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Slashback: Guido, Games, Felines
That's one long and winding snake of an issue ... Kevin Reichard writes: "Since you covered the original issues surrounding Python licensing, you may also want to note that Guido van Rossum of PythonLabs has officially responded in a Linux Today interview. He has many interesting things to say."
Which things notably include: "The sad thing is that all of this is based on technicalities: Stallman agrees that Python is free software, but a technicality in the licenses prevents compatibility. The choice of law clause in the CNRI license, which is causing the incompatibility, is very common is software licenses, and CNRI doesn't want to drop it because the validity of the general disclaimers in the license may depend on it. At the same time, Stallman doesn't want to allow any choice of law clauses, because one could stipulate the law of "Unfreedonia" which might reverse the meaning of the GPL."
Abort, retry, fail, bend, fold, spindle, mutilate? L Fitzgerald Sjoberg writes: " A recent posting on the official EverQuest boards by a spokesperson for Verant states that even RUNNING an EverQuest emulator violates the EverQuest license agreement.
If the emulator is legal, and emulators seem to be making a lot of legal headway these days, doesn't this essentially amount to Verant forbidding you to use a competitor's product? Not a good sign, if you ask me."
"Sir! Sir! There's something wrong -- this knob goes up to eleven!" Signal 11 writes: "I took apart a cuecat and did a rundown of the circuit tracings on the board. What follows is a short summary of what I found. I'm working on putting together a schematic for it and hope to have it together within a couple weeks.
The cuecat is fairly simple. It uses a pair of infrared LEDs to direct light onto the sheet of paper with the barcode on it. It is then picked up by an IR detector, whose output is tuned by a single potentiometer (adjusted at time of manufacture, I would guess) and then fed into the analog input of a microprocessor. The detector is the same type one can pickup at radioshack. All you do is enclose it in a box and then make a pinhole at one end. Cheap, but it works well enough.
The microprocessor I haven't had time to put together a circuit from the specs provided by texas instruments to download the microcode out of it. It is also a matter of me not wanting to learn about microprocessors although I understand it is common in the industry.. I'm an analog guy. :) I suspect it is nothing more than running the output through a ACD (analog->digital) inside the microprocessor and then referencing the binary input with a list of values to produce the barcode string. After that, as has been previously noted, it is passed to an XOR algorithm, and then modulated to be fed out onto the PS/2 interface. There are a pair of transistors on the board near the outputs of the microprocessor - I suspect these are used to either boost the signal to run over the PS/2 interface (the microprocessor may not have enough power), or as part of an oscillator to get a clock for the processor. Until I finish tracing out the board paths, I can't say for sure.
Somewhere in the chip they probably set the serial number into the nvram, which is prepended to the output. The software does the rest. As has been demonstrated, there isn't much to do on the software side either - one could just create an indexed array containing scancodes. One might even be able to write a new key definition file under linux.. no programming required.
This is a really simple device. This is also probably why they were so concerned about competitors.. it wouldn't take them more than one afternoon with an EE and a microcode programmer to reverse-engineer it and produce their own. Then again, the device was probably designed in the same amount of time, likely by a random contractor. The reason it took me so long? I've been messing around with electronics for all of three months, so yes, I'm not a professional - I also haven't gotten into DSP technology yet, which is all the cuecat is. As always, if someone could provide me with a basic circuit for reading the contents of the processor's memory out, I'd appreciate it!
Anyway, DigitalConvergence - I'm waiting for my cease and desist now."
Taking the output from the IR receiver/transistor as either 1 or 0 means they have to set the adjustment potentiometers fairly accurately. It could be more intelligent to use an A/D converter and then figure out the threshold while scanning. Getting a uC (PIC for example) with an A/D converters might raise the cost ever so slightly that it might be more expensive than the simple fixed threshold transistor circuit.
Nah, just use a recovery circuit similar to that found on almost every T1/E1 installation. Your threshhold actually "moves" since it incorperates an integrator. Let's say that the scanner is not seeing infrared so it outputs a 0. The integrator moves the threshhold towards 0 so that when a bright flash comes by it can easily see it. Similarly when it sees the infrared reflecting off the white surface it moves towards the upper boundary. This can be done easily and cheaply and the integration can be tuned precisely how you need it.
The waveform on the output of one of these puppies looks kind of like a jagged line since the user is scanning across a barcode and the threshhold is jumping around slightly. The detection is still great though since you aren't trying to differentiate between #c0c0c0 and #d0d0d0, you're looking for #ffffff or #000000 and, with the trigger level varying between let's say #404040 and #c0c0c0. That's a wide wide range on a high-contrast medium such as paper. The whole thing is a textbook bit detector.
If that detector is a phototransistor the output will be pretty much digital. the edges of the bars will cause the transistor to come out of saturation as it races for the other level but an A/D isn't much good here at all.
What about those of us who alreeady have TV tuner cards?
Because the CD's are in a Case Logic disc wallet in my truck. The jewel cases are in a tower next to my desk.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
The implication is that if you set up some type of cataloging system [...] you can only use one particular scanner to do retrievals unless you take the time to strip out the (seemingly 5) ASCII output characters that are unique to each character.
My cataloging program was written in VB (Shut up, it was fast and easy). It grabs only the bar code info, checks to figure out if it's a book (you can look at the field before the bar code, or just see if it starts with 978) or a CD (all the UPCs I've seen for CDs have a 3 before the check digit). It then hits the barpoint.com database and grabs author/artist and title info. I'm gonna have it grab track info for CDs next, and then maybe a graphic...
Anyway, its trivially easy to do the encoding stuff without having to worry about the serial number.
I don't bother arguing with them about whether or not I'm giving my information -- the RS employees around here are a little more aggressive about wanting your data. I just lie through my teeth.
...Pardon?
...Can you spell that?
Employee: Can I have your name, please?
Me: Maria Tazalotzahojient-Smith.
Employee:
Me: Maria Tazalotzahojient-Smith. With a 'z', a 'q', and two 'j's.
Employee:
Me: I don't have all day to stand here. Either give me my receipt right now, or let me see your manager.
Funny, but I never get junk mail....
You'd think that if there were some sort of attempt to track scans vs consumer they'd be a little more attentive about getting, like, my name, or something.
Um, that's because it's not Radio Shack's responsibility. You give your personal information when you install the software.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Martin
Digital[randomcharacter]Convergence doesn't care about your name, address or whatever. All they want to know is which scanner was used for a particular lookup. That gives them a huge database of purchase info that they can then sell to other faceless corporations for big bucks.
when you install the (windows) software, it requires you to register, no? and isn't that registration form about the same as insurance forms? i heard they ask for a lot of information... maybe im wrong, ill find out whenever I go to RS
Sure, they ask a lot of questions - and it's up to you how honest you care to be. They also require a valid e-mail address (so they can send you the "activation" code), mailexpire.com takes care of that handily.
So I'm using CueCat and they have no idea who I am.
the output of the cuecat is extremely bright. That of high output red led's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That is NOT a great book. It's a kids' book that basically says "if you share with someone, they're just gonna want more."
I didn't realize it til a few years ago, but that's a pretty fucked up children's book, if you ask me. It's cynical and mean, man.
As I racall, the Motorola 6800 apps manual (not the 68000, the 8-bit 6800 chip) had a neat example program on reading Code 39 barcodes in software. It's really NOT all that tough to do this; you measure time intervals between bar edges, normalize them for swipe speed, classify them as wide bar/narrow bar ==> 1 and 0, and you're most of the way there. Then you need only identify the barcode type using the standard characteristics of each encoding (and they are designed to facilitate just this identification), do a simple forwards/backwards check in case the moron scanned the label right-to-left, test the check digit with a simple algorithm, and you're done. Not trivial, and there's effort required for handling multiple code types, but CERTAINLY not rocket science. (And I DO rocket science for a living...)
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
All they asked from me was my address (which they also ask for whenever I buy anything there).
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Who buys software at K-Mart? Its like McDonalds threatening to card anyone who wants to purchase filet mignon. I live in a small town in W.V. and software retailers are very limited, but I have never considered going to K-Mart to buy software. Sometimes I go to Wal-Mart, but not for the software. I go to Wal-Mart because its like watching the Jerry Springer show in 3D.
On a related note, I don't think it works with a Dvorak layout. If you have the Dvorak drivers loaded instead of the standard qwerty drivers, the scans come out different, and I get network connection(!) errors when I've tried (on someone else's computer of course, I wouldn't agree to the EULA). Of course, the network problem could just be another problem that has happened to co-occur when I've seen it done. Anyone else try this?
The program I wrote (But would never ever distribute, cause I don't want to violate their pseudointellectual property rights...) figures out if its Dvorak or Sholes and handles it appropriately.
OK, it has a microprocessor.
So how much longer before someone ports Linux to this beastie? Sure, it will need some more memory, but then, who doesn't?
Ladies and Gentleworms, I give you "The Next! World's! Smallest! Webserver!"
I'm not convinced that there is really a serial number? Digital convergence will already have a way to track us, users already have to get an "activation code" that is emailed out, and you have to use the activation code to enable the CRQ software. They will be able to track most of us anyway even without a serial number.
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
(Note: Your device may vary, but I doubt it.)
The microcontroller in the CueCat is a Toshiba TMP87PH47U 8- bit microcontroller.
After a little searching, I came up with this:
TMP87PH47U Datasheet.
It has 16kb of OTP EPROM, and 512b of RAM and appears to run at 8Mhz.
There are two other chips on the board, a 4066 and an 8-pin SMT chip that I have yet to read the number off of. IIRC, the 4066 is a CMOS bilateral switch.
I just walked into RS and asked for the "Cat thing that reads barcodes", bingo, a guy hands me a bag with the Cue Cat and a catalog (praise "Bob" they're not selling the things any more!), he says "Y'know, you can scan anything - soda pop, chewing gum, whatever!", I wave goodbye and I'm out of the store.
No name, nothing to tie me to an "ID" number.
You'd think that if there were some sort of attempt to track scans vs consumer they'd be a little more attentive about getting, like, my name, or something.
Then again, this is Radio Shack we're talking about.
Anybody else miss the free flashlights?
I was startled because he didn't ask my name, address, or even Postal code (which they always ask for when I buy resistors... they must really want to know which parts of town are buying the most resistors).
I walked out of the place feeling like I got away with breaking the neighbor's window. I don't know if this is happening elsewhere, or if I encountered the laziest Radio Shack employee ever. I like that I got something free and that DC doesn't have my address tied to the serial number. This way, when the revolution comes, Digital Convergence can't yank me out of my own home.
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
go to this site matrixpm.com/~haveblue/cuecat
Trying this again, logged in... >:/
(Note: Your device may vary, but I doubt it.)
The microcontroller in the CueCat is a Toshiba TMP87PH47U 8- bit microcontroller.
After a little searching, I came up with this:
TMP87PH47U Datasheet.
It has 16kb of OTP EPROM, and 512b of RAM and appears to run at 8Mhz.
There are two other chips on the board, a 4066 and an 8-pin SMT chip that I have yet to read the number off of. IIRC, the 4066 is a CMOS bilateral switch.
--K
---
Guido van Rossum writes: At the same time, Stallman doesn't want to allow any choice of law clauses, because one could stipulate the law of "Unfreedonia" which might reverse the meaning of the GPL. Even though the state of Virginia does no such thing!
Sorry, Guido, Virginia is Unfreedonia. It is the only state that passed UCITA without modification (Maryland passed a highly modified version that struck out some of the more obnoxious provisions). UCITA contains many horrors for free software developers and software users alike. Stallman pointed out many of these problems in this article. Virginia is the worst possible state in the US to specify as the jurisdiction where disputes over licensing will be settled.
I don't know if RMS's warning about UCITA potentially subjecting free software authors to liability (while exempting those who use shrink-wrap licenses) is correct or not, but it is a worry.
If Python is incompatible with the GPL, what it means is that people won't be able to link together Python code and GPLed code. This will be a major pain in the butt, so I hope that it can be fixed.
I don't know why everyone is giving RMS so much crap when it is CNRI that is making a change to a more restrictive license than it used in the past. CNRI created the problem, not RMS; as Guido said The new license was imposed by CNRI on Python 1.6 (the last release done from CNRI's code base).
The best solution will be to find some language that satisfies CNRI's concerns without causing these problems.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You know you can download Perl for Windows, right?
I've used it to run whisker (a network vulnerability scanner) many times on my company's website wihout any problems.
That sig is just damn funny in a dark humor way.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
I'm going to hoard^H^H^H^H^H save them for mostly historical purposes, kind of like how I do with old CPUs. I've got one hooked up to my PC right now. I might give one to a family member if they want one. Since no one in my immediate family uses Windows, privacy issues are not a concern.
/. reader in Canada (TheTomCat) who posted here asking for one. If you stick the package in one of those 6.5" x 9.5" bubble envelopes, it comes out to 6 ounces. 1st class USPS is $1.43 to the US and $1.60 to Canada.
As of this morning, I've snail-mailed one up to a fellow
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Really? I've never had a problem, I usually just say "No, thanks" or "I'd rather not" any they usually nod and say "OK" or occationally they'll explain why they collect the data "It's just so we can send you a catalog"
Drink! OHBC >O+
If you're downloading the microcode for the purpose of reverse-engineering their protocol, your right to do so is protected by copyright law (at least in the US). See the cases I cited earlier.
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
It just means SOME people are like that. Kids need to see this kind of selfish behavior in a controlled environment so that they can recognize it in the real world later. That's the whole reson for storytelling.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
Actually, I think a terminal set up like this would be excellent in a music store (if the cats scanned uniformly.)
;)
After all, instead of unwrapping a CD to give it a test-listen, you could just take it up to a kiosk, and scan it, then listen to a bunch of MP3s.
...that is, assuming you still go to music stores.
Why else would they give this thing away if they could tie your interests to a person? That's what it's all about folks - directed marketing...
And you thought DoubleClick was bad. This is just as...
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I saw them in a flyer in Alberta, but can't get my hands on one just yet. Might have been a misprint.
I remember just glancing at it and thinking "what a weird shape for a mouse."
That's not to say that an emulator isn't legal -- certainly, it's not in any danger of killing off the EverQuest craze^H^H^H^H^Hlicense to print money anytime soon. But it's certainly not competing with EverQuest; after all, if the actual EQ world went out of business, the emulator authors would be left without any new material! An emulator is a derived work and has been legally proven to be such.
After all, the US Senate seems hell-bent on unfreedonia!
Of course, it could get to be quite hard work... Especially after revolutions... :-)
He who fights and runs away,
The website h ere describes how to make your own RS232-output barcode scanner.
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The other chip is a 93C46 serial EEPROM.
;)
I'd imagine this is where the serial number is stored -- anyone have the equipment to read these things? I'm kinda curious what else may be on it...
There's a data sheet here.
--K
(And of course, my AC misfire gets modded up...
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Now, if only I could find a windows alternative. I tried writting one, but screwed up the encoding somewhere. Oh well. Guess I actually need to start learning languages.
kc8apf
This would make it difficult to read out the program. However it doesn't sound like it would be too much work to re-write the code from scratch.
Exactly. I've done this kind of thing before and I doubt that phototransistor is going to any kind of analog in. It's likely either pulled high or low (depending on if it's NPN or PNP) and the chip sees a 1 or 0, or the output of the detector is being brought into an on-chip comparator. Big whoop. This kind of thing can be done in an afternoon and on an 8-pin PIC (less than $1 in the quantites they're talking).
The irony of the situation is that if CueCat would have kept quiet about the OS coummunity's so called "IP Violations", very few people would know or care about the various "hacks" to their product.
Now that they've made such a big stink, everyone and their brother fred is eager to tear it apart and figure out how it works.
Moral:
Pissing off the geeks only motivates them more.
