Slashdot Mirror
'DVD Jon' Breaks Google Video Lock
WillemdeMoor writes "Yahoo News runs a story on Jon Johansen, aka DVD Jon, cracking Google's in-browser video player. Addict3d.org has some more details, including links to Johansen's patch (Win32 executable) and Jon's blog entry at nanocrew.net."
"'DVD Jon' Breaks Google Video Lock
:p ... Talk about a sensational news article :)
Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.
The patch, released on Johansen's 'So Sue Me' blog, effectively disables a modification Google made to the VideoLAN code to prevent users from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers."
ROFLMAO!?! Ahahahahaha
Jon made a modification to an OPEN SOURCE media player, removing a trivial protection, and Yahoo news posts a story about him cracking yet another protection mechanism, implying parallels with his past work. This news then spreads to Slashdot.
Awww, come on... I've made countless little mods to open-source apps in order to get them to behave the way I'd like. I've never gotten news coverage for adding "//" before an 'if(condition)' statment.
..Google's reaction. Up till now, most folk have been singing the praises of the nice, friendly, cuddly search engine company. Will this change anything? I personally doubt it.
You can skip the articles they don't tell you much other than what is in the Slashdot Summary. However, the blog entry has the code part on it. Here are all the articles including code entry...
.Net run-time framework, will remove Google's restriction and allow the playback of video files that aren't on the video.google.com server.
6 ,00.asp
// Google mods
.NET runtime.
Story:
Ryan Naraine - PC Magazine Tue Jun 28,10:49 AM ET
Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen has cracked the lock on Google's new in-browser video player.
Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.
The patch, released on Johansen's 'So Sue Me' blog, effectively disables a modification Google made to the VideoLAN code to prevent users from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers.
Johansen said the patch, which requires the
The 21-year-old hacker, who faced two trials in Norway in 2002 and 2003 for his role in the release of the
DeCSS decryption software, is a hero to many for his efforts to defeat DRM (digital rights management) mechanisms built into media player technology.
He has been involved in a public cat-and-mouse game with Apple Inc., releasing several tools to bypass the DRM software used to encrypt music sold on the iTunes Music Store. LINK TO: PyMusique Unlocks iTunes Copy Protection. Again. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,177952
Johansen has also cracked Apple's AirPort Express's encryption and released a proof-of-concept program that allows
Linux users to play video encoded with Microsoft's proprietary WMV9 codec. The proof-of-concept is based on the VideoLan code.
Addict3d.org more details:
Jon Lech Johansen, "DVD Jon", took just one day to build a crack to allow you to play video on your website using Google's VLC-based player.
This means you can publish video that will play on your webpage and will work for anyone who has Google's player installed.
Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.
Crack can be found here -
http://nanocrew.net/wp-content/GVVPatch.exe
http://nanocrew.net/?p=114
Blog Entry:
Google has released Google Video Viewer, a browser plugin based on VLC. Here's one of the features they've added:
+
+ const char* allowed_host = \"video.google.com\";
+ char * host_found = strstr(p_sys->url.psz_host, allowed_host);
+ if ((host_found == NULL) ||
+ ((host_found + strlen(allowed_host)) !=
+ (p_sys->url.psz_host + strlen(p_sys->url.psz_host)))) {
+ msg_Warn( p_access, \"invalid host, only video.google.com is allowed\" );
+ goto error;
+ }
This "feature" prevents you from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers. Download and run this patch I wrote to remove this restriction. Running the patch requires a
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
So, in other words, he modified the source code, which was being distributed. They didn't attempt to obfuscate that they didn't allow it from other hosts. They didn't entangle the code or anything. The code was wide open.
In other words, big friggin deal. All you had to do was grep the code of an error message and a little snipping of the code. Any fool could have done it. Or even screw that, it was domain-based. Setup an HTTP server, modify your hosts file to alias "video.google.com" (or whatever the domain was) to 127.0.0.1, and you're done. Or just modify VLC to know the MIME type "application/x-google-vlc-plugin" and you can play your heart away.
What "crack" will he do next? Take the VLC code to dump the file/stream you're playing, add it to Google's code, and create a Google Stream Ripper? Wow... how... amaz... ing. Or maybe add some awesome skins to the Google player? Yeah, that'd be great. Best part of all, he'll do it in 48 hours, while standing on his head, without sleeping, pizza, or coffee, and while playing the banjo!!!
Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
Ironically, there is nothing on Google News concerning it.
Anyone else notice that Yahoo Search looks and acts EXACTLY like Google's? (That's probably redudant...)
I am just waiting for Revenge of the Sith to hit Google Video.
From the article, the only protection was limiting the allowable sources to video.google.com and adding a new mime type.
Not to undermine Jon, just noting why it took him 24 hours to break this - It was not designed to withstand much of an attack.
Nontheless, most users won't patch, so it will work anyway.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
Cmon Google.
Get your own free personal location tracker
... heard 'round the world!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
What's up with Google releasing all these Windows-only apps, anyways? Really, now.
It's a good thing he didn't try to tangle with Macrovision. As lightning-uk almost found out, it's hard to code when you're fingers are broken and your eyes have swollen shut from contusions.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Before everybody starts criticizing Jon... please remember that he's actually not publicising this as being a huge crack operation, it's the sites which are publicising his hack which are. He's just made a minor fix to a program, nowhere on his Blog does he say "OMGZ I HAX0R J00!" Infact he documents the exact way he did it to show that he didn't actually do anything complex.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
I'm no geek and really do not understand .NET clearly. I am still running Windows98 SP2. Does this fact mean that I cannot utilise his patch since Windows98 is just too old to even have a .NET runtime?
Now we see what Googles true colors are.
Will they say "hey thanx for the tip? Want a job?" or will they go all RIAA on little johny?
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of as my stomach turns!
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Quote:
This means you can publish video that will play on your webpage and will work for anyone who has Google's player installed.
That part is highly misleading! The people who want to view video on your website each individually need to download the patch! It's not very useful to content providers with this restriction.
How about users? Who would download this patch? Well, people who want to watch videos tagged with application/x-google-vlc-plugin that aren't from google. Not too many of these...
Of course, you'll need to be locked into .NET to do so.
Yay.
Uhh, good sir, could you please put the shackles back on? My ankles are getting cold. Thank you.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I'm disappointed. It has been, what, 2 days? It took Jon 2 days to crack another DRM?
People are getting lazy ya know... I thought Jon should have cracked it in 3-4 hours.... That boy needs to stop smoking so much....
PS: Mod me Funny +5 / Informative +5
Of course Yahoo News is running an article on how something Google made got hacked.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
all DVD Johny did was remove an if statement that checks is the URL is from google or not...
the upshot is you get a VLC plugin that can read some propriatary MS formats (thanx to google paying the bill for those software royalties)
it seems so easy that it's as if Google was just waiting for someone to come in and hack it.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I think we should all remember that just because Google is the pinnacle of success and is second only to (insert your diety here), Google too can make mistakes.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
If you check out the blog, you'll see that there's a nice goto at the end of the if statement.
Supposedly Google only hires top-coders, so what's up with that?
Various anti-piracy groups are pressuring congress to pass an extention to the DMCA laws, which will effectively outlaw commenting out parts of computer code. Under the new law it will also be illegal to manufacture a computer keyboard with the forward slash '/' key.
What a fabulous idea! I'll get right on it!
Thanks,
Sen. Orrin Hatch
"DVD Jon cracks MythTV to record video from a TV Tuner"
Being funny is my sig nature.
Is this more or less what he did?
// if(!running_on_google())
Before:
if(!running_on_google())
After:
Does the Google video viewer even run on your Win98 system? The system requirements say that it requires "Windows 2000 or later with latest updates installed".
A real hacker would do something like this:
(3 added characters)or at the very least:
(4 added characters)Currency converter with free form text entry of conversion amounts and currencies
In his defense though, it's the news source, Yahoo, sensationalizing his mods and not his own blog entry (i.e. he doesn't claim that this is some grand crack). His candor in his blog entry doesn't even hold up to the grandiose imagery of a scheming, brilliant hacker striking another blow against "the man" as painted by Yahoo. I actually feel sort of sorry for the guy given the magnitude of the patch being so inflated.
This little known hacker tool is responsible for cracking Google's video player. See how it could affect your computer's security, tonight at 11!
