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Future Pocket P2P - Discreet Data Sharing?
"IMHO this vehicle for data sharing would be very discreet, anonymous, and unstoppable. Your ISP would not be involved, so they can't block your traffic. In a sufficiently crowded area of people, it would be difficult to pick out someone transmitting data and nearly impossible to locate person(s) storing a copy of said data. Pocket P2P transfers would be local and spontaneous in nature, so an organization trying to stamp it out would essentially need enforcement spying everywhere, equipped with RF detection and triangulation tools.
The devices for doing this already exist, albeit in slightly suboptimal forms (laptops, palmtops, and PDAs). However, it should not be impossible for enterprising engineers to eventually build more specialized devices toward this goal."
Technological predictions are fun and easy. Ethernet NICs cost $100 ten years ago and $10 now; 802.11b cards cost about $100 now and might cost $10 in 2012. So by then, will some entrepreneur be able to build an MP3 storage/playback device with wireless capability for $50 or $60? Think "Sony Walkman that trades music with whatever other devices are around."
The hard part is legal predictions. Right now the entertainment industry is trying hard to reduce the power of fair-use exceptions to copyright law, and thereby expand their own power. And they've made their key weapons things like the DMCA and the doctrine of "contributory copyright infringement" -- going after not music's fans, but the corporations that enable music sharing. The corporations that provide your access become the bottleneck that the copyright holders can control.
But suppose someone released a Walkman-sized, cheap MP3 player that had a wireless network card used to download (legitimately acquired) MP3s from your computer? It's not Napsteresque; it's like Apple's doohickey, except it connects wirelessly. That's all.
And then suppose it turned out that a simple command given from that computer could trivially put your player into a promiscuous, music-sharing mode?
The device need not connect to the internet (perhaps it can't) -- it talks to whatever other devices are around. "I like Jimmy Buffett, anyone got any Jimmy Buffett? I'll trade it for some Wayne Newton." A short-range hardware Gnutella. Set some parameters, go for a walk in a public park, come home with some new music. Pass it along.
(Your problem becomes spam -- come home from the park with ad jingles disguised as Jimmy Buffett... better to trade at parties with people who are friends of friends...)
This would surely stretch "fair use" to the breaking point -- but the question becomes, what part of the chain would the copyright holders be able to attack?
This reminds me of the system (in Japan, think?) where people carry little wireless devices saying what they like in a partner, and they help spot folks which are good matches. Kinda silly, but interesting nonetheless.
On the distributed P2P system, where stuff is traded as people walk by, it seems like this is a pretty simple system to thwart. Police officers could simply carry a unit themselves, and when they see a system offering up copyrighted or pirated content, they just confiscate the gear. Pretty simple. I don't think you'll ever see it take off because of this (among other reasons).
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
O'Reilly did a conference on this, "Using Two-way Pagers as Peer-to-peer Devices"
, done by previously reported about "brian d foy". The link is here. I wasn't able to attend, but it sounds like just what this article is talking about. Mayhap brian has notes posted somewhere.
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
But sadly, I think it needs a bit more work. Otherwise, the first cop you walk past will nail you for illegally supplying copyrighted material to the PDA in his pocket.
Yeah right - until you go for your first 'walk in the park' and come back to find your device full of spam, bestiality porn, and suffering it's 43rd DoS attack of the day.
Keep a door/port/service open and the standard assholes will try to fuck you up. This is no different.
This is the same argument that makes the me laugh at the bluetooth proponents...."Imagine walking down the street --- pass a pizza parlor and *bing* you get a pizza coupon on your bluetooh device." Ugh. So in this vision of the future every fucking retailer out there that spends $50 on a card will be allowed to spam me incessantly as long as i'm withing their broadcast footprint?
I'd rather put a bullet in my head now...... it'll be less painful.
j
Hate to break it to you, folks, but this is already being done. It's called the Gaydar.
No, this is not a troll, and this is not a joke. Check the link.
--SC
You read fiction? I write it! Lemme know what you th
Directionally finding a signal is trivial, and wireless pirating in public is going to be a blatant target for law enforcement.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
They would attack the manufacturers of the hardware. Make possession of a promiscuous mp3 player an offense the same way possession of a radar detector or certain types of radios is an offense in some places. Go after the supply chain.
:)
The govt is probably gearing up now for the War on Piracy.
-Steve
Good idea... Already implemented as Bluetooth. Some of BT Profiles implement File Sharing, Information Sync, OBEX, PPP over Ethernet.
The device is a small radio, costs nothing to make, buy stack from a range of different sources, works with PDA, Desktops/Notebooks (PCMCIA or USB), cellphones, headsets, Stereo/Receivers, what else?
We have this already!
Cybikos can share Internet connections between each other within a ceratin range; as long as someone has a Cybiko hooked up to his main computer and its internet connection, other Cybikos can pick up on the signal and use it for wireless internet. Pretty neat, actually-I wonder how hard it would be to hack them up for a complete p2p system as described above?
