Slashdot Mirror

It's still not a good thing, but note that Super Hero Happy Hour received the message in 2004. It's just now being brought to everyone's attention- and as others have pointed out, they've had the trademark for some time. The original BoingBoing post noted that Marvel was using a museum to strengthen its trademark argument (the TM note at the bottom of the page).

Still, between this and the NCSoft suit, I'm not at all happy with Marvel nowadays. This is the kind of thing that could hurt their authors. The Underwear Pervert blog (Boing Boing's suggestion to replace super heroes) gives examples of where authors published by these guys have used materials in the public domain, which they should be able to do.

Idiots.

Never mind, I found the text on BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/images/CyberSafetyforKid s.pdf It appears that it doesn't, in fact, have a bill number, as it hasn't actually been formally introduced. My guess is that the media (or the Senators' PR flaks) decided to do a bit of "interpreting."

Now here's the thing I really like about tartigrades. They are apparently the World's Toughest Animal. You can shoot them into space, take them to the deepest ocean depths and let them go, deprive them of air, water, and food for years and they don't care. Send them into the core of nuclear reactor. They'll be fine.

C'mon, these guys are pros, and have a long history of understanding their market.

Since the company has demonstrated by its actions that it understands no language but that of the dollar, saying "Bad Starforce! Bad!" is clearly ineffective. Let's put it in terms they can get.

Can I ask everyone who's disgusted by this latest event and therefore swears to join the boycott and purchase no product with Starforce protection to say so?

*Raises hand*

Hear that thumping? It's the hearts of a thousand excited product liability lawyers.

Citibank is handling this just like you'd expect a credit card company would, with horrid customer service.
If you're out of the country? Tough shit. Virtually all usage outside the USA will result in your card being automatically killed and the only way (apparantly) for to continue using your card is to have a new card shipped to your home address, activate the card from your home phone, and even then, their CSRs say that if you use it outside the usa, it may get automatically killed again.
See one such story here.

You know, if this was bigger, it could be a good thing for everyone. Maybe then people would start taking things seriously. And although I usually don't think that we need new legislation, maybe in this case, it would be a good idea.
I'd like to to see criminal penalties applied against the directors of companies for losing customer information in the same way people can go to the pokey for screwing up under SOX.

Then again, this breach isn't the worst we've heard about this week. 17 million records (names, phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses, IP addresses, logins, passwords, credit-card types and purchase amounts - everything except credit-card numbers) were discovered floating around the net.
See here for details.

Oh, and if your card was used, good luck with trying to fix your credit
The credit sytstem could use an overhaul.

Well, since Diebold probably made the ATMs which were hacked, you could probably look in the same place. Interestingly, the story was broken by a blog. http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/05/citibank_unde r_fraud.html

I guess it is worth repeating here.

>3. Lack of content: Books they are interested in aren't available in electronic format

Generally, this is it. I am a fan of eBooks, not because I prefer that over a real book, but because it fits my lifestyle better. I can read in places I wouldn't have a book handy, carry more with me, take a few minutes here a few more there...

The problem is getting the content. I am not rabid for or against DRM, I understand both sides of the issue. I don't have a *real* preference for a reader I just use what I have on my PDA (although PDF format on a PDA blows donkeys, but that is another stopry).

Look at this:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/22/sequel_to_sca lzis_ol.html

In spite of this being an author who is (apparently) pro-ebooks, you can't find much of his published work in that format. Pity, I find myself more and more turning to electronic books (and more recently--magazine subscriptions!) since it simply fits my lifestyle better. Do I miss the 'feel' of reading a good book? Hell, yes and I indulge myself when I can, but sadly that is far less often than I like. Someone already mentioned Fictionwise.com, they are an excellent place to start looking for content.

Lastly (and most on topic) look here:

http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=4346#more-4346

"Biggest complaints were about the costs of e-books, lack of enough titles, and, yes, DRM and format hassles."

