explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:344: 1337: Part 4

2015-09-14T02:19:40Z

108.162.238.181:

It's the piping of "find ~" (all files in Mom's current login's home directory) and "find ~nomad" (all files in the home directory of user "nomad", presumably that's Elaine's account also on Mom's machine, having recently been on a 'life journey' of self-discovery and learning) through the shred command that is doing the directory recursion, as part of the "find" command's default behaviour (IIRC). I've never used the shredding command myself, but I'd say that it's operating on the list given it by the "find", rather than doing the directory-burrowing itself, for which I'd expect parameters of a "~/* ~/.* -r" (or "-R" or "-s") type of variant to activate the "all files, in all directories from here" inspection... ICBW. Best to check the man pages, though... (Also Mom's obviously got maximum rights for herself, or is drilling through su, as I'd expect.) [[Special:Contributions/178.98.31.27|178.98.31.27]] 08:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

:"find" is passed a variety of arguments - an argument that is not part of an optional parameter (i.e. -name \*.php would specify all files ending with ".php" - the backslash is used to prevent bash or another shell from expanding the parameter into a full list of .php files) is treated as a file or directory to begin searching. So "find ~" would begin searching in the user's own home directory; "find ~nomad" would begin the search in the home directory of the user "nomad". All file and directory names are sent to stdout (standard output).

:Piping the result requires the use of the | symbol (shift-backslash). It's used to pipe data from stdout to stdin (standard input).

:"xargs" is a Linux command that constructs command lines by reading a list of files from stdin and treating each with a command (and optional arguments) specified after "xargs".

:"shred" is a program that takes a filename as a parameter and overwrites the file repeatedly to keep the original contents, which can be discerned using increasingly-expensive hardware solutions, from being pieced together.

:With this in mind:

::find ~ | xargs shred

:1) finds all files (and directories) in the hierarchy of the user's home directory, and sends the list to stdout;
:2) the list gets piped to "xargs", which
:3) passes each file to "shred" for shredding.

:Issues regarding symbolic links, filtering directory names from the operation, and modifying the operating parameters of "shred" will be left to the aspiring sysadmin to discover for theirself. [[User:Thokling|Thokling]] ([[User talk:Thokling|talk]]) 13:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that if you want to have a file system that can shred data reliably you will need to use a file system without journaling or it is possible some of your data can be stored in the journal(The journal describes the nature of a write and its prior state before writing to it in order to safeguard the file system against unexpected shutdown).

What is more a lot of modern hard drive detect bad sectors and move data elsewhere, leaving the old data in a sector marked as "do not use". This data will not be securely deleted from these sectors and can be manually accessed by forensics later.

The commonly accepted solution is to use block device level encryption to prevent sensitive data from ever being written.

In short the '''shred''' command can give someone an unrealistic sense of security. I don't think this is relevant to the comic but I just wanted to share what I knew on the subject. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.117|108.162.246.117]] 08:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

"Title IV, Section 408: Authorization of deadly force." Does that make any sense in the real world? I don't see an explanation about this remark. [[User:Daniel Carrero|Daniel Carrero]] ([[User talk:Daniel Carrero|talk]]) 09:48, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Someone should put in that Stallman was given a Katana.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.210|108.162.249.210]] 00:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

:And also that katana-wielding Stallman comes from [[225: Open Source]]. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.173|108.162.229.173]] 22:29, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

'''find''' can take multiple path arguments so she could just used '''find ~ ~nomad'''. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.181|108.162.238.181]] 02:19, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1553: Public Key

2015-07-21T19:54:25Z

108.162.238.181:

I'm assuming he's referring to the GPG/PGP Key. Basically you have a key pair, one private that you use to sign/encrypt and one public, which can be used to verify your private key was used to sign. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography Wikipedia] for more information. If you posted your private key, anyone could sign as if they were you. I sign pretty much everything (not to mailing lists though), but don't think I've seen anyone else ever do so, even those I know have keys. See [[1181: PGP]] for more. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.235.35|198.41.235.35]] 04:59, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

:Don't believe everything certification authorities are telling you. X.509 SSL certificates works exactly same. Certificate is just a public key signed by certification authority. And yes, you can sign email with X.509 certificate. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 09:54, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

This comic should be added to [[:Category:Cryptography]], but I'm not sure how to do that or whether I can do that. [[User:Nick818|Nick818]] ([[User talk:Nick818|talk]]) 07:06, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

