You know what I find odd about the whole smoking issue? The states are successfully launcing lawsuits againts the tobacco companies...most states make twice as much off cigarette sales than the tobacco companies do...if everyone stopped smoking tommorrow these states would be flat broke inside the year...Can YOU see the irony here!?!?!
But this one was actually much cooler. About two years at University of Florida a CIS student who had access to one of the CIRCA labs decided he no longer wanted to pay for net access. He built a computer inside a cardboard box with a modem and NIC inside and hid it in a ceiling crawlspace inside the lab. He swiped a phoneline and an ethernet port from a room upstairs and built himself a dial up. He claimed to have been using it for almost a year befor the CIRCA boys caught on and had a call traced to his apartment.
Last I heard of the incident they threw him out of school and he did not graduate. They did file criminal charges but I dont think they went anywhere.
While I still think giving all the credit to "linux users" for this hack is a bit of a stretch, having major hardware, software and closed codec vendors believe just that might not be a bad thing. eg: "Damn we better release something so these linux bastards can use or they'll just reverse engineer it and the we'll _really_ be screwed."
"I honestly believe Goldstien and the 2600 crew are in it just for the money. "
If you actually believe Emmanual (or anyone else at 2600) are making loads of cash publishing 2600 your are mistaken. Still I agree with you on some of his views on web page defacements. Even so you gotta have some respect for the guy-I've always thought of him as the Jello Biafra of hacking: Everyone constantly accusses him of "selling out", when in actuallity hes one of the few that hasn't.
I really do appreciate your stance on this issue. I agree that ther is nothing anyone can do to protect these kids from the content available on the silver screen (aside from banning it completly - UNTHINKABLE!). However this artical is unnecessary and downright STUPID!
Download a whole movie in mp3!?!?!
Dont we all wish!
Take an underage geek to a movie day!?!?!?
Give me a break! As much as I thought the story in part 1 was cool this is ridiculous.
Sure we can yell at the ppl that run the theatres.... this is the only valid point you really mention........
Just when I think your gonna have something coool to say you always pull this kind of crap.....
I didnt realize the problem was this bad. I was in a similar situation several months ago, but I really didnt give it much thought then.
If we can garner enough support (its entirly possible from the sampling of posts Ive seen) perhaps ther may be grounds for a class action suit against Cyber Patrol. The decission in a case like this would most certainly shape the way censorware like this is used in the future.
I for one am more than willing to participate.
Re:GL forgetting who made him rich...
on
Quickie Fu
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· Score: 1
"So when do the star wars fans who made GL such a rich man get the films they waited 16 YEARS for? I seem to recall in the pre-TPM days someone from Lucasfilm saying that the new movies would be darker and more mature."
The people I hear constantly bashing this TPM all seem to be forgeting one very important thing: The Star Wars films have always been, are now, and hopefully will always be targeted primarily at children. I think many of the hard core fans who were dissapointed by the film walked into that theatre expecting a movie aimed at 20-30 year olds: that was a very silly assumption to make.
I saw the first Star Wars film when I was 6. Over the next few years Star Wars was a major part of my life. Is everyone trying to say that Lucas should simply deny a new generation of young children the same pleasure _we_ had at that age seeing those films?
Is TPM a little "kiddie" at times? Yes of course it is. Does that make it any different than any of the other films? No, it doesnt. Its the same formuala Lucas has used for the Star Wars films since the beggining - quality, _family_ entertainment. I got over the Ewoks.....I think I can learn to live with Jar Jar too.
Another thing to consider is the quality of the ripping/encoding software used to actually make the mp3's. Not all rippers/encoders are created equal (see NexEncode Studio version 1.0 - ick! - do they still make that thing BTW? I dont see how they GIVE it away). Some of the (free)linux software is lacking in this respect.Sure thers the Xing encoder....now if theyd just port audio grabber we'd be set.
Ther is a difference but you really need a nice sound system to notice it. The biggest differences are really in extreme upper and lower spectrum, so unless you have some really tricked out speakers you really wont hear any difference at all.
For the features you get the price on this thing is actually right on. The machine I built has ended up costing me about 500 bucks so far total - between lcds, keypad ir stuff etc...and the computer. If I added some of the more advanced features this thing has Id spend days programming and still have to fork out another few hundred bucks for a multichannel soundcard. And It still wouldnt have the beatmatching feature which I think is really cool-If I can figure anyway to pull this one off on my box Its going in ther.
SDMI will fail for exactly the same reasons MP3 in general has flourished: People want a high quality, OPEN digital music format.
