Yes, also note how ESR fails to mention how Microsoft has corrupted the term "open source software". They've released a large amount of software that is technically open source, but with such insane licensing restrictions attached to it that no coder in their right mind would ever dare look at it.
Actually, I disagree. The next logical step is a free mailing lists service, to compete with Yahoo Groups. Which everyone hates, but everyone uses because they're the only game in town. If they could provide something as compelling as gmail for mailing list management, even if you had to pay a couple dollars to set up a group, it would be huge.
And only the ignorant or foolish will think that competes with gmail. Being able to search my mail, the gmail labels and filters system, the potential of a spam filter coded by google, and keyboard shortcuts sold me on gmail within an hour of trying it.
And - even more shockingly - there's occasionally been interesting ads brought up!
Re:'Cause no one else is scanning your e-mail
on
Gmail in the News
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· Score: 1
Exactly. I'm sorry, but unless Yahoo drastically changes their mail system, they simply cannot compete with gmail. The labels and easy-to-configure filters alone sold me on it, and the keyboard shortcuts were just icing on the cake. Add this to the fact that this is just the first iteration of the software - the developers are getting huge amouts of feedback and are making plans to include much of it.
Anyone who thinks Yahoo's mail offering is even comprable because they're offering more space is insane.
Because, with the XBox, the Microsoft has been screaming "JUMP!" at the games industry for over a year. The industry has remained unconcerned. Looks like Microsoft's treating an industry it's trying to dominate with one it's already dominated.
You think CNN cares? They're owned by Time-Warner, one of Hatch's bigger contributors.
This is the problem, and the agenda behind Republican media deregulation. If your content producers and your media are the same thing, and have a government-granted monopoly, you control the culture. Instant police state.
This bill is one small step in Hatch's plan to destroy the Internet.
Unfortunately, all the methods you describe can still be trivially broken in software. The only way for DRM to work is to completely prevent any "unauthorized" software from running on the machine. Which means you have to limit it to a single operating system and never allow your users any kind of scripting language or compiler.
Since the "device" is a mass market product, probably manufactured as cheaply as possible, cryptoanalysis becomes rather easier. Since you can compare the encryption of multiple devices.
Yup. This is something a lot of people forget - even generating an individual key for each device is going to be far too time-consuming. And as soon as you have a fixed pool of keys, cracking suddenly becomes much, much easier.
With DRM the aim is to be able to send information to parties you don't trust and control what they do with it. Trying to hack encryption to do this is never going to work, since the assumption sending encrypted information is that you do trust the other party.
A very good point, and one I should have remembered to make in my post. Actually, it's like trying to safely send messages to someone who's a prisoner of a third party that can watch their every move with perfect accuracy. This is generally considered to be impossible.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work quite as well as you think. Sure, you've got the smartcard on a chip. You can't get the private key out. Great. So now the important question is: what aboout the hardware that talks to the smartcard? After all, the smartcard's not omnipotent. It's got to get orders from somewhere.
In this case, you say "They tell your software to ask the DRM chip to provide it with... b. A hash of the software itself."
Bingo, it's already broken. This is being provided to the DRM chip by the software. All this means is that it needs a copy of the hash for some valid piece of software - any valid piece of software. And since THAT is being transmitted in the clear to our magical unhackable smartcard chip, it's trivial to nab it (in-software or in-hardware). Then, when Media Server X asks Joe Hacker's software to go check the DRM chip, Joe's software just replays the hash of the valid good software (and valid good OS, and valid good BIOS) and the DRM chip goes "oh, okay".
Even if the DRM chip itself somehow magically generates these hashes, it's still trivial to trick if you have control of the OS software or hardware around the chip. After all, the chip has to get the data it needs to make the hash by making requests to something. So you just capture the data it gets sent in response and re-send it when it makes the requests again.
Thus, it trivially defeated. Nice try, but this is an impossible problem to solve. The best you can do is make it so hard that most people aren't going to bother... But by that point, you've closed off a whole load of legitimate uses, which mean your product's never going to succeed unless you legislate away competition.
(Look at the history of the PC industry - closed, "secured" systems have always fallen to open, tinker-friendly ones, because the tinker-friendly ones wind up with more stuff.)
Scheme is actually pretty good, in my experience. I don't remember a lot of "special character" syntax, but I haven't poked into some of its dustier corners...
Actually, you have to have some kind of secure key distribution channel or storage location. Which becomes absolutely and completely impossible as soon as the device lands in the owner's hands. Any fixed keys (or key generation program) can be extracted, any keys transmitted over the network intercepted. What they're trying to do is technically impossible, which is why they're trying to get Fritz Hollings and the other whores... Er... Representatives to legislate it as mandatory and make atteming to crack it a criminal offense.
as well as having the store clerk check before selling it.
No retail outlet would stock anything with language like that on the case. Their lawyers would run screaming for the hills at the liability it would create for them.