:{{u|Nick818}}—Someone did this today, but for your future reference, you just need to add <tt><nowiki>[[Category:Cryptography]]</nowiki></tt> to the page that needs to be categorized. It's helpful and customary to add the code to the bottom of the page. Cheers, [[User:Jameslucas|jameslucas]] <small>([[User talk:Jameslucas|" "]] / [[Special:Contributions/Jameslucas|+]])</small> 10:21, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

This explanation completely misses the point that the PGP workflow is fundamentally flawed which has been stated by more than one expert, e.g. famously last year by Matthew Green, leading to demands to "let it die" and be replaced by something workable. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.190|108.162.254.190]] 11:21, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
:The problem is, that there isn’t anything more “workable” at the moment. <small>BTW: 7CD1E35FD2A3A158</small>. --[[User:DaB.|DaB.]] ([[User talk:DaB.|talk]]) 11:27, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
::Well, I don't want to solve the problem of front-end cryptography here, and this site won't either. But the comic appeared in a climate of a quite general consensus and acceptance of the failure of PGP/GPG, and not technically but because of social and usability reasons. This explanation letting out that is quite comically in itself. --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.190|108.162.254.190]] 13:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
:::The main problem of end-to-end email cryptography is serious lack of companies who would actually WANT to do it properly. Most companies are directly interrested in violating your privacy. Keeping hard-to-work-with PGP is in their benefit. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 10:10, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Remember Responsible Behavior? https://xkcd.com/364/ [[User:Xquestion|Xquestion]] ([[User talk:Xquestion|talk]]) 13:03, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

But did the author post his public key anywhere ? :v [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.166|141.101.104.166]] 17:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Worth noting that posting his private key actually would be crowdsourcing his signing decisions, since anyone could do it. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.102|108.162.221.102]] 04:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

FWIW, I use PGP. :)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

iEYEARECAAYFAlWuhWoACgkQHkr3KdXO/9A/ZACeM5Oho5XEDZnjo2q4yZBTqABo
ET0Ani928heXg9aHmju0e0aK8JV7pvxH
=CsEo
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
''— [[User:Tbc|tbc]] ([[User talk:Tbc|talk]]) 18:17, 21 July 2015 (UTC)''

"the keys themselves do not hold "private" or "public" roles until one is released and becomes the public key" --- that might be true of ''some'' crypto-systems, but it is definite '''not''' true of anything based on RSA, such as PGP/GPG. The prime factors (or exponents derived from them) are definitely the "private" part, and the composite product is definitely the "public" part. You '''cannot'' simply choose which part of the pair to make public. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.181|108.162.238.181]] 19:54, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Talk:1491: Stories of the Past and Future

2015-02-25T15:07:36Z

108.162.238.181:

http://xkcd.com/1491/large/ will take you to the large version, which the comic currently doesn't have a link to. I expect that will be fixed shortly. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.177|108.162.210.177]] 05:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
:I just realized he has a text link for it in the top banner. I'd delete my comment, but that's rude on a wiki. Whatever. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.177|108.162.210.177]] 05:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The bottom diagonal seems to be mislabelled? Shouldn't it be "Stories written X years and set X years ago" instead of "set 2X years ago"?
--[[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.175|108.162.250.175]] 05:38, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
:It is correct, if you see both relative from now. The middle line is written X years ago and set X years ago and thus contemporary. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.68|108.162.231.68]] 06:46, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to open bug tickets, but Lest Darkness Fall actually takes place ~1500 years ago, not ~500. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.80.121|141.101.80.121]] 06:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
: I'll second that -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 12:36, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Kind of reminds of a Minkowski diagram. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.68|108.162.231.68]] 06:50, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

More and more science fiction works wander into the category obsolete science fiction, and more and more historical works are not recognisable as such by the average viewer as the movies have been filmed such a long time ago anyway. Sebastian --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.231.68|108.162.231.68]] 06:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

There seems to be a mistake with the large diagonal line. It says "Stories written X years ago and set 2X years ago." It should say, "... and set X years ago." Am I missing something here? [[User:Effy|Effy]] ([[User talk:Effy|talk]]) 09:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
:Nevermind, I see now that the y-axis is date relative to publication, not absolute dates relative to today. My bad. [[User:Effy|Effy]] ([[User talk:Effy|talk]]) 09:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I may have missed it, but can't see {{w|Paris in the Twentieth Century}}, written in 1863, about 1960, but only published in 1994. Which would have been an interesting addition. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.192|141.101.98.192]] 10:13, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
:In fact, I'm thinking it could have been represented as a (dotted?) ''diagonal'' arrowed line between "1960 in 1863"/future-trending and "1960 in 1994"/past-trending points. But never mind. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.192|141.101.98.192]] 10:38, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

