The Bridge

Ben

12:03 AM

How do we deal with duplicate answers?

For anyone interested

Sepia Lazers

0

Q: How do we deal with duplicate answers?

So I recently came across an answer that was already previously answered (quite a few months back), and the new answer did not seem to add anything that was not already covered. After a brief discussion in chat, this verdict was as such: unless clearly plagiarized, I don't think we do anythin...

Frank

10

Q: How do we handle duplicate answers?

Preface: I have read the original question, and the followup. However, there doesn't seem to be any consensus on what should be done with them. Introduction As Arqade grows, we are attracting lots of new users. Many of these users will attempt to contribute to the site by providing an answer t...

discussion allowed-answers

I'm somewhat surprised that didn't show up when you asked it.

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: can you play minecraft multiplayer on one account and one computer

is it possible to play minecraft on one account and one computer? because my friend and me want to play together but she dosent have a computer,so we trying to play on one account with one computer and spend not much money.

minecraft

Trent Hawkins

12:31 AM

@Frank I like this meta, but it lacks some key instruction as to how we, the general users, can facilitate the enacting of the policy it outlines. I generally encounter duplicate answers through either the low quality queue, or the first post/late answer queues, and neither really seems to offer any action with a description that would suit this particular reason to delete.

OKAY, PANIC.

12:45 AM

Stack Exchange Network Status: Read-only test - August 1, 2015

posted on July 30, 2015

This Saturday we’ll be testing our new DR datacenter in Denver, Colorado. We will begin around 10AM EST (14:00 UTC). We expect the test itself to be approximately 15-30 minutes in duration once it begins and the total window for this op to be around 4 hours. We’ll begin prepping at the start which means actual user impact will begin some time after that. This test will consist of our enti…

Frank

@TrentHawkins Yeah, there isn't really any method we can use. People agree that they should be deleted, but there's no mechanism to use to make it happen.

So I usually comment something along the lines of, "This adds nothing to the existing answers", and then flag it as low quality.

For the most part, it works, since that's the only way for non-20k'ers to delete answers.

OKAY, PANIC.

Heads up: we will be performing a read-only test in our new data center on August 1st (this Saturday). http://stackstatus.net/post/125387022934/read-only-test-august-1-2015

Tweeted by StackStatus on July 30, 2015 at 12:45 AM

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: Im about to change by minecraft username, but

im scared that when I change my MC username, all my progress and servers will be lost. Will this happen?

minecraft

two bugs

@Frank The only problem with this is I worry that it's too harsh. But at the same time "flag as low quality" is pointless if we don't use it for, well, low quality answers.

spugsley

I MADE ART TODAY

Aequitas

1:10 AM

@spugsley how'd that go?

user15026

@spugsley I AM PROUD OF YOU

spugsley

I had the best time ever :D I just decided to do what makes me happy as per @AshleyNunn who gives the best advice ever <3

@AshleyNunn YOU! HI! THANK YOU! YOU ARE SUCH A GREAT FRIEND I MADE ART TODAY BECAUSE OF YOU

user15026

@spugsley I am so happy for you <3

user15026

@spugsley Oh that just makes my heart happy in the middle.

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: How to get mini games

Can someone please help me figure out how to get to mini games I don't understand it. I want to play like dan tdm please thank you. Sinserly Derek

minecraft

0

Q: uxie isn't spawning in nameless cave

If looked it up many times and did all the requirements and done all of them but he still won't spawn. i have 3 pokemon with max happiness. and wait till my 3ds time was at 8 oclock but he still won't spawn

pokemon-oras

Unionhawk

1:35 AM

Woo SGDQ shirt has shipped

It still looks cool. The participant shirt is cooler but meh.

user15026

@Unionhawk what shirt?

user15026

I grabbed this one today.

Unionhawk

1:53 AM

This guy

user15026

I was tempted by that one

Private Pansy

Oh wow, shipping is only $5 worldwide

That's... actually reasonable

Unionhawk

Is it worldwide shipping that much? Damn

user15026

@PrivatePansy It was $4 to here

Private Pansy

@Unionhawk Please. Shipping for anything anywhere else is much higher.

