It's fiber interconnect between sites that is not actively visible to other people who are routing data around the world. Think of it as being pre-layed but not yet turned on/made available.
The way it's written means this just isn't the case. They _MAY_ use it for what you have mentioned above. They explicitly say "...here are a few examples of improvements..." and "How Slack may use Customer Data" (emph mine). They also... may not? And use it for completely different things that can expose who knows what via prompt hacking.
This is a timing attack or timing oracle. Lets assume a mac represented in an array of 32 bytes. If we had a pseudocode method like:
byte [32] (actualMac, expectedMac)
for int x = 0..31
if (actualMac[x] != expectedMac[x])
return false;
fi
end
return true;
We return false as soon as we hit an invalid byte in our calculated mac. If the time taken to execute one iteration of the loop is Y and the attacker is able to time this method accurately they will be able to tell what the value of actualMac is by feeding known inputs. They will know because the return time will be 2Y when they have bailed after the first byte. 3Y after the second, 4Y after the third etc.
This is why we should check the arrays in constant time - compare every byte in both arrays before returning. We do not return early so we can’t leak information
If they're modular then they'll be intended to run more than one. You get the land, grid tie-in, permits and staff and then... stack 4 of these instead of 1. You use the same benefits from economies of scale to have as many of these as can be safely crammed into your building and go from there.
I was fed up of having to substitute every dependency manually whenever I wanted to write a test, finding it hard to apply clean software design principals to test suites.
It's laid out further in the thread [1]. The key quote comes from Thorsten:
> All that afaics doesn't matter. If a new kernel breaks things for people
> (that especially includes people that do not update their userland)
> then it's a kernel regression, even if the root of the problem is in
> usersland. Linus (CCed) said that often enough
They'll still get hit hardest. Weak pound means more expensive imports. UK imports ~40% of it's food [1]. That food will now cost more to import raising prices at the supermarkets. Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like food.
The weak pound means importing oil (priced in USD) will be more expensive. This will affect Petrol prices (we're already seeing a 2-3p rise at the pumps). Poorer people spend a larger %'age of their income on essentials like fuel.
There are a number of knock-on effects from the weak pound. Yes it's good for exports but overall it's going to be a rough couple of years for the already disadvantaged.
Speaking to your point on competition as well - if the UK wishes to join the EU free market they will most likely need to accept freedom of movement. No treaty has ever been agreed with any country without this caveat (that covers the Swiss, Norway etc). It's possible that the UK may be an exception but it's unlikely.
hmac.compare_digest is constant time whereas == will return as soon as a mismatch is found. The difference in return time can be measured. The key phrase is a Timing Attack[0].
Here's a discussion on that[0]. Depending on how you do it you either weaken it to the strength of the weakest algorithm or alternatively gain nothing but may introduce a weakness. It's basically a bad idea.
Sadly not. The US courts have already ruled that data held in other data centres are fair game for a US warrant [1]. In this case the data is held in the EU (in Dublin, Ireland to be precise) and MS was found in contempt of court for failing to hand the data over [2]. They're still fighting this case now - over a year later - and it's currently in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals [3].
This means that the precedent is already set. If the company operates in the US and is served a warrant, the US Govt wants ALL of the data WHEREVER it's held.
I'm rooting for MS on this one and hope their appeal is upheld.