***
http://www.p-o-x.com
This kids game is played similiar to how the article describes pocket p2p. the game is a hand held that is played by a user to teach its warrior how to fight. As the trainer walks around town,(mall,school,neighborhood), the game can sense other consoles and battle them. The trainer later sees that his warrior has won or lost a number of battles, and in the process gained abililities or weapons.
There is no spoon.
Wow!
Terrorists can talk to each other too.. we should require all conversations to be licensed & recorded.
Also.. terrorists could leave notes somewhere for another terrorist to pick up later.... we should not allow anyone to leave anything anywhere without filing a form, in triplicate.
Get over your "Terrorist" fears.
Are we living in the 10 year bubble before copy protection breaks down (or something to that effect).
If you can log onto the free P2P network anytime you want, so can the FBI. That, and a little signal triangulation is all they need for a conviction.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
See our 7DS for an implementation of a closely related concept.
I would think that this would be a new way for flashers to go about their business more 'discretely.' i.e., you're going through your newly acquired files and ... "hey ... what's this ... 001.jpg, 002.jpg, let me open them ... AUGH!!"
Thats what these things will become. Unless you're constantly scanning for whats available, or make a list of what you're looking for, your only other option is to just collect everything. Sometimes this makes sense, but in most cases you don't want to collect but a very small fraction of what's available, and storage will become a rather extreme issue very quickly.
Still, if only working with small numbers of files at a time, this could work. If, for instance, everyone is currently trading the latest movie, it would be rather simplistic to simply walk around and transfer it to everyone during the course of a day, then by the end of the day, everyone will have it, and this spreading well, well, spread. Isolated to a single office where the first copy gets sent, in a very short period of time, the entire city could have collected the same file as the number of people in possession of it grows exponentially.
The downside of this is when you start collecting stuff you don't want. I suppose if I'm only collecting mp3's, I won't be picking up some guy's porn collection, but if my collection is more diversified and I'm set in a "collect everything you find" mode, this could get interesting.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I love this idea. Really, I love it. But there are some real problems:
First, making and selling these devices will be very hard. Not technologically, but legally and socially. I bet most of the tech work could be done in 6 months and the device could be on the market.
But this isn't Linux - development and sales of these devices will have to be centralized rather than distributed. This means a large corporation. The devices have to be very popular for Metcalfe's Law to make them useful, so they'll have to be marketed. In other words, there'll be one large company for the Feds or RIAA to target and/or intimidate.
Second, this is the farthest thing from unstoppable. How hard would it be for the Feds to setup a listening station in Central Park and flat-out arrest everyone carrying on of these? Just because they're in your pocket doesn't mean they're hidden - they'd have to announce themselves to as much of the world as possible to be of any use. Shit, the RIAA could setup a hidden station in Central Park to perform a DOS (or format) on each one as it wanders by.
Technological solutions are notoriously hard to apply to social problems, and copyright is a social problem. No magical P2P device will sound the death-knell for copyright. It's going to take a sea-change in the way people relate to and value information.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Furthermore, this kind of thinking is still rather primitive: "The content industry controls everything, but ha!, we, the great hackers & crackers, will break everything they come up with, and then we will distribute it for free! But if they ask nicely, we will still send the artists a check, or something." What is currently happening in the software industry -- the slow substitution of proprietary software with copylefted software developed collaboratively by volunteers and supported by sympathetic individuals and corporations -- must repeat in all other areas of information production. If that is the case, we can use all the existing infrastructure to distribute the content in question, be it Bluetooth or be it UMTS, without any limitations. Or has anyone ever sent you a nasty letter for downloading a Linux kernel?
So we need to develop revenue and marketing models that can compete with the existing oligarchy. And in order to take the laws into our own hands, we need to reform (or rather, reinvent) democracy itself. The tools that are needed to accomplish these goals are essentially similar and closely related:
These are all key technologies, all implemented in software, that are much more important than any file-sharing solution alone. For all of them, user interfaces are of utmost importance: One click too many, one second too much latency and people will not use them. Nevertheless, little progress has been made to wide deployment of these technologies. These technologies will not only make it possible to make money with any kind of content, they will also allow more direct participation of people in the lawmaking process -- if only on the level of newly formed political parties at first.
It's all nice and good to complain about the stranglehold that the content industry has on content distribution and on lawmakers. And I'm the first to support the kid who is locked up for copying an MP3 or DivX movie. But if there's not a serious counter-culture, the industry will win. There will be licenses required for cryptography. There will be DRM in every major operating system (even in Linux, in the form of binary only drivers), because otherwise hardware will simply not run. There will be laws like the SSSCA to enforce this. This will be done on an international level using organizations such as WIPO and WTO, which are fundamentally undemocratic. There will be protests and cracks, but think "war on drugs" here: You will find few people on this site who think locking drug consumers up en masse is a good idea -- yet that's exactly what's been happening for the last decades. Don't complain about your government but then naively assume that they are actually still kind of good misled guys who just need to be sent a few nice letters. Not with the money involved in this game, now and in the future.