Agreed. This was decidedly full o' stuff.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Yeah, foder for communists sounds like the title of a travel guide, right between Foder's guide to the Carribean and Foder's guide to Denmark...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Extending a little: These little critters could be used to access control at workstations, instead of only input-less servers. Instead of typing the username, you swipe your card. You only have to type the password, just like at the ATM. Cool!
WalMart already does this (at least the one near me does).
Same here - mine is much more compact.
Yep, also one of the best lines from the otherwise rather silly Harrison Ford movie "Airforce One".
No, no, no. It ain't ME babe,
It ain't ME you're looking for.
-- Alastair
If Big Business could keep their damn mouth shut and their lawyers locked away for any length of time, they'd see that launching massive lawsuits just attracts more attention to something... look at all the press Napster got... it was mostly underground - now even my grandmother has heard of it, my parents have heard of it (and use it now) my PHB has heard of it (and uses it)... the list goes on and on... they got so many new customers for Napster that it is not even funny!
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
This is only a little off-topic, but I've found a nifty application for the CueCat under BeOS. Using no special software other than an MP3 query tool, I can scan the barcode on the back of a jewel case and if I've got the album ripped onto my HD, the query tool (MP3 Flashlight) will seek out the songs, load them into my mp3 player (CL-Amp) and start playing.
.
.
.
.
All you have to do is store the scanner's output in the Comments attribute of the mp3 file (the Be filesystem allows indexable attributes to be associated with files). This can be done manually for albums you're already ripped, or automatically for albums you're about to rip (using a tool like RipENC).
If you have your jewel cases right next to you it's a cooler way of playing an album than simply double-clicking on a playlist.
After reading the thread topic about serial ID numbers in the CueCat's output, I decided to see it for myself.
Look at the scan outputs below. The top code is the output I got last night from doing a barcode scan of Motorhead's "1916" album. The bottom code was obtained just now from the same album, but using a different CueCat (I have 5, all from different stores).
.C3nZC3nZC3nYChPXDxzWCxnX.fHmc.C3r3DxD3DxT2E3f3
** ***
.C3nZC3nZC3nYChTWD3D6CxnX.fHmc.C3r3DxD3DxT2E3f3
The stars indicate differences in the scan outputs. Now, here is a comparison of the barcode output for Pulp's "Different Class" album using the same two scanners from above:
.C3nZC3nZC3nYChTWD3D6CxnX.fHmc.DhbYD3zXD3j1DNfZ
** ***
.C3nZC3nZC3nYChPXDxzWCxnX.fHmc.DhbYD3zXD3j1DNfZ
As you can see, the differences come up in the same 5 places each time. The last set of characters after the last dot seem to be unique to the album. So unless I go into the Comments attribute and delete out the part of the code where differences show up, I can only use one particular scanner to scan jewel cases and play albums. Worse yet, no one else who I share the mp3 with would be able to use their scanner if they happen to have the same jewel case.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
http://www.barpoint.com/ offers a wireless laser-equipped barcode scanner, with a docking cradle, and software that gets you coupons and produces shopping lists. $29 deposit, plus $25/year. They were smarter than CueCat, in that they made it clear that they own the device, but also made it cheap and useful.
.C3nZC3nZC3nYDhv7D3DWCxnX.fHmc.C3rXD3T1C3nXD3nW.
://a.dcnv.com/CRQ/1..ACTIVATIONCODE.X.SERIALNUMBER .FhMC.c3Rxd3t1c3Nxd3Nw.0
Of course, you can always use your cuecat to get a $25 discount on a 'real' barcode scanner...
Interestingly, http://www.readerware.com/ has added support for the CueCat to their software, and it does not report back to Digital Hemorrhoid. Normally, the CueCat device sends a request with your serial number and activation code embedded. THe CueCat output looks like this:
It's an ALT-F10, your serial number, the bar code type, and the bar code data, spearated by periods and lamely base64+XOR67 'encrypted'. The CueCat software turns that into a request that looks like this:
http
YOu can actually replace your activation code with anything. My software replaces it with "ACTIVATIONCODE". It briefly replaced it with "MOTHERFUCKER" but I switched it back. The X seems to usually show up as "04" but doesn't have to be, and seems to be irrelevant in any case. And the Serial number can also be replaced.
Their game is to track all products and magazines, books, etc. scanned by their users in order to target marketing. YOu have to answer a long list of nosy questions when you install the windows software, unless you don't run the "autorun" program, and just run "setup" instead.
This probably explains why they're pissed about Free software existing. Mine, for instance, strips out the activation code unless you actually want to send it in. This anonymizes your scans.
Of course, I can't distribute my software because of some questionable legal shennanigans. I wonder if ReaderWare got a nasty letter... oh wait, they're a company that can probably afford lawyers, unlike me.
---- ----
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Take a look at my post where I show you the outputs of various scans and where the differences show up. The serial does appear to be portrayed in the ASCII output. The implication is that if you set up some type of cataloging system (like I did with my albums' jewel case barcodes and my mp3's) you can only use one particular scanner to do retrievals unless you take the time to strip out the (seemingly 5) ASCII output characters that are unique to each character.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I would agree. When I turn out my lights and go to trog mode, my computer room is well lit by the CueCat.