Meanwhile we have a sleeper hit called Galactic Civilizations 2
www.galciv2.com
It has NO ZIP ZERO NONE copy protection at all. Instead, they give feature filled updates and patches that require a valid serial # to download.
Here's what the latest patch does (and this was done in just a week or two, unlike the just announced and badly needed to fix critical issues Battle for Middle Earth Patch that wont be ready for release for a month):
http://www.galciv2.com/Journals.aspx?AID=104660
Notice that while there's a good amount of bug fixes (lots of it stuff most people wouldn't even notice) there's also a lot of added features and game content.
Here's an example of what fans have done in ship design in the game, incredible stuff:
http://forums.galciv2.com/?AID=105823
They just sold through thier first printing run after a couple weeks after release. And the 2nd batch of orders EXCEEDS the initial order! This is frigging UNHEARD of. No game sells more copies weeks after release than the first weeks. (except maybe half life 1, and that was from the most popular online FPS in the world, a free mod incidentally, called Counter Strike). And this from a game with no copy protection.
THIS is the model that should be pursued by game companies, improve the game as an incentive to buy it. Actually multiplayer games that let you only play online with a valid serial is a good method in and of itself to encourage purchasing a legit copy of a game. I've never understood why they felt the need to add additional copy protection if the main game that people are interested in is multiplayer.
Or at least companies should adapt the alternative model below:

Epic games has a great model I wish companies would emulate. After a few months to a year, they will often release a patch which REMOVES all cd based copy protection (you still need a valid serial to play online). Its GREAT not to have to put in the Unreal Tournament 2004 (UT2k4) DVD anymore when I want to play the game. I just click and go! After all, most copy protection is only designed to just delay a crack from being released on the internet. If it can just be delayed for a couple weeks (or even a few days), they get over the biggest amount of sales and pre-orders, and all the people desperate to play will probably have bought it. Even the copy protection people admit that its practicaly inevitable that a game will get cracked, they just hope to delay it. And almost always, the pain, suffering, incompatability and annoyances are mostly felt by LEGITIMATE CONSUMERS who have a purchased game! The pirate will just go grab a crack somewhere and apply it and hes set.

Anyway this is just my 2 cents. And all the above without mentioning the thing that is called Starforce. I'd better not say anything about that or else I could get sued:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/31/starforce_thr eatens_.html

To find the intrusive Starforce device, look in Windows Device Manager, select Show Hidden Devices, and look for Starforce in the Non-Plug and Play tree.

Now that's something an application program should not be doing.

There's a StarForce removal tool, but it's from the Starforce people, and probably should not be trusted.

Starforce is threatening to sue Cory Doctorow for calling their product "malware". That would be amusing if they went through with it.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/13/cubicle_doorw ay_hang.html
Works like a charm!

A MythTV box will cost more than a TiVo, based on their new three-year plan. It will work on your television, not just your computer - the MythTV software is intended to be used on a standalone computer that is dedicated to DVR functions.

The benefit over TiVo for most users is that MythTV doesn't lock you into someone else's content control system. The stories about abuses from the makers of the devices or from the studios, abetted by the makers, are not hard to find. As Cory Doctorow says, nobody woke up this morning wanting their DVR to do less than it did yesterday. Yet, that's exactly what you are agreeing to allow when you buy a TiVo or use a Windows Media PC - someone else has more rights on your machine than you do.

Now, outside the DRM realm, another important issue that makes MythTV attractive is expandability. Yes, TiVo is hackable, but it's not meant to be hackable easily. My particular MythTV box has two tuners, and room for at least two more (I could actually have eight if I went with dual-tuner cards). TiVo has one tuner. A settop DVR from a cable or satellite company usually has two tuners, but you can't add more.

And if you're reading Slashdot, you're probably willing to play with your toys anyway, right? MythTV is fun. :-)

A MythTV box will cost more than a TiVo, based on their new three-year plan. It will work on your television, not just your computer - the MythTV software is intended to be used on a standalone computer that is dedicated to DVR functions.

