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Yes.

Cory is not employed by the EFF anymore.

The other face of the janus announces :

"MSFT: Our DRM licensing is there to eliminate hobbyists and little guys"

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/msft_our_drm_ licensi.html

First, the contest was, until very recently only $1000, not really a large bounty.
if you read their rules you have to travel at YOUR expense to moscow to demonstrate the problem. You then have to demonstrate in ONE DAY a problem with the DVD/CD drive which "Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening."
The contest is a PR move with rules constructed to make winning impossible. The bashing has been on target and valid.

Now maybe there are in fact problems with the StarForce software, but there is nothing other than unproven statements on BoingBoing.

So my point of view is merely unbiased: Until BoingBoing posts something in the way of proof, it's open season for the lawyers.

Does any one remember this: (http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/28/homeland_sec urity_sa.html)
DHS has it's fingers in economic/business areas due to the idea of "the economy is tied to National Security".

How could "the war on terror" have ANYTHING to do with Rubik's cube knockoffs?
It isn't sneaking up on us, it's bulldozing it's way over us now!

Discone antenna?
http://www.spaziolink.com/wi-fi/Discone.jpg

Sounds like the Coneheads were ahead of their time.

To get serious for a moment, maybe the wireless industry should invest more computer time/money on 'evolving' antenna designs.

I don't think anyone would have designed that antenna in their wildest dream.

They're not being asked for IP addresses or other personally identifying information, for fuck's sake. That's why I think your post is idiotic.

here is the original news article: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/136 57386.htm

some blog with more details, PDFs of legal docs, etc., below:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/19/_doj_search_r equests.html

you are welcome

I didn't see this mentioned on /. at the time and only found out about it myself just recently, but France may be about to get the worst copyright law in Europe and ban Free/Open Source Software - see here...

SNEP and SCPP have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change your licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software," and warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament.

/. scooped by BoingBoing! again.

Oh, wait, that's not news at all.

Well, I guess I'm not bothered by a lack of consistency this evening. Above, I replied to a post by YesIAmAScript that I'd take Digital Restrictions Management over Digital Rights Management, as a definition of DRM, and the devil take prior usage.

Now I'm going to defend prior usage, and go with Trusted Computing over Treacherous Computing. Thanks for saying a bit in it's defense. I've just spent several hours last week having to defend it from some people who bought into a whole lot of FUD. Frustrating, but either that, or the project wouldn't have gotten off the ground...

Then you pop this short post in, and I get a chance for a public FUD-fighting post. Which begins here.

Trusted Computing has been around a lot longer than it's been used as an enabler for DRM, and picked up the Treacherous Computing moniker. It goes well back into the history of government computing, for example. Anyone can probably Google up many OS design articles related to the size of TCBs (Trusted Computing Bases) being too large, etc.

As I'm sure you're aware (but not nearly enough other people are), TC can have some righteous non-government uses. Employers might use it to make sure that home workers connecting by VPN are running a sane environment, etc. That's getting to be an essential technique in protecting some networks. I don't see anything wrong with it, if it's company gear you're using. And there are tons of other uses.

There are some dangers, like there is in using many powerful tools. The trick will be to prevent MS (or other coporations or consortia, but I trust MS the least, given their legal history) from doing some enormous power grab through Palladium-like initiatives. But it's too useful to go away. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) drivers have been in Linux since the 2.6.12 kernel, and more are in development.

There's tons of FUD being propagated about Trusted Computing, such as Cory Doctorow confusing TC and DRM (I get a lot of this) on BoingBoing at http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/31/apple_to_add_ trusted.html

But there's some good info as well. There's a good corbet article and wide-ranging discussion at http://lwn.net/Articles/144681

I would urge anyone who isn't familiar with Trusted Computing to spend some quality time with your search engine of choice. TC has important implications, only one of which is as possible DRM enabler.

The alternative to plagerism appears to be journalists who take ideas posted elsewhere and re-write them without any fact checking, losing the nuance of the article and frequently the point. This is what happens with a lot of tech articles, where reporters talk about how, for example, the Xbox 360 has been "recalled" when the source material said "unavailable." At least when they plagiarize the entire article we're one step closer to the actual investigation.

We need to demand that Journalists don't just repeat the news, but investigate it. Taking someone else's ideas or discoveries and reporting them as your own without even running a cursory background check is so common as to be acceptable. It lends credibility to these "facts," even though they might have no basis whatsoever. But if they're not going to spend the time to know what they're talking about, they could at least repeat verbatium from someone who does. That when when the journalist who cribs from the journalist who cribs from the journalist who cribs from you has someone crib from them, the original meaning hasn't been lost in layer upon layer of misinterpretation.

