Readit NewsDead Comment
Dead Comment
the regulations don't apply to Microsoft apparently, because even goddamn Bing has been better at it than Google for years now.
From a quick read of the README, which is not a rigorous description of the design (what does “computed from the cryptological digest” mean?), it seems this offers no authentication, fails completely if an attacker can observe the same file at two points in time, and there is no analysis of how big a tree can get before the chance of at least one directory having two files with the same nonce becoming significant.
However, it’s presented without caveats, and there’s no way for non-practitioners to assess whether it’s fit for their purposes.
Users might be led to think this is usable in the same scenarios as, say, gocryptfs, when if fact it’s completely insecure for real world use cases like encrypting a home directory to sync it on Dropbox.
as far as I can tell, they're neither inventing their own algorithms nor implementing existing algorithms from scratch. that's what "Don't roll your own crypto" supposed to mean, not "just use Bitlocker"
Dead Comment
(1) make it easier to build high density housing
(2) make housing an unattractive financial asset
Many have already talked about (1) but few understand (2) and what types of policies would promote it. This would include
- heavily taxing capital gains owning land (not taxing the improvements)
- limiting ownership to a very long lease (e.g. 99 yrs) similar to what they do in Singapore.
Both would be highly politically unpopular for the majority of Americans and therefore they do not get implemented. What people don't realize is that fixing the housing problem actually requires certain people to GIVE UP something:
- giving up the quality of your nice neighbourhood because a giant complex was built next door
- giving up much of the capital appreciation in your house because it appreciated
Both would be be highly unpopular for the majority of existing home owners. As a result everyone complains but politicians don't actually do anything and nothing changes. There is no such thing as additional affordable housing without any cost. There is a price to be paid. Most are not willing to pay it.
...and China.
I wholeheartedly agree with (2), but this is not the way to do it, for a number of reasons.