Create counter-culture, not cracks. That's what the revolution is all about, baby.
...spoiled by warez kiddies?
Crackers break shrink-wrapped software? Industry moves to sucky subscription-based model and/or "product activation".
People rip CDs and post them online? Copy-protected CDs that won't play on my box.
Warez kiddies use P2P wireless to circumvent copyright? Maybe they will go after P2P wireless.
Hey y'all, if we end up having to pay some kind of onerous tax on these devices and/or having lengthy debates about whether or not they should be legal and/or having more FCC regulations and/or having violence in the streets involving stupid ugly paper-mache puppets, will you do me a favor? Find the nearest warez kiddie and piss on him.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This will happen, it's just a matter of time. All the research in the networking industry is in wireless. The logic end for that research is fast, functional, multihop wireless networks that trade data via P2P type operations. Not just Palm pilots, but everything. The reason that this is not possible right now is that it is NOWHERE AS EASY AS IT SOUNDS.
There is a major problem with wireless networks in a multihop Ad-hoc setting and it is called Hidden Terminals. Essentially, due to the medium and the hardware, you can't (cheaply) implement Collision Detection or more specifically Carrier Sensing like CSMA/CD protocols such as Ethernet. A terminal between two other terminals can hear both of them, but the terminals on the edges don't know what each other is doing and they may both try to send data to the center node at the same time, resulting in interference and a collision. Here are some research papers if you're really interested but be warned, they are heavy on the math.
CCRG Research at UCSC Publications
And more specifically,
C. L. Fullmer and J.J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves, "Solutions to Hidden Terminal Problems in Wireless Networks", Proc. ACM SIGCOMM 97, Cannes, France, September 14-18, 1997. - There is also a pdf version on the CCRG page.
Enjoy!
I'm looking forward to the day when entertainment media is no longer shackled by ridiculous anti-copyright-infringement measures and the consumer can do whatever he wants to with such content as long as it stays within the law. When laws are broken, it's time for various branches of law enforcement to arrest and prosecute. Sooner we get there, the less I have to worry about losing my ability to legitimately share MY data with others.
Even UNIX servers aren't immune to worms.... Chances are good that Your Favorite Software Company (MS) would write an OS for these, and virii would be spreading even worse than they do now...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
That's why I was thinking of an MP3 player sold with a wireless card intended for legitimate use connecting to a computer. It's hard to bust manufacturers for selling goods that can't be proven to be intended for illegitimate purposes.
The question is, how hard is it to switch the device into "sharing mode"? If it's just flipping a dipswitch, the manufacturer may be liable. If it's a complex program, the DMCA can be used to stop distribution of that program (like DeCSS). Is there a happy medium somewhere between the two? I think an almost-trivially-simple program might be a successful strategy, both technically and legally: get the manufacturer off the hook and yet leave the copyright holders unable to use the DMCA on something quite simple.
Why couldn't Joe "The Donut *Machine*" Police Officer just carry one of these around? He might even add a little beeper to go off when his device detects you aren't using ?
You could encrypt things, or password protect them, but then you lose the "everyone shares, everyone gains" core of the thing.
I have seen a number of comments regarding how it would be easy for Law Enforcement to nab you - yes this is precisely true.
The point is that the powers that be will then be forced to go after "regular" people, which up 'til now they have not wanted to do for fear of alienating their customers to a point even greater than they do now. This plan would leave fewer intermediaries for the RIAA & co. to bully before they have to come down on their own potential sales market directly.
Additionally, when Jane Musiqlover actually becomes criminalized, that's when this "class war" will come to a head. The first time a senator's teenaged offspring get's hauled in for file-sharing in the park, we'd see some serious talk about what makes someone a criminal. At that point, I'd hope "we, the people" would finally be ready to stand up for our rights.
To use a popular paraphrasing of Gandhi:
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
When the RIAA actually fights their consumers directly is when they've actually lost.
I hope.
nonsig. unsig. desig.
Either way, they'll never truely stop us from sharing. If they lock down code, we'll move to the ever-denser disposable media format of the moment.
------
Today's Top Deals
It's criminal that so many people have posted to this story without mention Bruce Sterling's highly relevent (and extremely enjoyable) story, "Deep Eddy".
What happens if the Big media collapses (i know, i know, just bare with me) and you no longer have Big media paying artists to produce. How Are You Going to Pay Them, because they will need to be paid, if just to eat?
...
My guess is, since "making a digital copy costs almost nothing" they will *gasp* make digital copies and license music out that way. Heaven forbid the artists actually use technology. Oh wait, most of them already do.
Our ideas that We have a Right to listen or see anything, may change.
Huh? Who the hell has that idea now?
I think what may happen is that You and I are going to very IP
Uhh.. what?
And what You and I are going to pay for is access to what this Mind (the artist) creates.
How is that different than it is now?