This is WeLoveFine for a single T-shirt

ThinkGeek has about the same price

user15026

2:00 AM

Yeah, those sites are both awful for shipping

Private Pansy

2:12 AM

Bahahaha, finishing the Legend of Zelda in 3 minutes

Unionhawk

Yes

user15026

2:43 AM

Of course, I want to watch the Earthbound run and my connection is like hahahahahaha terribad

Private Pansy

What are the bunnies suppose to represent on the Zelda shirt?

They look familiar, but...

Unionhawk

Uh... Link has a bunny hood... let's see

PLEASE HOLD

Aequitas

if I have a 1/600 chance of winning something, and I do it 27 times what's the chance that i've won something?

user15026

@Aequitas still terrible?

Aequitas

@AshleyNunn lol ye but is it 27/600?

Private Pansy

3:00 AM

@Aequitas Depends on if the events are independent

If they are it should be 1-(599/600)^27

Aequitas

@PrivatePansy okay thanks

Tim Stone

@Unionhawk, boot up the hardware hypetrain

It even uses buzzwords like "disruptive technology"

Unionhawk

:o

Tim Stone

If it's even remotely capable of what's claimed in the video though, it should be pretty interesting.

Unionhawk

I don't usually hype train shit, but the computer engineering student inside me is rather hype

Tim Stone

3:16 AM

Indeed

Unionhawk

Oh my god

Ars Technica, Intel, Micron, if you are making shit up, I swear

Highly dense nonvolatile flash memory is like, the ultimate "there is no way this will ever happen" thing that you hear about in like, an intro to computer architecture class and we may have precisely that oh my god

user15026

@TimStone Can someone explain this in like Simple English Wikipedia words?

Tim Stone

Your RAM and SSD had a baby and it was less expensive.

user15026

Okay, I kinda get that.

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: Whenever i try to connect in a Minecraft PE server i Always get Invalid Name

My friend and I have the same kindle, Same network, and even Same Minecraft pe snapshot (0.11.1) yet no how much we restart our networks or turn off and turn back on the option Local Server Multiplayer (which determines whether or not you can connect to the server) and yet Neither My friend nor I...

minecraft-pocket-edition

Tim Stone

3:27 AM

Normally there's some tradeoff in the price/performance/density factors, but this technology claims to be good on all three fronts. How good remains to be seen, but the suggested result is that your volatile (RAM) memory and persistent (SSD) memory could become one and the same, or at least be based off the same technology.

Aequitas

3D XPoint

Makes computer go faster than before....

Private Pansy

Up goer five

user15026

@PrivatePansy Seriously, if more of the world was explained like that I'd b e happy

user15026

@TimStone Okay, that's fascinating

Unionhawk

@TimStone Dude, if this is as good as it claims to be I'm imagining a completely rearchitectured computer system could be a thing, such that you literally keep some bits of things that are running in memory, potentially. Maybe. But these could be real things that could happen.

Like, forget "your OS is on a SSD everything comes up quick", this could potentially be extended into "your OS is literally always in memory regardless of power state, everything is actually already there"

user15026

3:33 AM

See, that just sounds like magic

Unionhawk

IT DOES

And the thing is if what they're claiming about this technology is true, it could be magic and real

The main thing keeping main memory from being nonvolatile is other important factors like speed and stuff

user15026

@Unionhawk That's what delights me - it sounds like something super magic, and it could very well be MAGIC I CAN HAVE

user15026

which just

user15026

I love living in the future

Unionhawk

(nonvolatile as in it stays there when there is no power, as opposed to volatile which goes away when power goes away)

user15026

3:41 AM

@Unionhawk oh, okay, I was just about to ask what that meant

Unionhawk

Yes, I just remembered that was an ECE term lol

Aequitas

@AshleyNunn it explodes if you forget to bring it flowers every cycle time

DuckTapeAl

Hello! I've got a question about ITG questions, and I was hoping that I could get some help. Is there anyone on right now?

Aequitas

yes

@DuckTapeAl cc

Frank

@DuckTapeAl Some of us are around, yes.

DuckTapeAl

3:51 AM

Great! If ITG questions are off topic here, do you know where I could go instead to ask that kind of thing?

Aequitas

@DuckTapeAl you can try here

Frank

@DuckTapeAl There's lots of places.

Aequitas

I mean in the chat

Frank

But there's some good info in this blog post

DuckTapeAl

@Aequitas Okay.