When I finish modifying one extension and go to load up the preferences from another, the extension I just finished modifying pops up.
Yeah, I've noticed this too... It's a small bug, but an important one. What's happening is that the prefs button isn't popping up the prefs for the extension you clicked on it for. It's popping up the prefs for the currently selected extension.
Try clicking on one extension's prefs, closing them, clicking on another extension, and then clicking on it's prefs. It should work properly.
Hm. I found the small icons to be way too small. I did, however, remember to bookmark the Old Qute Theme from 0.8 and earlier, which has been updated to work with 0.9. IMHO, it is much nicer than the new one, at least under Linux. YMMV.
I personally find them to be much more convenient than folders. I'm slowly moving my mail over to my spiffy new gmail account, and I've mostly been using them like folders so far, but having multiple tags is VERY useful.
Yup, and you know why? Because Microsoft tends to introduce arbitrary EULA or functionality changes in their patches. So with an autopatching system, you'd be agreeing to these changes implicitly. Whoops.
Double-middle-click is an especially stupid design decision because it invalidates a whole load of existing X11 metaphors. Most X11 apps have, traditionally, used middle-click as a paste function. This is something I'd personally love to see disappear (and be replaced with a real clipboard and configurable middle-button behavior), but that's irrelevant. The operation described is in no way a paste.
The other main use of the middle button is in web browsers, to open a new window (or tab, in more sophisticated browsers like Konqueror or Firefox) in the background and continue working in the current one. Again, anyone used to this behavior will be surprised by what Nautilus does.
Some people might like GNOME, but most do not. I do not like it because it is not configureable. Even Windows is more configurable than GNOME is in some respects.
I'd say that about sums up my problems with GNOME in a nutshell. With KDE, I can configure everything, but its still not overwhelming because the defaults are chosen sensibly and the options are well-presented.
Actually, what's really surprising is that the media is doing its job! CNN's sued for access to the rolls of purged voters, which Jeb claimed that no one had the right to look at. A number of other parties have also filed suit for the right to double-check the rolls of felons and ensure that there are no eligible voters on them.
Even worse is that they outsourced the compilation of the list to a private company...
Simple solution. Plaster it with them every night after it stops. The problem is preventing them from, say, removing them by simply running the bus through a car wash...
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Yes, also note how ESR fails to mention how Microsoft has corrupted the term "open source software". They've released a large amount of software that is technically open source, but with such insane licensing restrictions attached to it that no coder in their right mind would ever dare look at it.
Sorry, but clicking on a button isn't legally binding. EULAs have no legal basis whatsoever.
... Holy shit.
How did I miss that? O_O
Actually, I disagree. The next logical step is a free mailing lists service, to compete with Yahoo Groups. Which everyone hates, but everyone uses because they're the only game in town. If they could provide something as compelling as gmail for mailing list management, even if you had to pay a couple dollars to set up a group, it would be huge.
And only the ignorant or foolish will think that competes with gmail. Being able to search my mail, the gmail labels and filters system, the potential of a spam filter coded by google, and keyboard shortcuts sold me on gmail within an hour of trying it.
And - even more shockingly - there's occasionally been interesting ads brought up!
Exactly. I'm sorry, but unless Yahoo drastically changes their mail system, they simply cannot compete with gmail. The labels and easy-to-configure filters alone sold me on it, and the keyboard shortcuts were just icing on the cake. Add this to the fact that this is just the first iteration of the software - the developers are getting huge amouts of feedback and are making plans to include much of it.
Anyone who thinks Yahoo's mail offering is even comprable because they're offering more space is insane.
Because, with the XBox, the Microsoft has been screaming "JUMP!" at the games industry for over a year. The industry has remained unconcerned. Looks like Microsoft's treating an industry it's trying to dominate with one it's already dominated.
You think CNN cares? They're owned by Time-Warner, one of Hatch's bigger contributors.
This is the problem, and the agenda behind Republican media deregulation. If your content producers and your media are the same thing, and have a government-granted monopoly, you control the culture. Instant police state.
This bill is one small step in Hatch's plan to destroy the Internet.
Unfortunately, all the methods you describe can still be trivially broken in software. The only way for DRM to work is to completely prevent any "unauthorized" software from running on the machine. Which means you have to limit it to a single operating system and never allow your users any kind of scripting language or compiler.
In fact, Hollywood was founded on gross "piracy" and infringement of "intellectual property" of New York film studios and foreign content creators.
Since the "device" is a mass market product, probably manufactured as cheaply as possible, cryptoanalysis becomes rather easier. Since you can compare the encryption of multiple devices.
Yup. This is something a lot of people forget - even generating an individual key for each device is going to be far too time-consuming. And as soon as you have a fixed pool of keys, cracking suddenly becomes much, much easier.