Mod Totals: -1 Clueless, -1 Nonsensical, -1 Seems to be karma whoring by using a lot of buzzwords and not making much sense in relation to the article nor reality.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
This danger is well known to those who read Slashdot...I constantly see the benifits of P2P to independent artists being championed here, but rarely do I hear of the stakes (i.e., why it is so important for independent arrtists to have a voice).
It is important to inform others of the loss of personal freedom brought on by poor laws, but do not forget to inform others of the loss of societal freedom that comes with the loss of independent and uncorrupted voices.
MetallicBurgundy
First is that routing in an ad-hoc network of that scale can be very difficult. People are working on it (see books by Charles Perkins or C-K Toh) but it's sorta not there yet.
The second problem, which exacerbates the first, is that battery power will likely continue to be an issue. The reason this matters is that it can make routing even more of a challenge, especially when nodes keep dropping out to conserve battery power. There are also issues with trying to run expensive algorithms - e.g. crypto - on slow power-constrained devices.
If you allow at least some of the devices in your system to be stationary (and therefore mains-powered) things become a lot more interesting. They key is not so much the wired/wireless nature of the network, but rather the number of nodes - more nodes generally means more opportunities to obscure who's sending and who's receiving what - and how the high-level protocols they're using above TCP/IP.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Put another way, if we ignore the copyright issue for now, what situation wouldn't be better handled with some centralization?
For example, consider the various music trading protocols out there. All of the peer-to-peer systems suffer to some degree or another scalability issues. We could expect much better if we had a centralized search engine and dedicated servers, a la Google and the WWW. Naptster performed pretty well, although I think that one could argue successfully that it would have performed better if the songs themselves had been centralized.
The situation put forth by the submitter don't quite fit the same mold: we do not have world reachability. Instead we only talk to those that are near to us, which limits the possibilities considerably. Unlike the current situation in which we would like to find any matching resource if it is available, we can only hope to find them if they are available and close to us. This could be done now on the internet, and makes scalability much less of an issue. Nobody seems to want to do it, however.
I don't really see this as a reasonable situation: in 10 years we could expect to have devices that are always connected to the internet, and we would want that world-reachability. In this situation, dedicated servers are still possible and more desireable in many, if not most, cases.
Unless, of course, our motivation is simply to avoid intellectual property laws.
So, what are the advantages other than that?
The Toshiba 1.8-inch 10GB drives are 5mm thick, and available in 10mm 20GB. The 5GB drive in the iPod is the earlier generation of them, I think.
Don't limit your ideas to devices for P2P filesharing via wireless. Instead, think of some technology that every student in the US will want or need. (Sorta like graphing calculators in high school). But imagine this device is a 'tablet PC' that replaces all textbooks, notes, etc. and allows various interaction during class with the same automated ad-hoc P2P networking that would be handy for filesharing. But this device must be general purpose, just like an ordinary desktop PC. And of course most everyone else will have such a device in various form factors, simply because there are so many useful applications that will develop. Once enough people are using these devices, it will become possible to not only share files P2P, but establish community networks that automatically route out to other larger networks and Internet backbones. Combine this with wide-band technologies and both the communications and content industries could be in for some real change. As long as the SSSCA doesn't go through.. *shudder*
Well, as long as it doesn't use the usual Microsoft modus operandi of blindly executing any random file it receives over a public network, it shouldn't be a problem. To be safe, just avoid any handheld p2p device with MS software. Problem solved.
such technology could be easily used as spyware.. Why risk meeting or handing off a cd rom? the 2 couriers could easily "swap" their state secrets wihout getting any closer than 100 feet. Granted I'm sure the CIa is looking for such swapping already but being able to do it without having a laptop open...
the evil uses scare me more than the joy of seeing entertainment crime families destroyed...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you support the War on Drugs, might be supporting terrorism.
(And that's not to mention Colombia at all....)
grep -ri 'should work'
If the technology came 60-80 years ago, we might see a big chance of the "media giant" collapse. The only media giants that really existed back then were the newspapers, and the "what's good for big business is good for everyone" doctrine hadn't become quite so popular as it is today. And it's the meme that needs to be fought (into a more balanced and tempered form, at the very least) if this sort of thing is going to happen.
Most slashdot readers realize this; what I don't think many know is that is has to be fought diplomatically and carefully. The status quo is powerful and has the mic; simply creating the technology and declaring the days of profit from media over will only create a harsh backlash. This is shaping up to be a battle precisely because it was framed as a revolution. Middle ground technology, serious activism, smart compromises, and thoroughly polite and ethical behavior might get us the result we're looking for.
Just my $.02.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Any device that would be "broadcasting" music (or whatever) across some sort of medium would then fall under the jurisdiction of the FCC. The laws would be changed which regulate the ability of small devices to communicate with each other (i.e. wireless phones with their bases, remote controles, etc.) and would then include any communication between two devices not purchased simultaneously (for example). Failing that, the RIAA would make it illegal to allow any music playing device to collect said music without the expressed concent of the user, inserting "annoyance" into the equation, which negates the entire process. Not to mention all other types of "community" communication devices have failed (all those cute little beepers which go off if anyone else in the area has one), and this would only work if EVERYONE did it, which they wouldn't.
