[ILUG] serious Debian/Ubuntu security hole found

[paul at clubi.ie]

On Sat, 17 May 2008, Timothy Murphy wrote:

> Sorry to be mean, but I wish you wouldn't use the word "entropy" in 
> this way. I can well believe that it is used by computer scientists 
> in this area, but to me its use is slightly off-putting, as the 
> word has a perfectly precise mathematical meaning (as developed by 
> Clausius, Boltzmann, Shannon and Komogorov/Chaitin) and it is not 
> clear to me how it is being applied here.

Computer scientists and engineers would almost always use it in the 
Shannon information sense rather than the thermodynamics sense (e.g. 
I have nothing but the vaguest idea about the latter).

> But I don't like arguments by authority.

For most of us mere mortals, understanding complex topics from first 
principles is often unfeasible. So we have to take authority as an 
input into our decision..

Thanks for your reply - lots of material to google :)

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected.