Slashdot Mirror
Auto-Suicide for Grey Market Electronics?
Atomic Snarl writes "For those of you breathing fast and hard about user rights after the purchase, what would you think if your TV/VCR/Cellphone/Dishwasher would die if you moved it out of an "authorized usage area?" Got a great boom box bargan on your last visit to Hong Kong, but now it won't work in Cleveland? Yuk! Read the New Scientist article to find out about a GPS chip design intended to kill your unit if it isn't supposed to be marketed in your area!" The implications are wide-ranging and unpleasant.
- And one by one, the [atomic-powered] washing machines, automobiles, radios, autocookers will cease to function. The people will get angry.
- What are you expect? A jacquerie? The peasants shouting "give us back our roto-zoom cleaning machines!!"? I'm afraid that it takes more than that to instill a revolution!!
--
Yeah, imagine that! The American president can switch off GPS for civilian use any time he wishes, so now he can turn off televisions and cellular phones worldwide ;-)
How 'bout that power?
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Hm. Won't this upset these orgs. I mean, this is hindering of free trade...
Btw, someone will probably _quickly_ find out a standard way of bridging over these chips if they aren't integrated into some other chips ine one dye.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
DIVX consumers were likely to understand how the system worked ("what's that phone line for again?") Newer right-restricting technologies are more cleverly hidden. What percentage of American DVD purchasers do you think understand what region encoding is? I'd wager it's about 20% and getting lower every day. Everything they see for sale is R1 - they don't have to know about it.
Devices like MP3 players are already incorporating content controls - nobody knows they're there. The same will be true of content sensitive HDTVs, speakers, etc. The average consumer will never attempt to "cheat" and will never even be aware of the limitations.
Under these conditions I really don't think consumers will reject content controlling devices.
/* The beatings will continue until morale improves. */
Yeah. Hang them from trees and lead folks around in 4K circles in the woods! Then make wierd noises from off in the distance and leave bundles of twigs and stuff outside their tents every night.
--
What would happen if for some reason the GPS network developed a... problem. Say we have an unusually heavy meteor shower, which would cause no undue damage to earth itself but could reign utter havoc on satellites in orbit. Its not inconcievable that enough of the GPS satellites could be disabled that would cause GPS devices on Earth to become disabled. If this were to happen, does this mean that all consumer goods would fail to function until the sats were repaired or replaced?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
Hmm, if devices 'are programmed to identify the signal transmitted by national broadcasters' then just think what fun you could have with a small radio transmitter and a bit of hacking. Drive around town transmitting codes from another country, and cause everyone electronics to self destruct. Now, better get shares in those electronic manufacturing and retail companies first... then as people rush out to replace their old stuff, sit back and rake in the money.
Yes, I propose a system whereby unused plutonium and other weapons grade radioactive materials are destroyed by rapid and perfectly symetrical implosion. That should solve a lot of problems.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Power comes from understanding how the technology works and being able to bend it to your will. This is the essence of being a hacker.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
National broadcast signal? How hard would it be for me to either a) block the signal by clipping the antenna so it does not know where its at, or b) jam the signal so none of my nebigors equipment knows where its at. If the unit must know where its at so it can operate all my nebigors will complain when someone jams it, and if it will default to functional then a pair of wire cutters should do the trick.
This scheme will never work.
You would need an antenna capable of receiving the signal, the necessary amplifiers, at least one CDMA correlator, and a microprocessor to drive the show. You would need to find at least one satellite and then download the satellites almanac (keep in mind GPS satellites are no geo-synchronous). From the almanac downloaded from the satellite, and the satellites PN number you could computer a rough idea (probably about 300 miles, I would have to look closer at the specs) of where you are.
What more would you need for a full-blown GPS? Just multiplex the use of the one correlator, and keep track of the relative locations in the PN code. That's mainly just software. So cost wise, there isn't much difference. Sorry.
Better still, your premium can be billed by how much, and how fast, you drive. If you think that having your telephone billed by the second was neat, wait until Allstate and Geiko make GPS transcievers a mandatory feature of being their client.
Things to watch for: A deal between Microsoft and Toshiba that renders Office XP useless on Toshiba laptops when taken into countries where Microsoft software is known to be pirated.
How absolutely fascinating.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
DVDs will work in any geographic area. They just wont work on players made for that region. If I have a portable Panasonic DVD player, I can take it with me to Europe and still watch my Region 1 discs. If I had one with a zap chip in it, I couldn't use the unit at all outside the area (and depending on how you interpret the article, anywhere else after attempting to do so).