With DRM the aim is to be able to send information to parties you don't trust and control what they do with it. Trying to hack encryption to do this is never going to work, since the assumption sending encrypted information is that you do trust the other party.
A very good point, and one I should have remembered to make in my post. Actually, it's like trying to safely send messages to someone who's a prisoner of a third party that can watch their every move with perfect accuracy. This is generally considered to be impossible.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work quite as well as you think. Sure, you've got the smartcard on a chip. You can't get the private key out. Great. So now the important question is: what aboout the hardware that talks to the smartcard? After all, the smartcard's not omnipotent. It's got to get orders from somewhere.
In this case, you say "They tell your software to ask the DRM chip to provide it with... b. A hash of the software itself."
Bingo, it's already broken. This is being provided to the DRM chip by the software. All this means is that it needs a copy of the hash for some valid piece of software - any valid piece of software. And since THAT is being transmitted in the clear to our magical unhackable smartcard chip, it's trivial to nab it (in-software or in-hardware). Then, when Media Server X asks Joe Hacker's software to go check the DRM chip, Joe's software just replays the hash of the valid good software (and valid good OS, and valid good BIOS) and the DRM chip goes "oh, okay".
Even if the DRM chip itself somehow magically generates these hashes, it's still trivial to trick if you have control of the OS software or hardware around the chip. After all, the chip has to get the data it needs to make the hash by making requests to something. So you just capture the data it gets sent in response and re-send it when it makes the requests again.
Thus, it trivially defeated. Nice try, but this is an impossible problem to solve. The best you can do is make it so hard that most people aren't going to bother... But by that point, you've closed off a whole load of legitimate uses, which mean your product's never going to succeed unless you legislate away competition.
(Look at the history of the PC industry - closed, "secured" systems have always fallen to open, tinker-friendly ones, because the tinker-friendly ones wind up with more stuff.)
Scheme is actually pretty good, in my experience. I don't remember a lot of "special character" syntax, but I haven't poked into some of its dustier corners...
Actually, you have to have some kind of secure key distribution channel or storage location. Which becomes absolutely and completely impossible as soon as the device lands in the owner's hands. Any fixed keys (or key generation program) can be extracted, any keys transmitted over the network intercepted. What they're trying to do is technically impossible, which is why they're trying to get Fritz Hollings and the other whores... Er... Representatives to legislate it as mandatory and make atteming to crack it a criminal offense.
as well as having the store clerk check before selling it.
No retail outlet would stock anything with language like that on the case. Their lawyers would run screaming for the hills at the liability it would create for them.
When I finish modifying one extension and go to load up the preferences from another, the extension I just finished modifying pops up.
Yeah, I've noticed this too... It's a small bug, but an important one. What's happening is that the prefs button isn't popping up the prefs for the extension you clicked on it for. It's popping up the prefs for the currently selected extension.
Try clicking on one extension's prefs, closing them, clicking on another extension, and then clicking on it's prefs. It should work properly.
Hm. I found the small icons to be way too small. I did, however, remember to bookmark the Old Qute Theme from 0.8 and earlier, which has been updated to work with 0.9. IMHO, it is much nicer than the new one, at least under Linux. YMMV.
I personally find them to be much more convenient than folders. I'm slowly moving my mail over to my spiffy new gmail account, and I've mostly been using them like folders so far, but having multiple tags is VERY useful.
Yup, and you know why? Because Microsoft tends to introduce arbitrary EULA or functionality changes in their patches. So with an autopatching system, you'd be agreeing to these changes implicitly. Whoops.
Double-middle-click is an especially stupid design decision because it invalidates a whole load of existing X11 metaphors. Most X11 apps have, traditionally, used middle-click as a paste function. This is something I'd personally love to see disappear (and be replaced with a real clipboard and configurable middle-button behavior), but that's irrelevant. The operation described is in no way a paste.
The other main use of the middle button is in web browsers, to open a new window (or tab, in more sophisticated browsers like Konqueror or Firefox) in the background and continue working in the current one. Again, anyone used to this behavior will be surprised by what Nautilus does.
Some people might like GNOME, but most do not. I do not like it because it is not configureable. Even Windows is more configurable than GNOME is in some respects.
I'd say that about sums up my problems with GNOME in a nutshell. With KDE, I can configure everything, but its still not overwhelming because the defaults are chosen sensibly and the options are well-presented.
Actually, what's really surprising is that the media is doing its job! CNN's sued for access to the rolls of purged voters, which Jeb claimed that no one had the right to look at. A number of other parties have also filed suit for the right to double-check the rolls of felons and ensure that there are no eligible voters on them.
Even worse is that they outsourced the compilation of the list to a private company...
Microsoft never lets the details get in the way. ;)
Simple solution. Plaster it with them every night after it stops. The problem is preventing them from, say, removing them by simply running the bus through a car wash...
Nope. That's what oligopoly means. You can choose any label you want to as long as it's an RIAA label.