The benefit over TiVo for most users is that MythTV doesn't lock you into someone else's content control system. The stories about abuses from the makers of the devices or from the studios, abetted by the makers, are not hard to find. As Cory Doctorow says, nobody woke up this morning wanting their DVR to do less than it did yesterday. Yet, that's exactly what you are agreeing to allow when you buy a TiVo or use a Windows Media PC - someone else has more rights on your machine than you do.

Now, outside the DRM realm, another important issue that makes MythTV attractive is expandability. Yes, TiVo is hackable, but it's not meant to be hackable easily. My particular MythTV box has two tuners, and room for at least two more (I could actually have eight if I went with dual-tuner cards). TiVo has one tuner. A settop DVR from a cable or satellite company usually has two tuners, but you can't add more.

And if you're reading Slashdot, you're probably willing to play with your toys anyway, right? MythTV is fun. :-)

This is no Orwellian conspiracy, but quick and easy system administration; apply smartfilter: check!

Well, then the issue is the contents of the block list. According to a guy behind the filter:

• Wonkette - "Forbidden, this page is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion."
• Bill O'Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) - OK
• Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) - "Forbidden, this page is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
• Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) - OK
• ABC News "The Note" - OK
• Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) - "Forbidden, this page is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
• G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) - OK
• Don & Mike Show (www.donandmikewebsite.com) - "Forbidden, this page is categorized as: Profanity, Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies."

I'm not a marine, but I do work for the DOD, and I can tell you that most political websites, right or left, are blocked.

What you are saying is in direct conflict with numerous recent reports. Here's one of them, which, come to think of it, you probably won't be able to read.

That would bug me. Maybe not you, but definitely me.

In short, it's anything you want it to be. A blog is really nothing else than just a way of organizing and publishing web content; only a bit more structured than a "traditional" personal website. I use mine (not going to link it here) to post short fiction and essays to entertain my friends. But there are many other uses besides this. You can do this, for instance. Or this. Or even this or this. As you can see, there's quite a lot of ways you can use a blog.

What? Slashdot jump on a story that is based on the "victim's" statements and makes the government look bad and ends up being a hoax? Say it isn't so!!!

Steven Soderbergh predicted in a Wired magazine interview that the typical film launch will coincide with the dvd release and cable/satellite broadcast, all in the same day. Why? Because of piracy and dwindling box office returns. In fact, Soderbergh is putting his money where his mouth is with his upcoming film Bubbles.

Face it bitches, she doesn't really love you.

Barter doesn't evade taxes, it's covered under the IRS barter section, here: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html 2 out of 3 sentences correct, not bad. And oh, if you play WoW, check this out: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/06/irs_to_tax_yo ur_worl.html, IRS to tax your swords, armor and other magical items.

Some quick links I dug up, several of his talks available on his podcast will bring up itunes as well.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/11/itunes_update _spies_.html

http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

Personally, I'm waiting for another short(!?) roundup on the Sony DRM debate ;)

between those and the rather unfortunate things unicorn chasers (usually required apart from the most recent) I don't know how I would get through the day.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/21/google_censor ing_ira.html

If I request to mod myself down on /. do I cease to exist in physical reality? I stand by my Google + Carlyle group = oh shit statement, though.

Cory's only interested in the latest episode of The IT Crowd.

1. Boing Boing
2. Slyck Forums
3. Another blogger with some good quotes
4. Normality Net with more info
5. Amit's Page with even more commentary

Drive by linkings!

As other folks have posted, apparently the 'censorship' thing is a hoax, or at least, a misunderstanding:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/21/google_censor ing_ira.html

Google is not censoring these videos. A spokesperson at Google tells Boing Boing: Video uploaders, using Google Video's 'Advanced Options' feature, can choose to blacklist countries. In this case the uploader blacklisted the US and only the US. When uploading the video the content owner set a preference not to show this content to users in the US.

