My prof said that the last round of the AES algorithm doesn't use the MixedColumns layer, yet this doesn't decrease security. If so, why the MC layer is used in the other rounds?
All rounds of AES (and Rijndael) have a MixColumns step, save the last round which omits it.  DES has a similar feature where the last round differs slightly.  The rationale, if I recall correctly, was to "make the cipher appear similar in reverse as it does in the forward direction."  Why does this make AES$^{-1}$ look similar to AES?  And how does this help in implementing the block cipher?
Should I retag a question with a tag that is based on the answer and not the question? Here's a scenario:  Someone asked about "How to build a SQL query to get count and blah blah blah..."  His only tag is . I added the  and  tags to it.  Someone else answered with a nice SQL statement that has a "group by" statement which seems "logically inevitable".  I proceed to add a tag . I did that on the basis that someone who searches for  will be able to find this post useful, just as I did. My concern is, it wasn't described at all in the question, nor was it implied, unlike  and .  What is the community opinion?  The scenario above is a real one . And the one who answered it nicely is Jon Skeet. Unable to mount Windows (NTFS) filesystem due to hibernation Whenever I boot Ubuntu, I get a message that it cannot mount my windows partition, and I can choose to either wait, skip or manually mount.  When I try to enter my Windows partition through Nautilus I get a message saying that this partition is hibernated and that I need to enter the file system and properly close it, something I have done with no problem so I don't know why this happens.    Here's my partition table, if any more data is needed please let me know.     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/sda1            2048    20000767     9999360   83  Linux /dev/sda2        20002814   478001151   228999169    5  Extended /dev/sda3   *   478001152   622532607    72265728    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4       622532608   625141759     1304576   82  Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda5        20002816   478001151   228999168   83  Linux Show that the $\max{ \{ x,y \} }= \frac{x+y+|x-y|}{2}$. Show that the $\max{ \{ x,y \} }= \dfrac{x+y+|x-y|}{2}$.   I do not understand how to go about completing this problem or even where to start. This is an old problem that deserves a bugfix, but it's getting beyond a joke now and I can't seem to work around it.  I keep getting the dreaded failed To download extra data files error in relation to ttf-mscorefonts-installer:    Repeatedly asking it to try again doesn't help, additionally, repeatedly trying-  sudo rm -rf /var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/* sudo apt-get --purge --reinstall install ttf-mscorefonts-installer   Isn't working either.  I just get at least one 404 error from one of the sourceforge links that stops it working-  Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information... Done 0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 20 not to upgrade. Need to get 0 B/29.5 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Preconfiguring packages ... (Reading database ... 352049 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.4+nmu1ubuntu2_all.deb ... mscorefonts-eula license has already been accepted Unpacking ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) over (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) ... Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1) ... Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (3.168.2) ... ttf-mscorefonts-installer: processing... ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe Get:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/andale32.exe [198 kB] Fetched 198 kB in 0s (339 kB/s)                                                 W: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/andale32.exe' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied) ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arial32.exe Get:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arial32.exe [554 kB] Fetched 554 kB in 0s (575 kB/s)                                                 W: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/arial32.exe' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied) ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arialb32.exe Get:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/arialb32.exe [168 kB] Fetched 168 kB in 0s (306 kB/s)                                                 W: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/arialb32.exe' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied) ttf-mscorefonts-installer: downloading http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/comic32.exe Err:1 http://downloads.sourceforge.net/corefonts/comic32.exe   404  Not Found W: Can't drop privileges for downloading as file '/var/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloads/partial/comic32.exe' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied) E: Failed to fetch https://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/corefonts/the fonts/final/comic32.exe  404  Not Found  E: Download Failed Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu2) ...   The specific point at which it fails to download changed - it seems to be a sourceforge reliability problem, but this has now been going on weeks and results in annoying popups as above all the time.  How do we get this fixed and/or how can I work around it for now. There are several things that I don't understand. I know that zero is a real number, but I'm confused on the how and why aspects. What defines a real number, compared to a number that's considered non-real? For what reason is zero real, and how is it that a value such as infinity isn't when zero is?  Also, what purpose does zero even have? It's obvious that it's used as a place holder, but what value does it have alone? What makes it any different from other numbers? I realize that it is typically interchanged with nothing, but that would technically mean that zero is nothing—and that's not true. People have told me already so many times that zero does not necessarily mean nothing, and I figured it out a long while ago anyway. So, what I want to know is the actual value that can be associated with zero.  