This will encourage piracy....Think about it. Buy a cheap self-destructing DVD, DE-CSS it and its yours forever.
Right, except that it isn't piracy. Since you bought the DVD, barring a signed agreement to the contrary, you have a fair use right to "make a backup copy, solely for archival purposes in the event of the loss or destruction of the original."
Don't be ridiculous. The media companies would take the issue to the courts, and the courts would support them because it's piracy plain and simple. If you have bought an auto-expiring DVD in the full knowledge that it is *meant* to be usable only for one day, and that a condition of the sale is that you *will not* make a copy, then you simply do not have a leg to stand on.
Sure, if they make you sign something when you buy it, agreeing not to use it after x days, then the original poster's plan would be illegal. However, unless you sign something, their legal power to enforce the "agreement" would be just as dubious as with any other shrink-wrap license.
Your analysis is wrong, because he would be required to report the amount of the sale as income. The amount he donates to charity from the sale would exactly offset the amount, so the net effect on his taxes would be only the $2500 he contributes. All that happens is his $2500 is offset by 30% (or whatever). There's no way he'll come out ahead on this (ignoring the value of the publicity).
Andrew was relegated to a very low (lower than human slave) class due to what he was. I would consider it a very natural instinct for any intelligent being to see their situation, compare it to their persecutor's situation, and come to the conclusion that it was better to be the persecutor rather than the victim.
An artificial intelligence, designed by humans, would have no natural instincts whatsoever. By what standards is the "persecutor's" situation better? The owner's situation is better by the owner's standards. The robot's situation is better by the robot's standards, because it is designed so that its highest goals are to protect and serve humans. So, each is in the best situation from his own viewpoint. Evolution is what determines for humans which situations are better. If a robot were so designed, situations of servitude would be better for it by any reasonable objective standard.
It would seem to me like lawsuits could be brought upon web forums that allow anyone view but require login to post. By allowing anyone to view the statements they are making their forum public, which - apparently - the Supreme Court has stated that anonymous input should be allowed.
Now there's a non sequitir if I've ever seen one. If anyone can read it, it's a public forum? WTF? Maybe I should sue every webzine in existence for not posting my articles. After all, if anyone can read it, it's a public forum.
Regardless, these things are private organizations, not organs of the government. It amazes me how many people think they have some Constitutional right to have their writings hosted on other people's servers for free.
If you look and act like a young black male.... you are suspect to being a criminal.
No, the correct euphemism when making racial discriminations is "young urban male" or "inner-city youth." As in, our system targets blac^H^H^H^Hat-risk inner-city youth. However, that problem wouldn't be unique to computer-monitored cameras. The bias against young black males already exists in the minds of many police and security guards. Indeed, the bias might be less likely in a computer because it would have to be coded in, and that runs a great risk that someone will prove its existence, which would be horrible PR for the company.
The message I was respoding to seemed to imply that we'll all be able change our ID numbers to swear words. I wanted to point out that its not something most users, or even most technologically savvy users, will take the trouble to do. Apparently, I could have made that more clear.
That said, your entire message is a rediculous straw man attack. First, (difficult != !easy). I said it can't be changed easily. What on earth in my message made you think I was saying that it would be difficult for someone who works with electronics?
Your last paragraph is just obnoxious. This sentence:
Don't spew off this "oh muh GAWD you gotta desolder an' solder an' it's custom and oh muh GAWD!"
is one of the most blatant straw man arguments I have seen.
I concede that most computer users who are concerned with privacy have friends who aren't afraid of soldering irons. However, the set of people who aren't afraid of soldering irons is not the same as the set of people who have the equipment to reprogram an EEPROM, which you point out might be all that is needed. I think you either underestimate the number of computer users concerned with privacy or overestimate the number of people competent to make such a change. (Yes, I realize you didn't literally mean people who aren't afraid of soldering irons. That goes along with my statement about your last paragraph being obnoxious.)
Anyway, I still think I'm right that almost no one would bother to do this. The only purpose would be to keep things you print from being traced back to you. However, stores don't record the serial numbers of printers they sell. The only use the person tracing a printout would have with the watermark is to match it to the serial number of someone they already suspect. So, they have a serial that reads "HAHAHAHA", and a suspect. They take a look at the suspect's printer and find... a bunch of resoldered crap. (Or, if the EEPROM was reprogrammed, without leaving physical evidence, they just print a test page and look at the watermark.) Gee, that would do a lot of good.
