Site Security Handbook

Site Security Handbook

The Site Security Handbook, RFC 2196, is a guide on setting computer security policies and procedures for sites that have systems on the Internet (however, the information provided should also be useful to sites not yet connected to the Internet). The guide lists issues and factors that a site must consider when setting their own policies. It makes a number of recommendations and provides discussions of relevant areas. This guide is only a framework for setting security policies and procedures. In order to have an effective set of policies and procedures, a site will have to make many decisions, gain agreement, and then communicate and implement these policies. The guide is a product of the IETF SSH working group, and was published in 1997, obsoleting the earlier RFC 1244 from 1991.

Necrobotics

Necrobotics is the practice of using biotic materials (or dead organisms) as robotic components. Necrobotics can serve as an alternative to mechanical components that are difficult to manufacture by using biological components designed by natural selection in order to exploit the highly developed selective design implemented in biological lifeforms via the process of evolution. In July 2022, researchers in the Preston Innovation Lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas published a paper in Advanced Science introducing the concept and demonstrating its capability by repurposing dead spiders as robotic grippers and applying pressurized air to activate their gripping arms. In April 2025 researchers at Shinshu University created a “bio-hybrid drone” using silk-worm moth antennae to detect the source of a smell. In November 2025 researchers at McGill University demonstrated the use of a mosquito proboscis as a fine nozzle in experimental 3D printing. Necrobotics utilizes the spider's organic hydraulic system and their compact legs to create an efficient and simple gripper system. The necrobotic spider gripper is capable of lifting small and light objects, thereby serving as an alternative to complex and costly small mechanical grippers. == Background == The main appeal of the spider's body in necrobotics is its compact leg mechanism and use of hydraulic pressure. The spider's anatomy utilizes a simple hydraulic (fluid) pressure system. Spider legs have flexor muscles that naturally constrict their legs when relaxed. A force is required to straighten and extend their legs, which spiders accomplish by pumping hemolymph fluid (blood) through their joints as a means of hydraulic pressure. It takes no external power to curl their legs due to their flexor muscles' natural curled state. In July 2022, researchers in the Preston Innovation Lab at Rice University published a paper detailing their experiments with the gripper. Although dead spiders no longer produce hemolymph, Te Faye Yap (lead author and mechanical engineering graduate) found that pumping air through a needle into the spider's cephalothorax (main body) accomplishes the same results as hemolymph. The original hydraulic (fluid) system is essentially converted into a pneumatic (air) system. == Fabrication == Obtain a spider Euthanize the spider using a cold temperature of around -4°C for 5-7 days Insert a 25 gauge hypodermic needle into the spider's cephalothorax (main body) Apply glue around the needle to form a seal and allow it to dry Connect a syringe or pump to the needle Extend the spider's legs by pumping air in == Testing and Data == === Internal Force Versus Gripping Force === The typical pressure in a resting spider's legs ranges from 4 kPa to 6.1 kPa. Researchers extended the legs by increasing the spider's internal pressure to 5.5 kPa. Pumping air into the body increases the internal pressure, causing the legs to expand. Pumping air out of the body decreases internal pressure, causing the legs to contract due to their flexor leg muscles. When the internal pressure decreases to 0 kPa, the gripper would be fully closed, allowing for the gripper to grasp objects. This action demonstrates that as internal pressure decreases, the gripping force increases. Inversely, when internal pressure increases, the gripping force decreases. By gripping individual weighted acetate beads, it is found that the necrobotic gripper achieves a maximum gripping force of 0.35 milinewtons. === Spider Weight Versus Gripping Force === To estimate the gripping forces of smaller and larger spiders, researchers created a plot to predict the gripping force relative to the size of the spider. The wolf spider's body weight is relatively equal to the gripping force of its legs. The mass of the gripper is 33.5 mg and can lift 1.3 times its body weight (43.6 mg or 0.35 mN). However, with larger spiders, the gripping force relative to body weight decreases. For example, a 200-gram goliath birdeater is predicted to lift 10% of its weight (20 grams or 196 mN). Though there is an inverse relationship between spider mass and gripping force, larger spiders exert greater gripping forces than smaller spiders. === Gripper Lifespan === The necrobotic gripper's functionality is entirely reliant on the structural integrity of the spider. If the spider were to break down easily and frequently, the gripper would not be practical. Using cyclic testing, a series of repeated actions, it is found that the necrobotic gripper can actuate 700 to 1000 times. After 1000 cycles, cracks begin forming on the membrane of the leg joints due to dehydration. Weakened and decomposing joints lead to frequent breakage and replacement, thereby serving as an obstacle in applying necrobotics to real-world scenarios. One theorized fix to this issue is applying beeswax or a lubricant to the joints. Researchers found that over 10 days, the mass of an uncoated spider decreased 17 times more than the mass of a spider coated with beeswax. Lubricating joints combats dehydration and slows the loss of organic material. == Constraints == With the usage of organic material, there is a higher chance of the component decomposing and breaking down as opposed to traditional mechanical systems. There may be additional work and management required to replace these grippers if they fail. Additionally, organic inconsistencies with the spiders will yield inaccurate results. Not all wolf spiders develop the same, so gripping force and leg contraction can vary between grippers. There are moral implications behind euthanizing spiders for robotics. The ethical boundaries that necrobotics push in the pursuit of biohybrid systems raise concerns, as opponents say it may lead to the hybridization of mammals and is intrusive to nature. Proponents respond that repurposing dead animals has been human practice for millennia and that necrobotics should be pursued to advance science.

