Top 500

CNET reported this morning that AMD Opteron processors now run 81 of the world's top 500 supercomputers, up from 55 in November and 25 this time last year.  Intel, meanwhile, has slipped to 301 (including 118 running 64-bit Xeons), down from 333 in November.  Many of those losses are Itanium systems, currently 37, down from 45 in November and 79 a year ago.

IBM continues to hold the top three places, with one more in the top ten, and has more systems on the list than any other vendor (243).  SGI, Dell and Cray each have a machine in the top ten.

SGI and Cray, of course, don't surprise me.  Dell did, at first, until it occurred to me that it's doubtless simply a huge cluster of commodity boxen, as are many of the others.

Microsoft exec bloviates about privacy

The basic drift of this article is that Microsoft is working on cleaning up its act with respect to user privacy, after the recent fuss over the WGA Notifications tool "phoning home" system information on startup.  Microsoft's peter Cullen explains how Microsoft is trying to be a good player.

Then he blows it by bringing up the Trustworthy Computing Initiative:

Is there much debate, or do you have to fight for certain things when you're working with product teams?  Are there certain things that you really have put your foot down over?

Cullen:  One of the most gratifying things about Microsoft is privacy is a core tenet of the company.  It's part of the Trustworthy Computing Initiative, which was proclaimed by Bill Gates four-and-a-half years ago.  I find privacy is actually a forethought as opposed to an afterthought.  There are situations where we do provide counsel, but usually it is because the business unit really wants to do the right thing.

Privacy a forethought?!?  Lest anyone be unclear on this, the one person in the world whom the Trustworthy Computing platform explicitly does NOT trust is you, the owner of the machine.  Trustworthy Computing is not for one second about keeping your data private -- or even safe.  Trustworthy Computing doesn't give a tinker's damn who gets their hands on your data.  It's all about keeping you from getting your filthy, grubby little end-user hands on bits that some content provider doesn't want you copying, or even viewing in "unapproved" ways.

For example, the Trustworthy Computing Initiative does little or nothing to keep an intruder from gaining access to your computer and your files -- it doesn't monitor who accesses your data, or make sure your data isn't sent unencrypted over the Internet, or try to expose phishing attempts -- but it does encrypt data between your video card and your monitor, lest you try to steal or copy the video stream in some way.

Trustworthy Computing is not about you having a computer that YOU can trust.  It's about you having a computer that the MPAA and RIAA can trust.

More on privacy, via schneier:

Almost every piece of personal information that Americans try to keep secret -- including bank account statements, e-mail messages and telephone records -- is semi-public and available for sale.

That was the lesson Congress learned over the last week during a series of hearings aimed at exposing peddlers of personal data, from whom banks, car dealers, jealous lovers and even some law enforcement officers have covertly purchased information to use as they wish.

[....]

The committee subpoenaed representatives from 11 companies that use the Internet and phone calls to obtain, market, and sell personal data, but they refused to talk.

All invoked their constitutional right to not incriminate themselves when asked whether they sold "personal, non-public information" that had been obtained by lying or impersonating someone.

In other words, out of 11 companies that sell personal data, 11 companies - gee, that's all of the sample, isn't it? -- had illegally obtained some of that data by various forms of fraud, all 11 knew it was illegal, and all 11, oddly enough, chose to continue to be lying ratfinks about it instead of coming clean.

And we allow these people to stay in business why, exactly?

That LJ dungeon meme

( OK, so I finally got this LJ Dungeon thing to work.... )