Ah....he went to far by modifying an open-source app? You must HATE Linux kernal devs ;-)
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Or they will more intelligently do neither saying "Anyone can modify our open source client to do whatever they want, for whatever reason they want."
Do you really think google doens't understand open source?
I think you make a very good point. This is perhaps more of an example of Google "doing no evil", creating a tool that, by default, for most casual users, promotes their video feed, while at the same time using a good free software project that allows those who want to, to bypass this setting.
If most people find the restriction onerous, they'll download a patched version (probably from websites that are also offering video). Social and market dynamics can take care of the rest. It seems a fairly reasonable position for Google to take ("we'll try this restriction, and if people really find it offensive, they'll modify the source and outcompete our offering, and we can write it off to experience and not try imposing these sorts of restrictions again. Either way, it probably won't affect our video feed business much.")
I doubt very much it is incompetence--google has much of the best talent around--nor is it a lack of understanding opensource/free software on the part of google, as they've been active in the community for many years.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"DVD Jon" breaks wind, Yahoo! news is there!
Who are "we all"? You think you're a member of some kind of team? Who's to say who's honorable and who are the good guys? This guy did something of interest to him and nothing more. His ideology is simply different than yours and, in his view, google did something sufficiently "evil" (in your words) to merit a response. He doesn't answer to you or to some imaginary "geek community".
Google RSS feeds:
Google releases Google Maps
Google releases Google Desktop Search
Google releases Google Web Accelerator
Google releases Google Video
Yahoo RSS feeds:
Are Google Maps an invasion of your privacy?
Is Google Desktop Search working *too* well?
All about your privacy and Google Web Accelerator: The secret agenda.
Google Video cracked within 24 hours. And privacy.
but I'm too busy trying to stifle my laughter at the multi-layered irony of this legend taking, what, all of five minutes to break this. On top of it being for Windows. On top of it being based on VLC which is OSS. On top of that being yet again done by Google (why is the new demigod of the OSS world Google when Google is so relentlessly Windows-centric?). On top of what he did being trivial for most coders and more so for him. On top of the insane volume of squaking about it.
Want DRM? Write a closed souce undocumented codec from the ground up and closed source apps to play things recorded with it. Want to skate by on the cheap and use existing well known standards and even be so insane as to use OSS? Well...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
"Google no longer following 'don't be evil' mantra" headlines?
I wonder if Jon would be as motivated in demonstrating how easy it is to crack trivial industry DRM if he hadn't been persecuted for his legit work as a kid. It's a good thing they didn't send him to Guantanamo, or this country would be in more trouble than Hollywood.
--
make install -not war
First of all: Morals are not absolute. The concept of Evil is not at all easy to define. Google can not be deemed Good as in always, forever and whatever Good; no matter how much open source they release, and no matter how much good (sic) they do for the geek community. They're a corporation like any other, they know that by acting the way they do, they will make a good impression with hackers, and they know that they'll gain a lot more from that than they would by acting microsoftical. But also, they will do / have done less nice things (like using MPEG-4 instead of Ogg Theora in their video player, for one, and that whole Orkut "W3 0wN j00r wR1t1ng"-copyright-thing). No one - and corporations are persons too, in the US, at least - is perfect.
Second: Jon Lech Johansen is not raising hell. He's modifying an open-source program. It may be against the original intent of the code, but, read it again: it's open-source. You're supposed to hack around in the code, fixing obvious bugs (ehm) like the one Jon fixed. Like others here have pointed out, google wouldn't release it o-s if they didn't know this too.
Perhaps he doesn't even think Google did something "sufficiently evil". Just that for him, this is an interesting excercise in programming and reverse engineering.
By the way, why does google want to cripple their own software to play only their video but not others? Perhaps they're trying to avoid a fight with the big MS by say, "Don't worry, our media player only plays our stuff, so your's won't be in trouble."
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
Use OSS and Release source code? It looked like Google is just asking people to mod their software.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
There are two different services in that web site: hosting video which can be downloaded and searching through external video (this has been available for some time now). There isn't much local content yet so you are unlikely to run across it in a random search. Online videos have a little triangle beside the title that you can click on to watch the movie. Try one of their suggested searches, like "capoeira" and you will see that they haven't taken anything offline.
Seriously, does Jon have to do it all? If some states AG gets a burr under his saddle about something like this, they can again incarcerate him and cost him a boatload of sheckles to get clear of it.