Kevin Fox
--
Kevin Fox
--
This is terrible. First off, what happens if it can't detect a GPS signal at all? Will it operate? I know GPS doesn't come through many buildings, or any basements.
If the GPS system hiccups, or there's a bug like the 'thousandth week' GPS bug that could have wreaked havoc in 1999, do the boxen all go kaflooey?
Worse yet, considering DGPS uses ground stations, could someone set up a few local area transmitters to give out false readings, selectively destroying hardware in a localized region?
Even worse, what would stop a foreign power from doing the same thing, sending out false GPS from a few of their sattelietes at a specific moment before an attack. When a pager sattelite went down in 1998, US productivity went down 6% (if you really want me to find the link, I will, but this is an statistic). what happens if 70% of the cellphones, radios and televisions all went out at the same time? This sounds like just the FUD tactic any superpower or terrorist organization would love to have.
Bomb an embassy? Bad. Knock out half the TVs in the continental US and you'll have serious consequences.
I'd be as likely to buy something with one of these cips inside it as I would to install a utility on my Linux box that wipes the drive if someone tries to SSH in with the wrong password.
Kevin Fox
--
Kevin Fox
I shake my head whenever I see things like this. Companies seem to have the idea that they need to maintain control over products after they have been sold to a customer. Do we need a consumer's bill o' rights? It's obvious that we are basically helpless as consumers to enact any change. All the WTO protests in the world aren't going to change the fact that people _need_ a refridgerator.
I think part of this new concept of control stems from the basic idea of selling software: when you buy software (when you _do_ buy it) you are buying the right to use the software. This is slowly being extended. Now we don't buy the music, we buy the right to listen to it. Soon, will we buy the right to open a fridge?
The concept of ownership is slowly being erroded. We need to do _something_ to ensure that in this next century we have the right to use the products we buy how we choose, even if it doesn't fit into the scope of its intended usage.
We are hearing more and more about technology that will impose capricious and draconian restrictions on what we consumers can do with the products we buy. From the DCMA and its offspring like SDMI, to built-in GPS for region control, to the alleged new CD format that will prevent copying, to digital TV that won't allow the signal to be recorded, to speakers that won't allow unauthorized signals to be played, there are so many new ideas being floated about of ways for companies to "protect their rights" (which also means artifically increase profits and take advantage of helpless customers). The industry's reaction to things like Napster could end up having a terrible effect on people who have never even used it.
When these technologies become incorporated into new CD players, DVD players, VCR's, etc, those products had better offer something so new, so cool, and so revolutionary that people will be willing to submit to Soviet-style restrictions on fair use in order to get them. If that doesn't happen, you can guarantee that savvy customers will boycott the products.
Let's look at DIVX. Now there was a product that was needlessly complicated and overly restictive and Circuit City probably lost a bundle when it failed. Who, in the tech community _didn't_ see it coming? Not many, I imagine. I have a feeling that this kind of application of technology could backfire immensely on any companies that choose to use it.
I always thought the American environmental regulations controlling toilet flow creating a black market in old toilets was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of, just wait until we see old analog A/V equipment becoming more and more of a prized possesion, so people can make reasonable use of the products and software (i.e., music, movies, etc) they buy.
Big Brother is alive and well, but he's currently employed in the private sector.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I propose implanting these chips into lobbyist's heads, along with a small charge of TNT. We then program the chips to detonate the charge whenever the lobbyist gets within a mile of an elected official.
This, of course, requires we chip elected officials, and continuously monitor their locations. Since this seems to be what they wish to do to us, they should have little problem with experiencing it themselves.
This would also have the side effect of allowing us to locate the positions of bars, brothels, and gambling houses with unprecidented accuracy.
www.eFax.com are spammers
ACME TOASTER 1000 END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
Congratulations on your purchase of a ACME Toaster 1000. Prior to opening and using this toaster, you must read and accept the terms of this agreement.
I. GRANT OF LICENSE.
The EULA gives you the following rights:
II. RESTRICTIONS:
I think this is a great idea, especially for things like aircraft components.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
hrmm.. except that I can't receive GPS signals indoors on my Garmin GPS receiver. I doubt they're going to put a higher powered receiver in my dishwasher than I've got in my standalone, dedicated GPS receiver.
So I'll just unplug it if I need to take my dishwasher outside for anything...
---