Radio Shack includes product codes on [practically] all of the products it sells. 06A00 means that the unit was manufactured in June (06) of 2000 (00) by manufacturer A (the letter code is only important when more than one manufacturer makes the same product, such as a resistor or a battery, or a new [generally cheaper] manufacturer is employed to make an existing product such as a speaker or a videotape).
Certified Microsoft Notworking Specialist
You buy a cluecat and give a fake name at R$. You creat a temp free e-mail acct at snotmail and complete your resistration to get your activation code. You think you are anonymous but the cluecat can now correlate your unique scan code with your IP number (even if it changes every time you connect) cluecat can now partner with doubleclick to figure out who you really are and correlate all your scanning with all your online browsing/purchasing.
Man...so much for privacy for the average person. I'm beginning to consider boycotting the net till we have some truly anonymous credit/debit card system like photocopier cards in wide use. ie Buy a card at the corner store with cash and have the ablility to add money to it anonymously from a bank machine at any time.
This tracking and correlating of everything we do on computers must stop! We need some laws against correlating this data to personally identifying databases and selling of those. Could be worth a letter to the man.
spooked
no sig.
Does anyone have some links to third party windows or linux software for the cuecat?
My grandfather was killed in a German concentration camp. He fell out of a guard tower.
_______
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
By default, Windows systems use invert capslock. Apple II, Mac, and Linux* systems, OTOH, use toupper() capslock. The Apple IIGS computer's BIOS had a function that could change the capslock behavior.
*Keyboard I/O is a kernel function; GNU/not involved.<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Virginia, not Maryland, passed UCITA unchanged. I was right the first time.
CueCat has another excitingly invasive product, the Convergence Cable. This connects the audio out of a TV set to a computer, which, using CueCat's software, then responds to "audio cues" from the TV to take over control of a browser on the PC to provide an "enhanced experience". This clearly needs some analysis, first to find out what's going over the TV audio signal (do they have FCC approval for this?) and second to find out what CueCat's PC application does with the data.
I've been toying with the idea of setting up an exchange system for those grocery "savings" cards. You could get one (ideally with fake demographic info), then after using it, submit it to a pool and get another one. With enough people, the data would be useless (Well, it looks like 18 year old men are buying lots of maxipads and Cosmopolitans, and 45 year old women are into twinkees, Jolt Cola, and Maxim -- Let's send those ladies some viverin coupons!).
Damn details...
This would make it difficult to read out the program. However it doesn't sound like it would be too much work to re-write the code from scratch.
Tell me about it. From the given description, that thing is so cheap and simple (yet effective) that I'm no longer wondering why they're giving them away.
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[ approaching AI ]
That's right. You have to give a lot of info to register the thing. You also have to get a member name on their little service.
Uh oh, the GPL is now basically null and void.
This is a bit drastic but things like the DMCA wouldn't have been passed even 15 years ago.
I believe that the pronoun was left purposefully ambiguous to allow us to use our imagination. Though this is not strictly grammatically correct, please let me see your grammar nazi permit.
Thank you.
I started working on a Windows version, but I got really lazy. The first step toward making one for Win was to translate the Perl code to C++. After about 2 hours (and 6 beers) of learning Perl from staring at it in notepad, I gave up and went to watch Gundam Wing. If anybody knows about a C++ or C version, I'll be happy to work on 2 versions for Windows (an ActiveX control, and a standalone).
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
That's right, the newest drivers seem to be back online, so grab em fast, because an accouncement on freshmeat posted by someone close to the project says 'we may be forced to remove it again". Grab your copy at http://oss.lineo.com/projects.html before they're all gone!
This time, if something happens, there will be people with mirrors ready.
--
--
grep "xercist"
No no no!! Privacy invading radio shack hardware only works in the US! sure, it looks all spify, but what do you do on error -57, can't find Echlon??
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I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
---
I'm not ashamed. It's the computer age, nerds are in.
They're still in, aren't they?
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Emmm, that's :Convergence :Cable
Ha! I kill me!
I took the commonly available JS CueCat interpreter, made it pretty, and made it strip the gibberish for ISBN Codes. pax.weltopia.com Tell me what you think.
High karma ought to be good for something. Otherwise, why create well-researched posts with HTML and useful links? I'd like it to turn off the banner ads.
I usually hang out on the I-Appliance BBS since the I-Opener hack craze. After hearing about the :Cue :Cat, I got one from RatShack, threw out the software and wrote my own decoder in VB. It features editable translation tables, automatic copy to clipboard, no privacy invasion, and fully unoptimized 16-bit code. I mostly wrote it out of boredom. It was also totally written on a hacked Netpliance I-Opener; that should provide a nice warm fuzzy feeling.
It's available for download here:
http://members.aol.com/amdinside/catcra ck.exe
Yep, AOL - I found a use for that account that I never use, posting files. Every freedrive/free web space place seems to bring up a million advertisments on file downloads.
--- Replace ISA with USB? Great idea, I love more cables...
Steve Ciarcia of Circuit Cellar fame said that "software is more expensive than hardware" and he was right. It would be easier to feed the raw output to your PC and decode it there rather than trying to stick it all into the microcontroller.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
No CueCats in East Europe either. (And also no RadioShack :)
If someone has too many, tac my email address and mail me for s-mail info (i'll pay for the shipment - if the postal service has this posibility)
How long 'till someone makes a GNUecat ? (diy schematics and software for all kinds of uCs and PICs)
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
That is /WAY/ different than my unit.