Um, it's *extremely* easy to monitor traffic coming into and going out of a machine.

When the MiniStore pane is closed, no information is sent, period. Try it yourself. (Of course, this makes sense, since the only reason any information is sent in the first place is to actively update the MiniStore pane.)

This is reflected in several places:

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

See the updates:

Update: John sez, "With the Mini-Store turned off, no data is passed back to Apple. Verified with Little Snitch and Ethereal." I'd be interested in deeper analysis than this, though -- is this under all circumstances?

Update 2: John sez, "The iTunes MiniStore does not transmit the current song data if the MiniStore pane is hidden. I ran TCPFlow to check my outgoing data and it only queried the server when the pane was open."

[...]

Update 6: Timo sez, "I just ran a packet trace of the new iTunes - it only connects to Apple if the Mini Store is open. For regular MP3s, it'll run a full text search to find related articles, for purchased music, it searches by the original product ID. Sample query string is: /WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/ministoreMatch?an=Daft % 20Punk&gn=Electronic&kind=song&pn=Discovery

According to this blog, iTunes stops phoning home if you turn off mini-store.

I found the following links since submitting the story:

Here
and
Here

RTFA. These DVDs were DRMed to only run in special screener players as well as region coded. If Boing Boing's coverage is any indication, plenty of people may not have watched any of the DRMed discs just to avoid the hassle of setting up a special player. They get so many movies, the encryption just makes it an easy choice which to watch: the ones they can.

Is it always evil to use DRM?

Yes. I don't get to control how the money I've paid for a CD or DVD is used, so how can it be fair for the seller to control how the content I've licensed is used?

Especially in cases where shrink-wrap license terms deny me the ability to decline an implied contract; e.g., the recent Coldplay CD license.

New for video, perhaps. But Google Print already has DRM, which trys to prevent saving copies of pages that you view (disabling right-clicks and some other stuff). Not that hard to override though.

Unfortunately, some obscure German company just does that...

But fortunately there's a silver lining. Knowing what kind of company this is, they have probably patented the concept. So at least nobody else can use it!

Yes, in this instance two evils do cancel out, hehe.

Removed entirely, according to BoingBoing.

MSN ought to comply with national laws, and be willing to assist in making sure a nation's citizens comply with them, even when Microsoft doesn't agree with those laws. (Would that Microsoft did that with business practice laws in the US and EU....) However, there are ways to do so, while still fighting censorship. Presumably, the Chinese were the ones objecting. They want the blog removed? Fine; but put the official objection complaint from the Chinese Government up instead. Or see if Chilling Effects is willing to expand their program, and try to have them host the official notice.

Like this?

Goatse.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/16/dna_mutation_ account.html as an aside, if this is true, I wonder what white supremacists say?? (chuckle)

If it's anything like the MAKE:Blog, there will be 30 profiles of people who wrapped their iPods in duct tape, another 30 who crocheted little socks for their iPods, another 30 who stuck USB thumbdrives into Altoids cans, and one who actually pulled off a cool hack.

And 40 of these profiles will be duplicated in another book called "Boingers".

The alternative is to turn most computers into appliances, but so far every attempt has failed.

I wouldn't say every attempt has failed.

You left out that, according to Geist, the settlement only binds Sony to the aforementioned restrictions until 2008. Why the hell should it be sunsetted at all? After 2008, our computers are open season again? Is that cause they expect the market to have completely forgotten this fiasco by then, like we all forgot the iMac one they pulled just three short years ago?

the Philip K. Dick robot. http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/23/philip_k_dick _robot.html

This has to be the strangest I've seen.

The one where he's eating is my favorite: http://i.somethingawful.com/horrorsofporn/penishan ds/spaghetti.jpg

And BTW, Depp says he liked the movie:

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/03/11/depp_digs_edw ard_pen.html

That was supposed to be:

French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software and
France about to get worst copyright law in Europe? but then this! I just don't know whether to hug or punch them!

(Slipped and hit submit instead of preview :( )

this timeline also explains the thanksgiving slump. funny how tfa does not mention that.

Because it's not Rhapsody's fault that Apple won't license their DRM technology.