Face it, you can't fight city hall. If you play their game, you will lose. Music is (and IMO, should be) a product which people can charge money for. Yes, the system is old and should change, but a free-for-all is not the answer.
-d
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
The Content-Addressable Web provides HTTP extensions that solve many of the problems associated with distributing content across ad hoc networks. This is because the addressing of the system is location-independant and content-centric. This makes it perfect for unreliable and transient wireless networks.
--
Justin Chapweske, Onion Networks
I guess. In exactly the same way that a sheet of glass "stretches" when it falls twenty feet onto concrete.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
as far as an end user is concerned, it's all free downloads from the web.
nothing on current p2p systems labels music as 'freely distributable' or 'copy protected'
therefore, how could an end user get busted? they never agreed to any copy restrictions, they just picked a song that sounded good and listened to it.
the current range of 802.11 is a limiting factor, how many people in my neighborhood have a thrashmetal collection for my listening pleasure?
UWB ultra wide band radio technology, however, promises much more bandwidth and range, but it'd still need an uplink to the web somewhere on the network to come close to what I can find on gnutella now.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Stop putting restrictions to obsolete stuff,
innovate new technologies that will want the user to migrate to your new system, NEEDING THE HARDWARE to play it back because it will bring ADDED value/features.
This is like seeing a good movie at the theatre, would you have enjoyed a ripped screener on your x inch monitor at home or did you get a good experience watching it at the theatre with the big screen the big sound and all? yes you can reproduce that at home, but at a price, a price most people pirating the movies cannot afford. Think lord of the rings for example. Did they go bankrupt? No... far from that!
It's not my job to bring new ideas and tell these companies about the future, there are people paid 10x what I am doing right now to market new ideas and so on, if they can't deliver, they aren't worth the price they are paid, and the industry deserves to die like any buisness doing wrong decisions, if tomorrow my CEO would do something stupid, the gov wouldn't jump in at 100MPH to save us, I don't see why this should be any different for anyone else...
To get back to my point, if they would innovate on new ideas that would make the experience so much better than pirating it, they wouldn't lose. They can't blame their content being more and more crappy and more of the same to pirates, that's only a lame excuse. I still see movies making tons of money, big success, and I still go to the theatre when there's good stuff out.
HDTV is starting to appear mainstream (took a while) see? copy that to a DIVX file, its going to be huge and cumberstone to move around at a decent quality and no loss in resolution, copy it to a VHS or SVHS? you lose the initial quality, this is just an example.
Put new technologies with good content, I'm sure people will gladly pay for it. The fact that a lot of movies are being pirated and it's "hurting sales' is simply because they suck too much to go see in the theatre in the first place.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that EVERY protection scheme got broken, it pisses me off to see that the profit I am paying big corporation goes in barriers instead of innovating to bring me, the customer, a better experience for every $ invested.
They are at the service of the customers (customer by definition: someone that PAID to get a good), not the other way around, some people there seems to forget that very basic rule.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Not that anyone will see this, but the old Cybiko would almost be perfect for this. The wireless link isn't all that fast and only has a range of 150 ft or so, but can already hold 64megs of card ram and has a C devkit. The new cybiko might be even better, I've heard it has a 500 ft range.
The real kicker is that the old cybiko is only 30-60 dollars, depending on where you get it.(which is really nifty, cause if you buy two, you can leave one hooked up to your computer, giving you a short range network that let's you use a WAP browser)
Rant mode on.
Right, and it's quite convenient for them to be able to point to the large number of technologies developed specifically to allow greedy technophiles to cheat the artists out of even the pittance they receive from the sale of their albums.
Crowing about "fair use" in an article devoted to figuring out an even more succesful scheme for copyright infringement is insulting to people who really care about fair use. It's openly dishonest -- "Well, fair use, nyah nyah nyah." Garbage like this tells the record mafia -- and the government -- that we're a bunch of irresponsible children who can't be trusted to use technology legally. It tells them that the only way to ensure that copyright (without which I'd be out of a job, and the GPL would be useless) can continue to be enforceable at all is with digital rights management mandatory in all hardware for which it is meaningful.
"DRM will never work blah blah Turing machine blah blah compilers would be protected technology blah freenet blah." Infeasibility doesn't stop the War on Drugs from ruining thousands of lives a year. It doesn't stop China's murderous war on Falun Gong, either. Laws are not subject to regression testing or quality control -- they're just passed, and enforced. Usually with a ruthlessness that is proportional to their futility.
Don't like the record mafia? Quit playing into their hands. Look here. Plenty of free-as-in-speech mp3s for your legal downloading pleasure. Most of them are shitty; the same problem exists, I hear, on Sourceforge... I found Sparky and the Wipers and Blues Motel to be fairly good, but that's just me. Hell, even mp3.com has some stuff that's not half bad. But advocating the sane-ification of copyright law by illegally copying music is about like supporting free software by pirating Windows.
