Version 2.04
Okay, maybe I do care about 'the seventh generation'. The environment is very important to sustaining our technological progress. Not abusing resources and cutting consumption can go a long way to prolonging our specie's life on this planet. Recently these ideas have started to take on a very extreme ideology. Government intrusion and extreme measures are being proposed as a solution. A near socialist state is being proposed simply so that we might see "The seventh generation". However, others have proposed a different solution, and I have expanded on it by doing a little math.
It goes like this.
The first thing that one might see when comparing so called first world countries and third world countries is that all first world countries have low birth rates. The Total Fertility Rate is the number of births per family unit. First worlders tend to have only 1 or 2 children. In the United States, the only reason we have 2.1 children per couple is because of immigrant families that have more. So let's do some math and figure out how much the average population is shrinking each year in these technologically advanced countries.
'first world' countries TFR
Australia.....................1.8
Canada........................1.6
France........................1.7
Germany.......................1.4
Ireland.......................1.9
Italy.........................1.2
Japan.........................1.4
UK............................1.7
USA...........................2.1
Weighted average by population
In this table I created a weight for each country based on their population compared to the largest population, The United States.
Australia..........19,546,792....0.069670012
Canada.............31,902,268....0.113708244
France.............59,765,983....0.213022002
Germany............83,251,851....0.296731938
Ireland............3,883,159.....0.013840621
Italy..............57,715,625....0.205713976
Japan..............126,974,628...0.452571648
UK.................59,778,002....0.213064841
USA................280,562,489...1.0
Total..............723,380,797...2.578323282
1.8*0.069670012+1.6*0.113708244+1.7*0.213022002+
1.4*0.296731938+1.9*0.013840621+1.2*0.205713976+
1.4*0.452571648+1.7*0.213064841+2.1*1.0 = 4.453865817
4.453865817 / 2.578323282 = 1.727427219
The average couple is having 1.727 children. So the average couple is having between one and two children, more often two, in first world countries.
1.727427219 / 2 = 0.8635
It takes two to make a child, so we divide our TFR by 2 to figure out the average population growth.
By this measure the population is shrinking pretty fast. Each generation has 14% less population. The cool thing about this is that if magically all of the world's populations were to have the infrastructure, but more importantly the contraceptives and the will to use them available to them, then the world's population would be cut in half within 5 generations. Having 3 billion less people on the planet means less pollution, the people within these societies are more environmentally conscious. The world population shrinks to just above a billion people within 12 generations. That's about half a square kilometer of earth per person, which is more then enough land to absorb our environmental footprint. Plus our technology will become more efficient and more environmentally responsible in the 280 years that have passed. In short by promoting women's rights, women's education, the use of contraceptives, the investment in retirement funds, and other first world luxuries that help to curb population growth, then we will naturally reduce our impact. Countries that experience this growth in pro-liberty/pro-technology ideals immediately start to see population drops. For instance Iran which may not be known here for being pro-liberty, has some very intellectual movements. For instance women's groups are operating and challenging traditional values. It's also been shown that as the population of women in a country become more educated they are less likely to have many children. Availability of contraceptives increases the chances of births in these nations being planned and wanted in advance. We don't need to have draconian policy that will stop economic and technological growth in the hopes of carving out some sort of indigenous Luddite life, as many extremists have proposed.
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000882.html
http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_pop.htm
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Random password generation and memorization
Version 1.5
Until biometrics become cheaper and more accessible to the consumer market, Wogs will have to depend on the security of passwords. Unfortunately, as computers get faster, the capabilities of time/memory trade off techniques (Rainbow Tables) and dictionary based password crackers are becoming amazing.
Keeping your password secure is important on a system because if someone compromises an account through an exploit they could get a hold of the hashes that the system compares your password to, to allow access. In order to stop this from happening the other passwords not compromised must also stay uncompromised. This requires all passwords to be complex, secure, and memorable.
The solution is to use this system of random password generation:
You will need
One 100 sided die
or
Two 10 sided dice
For all current hashing algorithms the following characters are available for
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnop
qrstuvwxyz0123456789!@#$%^&*()-_+=~`[]{}|\:;"'<>,.?/
52 letters, 10 numbers and 32 special characters, for a total of 94 characters. We need to use one of each category of letters, numbers and special characters. In fact though we need to maintain an even distribution of letters, numbers, and special characters so we are going to load the last 6 slots with some numbers, you can use any random assortment of six letters or characters.
You may use this table here:
Rainbow tables can crack any hash if a programmer wants to, and script kiddie tools already exist for cracking LM, LMNT, MD5, and SHA1 hashes. With large amounts of computing power it could take as little as six months, maybe less to create tables for 99.99% of the hashes for the character set we use assuming a 14 character password. Project Shmoo is already offering rainbowtables for the LM and LMNT hashes over bittorrent. What this means is that passwords on computer accounts are crackable unless they are 15 characters long. This means that in addition to making sure our passwords use every type of character, we need to have a password that is longer then 15 characters.
Every account needs to have these tough passwords. This is because if an attacker has an exploit that allows the bypass of account permissions, any account that the attacker has access to could potentially allow them to climb the ladder and own your box. To accomplish this without writing passwords down we will infuse an easy to remember word, with randomly generated characters. So the procedure is simple, in order to get to the recommended 15 think up a normal password and put the randomly generated characters in somehow, and don't tell anyone about it.
