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"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Well, sort of. Check out this article at News.com

It comes as no suprise since Nokia's strategy has clearly been one of standardization.

And what better way to standardized than to support an open source project?

News.com has an article about it too.

Also repoted by CNet yesterday

Microsoft may have a difficult time with this lawsuit, because the drug dealer analogy came from Bill Gates:

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

If Bill Gates compares his company to drug dealers, why can't a Brazilian official do so, too?

Actually he's doing nothing more but saying what Bill G. has said in the past.

Here, for example:

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

and saying "Linux is a cancer" is just an objective observation.

DRM has it's place, the problem is the creation of laws that make breaking DRM schemes a crime. Businesses will always be using some form of DRM to manage their customers. Customers who don't want this impediment will take their business elsewhere. If all the businesses band together and cram DRM down your throat, more power to them! It's similar to a union getting workers together to bargain collectively. The problem arises when DRM harnesses the police power of the state to put you in jail or litigate you out of existence. Legislation to make this possible raises issues of totalitarianism and corrupt legislators should be watched avidly and their bills killed before they can passthem (make sure you look at the second comment after the article linked).

Here. Read.

My co-worker bought this CD and handed it to me asking if I could make MP3s out of the tracks. I used iTunes on the Mac and immediately created workable AIFF files that played perfectly on the Mac. What was surprising was when I tried to burn it back to a CD. All the tracks were scrambled.

Creating high quality MP3s was as simple as selecting the AIFF tracks and selecting Convert to MP3. I don't have an iPod so I don't know if they would play on one. Maybe my boss will let me borrow his to try out.

"We are actively working with Apple to provide a long-term solution to this issue," a posting on SunnComm's Web site reads. "We encourage you to provide feedback to Apple, requesting they implement a solution that will enable the iPod to support other secure music formats."

Or, go look at Perspective: The new jailbird jingle where you can start your research on the NET Act. Signed by Bill Clinton 1997, it makes peer-to-peer (P2P) pirates liable for $250,000 in fines and subject to prison terms of up to three years. Up to three years of jail time for copyriight infringement.

I write this not because I'm a supporter of either party, but because I'm tired of the finger pointing. They're all doing it, most are corrupt, and only active and educated voters can change it. And here's a hint... neither Bush nor Kerry are going to be your friend in the copyright law fights.

Who remembers this awesome idea?

The MSN iLoo

Too bad it turned out to be a hoax

I cant help but wondering the same thing...

DRM systems are broken in minutes, sometimes days. Rarely, months

And from a Windows Media developer point of view (as opposed to purely technical), v2.2 of the MS Windows Media DRM has been around for at least 2 years, with no cracks.

unfuck, the way around MS DRM v1 didn't break the drm system, it bypassed it (sure you can argue it means the same, I'm using break in the context of the original speak, as in "yank the keys out, bypass the cipher").

Screamer didn't bypass the DRM either, it relied on you already having a license and it was then able to strip the DRM header away. Again it didn't attack the encryption or the ciphers. This was patched in about 2 weeks if my memory serves me right (ah the joy of repacking all that content) and has lasted since then without any exploits.

(note: I spent 2.5 years working with drm stuff, I am somewhat biased)

The CD isn't really protected in any way.

According to the article, it has anti-copying software (read: spyware) that installs automatically using Windows Autoplay if you insert the CD into your Windows PC, but the CD isn't otherwise protected.

So if you have Autoplay turned off, or use Linux or a Mac, or simply hold down Shift while you insert the CD, you can rip the files fine. This workaround has been known since last October, when the SunnComm copy "protection" system was first introduced.

The CD isn't really protected in any way.

According to the article, it has anti-copying software (read: spyware) that installs automatically using Windows Autoplay if you insert the CD into your Windows PC, but the CD isn't otherwise protected.

So if you have Autoplay turned off, or use Linux or a Mac, or simply hold down Shift while you insert the CD, you can rip the files fine. This workaround has been known since last October, when the SunnComm copy "protection" system was first introduced.

Here is the link.

Let us not forget that IBM published the assembly language source code listing for the original PC BIOS in full beginning in 1980.

This "openness" allowed and enabled the first generation of PC developers to see and understand what was going on at the firmware level - literally an open book and manna from heaven for the times.

This was not quite the precursor of today's open source movement though since IBM never granted permission to copy or use the code, but 1 billion PC compatibles later it is easy to see that IBM's approach unlocked at least one aspect of the value of openness.

Dan Bricklin comments thoughtfully about the PC BIOS in his blog. Search for "purple".

Or you can read it here without the soul sucking registration...

On a related note, am I the only one who thinks gaming on a cell phone sucks big time? Making it 3D does not make the screen or controls any better. I'll keep my Gameboy Advance thanks...

Yep, and this will also give the name to the next video format that's going to be used extensively for video piracy (remember DivX anyone?)

Actually I'm surprised, no-one has mentioned Circuit City's DivX, which was essentially the same, and went nowhere (maybe they should have learned?)...

In response to earlier reports by a third-party website measurement service that inaccurately portrayed the impact of the attack on specific Web sites, Akamai released today the following information (based on Akamai's over 1,100 total customers under long-term services contracts):

* the domain name service impact was limited to approximately 4 percent of the Akamai customer base
* 2 percent had noticeable impact
* less than 1 percent of Akamai customers had a significant impact affecting more than 20 percent of their users

The problem was quickly detected by Akamai's automated monitoring systems, and Akamai personnel mitigated the attack by working closely with customers, making key adjustments in the Company's infrastructure, and cooperating with several network partners around the world to shut down the source of the attack. Further, Akamai is cooperating with U.S. Federal law enforcement agencies that are investigating the incident.

Or this story this article. about Georgia Public Service Commission ordering BellSouth to offer naked DSL back in October 2003.

And of course, let's not forget this article.

Or this story this article. about Georgia Public Service Commission ordering BellSouth to offer naked DSL back in October 2003.

And of course, let's not forget this article.

Google news finally picked this up- interestingly the first link is to overclocker.com, instead of this one which has much better coverage of what actually happened :-/

The great state of California has ruled that SBC Communications must sell local phone service and broadband service separately. This gives SBC customers the option to change local phone providers and/or choose any DSL company they wish.

I had this option when I used Verizon in Bowling Green, OH for DSL. It was nothing but a hassle compared to getting DSL+ISP through Epix in NEPA or cable through Roadrunner or Comcast/ATTBI. Any issue that would come up with the Internet connection would result in fingerpointing at either the ISP or the line provider.

At least with cable there is only one person to blame. Slow speeds? It could be my computer but I doubt it. It's likely an issue w/the local lines or the ISP. I don't have to pay two separate bills. I don't have to call two separate companies when I want to cancel (signing up amazingly enough is dealt with through a central location in my experience).

I find DSL to be nothing but an overly expensive hassle at least in the areas I have lived (I realize that out west they seem comparable to Cable, if not better). I despise Comcast and what they have to done to dominate the local market but at least I can hate one company w/o a doubt rather than having to play catch the monkey if you can w/DSL.

A bit longer article is here at ZDnet from 6/14/2004.

Fine - but just remember, you made me do it:

http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=2797

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&thre adid=61377

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=152 73

I believe that is what you were talking about...