Digital Darkroom

Digital Darkroom was a graphics program for editing gray-scale photos, published by Silicon Beach Software for the Macintosh in 1987. It was programmed by Ed Bomke and Don Cone. Digital Darkroom was the first Macintosh program to incorporate a plug-in architecture. Silicon Beach and Ed Bomke are credited with having coined the term "plug-in". Another innovation of Digital Darkroom was the Magic Wand tool, which also appeared later in Photoshop. When Silicon Beach Software was acquired by Aldus Corporation, Digital Darkroom continued to be published by the Aldus Consumer Division, but was never updated to include color. The trademark "Digital Darkroom" was acquired by MicroFrontier in 1997 and used for a completely new image-editing program that does work with color. The software was acquired by Digimage Arts in 2002 and was sold for both Windows and Mac systems.

Luma (video)

In video, luma ( Y ′ {\displaystyle Y'} ) represents the brightness in an image (the "black-and-white" or achromatic portion of the image). Luma is typically paired with chroma. Luma represents the achromatic image, while the chroma components represent the color information. Converting R′G′B′ sources (such as the output of a three-CCD camera) into luma and chroma allows for chroma subsampling: because human vision has finer spatial sensitivity to luminance ("black and white") differences than chromatic differences, video systems can store and transmit chromatic information at lower resolution, optimizing perceived detail at a particular bandwidth. == Luma versus relative luminance == Luma is the weighted sum of gamma-compressed R′G′B′ components of a color video—the prime symbols ′ denote gamma compression. The word was proposed to prevent confusion between luma as implemented in video engineering and relative luminance as used in color science (i.e. as defined by CIE). Relative luminance is formed as a weighted sum of linear RGB components, not gamma-compressed ones. Even so, luma is sometimes erroneously called luminance. SMPTE EG 28 recommends the symbol Y ′ {\displaystyle Y'} to denote luma and the symbol Y {\displaystyle Y} to denote relative luminance. === Use of relative luminance === While luma is more often encountered, relative luminance is sometimes used in video engineering when referring to the brightness of a monitor. The formula used to calculate relative luminance uses coefficients based on the CIE color matching functions and the relevant standard chromaticities of red, green, and blue (e.g., the original NTSC primaries, SMPTE C, or Rec. 709). For the Rec. 709 (and sRGB) primaries, the linear combination, based on pure colorimetric considerations and the definition of relative luminance is: Y = 0.2126 R + 0.7152 G + 0.0722 B {\displaystyle Y=0.2126R+0.7152G+0.0722B} The formula used to calculate luma in the Rec. 709 spec arbitrarily also uses these same coefficients, but with gamma-compressed components: Y ′ = 0.2126 R ′ + 0.7152 G ′ + 0.0722 B ′ , {\displaystyle Y'=0.2126R'+0.7152G'+0.0722B',} where the prime symbol ′ denotes gamma compression. == Rec. 601 luma versus Rec. 709 luma coefficients == For digital formats following CCIR 601 (i.e. most digital standard definition formats), luma is calculated with this formula: Y 601 ′ = 0.299 R ′ + 0.587 G ′ + 0.114 B ′ {\displaystyle Y'_{\text{601}}=0.299R'+0.587G'+0.114B'} Formats following ITU-R Recommendation BT. 709 (i.e. most digital high definition formats) use a different formula: Y 709 ′ = 0.2126 R ′ + 0.7152 G ′ + 0.0722 B ′ {\displaystyle Y'_{\text{709}}=0.2126R'+0.7152G'+0.0722B'} Modern HDTV systems use the 709 coefficients, while transitional 1035i HDTV (MUSE) formats may use the SMPTE 240M coefficients: Y 240 ′ = 0.212 R ′ + 0.701 G ′ + 0.087 B ′ = Y 145 ′ {\displaystyle Y'_{\text{240}}=0.212R'+0.701G'+0.087B'=Y'_{\text{145}}} These coefficients correspond to the SMPTE RP 145 primaries (also known as "SMPTE C") in use at the time the standard was created. The change in the luma coefficients is to provide the "theoretically correct" coefficients that reflect the corresponding standard chromaticities ('colors') of the primaries red, green, and blue. However, there is some controversy regarding this decision. The difference in luma coefficients requires that component signals must be converted between Rec. 601 and Rec. 709 to provide accurate colors. In consumer equipment, the matrix required to perform this conversion may be omitted (to reduce cost), resulting in inaccurate color. == Luma and luminance errors == As well, the Rec. 709 luma coefficients may not necessarily provide better performance. Because of the difference between luma and relative luminance, luma does not exactly represent the luminance in an image. As a result, errors in chroma can affect luminance. Luma alone does not perfectly represent luminance; accurate luminance requires both accurate luma and chroma. Hence, errors in chroma "bleed" into the luminance of an image. Note the bleeding in lightness near the borders. Due to the widespread usage of chroma subsampling, errors in chroma typically occur when it is lowered in resolution/bandwidth. This lowered bandwidth, coupled with high frequency chroma components, can cause visible errors in luminance. An example of a high frequency chroma component would be the line between the green and magenta bars of the SMPTE color bars test pattern. Error in luminance can be seen as a dark band that occurs in this area.

