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Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

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Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#21

Post by killjoywashere »

ay wrote: post #18
heleninboodler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if there's anything wrong with Sheildsup (other than my recollection of it being a pretty run of the mill tool for reporting open ports), but the guy who makes Shieldsup is, in my opinion, basically a charlatan. He writes loads and loads of technical-sounding blather on his website that is very transparently designed to make him look like an expert on security to people who don't know any better. He's ma…

FWIW, he’s been at it for about 20 years.

> he’s been at it for about 20 years.

At least. I remember finding his site back in 2004 and it felt long in the tooth then. Complete with blink tags.

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#22

Post by CyberDildonics »

icecube123 wrote: post #20
heleninboodler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if there's anything wrong with Sheildsup (other than my recollection of it being a pretty run of the mill tool for reporting open ports), but the guy who makes Shieldsup is, in my opinion, basically a charlatan. He writes loads and loads of technical-sounding blather on his website that is very transparently designed to make him look like an expert on security to people who don't know any better. He's ma…

Thats over 20 years old. Its not worth mentioning in this discussion. He only sells one product, Spin-Rite which actually works pretty well for its purpose, tho it’s becoming less important as we move more towards SSD. It sounds like you’re spreading misinformation just for the hell of it.

You only have one other comment and it was 16 months ago, this must have really touched a nerve.

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#24

Post by blacksmith_tb »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #19
InCityDreams wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use the DNS speed finder.

Is this a joke? What does that mean?

At a guess, that would be this freeware util[1], which looks like a Win-only and slightly spiffier version of Namebench[2].

1: https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

2: https://code.google.com/archive/p/namebench/

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#25

Post by svc0 »

icecube123 wrote: post #20
heleninboodler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if there's anything wrong with Sheildsup (other than my recollection of it being a pretty run of the mill tool for reporting open ports), but the guy who makes Shieldsup is, in my opinion, basically a charlatan. He writes loads and loads of technical-sounding blather on his website that is very transparently designed to make him look like an expert on security to people who don't know any better. He's ma…

Thats over 20 years old. Its not worth mentioning in this discussion. He only sells one product, Spin-Rite which actually works pretty well for its purpose, tho it’s becoming less important as we move more towards SSD. It sounds like you’re spreading misinformation just for the hell of it.

I've always been curious why people so fervently dislike Gibson. I think the most genuine criticism is that Spin-Rite is not a backup solution and people may rely on it as such. Ideally, no one should need it since all data should be replicated and backed up. Any drive can fail at any time for any reason and it may be totally unrecoverable.

[Side Note: He also once claimed in a "testimonial" that a special ops team recovered data off of a hard drive during a mission in which they hit a terrorist with a computer.]

That being said, he produces a free security podcast which is quite good. He knows his stuff.

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#26

Post by [deleted] »

heleninboodler wrote: post #17
daniel-s wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Shieldsup? My experience is that it works perfectly fine.

I don't know if there's anything wrong with Sheildsup (other than my recollection of it being a pretty run of the mill tool for reporting open ports), but the guy who makes Shieldsup is, in my opinion, basically a charlatan. He writes loads and loads of technical-sounding blather on his website that is very transparently designed to make him look like an expert on security to people who don't know any better. He's ma…

[deleted]

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#27

Post by pdonis »

killjoywashere wrote: post #21
ay wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, he’s been at it for about 20 years.

> he’s been at it for about 20 years. At least. I remember finding his site back in 2004 and it felt long in the tooth then. Complete with blink tags.

Gibson Research Corporation was founded in 1985. I can remember seeing references to articles of his in the late 1980s on Compuserve.

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#28

Post by pdonis »

svc0 wrote: post #25
icecube123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats over 20 years old. Its not worth mentioning in this discussion. He only sells one product, Spin-Rite which actually works pretty well for its purpose, tho it’s becoming less important as we move more towards SSD. It sounds like you’re spreading misinformation just for the hell of it.

I've always been curious why people so fervently dislike Gibson. I think the most genuine criticism is that Spin-Rite is not a backup solution and people may rely on it as such. Ideally, no one should need it since all data should be replicated and backed up. Any drive can fail at any time for any reason and it may be totally unrecoverable. [Side Note: He also once claimed in a "testimonial" that a special ops team r…

> Any drive can fail at any time for any reason and it may be totally unrecoverable.

While in principle this is true, I have been using hard drives for more than 30 years now in PCs and I have never had one fail. I still back things up to separate drives since there's always a first time, but I've never used SpinRite or any other extra "protection" over and above what my OS provided.

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#29

Post by svc0 »

pdonis wrote: post #28
svc0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been curious why people so fervently dislike Gibson. I think the most genuine criticism is that Spin-Rite is not a backup solution and people may rely on it as such. Ideally, no one should need it since all data should be replicated and backed up. Any drive can fail at any time for any reason and it may be totally unrecoverable. [Side Note: He also once claimed in a "testimonial" that a special ops team r…

> Any drive can fail at any time for any reason and it may be totally unrecoverable. While in principle this is true, I have been using hard drives for more than 30 years now in PCs and I have never had one fail. I still back things up to separate drives since there's always a first time, but I've never used SpinRite or any other extra "protection" over and above what my OS provided.

There are stats on failure rates and bathtub curves. Consumer hard drives these days have an AFT of ~1.41%. Never used SpinRite and I don't know if there is evidence for it but I suggest you backup your data.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q3-...

Re: Gibson Research Corporation's Ultra-High Entropy Pseudo-Random Number Generator

#30

Post by xrayarx »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #24
CyberDildonics wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? What does that mean?

At a guess, that would be this freeware util[1], which looks like a Win-only and slightly spiffier version of Namebench[2]. 1: https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm 2: https://code.google.com/archive/p/namebench/

There doesn’t seem to be any new versions of Namebench since 2010. The grc tool was last updated in 2019 according to the website.

There are other tools, but it is not as important as it used to be.

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