Power supply fan affecting sound card issues here

http://www.osxaudio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=797 69

Finally, read the first sentence of this:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpost.php?p=12272 0&postcount=16

And there it is - it can be loud or quiet, depending on use - so when you called my comment half right and half assed, you were completely wrong. I was very informed on this topic, and I have no bias towards either PC or Mac as anyone who knows me could tell you. 8 to 9 fans in a system like this? That's insane. My PC has half that, and I run it under full load consistently (SETI, DNET, Movie Rendering, etc) in Colorado, where temps are in the high 80's to 90's all summer long, and I didn't build a machine that needs 8 to 9 freaking fans. I have a high performance graphics card, high performance memory, and a fast AMD cpu - and I'm willing to bet my life that my machine is quieter than any Apple G5 on the market. And, then there's your comment:

"Do not confuse the G5 with some of the homebuilt Athlon abominations that have poor layout, poor airflow, and require multiple screaming fans."

Trust me, I won't, and didn't. I compared a G5 to a machine I would build, or anybody could these days for that matter using very common cases, fans, and power supplies. My machine is not an abomination that requires screaming fans, I use Panflo low rpm fans, and my case is more than sufficently cool. Everything else in my system requires passive heatsinks and runs quit well thank you.

While you may have a quiet G5, many people don't - so you should check yourself before calling me half right and half assed buddy.

"We do know that attack was against four sites that happened to be Akamai customers," company spokesman Jeff Young said. "But I don't know if the intent was to go after Akamai or go after Web properties that happened to be customers of ours."

Tuesday's outage comes nearly a month after Akamai reported glitches in its content management tools, causing some slowdowns.

Other parties may not agree with that assessment. Keynote earlier Tuesday reported the Akamai DNS system outage and speculated that Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai was the target of a denial-of-service attack, which then caused the Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Apple sites to fail.

Dug Song, security architect for network security company Arbor Networks, said the outage appeared to be an Akamai problem. During the outage, Song noticed that sites such as Google were still functional, but someone typing www.google.com couldn't get to that site, because the address would not translate into its numeric Internet Protocol code.

I guess I could get an iLoo if they were for real, but I don't think my wife would think one of those parked in the backyard was be a big improvement over a stack of month-old magazines on the back of the toilet.

I've probably shared quite enough now....

XviD is based upon MPEG-4 though, which uses various patents and has license fees associated with it. They might not have cracked down on XviD or any of the others yet, but there's always that doubt...

-4. Wait six months

-3. Deny that there is a problem (or assert that it is "theoretical");

-2. Sue or at least threaten to sue the people reporting it;

-1. Produce a fix that breaks several other things;

0. Produce a fix which only breaks a few other things but which silently rewinds some earlier security patches;

A. Download the vendor-prepared kernel within a few hours of seeing a problem report, install and reboot;

B. Download and apply a patch, then "nice rpm -bb kernel.spec" so the compile doesn't bring your machine to its knees the way it would under MS-Windows, install the results and reboot (with variants for non-RPM distros like Debian and Slack) (and what sort of nutcase would do the rebuild on a production machine when their own desktop would do the job just as well, even if it was a G5 and the target an Athlon64?);

C. Download and install a library shim which blocks the offending action, then do A or B without the reboot.

So the answer to your question seems pretty clear to me, at least according to the stated intent of the iTMS management.

-HJ

The Sharp Actius RD3D can be used with games. It comes bundled with James Bond 007: Nightfire, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003, and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2.

As for other uses, Dynamic Digital Depth has photo viewer, movie player, molecular viewer, and PowerPoint plugin that are bundled with the Actius RD3D as well. They can also be used with other autostereo displays.

Employers don't want walking encyclopedias they want projects finished on time and on budget for their clients. What I am trying to say is a degree is more than a cert in knowledge it is a cert in the abilities to get the job done and done right. A professional and ethical attitude and behavior

RMS (extremist),
All members of Cult of Dead Cow (H4x0R5),
Phil Zimmerman (PGP is used to encrypt kiddie pr0n)
Linus Torvads (Linux may destroy Micro$oft ad Sun, major Fortune50 stocks, collapsing the value of all 401k in the US, forcing old people into poverty)
All degree-holders that worked for VIA (for infringing IP)
Jon Johansen (for writing DeCSS)

The only people that should have degrees are boring people that tow the company line, ask no questions, you are a number, not a free man, otherwise lose your degree.