EditDV

EditDV was a video editing software released by Radius, Inc. in late 1997 as an evolution of their earlier Radius Edit product. EditDV was one of the first products providing professional-quality editing of the then new DV format at a relatively affordable cost ($999 including Radius FireWire capture card) and was named "The Best Video Tool of 1998". Originally EditDV was available for Macintosh only but in February 2000 EditDV 2.0 for Windows was released. With version 3.0 EditDV's name was changed to CineStream. == Features == Originally bundled with a FireWire card, EditDV 1.5 got updated into a less expensive software only package for use with the newer PowerMac G3 that came with a FireWire interface. Later, a scaled down version named EditDV 1.6.1 Unplugged was released as a freeware version next to EditDV 2.0. Unlike many other applications at the time which transcoded video to M-JPEG for editing, EditDV provided lossless native editing of the DV format. Only transitions (such as dissolves or wipes), effects (such as rotating or scaling the video, adjusting the audio level, or adding titles) and filters (such as changing the brightness or color balance) needed to be rendered. This also had the disadvantage to not work with analogue video capture. EditDV was built on top of QuickTime and supported QuickTime filters as well as its own built-in effects and transitions. Effects could be animated using keyframes. EditDV 2.0 worked natively with Quicktime MOV format. For Microsoft Windows users, where the standard was AVI, this required the use of a provided external conversion tool afterwards when AVI was wanted. The user interface had a Project window for organising clips into bins, a Sequence window with a multi-track timeline for arranging clips into a program using three-point editing, and Source and Program monitor windows. A finished program could either be exported as a QuickTime movie or written back to DV tape using the "print to video" command. Version 3.0, then renamed CineStream, shifted towards web designers who wanted to add video streaming interactivity to a website. The new feature called EventStream allowed setting clickable hot spots to link to another location, either to another page with a URL or to another video. This feature distinguished CineStream from the rest of the competition. == Products == The EditDV product family included a number of related products, all sharing a similar name: EditDV Video editing software (Mac and Windows) SoftDV A QuickTime software codec for playing DV media, included as part of EditDV (Mac and Windows) MotoDV PCI-based FireWire interface with DV capture software (Mac and Windows) PhotoDV Software to capture high-quality stills from a DV tape using MotoDV hardware (Mac and Windows) RotoDV Software for rotoscoping (painting over video), released in Sept 1999 (Macintosh only) == Name changes and eventual demise == In 1999, the company Radius Inc. changed its name to Digital Origin. In 2000, Digital Origin Inc (and EditDV) was bought by Media 100. In early 2001, Media 100 released an updated version of EditDV under the new name CineStream 3.0. Later that year (October 2001) Media 100 was bought by Autodesk's Discreet Division. CineStream for Macintosh required classic Mac OS. It was never ported to Mac OS X and faced increasing competition on that platform from Apple's own Final Cut Pro application. Development of EditDV/Cinestream was officially discontinued in 2002.