It has been said that MP3 is already dead. That new compression formats are about to enter the fray that will lure users from MP3 to something new. Well I certainly hope so! Sure MP3 is great, but we ALL want MORE dont we?
However no format will overtake MP3 unless its every bit as OPEN as MP3 is. Sure people want smaller files, but this need is diminishing as bandwidth restrictions go the way of the.au file and hard drives grow. If a format is more rrestrictive but smaller than MP3 and i have a 300k connection, I'll just spend the few extra seconds to get the MP3. This has been one of those wonderfull occassions when the _people_ actually get what they want.
The RIAA has lost this time. And im sure that now (as the end draws closer) they see the error in their ways. Had they reacted in the beggining, had the forseen the coming onslaught, had they actually done something similar to SDMI 3 years ago it might have actually worked....and the recording industry would have kept their tight grip on music distribution for another few years.
SDMI will fail for another, more basic, reason: It is too little, too late.
"Making it publicly available and open-source means that nothing is 'hidden' and there are no surprises waiting in store. "
In the hours,days,weeks and months to come as we see dozens (possibly hundreds) of slight variations, total modifications and custom built worms come out of that source code I doubt you will still believe that.
This program is a serious threat to NT security. As others have pointed out the problem isnt so much that NT is "insecure" (though ther are definitly problems in that department), its that the users and quite a few of its admistrators are just plain dumb wher security is concerned. And as I heard someone say in a previous thread: All it will take is one stupid user/admin to compremise the entire network. It will just make the process easy. Really easy.
Of course, yes all of this and more is possible on a unix system. The difference is unix is a diverse set of operating systems. Porting code to different Unices takes time and some skill. BO2k will run flawlessly on any target machine making it extremly easy for anyone to use (no coding experiance required) and therfor that much more dangerous.
However I dont think Its all bad. Its just like any other peice of software: It can be used for bad things or for good things. Dont blame it on the software or the authors (anyone who says writting software is in itself 'evil' is a total dope) - blame it on the assholes that actually use it maliciously.
And hey: If you THAT worried about it take that WinNT CD and chuck it out the window. Order a copy of Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris7 and put that PC to real use.
Mr Brinn makes many MANY assumptions about what will go in the last two installments of the prequels. The fact is very few people (Lucas himself and a small handfull of trusted individuals at this point) know how things are going to go down in the next two films and very little will be known by the public at large untill they are actually released. This is part of Lucas's magic.
As much as I love Star Wars (jez its all i talked about for two weeks befor phanton menace was released) I think Mr Brinn needs to get out a little more ( this coming from me, whos sits in front of my terminal for 12 hours a day). He may be taking these films a bit to seriously and fallen into the trap of reading TOO much into these films (as Ive seen so many ppl do over the last two months).
Sorry but at this point in the game Ken has way more credability than JP does. A month ago I would have agreed....but the events (articals Ive read....interviews with JP....E mail snippets from both attrition.org and antionline.com) that have passed these last few weeks do not weigh on JP's side. No Im not totally convinced JP was paying hackers to hack government sites.....but I do think thers much more to it than JP lets on....at the very least he knew about senate.gov beforhand then lied about several times. That is conspiracy.
As for the material on the site that was supposedly ther as an assult on JP: thats the same kind of crap almost a half dozen web sites have been posting for months. Why? Because JP's an ass. The Packet Storm incident just solidifies that. Pure and simple. Some of that stuff was lightweight compared to what www.innerpulse.com prints about him on a weekly basis.
I have serious doubts that anyone (including ken) would think they could get away with hosting a site like packet storm at havard without telling anyone. That agrument just doesnt fly.
Its these kinds of things that make ppl *HATE* JP. I think only one things for certain now: the net will make him bleed.
The problem is just not that simple. Personally I agree with you to a point (no ppl shouldnt be reading Hustler at the public library). The probelms arise when we actaully get to the point of implementing a system like this and we answer the really big question....WHO decides what is *bad* and what is *good*? The librarian (heh if youve ever talked to one about this issue youll realize that you might as well not do it at all)? The president? Or (heaven help us) software? Filtering net content with software just does not work very well. Weve been down this road befor. And think about it : do you really want your civil liberties in the hands of a *software company*?
What is being propossed here is nothing more than bookburning revisited. Its sad that we as a people still allow things like this to happen under the guise of public safety.
What they are displaying is a typical sample of flames that you end up seeing when any highly debated topic is discussed online. Even the Linux community has its share of assholes.
KDE under red hat 5.x was one of the cleanest installs ive ever seen (RPM's). As for gnome well its not really that hard if you just follow the instructions they give.