The optics are different, the uC is different, and the ~28 pin SMT chip isn't even on mine.
I'll put up some pics of mine in a little while:
http://sausageparty.net/cuecat/
(Not linked because I have finite bandwidth and don't want to get raped...)
--K
---
Nobody at the local Radio Shacks has any clue what a CueCat is. I guess it's an American thing.
If any of you fine americans have a surplus of stamps and feel like snail-mailing me one, please feel free to email me for my postal info (-:
Burris
Does anybody know what URL their software emits to take you to the information on the product? It would be nice to be able to actually *use* the thing the way D:C intended.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Sorry, I misreplied to the post. It belongs elsewhere.
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
Virginia passed a highly marked-up version of UCITA, Maryland is the one that rubber-stamped it.
Orgin no longer exists, it is now fully absorbed into EA.
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
An EverQuest emulator is clearly a derived work -- you need the original data files to play the game, and the emulator's game world is still reliant on Origin for new material.
EverQuest is produced by Verant, for Sony. Ultima Online is produced by Origin, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts.
[
I found a copy of some C version of the software at http://www.beau.lib.la.us/~jmorris /linux/cuecat/. They're intended for Linux (duh!) but I would think one could modify it. All I want is to have the barcode decoded. Would be really useful for say, UPS tracking codes. Scan, copy, paste, oh that's where my package is.
kc8apf
Great book. Great point. Changing from S-mail ordering to E-mail ordering with the mechanism of this CueCat gizmo insures proper SKU entry and automates the entire process. This cuts out the need for some poor schlamiel whose dreadful task is reading scrawled order forms. And, it allows the resource media of the order to be any printed form, such as magazine, mailer, flier and such. Thanks, Mooset. Good reality check.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
How would this serial be portrayed? It isn't in the ascii output of the scanner so how would it actually work outside DC's software? Thats probably why they are so angry about competition. Stick with using the linux drivers or windows alternatives.
Pax Digitalia
There's no problem with a single company tracking purchases so they can target ad you. It's when all these companies take all this information, sell it to each other (tell Amazon what dark place they can stick their books BTW) and combine it - that's where the problem is.
Because they know what you have bought at all the stores, what you are reading, and what services you have ordered they can create a detailed profile of you. Then, by "data mining" they know what income you have, what possesions you own, what problems you have, what illnesses you have had in the past or might have in the future, what kind of employee you are, what kind of relationships you have, whether you should get insurance or not, wheteher you should get a house loan or not, do I need to go on???
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I like today's edition of Slashback: it's factual, and the humor is kept pleasingly at a low background level.
I've (monomaniacally?) complained in the past that Slashback had too much fluff. I don't know if others were bothered by it, but for what it's worth I find that in this one you hit the perfect balance, so here's to a little positive feedback for a change.
Keep it up! I look forward to reading more of 'em.
To whom it may concern...
The link for the Everquest server emulators points to www.slashdot.org
Doh!
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
If they are really so concerned about competitors, why attack something they can't prevent like hardware drivers and/or devices?
They could far more easily and securely copyright the algorithm used to generate or scramble the barcode.
Sure they still face the interoperability offense, but at least all they'd have to face is ownership of the end result: the barcode generated with their code. Since each of the products also has a unique bar code and the generation thereof is on a case-by-case basis, they could trace violations directly back to the company responsible.
Downloading their microcode from the chip is not reverse engineering, it's theft. If you can try to figure it out yourself, don't download their code.
Don't confuse the "OSS community" with the "FSF community." Even RMS will agree they are not one and the same. The GPL is not the Alpha and Omega, and certainly neither the first or last of the free software licenses for open source software.
And Python is not the first nor the last new development environment to adopt non-GPL, but free and open source, licenses. In my view, the incompatibilities of the licenses remain as much an indictment of GPL as of Python-L. While it may limit the number of free libraries available for linking to Python, that environment is well beyond critical mass at this time -- and it is probably more encouragement for non-Python people to issue code under LGPL than it is a deterrent for others to work in Python.
The Windows software has an option to use mic input as well... But it's not reccomended
"Knowledge being power, I am a diety..."
The Convergence stuff uses audio in such a way that the radio transmission spectrum isn't altered, so the FCC doesn't care. If DigitalConvergence had tried to use out-of-band audio cues, then the FCC would take notice. I suspect that they are using tones under 150Hz, because damn few people would notice low-level signals in the bass, even if they had super home theatre systems. This would be especially true if they phase-modulated a really low tone, like 55 Hz. Dunno, but a spectrum analyzer would pick this up. Anyone know of any audio signal that carried the Convergence signal?
Well, Freedonia (actually Fredonia) is about 40 miles south of here (Buffalo NY). Heck, it's not all that far from Celeron (OK, (Celoron) NY for that matter.
Just stick this at the end of the perl code for the CueCat that's on FreshMeat
/ ASIN/$isbn");
use Win32::OLE;
my $app = Win32::OLE->new("InternetExplorer.Application");
$app->{Visible}=1;
while()
{
chomp;
$decode = CueCatDecode($_,3);
$isbn = substr($decode,3,9);
$checkdig = CheckDigitISBN($isbn);
if($checkdig == 10)
{
$checkdig = "X";
}
$isbn = $isbn.$checkdig;
$app->Navigate("http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos
}
the problem with the legal system is that it is run by people who have no technical knowledge whatsoever.
