Slashdot Mirror

PING www.theregister.co.uk (212.100.234.54) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from 212.100.234.54: icmp_req=1 ttl=38 time=328 ms

so just use http://212.100.234.54/ and you get the site

Steve's children aren't allowed to drink soda or watch television, if this story is accurate. http://212.100.234.54/content/6/35259.html

N-Gage! Warp Factor 10!
It can't be done Captain! It's too lame!
This one is going to make the Atari Lynx look like a success.
That a so totally flawed idea can become a reality is astounding.
This article at the register has an interesting field trip with the N-Gage.
Hands-on: Nokia's N-Gage
IMntbHO....
I don't know about you all, but I don't want wireless gameplay in a portable. never have, never will.
When I play (gameboy SP) I am just killing a few minutes here and there, I don't plan on getting hooked up and fragging anybody.

I have though about this with regard to the GBA-SP and decided that the only good games on it are RPGs. Want to know why?
Because other game types like shooters or platformers require bigger screens and better graphics.

I know, I know, there are good non-rpg games on the SP, but of the people I know who play with these, they almost ONLY play RPGs. Indeed it becomes physically painful to hold and stare at a gameboy screen for a game like sonic or castlevania. RPGs at least afford you the opportunity to move and or look around.
Who knows, I might freak out if I see one in person and decide I must have one, but I sincerely doubt it. If I haven't bought a GP32 yet, I am most certainly not getting one of these...

The real discussion here is not to N-Gage or not to N-Gage, it is to TAPWAVE or wait for PSP.....anybody?

I am a bit surprised Sony didn't post some prototype shot of the psp just to take the steam (if it has any) out of the N-Gage launch. Maybe tomorrow...


SELL YOUR NOKIA STOCK NOW...

... who for into Hussein's e-mail box and then invented the cyber jihad? Oh, yeah, it is the same guy. Never mind.

-1: Troll for the whole story.

:)

Hate Microsoft; hate spam.
Hate Microsoft; hate spam.
Evil greedy corporation; slimy pollution of the Internet.
Illegally abusing their monopoly; illegally hijacking servers.
Overpriced software; lowest mortgage rates ever.
Bug-ridden products; barnyard porn.
Embrace and extend; extend your manhood.
No concept of security; special offers on SystemWorks 2003.
Never innovating; always innovating.

I'm siding with Microsoft.

*sob*

This has the potential to fuck up all local wideband broadband startups. I can foresee the federal & corporate businesses cracking down on small and free wideband usage. These guys know that 3g sucked and couldn't compete with wideband so they incorporated it and now will try and force wideband users out of the market potentially. This is a big potential conflict when Corporate owned government and small and small and free enterprises collide . You can kiss free WIDEBAND access good bye!
more info here at the register on hdspa

IBM and Intel, and a few other hardware manufacturers, probably with support from Microsoft, tried something similar back in 2000.

Then it was called Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM). This was hardware based system that encrypted the data on hard disks. The idea was that they would sell hard disks with hardware based encryption and key management. The goal was to provide a platform for DRM. One description can be found at The Register.

There was a lot of noise in the press for a couple of months after the announcements as the public opposition was voiced. Then the initiative quietly died.

It's not surprising that CPRM dissapeared, since no one could force you to use CRPM based hardware. Why would customers go out and upgrade/replace their perfectly good hard disks with something that imposes (to the ordinary user) complex and difficult to understand restrictions? Particularly when when normal unrestricted hard disks would still to be available.

I suspect (and hope) that Palladium will suffer a similar fate. Most people resist forced upgrades. Over the years, Microsoft has tarnished its reputation by continualy forcing users to upgrade. As the Windows cost/ownership hassle has increased, the minority of non-upgraders has grown and now includes even a few major corporations. Worse, it's also caused some previously loyal customers to switch to Unix and Linux.

With Palladium, the upgrade will require a new Palladium enabled PC, not just more memory and a faster CPU. This, combined with the restrictions, will make people even more reluctant. If Microsoft actually forces the upgrade, say by discontinuing support and sales of previous Windows versions, they risk a customer revolt. Microsoft realizes this (as evidenced by the recent Palladium name changes and smoke and mirrors announcements) and is treading cautiously.

• Note: I wonder if the real motive is to stop piracy of MS Office. Microsoft have managed to get most of the world hooked on Office and if they could get all the pirate copy owners to pay up, they'd have a pretty nice revenue stream.

My personal belief is that DRM is an unreachable utopia. It only takes one person to crack an instance of DRM protected media or indeed the DRM system itself. Once this has happened, then there's nothing anyone can do, technically or legally, to stop distribution of the unprotected digital content. Given the financial incentives there are plenty of clever minds willing to devote a lot of energy to cracking DRM systems. I'm not saying this is legal/moral, I'm just pointing out that it's inevitable that DRM systems will be attacked.

In the end, forcing copy protection schemes on users doesn't solve the problem and just ends up annoying the users. Examples of failed DRM are all around us: DVD's, Adobe's e-books, etc. Remember 'dongles'? They failed too. As Bruce Schneier says, encryption doesn't stop anyone, it only slows them down.

Alan Hodgkinson

Well, here's where I read it for the first time on The register

A Google new search reveals all sorts of interesting articles, including some cases where people were busted.

And this little gem:

The group said that last week's new piracy-fighting proposal from the European Commission is "inadequate in view of the magnitude of the piracy problem and fails to introduce urgently needed measures to hold back the epidemic of counterfeiting." The group claims that in Europe, film, video, music, business and leisure software industries alone suffer losses in excess of EUR4.5 billion annually due to piracy.