Yes, that's subtle, comparing Linux advocates to Al Qaeda and Iraqi rebels. This is after Jim Allchin calling Linux a "destroyer", Ballmer calling it a "cancer" and so forth.

I take it as a matter of faith that Microsoft desires to destroy Linux. Part one is public relations, part two is getting the government to go after it.

It didn't escape my attention that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's Ken Brown is saying he's looking into the employment agreements of Linux contributors to see if any of the employers might own the copyright to off-hours work of Linux contributors. I remember a prominent case a few years ago where some developer wrote something after work and his employer sued him later saying it belonged to them even if it wasn't work related. The battle stretches from the workplace, to the government, to big business as far as I can see - the employment agreements wage slaves have to sign due to poor collective bargaining power helps lead to the destruction of Linux (or perhaps just a monkey wrench like the one that stalled BSD for years and years in litigation). It is already having an effect - Linus is spending time worrying about legal nonsense instead of developing the kernel. It doesn't just go away when ignored, Microsoft and company seem to desire some sort of primitive accumulation of the digital commons. The solution is to look into the OSDL and their Linux legal defense fund and that sort of thing. The travesty of employment contracts which comes in to haunt Linux has to be fought in workplaces. These people are playing for keeps. And it has already had an effect if you think about it.

Worked for SBC Employees.

"We were paying $35/hour for talent that we could get for about $55/hour domestically."

I don't know where you are located exactly, but in Florida, the going contracting rate for most IT positions, such as J2EE programming, is between $30 and $35 per hour, not $55/hour. This is take home pay, not including the markup.

More on topic, I suspect that the outsourcing trend is overblown. Quite frankly, I believe there is no longer a need for so many programmers. There is off-the-shelf software available for just about any business niche you can think of. For example, there is software for the commercial fishing industry. There is software for the aquaculture (fish farming) industry, including software that simulates various pond management scenarios and analyses the effects on yields. Software exists for the manufactured housing industry and the prefabricated concrete industry.

From what I see, companies want to hire people that know how to use all of this software to improve their business. They want managers and consultants, business experts, not programmers. This is why IBM bought PricewaterhouseCoopers back in 2002. As this Fortune article explains, (Subscription required) clients want IBM to use its business/tech experts to solve thorny business issues, improve their operations, or even to run entire divisions such as customer service or finance/accounting.

"There is enough software out there," companies seem to be saying, " now help make it help me."

Making the source code available to anyone makes it easier for people to find holes.

This is a proven, incontrovertible fact.

It makes it easier to find, but that doesn't mean open source automatically more secure - you still have to have the right people actually looking, and a defect has to be what they're looking for. I'll explain.

If no-one qualified to spot the hole bothers to look, open source doesn't buy you anything (this is why bugs in things like OpenSSL can linger quite awhile before being discovered - not enough of the right people bothering to look, even though *anyone* can and many do).

A bigger problem is the disconnect between design limitations not meeting end-user expectations. The recent shining example of this is the latest set of CVS vulnerabilities: The CVS team does not claim CVS is secure enough to be publicly-accessible over the internet; yet it frequently IS placed in this position, and that makes it an ongoing security disaster waiting to happen. (Linkage: "We have always said that CVS is not secure")

Bug? No; design limitation. But if the end users aren't aware of that (or, worse, choose to disregard the danger), it's still a vulnerability waiting to be exploited, and open source does NOTHING to prevent that.

So, "easier to find holes"? I'll go with the stock CompSci answer, "It depends". It's certainly not a simple or complete answer.

Xentax

Coworker of mine had to find new hardware that he could move a failing MS-Windows NT 4.0 server onto, and it was no picnic. Video driver is VGA (1024x768x8 at flat strap, zero hardware acceleration), there's no working USB drivers at all (not that it matters here) and the on-board network card had to be, er, assisted with an end-of-model PCI plugin. And he counts himself lucky to have gotten that far.

