working to corner MySQL and I guess the plan is to either force them to sell or run them out of business. What this would mean for end-users is hard to say though. Most likely the free version licence would remain in the case of a takeover? At any rate, MySQL needs a transactional engine that they have complete control over.

As for bashing MySQL, I would refer you to the list of clients and see if you’re still willing to bash them for using MySQL products. No wonder Oracle is desperate and their groupies and corporate muckrakers are salivating.

Bottom line, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs most likely wont sell very well. Most of us can’t get anything extra out of them anyway as our outdated TVs or monitors just wont do them justice. And crap like this surely wont make the deal any better. I’ll keep downloading my movies, thank you very much. And as for those still needing to play HD content, I’m sure there’ll be some sort of patch when the time comes that can kill the player firmware (like RPC) and disable whatever measures the OS takes to protect the data. A HDCP graphics card may just make that all the more difficult. The real issue is going to be having a GPU or a fast enough CPU that can handle H.264 decoding.