Conclusion: You're right that it wouldn't be too much trouble to change, but it would still not be worth it.
Perfect bodies with piss-poor cardiovascular systems? They could bench 250, but be out of breath by the end of their first rep! Not unless you somehow can also regulate and exercise the heart and lungs along with the 'muscle' in question.
Um... the cardiovascular system gets a workout when the rate of oxygen consumption by the body goes up. Of course, you can't increase cardiovascular fitness without concentrating the muscular contractions into a small unit of time, i.e., an aerobic workout. However, you might be able to do it by building devices to pull oxygen out of the blood. You'd still have to get the person breathing hard to have cardiovascular improvement, but that's about it. BTW, why did you put 'muscle' in quotes?
For obese people, this may have some effect; but if all it does is make them hungrier because their muscles are doing more work, and being hungrier makes them eat more, then nothing will hae changed.
Well, exercise, esp. aerobic exercise, leads to weight loss far more reliably than dieting does. I fail to see why artificially-induced exercise would fail to work where normal exercise would.
This seems ideal for people who want to improve their tone, their looks, and keep unused muscles at a constant fitness, rather than improve fittness, bulk, or strength.
In general, I don't see why whether muscles are being stimulated by implants or neurons will make a difference in whether "fitness, bulk, or strength" is improved. This will thus be extraordinarily useful for those people who cannot stimulate their muscles with their neurons. The inference that this could also be used to improve the health of people who have no physiological impediment to exercise is unavoidable. Of course, most people would probably rather exercise than have 12-gauge needles stuck in numerous sites in their arms and legs.
Consider: the serial numbers can only be traced back to the printer, not the printer's owner (at least, not without records). Also, consider that the serial number has to be stored someplace where it can be modified easily, so that the printers can still be mass-produced. This means that it's still theoretically possible to modify the serial number.
Just be something can be written to once easily doesn't mean it can be changed easily. The serial number is probably stored on a PROM. You'd have to purchase that exact chip, read the information from the old PROM, change the serial number, write the new PROM, desolder the old chip, and solder in the new chip.
Most PC's do not record at DVD quality, as near as I can tell. I am not a big time music or movie buff, so I've never bothered to try. If you can do that, what is the point of the original CSS? *Shrug.*
I meant record the data via software on the way to the sound card to be played, not with a microphone. If nothing else, someone could write an audio driver that outputs to a file. Indeed, there is no point to CSS or anything else like it, for this very reason.
As for the second part of your post, you seem to be making it too complicated and confusing your self. No matter how good your cryptography is, your scheme must rely on players that refuse to play unencrypted DVDs. Otherwise, you can just go through the normal process of getting keys and all that, and just write the data unencrypted to a DVD. If your scheme were in place, somebody would make a player that plays unencrypted information.
Granted, if you put hardware-based crypto in the player, you can force pay-per-view, but you'd have to control the specs pretty tightly to avoid hacked players being produced. However, it all has to be done in hardware, even if the player is a DVD-ROM drive. Putting the CSS key at the software level in computers was really boneheaded.
Anyway, what RIAA is trying to accomplish is futile, for the reason in my first paragraph, no matter how sophisticated their cryptography is.
If you want security, you give EACH DVD a random key that your player contacts the manufacturer to discover and the key is based on a timestamp algorithm or something that would prevent anyone but a crypto expert from bothering. (No, I am not one either.)
First, you can always record the output. If you can use a PC to play it, you can even record the original digital audio data.
Second, how would this work? A DVD is a static object that doesn't know what time it is. Whatever fancy cryptography you use: it boils down to this: Player gets information from manufacturer. Player runs information through algorithm to decrypt DVD. If you have a hacked player, you can record and reuse the information. I don't see how timestamping works in, unless the key is at the player level, not the individual DVD level.
They set the precedent with Christians, which you don't care about anyway.
I wasn't aware that Christians were being targeted for audits by the IRS and charged with treason by the FBI. Also, I do care when Christians' rights are violated. Enlighten me, what were you referring to?
>>Terminating a customer's account is not the same as stealing assets or killing Jews.
The swiss banks might not have killed a single Jew, but they DID hold onto their assets after the Nazis expatriated and murdered them.
Right, that falls under stealing assets. I maintain that it is not the same as terminating a customer's account with an ISP. You've haven't denied that claim.
>>If his customers had been told that, do you really think Wieger would be facing the loss of his business, which he is?
Maybe he should have thought about the consequences of that BEFORE he pulled a paying customer's site.