As to their claims of invulnerability, may I refer you to CERT's attitude on that matter? Search for "making the theoretical practical since 1992".

But a remote compromise is a remote compromise.

I would argue that "crack-a-Mac" was not in the wild. But that's neither here nor there.

Okay, there's been ONE instance of a remote compromise, sort of in the wild, kinda.

As someone else pointed out, an app like Timbuktu gives you remote back-office-style control over a Mac if you can install the program

The Mac running OS 9, just like all computers with network connections, is vulnerable to trojan horses. But a trojan horse is not a remote compromise. By definition, because of the way the Mac worked under OS 9, you had to have physical access to the machine to install the trojan horse, be it a program like Timbuktu or something more insidious.

But all this is academic -- os9 was more secure "out of the box" because it didn't do anything.

All the webmasters at the DoD will be shocked to learn that their web servers don't do anything.

The same with any services you open up under UNIX.

No, NOT the same. Because nothing runs on a Mac under OS 9 unless you explicity enable it. Unlike UNIX, where services run by default out of the box.

How many RPC exploits are there?

something like this?

This is probably a good choice. I mean, the W3C uses RSS to syndicate their page (see the bottom).
As the state, RSS is based on RDF, which is an approved standard.

Based on the coverage at ZDNet, it seems that Yahoo! also goes RSS...

Why would the two merge when so many major players are leaning towards RSS already?

Just be cause you don't believe it to be true, doesn't meant that the loss is false.

Here's a story talking about MSFT's December Quarter of 2003. It talks about how they lost $394 million in that quarter. Here's another story discussing how they lost $273 million the quarter before that. Both of these stories were easy to find and based on MSFT's reports to the SEC.

I always thought it was common knowledge that the XBox department was burning money like it was going out of style. Guess I was wrong.

"The company also announced on Thursday that it had notified the Berlin-Bremen, Stuttgart and Frankfurt Freiverkehr stock exchanges that its ticker symbol had been listed without the company's permission. SCO is asking the exchanges to remove the symbol."

What's next? CNET gets a "Cease & Desist" letter from SCO because the company's name was used in this story?

500 Servlet Exception

javaxzservletzServletException: exception -- forward to module for page
type=2100 failed:
CNETNetworks Exception Chain START

1) comzcnetnetworkszapizmacezMaceException: Error in module name=SetChannelEnv
at implementation path=/common/presentation/ZDNET_en_US/setZdnetDefE nvzjsp
2) javaxzservletzjspzJspException: NextModuleTag caught MaceException:
CNETNetworks Exception Chain START

1) comzcnetnetworkszapizmacezMaceException: Error in module name=SetByline_News
at implementation path=/news/presentation/ZDNET_en_US/ZDNN/bylinezjs p
2) javaxzservletzjspzJspException: NextModuleTag caught MaceException:
CNETNetworks Exception Chain START

1) comzcnetnetworkszapizmacezMaceException: Error in module name=SetMain_News_NewsItem
at implementation path=/news/presentation/ZDNET_en_US/ZDNN/news_item zjsp
2) javaxzservletzjspzJspException: NextModuleTag caught MaceException:
CNETNetworks Exception Chain START