My point is, why does it always have to be 'DVD Jon' that does it, the more contributions by others the merrier the party.
And this comment from a 70 year old who really ought to be more of an 'establishment' type.
Realisticly, both patent and copyright has been expanded to protect the guilty until even I can see the falacy of it and its deleterious effects on society and the needless stifling of technological progress.
--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
99.35% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Who determines who are the good guys and bad guys? IMHO, if they're insecure, they're not as good of guys as you might think.
I applaud him for looking into such concerns for all companies, not just those some people might label as "evil."
Just because you're fond of a company or person, doesn't mean you should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to security.
Think credit card companies. People used to trust them, so they didn't worry about security too much, and figured the credit card companies cared enough about security (since it costs them a lot of money if there is a breach) that they would take care of any problems on their own. Now we know that isn't true. Perhaps if we had been probing them more intensely in the past, such problems could have been fixed at a much earlier stage and before widespread security breaches occurred.
Some things are too important to rely upon the word or reputation of a company regarding. I'd say security and privacy rank right up there.
What?
Distribute some content.
Modify an open-source player to view it.
But add restrictions. Distribute the source, too (per GPL).
Accuse anybody who modifies the source AFTER you have added your restrictions of DMCA violations.
Demand that all further development of the project stop as it's in violation of DMCA.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Currency converter with free form text entry of conversion amounts and currencies
8 6132416392876567415754
http://coinmill.com/convert/USD_GBP.html?amount=7
7.8613241639288E+23 United States Dollars
are worth
4.34 Pounds Sterling
now i can afford that Fortune 500 company that's been bugging me with crap products. Lol!
Do unto MS as MS does unto you.
:)
Embrace and Extend them.
I8-D
Morals are not absolute
You, sir, make me ill.
But also, they will do / have done less nice things (like using MPEG-4 instead of Ogg Theora in their video player, for one, and that whole Orkut "W3 0wN j00r wR1t1ng"-copyright-thing).
They might have also do this because Ogg Theora is even less known than Ogg Vorbis, which, itself is barely on the radar.
Second: Jon Lech Johansen is not raising hell.
And, if I'd RTFA I'd probably know that. I assumed he'd hacked it to do something interesting, like circumvent DRM lockouts on some video. Knowing that he only made it so it would play video from other sites is, well, yawn.
Probably to avoid any issues with other people exploiting a piece of software from their site to show material of questionable content and/or legality. This way, they are only responsible for their own player with their own content. They aren't stupid--they knew how easy it would be to change. But the point is that by restricting the OFFICIAL client to content under their own control, they need not even worry about any third-party complaints or legal troubles (whether they rationally exist or not doesn't matter) regarding the playing of any content that is not provided directly by video.google.com. The user has to make an extra conscious step to do it, and the responsibility is no longer Google's burden to deal with.
please submit your goto-less version of the TCP input routine in the BSD IP stack.
//g"
:o)
"s/goto
Note that you didn't specify that the code had to work afterwards.
A little offtopic, but who gets to decide these things, to prevent clashes? What's their purpose anyway?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
I think I'm a lot less angry at the world than you, and that is saying something.
Who's to say who's honorable and who are the good guys?
Me, of course.
He doesn't answer to you or to some imaginary "geek community".
No, he doesn't have any responsibility to anyone and I doubt his actions have ever been an attempt to gain popularity. Which is why the questions I posed were, not "should he have done it", but rather "how do we [the open source and/or linux] community feel about it".
First of all: Morals are not absolute. The concept of Evil is not at all easy to define.
I'd have to disagree with you there. But morals only exist when you have already laid down the fundamental premises of your value system. Say, for example, that your value system includes being the sole beneficiary of your own efforts (unless you decide to give or trade them to someone else). Many "morals" can be derived from something as simple as that, and they are absolute and immutable. It's very easy then, within that moral framework, to say that someone who seeks to deprive you of your life (or the things you produce with your life, such as your work) is evil. Morals are the practical behavioral rules that are derived from the premises from which your values derive. People who say there are no objectively right or wrong things tend to be operating with mixed premises (like, "I am master of my own destiny, but I'm also master of yours, because I know better than you" or, "I am no-one's slave, but when two or more people get together to work on something, they should be everyone's slaves"). Evil is that which seeks to undo, or run counter that which is valued. If your values support a rationale for slavery, then certainly anyone fighting against slavery is evil, from your perspective. If your values abhor slavery, then the opposite is true. So there's not much point talking about evil, but there's a lot to be said for talking about the premises upon which value systems are built. I, for example, hold that the only value that meaningfully exists is that which I create. I can trade what I value for that which other people offer, or I can give it freely (in exchange for the pleasure I may feel in the act), but it's from that basic premise that I derive pretty much every good/bad value judgement. For example: if you try to take away what I value (my life, or any of what I've created with it), then you're evil. If I act contrary to my own values (say, doing the same to someone else), then I'm being evil. Of course, there are more subtle examples (such as when I can use force, because someone, through their actions, have abandoned any claim on the rights that non-evilness buys you), but they are no less objectively absolute for being complex in their practicality.
All that being said, the term evil is tossed around on slashdot as a fashionable adjective to describe anyone (or group of anyones) that says or does something unliked. To the extent that, say, a company makes money - some people call them evil. To the extent that other people try to block European researchers from working on practical fusion, they're evil (or vice versa, if you're a Greenpeace brainwashee).
Guys like DVD Jon are a mixed bag. More than anything, he's a traditional hacker - focused on technological challenges as if they were formed in a vacuum. The problem is that most of the challenges he's known for solving revolve around enabling people to alter, after-the-fact, the terms of a contract or transaction. By most objective standards, that would be considered evil. Evil, in the sense of deceitful, or parasitical. One is not "liberating" the creative work of others by altering the means by which the creator secures the work from freeloading. But Jon's moral rudderlessness is apparent when he hacks a bit of open source Google code and changes its behavior to suit his interests. There's no evil there, on the face of it, because of the terms under which he's laid hands on the code. But if he's altering it in a way that allows him to then make use of a service (say, Google video streaming) that is not intended for that sort of use, then he's back on the dark side. By being showy about how quickly he cracks or alters things, he's distracting shallowly-thinking nerds from the moral implications of his acts, and thus obscuring the mixed premises upon which his value system is built. Doesn't mean anything about his technical skills, just means that his motivations are probably contrary to personal interest, whether he'll acknowledge that or not.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Did anyone notice the entire Matrix Revolutions is available there in Google Video? Pretty cool. You might think it's just 30-second clips, but hit "Play whole video" and off it goes. Whole movie. Wondering if this is a special "show-off" case google snuck in, or a black-hat's upload?
see this link for the video
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
+ // Google mods
+ const char* allowed_host = "video.google.com";
+ char * host_found = strstr(p_sys->url.psz_host, allowed_host);
+ if ((host_found == NULL) ||
+ ((host_found + strlen(allowed_host)) !=
+ (p_sys->url.psz_host + strlen(p_sys->url.psz_host)))) {
+ msg_Warn( p_access, "invalid host, only video.google.com is allowed" );
+ goto error;
+ }
+
That's the official part of the google modification (thanks to the guy who pointed to line 389). Now, where was DVD Jon's patch to compare?
I'm surprised people are already trying to do things with the player. I can't even get the thing to run. It just hangs Firefox. I'm on a stock machine that meets all the system requirements.
This is one time I regret having tabbed browsing, as now I lose my context in several places rather than just the instance that the Google player hosed.
Of course, it's because Windows is the operating system that allows a developer to sneak "features" into the OS.
Ask any malware writer!
Good programmers know goto is harmful - great programmers know when it's not.
Actually, even there I'm exaggerating a bit. Even fairly average programmers can usually be taught when goto is acceptable and when it's not. Anyway, the goto statement in C is much more limited, and much safer than the wide-open, global-scale thermonuclear goto that Wirth originally wrote about.
Highwayman: I know you Wizards have rules against using your powers on civilians, so you don't scare me. Just hand over the money, er...ri-deep?
Ridcully: (blowing on his finger and staring at the new-made frog) It's more of a guideline than a rule, actually.
Suprisingly, there is no mention of this anywhere on Google News. Hmm...
Here's the C# source for DVD John's GVPatch.Exe
. txt
http://www.geocities.com/vishalmishra/GVVPatch.cs
Read Atlas Shrugged.