Fair use. Fantastic. There are artists out there who fucking agree with your ideas about copyright, Jamie -- and you're not listening to them, because you're busy advertising for the ones that don't.
Not sure where I read this, but the US military is looking at using this type of technology for its next generation soldier equipment to provide networking between grunts, as well as planes, tanks, etc. (I can just see the jokes about Beowulf clusters.)
Would be real useful for distributing tactical information, commands, and battlefield conditions.
Just check out jxta.org to see exactly this sort of protcol. It lets you find peers, establish peer groups, share data in flexible ways, etc... It's also open source (Apache license), by the way.
Compaq's Western Research Lab has a project called Factoid which already implements what you describe. This project has been around the block a few times by now. Sorry to burst the bubble -- someone already thought of that -- but on the bright side, it was a really smart person, and the idea is still really really good. Check out Factoid here.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
These guys get 4 or 5K an hour and have franchises with major record labels.
Wouldn't you say that's the exception instead of the rule? I've been to plenty of clubs where the DJ wasn't A Big Name and the music has been just fine.
Think "Sony Walkman that trades music with whatever other devices are around."
Now that's just stealing. I'm all for fair use with music that I buy, but this is absurd.
The device need not connect to the internet (perhaps it can't) -- it talks to whatever other devices are around. "I like Jimmy Buffett, anyone got any Jimmy Buffett? I'll trade it for some Wayne Newton." A short-range hardware Gnutella. Set some parameters, go for a walk in a public park, come home with some new music. Pass it along.
Still stealing! You can't transfer ownership of the music you've bought without tranferring the CD itself.
Why are so many people obsessed with stealing music?
-Mark
recently announced on Slashdot. It's a conference on P2P and crypto code, taking place Feb 15-17 at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Unlike the more commercial/marketing flavor of conference, presenters need to have actual working code.* There's now a Schedule as well as a Program.
In addition to the code presentations, there are also several panels on legality, security, and business models by a number of usual suspects.
So be there or be square!
* ok, or at least well-rigged demos :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
One toy they built was the Factoid, a Peer-to-Peer information exchanging keychain dongle. It's about the size of a stick of gum, runs for a long time on watch-batteries, uses a short-range radio link, and trades things it knows with other Factoids, typically with data objects up to about 200 bytes long - business cards and that sort of thing.
The Research Paper ;
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I don't see why people always point to the next technology on the horizon and say "That's it, that is going to change the world". The fact is, if we all wanted to share our files, we could run a public webserver and anyone that opened port 80 on our current IP address would be able to download our files. If you want a more static way, you could distribute the dyndns.org domain name, and have a search engine based on it... But guess what.., No one is doing it. No one will do it because no one wants to do it.
Everyone wants to download files without sharing their own. It was a bain to Gnutella when it hit popularity, and it was a problem with Napster before it shared all your files behind your back.
If you want to impliment the wave of the future, take a good look at today's technology first.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
This walkabout version wouldn't have the same advantages:
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, if the SSSCA passes, this is what I see as the future of these types of schemes. The RIAA/MPAA/AAP want to use prohibition to not have swapping on this scale take place, and this is what we'll get as a result.
It will be illegal to make or sell these things in the US, but not in the 3rd world. So there will be a need to set up manufacturing overseas and smuggle them over the border. Then some outlaws will have to sell them here.
The infrastructure is set up for this already. Street gangs in san diego and LA have ties to rebels and paramilitaries deep in south america. Usually these are temporary strategic alliances. The technology for these things would be of interest for operational coordination for the paramilitaries. So the gangs get them the technology in return for manufacturing a surplus.
The surplus devices then become part of the drug/arms/people underground trade finding their way in with those products. It's a lot easier to get past dogs who can't sniff the difference between a walkman and a wireless portable music player.
Once across the border, the street gangs and other players in underground marketing will take on the distribution. Likely the same people who sell cloned cell phones.
There will also be a group of people who will modify hardware and software for a fee or with kits. This is like car ignition mod chips and cable descramblers.
This is the system we will have for general purpose consumer electronics post SSSCA. It's a world where only outlaws can publish, and you can get shot during a tape recorder deal gone bad.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Fuck the MPAA, fuck CD's.
Next time you go to a gig, wire up with all your fellow fans and *BUY THE RECORDING OF THE ACT RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU*, carry it away in your pocket, thanks to shit like this.
iPod v2 will have WiFi, I'm so sure. And if it doesn't, I'll eat my shorts. Promise.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
As long as you don't promote it, I don't see why not. But say that you publish it freely, broadcast it...well then better make sure no copyright stuff on it.
It all seems to boil down to the same, I guess the only thing that changes in the story is with this device there are digital police walking around sniffing in public places. Any predictions on how long until that comes to pass? Before or after UAVs* become derigeur?