I just read this on boingboing link. It explains it better. The option to blacklist a country is in the advanced options.

And yes, it is as bad as anything Sadaam did.

Not according to the guy who made the sounds for Apple.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/24/early_apple_s ound_de.html

I was about the download the demo for Battle for Middle Earth 2 the other day, only to read that the goddamn DEMO comes with the StarForce malware.

According to Wikipedia, Ubi Soft, Digital Jesters and Codemasters routinely use StarForce on new games. Forget about consoles, THIS is what might kill PC gaming permanently.

Coldplay's latest CD X&Y comes with an insert that discloses all the rules enforced by the DRM they included on the disc. Of course, these rules are only visible after you've paid for the CD and brought it home, and as the disc's rules say, "Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund," so if you don't like the rules, that's tough.

Most /.ers haven't lost their virginity... yet. It'll happen someday. Yeah right! Never fear /.ers you all still have one other thing in common, your first goatse experience. Do you remember your first goatse? I'm sure most /.ers do. Boing Boing reported that Laszlo Toth has been taking pictures of his friends as they lose their goatse cherry. What was your first time like?

Background Material:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/10/flickr_set_of _people.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/firstgoatse/

The trusted computing group is a group of the big and heavy hitters in the industry, they have collaborated on this technology, and have made it quite robust in functionality.

A primary function of the tpm is the setup of a transitive trust mechanism, whereby in an enterprise a central policy mechanism can be setup and enforced, signing all computer operations and file system objects. This functionality also provides for remote auditing and administration.

Please see my unaccepted post

It's true that the era of trusted platforms is quickly coming upon us. After much controversy the Trusted Computing Group has posted its specifications for the whole world to review. Many of our industry's analysts, artists, and commentators have both supported and denounced the technology in equal measure.

After a complete review of the literature, it is my understanding that many excellent uses are proposed for the technology. As a network integrator and consulting system administrator I'm particularly excited about the remote management capabilities that the specification calls for, and the ability to lock the hardware, software and ensure that documents created in a business stay in the business without the appropriate trust level. The transitive trust nature of the TPM will allow me to set up group policies and enforce them in ways I've never experienced. Truly industrial grade tech.

As a slashdot reader, concerned with my privacy, I was pleased to note that the specification repeatedly called for privacy protection settings, including allowing the owner full control of the module. This is particularly good for home users who may not need these features enabled, particularly the remote auditing and administration functionality. In truth, the specification is quite balanced.

My question to slashdot readers is in light of this very balanced specification, which protects all stakeholders. Is it okay that Apple is currently implementing TPM in their new iMacs and Macbooks, and not documenting it in their system specifications ? Furthermore, is it also okay that they've failed to provide home users with the appropriate tools to monitor the trust mechanism and disable the module if it's not necessary?

Okay, that's two questions, but 'the third time's the charm' Is it okay that the specification describes remote auditing and administration capabilities, and I can't even see if that's enabled?

There was a story on BoingBoing a few months back about a guy that does this. The picture is cool.

"Al Jessup of Beckley, West Virginia, has 12 cheap satellite dishes stuck to his house, which pull in over 5,000 free-to-air channels from satellites all over the sky. He is retired, and delights in odd and foreign programming."

• high capacity data transfer - Remember, snails carrying DVDs still outperform most types of broadband internet. And DVD is now pretty dated. Let's fast-forward to later this year when PS3 is released with its Blu-Ray drive. To get a game with 50GiB of content, you could either spend at least 24 hours downloading over a typical high-speed connection (~81 days over dialup, ha ha) ... or you could simply buy one Blu-Ray disc.
  
  
• storage - Your house's storage capacity for little plastic discs is effectively unlimited. Certainly the limit is much higher than you'll ever need. :-) But games at 50GiB a pop will fill up any hard-disk-style storage medium rapidly.
  
