> Make a website that looks like the Linux config. When done push the src
> into a tar-ball that can be downloaded. There are only a limited amount of
> combinations in the config.. so.. it's a finit task.. anyone?
Huh?
Limited number of combinations? Well, yes. Techically that's true.
Lets play a bit here...
Number of lines in .config with configuration parameters in 2.2.1:
1294
Ok... Let's be really sloppy here as say that all of those options
are only "binary". We'll ignore the trinaries and modules as well as the
value parameters. That should just about offset some of the mutually
exclusive options. It doesn't deal with rediculous configurations of
20 ethernet cards or 4 different sound cards, but what the heck. Lets
just shoot for something within 6 orders of magnitude. Hell, just for
giggles, lets throw away three quarters of them on the principle that
pruning and reduction will gain you a 4 to 1 improvement in the number
of parameters.
Binary gives us a theoretical possiblity of 2**323 combinations.
Let's see now... What where those figures I remember about the "idea"
encryption algorithm. With 128 bit keys, if all the silicon on earth was
converted to special purpose processors for cracking idea using manufacturing
techniques an order of magnitude better than anything theoretically possible
at this time, and we were able to have those processors each check for a
million keys per second, you could brute force (test by trying all possible
combinations) an idea key in something close to 10 times the heat death of
the universe. Ok... That's a finite amount of time. But that's only
2**128. This is 2**323. Even if we said only one in a billion of those
possible combinations made any sense at all, we are still talking about
A REALLY BIG FINITE NUMBER.
Yes, you are right... It is a limited amount of combination in
the config. It is a finite task. It's not a finite task that I want to
take on. Care to inumerate all the possiblities you envision?
> > > /Lars
> > > Student at Department of Computer Science
> > > University of Copenhagen
> > > http://www.diku.dk/students/larsj/
> >
> > /Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@sonera.fi>
>
> /Lars
> Student at Department of Computer Science
> University of Copenhagen
> http://www.diku.dk/students/larsj/
-- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com (The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/