Kevin Mitnick knows how Slashdot works. His response to Question 1 is largely a consolidation from the unpublished first chapter of his book: Kevin Mitnick's 'lost' bio

A lot of you are missing the point. $10 million isn't that much. They could build 100 such machines for a billion dollars, not an unreasonable sum for the NSA, especially if it is spread out over a few years.

They may not even have to. They'd use their own fab which will probably give them a better deal than that.

Alex

VERY interesting read! I wonder why that chapter wasn't included in the book? Seems informative.

The Register's reportign if the press release from Sony.

By all metrics Microsoft is getting it's arse soundly kicked, at this rate they're gonna have to make the xbox do somethign more than play games to try to get the thing selling.

Technology and media companies, such as Microsoft, Sony, Philips and Real Networks, are looking to build a business out of securing copyright protections across the Internet and other digital media.
Micrososft has discussed plans for an upcoming operating system, code-named "Palladium," that will seek to put user controls on all bits of information they store on a computer document, from medical records to billing information.

Interesting, while M$ is still denying any connection of DRM and Palladium, their own joint venture MSNBC is making the connection lightheartedly... Maybe they bypassed their marketing drones and read the truth on the net...

On a sombre note, from a register article:

The 15-year-old-girl in South Africa who suffered second-degree burns to her hands and thighs after her laptop exploded was using a Dell machine, it's been revealed.

iafrica.com reports that the laptop was a Dell Inspiron.

The story also quotes the girl's father as saying: "It would appear the battery pack had exploded and disintegrated and set fire to the room."

Forensic experts are now carrying out tests on the laptop to establish the cause of the explosion and subsequent fire.

A spokesman for Dell in South Africa said the company had not been contacted by the family or police over the incident.

And because the full facts of the case had yet to appear he was "unable to comment" on the matter.

This is already being worked on. In Canada, for example. You can buy jammers. Here [theregister.co.uk] and here [theregister.co.uk] are two articles with more info.

This is already being worked on. In Canada, for example. You can buy jammers. Here [theregister.co.uk] and here [theregister.co.uk] are two articles with more info.

See this story at the register: Sun eclipsed by worst ever quarter You could use the phrase "Current economic climate" here, but like Sun you'd be kidding yourself.

Unless you happen to be Al Gore...in which case, YOU are the one responsible!

This is one of the two memes about the internet that really bugs me. If you are going to criticize someone, criticize them for what they actually said, not for what their critics say they said, for crying out loud.

Gore never claimed to have "invented" the internet. During a CNN interview he said "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

So, who did create the internet? Well Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn were the guys who lead the development of TCP/IP, so their opinion should carry some weight.

And this is what they had to say about it.

I imagine that if Gore had been writing, rather than speaking off the cuff, he may have prefaced the word "initiative", and said, "legislative initiative" or "political initiative". And if Cerf and Kahn are to be believed, this would be a very fair assessment of his role.

I didn't know of his efforts, prior to reading this article. Reading it earned him my respect.

Particularly when you consider what George W. Bush was doing during this time. When was dubya a drunk and a coke-head?

The other meme that bugs me is that "the internet was designed to survive a nuclear war." You don't believe that one too, do you crawdaddy?

I am going to go off-topic in this last paragraph, and suggest slashdot readers take a look at the portion of Douglas Jones's homage to the punch card devoted to analyzing the questionable voting machines used in Florida./a?

This is bad news...

Cheers

Don't forget the first chapter...
Here: http://212.100.234.54/content/55/28835.html

Excellent reading.

Chapter 1 was removed from the book by Kevin's publisher. It gives an interesting insight into HIS perspective on how he came to be known as Public Enemy Number 1 on the Internet, the feud with John Markoff, the Takedown film, as well as how he got into social engineering in the first place (getting free rides on the bus...)

The Register have it here.

Mitnick had wished to include a brief biographical sketch debunking the legendary persona created by New York Times tech hack John Markoff and detailing his ordeal at the hands of federal prosecutors. Unfortunately, the publisher rejected what were to be the juiciest parts of Chapter One, but we thought you might like to see it anyway.

C'mon.. this is obviously the RIAA 'fighting back' in the only way that they know how: illegal or gray-area tactics. They have been defaced over and over again and suffered severe embarassment due to it.

The comment from the advisory that reads as below points out their real intention:
4) Don't fu*k with the RIAA again, scriptkids.

The rest of it reads like pure scare tactics (aka "nothing you have will protect you! Muhahahahaha!") leading up to that almost conclusionary statement.

It is definitely directed towards the larger, non-technical/admin P2P community (hey, the P2P community wouldn't be as large as it is today if the RIAA didn't bring so much attention to Napster. They literally caused the explosion of P2P because of all of the media coverage! Really, how many of us actually saw it on the nightly news?!)

C'mon.. this is obviously the RIAA 'fighting back' in the only way that they know how: illegal or gray-area tactics. They have been defaced over and over again and suffered severe embarassment due to it.

The comment from the advisory that reads as below points out their real intention:
4) Don't fu*k with the RIAA again, scriptkids.

The rest of it reads like pure scare tactics (aka "nothing you have will protect you! Muhahahahaha!") leading up to that almost conclusionary statement.

It is definitely directed towards the larger, non-technical/admin P2P community (hey, the P2P community wouldn't be as large as it is today if the RIAA didn't bring so much attention to Napster. They literally caused the explosion of P2P because of all of the media coverage! Really, how many of us actually saw it on the nightly news?!)

The Register ran a review, along with the original first chapter of the book (which was cut by the editors).

The first chapter is (or rather, was) a short bio and history of the Mitnik case. Interesting to read Kevin's side in his own words.

The lost chapter