... this is why experienced sci-fi writers don't date their stories. On the other hand, many sci-fi became obviously obsolete even without the date. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 11:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
:I have experience with this. Back in 1995 I advised a prospective author-friend (prospective author; already and still a friend, surprisingly) on the latest computing matters to help a plot device in a "five minutes into the future" story. Even two years later, it sounded so dated and... naff. ('Luckily', it didn't sell too well anyway (bad choice of publishers), so my failure-as-futurologist - uncredited as it also fortunately was - wasn't so wildly known.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.192|141.101.98.192]] 13:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been trying and trying to figure out what the heck his point might be, as IMO there usually seems to be some point he's trying to make or way he's trying to be clever, beyond the interesting nature of the observation - and I think I might have seen one (though there is probably something else) - anyone notice that the area under the "Stories set in 2015" line is awfully bare? at least compared to the areas on either side of the 'x / 2x' line. that could simply be his particular selection of works(?) anyone have some ideas of things that might deserve to go in there that were not included? -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 12:45, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

:I think the point here is that there are a lot of books one hasn't read yet. I, for one, sought out ''Memoirs of the Twentieth Century'' and ''The Pillow Book'' after reading this strip. --[[User:Koveras|Koveras]] ([[User talk:Koveras|talk]]) 13:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

As for writing a transcript or explanation, concerning order, I would think it would make some sense to flatten it on one axis (probably the y-axis, starting from Star Wars?) or if it is practical enough, the best might be some sort of "radial"(?) axis (is that a thing?), where the axis would be anchored at "this chart", and swing like a radar beam around from the bottom (Downton Abbey, Mad Men, and Star Wars, up through the 'x / 2x' line, through the 'contemporary' line and then the 'set in 2015' line, to finish with '3001', possibly making a small attempt to keep related works (like Star Wars) together in the listing. Any comments? -- [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 12:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
:Whatever the fixation, I started work on something, but other people will get there before me. So here's my ideas. Five columns: "Story (and format description/author?)", "First Published/Premiered", "Date offset(s)", "Featured date(s)" and "Notes", with sorting on each potentially numerical one (although ranges/freetext/vagueness may play havoc with such sorting, by past experience).
:I already have a complete list of listed titles (in case anyone needs it), though maybe not error-free and not yet been ordered other than by "input order".
Memoirs of the Twentieth Century
Golf in the Year 2000
Looking Backward
Enoch Soames
The Time Machine
1984
A Week in the Wales of the Future
The Jetsons
Star Trek !TOS!
2001: A Space Odyssey
Space: 1999
2010: Odyssey Two
Star Trek: The Next Generation
2061: Odyssey Three
Zero Wing
3001: The Final Odyssey
Enterprise
Back to the Future Part II
Transformers (TV Series)
Terminator 2 (1995 Portion)
Casablanca
The Pillow Book
History of the Peloponnesian War
Moby Dick
Gospels
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Iliad
Ashokavadana
Book of Genesis
Water Margin
King John
Henry IV
Richard III
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King Lear
A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Lest Darkness Fall
Asterix
The Ten Commandments
The Flintstones
2001: A Space Odyssey (prologue)
Star Wars (IV - VI)
Star Wars (I - III)
Raptor Red
Star Wars (VII - IX)
Ice Age
10,000 BC
300
Year One
The Prince of Egypt
Downton Abbey
Pearl Harbour
Saving Private Ryan
Chariots of Fire
Blazing Saddles
Back to the Future Part III
Roots
Treasure Island
The Last of the Mohicans
A Tale of Two Cities
Gone With The Wind
Gunsmoke
Rip Can Winkel [sic]
Les Misera'bles
Oklahoma!
Lawrence of Arabia
The Music Man
Annie (Play)
Annie (Movie)
Schindler's List
Mad Men
Evita
Bonnie and Clyde
Chinatown
Gandhi
The Sandlot
Back to the Future
Patton
Catch-22 (Movie)
The Great Escape
Catch-22 (Book)
M*A*S*H
Grease
Happy Days
Platoon
The Wonder Years
Dirty Dancing
The Right Stuff
JFK
Apollo 13
That '70s Show
The Wolf of Wall Street
Freaks and Geeks
I Love the '80s
The Bridge on the River Kwai
American Graffiti
Apocalypse Now
The Big Lebowski
United 93
I Love the '90s
Hotel Rwanda
I Love the 2000s
:(Do cut that out of this Talk Page when no longer necessary!)
:What I've so far put together (but not yet checked my link formats or WikiTabled) is...
{{w|Memoirs of the Twentieth Century|}}, book written by Samuel Madden 1733 +264 1997-8
{{w|Golf in the Year 2000|}}, novel written by J. McCullough 1892 +108 2000
{{w|Looking Backward|}}, novel written by Edward Bellamy 1888 +112 2000
{{w|Enoch Soames|}}, short story by Max Beerbohm 1916 (check!) 1897
{{w|The Time Machine|}}, novel written by H.G. Wells 1895 (range!) 802,701 CE and +30 million years
{{w|United 93 (film)|}}, film directed by Paul Greengrass 2006 -5 2001
{{w|I Love the '90s (U.S. TV series)|}}, TV miniseries on VH1 2004 -14..-5 1990-9 A programme by the same name was broadcast by the BBC in 2001
{{w|Hotel Rwanda|}}, film directed by Terry George 2004 -10 1994
{{w|I Love the 2000s|}}, TV miniseries on VH1 2014 -14..-5 2000-2009
:...but I'm probably duplicating someone else's efforts so by the time I get back to it you'll have a complete and better version online. FYI if you're determined to build on this while I'm absent, however. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.192|141.101.98.192]] 14:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