However, my question brings up another topic that has been argued and disputed about and disagreed on for years. Zero divided by zero, or 0/0. There are a lot of varying answers about this, but what's been constant throughout everything is that people claim 0/0 is not a real number. So, if I may ask, why is it that zero is considered a real number, and not 0/0? And why is it considered non-real in the first place? True, there is no defined value, but the expression is anything but meaningless; if it was, then there wouldn't be so many people trying to understand it. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is the reason behind the expression's classification as non-real—especially when the sole number of zero is real, despite not having an evident value.  This covers a few different things, so I was uncertain about what to make the title of these questions. I apologize for that. If anyone can answer, though, I'd be extremely grateful! I'm very new to Blender and I'm trying to make a water vortex like this.(may be not the easyest first project for a newbie)     I watched several tutorial on liquids particle etc but I'm not sure what is the best aproach. What I tried  until now:   I made a particle system with a vortex force field. It looks good, but I'm not able to add the right material.      I played around with the fluid physics, the water looks good but if I add a vortex force field it does nothing.   I would be very grateful if somebody could point me in the right direction because I'm definitely stocked. jQuery find events handlers registered with an object I remember reading a series when I was around 7th or 8th grade about aliens who had taken over Earth by putting metal caps on people when they were "entering adulthood" to control them (not direct control, but it would keep them from rebelling). There was a faction of people who able to escape and had fake caps and would save teens who were about to be capped.  The main protagonist was a teen boy who was a boxer (or training to be a boxer or something). The aliens would hold tournaments for the humans and whoever won would be "worthy" to serve as personal slaves to the aliens.     The protagonist won and was able to get inside to try and learn more about the aliens from the inside. "Scaled $L^p$ norm" and geometric mean Profile Gravatar get change Do not know whether someone else observe it or not but today I found my profile Gravatar changed. It is now different than earlier I have. Is it because today I have updated my profile information?        My previous gravatar looks like: How to redirect stderr to a file Syntax highlighting language hints Do you think it would be worthwhile to provide hints as to what language to use for the syntax highlighting?  Sometimes I find the highlighting on SQL or VB.NET answers is more distracting than helpful; for example:       to pick the two I've been looking at recently. Would it be possible for some to bend two elements? After reading this question  While it seems that it would break one of the rules of the show, that only the avatar can master all four elements. There would also be good reasons as to why someone couldn't learn all four, there is always the opposing element that is hardest for the Avatar to learn. I don't see any reason why someone couldn't learn to bend two elements (not master, but just bend since Thadeus's Answer  to the previous question is apparently the Definitive Answer on the subject.)    Many benders do learn to bend beyond their element such as Toph becoming a metal bender and Katarra bending blood. Now metal is considered part of the Earth but so is sand and it seems that sand is moved more like water. Iroh was able to adapt a water bender technique to fire bending which means it is possible to learn and use different bending styles. Also Iroh spent time connecting to the spirit world and that seems to be the main reason the Avatar is able to bend all 4 elements. So if someone was connected to the spirit world or even their past life that would fulfill that requirement.   Would it be possible to bend two elements?  There do seem to be times where it has been done in the series such as bending mud which is both Earth and Water. And there would definitely be limits such as a Earth bender couldn't bend Air and a Water bender couldn't bend Fire. But why couldn't a Fire Bender learn to bend Air. They both use breath control as a main focus of their bending. It also states on the Energybending wiki entry that all bending used to be done as an inner bending but that it became element bending.   So with new bending techniques being formed all the time, already stated used of combined elements being used, an assumed spiritual connection to a past life or a spiritual journey been taken, energybending rediscovered is it possible that two elements could be bent by one bender who is not the Avatar? Man/Tree Symbiosis It was an old book... I'm pretty sure it was a book, and pre-1990's I think. The basic plot was this man somehow interacted with this tree, and as a result he became a carrier of the tree's 'seed'. They were in a symbiotic relationship: the man got a much longer life, more strength, etc.; but when he did die the tree would grow up from his body. What is the ideal way to handle data pins D+ and D- on a USB power adapter to be compatible with fast charging on devices? Consider there is a box of mass $m$ at rest on the floor. Most books give an example that we need to do a work of $mgh$ to lift the box $h$ upward.  If we analyze this work done, the external force acting on the box by us should be equal to the weight of the box. Therefore the net force is zero which in turn there is no acceleration. If there is no acceleration and the initial velocity of the box is also zero, how can the box move upward? How to sort an array of integers correctly Can you attach a UIGestureRecognizer to multiple views? A Hilbert space is, by definition, a complete inner product space. If $(V,|.|)$ is finite dimensional inner product space of dimension $n$ then it is (topologically) isomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^n$ which is of course complete. My instinct here is to say "and therefore, $V$ is also a Hilbert space". I'm not sure about this step however since completeness depends on the norm and the norm depends on the selected inner product (assuming the induced norm $||x|| = (x | x)^{1/2}$ is used). So, must we place some condition on the inner product or is the topological isomorphism between $\mathbb{R}^n$ enough to guarantee that V is Hilbert? Let $G$ be a finite abelian group s.t. it contains a subgroup $H_{0} \neq (e)$ which lies in every subgroup $H \neq (e) $. Prove that $G$ must be cyclic.   Also what can be said about $o(G)$ ?    I'm clueless about this problem from Herstein. I tried to think $G$ might be a solvable group and its subgroups are all normal (as $G$ is abelian) . But I'm unable to get further.