If Real wanted you to be able to play Rhapsody music on iPods they would license Helix DRM to Apple, not the other way around (oh and does Rhapsody still use Listen.com's WMA format?). RealPlayer already uses the QuickTime libraries and is thus capable of playing FairPlay encrypted M4As/AACs. This is why "Harmony" was so ill-conceived and ill-recieved (legalities aside, Harmony benefits Real with nearly no benefit to Apple; letting iTunes users access Rhapsody on the other hand opens up Real's market to iPods, opens up Real's market to Mac users, both of which are "closed" to Rhapsody right now, and provides Apple with one more selling point for the iPod/iTunes combo -- subscription music). Real doesn't have to license/break/decieve FairPlay to get Rhapsody on the iPod, they just have to strike a deal with Apple (and get Helix DRM in iPod firmware or in iTunes). As far as I know, all the news has been Glaser begging/threatening Jobs in open and private email to 'open the iPod' ("or we'll go to our enemy Microsoft") not to support Helix and not to license FairPlay to them.

For more info:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/drm/
http://news.com.com/Reals%20Glaser%20exhorts%20App le%20to%20open%20iPod/2100-1025_3-5177914.html?tag =nl
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/21/drm_company_v ows_to_.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

This was on Boing Boing a solid 4 days ago.

Incidentally, that site is strongly recommended for ./ readers who want slightly less nerd in their news.

...or some dumbass will call the cops on you for "hacking" into his open, unsecured WiFi network. http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/07/florida_man_a rrested.html

I read an article that the spyware hadn't affected CD sales. Sony is there to make money not friends. Unless it makes an immediate impact on revenue they won't even notice.

Join me in wishing the whole Sony corporation a cold dark Christmas this year.

here

via this BoingBoing post

lame dude... lame
what you just did is similar to whatr is talked about in the essayHow News is Made.

''Grateful Dead "reversal" on fan-recordings is a smokescreen

Yesterday, I blogged stories about various Grateful Dead spokespeople and band-alumni making promises to reverse their attack on fan-recordings that are hosted at the the Internet Archive (these recordings were made by dedicated fans with the band's explicit blessing, and have been the core of an decades-old evangelical unpaid promotional campaign by Deadheads that has returned a gigantic fortune for the band).

However, it appears that all the talk about "communications SNAFUs" was a smokescreen for a half-assed compromise that leaves the highest-quality recordings available only as streams, meaning that they can no longer be simply downloaded from the Archive and traded on. ...''

Whole article

John Perry Barlow (lyricist, but he has other claims to fame outside the Dead) was not happy. In this story he blames it on the drummers (Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann). The NYT quoted him as having had a "pretty heated discussion" with Weir, guitarist and his songwriting partner. Robert Hunter (Jerry Garcia's lyricist) was reportedly not happy either but is silent.

I'm just disappointed, that's all.

From boingboing (where I saw this initially) comes the following:

He said the band consented to making audience recordings available for download again, although live recordings made directly from concert soundboards, which are the legal property of the Grateful Dead, should only be made available for listening from now on.

They are not reopening it back up fully. They are removing something which was granted to them earlier.

AHAHAHAHA! GRABOULOUS!

Except that using Lynx tells the authorities that you are a malicious h4x0r...apparently, using a "non-standard" browser will cause the SWAT team to descend on you in true Terry GilliamBrazil style.

Mod an iBuzz

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/03/identity_20_t houghtp.html

If I were a reporter interviewing chinese bloggers, censorship would be high on my list. Some of these bloggers maintain there's not much censorship going on. Have they forgotten the whole MSN Spaces fiasco? In my book, government censorship is never acceptable, and we should never stop criticising it. That includes journalists being annoying and asking tough questions.

While we're linking boingboing... Why not stack the hard drives and have some crazy lego sex:
http://www.boingboing.net/2002/11/13/lego_sex.html

Have any companies disallowed playing CD's at work computers because of potential security risks

According to this Boing Boing link, they are. Although the article isn't very specific about Who or What they are doing.

A high-placed source at Sony BMG has emailed me with some interesting information about the ongoing rootkit DRM fiasco. My source says,

Some of the top Sony BMG artists who had XCP placed on their CDs are complaining directly to the label heads, furious that it will hurt their relationship to their fans and their sales as they go into the massively important Christmas season. Add that to rising number of anti-DRM voices within in the company who have been against DRM as only hurting "the people that are doing the right thing and buying our music." This all means that some of the label heads are finally starting to believe that DRM is just bad for business.

Now they are starting to stand up to the corporate leaders who are pushing DRM as the solution to their sliding revenue, particularly Thomas Hesse who notoriously said "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

At least of the label heads has threatened never to allow another CD to go out with DRM again.