Come on, I'm sure he refunded the customer.
Did you even read my post? My major point was that it is highly unlikely that he would be facing the loss of his business if his customers had been sent accurate information rather than FUD. You have not responded to that.
Even the least constitutionally aware among us knows that the FBI would need a court order or a warrant to force us to do anything that we did not want to do. I don't buy the "they bullied me" defense. (I'll say it again) I've stood face to face with two armed BATF agents when I was falsely accused of owning an illegal firearm. I stood my ground and I haven't seen hide nor hair of either one of them in years. You don't have to be "brave" or "foolish" to stand up for yourself, just aware.
This had nothing to do with being aware of free speech rights. He was told by the FBI that his upstream provider had already caved in. In any case, the guy was a small operation and had probably never dealt with First Amendment legal issues before. He took the site down, did some research, and put it back up in a day or two. From now on, he won't have to take sites down to do research, because he had already done the research. This is hardly reprehensible or cowardly behavior.
Of course they're operated at the subconscious level! I suppose I should have said brain control rather than mind control, but you missed my point. My whole point is that what is under discussion is artificial brain-controlled devices, and that your arm, for example, is a brain-controlled device. The only advantage your arm will have over an artificial device is that you have more experience using it, and your brain is hard-wired to quickly learn to use your arms.
As for the neurons firing randomly, I know for a fact that neurons in my motor cortex don't fire randomly when I daydream, because my body doesn't go into a wild seizure. If random firings in the implant area caused a robot to flail wildly, the brain would quickly learn to supress such firings subconsciously. Obviously, there would need to be a training period, just likely babies flail around at first.
Really, why did you think I wasn't considering the subconscious? I was talking about maintaining control while daydreaming, that is, maintaining control of something while the conscious mind is ocuppied elsewhere. What else could I have been thinking of than the subconscious?
Give me a break! Terminating a customer's account is not the same as stealing assets or killing Jews. It's more like a newspaper refusing to publish something in the Classified section.
Informing Wieger's customers accurately about what he did might be OK, but I get the impression that they were sent FUD. Imagine a customer receiving a message like this:
The FBI called Wieger and told him to take down a customer's site. They provided no warrant or other legal document. However, they told him that if he didn't, his upstream provider would disconnect him, resulting on all his sites being taken down, including yours. Fearing the loss of business. Wieger complied, taking the customer's site down. Once he found that the FBI was lying, he put the customer's site back up. Free speech advocates decry Wieger's actions, saying that he should of stood up to the FBI. Cancel your account with Wieger!
If his customers had been told that, do you really think Wieger would be facing the loss of his business, which he is? Therefore, his customers were probably sent misinformation. This is bad.
Do you think Wieger will back down from his rights a second time without an explicit written court order signed and in triplicate? I doubt it - he is now all too aware that he is not alone.
Boy, that's a wonderful sentiment. It would have been an even more wonderful sentiment if most of the people who sent e-mail had offered to support him, with actual money, rather than threatening (and apparently succeeding) to drive away customers.
You say twice that you don't encourage flames, but you praise the "positive effect" of these flames, which is almost the same thing. You compare Wieger's actions to genocide. Tit for tat, let's compare your post to white supremacist rhetoric.
How do you think the Nazis pulled it off? Not one worker ever killed Jews en masse: the only thing they did is pull a lever, drive a locomotive, show the Jews to the gas chamber. I'm not saying genocide and censorship are of the same scale; I'm saying that in both cases, institutions promoting them hope everyone involve will say, 'Well, I didn't really do anything.'
How do racist leaders incite lynchings? Most of them nowadays actively discourage violence: instead, they rail on and on about how minorities are destroying the fabric of our country, hoping that someone will follow the logical progression and kill some for the alleged good of the country. I'm not saying racist lynchings and flames are of the same scale; I'm saying that in both cases, institutions promoting them hope everyone involved will say, 'Well, maybe he says he doesn't want me to [lynch/flame people], but look at the good he says will result.'
OK, so that was pretty low, but I think it illustrates the fallacy of your argument.
There are several things you should keep in mind:
On the Internet, the main prevention of censorship is the ease with which information can be spread from one site to the other, not the efforts of stalwart ISPs standing up the the FBI.
Your observation that flames caused Wieger to put the site back up is wrong. Read the quote carefully:
With the video again streaming from his servers, Wieger is awaiting another call from the FBI. Inspired by the nasty comments in his email inbox, he's been practicing his free speech.
"I'm going to tell the FBI, 'Fuck you! You've probably cost us our business, you assholes!'"
The flames inspired Wieger to decide to say "Fuck you!" to the FBI, not to put the site back up. He put the site back up because he realized the FBI didn't have a legal leg to stand on, not because of the volume of flames.
The FBI told him (falsely) that the provider upstream from him would pull his entire site if he didn't. Clearly, it wouldn't accomplish much to keep the site up if his upstream provider had already caved in.
Apparently, some people were contacting Wieger's other customers, trying to get them to close their accounts, presumably in an attempt to make it more costly for Wieger to take the site down than to keep it up. These people forget that the cost of the FBI prosecuting him could be greater than his entire income. In that case, the only possible way to make keeping the site up a rational business decision is to pledge money for Wieger to support him in fighting the FBI. I guarantee that if the e-mails, instead of threatening to reduce his customer base, said, "If you put the site back up, I'll contribute $X to your legal defense against the FBI," we wouldn't be having this discussion about flaming.
This is just plain FUD. If the GPL were invalid, nobody but the original copyright holders of code released under the GPL would have the right to copy it. Most of GPL'd code in RedHat's distribution is (a) the Linux kernel, copyright by Linus and countless other individuals, and (b) the various GNU stuff, copyright by the FSF.
So...how would RedHat come out as the "owners of the buildings after the neutron bomb"? Buy the FSF? I think not.
People seem to associate RedHat and Microsoft because both have name recognition and money. However, they miss the crucial difference. RedHat owns well under 10% of the stuff in their distribution!
For all you people drooling about the possibilities of controlling machines (computers) purely by the mind, stop and thing for a second. If your thoughts are going to be controlling anything in any reasonable fashion, you'd better be concentrating real hard! It's perfectly possible to interface with a computer (keyboard/mouse/monitor) and think about a couple of different things at the same time. Well, it's not going to work any more. Imagine a worker controlling, say, a factory robot by his thoughts. If any time the worker thinks about beer or [insert your favorite porn star here] that robot will jerk, or stop, or drill the wrong thing, then the factory better start recruiting tibetian monks for its workers.
The point is that thought control of any sophistication requires not only the neural interface. It also requires a lot of concentration and mind discipline. Operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard.
That simply isn't the case. The device isn't a helmet that reacts to your brain state as a whole, it only responds to a specific set of neurons. There's no reason for daydreaming to cause those neurons to fire at random. For example, daydreaming doesn't cause arbitrary firing in the neurons controlling your arm, or your arm would spasm when you daydream.
More likely, when you stopped thinking about it, firing rates in the area the device was reading would return to base levels. True, that might make the robot stop, just like a normal factory worker might stop doing his job if he starts daydreaming.
When you say that operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard, you forget that your body is operated by mind control, literally. It might be harder to gain really skilled control, just as it's hard to write with your non-dominant hand. However, you aren't likely to get weird effects like random spasms once some basic training has been completed.
The post I responded said something like: "I have my own server. What are they going to do, come to my door and take it down?" I assumed he was talking about having his own server in the US, since if he was in another country, the FBI wouldn't come knocking on his door.
Fourth: "All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws." Which is reasonable until you remember how "software programs" was defined: "Corel LINUX is a modular operating system made up of individual software components that were created by various individuals and entities ("Software Programs")." This definition clearly includes GPL'd code, the rights to which, by definition, cannot be "held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others" as the license says.
Linux kernel COPYING file:
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux kernel) is copyrighted by me [Linus Torvalds] and others who actually wrote it.
You seem to have missed the crucial phrase "and others." Just because they listed themselves explicitly hardly means they're claiming exclusive rights on the entire product, just rights over the parts which they hold copyright on.
I'm not so sure - From the GPL (emphasis mine): "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License"
Note the use of the word "licensed," not distributed. That means that if I modify GPLed software, I am not required to distribute it to everyone in the world. However, anyone who obtains a copy of my modifications through any means automatically has a license (GPL) from me under the terms of the GPL.
Therefore, as copito said, Corel may arbitrarily limit the distribution done by Corel. However, they cannot restrict the distribution of Corel Linux by others. (Except, of course, for such portions as WordPerfect which are not under the GPL.)
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This will encourage piracy....Think about it. Buy a cheap self-destructing DVD, DE-CSS it and its yours forever.
Right, except that it isn't piracy. Since you bought the DVD, barring a signed agreement to the contrary, you have a fair use right to "make a backup copy, solely for archival purposes in the event of the loss or destruction of the original."
