Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

So long and thanks for all the bits

ncsc.gov.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 82 posts

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#31

Post by elevation »

cjrp wrote: post #26
travisgriggs wrote: post #23

As a pilot, loved the B17 bit. I am intrigued by the memory safety section. It’s a hot topic these days, right? So here’s an interesting thought experiment. What if all these areas where we use memory-unsafe technologies were replaced by memory managed technologies like C#, Python, Go, etc. Sure, lots of things would run slower (raw TLS in Python, yay), BUT would there suddenly just be less exploits? Or is this area…

I was confused by the B17 fact; if you’re at the stage of lowering the gear (flying slowly), pulling the wrong lever and going full flap would do not much? Now if you were taking off and went to raise the gear and lifted the flaps instead, then that's a problem.

Large changes in lift (flaps) must be coordinated with changes in thrust (engines) to keep the aircraft level or slightly descending.

A large reduction in lift (raising flaps) will cause a aircraft to dive. A large increase in lift (lowering flaps) will cause a aircraft to stall -- and fall.

Either of these changes would be recoverable if there were more thrust or more altitude, both of which are intentionally minimized during a landing.

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#32

Post by lifeisstillgood »

The comments about Heartbleed and OpenSSL suggest (to me) his behind the scenes thinking:

Airplanes don't fall out of the sky because transport safety boards do the analysis and the manufacturers follow their advice - the idea is only one planet crashes per type of mistake.

Well it's hard to get a group of open source developers to follow cleanroom techniques for free. I am guessing that the thinking is to fund the identified OSS groups.

Which is nice...

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#33

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

tristor wrote: post #30
laputan_machine wrote: post #19

> They were intended to provide more privacy to users from all sorts of parties, but mainly government and big tech companies. The problem is that DOH makes enterprise cyber security very hard and also damages things like ISP parental controls, and some filtering for child sexual abuse images Man getting paid to spy on people complains about not being able to spy on people and uses the tried and tested "think of the…

It's an unfortunate reality that the UK Government has taken a strong anti-privacy and particularly anti-DoH stance for ages. They've used every political and technical lever possible to prevent users from having any reasonable level of online privacy within the UK, and one of their favorite things to do is to trot out "non-profits" that focus on child exploitation to talk about anything that gives a user any semblan…

There are far more Daily Express readers than computer networking technology professionals who vote for whoever the next Home Secretary will be.

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#34

Post by [deleted] »

laputan_machine wrote: post #19

> They were intended to provide more privacy to users from all sorts of parties, but mainly government and big tech companies. The problem is that DOH makes enterprise cyber security very hard and also damages things like ISP parental controls, and some filtering for child sexual abuse images Man getting paid to spy on people complains about not being able to spy on people and uses the tried and tested "think of the…

[deleted]

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#35

Post by fundad »

mindcrime wrote: post #9
sacrosanct wrote: post #5

> thanks for all the bits Am I missing something here? What's the headline supposed to mean? Is it a tongue-in-cheek gesture, since GCHQ routinely hoover up personal data and spy on both their citizenry and foreign countries?

It's a paraphrase or restatement of the phrase "so long and thanks for all the fish", the title of one of the books in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Changing "fish" to "bits" is interesting, as it could be "just" a reference to life in the modern age and that this individual is leaving a techie oriented job that deals with "bits and bytes". Or it could be a really on the nose "joke" making l…

doesn't bits refer to genitals?

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#37

Post by agency »

kitd wrote: post #28
ableal wrote: post #3

Worth the read just for the horrible B-17 bit used as opener. Good hook.

It reminds me of the accidental Hawaii nuclear missile alert a few years back. AIUI, the button to test the system was in close proximity to the button to send the real thing.

Or much lower stakes but the terrible UI that caused Citibank to accidentally give away $500M[1] (though they got it back on appeal [2]). I am always amazed to see the awful, awful software people put up with to do their jobs.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/citibank-just-go...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/citigroup-wins-appeal-ove...

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#38

Post by JALTU »

lbriner wrote: post #25
travisgriggs wrote: post #23

As a pilot, loved the B17 bit. I am intrigued by the memory safety section. It’s a hot topic these days, right? So here’s an interesting thought experiment. What if all these areas where we use memory-unsafe technologies were replaced by memory managed technologies like C#, Python, Go, etc. Sure, lots of things would run slower (raw TLS in Python, yay), BUT would there suddenly just be less exploits? Or is this area…

One of the big reasons that these garbage-collected type languages were not used on critical code was that the timing couldn't be guaranteed. You can't afford a massive L1 garbage collection just at the point you are trying to land a plane or disable a nuclear reactor. Not sure whether this is still a problem now that computers are way faster but my own experience is that despite the resources available, our apps are…

1000%

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#39

Post by CamperBob2 »

javajosh wrote: post #36
ableal wrote: post #3

Worth the read just for the horrible B-17 bit used as opener. Good hook.

He also could have used Chernobyl as an example.

Chernobyl was very different, due to the negligence factor. "Hold my vodka and watch THIS" is no way to run a nuclear power plant.

Re: So long and thanks for all the bits

#40

Post by thombat »

fundad wrote: post #35
mindcrime wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a paraphrase or restatement of the phrase "so long and thanks for all the fish", the title of one of the books in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Changing "fish" to "bits" is interesting, as it could be "just" a reference to life in the modern age and that this individual is leaving a techie oriented job that deals with "bits and bytes". Or it could be a really on the nose "joke" making l…

doesn't bits refer to genitals?

In British vernacular about a quarter of all common words can be used to refer to genitals and/or intimate acts, especially when said out loud with the right intonation.

One time in London I lost my rag with a local colleague and snarled at him "is there nothing you can't make innuendo from?!?" And without missing a beat he simply leered back "in-YOUR-end-o"

Post reply on HN