Unmanned Aerial VehicleI'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
Here's why. It might work if you are sitting in a coffeeshop with one or two other people and you can sit there for a few minutes while your devices trade off, but what about walking past someone in the street, where there was only time to grab part of a file? What about if you were in a room with hundreds of similar devices, how would you keep the bitrate up and use channels efficiently? With present tech, that partial file could never be recieved fully, as the "same" file with a different length or checksum couldn't be integrated within the filesystem. Channel congestion and crosstalk would reduce concentrations of devices of nine or above to substandard bitrates. Eavesdropping concerns are rampant. Lastly, you could never make it cheap enough for the system to be adopted.
Distributed services of this type require entirely new network service layers, not the least of which are:
Seamless encryption. I do not want people to lock in on file transfers between me and a trusted client. Period. In addition, one might implement a 'friend' list that would only lock in on people that were known clients, or friends of a known client.
Robust file transfer services that support successive and iterative media interleaving. As in, devices that query, "Hey, I have half of G. Love's Kick Drum, anyone got the other half? What about a different bitrate, or a slightly different checksum? I don't care, just give it to me and I'll integrate it with the half that I have on the fly."
Semi-intelligent cooperation methods between groups of devices to relay content to distant users, and power and channel scheduling to prevent congestion in high-density concentrations of these devices. As in, "Anyone know anyone that knows anyone that has any 216? Think you can get it for me?"
What about providing live recordings in realtime to people at a concert as part of their ticket price? You'd need broadcast data methods that have almost no upstream information, not even error correction, coming back to the reciever, as it would be wasteful of available channels. Instead, you'd need to be able to broadcast redundant media streams that could reconstruct themselves at the reciever, with minimal loss. You'd need an entirely new data transport service to realize this.
But that's just me thinking. Nope, I'm not thinking about starting a company that does this with off-the-shelf hardware. No, I haven't put together simulations that indicate that concentrations of these devices in 'recieve from broadcast node' mode can work at 943KBps, in groups of 1500 on a group of three channels 24MHz wide. No, I don't think I can get it in a form factor the size of a cell phone, with cost projections indicating that this device could cost under $70 in two years with the prices of 2.4GHz radio transcievers and storage media dropping as they are.
Nope, nothing at all. I have nothing. Nothing that could possibly worry the RIAA.
But I do need funding.
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
Nah, don't believe that folks like the RIAA can go around restricting digital media forever...If nothing else, people will eventually recognize how simply uncool it is.
Being a musician first and a geek second, this issue has been on my mind a lot. I believe that we should get paid for our work, but the fact is that running around fascistly protecting my IP is not what the essential spirit of Rock and Roll is about, in fact its contrary!!!
I think that as the 21st century gets rolling, we're going to see a more holistic and inclusive approach to making money in the music biz. The archetype of "the band as demigods" and all else as mortals will fade, in exchange for the valuation of a band as a mindset, and a holistic experience. At the consumer level, this will manifest as a diverification of options as to how you can buy into a given bands experience. Bound no more by the extremely limited idea that a band can only make money through CD's and t-shirts, in the coming years you will likely see a rich new set of entertainment experiences involving digital media, visual art, and even smells and foods offered as a part of a bands experience, rather than the bland current offering of a "show", which usually consists of sitting in plastic seats and drooling!
These offering will be diverse, and a given band will offer several levels of entertainment experience ranging from a normal show up to a complete experience, including food, dancers, and brushing elbows with the performers (for more money). While the nature of these experiences will vary greatly by the band, (belly dancers for Dead can Dance, corporate sponsors, free Pepsi and open dance floors for Britney spears) they will have their roots in a common concept that everybody already knows: an artist isn't somebody you pay money to hear sing, a good artist is someone you identify with, a good artist is a personification of a way of being, a way of thinking, s/he gives gives voice to your tribe, singing the unownable truth that defines a part of who you are, and who everybody who listens is...
As evidenced by the proliferation of P2P technologies, this idea of "music as community" is already embraced by younger generations, who so lightheartedly "steal" from their music idols..."Of course we can take it...its our tribe...its our music, about our truths." Is the general sentiment, and is in fact THE threat to standard labels, not the p2p technology itself, and will continue to be a threat untill record companies recognize the changing role of music in our society and embrace the ideas of the youth, the financial praxis of which will be the commodification of entertainers as facilitators of global idealogical communities, rather than proprietors of intellectual content.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
Via a radio transmission. Real secure, 007.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Which do you think will be solved faster: this problem, or the problem of rolling out encrypted CDs which are unrippable and require a hardware key? For bonus points, do you think attempts to massively pirate (and this is what we're talking about; there is no possible way in which broadcasting to the public is a "fair use") copyrighted material will speed up or slow down the introduction of hardware protection?
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Your second two bullets should be combined; GHWB was in charge of the CIA while it was on its drugs&terrorism binge.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Perfect slashdot thinking. If you're going to build a massive Faraday cage, why not just spend the money on buying the fucking CDs in the first place?