Don't be ridiculous. The media companies would take the issue to the courts, and the courts would support them because it's piracy plain and simple. If you have bought an auto-expiring DVD in the full knowledge that it is *meant* to be usable only for one day, and that a condition of the sale is that you *will not* make a copy, then you simply do not have a leg to stand on.
Sure, if they make you sign something when you buy it, agreeing not to use it after x days, then the original poster's plan would be illegal. However, unless you sign something, their legal power to enforce the "agreement" would be just as dubious as with any other shrink-wrap license.
Your analysis is wrong, because he would be required to report the amount of the sale as income. The amount he donates to charity from the sale would exactly offset the amount, so the net effect on his taxes would be only the $2500 he contributes. All that happens is his $2500 is offset by 30% (or whatever). There's no way he'll come out ahead on this (ignoring the value of the publicity).
Andrew was relegated to a very low (lower than human slave) class due to what he was. I would consider it a very natural instinct for any intelligent being to see their situation, compare it to their persecutor's situation, and come to the conclusion that it was better to be the persecutor rather than the victim.
An artificial intelligence, designed by humans, would have no natural instincts whatsoever. By what standards is the "persecutor's" situation better? The owner's situation is better by the owner's standards. The robot's situation is better by the robot's standards, because it is designed so that its highest goals are to protect and serve humans. So, each is in the best situation from his own viewpoint. Evolution is what determines for humans which situations are better. If a robot were so designed, situations of servitude would be better for it by any reasonable objective standard.
It's like anyone who makes money incurs the wrath of RMS these days.
Um... Amazon.com doesn't actually make money. IIRC, they lost $134 million last year.
GreatDomains.com doesn't own those domains. They're just an broker for speculators to use.
It would seem to me like lawsuits could be brought upon web forums that allow anyone view but require login to post. By allowing anyone to view the statements they are making their forum public, which - apparently - the Supreme Court has stated that anonymous input should be allowed.
Now there's a non sequitir if I've ever seen one. If anyone can read it, it's a public forum? WTF? Maybe I should sue every webzine in existence for not posting my articles. After all, if anyone can read it, it's a public forum.
Regardless, these things are private organizations, not organs of the government. It amazes me how many people think they have some Constitutional right to have their writings hosted on other people's servers for free.
If you look and act like a young black male.... you are suspect to being a criminal.
No, the correct euphemism when making racial discriminations is "young urban male" or "inner-city youth." As in, our system targets blac^H^H^H^Hat-risk inner-city youth. However, that problem wouldn't be unique to computer-monitored cameras. The bias against young black males already exists in the minds of many police and security guards. Indeed, the bias might be less likely in a computer because it would have to be coded in, and that runs a great risk that someone will prove its existence, which would be horrible PR for the company.
The message I was respoding to seemed to imply that we'll all be able change our ID numbers to swear words. I wanted to point out that its not something most users, or even most technologically savvy users, will take the trouble to do. Apparently, I could have made that more clear.
That said, your entire message is a rediculous straw man attack. First, (difficult != !easy). I said it can't be changed easily. What on earth in my message made you think I was saying that it would be difficult for someone who works with electronics?
Your last paragraph is just obnoxious. This sentence:
Don't spew off this "oh muh GAWD you gotta desolder an' solder an' it's custom and oh muh GAWD!"
is one of the most blatant straw man arguments I have seen.
I concede that most computer users who are concerned with privacy have friends who aren't afraid of soldering irons. However, the set of people who aren't afraid of soldering irons is not the same as the set of people who have the equipment to reprogram an EEPROM, which you point out might be all that is needed. I think you either underestimate the number of computer users concerned with privacy or overestimate the number of people competent to make such a change. (Yes, I realize you didn't literally mean people who aren't afraid of soldering irons. That goes along with my statement about your last paragraph being obnoxious.)
Anyway, I still think I'm right that almost no one would bother to do this. The only purpose would be to keep things you print from being traced back to you. However, stores don't record the serial numbers of printers they sell. The only use the person tracing a printout would have with the watermark is to match it to the serial number of someone they already suspect. So, they have a serial that reads "HAHAHAHA", and a suspect. They take a look at the suspect's printer and find ... a bunch of resoldered crap. (Or, if the EEPROM was reprogrammed, without leaving physical evidence, they just print a test page and look at the watermark.) Gee, that would do a lot of good.
Conclusion: You're right that it wouldn't be too much trouble to change, but it would still not be worth it.
Perfect bodies with piss-poor cardiovascular systems? They could bench 250, but be out of breath by the end of their first rep! Not unless you somehow can also regulate and exercise the heart and lungs along with the 'muscle' in question.
Um... the cardiovascular system gets a workout when the rate of oxygen consumption by the body goes up. Of course, you can't increase cardiovascular fitness without concentrating the muscular contractions into a small unit of time, i.e., an aerobic workout. However, you might be able to do it by building devices to pull oxygen out of the blood. You'd still have to get the person breathing hard to have cardiovascular improvement, but that's about it. BTW, why did you put 'muscle' in quotes?
For obese people, this may have some effect; but if all it does is make them hungrier because their muscles are doing more work, and being hungrier makes them eat more, then nothing will hae changed.
Well, exercise, esp. aerobic exercise, leads to weight loss far more reliably than dieting does. I fail to see why artificially-induced exercise would fail to work where normal exercise would.
This seems ideal for people who want to improve their tone, their looks, and keep unused muscles at a constant fitness, rather than improve fittness, bulk, or strength.
In general, I don't see why whether muscles are being stimulated by implants or neurons will make a difference in whether "fitness, bulk, or strength" is improved. This will thus be extraordinarily useful for those people who cannot stimulate their muscles with their neurons. The inference that this could also be used to improve the health of people who have no physiological impediment to exercise is unavoidable. Of course, most people would probably rather exercise than have 12-gauge needles stuck in numerous sites in their arms and legs.
Consider: the serial numbers can only be traced back to the printer, not the printer's owner (at least, not without records). Also, consider that the serial number has to be stored someplace where it can be modified easily, so that the printers can still be mass-produced. This means that it's still theoretically possible to modify the serial number.
Just be something can be written to once easily doesn't mean it can be changed easily. The serial number is probably stored on a PROM. You'd have to purchase that exact chip, read the information from the old PROM, change the serial number, write the new PROM, desolder the old chip, and solder in the new chip.
Most PC's do not record at DVD quality, as near as I can tell. I am not a big time music or movie buff, so I've never bothered to try. If you can do that, what is the point of the original CSS? *Shrug.*
I meant record the data via software on the way to the sound card to be played, not with a microphone. If nothing else, someone could write an audio driver that outputs to a file. Indeed, there is no point to CSS or anything else like it, for this very reason.
As for the second part of your post, you seem to be making it too complicated and confusing your self. No matter how good your cryptography is, your scheme must rely on players that refuse to play unencrypted DVDs. Otherwise, you can just go through the normal process of getting keys and all that, and just write the data unencrypted to a DVD. If your scheme were in place, somebody would make a player that plays unencrypted information.
Granted, if you put hardware-based crypto in the player, you can force pay-per-view, but you'd have to control the specs pretty tightly to avoid hacked players being produced. However, it all has to be done in hardware, even if the player is a DVD-ROM drive. Putting the CSS key at the software level in computers was really boneheaded.
Anyway, what RIAA is trying to accomplish is futile, for the reason in my first paragraph, no matter how sophisticated their cryptography is.
If you want security, you give EACH DVD a random key that your player contacts the manufacturer to discover and the key is based on a timestamp algorithm or something that would prevent anyone but a crypto expert from bothering. (No, I am not one either.)
First, you can always record the output. If you can use a PC to play it, you can even record the original digital audio data.
Second, how would this work? A DVD is a static object that doesn't know what time it is. Whatever fancy cryptography you use: it boils down to this: Player gets information from manufacturer. Player runs information through algorithm to decrypt DVD. If you have a hacked player, you can record and reuse the information. I don't see how timestamping works in, unless the key is at the player level, not the individual DVD level.
They set the precedent with Christians, which you don't care about anyway.
I wasn't aware that Christians were being targeted for audits by the IRS and charged with treason by the FBI. Also, I do care when Christians' rights are violated. Enlighten me, what were you referring to?
>>Terminating a customer's account is not the same as stealing assets or killing Jews.
The swiss banks might not have killed a single Jew, but they DID hold onto their assets after the Nazis expatriated and murdered them.
Right, that falls under stealing assets. I maintain that it is not the same as terminating a customer's account with an ISP. You've haven't denied that claim.
>>If his customers had been told that, do you really think Wieger would be facing the loss of his business, which he is?
Maybe he should have thought about the consequences of that BEFORE he pulled a paying customer's site.
Come on, I'm sure he refunded the customer.
Did you even read my post? My major point was that it is highly unlikely that he would be facing the loss of his business if his customers had been sent accurate information rather than FUD. You have not responded to that.
Even the least constitutionally aware among us knows that the FBI would need a court order or a warrant to force us to do anything that we did not want to do. I don't buy the "they bullied me" defense. (I'll say it again) I've stood face to face with two armed BATF agents when I was falsely accused of owning an illegal firearm. I stood my ground and I haven't seen hide nor hair of either one of them in years. You don't have to be "brave" or "foolish" to stand up for yourself, just aware.
This had nothing to do with being aware of free speech rights. He was told by the FBI that his upstream provider had already caved in. In any case, the guy was a small operation and had probably never dealt with First Amendment legal issues before. He took the site down, did some research, and put it back up in a day or two. From now on, he won't have to take sites down to do research, because he had already done the research. This is hardly reprehensible or cowardly behavior.
Of course they're operated at the subconscious level! I suppose I should have said brain control rather than mind control, but you missed my point. My whole point is that what is under discussion is artificial brain-controlled devices, and that your arm, for example, is a brain-controlled device. The only advantage your arm will have over an artificial device is that you have more experience using it, and your brain is hard-wired to quickly learn to use your arms.
As for the neurons firing randomly, I know for a fact that neurons in my motor cortex don't fire randomly when I daydream, because my body doesn't go into a wild seizure. If random firings in the implant area caused a robot to flail wildly, the brain would quickly learn to supress such firings subconsciously. Obviously, there would need to be a training period, just likely babies flail around at first.
Really, why did you think I wasn't considering the subconscious? I was talking about maintaining control while daydreaming, that is, maintaining control of something while the conscious mind is ocuppied elsewhere. What else could I have been thinking of than the subconscious?
Give me a break! Terminating a customer's account is not the same as stealing assets or killing Jews. It's more like a newspaper refusing to publish something in the Classified section.
Informing Wieger's customers accurately about what he did might be OK, but I get the impression that they were sent FUD. Imagine a customer receiving a message like this:
The FBI called Wieger and told him to take down a customer's site. They provided no warrant or other legal document. However, they told him that if he didn't, his upstream provider would disconnect him, resulting on all his sites being taken down, including yours. Fearing the loss of business. Wieger complied, taking the customer's site down. Once he found that the FBI was lying, he put the customer's site back up. Free speech advocates decry Wieger's actions, saying that he should of stood up to the FBI. Cancel your account with Wieger!
If his customers had been told that, do you really think Wieger would be facing the loss of his business, which he is? Therefore, his customers were probably sent misinformation. This is bad.
Do you think Wieger will back down from his rights a second time without an explicit written court order signed and in triplicate? I doubt it - he is now all too aware that he is not alone.
Boy, that's a wonderful sentiment. It would have been an even more wonderful sentiment if most of the people who sent e-mail had offered to support him, with actual money, rather than threatening (and apparently succeeding) to drive away customers.
You say twice that you don't encourage flames, but you praise the "positive effect" of these flames, which is almost the same thing. You compare Wieger's actions to genocide. Tit for tat, let's compare your post to white supremacist rhetoric.
How do you think the Nazis pulled it off? Not one worker ever killed Jews en masse: the only thing they did is pull a lever, drive a locomotive, show the Jews to the gas chamber. I'm not saying genocide and censorship are of the same scale; I'm saying that in both cases, institutions promoting them hope everyone involve will say, 'Well, I didn't really do anything.'
How do racist leaders incite lynchings? Most of them nowadays actively discourage violence: instead, they rail on and on about how minorities are destroying the fabric of our country, hoping that someone will follow the logical progression and kill some for the alleged good of the country. I'm not saying racist lynchings and flames are of the same scale; I'm saying that in both cases, institutions promoting them hope everyone involved will say, 'Well, maybe he says he doesn't want me to [lynch/flame people], but look at the good he says will result.'
OK, so that was pretty low, but I think it illustrates the fallacy of your argument.
There are several things you should keep in mind:
On the Internet, the main prevention of censorship is the ease with which information can be spread from one site to the other, not the efforts of stalwart ISPs standing up the the FBI.
Your observation that flames caused Wieger to put the site back up is wrong. Read the quote carefully:
With the video again streaming from his servers, Wieger is awaiting another call from the FBI. Inspired by the nasty comments in his email inbox, he's been practicing his free speech.
"I'm going to tell the FBI, 'Fuck you! You've probably cost us our business, you assholes!'"