The game I'm remembering was an educational game designed to show how people in different circumstances in modern life lived. You could be a person from basically anywhere on earth, and they used realistic statistical data to figure out things like how much money you could make, how much stuff cost, and what it would cost to move somewhere else.

You could either have a random person, or you could build one using a fairly robust set of "what was your life like" sliders.

Private Pansy

3:55 AM

What platform was it on?

Sounds like something browser based

DuckTapeAl

There was a free version that let you play up to 3 people before you had to pay for it, and the paid version let you play an unlimited number.

PC, possibly mac/linux.

It wasn't browser-based, but it definitely was a download. There was no box.

Aequitas

childrens game?

DuckTapeAl

This would have been before 2012, though I don't know how much before.

Children or young adult, I would guess.

Easy enough for children, enough numbers to be useful education for high schoolers.

I remember that you could also get into politics, if you were born into enough money and were able to get a decent education and stuff.

Frank

This needs another delete vote or two

spugsley

@Yuuki I heard. I think it's for the best

DuckTapeAl

4:16 AM

Found it!

Real Lives

Real Lives is a 2001 educational video game designed by Educational Simulations. It allows players to live out lives of randomly generated people on Earth. Players are allowed to choose their occupation, living conditions, social activities, and start families, but all their decisions are affected by available statistical data. For example, if your character was born a girl in India, a database of Indian girl's names would be consulted as well as a database of Indian last names, Indian cities, Indian health statistics, etc. Throughout the game player's lives can be affected by random events such...

I found an academic paper written by a professor at the University of Albany that mentioned it.

Thanks!

Private Pansy

0: "CH1101E Introduction to Chinese Studies"
1: "CL1101E Introduction to Chinese Language"
2: "EC1101E Introduction to Economic Analysis"
3: "EL1101E The Nature of Language"
4: "EN1101E An Introduction to Literary Studies"
5: "EU1101E Making of Modern Europe"
6: "GE1101E Geographical Journeys: Exploring World Environments"
7: "GL1101E Global Issues"
8: "HY1101E Asia and the Modern World"
9: "JS1101E Introduction to Japanese Studies"
10: "NM1101E Communications, New Media and Society"
11: "PL1101E Introduction to Psychology"

Huh. How to choose, how to choose...

Aequitas

pick 1101

Mazura

Should rename this site to AskCraft.

@Frank, I disagree, it should be historically locked.

user15026

@mazura no, it shouldn't be, because it was asked ling after we stopped allowing ITG related stuff.

user15026

*long after

user15026

4:30 AM

I don't know if it needs to be deleted necessarily (at least, I wont use mod powers) but it doesn't need a lock.

murgatroid99

I deleted it

Aequitas

that question seems pretty easy to identify

Mazura

A time stamp should not be a consideration for a historical lock. and .... nmd

Aequitas

its a common game

user15026

@privatepansy all of them!

Private Pansy

4:31 AM

@AshleyNunn Well I can't. I have to pick one

user15026

@Aequitas regardless of easiness, they're off topic unless they meet guidelines.

Private Pansy

Actually, I can pick something else too, but this is a good starting point

user15026

@privatepansy only one?

Private Pansy

I only have slot for one more 4 credit module

These are good choices because they are introductory modules to soft subjects, so they shouldn't be too hard

(The introductory modules to math, CS, and most of the sciences are usually harder than the higher level ones, so I have to balance them a little)

user15026

I'd take 3, or 10, or maybe 13

Private Pansy

4:34 AM

That was what I was thinking too

user15026

3 or 10 are my first choices.

user15026

I'd probably go with 10 myself because it feels like digital humanities and I am a sucker for that

Private Pansy

Description for 3:

> This introductory overview of linguistics aims at equipping students with a solid foundation in the object, methods and goals of the science of spoken language, the prime tool of human communication. Through a principled analysis of patterns of sound, form and meaning at the levels of word, sentence and text, students will gain insight into what it means to say that language is a rule-governed system and an organic whole.

user15026

Ooooh. And 10?