-- the most controversial site on the Web
No, you changed the story, without giving any indication that you had done so. That's not an "update". The difference is that by doing it this way, you make all the comments below pointing out your error look like they were wrong. Bad Editor. No Cookie.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
If cybiko made one that looked a little more professional, and bumped the maximum range up (maybe use the FRS radio band? those have like 2-5 *mile* ranges), they would sell a boatload. Add handwriting recognition and ditch the keyboard, and it would beat the wireless palms hands-down. Add cell capability, so that individual units could bridge traffic (without being wired to a PC) to the internet for long-haul p2p if nobody's in range, and you've got a handheld that always has wireless access, with no fees other than your cell phone bill, and is as cheap as a palm pilot.
I'm dying for p2p wireless-- but everybody wants to make money on the service, so don't expect a lot of help from the major vendors. Go get 'em, Cybiko!
But again, this is specifically targeting you in the privacy of your own home, which is highly respected in American law. They can't peek inside your house (with or without technology) if they have no reason to believe you're performing an illegal activity.
The police also point a radar at the streets in public, where speeding crimes are likely to occur, and press charges accordingly. If people are likely to speed on public streets, and swap songs in malls, then I think the police will be well within their rights to monitor and prosecute. (Again, if they think it's worth their while; I'm just saying legally, I'd guess that they could do it).
And to the poster who said probably cause doesn't apply to groups, I've never been talking about frisking down groups of people in malls, but spotting an individual, and honing in on them with a directional antennae. You don't need to search a group; you can spot the illegal activity on your pirate-walkman-thingy, and use your directional antenna to find the person sending the illegal signals. QED. Absolutely no different from getting signals on your radar gun about someone who is breaking the law, singling them out, and prosecuting them. (In fact, I'd think directionally finding an IEEE signal in public would be far more accurate than a radar gun aimed down a highway.)
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Is there an engineer in the house? Seriously. You could be right, although I always believed spread spectrum prevented interference with a specific frequency. And it's spread within the spectrum, not spacially. If you're *looking* everywhere in that *band* of spread spectrum for RF energy, you should be able to find it. I could be wrong, though.
If I put a lead wall on one side of my laptop, and get a certain signal strength, and put it on the other side of my laptop, and get a lower one, I've found directional information. And I've seen such effects with wireless lan cards. Despite being spread in the spectrum usage, the RF energy still propagates outwards in straight lines, it doesn't just "spread around the area"
If you've found someone you know beforehand, exchanged private keys, and are doing encrypted stuff, yeah, they might find the signal, but won't have a clue what the contents is. But that's not public piracy, as discussed in the original article.
If this thing is generally accessable to the public, or even a subset of hacker subculture, there's nothing stopping a police officer from using the system himself, going to the mall, doing a key exchange with an individual on the system, whose PDA then presents a bunch of pirate software/music to download. Doesn't matter a bit if there was a key exchange, if ability to partake in that key exchange as a partner is a public ability.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Sure, finding one source amongst hundreds of sources is a major problem. Mid 1900's wartime kind of problems.
:-) Seriously, anything in the 2.4ghz range for wireless lan is going to be blantantly obvious to find in close range. Yes, specific frequencies within that range might be used for other purposes, but in much more distant proximities, so they'd be tiny background noise.
:-)
But finding one IEEE 802.2/11 lan singal in a mall, and then locating the source of the signal within that bandwidth??? Easy stuff
Again, where are the electrical engineers to confirm what I'm saying, or to tell me I'm full of shit? Is it strictly coders on slashdot these days?
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Ask any celebrity, and I think they'd give you the real answer to this. They can't walk down the street without having zero privacy. Similarly, the annoyances of paparazzi are due to the fact that when you're in public, you lose privacy. (I believe that as a celebrity, the privacy you can legally expect in public is even lower, actually.)
:-) The radar detector detector's that the police use, rely upon the fact that radar detectors use a crystal of similar frequencies (using the heterodyne principle, that if you mix a frequency with another, you not only get the sum, but the difference, or something like that
Directionally finding a signal within a bandwidth can be done without such leakage
Again, this is all theoretical stuff. I agree with the folks who say that the police will probably never bother with something like this.
But I disagree with the over-reactive folks that think they can hide behind privacy protections or technological confusion to avoid being caught on something like this. Legally, and technologically, I think the's an open and shut case. But I seriously doubt law enforcement would ever bother to pursue it. It's not because they couldn't, but a matter of priorities, I guess. (What else *are* they doing? Solving all the murders? Winning the war on drugs? I don't knock the folks out there fighting this noble cause, but given the lack of progress on some of these more visible issues, I wonder of more focus upon more personal issues such as solving B&E might be appropriate. I'm not objective on this point, however...)
In another post (on another topic, I think), a few folks mentioned that even with *pictures* of people who broke into their houses, the police were unable/unwilling/unmotivated/whatever to use that information. This is very frightening and disappoinging to me, but for similar reasons, short-range public P2P would probably never be prosecuted.
-me
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.