John P’s Comments

• Nov 1st, 2015 @ 9:48am

  Re: aes-256

  on Awesome Stuff: The Internet... Who Needs It?
  That is so wrong. Allow me to quote from the wikipedia page on AES:
  

  
  This is a very small gain, as a 126-bit key (instead of 128-bits) would still take billions of years. Also, the authors calculate the best attack using their technique on AES with a 128 bit key requires storing 288 bits of data (which later has been improved to 256 [28] ). That works out to about 38 trillion terabytes of data, which is more than all the data stored on all the computers on the planet. As such this is a theoretical attack that has no practical implication on AES security. …
  
  As for now, there are no known practical attacks that would allow anyone to read correctly implemented AES encrypted data.
  

• Dec 25th, 2013 @ 8:54am

  prosecute

  on NSA Defenders Ratchet Up The Rhetoric: Two Former Gov't Officials Urge Hanging Ed Snowden
  Talk about killing the messenger.
  
  Is violating the constitution illegal in the USA? I have to wonder. Can someone be prosecuted in a state or a federal court for violating the 4th or the 1st amendment? Is there a law on the books with sentencing guidelines?
  
  Of course, you would need a prosecutor to bring the case. It seems that in the USA, government officials can violate the constitution with impunity. They eagerly pursue whistleblowers such as Snowden, while they ignore the corruption in their own house.
• May 17th, 2012 @ 5:38am

  there are no infinities in economics

  on Infinity Is Your Friend In Economics
  The abundance of a physical commodity is limited by the finite size of the earth. The abundance of computer information is limited by thermodynamics. You can get away with your hand-waving argument about infinities because the mathematics of x ∞. I will also point out that there are no equations presented. You cannot sway me without some equations.