Private Pansy

> This module introduces fundamentals of study in communications and new media, exploring ways in which people create and use the variety of emerging networked, mobile, and social media channels to communicate meaning in globalized world. It explores organizational and societal contexts in such areas as games, health, politics, business, public relations, design and activism, with attention paid to creating applications with social impact.
Phenomena such as relationships and social life in cyberspace, activism for social change, performance art, deviant behaviour online, communication and c…

user15026

4:36 AM

Yeah, I'd do 10,because that's a pile of my degree, stuff like that.

Private Pansy

The problem with soft subject modules is that they can be a bit of hit and miss, depending on who's teaching

Aequitas

there's hardly any point in ITG if there's a screenshot coz of tineye and google image search

Private Pansy

The reviews aren't good

user15026

@privatepansy for 10? What about 3?

user15026

I mean choose whatever you like, don't necessarily listen to some strange girl on the Internet

GodEmperorDune

4:38 AM

@PrivatePansy go with 11

for brainz

user15026

See, I like psych in theory but I took a bunch of psych classes in uni and I was pretty crap at all of them. So I am biased there :p

GodEmperorDune

@AshleyNunn must be the robot parts of your brain dominating the meatbag parts

but actually most intro pysch is weak

its all about dates and names of junk

user15026

Yeah, exactly.

GodEmperorDune

the interesting classes are later, when you learn how to mess with people

user15026

Between that and them wanting me to take stats and other mathy bits that ended that plan :p

Private Pansy

4:42 AM

@GodEmperorDune Yeah, that too, but it's hard to get into according to the comments, because you're competing for spots with psychology majors

Also, content heavy - 800 page textbook, which you are recommended to remember by heart, since that's what's tested

GodEmperorDune

@AshleyNunn yeah my wife says that the stats are not hard... and then proceeds to rattle off all sorts of crap way over my head

@PrivatePansy yeah that's out then

Private Pansy

Hey, GET1025 Science Fiction and Philosophy is up for bidding

I wonder if I should try for it

GodEmperorDune

@PrivatePansy dooooo eeeeet

i had a similar class in undergrad

any class where you read scifi is pretty badass

Private Pansy

> This module considers science fiction as a mode of philosophical inquiry. Science fiction stories are used to examine fundamental questions of metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Topics include the nature of time, space, religion, nature, mind, and the future. Specific topics may include such issues as genetic enhancement, environmental ethics, and implications of encounters with non-human life forms.

No reviews. I think it's a new class

GodEmperorDune

yeah, i'd take it

but are you into reading scifi?

Private Pansy

4:45 AM

Absolutely

I should check out the reading list, but I wouldn't be surprised if I've already read many of them

GodEmperorDune

sometimes you get weird, esoteric scifi

we read this one book about car crashes

very strange

Private Pansy

... and the bidding system crashed on me :|

user15026

Aw boo, because that looks cool.

Private Pansy

The entire nus.edu.sg domain is down

I must have pressed the wrong button

GodEmperorDune

if it's not a secret, please post the reading list when it comes back up

i'm always down for more books to purchase and tell myself i will eventually find the time to read

Private Pansy

4:50 AM

Quite sure they don't keep it a secret. Worse come to worse I can always email the professor

GodEmperorDune

seriously, i am like @sterno with books instead of games

user15026

Oh gosh my goodreads to read list is like 300 things long...

GodEmperorDune

no these are physical books occupying two shelves in my bookcase

45 books, i just counted

user15026

I do have a pile of epics to get to, but I buy less physical books now with the ereader

user15026

Epubs not epics

user15026

4:52 AM

Although when I go camping in a couple weeks I should make a good hole in that

GodEmperorDune

i dunno, normally i am all gung ho with technology, but i just love the physical book. the smell of it, how you can go back and forth pretty quick

having full text search in an electronic copy is nice though

user15026

I just hate having to carry so many with me!

GodEmperorDune

but the learnings!

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: What happens when you scan your 31st Amiibo in Amiibo Tap?

Each time you scan an Amiibo in Amiibo Tap: Nintendo's Greatest Bits, it unlocks a virtual console demo that is tied to the Amiibo you scanned to unlock it. There are 30 game demos. What happens if, after unlocking all 30 with different Amiibo, you scan a 31st Amiibo?

wii-u amiibo

Sepia Lazers

6:05 AM

0

Q: Why were my comments deleted on the Ninja identification (Pixels) question?

I'm 99% sure I had at least one if not two additional comments on this question: What video game are these ninjas from? I'm pretty sure there was nothing wrong with them. If I remember correctly, one was pointing out that the OP did have "permission" from another user to post the question on Ar...

support comments

Private Pansy

6:40 AM

> There will be some classic anthologies of sf short fiction available for sale in the NUS co-op. I want you to buy, specifically, The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. There is also one book I want you to get hold of, which isn't available in the CO-OP. It is: Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others.

Stories of Your Life - I've heard of it, and I think I might have read some of his stories

5pike

6:52 AM

Morning

GodEmperorDune

7:09 AM

@5pike evening

@PrivatePansy i was never really a fan of anthologies

badp

7:30 AM

Current status: dev unusable, QA cannot go up, pre-prod only half up

5pike

@badp Sounds nice

Arperum

7:53 AM

Gah. Have to try out azure for work. tries to look at DB management tools "activate silverlight" blech

badp

I hope you enjoy spinners

Arperum

@badp I sure hope I do.

badp

You know the lame green ones where the dots don't even spin but merely pulsate

Private Pansy

Kevin van der Velden

@Arperum azure is actually kidna decent

Except the times when they decide to start restarting every server one by one

Or the time our server was killed every 4 hours to within a few seconds

Lazers 2.0

8:05 AM

0

Q: How to win the Soda minigame in Citizens of Earth?

In the game 'Citizens of earth' you can recruit at some point the shopkeeper of the soda-shop. He presents you with a mini game, there you have to press a button while a bar is green and wait while it is red. You get points while pressing green, but get subtracted a LOT if pressing while red. Thi...

citizens-of-earth

Lazers 2.0

8:49 AM

0

Q: What is the model path to the health vial?

I'm trying to make an addon that spawns in the health vial while it regenerates your health, but I don't know the path to the model, so people will know they have regen. Summary: I only want to know what the path to the health vial model is.

garrys-mod

0

Q: Is it worth playing Fallout 3 again with another playstyle?

In my last playthrough i always had good karma and didn't do evil things. But i'm not sure if it's worth to play again just to be really evil. Do karma and your choices really change the way playing this game?

fallout-3

Private Pansy

Lazers 2.0

9:06 AM

0

Q: not receiving Next level after completing 170th level

I have completed 170th level many times but yet m not getting 171 level,why? help

steam

Private Pansy

9:19 AM

@GodEmperorDune Ted Chiang is good though

I think I've read Story of Your Life. Yeah, I did

It was a pretty heady story.

Lazers 2.0

9:43 AM

-2

Q: If I go to prestige 2 will I lose my guns again?

So I recently had Entered Prestige Mode so I was on Prestige 1. And it asked me stuff like am I sure that I want to prestige because I could lose all my weapons and stuff like that and I clicked yes. After a few months passed by I finished Prestige 1 and 8 wanted to prestige to prestige 2 but thr...

minecraft skyrim steam achievements xbox

badp

10:17 AM

fun fun fun fun

djsmiley2k

yes

wait

why is that tagged iwth minecraft, skyrim, steam?

badp

we downloaded authentication configuration from an external resource

DNS stopped resolving that resource's IP address

5pike

@djsmiley2k Because the user just entered random tags.

badp

Add one line to /etc/hosts and, lo and behold, everything on our end goes back up instantly

djsmiley2k

:D

5pike

10:18 AM

@djsmiley2k Happens quite regularly

badp

We lost about 20 man-hours on this bullshit

djsmiley2k

@badp why

badp

with the production freeze scheduled for... about tomorrow

@djsmiley2k that's the way it's setup. This is not our call to make.

djsmiley2k

arugh one of those things :(

badp

I mean it makes sense

the less things we need to keep up to date ourselves the better

We're not paid to be our own test server's sysadmins. (Which means we all are.)

djsmiley2k

10:27 AM

devops!

Lazers 2.0

10:42 AM

0

Q: Diablo 3 RoS crafting/discovering Legendaries

I have noticed, that the console version is lacking the book to identify all the legs in the inventory and i also cant seem to find an option to craft multiple items at once. Am i missing something, to be able to craft multiples, or has this feature just not been implemented to the console versi...

diablo-3 xbox-one

Private Pansy

10:58 AM

Okay, Markov ponies is go. The model is trained, and it's already generating likely sounding nonsense

Martin Sojka

@PrivatePansy You're insane. In a good way.