When I was at he movies last night.....
on
Star Wars Tidbits
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· Score: 1
.....seeing The Matrix, we asked the ticket boy when tickets went on sale. His face went pale for a moment and he replied "Ummmm..I dont know that information". Then he turned around and traded looks with his manager. I mean he seemed really shaken up about it. Kinda funny if you ask me.
Personally I really don't see much anything about that artical that was "anti mp3". The author simply stated the facts: MP3 will not be with us forever. Sooner or later ( probably sooner givin the pace of technology like this ) something better will come along, and whether its Mp4, MS Audio (ewwww!!!!!) or something else we will all jump on that bandwagon just like we did MP3. We would have to be stupid not to.
The students argument that the course was not represented for what it really was in the catalog/coursebook is not really valid. Ever hear of drop/add? That is exactly what its for. I have serious doubts that instuctor misrepresented the course in the sillabis. If so perhaps they should be taking this up with the instructor.
Slashdot Mirror
You know what I find odd about the whole smoking issue? The states are successfully launcing lawsuits againts the tobacco companies...most states make twice as much off cigarette sales than the tobacco companies do...if everyone stopped smoking tommorrow these states would be flat broke inside the year...Can YOU see the irony here!?!?!
But this one was actually much cooler. About two years at University of Florida a CIS student who had access to one of the CIRCA labs decided he no longer wanted to pay for net access. He built a computer inside a cardboard box with a modem and NIC inside and hid it in a ceiling crawlspace inside the lab. He swiped a phoneline and an ethernet port from a room upstairs and built himself a dial up. He claimed to have been using it for almost a year befor the CIRCA boys caught on and had a call traced to his apartment.
Last I heard of the incident they threw him out of school and he did not graduate. They did file criminal charges but I dont think they went anywhere.
While I still think giving all the credit to "linux users" for this hack is a bit of a stretch, having major hardware, software and closed codec vendors believe just that might not be a bad thing. eg: "Damn we better release something so these linux bastards can use or they'll just reverse engineer it and the we'll _really_ be screwed."
"I honestly believe Goldstien and the 2600 crew
are in it just for the money. "
If you actually believe Emmanual (or anyone else at 2600) are making loads of cash publishing 2600 your are mistaken. Still I agree with you on some of his views on web page defacements. Even so you gotta have some respect for the guy-I've always thought of him as the Jello Biafra of hacking: Everyone constantly accusses him of "selling out", when in actuallity hes one of the few that hasn't.
I'll agree with you that the gimp doesn't compare to Photoshop or anything by metacreations, but Paint Shop Pro?!?! Come on man! Lets get real here!
I really do appreciate your stance on this issue.
I agree that ther is nothing anyone can do to protect these kids from the content available on the silver screen (aside from banning it completly - UNTHINKABLE!). However this artical is unnecessary and downright STUPID!
Download a whole movie in mp3!?!?!
Dont we all wish!
Take an underage geek to a movie day!?!?!?
Give me a break! As much as I thought the story in part 1 was cool this is ridiculous.
Sure we can yell at the ppl that run the theatres.... this is the only valid point you really mention........
Just when I think your gonna have something coool to say you always pull this kind of crap.....
Please let me know when you pass ENC-1101 Jon...
I didnt realize the problem was this bad. I was in a similar situation several months ago, but I really didnt give it much thought then.
If we can garner enough support (its entirly possible from the sampling of posts Ive seen) perhaps ther may be grounds for a class action suit against Cyber Patrol. The decission in a case like this would most certainly shape the way censorware like this is used in the future.
I for one am more than willing to participate.
"So when do the star wars fans who made GL such a rich man get the films they waited 16 YEARS for? I seem to recall in the pre-TPM days someone from Lucasfilm saying that the new movies would be darker and more mature."
The people I hear constantly bashing this TPM all seem to be forgeting one very important thing: The Star Wars films have always been, are now, and hopefully will always be targeted primarily at children. I think many of the hard core fans who were dissapointed by the film walked into that theatre expecting a movie aimed at 20-30 year olds: that was a very silly assumption to make.
I saw the first Star Wars film when I was 6. Over the next few years Star Wars was a major part of my life. Is everyone trying to say that Lucas should simply deny a new generation of young children the same pleasure _we_ had at that age seeing those films?
Is TPM a little "kiddie" at times? Yes of course it is. Does that make it any different than any of the other films? No, it doesnt. Its the same formuala Lucas has used for the Star Wars films since the beggining - quality, _family_ entertainment. I got over the Ewoks.....I think I can learn to live with Jar Jar too.