A technical person will see this cuecat for what it is: a 2 bit barcode reader made by a 2 bit company who probably found the instructions on the internet and never did anything new.
To a non technical person, however, this is not obvious. Which is hy they might actually win with their stupid "intellectual property" claims.
They might as well be claiming intellectual property for a toaster...
Okay, let me get this straight. You walk into Radio Shack and get the free scanner, catalog, and some software, and you are supposed to go home and install the software and register to buy things from the catalog online. But, because the software that was designed for the purpose of ORDERING THINGS requests your NAME and ADDRESS, it is equated with being a tool of Big Brother?
You people crack me up.
Tracking purchasing patterns is neither a new thing or an evil thing. There is no big "He ordered a case of Jolt, he must be a communist revolutionary! Notify the authorities!" conspiracy going on. It's simply a matter of statistics. If patters show that people who buy lots of Jolt and porno mags also like to buy copies of Everquest, and a store records a surge in Jolt and porno sales, then they better stock up on copies of Everquest. The exact same thing applies to how Radio Shack operates its online catalog. It's called basic marketing, and if you don't like it, don't pick up a CueCat. Your privacy isn't "infringed", Radio Shack saves money by having more CueCats for legitimate customers, and everyone is happy.
As someone who has done their fair share of embedded design and programming, I can assure you the CC is NOT simple, and it neither contains a DSP nor is it nothing more than running the output through a ACD (analog->digital) inside the microprocessor and then referencing the binary input with a list of values to produce the barcode string. The fact of the matter is, it's a fairly complex process decoding barcodes, as there are a fair number of flavors, such as UPC-A, and UPC-E. Each format is a little (or a lot) different, and last time I checked into writing such a beast, I canned the idea pretty quickly. Also, try pricing out the "wedges" that decode the output of barcode wands sometime; they're not cheap. Anyway, my whole point is the difficult part of the CC design is not the electronics so much as the software running on the microcontroller.
When you fill out the little form at your grocery store to get one of those neat little cards you have to carry for the rest of your life in order to get cheap groceries, you put YOUR name / Address and they wanted my drivers licence number but I wouldn't give it to them... Any way, they now know who YOU are, and when they swipe the card and YOU'VE bought a jug of Vodka and a Playboy they know that YOU are the one who bought it...... With the CueCat do you have to fill out some sort of form to get one... If you do it'll be the same thing, You Scan a UPC out of BarelyLegal and they know that you are the one who used the CueCat to check out the Upc link to a porn site.....
Stupid can opener! You killed my father and now you've come back for me!
the reboot card
the system halt card
the cut the internet connection card
the kill all the print jobs card
the boot off all lusers card
and the FBI raid card (unmounts all encrypted filesystems)
Without the software, no serial number is being sent over the net.
I was talking about the CueCat scanner. ;>
How long before Digital Convergence will have a few more letters out in the mail?
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Most embeded microcontrollers have a security 'fuse'. Once the fuse is set the program cannot be easily read out. In fact some chips erase the program as an anti-tampering mechanism if you attempt to read the program.
This would make it difficult to read out the program. However it doesn't sound like it would be too much work to re-write the code from scratch.
---
Someone forgot to tell me that my serial number was stolen and put into my glorious Raid E O Shaq scanning device. I woke up this morning and the Mark of the Beast was no longer on my forehead! They took it and actually put it in the device itself. They stole my identity. They own me. What is the world coming to? I mean, this is like we are back in 2053 when pure humans still existed. How am I going to buy food if they can't scan my head!? What's going to happen, the scanner is going to scan itself and then give me food? Help! We must revolt against Raid E O Shaq and get back our souls!!
How to Download YouTube Videos
- Shine a focused light on the code, with a receptor measuring the intensity of the reflected light. Near infrared or near-visible infrared are good light colors to use. (Attentive readers will notice that red on white barcodes are unreadable by almost all scanners.)
- Run the reflected-intensity signal through an analog wave shaper to crank up the contrast. From now on, assume that the signal can be described as white or black (i.e., a single bit).
- Monitor that bit with code that records how long (time) the alternating periods of white and black last. Don't bother to begin recording until you see a "long-enough" white (the wand has been placed in the quiet zone "blank area" to one side or the other of the barcode).
- Once the signal goes white for "long enough", then black for "long enough", assume that the wand passed through the quiet zone on the other side of the barcode and is no longer in contact with the paper.
- Every barcode symbology has "start/stop" patterns that frame the actual data patterns and can be used as an indication of which symbology is being used. They're not all sufficiently distinct that this is a guaranteed indicator, but at least it CAN be used to limite the cases to check for and to throw out total garbage (e.g., the user scanned some text, a photo, etc.)
- Every barcode symbology represents data in patterns of light and dark bands of various widths. For example Code-3-of-9 (AKA Code 39 (tm)) uses 9 elements -- 5 bars and the enclosed 4 spaces -- for each data character. Exactly 3 of these are "wide" and the rest are "narrow", hence the name. The wide:narrow ratio is ROUGHLY 3:1.
- Analyze the recorded durations as estimates of the spatial widths of the bars and spaces (assume that the wand speed over the code is sufficiently uniform that the time signals aren't too badly distorted). Most symbologies can be decoded one character at a time, which means that only very nearby elements are being compared, which helps with the uniform-speed assumption.