Private Pansy

> My letter to Princess Celestia has given us this mission, and we have to plan the friendship party tonight.

GnomeSlice

I was supposed to come in early today, but I fucked up and fell asleep again so now I'm going to end up only being like half an hour early.

Martin Sojka

BTW, got any generic tool for Markov chaining words, or did you just hack something together yourself?

Private Pansy

@MartinSojka Just used a library, though the results aren't very good

> Oh, what are we supposed to send somepony to another world – one where he believed their magic power would be lost.

Hmmm. It feels too similar to the source. The corpus might not be big enough

Martin Sojka

11:03 AM

The beauty of Markov chains is that you can combine two very dissimilar sources and get something strange in between of them. Like for example taking your MLP text and adding the English translation of Mein Kampf to that ...

Private Pansy

Oh god...

5pike

@PrivatePansy DO IT

Esq

hey guys, which one of these sound better?
-arcane
-kreix
-qorum

Martin Sojka

I have no idea how to even pronounce the latter two ...

5pike

What's a "kreix"?

Private Pansy

11:06 AM

@Esq Arcane is already an English word, and qorum is very similar to quorum

Esq

a possible name :P

5pike

For?

Private Pansy

Depends on what you're naming them for

I'm going to try to increase the state size first

Esq

for a mobile app like reddit

Private Pansy

As I've said, 'Qorum' is very similar to quorum

Esq

11:08 AM

is that a good or bad thing?

Private Pansy

Depends on what the app is for

GnomeSlice

Speaking of Arcane

Private Pansy

Kreix sounds like the name of an alien species out of a scifi story

GnomeSlice

Today's Listening | Instrumental / Progressive Electronic

Private Pansy

Huh, increasing the state size produced better results, but sometimes no results will be produced

Martin Sojka

11:10 AM

... and the only thing relating to "kreix" I could find is the PIE root "*krei-", meaning "to sieve". Related words: criterion, riddle, crisis.

Private Pansy

The corpus size really is too small

Esq

and how about kreix, is that a good or bad thing for you? that it doesn't make you recall anything?

Private Pansy

It's unpronounceable. Don't use it unless you're naming something out of a scifi story and want that effect

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: Why don't people smite the red buff?

When watching jungle guides on YouTube, people who start off with Krugs never seem to get the red buff smite bonus. Almost all of them do this. Krugs, use smite Red buff Raptors, use smite It makes more sense, to me, to do this Krugs, use smite Raptors Red Buff, use smite This way you do...

league-of-legends

Martin Sojka

In other words, you'll sound like LOL players asking questions.

Esq

11:13 AM

hahaha

Private Pansy

> All of you has had to face in there.
Well, what I mean?
Oh, isn't Canterlot wonderful this time we need to go check out the candles, Spike?
Legend of the most chaotic day can end up being a princess of Equestria!
Applejack, you will be watching paint dry!
She's only staying for the advice, Applejack, but this is Sugarcube Corner.
So you told me it was my fault.
She did not, and if you would need some help.
Ugh, he'll be up by now!
Remember how when you are being ridiculous!

Hmmm. This isn't satisfactory. I'll dig into the library's source to see how the model is built

GnomeSlice

Just remembered I ostensibly had a doctor's appointment today too that they never called to confirm, guess I'm missing that as well

Hope my liver isn't failing

Fucking accutane

Ugggh I better be able to book another one soon

Fuck there's an important visitor in my store today I should have left like an hour earlier

UGH

My assistant manager already thinks I'm completely incompetent

Lazers 2.0

0

Q: What does regularly mean? Anno 1404

Buildings cost REGULARLY money. But what time means regularly? Is it 1 hour, 10 minutes, 1 minute. I can't find it on the internet... Please help. Thanks!

anno-1404 anno-1404-venice

Lazers 2.0

11:38 AM

0

Q: Jedi Academy - ID Tech 3 - Strafe Jump Code

Situation: I'm aware that the ID Tech 3 engine contains the infamous 'strafe jumping' mechanic. For this question though, I'm not referring to the strafe jump itself (the single jump), but rather the continued use of the method which enables tremendous speeds to be reached. I have noticed that t...

quake-3 id-tech-3

Arperum

Azure: why do you limit password length for ftp accounts?

