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12:07

Stack Overflow Blog: The Speed of Light Sucks

Posted by Jeff Atwood on May 17th, 2011

Our current datacenter is in New York City. Yep, where they make all that great salsa. So whenever you make a request to any Stack Exchange site, the internet tubes must connect from your location to our datacenter in NYC. We are not (yet) immune to the laws of physics, so depending on the distance between you and NYC this … can take a while.

As John Carmack once said:

The speed of light sucks.

But there is a workaround of sorts. As of summer 2009 we currently serve all our static content (that is, stuff that does not change on every request) such as JavaScript, CSS, etc. from sstatic.net. Since these files don’t change very often, there’s no reason they have to be served directly by us; we can offload our static files to a content delivery network. …

Scott Pack

Good morning gents, and Nigels.

C. Ross

12:46

morning all

Scott Pack

Mr. Ross.

Iszi

13:51

Howdy.

Jeff Ferland

Good morning

nealmcb

14:23

@RoryAlsop Yippee - I just followed up on your Strunk & White badge :)

Scott Pack

@nealmcb Damn you! I was hoping to get there first.

nealmcb

@ScottPack /me smiles broadly

Scott Pack

Looks like the editors tab on the Users page counts retags and self-edits as well.

Jeff Ferland

14:37

Beat to another one by Thomas... +1 Thomas :P

nealmcb

@ScottPack You mean Activity/Revisions?

Jeff Ferland

If / when we get out of "beta", what would the site name be?

Ormis

i've never actually looked at microsoft security reports before... they're quite nice, fairly high level, but quite nice

Scott Pack

@nealmcb security.stackexchange.com/users?tab=editors&filter=all

nealmcb

@TateHansen Thanks - I deleted my now out-of-context reply also. I'm curious also about the bonus of 175 from "Community" (user -1). Do you understand that process?

Scott Pack

14:49

That's what I was specifically looking at, but it looks like just a site wide count of the numbers on the page you mentioned.

nealmcb

@ScottPack Ahh - seems the same as e.g. security.stackexchange.com/users/453/… which has 30 entries per page, and lists 8 pages for me (vs "239 edits" on the summary page you noted). So also not the same thing as the Strunk & White badge....

Scott Pack

@nealmcb Right, the editor badge series only counts body edits to posts not your own.

Any of you guys know of John Strand and/or Dan Teal and whether it would be worthwhile to watch a webcast from them?

Tate Hansen

@nealmcb, no, i'm not hip to how that bonus works

makerofthings7

Morning folks! Where should I ask the question "What Partial Homomorphic Encryption implementations exist and how do I leverage them? " Stackoverflow, Security or Math?

Oh and do tell me if you think I ask too many questions; I've learned sooo much over the past year it's simply incredible

nealmcb

@makerofthings7 Here!

But you'll need to give some context for what you're looking for

makerofthings7

15:05

I'm a tinkerer (like many of you) and just want to see what's available to use. I'll go from there and experiment with building something

Scott Pack

@makerofthings7 Keep those questions coming! As long as they're useful to the community I don't care who they come from.

makerofthings7

so I'm looking for something that I can incorporate into a cloud application that I can sell

makerofthings7

15:27

0

Q: What Partial Homomorphic Encryption implementations exist and how do I leverage them?

It appears that only Partial Homomorphic Encryption(P.H.E.) is practical for modern day (2011) use. However I'm having difficulty locating libraries (FOSS or otherwise) that enable me to leverage this technology. El Gamal is an example of an algorithm that does PHE, but the wiki page doesn't cl...

Posted...

...also I wish it was possible to accept multiple answers. I want to up my accept rate but I hate playing favorites, and/or selecting the most popular answer since I'm a student and am discerning the answers.

Scott Pack

@makerofthings7 On my questions I've usually waited a while and accepted the best or most helpful answer.

If that happens to always be the same guy, well, you know who to ping in chat when you need some one-on-one time :)

makerofthings7

15:56

Thanks guys

nealmcb

16:07

@ScottPack Well, the basic problem is that there is no one clear answer, because the question is vague. That's why I push for at least clear rating criteria in the question - language, environment, background, threats, etc.

@makerofthings7 And if my answer isn't what you were looking for, but was still responsive and helpful for a different reading of the question, then you've got to accept mine or I'll get mad and leave :/

Iszi

In unrelated, and getting-old news, I think I hate Foundstone.

It seems to have crapped out on one machine, totally at random. Not the first time it's done this, and it never seems to be in the same way.