- Once the (time-based) durations have been translated into wide/narrow patterns, check for the left- and right-hand start/stop patterns. Failure to match means at least that you're trying the wrong symbology. Success indicates you MAY have a valid barcode, and also MAY tell you which direction you're moving (l-to-r or r-to-l) -- this depends on the patterns in the individual symbologies.
- If you match with a start pattern, zero or more data character patterns, and a stop pattern (remember that you have to be able to match these patterns in both directions), you've got a valid read. This is one point where some user feedback (e.g. a beep) to signal success is often done.
- If you match a start pattern, some data character patterns, and then nothing else matches (or there is no more data), you LIKELY have a scan that dropped out of the signal (was lifted off the page, etc.) prematurely. However, you should probably continue with the next step just to be sure.
- You may be trying the wrong symbology. If you match a start pattern, then almost immediately fail to match valid data patterns, you MAY have one of those cases where two different symbologies are similar enough to allow confusion. In this case, or if you even fail to match a valid start pattern for the symbology you're trying, you can either give up and assume the scan was bogus, or back up to step 8, trying to match a different symbology.
- If nothing works, give up. Normally, no user feedback means that the scan was not decodeable.
The above is only an outline, but it gives a basic framework. There are ALWAYS exceptions (remember, I said it was "non-trivial"- UPC uses 4 element widths (assumed normal ratios 1:2:3:4) instead of the 2 widths (assumed normal ratios about 1:3) common in many other symbologies.
- Some barcode applications embed check characters in the data as an additional validity test. In such cases, don't beep to signal success until both decode and check digit verification are passed.
- Some barcode symbologies (Interleaved-2-of-5 and Code 128 Numeric Mode, for example) actually store a PAIR of data digits/characters in each run of bars and spaces, requiring slightly more sophisticated picking apart of the patterns.
- Some symbologies (e.g. UPC) have symmetrical start/stop pattern, but use multiple patterns for the data characters. This allows the direction of the scan to be determined from content, not framing.
... the list of exceptions goes on, but you get the idea ...
Happy decoding!Umm the LED's in the cuecat are NOT infrared. they are standard Red Led's and I assume that the detector is a standard visible light detector. If I wanted to waste the time I would cross-reference the part numbers to get actual specs on the devices. But as a simple note.. LED's that emit visible light are NOT infrared, although they do emit some light in the infrared region. Infrared led's are dark to our eyes-- I.E. you cant see them light up.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There was an infomercial on this morning from Digial Convergence before Comedy Central came on the air. Pretty lame stuff, but they were showing just how widespread the CueCat is going to be. They claimed newspapers, magazines, catalogs, television commercials...the works. It probably took them 5 years to get all the agreements from all the different companies that they are working with.
Is anybody interested in creating www.openUPC.org? It would be just like the CDDB but for UPC codes.
I think most of you are missing one thing, RadioShack would have no way of correlating the serial number in your particular Cat with your name, address, phone number unless you register with their software. When you get your Cat they ask for your phone number and scan the bar code on the Cat package into their computer, but the bar code on every Cat package is the same so their computer system would have no way of matching up your personal data with the serial number on the particular Cat you bought unless you use the software they give you.
The string before the first period (.) is the Serial Number. The second piece (between the 1st and 2nd periods) is the barcode type, and the third pieces (after the 2nd period) is the actuall barcode.
Between any two CueCats, the entire first piece might be difference. It's just coincidence that only 5 characters are different in your two devices (the serial numbers are similar).
If you want other people to use your mp3s, only store the 2nd and 3rd pieces of the string.
-- Erv Walter
That *is* pretty cool, but I can't understand why you would want to listen to the mp3 version if you had the cd already in your hand. I don't get it, somebody wave a cluestick at me.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Actually, it works both ways. Many infra-red LEDs (particularly the very bright ones) have some visible light output. I have a VCR remote control that I can see the output from in a darkened room, if I look directly at the die. I've been able to see light from many clear packaged IR LEDs (without a filter window in front of it). The vast majority of the energy is still going to the IR component of the light, as demonstrated by an IR flourescent detector, in my case.
LEDs are not spectrally pure, they put out light over a range of wavelengths. The wavelength given for a particular LED is just the center of the band. Just as visible LEDs have output in the IR region, the IRLEDs have output in the visible region. The dark window/encapsulant of the IR LEDs block the majority of the visible light.
But since I don't have a cuecat- I have no idea which applies in this case. If the light output of the cuecat is dim, I'd guess that it is actually IR, since they want to get as much power output as possible, to get the best signal/noise ratio at their detector. IR LEDs are usually a better choice because they are much more efficient than visible LEDs in terms of candelas/milli-amp.
True, but in Orwell's 1984 at least, Big Brother also was the resistance .
Emanuel Goldstein was construction of the party to help weed out people that needed to be re-educated. Now doesn't that put a whole new spin on 2600, the hacker quarterly.....
Isn't an EverQuest server being illegal to use with official EQ clients, like MS saying that it's illegal to use Windows to connect to a Samba server? Especially if it emulate NT domains?
Forgive me if this is a stupid question. I'm a programmer, and you're talking about hardware...
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I had a gig a few years back writing code and burning it to EEPROMs... There's a bit you can toggle that will effectively prevent reading from the ROM, so that you couldn't just snag it's program and copy it.
ummm... You need to get a "convergence cable" that will hook your tv's AV output into the computer's line-in
"Knowledge being power, I am a diety..."