Document classification

Document classification or document categorization is a problem in library science, information science and computer science. The task is to assign a document to one or more classes or categories. This may be done "manually" (or "intellectually") or algorithmically. The intellectual classification of documents has mostly been the province of library science, while the algorithmic classification of documents is mainly in information science and computer science. The problems are overlapping, however, and there is therefore interdisciplinary research on document classification. The documents to be classified may be texts, images, music, etc. Each kind of document possesses its special classification problems. When not otherwise specified, text classification is implied. Documents may be classified according to their subjects or according to other attributes (such as document type, author, printing year etc.). In the rest of this article only subject classification is considered. There are two main philosophies of subject classification of documents: the content-based approach and the request-based approach. == "Content-based" versus "request-based" classification == Content-based classification is classification in which the weight given to particular subjects in a document determines the class to which the document is assigned. It is, for example, a common rule for classification in libraries, that at least 20% of the content of a book should be about the class to which the book is assigned. In automatic classification it could be the number of times given words appears in a document. Request-oriented classification (or -indexing) is classification in which the anticipated request from users is influencing how documents are being classified. The classifier asks themself: “Under which descriptors should this entity be found?” and “think of all the possible queries and decide for which ones the entity at hand is relevant” (Soergel, 1985, p. 230). Request-oriented classification may be classification that is targeted towards a particular audience or user group. For example, a library or a database for feminist studies may classify/index documents differently when compared to a historical library. It is probably better, however, to understand request-oriented classification as policy-based classification: The classification is done according to some ideals and reflects the purpose of the library or database doing the classification. In this way it is not necessarily a kind of classification or indexing based on user studies. Only if empirical data about use or users are applied should request-oriented classification be regarded as a user-based approach. == Classification versus indexing == Sometimes a distinction is made between assigning documents to classes ("classification") versus assigning subjects to documents ("subject indexing") but as Frederick Wilfrid Lancaster has argued, this distinction is not fruitful. "These terminological distinctions,” he writes, “are quite meaningless and only serve to cause confusion” (Lancaster, 2003, p. 21). The view that this distinction is purely superficial is also supported by the fact that a classification system may be transformed into a thesaurus and vice versa (cf., Aitchison, 1986, 2004; Broughton, 2008; Riesthuis & Bliedung, 1991). Therefore, assigning a subject term to a document in an index is equivalent to assigning that document to the class of documents indexed by that term (all documents indexed or classified as X belong to the same class of documents). == Automatic document classification (ADC) == Automatic document classification tasks can be divided into three sorts: supervised document classification where some external mechanism (such as human feedback) provides information on the correct classification for documents, unsupervised document classification (also known as document clustering), where the classification must be done entirely without reference to external information, and semi-supervised document classification, where parts of the documents are labeled by the external mechanism. There are several software products under various license models available. === Techniques === Automatic document classification techniques include: Artificial neural network Concept Mining Decision trees such as ID3 or C4.5 Expectation maximization (EM) Instantaneously trained neural networks Latent semantic indexing Multiple-instance learning Naive Bayes classifier Natural language processing approaches Rough set-based classifier Soft set-based classifier Support vector machines (SVM) K-nearest neighbour algorithms tf–idf == Applications == Classification techniques have been applied to spam filtering, a process which tries to discern E-mail spam messages from legitimate emails email routing, sending an email sent to a general address to a specific address or mailbox depending on topic language identification, automatically determining the language of a text genre classification, automatically determining the genre of a text readability assessment, automatically determining the degree of readability of a text, either to find suitable materials for different age groups or reader types or as part of a larger text simplification system sentiment analysis, determining the attitude of a speaker or a writer with respect to some topic or the overall contextual polarity of a document. health-related classification using social media in public health surveillance article triage, selecting articles that are relevant for manual literature curation, for example as is being done as the first step to generate manually curated annotation databases in biology

Graphics suite

A graphics suite is a software suite for graphics work that are distributed together. The programs are usually able to interact with each other on a higher level than the operating system would normally allow. There is no hard, fast rule regarding the programs to be included in a graphics application suite, but most will include at least a bitmap graphics editor and a vector graphics editor. In addition to these, the suite may contain VRML editors, animation editors, and morphing tools.