5pike

@Arperum Because it obviously hates you

Arperum

@5pike It's mostly theoretical hate, 60 chars is long enough for most purposes, it just annoys me that it has a limit.

djsmiley2k

because there is always going to be a hard limit

and without that limit below the hard limit, bad things could happen

justkeepacceptingeverythinginputanddon'tstopaccpetingthingssoiteventuallygetsint‌o10'sofgb'sofpasswordlengthbutheyit'svalidsoweallowitandthenthemachinefallsdownto‌thefunniestbugever.

Arperum

@djsmiley2k The funniest bug ever indeed.

djsmiley2k

11:48 AM

someone used a 58million chara password and blew up my server.com

Martin Sojka

@djsmiley2k I prefer when the hard limit is around the amount of free RAM I have.

LessPop_MoreFizz

@badp FWIW, while I can phonetically read Hebrew, I can't speak or translate at all. It might as well be Finnish written using the Roman alphabet.

djsmiley2k

@MartinSojka you prefer a potential DoS?

oooook.

because that's 'sane'

Also, that password is going to be reduced to a small hash

so a longer password == more chance of hash collisions

@murgatroid99 you seem quite down with the computational stuff, want to jump in?

Martin Sojka

@djsmiley2k No, why? When I have 12 GB of RAM, a password of 12 GB length is just fine and won't bother me. I don't need (nor shouldn't) keep it in RAM, after all.

Read, hash, throw away (and thus have the RAM freed), done.

djsmiley2k

@MartinSojka ok, I'll fire up two clients and take your server down

Next?

Martin Sojka

11:50 AM

@djsmiley2k How would you do that?

djsmiley2k

Also how long is it going to take you to do a hash on something that big?

it's not instant.

@MartinSojka 2 accounts, with 2 very long (all of your ram -1) passwords

oh dear, thats 2*(all of your ram -1)

2 not enough? I'll fire up some more, and take your server down.

Martin Sojka

@djsmiley2k About as long as it takes me to push it through the CPU, really.

@djsmiley2k You changed the scenario.

djsmiley2k

How much ram you got?

No i didn't

you said your ftp server should accept passwords to the length(ram -1)

I just pointed out that by adding a single user, you can do a dos.

How much ram we talking?
lets be concertivtive

1Gb

How long does it take to transmit that? few seconds? If it's a good server....

Martin Sojka

The scenario was: I accept any password up to the amount of free RAM I have. In your scenario, the first client has 12 GB (for example) free RAM, and can use a 12 GB password. The second client needs to limit itself to however much RAM was left after the first client's password was read, or wait.

djsmiley2k

No

the server falls over because it OOM's

Martin Sojka

11:53 AM

@djsmiley2k No, I said up to length(free ram -1)

djsmiley2k

So each client has a different max password length?

Fine, i load up 1000's of sessions ot eat the ram

then I make you create a new user with maax password length of (2 -1)

6 mins ago, by Martin Sojka

@djsmiley2k I prefer when the hard limit is around the amount of free RAM I have.

Martin Sojka

@djsmiley2k At which point, you have just your regular DDoS. If 1000 don't work, you scale it up until you hit a limit where it works. But that's true for any limit.

@djsmiley2k See? I wrote "free RAM", not simply "RAM".

djsmiley2k

.... I give up

either 1. the second user added has the same password length, which would be of (free ram -1); Upon both users logging in at the same time (and this can be delayed during the process due to timeouts etc) the amount of space to store both passwords is 2*(free ram);

OR

the second user is forced to create a password with the 'left over' free ram, which is now reduced to 0, or close to - enough to end up with a 1 chara password....

Kevin van der Velden

Or the user is required to go "Wait, why the fuck am I trying to enter a multi gigabyte password? Am I some kind of idiot? What am I doing with my life!"

Martin Sojka

@djsmiley2k Or: Everyone can have any length of password they please, but if they can actually use it at any given moment depends on how much free RAM the server has. When it's under attack, it has worse problems to deal with than to allow for some user with a multi-GB password to log in.

It's on the user then to assess whether they really want to use the full BlueRay rip of 50 Shades of Gray as their password or not ...