There's probably (maybe) some ways to shoot through it, but it's almost always quicker just to un/re-install.

john

16:31

Hi everyone.

I was wondering, what can one do if he thinks that an answer provided from a well respected member, which also has a lot of votes and is the prevalent one, is wrong? :/

Iszi

@john Leave a comment, up-vote (or write) a more appropriate answer, and don't accept that one.

john

I wrote another answer, please see this question: security.stackexchange.com/questions/3887/…

makerofthings7

@nealmcb Haha; thank you for the answer. I am +1ing every one of your responses, and now my eyes are open to the fact it is open source and may require work to isolate the technology. This is what I was referring to when I mentioned earlier I want to accept multiple answers.

There is only a 5 point difference between "+1" and "accepted" .. so don't pack your toys and go!

Iszi

@john Oh, and if it's especially incorrect, down-vote.

makerofthings7

@john Also I think everyone here is open to constructive feedback and open to revision. That is one of the best parts of IT.SE IMHO

Iszi

16:48

@makerofthings7 Perhaps, but there's more between "+1" and "+1 and accepted".

Though, you'd think accepting an answer would be an automatic +1.

john

Thanks guys. It turns out I had not read the question correctly, and it seems that the advice given is not as bad as I thought after all.

Iszi

17:01

@john - I think one point you're missing is that the questioner is specifying his key is not password-protected.

john

@iszi thats why I said that i did not read the question correctly, and leaved a comment in my answer about it :)

Iszi

@john Usually an edit or re-write of the answer is more appropriate for such cases.

Scott Pack

Yay. I managed to get all of my events for Origins 2011.

makerofthings7

@Iszi Yes, I want to keep the answers open longer before accepting an answer. The Helios sample is interesting but I'm waiting for responses from the LinkedIn Cloud group to respond. Am simply trying to promote ITSE via this quesion

john

@Iszi Thanks, I just edited my answer to answer better the question.

Iszi

17:11

Troubleshooting an app-specific problem, and I ran into an interesting situation. It seems the installer only works if I use a built-in Administrator account to run it. I'm sure there's a million and one things that could cause this (though I can't think of one that makes sense, given the particular error) but it's got me wondering...

0

Q: What differences are there between built-in Administrator and other Administrators?

Are there any significant differences in the rights, privileges, permissions, or other powers held by the built-in Administrator account, and those held by non-built-in Administrator accounts?

windows

Scott Pack

I assume you mean the account called "Administrator" versus accounts that are part of the "Administrators" group?

Iszi

@ScottPack Yes.

Scott Pack

@Iszi Good question. The answer should be "No practical difference". I wonder what it really is.

Iszi

Though, if you're following common practice, the more proper comparison might be "the account formerly known as Administrator versus accounts that are part of the Administrators group".

Ormis

security by obscurity..... also, role segrigation.....

i remember i took a class about domain security and one of the tasks was to disable the adminisrator account and make a personalized administrative acc

Iszi

17:14

@ScottPack That's what I thought too, but it seems sometimes there are. It may be a matter of group policy or something else in the environment, but my boxes are acting like there really is something different.

Ormis

at which point i promptly renamed the administrator account and told them i was done.

Scott Pack

@Iszi What did the Yogi say? In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is?

Iszi

@Ormis Obviously, they didn't check your work well, given that built-in Administrator accounts have an easily-guessable SID.

@ScottPack I like that one.

Ormis

haha, all i said was i got the credit, i'm not saying that I would do that otherwise.

Iszi

Question: Why is "Department of Justice" "DoJ" while "Department of Homeland Security" is "DHS"?

Scott Pack

17:41

Helper word like The and Of, etc, are typically dropped from acronyms when there are sufficient other letters to make it seem reasonable.

Iszi

How about this one? "New York City Police Department" = "NYPD" / "New York City Fire Department" = "FDNY" ?

Scott Pack

It's all marketing.

NYFD would not be different enough from NYPD, aurally or visually.

makerofthings7

19:52

Considering that I live in NYC I've seen that they like to maintain unique and separate identities. That may have contributed to the difference. They also show a bit of healthy rivalry from time to time...

Gilles

21:02

38

Q: Help us test and vet StackID (Stack Exchange OpenID)

We're working on replacing our dependency on MyOpenID for new account creation. Basically, replacing the click here to sign up link on /users/login. The experience has never been really stellar. You click a link, end up on a new page on a new site, with Stack Overflow (or Stack Exchange) dwarf...

discussion openid

The design and code could use some eyes from the denizens in this room

And there's a mini-debate going on about password requirements

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