1) comzcnetnetworkszapizmacezMaceException: Error in module name=ShowPage
at implementation path=/common/presentation/ZDNET_en_US/matrix_zdnet zjsp
2) javazlangzNullPointerException
at _commonz_presentationz_ZDNET_0en_0USz_matrix_0zdne t__jspz_jspService(_matrix_0zdnet__jspzjava:324)
at comzcauchozjspzJavaPagezservice(JavaPagezjava:75)
at comzcauchozjspzPagezsubservice(Pagezjava:497)
&nb sp; at comzcauchozserverzhttpzFilterChainPagezdoFilter(Fi lterChainPagezjava:182)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzInvocationzservice(Invocati onzjava:312)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzCacheInvocationzservice(Cac heInvocationzjava:135)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzQRequestDispatcherzforward( QRequestDispatcherzjava:225)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzQRequestDispatcherzforward( QRequestDispatcherzjava:106)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzQRequestDispatcherzforward( QRequestDispatcherzjava:83)
at comzcnetnetworkszservicezmacezEnvironmentImplzgoTo Module(EnvironmentImplzjava:1034)
at comzcnetnetworkszservicezmacezEnvironmentImplzgoTo NextModule(EnvironmentImplzjava:1047)
at comzcnetnetworkszappztagszmacezenvzNextModuleTagzd oStartTag(NextModuleTagzjava:63)
at _newsz_presentationz_ZDNET_0en_0USz_ZDNNz_news_0it em__jspz_jspService(_news_0item__jspzjava:3029)
at comzcauchozjspzJavaPagezservice(JavaPagezjava:75)
at comzcauchozjspzPagezsubservice(Pagezjava:497)
&nb sp; at comzcauchozserverzhttpzFilterChainPagezdoFilter(Fi lterChainPagezjava:182)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzInvocationzservice(Invocati onzjava:312)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzCacheInvocationzservice(Cac heInvocationzjava:135)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzQRequestDispatcherzforward( QRequestDispatcherzjava:225)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzQRequestDispatcherzforward( QRequestDispatcherzjava:106)
at comzcauchozserverzhttpzQRequestDispatcherzforward( QRequestDispatcherzjava:83)
at comzcnetnetworkszservicezmacezEnvironmentImplzgoTo Module(EnvironmentImplzjava:1034)
at comzcnetnetworkszservicezmacezEnvironmentImplzgoTo NextModule(EnvironmentImplzjava:1047)
at comzcnetnetworkszappztagszmacezenvzNextModuleTagzd oStartTag(NextModuleTagzjava:63)
at _newsz_presentationz_ZDNET_0en_0USz_ZDNNz_byline__ jspz_jspService(_byli

Just a heads up to firefox users. SpyBot 1.3 now works with Firefox. It caught a few bad cookies on my work computer. I've never noticed them before with spybot 1.2, but it shows firefox isn't completely safe. However I'll take the 5-6 cookies over the 20+ cookie and registry problems SpyBot found when I was using IE.

Here's a quote:

So what information does TiVo collect about its viewers? The company can indeed tell what has been watched on a particular TiVo box, down to the second, including the number of times a moment was rewound and played again, or a commercial was skipped.

Patent Apple (trees that is)

Check out This URL

This proposal by the UN can, and has been used to define web content distribution.

Seems to indicate that in the case of public domain content, such as a government-created documentary or a very old movie or audio recording--you would not be able to freely store and redistribute that content.

Scrapping the FCC would lead to complete anarchy

Have you read the article? It appears that you have completely missed one of his points. The author doesn't suggest scrapping the FCC and replacing it with nothing. If you can't be bothered to read the article, try this:

Abolishing the FCC does not mean airwave anarchy. What it means is returning to bottom-up law rather than the top-down process that has characterized telecommunications for the last 80 years.

Please, read the article. Essentially, other than their core function (oversight of the distribution of our radio spectrum) they've fucked up everything else that they've put their hands on (and they've got their hands in many other places outside of their initial core function). It's simply broken. Why not cut the part that works out, kill the rest of the FCC and call it something else (or keep the name, I don't care)? God forbid -- we try to fix something that's broken.

All the big players are buying into this. For the Google-challenged:

EMC's take from todays Cnet
CA
HP
IBM(tho' they prefer the acronym HSM or Hierarchical Storage Management)
Veritas
Random googled pundit on the entire field.

We have had a Tetris bulding. Some students had extra time, 10000 light bulbs, too much network cable and Linux. So the biggest Tetris game of the world was born. They converted the whole building to a Tetris display. here