Well, to summarize, morals are absolute, because reality is absolute. Let us assume that life and living is good. If you don't think life and living is good, you're probably not going to around to discuss this much longer. (I don't mean that as an insult, just a fact.) Assuming life is good, all things that promote life are good, all that promote death are evil. This formula may seem simplistic, but logical extension of this will lead you to a course for every decision you have to make. Does what you do cause soceity harm? This is evil, it will eventually lead to the death of everyone. Does what you do cause others, specifically, harm? This is more evil because it is harder to undo a wound against an individual than a society. Does what you do cause yourself harm? This is the most evil, as harming yourself is directly wishing death upon yourself. It is self-mutilation of the body, mind, or soul. All that which does not harm, but rather improves, is good.
How about taking down people who offered RSS feeds of google news?
I am trolling
Oh, I'MMM so sorry that this isn't impressive. But let me tell you the whole story.
What actually happened was that in his childhood, DVD Jon built a complex delegatized neural net and spent years and years of his life in a special metaphortion of a monastary, training this neural net to intelligently download software, recognize unnecessary restrictions, and figure out how to remove them. This neural net had completed numerous feats, when one day, it found this Google product that had some arbitrary domain restriction. After billions and billions of possibly nondeterministic computations, this neural net commented out a little bit of source code.
Then this neural net posted on his blog about how he altered an open source product.
The end.
Nice bookmarklet. :)
If you don't want to install google's special player just download VLC zip version and then click "Open File", copy and paste the link and the video plays. No muss and no extra software/MIME types needed.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Done! You don't even need VLC: the http://video.google.com/ pages contains code like this:
You can simply copy the string (the one that starts with http...), use your favourite language to unquote it (e.g. urllib.unquote() in Python or unescape() in JS) and download the file or play it online with any media player! (mplayer under Linux is perfectly fine!)
Yeah! ;-)
P.S.: a greasemonkey script that do the above automagically, anyone?
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
No: you can see the videos under any OS and any (good) media player!
You don't even need VLC: the http://video.google.com/ [google.com] pages contains code like this:
You can simply copy the string (the one that starts with http...), use your favourite language to unquote it (e.g. urllib.unquote() in Python or unescape() in JS) and download the file or play it online with any media player! (mplayer under Linux is perfectly fine!)
P.S.: a greasemonkey script that do the above automagically, anyone?
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
I was merely asking if such things were possible. Also, your comment does not address the possibility that a human could be involved in the process and therefore influence the location of stories and/or story selection.
this is the authoritative answer, i have worked on this site, all your conjecture is BS.
Remind me to put this at the end of all my comments, it really adds authority to what you have to say.
What?
Um, the entire collection of the Travel Channel's Great Hotels?
The O'Reilly Factor?
The Tony Danza Show?
C-SPAN Book TV?
Is this stuff being provded by the TV studios?
What is the deal with Google Videos?
Where is all the content coming from?
I did all kinds of searches. Got many results. Zero of them were playable videos.
At what point did you think it was? Pressing a keystroke in the editor?
I hate it when jackasses always have to throw in their ignorant comments.
Especially from an anonymous poster.
Let's just all agree I'm the President of the United States, shall we?
Oh, wait, I didn't turn on anon.
Microsoft is the Marquis de Sade of the technology world.
This is an insult. The Marquis de Sade was an aristocrat and a significant writer. How can you compare him with some commercial company?
Heh, I see I didn't formulate that sentence very well. Let my try again. There is no way for us human beings full of mistakes to find absolute morals where "absolute" means "true in everyone's eyes" in the same way that 2+2=4 (I'm not going to into discussing any higher values of 2 here). That's why it's so hard to impose your morals onto others. I'm not at all saying one shouldn't follow one's morals for one's own sake, but to divide something into universally Good and Evil is too simplistic, especially when thinking of why someone else chose to do something.
morals only exist when you have already laid down the fundamental premises of your value system
.NET and the Slashdot-crowd are going to bother using that patch (possibly an overstatement, but you get the point: Google is a tank opening the window a crack and not caring about the fly that flew in to hack).
