asciilifeform: i.e. - a place to which thinking men could defect.
asciilifeform: the worst thing for a totalitarian reich (like usg and its 'international kommunity' muppet theatre) is - the existence of a 'pepsi' alternative.
asciilifeform: decimation: it is necessary to understand why usg must do what it does. as in a 'wild west' film, 'ain't room enough in this town for the both of us'
asciilifeform: thiel, like his fellows, is less of a baron (with the attendant inviolable privileges) than a... reichsführer. whose lands, posts - are contingent on playing ball and being good boy.
asciilifeform: great story. how nostalgic! like robert sheckley's 'the academy.' usa was once a rich country, people imagined that they would get to retire into comfortable prisons when an 'age of the robot' comes
asciilifeform: om 140352 in building 16, resident quant C. This assignment provides you with suitable housing and nourishment to sustain your life. Please board the bus."'
asciilifeform: '"Do you have guest status with any resident?" The robot asked. "No." "Do you have means of support unknown to me?" I suppose I could have stashed a cache of gold under my mattress, and this question allowed me to declare it. Such a cache would, of course, be grounds for arrest, so I was screwed either way. "No." I was without any means of support. "In accordance with ordinance 605.12b, you have been assigned ro
asciilifeform: as pictured in films 'cloud atlas', 'deadlock', etc.
asciilifeform: this kind of tale will read as utopian hogwash when the -proper- (e.g., with electroshock and mine) collars are issued.
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: lost the link also long ago. thank you for digging it out
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: lol!!! i read that years ago
asciilifeform: use lithium 'aa' cells rather than alkalines, or you won't have >3v when cells are not quite new any more.
asciilifeform: it doesn't have to be a coin cell, either. can attach one of, say, these - http://www.ictradenet.com/models_pic/BH2AA-W.jpg - to outside of cartridge. drill a hole, attach terminals to correct spots. won't win any beauty contests, but will work.☟︎
asciilifeform: (soldered-in batteries are a classic 'forced obsolescence' scam.)
asciilifeform: thestringpuller: alternatively, solder in a battery holder of appropriate shape, and insert battery after it cools.
asciilifeform: this is less than ideal, but will work.
asciilifeform: i recommend attaching a replacement battery using conductive epoxy.
asciilifeform: i regret to say that i do not run a repair shop.
asciilifeform: notice when diddled cpus are commonly thought to have appeared. not only when vlsi went far enough to create a comfortable padded hiding place, but when spread of linux, etc. exposed the limits of the diddled-os approach.
asciilifeform: so now dr. evil needs to sell nice, convenient cpu with baked in crypto
asciilifeform: then somebody finds it. or miscreants start using illegal111 os without said feature.
asciilifeform: which conveniently record key and mail it off.
asciilifeform: so he begins with cheapest variant - politely asks microshit to include convenient crypto routines in os.
asciilifeform: only want to hear rsa key. (or aes, whatever.)
asciilifeform: but have some sympathy for poor dr. evil. he only has, what, half a dozen vans in a city. doesn't care to sift through every idiot playing 'quake' pissing in his sse regs.
asciilifeform: instead - why not fool you - victim - to let the cpu know precisely when it is handling private key.
asciilifeform: but this would take up a good deal of real estate on the chip die, and someone might notice.
asciilifeform: it is, in principle, possible for dr. evil's cpu to recognize when, e.g, given version of gpg is in the process of taking the modular exponentiation.
asciilifeform: because it would not do to transmit constantly (might interfere with neighbour's teledildotron and she'll tip you off)
asciilifeform: but first it needs to know when to begin and end transmission
asciilifeform: chip will transmit plan to waiting gasenwagen with antennae, over power line hiss.
asciilifeform: he wants to know when you - victim - will be deciphering/signing battle plan.
asciilifeform: consider the problems dr. evil faces when he designs a diddled cpu.
asciilifeform: to see this as issue with aes in particular is a grave mistake. it's an issue with using a 'food chain' that you aren't intimately aware of to the bottom.
asciilifeform: likewise compiler has the option of pissing out 'xor reg, reg' etc - clean up after yourself
asciilifeform: compiler can use 'fancy' instruction that does various things 'in one shot' - or can use ordinary i386-style fixint multiply, etc.
asciilifeform: but the cpu manual offers compiler writers the option of using 'our new exciting accelerator for 4096-bit chinese remainder theorem'
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: fundamental misunderstanding. machine does not know (unless it is fiendishly complicated, and elaborately trapped, perhaps) that you are doing, e.g., rsa.
asciilifeform: next year, suppose, they include a gigantic multiplier and special instructions for rsa. want to use these ?
asciilifeform: no one forces you to use intel's aes instructions!
asciilifeform: you're just as fucked if you use another cipher via, e.g, microshit's vendor lib
asciilifeform: solvable for particular meanings of 'process'
asciilifeform: a sufficiently dumb os won't provide a way of allocating non-paged heap, yes.
asciilifeform: if your compiler does not respect 'volatile' - throw it out
asciilifeform: even then - can simply declare 'volatile'
asciilifeform: let's suppose that you cannot escape the sin of running crypto on a multiuser os with von neumann cpu (for sake of argument.) let's also suppose that you are stuck with a traditional 'C' compiler, and your work must remain portable (no inline asm)