This appears to be a log-log graph, but with abrupt changes in scale along one axis yielding cusps in the "still possible / obsolete" line. Is there a name for that? -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.169|108.162.210.169]] 14:29, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I created a basic table using 141.101.98.192's data - bits corrected. [[User:Jarod997|Jarod997]] ([[User talk:Jarod997|talk]]) 14:46, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm in the process of writing a transcript myself. Mine is not formatted as a table; I am under the impression that this is the preferred approach to transcripts on this site. However, the existing table would be ''perfect'' in another section, where we can give more detail than a true transcript can/should provide (e.g. "this is a book written by X, here's the wikilink", "this is an error, it should be X", etc.) -- [[User:Peregrine|Peregrine]] ([[User talk:Peregrine|talk]]) 14:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Not sure of the protocol here, but the trivia section currently states that "Rip Van Winkel" is a misspelling of "Rip Van Winkle." The use of Winkel in the comic can be correct. (http://i.imgur.com/Z0adeEJ.jpg) The transcription also lists "Rip Can Winkel [sic]" but the comic actually uses "Rip Van Winkel."

1025: Tumblr

2015-02-03T17:29:27Z

108.162.238.181: /* Transcript */ Minor clarification. Cue Ball didn't say that last part. That was the punchline under the image.

{{comic
| number = 1025
| date = March 5, 2012
| title = Tumblr
| image = tumblr.png
| titletext = Dot Tumblr Dot Com, on the other hand, would be an awful name for a band, if only because of how hard it would be to direct people to your band's website.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Tumblr}} is a {{w|microblogging}} service, which has become a home for lots of animated {{w|Graphics Interchange Format|gif}}s and other internet {{w|Internet meme|memes}}, as well as other assorted novelties.

The phrase that [[Cueball]] used to use when he heard a random phrase was "would be a good name for a band." With the advent of Tumblr, his go-to response has shifted because of the proliferation of Tumblr blogs with strange names.

[http://raccoonsexdungeon.tumblr.com Raccoon Sex Dungeon] is an actual Tumblr page. See [[#Trivia|trivia]] below.

In the title text he muses on the fact that ''Dot Tumblr Dot Com'' would be an awful band name. There could be several reasons for this, but he mentions that it would be hard to direct fans to the band's website. As an example, someone who hears "www.thedottumblrdotcom.com" might instead write it out as "www.the.tumblr.com.com" since '.' is often pronounced as "dot."

==Transcript==
:Megan: You know those weird noises coming from my attic? Turns out some raccoons got in and were operating this, like, raccoon sex dungeon.
:Cueball: ...dot tumblr dot com.
:Punchline: ''For me, "...Dot tumblr dot com" has been gradually replacing "...would be a good name for a band."''

==Trivia==
* Randall ''did'' register a tumblr page called "[http://raccoonsexdungeon.tumblr.com Raccoon Sex Dungeon]" to coincide with this comic. He had already done the same with [http://wetriffs.com Wetriffs.com] (archive [http://web.archive.org/web/20130518191217/http://wetriffs.com/ here]) to coincide with Megan registering that domain in [[305: Rule 34]].

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Social networking]]