Hotplate

[Robert J. Hansen]

Over this Memorial Day weekend I've got two major priorities -- one is
to add something to the FAQ regarding certificate generation, and the
other is to force myself to learn JavaFX [1].

Anyway.  I figured to use recent heated -- pardon the pun -- discussions
on this list as fodder for a small excursion into JavaFX, and Hotplate
is the result.  It's a small app that will let you toy around with
different numbers and see how they, the Landauer bound, and the
Margolus-Levitin limit, affect the time and heat required to brute-force
a 128-bit cipher.

If you're interested in looking at it, the very first thing you should
do is visit http://java.com to get the latest version of the Java
virtual machine.  Once that's taken care of, you have two choices:

1.  Hit http://sixdemonbag.org/Hotplate.jnlp and launch the application
through Java Web Start. [2]

2.  Download it from http://sixdemonbag.org/Hotplate.jar and
double-click to execute.

The application is signed in accordance with Java's normal practices.
If you get a warning about an invalid signature, don't run it.  If you
don't trust Java's signing process, you can download a GnuPG-generated
clearsig from http://sixdemonbag.org/Hotplate.jar.asc .

Full source code is included inside the jarfile, and the entire thing is
contributed to the public domain.  Enjoy.



[1] Not that I'm particularly keen on it, mind you, but the first
question hiring managers ask in the DC metro area is, "Are you up with
the latest Java technologies?"  It pays to learn it just so you can get
hired for a job where you'll never use it.


[2] Probably the simplest, but not exactly recommended.  Java Web Start
is a pretty effective malware vector.  But if you've got it installed
already, well...

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 455 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: </pipermail/attachments/20140525/b0349084/attachment.sig>