Clem Martins's Blog - All Comments

RE: Bug in FPGA?

Fred27 — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 09:35:18 GMT

Bitstreams can always be modified. What this attack enables it to read out from the device (albeit very slowly) in its unencrypted form

This potentially allowing copying of intellectual property and perhaps reverse-engineering, although I suspect reverse engineering a bitstream to anything understandable would be harder than decompiling source code. No fun at all!

RE: Bug in FPGA?

michaelkellett — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 08:30:26 GMT

Yes, but, the attack requires close and invasive physical access to the target.

As X said, if the attacker has close access to the target you have bigger problems than breaking bit stream encryption.

It does support my unproven law of all security systems - they can be broken - always !

RE: Has Anyone Heard This?

ralphjy — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:26:38 GMT

Interesting, I have a 2K monitor but never tried using it with an RPi4. It’s good to know. Won’t be a big problem for me to avoid using that mode.

RE: Has Anyone Heard This?

ankur608 — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 16:08:37 GMT

Haven't tested it yet, following the link, it's definitely a bigger issue.

RE: Flash Back

cstanton — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 11:32:22 GMT

Wouldn't automation of the actual programming be a sign of the rise of genuine artificial intelligence? Short of programming being a direct translation of natural language instruction?

Current artificial intelligence isn't much more than logic states, however you rarely hear about software or hardware being created with the ability to reprogramme itself.

RE: Flash Back

Jan Cumps — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 08:51:01 GMT

Google has also automated big parts of the exercise.

It replaced “develop a library” with “apt-get install library” or “pip get library” and copy/paste.

I think Google is the biggest software reuse initiative. The number #1 code writing eliminator.

RE: Flash Back

Andrew J — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 08:45:03 GMT

Automation of the mundane/rote elements of software has been for a long time, as Doug references above. 4GLs have been around as long as I remember.

I have access to an interesting book from 1959: Programming Programme for the BESM Computer by A.P. ERSHOV. This presents the results of one of the first experiments to develop a programming programme for electronic computers. The work was carried out initially in the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Calculation Techniques in the USSR Academy of Sciences and subsequently and then Computation Centre of the Academy. BESM (Bolshaya Elektronno-Schetnaya Mashina) is a universal digital 3-address machine, carrying out 8-10 thousand operations on the average.

Alan Turing’s paper on computers described an approach whereby the machine itself would ‘program’ itself as it computated through a paper tape of data and instructions, writing new data and instruction onto the tape.

Even back in the day, then, they were looking at this! I think programmers’ jobs are safe still.

RE: Flash Back

dougw — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 14:41:32 GMT

Software and programming has been increasingly automated ever since the days of hand assembly.

How much do libraries automate the process?

With configurable OCX's in VB you hardly had to write any code to make very complex applications.

A lot of programs in the near future will be "written" by dragging a bunch of libraries into a repository, defining some input and what output is required and presto ... the job is done.

That won't spell the end of software design and programming, if anything it might increase the demand for programmers, but lots of coding by the masses will be essentially automated.

RE: Is my chip real?

cstanton — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 17:15:40 GMT

Yeah, with FTDI - we had a number of students in the University I worked at buy FTDI serial cables and wonder why their hardware no longer worked, or that they couldn't programme the microcontrollers.

https://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-drivers-break-fake-chips-again/

RE: Is my chip real?

dubbie — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 12:58:12 GMT

If it looks too cheap to be true then it probably isn't true. But then again, I do not mind having a cheaper chip even if it is 'recycled' provided it works. There is the moral issue of course, of the chip being unclearly represented. To be honest, even if the chip was classed as recycled, I might still buy it, provided it works.

Dubbie

RE: And the Beat Goes on...

beacon_dave — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:48:21 GMT

"Can anyone tell me why you need an internet connection for Windows 98?"

If I recall correctly, Win 98 didn't ship with drivers for USB mass storage devices, so you had to download them from an Internet site if there wasn't a diskette or CD included with the product.

(in this case it would have been a bit cruel to ship the driver on the USB memory device…)

RE: And the Beat Goes on...

cstanton — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:21:30 GMT

I stumbled upon this recently in my cupboard..

[View:/resized-image/__size/614x399/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-5ae83940-cc35-43b9-8bdb-16b24a7523d7/contentimage_5F00_205855.png:614:399]

No-one believed that it worked, that it could work, and that it could function. It was ahead of its time, and I've been meaning to tinker with it and incorporate it into a project, perhaps with VR.

It's an OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator.

RE: Guido van Rossum: Python Creator Retires

cstanton — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:17:11 GMT

Huh, this isn't something I expected - though it explains why Dropbox's implementation on linux was always somewhat non standard in how it followed running with system services.

RE: What is a Quantum Computer in Layman Terms.

grondak — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 00:58:15 GMT

I watched this video and then ran the tutorials on the IBM quantum computers. That was a lot of fun. I learned enough to make a "superdense information transfer" example work (this is outside the tutorial).

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdense_coding

RE: Guido van Rossum: Python Creator Retires

clem57 — Thu, 23 Jan 2020 14:41:03 GMT

[mention:d25512d61e65470296ce2f82f47741ab:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] Here is a link to python 3.5 (actually a micropython variation) on a web browser like chrome:http://micropython.org/unicorn/http://micropython.org/unicorn/