Remembering your password
The first memory trick is muscle memory. Memory is really just a response to certain stimuli. This gives the illusion that outward influences have a memory of their own. For instance as I type this post, my subconscious is remembering what signals to send my hands. The stimulus of being seated at the keyboard is a key component in remembering how to type, otherwise we would go insane, constantly remembering useless information at times that more then a bit inappropriate. Your first task in remembering a new password is to execute ten commands using #sudo making sure you have to type in your password each time. Use muscle memory to learn the salt (random characters) of your password.
The second trick is Priming
If there is only one manipulative trick you learn, make sure it is priming. It is the basis, for cold reading, convincing argument, and most of all false memory. Priming has other uses though. When your memorizing something, you can surround it with other similar concepts that help to enhance the memory. However, make sure that the concepts you choose also naturally lead you to the password. This is how it works:
1. Think of your salted password.
2. Write an associative list based off your password 15 words should be enough.
3. Pick 3 of the words that represent three aspects of your password.
4. Write 3 more associative lists from these three words, and pick 3 words that represent aspects of your password, from each.
5. Think of your password and the 9 aspects.
After this you should be able to remember your salted password. Using muscle memory it should solidify soon.
The third trick is Emotion
When you want to remember anything, stimulating an emotion around it will create a subconscious link between that concept and the emotion. For passwords, I like to link the emotions of happiness. Now the actual application is hard to explain, so I'll leave you the two tricks above and simply say that linking the typing of your password to a memory that has a strong emotion, which all old memories do, will make it easy to remember.
Until biometrics become cheaper and more accessible to the consumer market, Wogs will have to depend on the security of passwords. Unfortunately, as computers get faster, the capabilities of time/memory trade off techniques (Rainbow Tables) and dictionary based password crackers are becoming amazing.
Keeping your password secure is important on a system because if someone compromises an account through an exploit they could get a hold of the hashes that the system compares your password to, to allow access. In order to stop this from happening the other passwords not compromised must also stay uncompromised. This requires all passwords to be complex, secure, and memorable.
The solution is to use this system of random password generation:
You will need
One 100 sided die
or
Two 10 sided dice
For all current hashing algorithms the following characters are available for
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnop
qrstuvwxyz0123456789!@#$%^&*()-_+=~`[]{}|\:;"'<>,.?/
52 letters, 10 numbers and 32 special characters, for a total of 94 characters. We need to use one of each category of letters, numbers and special characters. In fact though we need to maintain an even distribution of letters, numbers, and special characters so we are going to load the last 6 slots with some numbers, you can use any random assortment of six letters or characters.
You may use this table here:
Rainbow tables can crack any hash if a programmer wants to, and script kiddie tools already exist for cracking LM, LMNT, MD5, and SHA1 hashes. With large amounts of computing power it could take as little as six months, maybe less to create tables for 99.99% of the hashes for the character set we use assuming a 14 character password. Project Shmoo is already offering rainbowtables for the LM and LMNT hashes over bittorrent. What this means is that passwords on computer accounts are crackable unless they are 15 characters long. This means that in addition to making sure our passwords use every type of character, we need to have a password that is longer then 15 characters.
Every account needs to have these tough passwords. This is because if an attacker has an exploit that allows the bypass of account permissions, any account that the attacker has access to could potentially allow them to climb the ladder and own your box. To accomplish this without writing passwords down we will infuse an easy to remember word, with randomly generated characters. So the procedure is simple, in order to get to the recommended 15 think up a normal password and put the randomly generated characters in somehow, and don't tell anyone about it.
Remembering your password
The first memory trick is muscle memory. Memory is really just a response to certain stimuli. This gives the illusion that outward influences have a memory of their own. For instance as I type this post, my subconscious is remembering what signals to send my hands. The stimulus of being seated at the keyboard is a key component in remembering how to type, otherwise we would go insane, constantly remembering useless information at times that more then a bit inappropriate. Your first task in remembering a new password is to execute ten commands using #sudo making sure you have to type in your password each time. Use muscle memory to learn the salt (random characters) of your password.
The second trick is Priming
If there is only one manipulative trick you learn, make sure it is priming. It is the basis, for cold reading, convincing argument, and most of all false memory. Priming has other uses though. When your memorizing something, you can surround it with other similar concepts that help to enhance the memory. However, make sure that the concepts you choose also naturally lead you to the password. This is how it works:
1. Think of your salted password.
2. Write an associative list based off your password 15 words should be enough.
3. Pick 3 of the words that represent three aspects of your password.
4. Write 3 more associative lists from these three words, and pick 3 words that represent aspects of your password, from each.
5. Think of your password and the 9 aspects.
After this you should be able to remember your salted password. Using muscle memory it should solidify soon.
The third trick is Emotion
When you want to remember anything, stimulating an emotion around it will create a subconscious link between that concept and the emotion. For passwords, I like to link the emotions of happiness. Now the actual application is hard to explain, so I'll leave you the two tricks above and simply say that linking the typing of your password to a memory that has a strong emotion, which all old memories do, will make it easy to remember.
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