The flames inspired Wieger to decide to say "Fuck you!" to the FBI, not to put the site back up. He put the site back up because he realized the FBI didn't have a legal leg to stand on, not because of the volume of flames.
The FBI told him (falsely) that the provider upstream from him would pull his entire site if he didn't. Clearly, it wouldn't accomplish much to keep the site up if his upstream provider had already caved in.
Apparently, some people were contacting Wieger's other customers, trying to get them to close their accounts, presumably in an attempt to make it more costly for Wieger to take the site down than to keep it up. These people forget that the cost of the FBI prosecuting him could be greater than his entire income. In that case, the only possible way to make keeping the site up a rational business decision is to pledge money for Wieger to support him in fighting the FBI. I guarantee that if the e-mails, instead of threatening to reduce his customer base, said, "If you put the site back up, I'll contribute $X to your legal defense against the FBI," we wouldn't be having this discussion about flaming.
This is just plain FUD. If the GPL were invalid, nobody but the original copyright holders of code released under the GPL would have the right to copy it. Most of GPL'd code in RedHat's distribution is (a) the Linux kernel, copyright by Linus and countless other individuals, and (b) the various GNU stuff, copyright by the FSF.
So...how would RedHat come out as the "owners of the buildings after the neutron bomb"? Buy the FSF? I think not.
People seem to associate RedHat and Microsoft because both have name recognition and money. However, they miss the crucial difference. RedHat owns well under 10% of the stuff in their distribution!
For all you people drooling about the possibilities of controlling machines (computers) purely by the mind, stop and thing for a second. If your thoughts are going to be controlling anything in any reasonable fashion, you'd better be concentrating real hard! It's perfectly possible to interface with a computer (keyboard/mouse/monitor) and think about a couple of different things at the same time. Well, it's not going to work any more. Imagine a worker controlling, say, a factory robot by his thoughts. If any time the worker thinks about beer or [insert your favorite porn star here] that robot will jerk, or stop, or drill the wrong thing, then the factory better start recruiting tibetian monks for its workers.
The point is that thought control of any sophistication requires not only the neural interface. It also requires a lot of concentration and mind discipline. Operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard.
That simply isn't the case. The device isn't a helmet that reacts to your brain state as a whole, it only responds to a specific set of neurons. There's no reason for daydreaming to cause those neurons to fire at random. For example, daydreaming doesn't cause arbitrary firing in the neurons controlling your arm, or your arm would spasm when you daydream.
More likely, when you stopped thinking about it, firing rates in the area the device was reading would return to base levels. True, that might make the robot stop, just like a normal factory worker might stop doing his job if he starts daydreaming.
When you say that operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard, you forget that your body is operated by mind control, literally. It might be harder to gain really skilled control, just as it's hard to write with your non-dominant hand. However, you aren't likely to get weird effects like random spasms once some basic training has been completed.
Yes, there are a lot of Muslims in the world, but far less of them live in the United States. They could monitor those calls much easier.
Good point. I wouldn't put it past the NSA to do point.
The post I responded said something like: "I have my own server. What are they going to do, come to my door and take it down?" I assumed he was talking about having his own server in the US, since if he was in another country, the FBI wouldn't come knocking on his door.
Corel License:
Fourth: "All right, title and interest in the Software Programs, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others and are protected by copyright and other laws." Which is reasonable until you remember how "software programs" was defined: "Corel LINUX is a modular operating system made up of individual software components that were created by various individuals and entities ("Software Programs")." This definition clearly includes GPL'd code, the rights to which, by definition, cannot be "held by Corel Corporation, Corel Corporation Limited, and others" as the license says.
Linux kernel COPYING file:
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux kernel) is copyrighted by me [Linus Torvalds] and others who actually wrote it.
You seem to have missed the crucial phrase "and others." Just because they listed themselves explicitly hardly means they're claiming exclusive rights on the entire product, just rights over the parts which they hold copyright on.
I'm not so sure - From the GPL (emphasis mine):
"You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License"
Note the use of the word "licensed," not distributed. That means that if I modify GPLed software, I am not required to distribute it to everyone in the world. However, anyone who obtains a copy of my modifications through any means automatically has a license (GPL) from me under the terms of the GPL.
Therefore, as copito said, Corel may arbitrarily limit the distribution done by Corel. However, they cannot restrict the distribution of Corel Linux by others. (Except, of course, for such portions as WordPerfect which are not under the GPL.)