asciilifeform: as soon as he started shitting out sequels where the details filled in -- permanent ruin.
asciilifeform: much of the appeal of the b00k, imho, was that it left such detail to imagination.☟︎
asciilifeform: herbert does not say ~how~ they got trained.
asciilifeform: in the b00k, it was described that they were selected & trained, and somewhat rare ( i.e. if yours got killed, it was an expensive problem , to replace )
asciilifeform: ( a more refined variant of the real-life 19th c profession of 'calculator' )
asciilifeform: original was entertaining. mentat was a sort of artisan, humancalculator-rationator.
asciilifeform: lol that link seems to consist entirely of... monologues from atlasfucked
asciilifeform: ( and for so long as 1 honest unit exists, for yoke test -- to even a child, working with bare hands )
asciilifeform: if you substitute a chip that shits out prng stream, in place of the transform specified in http://nosuchlabs.com/fg/fg-genesis.vpatch -- it will be immediately obvious to anyone who follows my audit recipe.
asciilifeform: picture you as the enemy. you control the fab. what is your next move ?
asciilifeform: so that instead of the specified circuit, it instead does something different. and such that i and the buyers, do not immediately find out .
asciilifeform: kanzure: believe or not, i keep up with the literature. tell me how to boobytrap fpga.
asciilifeform: ( which expects, e.g., a TB output, known only to the auditor )
asciilifeform: takes 2 arbitrary waveforms, on the 2 input jacks, has nfi whether they come from the analogue boards that ship with the unit, or from audit machine.
asciilifeform: consider, kanzure , let's say you're fuhrer of ftmeade. which transistor in the 9572 will you diddle, to undetectably sabotage FUCKGOATS.
asciilifeform: trinque: humour the man. maybe he learns something. ( maybe even -- we learn something )
asciilifeform: i don't recall him ever going from micrograph to fpga bitstream format
asciilifeform: presumably they had to pry apart the closed x86 floorplanner turds.
asciilifeform: kanzure: ask the folx who did the reversing, not me, why took so long.
asciilifeform: which means NO black boxes, NO ic for which i did not personally approve the gate layout, and NO c/cpp code anywhere inside, as well as machine arch which boundschecks all array accesses.
asciilifeform: kanzure: 'nato-free' means, approximately, 'no place for nsa to hide'.
asciilifeform: kanzure: mp insists that he 'has no goals', but i've got a few. one of them, is a 100% nato-free workstation comp.☟︎
asciilifeform: ( and yes, i am no stranger to buying surplus instruments. but they only SEEM cheap. what if you needed 25 of them ? or a guarantee that they continue to work for six months, without major interruption ? then welcome back to seven-figure list price. )
asciilifeform: but it scarcely qualifies, costwise, as 'home'
asciilifeform: i'd buy a desktop atomic force microscope, say.
asciilifeform: plenty of unsolved technical problems, of the 'yes, golden toilet from lockheed exists, but how about a human-priced version that pisses on patents and 'property''
asciilifeform: aite... what DO you have ? can haz catalogue ?