  
• manufacturing and distribution cost - a single popular game today can sell over a million copies. If it's a 50GiB game, that's 50 petabytes. I don't buy bandwidth in that kind of bulk so I don't know what kind of rates a company like Sony or EA would get, but multiply that by 20 or so popular games and you're quickly into the exabyte range. While I can't say for sure, I'd bet a donut that it's still cheaper to mass-produce plastic discs and ship them in bulk to stores than to buy that much bandwidth.
  

Buttholes around the world are cutting into "panorama priviledge" rights. You can't use pictures of the Effiel Tower at night, or that mirror jellybean in Chicago.

Buttholes around the world are cutting into "panorama priviledge" rights. You can't use pictures of the Effiel Tower at night, or that mirror jellybean in Chicago.

There's also a Wikinews article about it here. It looks like most of the content of the BBC news article comes from it. BoingBoing also talks about it, pointing out that they did (gasp) investigative reporting. That article is here.

Exactly. Over a man who was illiterate and got his first money by marrying the widow of his dead boss.

You can see the cartoons here. I like the picture of a protester against the Freedom of Speach in London with a sign that read "Freedom Go To Hell". Here are other protestors and a nonviolent response.

Not like these were the first drawings of the man either.

You can already get pants which are kind of like that. The fabric goes by the brand-name Nano-Tex.

Article: Cutting-edge science creates stain-free pants

Last year an activist group called THONG (Topless Humans Organized for Natural Genetics) apparently organized a topless protest against the use of this material in clothing.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/09/protest_again st_eddi.html

Actually, it's boingboinged from a bit earlier.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/03/wasp_performs _roachb.html

Works on Boing Boing

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/03/wasp_performs _roachb.html/

Most slashdotters feel that if they don't agree to the law then they don't have to follow it, now they don't have to feel guilty!

Why should they feel guilty if it's legal? Do you want people to use the law as a guide for their behavior or not?

Is stealing physical property going to be legalized next?

Of course not, because there are huge fundamental differences between physical property and intangible "property", and reasonable people know that the analogy between downloading music and stealing CDs (or any other physical property) is as far-fetched as the analogy between gay marriage and interspecies marriage.

If it ever becomes possible to "steal" a copy of a physical object, leaving the original in place, then your analogy would hold up - but then we'd have to ask ourselves what's so bad about making a copy of a car if the owner still gets to keep the original.

First Torwards did not want to "give his private keys because of GPL v3", which was a completly mislead and misleading interpretation of the GPL v3 DRAFT.

Now Torwards thinks that anyway DRM is not so bad that it seems.

What's next? Will he describe free culture advocates as a "modern-day sort of communists"?! :o)

Article showing the hidden cd drivers installed and describes the "protection" method.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/anticopying_m alware_.html

From the article -> Update 2: Fiona sez, "I just contacted a friend who works in the testing department of the UK branch of the worlds largest games publisher, and they hadn't heard of it! I now think they have the (very healthy, by all accounts) fear of god about what this thing could do to peoples systems. They're testing a third-party game that uses it, and have found the drivers on their test box. They're not happy about having it on an open test system,"

Democratic politicans or advocacy groups (PACs)? Cindy whats-her-name? :-)
I know, you probably meant that as a rhetorical question, but nevertheless, it does have an answer.

I'm not particularly interested in criticizing BoingBoing for advertising, but let's do a reality check. The top of the page is a banner ad stating "Contact FM to advertise here", the left column starts with a header stating "Sponsored by" and 3 links all going through:

http://boingboing.net/cgi-bin/clicker.cgi?somethin g

Ditto for the right-side column, only that not has a bunch of ads going through clicker.cgi but is followed by another set of ads going through adbrite.com. And then the article text itself is wrapped around the ad image from craphound.com, and the end has ads by something called Kanoodle.

Take a look at "Page Info" for the links on that page and judge for yourself, but *I'm* willing call an article surrounded by advertising links on all sides what it is, even if you choose not to.