Ergo, they are not universal laws for us to discover. That was my meaning of "absolute", and also the reason for me objecting to the universal definition Google = Good & Hacking Google Code = Bad. As for the rest of what you said there, I think I just have to agree. I've never found any point in going with the "what's right for them"-line of thought, because - I feel that - you as a person have a right to act on your moral values, while understanding that others will have different value systems. The search for the Right ethics is not in vain, it will just never result in anything that can be absolutely proven.
As regards the Google, I still stand by my view that They Knew What They Were Doing When They Went With Open Source. And what they knew was this: No one outside the two Yahoo-readers with
Whaaat?
then
Yeeaah!
And said all that remains to be done by the user is click:
Oh Kaaay
Get your Unix fortune now!
Google releasing video.google.com: lots-of-servers
DVD Jon "breaks" google video: dirty-patch, 10$
Average user installing patch: 20$
Some geek releasing virus with patch: PRICELESS!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Oh, wait, I didn't turn on anon.
You also didn't misspell "agree."
Ergo, they are not universal laws for us to discover
Well, I might even disagree with you there, too.
In short (certainly shorter than my last comment!), I'd say that certain value systems are demonstrably irrational. Thus, any morals that derive from them are irrational at best, or possibly even evil in an absolute sense - because of how it encourages that confused person to act in the presence of other people.
For example, if someone's premise is that the universe is run by magical frogs that insist we all die as soon as possible, and that only therein does life have meaning... well, there you have it. A value system that says life only has meaning in death is, fundamentally, objectively, crazy. I don't have any problem saying that any moral system derived from that world view is inherently, absolutely, objectively bad. Needless to say, that covers a lot of ground, including a lot of organized religions, and thus possibly the majority of the world's population. Of course, when you boil it down to the "life only means something in death" argument, those folks have to insert a magic frog (or an imaginary, feel-good afterlife) in order allow their basically rational to brains explain away a fundamentally flawed premise. At some level, all such people know they're working on a shaky foundation, so there's a bunch of self-denial baggage along for the ride to mask the logical flaws. It's those folks who most loudly trumpet moral relativism (or magic forgiveness) to get them past what their reason keeps trying to whisper to them.
Yes, this even applies to Google. People who like them because they're less Microsofty than Microsoft are still just splitting hairs. They're a company of people that exist to make money for themselves and their investors. They are very smart, and know how to appeal to people like DVD Jon (or how to placate his fans on slashdot), but at the end of the day, they're basing their corporate moral framework on reason. In some ways, corporate morals have the prospect of being more rational than individual ones... mostly because the corporation doesn't have the sure knowledge of its own eventual mortality, and doesn't use magical thinking to invent a lifestyle or mythology that takes away some of that fear. There, now that should get some flames going!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
10 company releases software
20 hacker modifies software
30 hacker releases modified software
40 software works better
50 company attacks hacker
60 post to slashdot
70 goto 10
Hmm, well, I personally do not believe that morality boils down to rationality. Corporate morals may be rational, but if your main goal is to raise shareholder value, then it doesn't matter how rational your way of reaching that goal. Of course if there's a logical flaw in your moral system, then, well, the system is flawed, it's not worthwhile. But morals can't be found by just applying rational thought without searching for the underlying values. Even in a value-system where "death to all humanity" is the goal, there has to be some (messed up) values underlying that goal. You can't _prove_ that those values are wrong though, you can only point out why some values seem better (most of us would like to live, and live well). You can find an error in the reasoning from the value-system which says that "death is beautiful" to the goal "humanity must die" (or whatever the line of reasoning was), but you can't prove that death is not better. You can disagree with the fundamental values, or try to expand upon them and somehow change what the reasoning that comes from them turns into, but how would you deduct what is meaningful in life/death, whether God is a magic frog who tricked us into wasting time over this on slashdot etc. I believe morals need actual complex life experience, and that those values and the reasoning out from them are things you have to be constantly trying to improve on. The complexity of all life makes it impossible to deem a moral system evil. It may be flawed, misunderstood, egotistical or founded on illusions, all of these are different descriptions which have meaning to them. "Evil", on the other hand, tells you nothing other than that it's (founded on) something you don't like. Someone with a different moral system might deem you or me (or our values) "evil", how does that bring any light to a discussion?
I don't see that I'm getting any deeper in this discussion though, sorry if this was rambling a bit. And probably very, very offtopic.