"The cymbal crashes are the most noticeable difference - they are often a little distorted or have a "phaser" effect."
That is almost always: a) a recording problem or b) an encoding problem.
Another thing to consider is the quality of the ripping/encoding software used to actually make the mp3's. Not all rippers/encoders are created equal (see NexEncode Studio version 1.0 - ick! - do they still make that thing BTW? I dont see how they GIVE it away). Some of the (free)linux software is lacking in this respect.Sure thers the Xing encoder....now if theyd just port audio grabber we'd be set.
Ther is a difference but you really need a nice sound system to notice it. The biggest differences are really in extreme upper and lower spectrum, so unless you have some really tricked out speakers you really wont hear any difference at all.
For the features you get the price on this thing is actually right on. The machine I built has ended up costing me about 500 bucks so far total - between lcds, keypad ir stuff etc...and the computer. If I added some of the more advanced features this thing has Id spend days programming and still have to fork out another few hundred bucks for a multichannel soundcard. And It still wouldnt have the beatmatching feature which I think is really cool-If I can figure anyway to pull this one off on my box Its going in ther.
Really I meant more along the lines of the "media" its self rather than the codec or the software. Guess a should've picked my word a bit better =)
SDMI will fail for exactly the same reasons MP3 in general has flourished: People want a high quality, OPEN digital music format.
.au file and hard drives grow. If a format is more rrestrictive but smaller than MP3 and i have a 300k connection, I'll just spend the few extra seconds to get the MP3. This has been one of those wonderfull occassions when the _people_ actually get what they want.
It has been said that MP3 is already dead. That new compression formats are about to enter the fray that will lure users from MP3 to something new. Well I certainly hope so! Sure MP3 is great, but we ALL want MORE dont we?
However no format will overtake MP3 unless its every bit as OPEN as MP3 is. Sure people want smaller files, but this need is diminishing as bandwidth restrictions go the way of the
The RIAA has lost this time. And im sure that now (as the end draws closer) they see the error in their ways. Had they reacted in the beggining, had the forseen the coming onslaught, had they actually done something similar to SDMI 3 years ago it might have actually worked....and the recording industry would have kept their tight grip on music distribution for another few years.
SDMI will fail for another, more basic, reason: It is too little, too late.
"Making it publicly available and open-source means that nothing is 'hidden' and there are no surprises waiting in store. "
In the hours,days,weeks and months to come as we see dozens (possibly hundreds) of slight variations, total modifications and custom built worms come out of that source code I doubt you will still believe that.
This program is a serious threat to NT security. As others have pointed out the problem isnt so much that NT is "insecure" (though ther are definitly problems in that department), its that the users and quite a few of its admistrators are just plain dumb wher security is concerned. And as I heard someone say in a previous thread: All it will take is one stupid user/admin to compremise the entire network. It will just make the process easy. Really easy.
Of course, yes all of this and more is possible on a unix system. The difference is unix is a diverse set of operating systems. Porting code to different Unices takes time and some skill. BO2k will run flawlessly on any target machine making it extremly easy for anyone to use (no coding experiance required) and therfor that much more dangerous.
However I dont think Its all bad. Its just like any other peice of software: It can be used for bad things or for good things. Dont blame it on the software or the authors (anyone who says writting software is in itself 'evil' is a total dope) - blame it on the assholes that actually use it maliciously.
And hey: If you THAT worried about it take that WinNT CD and chuck it out the window. Order a copy of Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris7 and put that PC to real use.
Mr Brinn makes many MANY assumptions about what will go in the last two installments of the prequels. The fact is very few people (Lucas himself and a small handfull of trusted individuals at this point) know how things are going to go down in the next two films and very little will be known by the public at large untill they are actually released. This is part of Lucas's magic.
As much as I love Star Wars (jez its all i talked about for two weeks befor phanton menace was released) I think Mr Brinn needs to get out a little more ( this coming from me, whos sits in front of my terminal for 12 hours a day). He may be taking these films a bit to seriously and fallen into the trap of reading TOO much into these films (as Ive seen so many ppl do over the last two months).
Sorry but at this point in the game Ken has way more credability than JP does. A month ago I would have agreed....but the events (articals Ive read....interviews with JP....E mail snippets from both attrition.org and antionline.com) that have passed these last few weeks do not weigh on JP's side. No Im not totally convinced JP was paying hackers to hack government sites.....but I do think thers much more to it than JP lets on....at the very least he knew about senate.gov beforhand then lied about several times. That is conspiracy.
As for the material on the site that was supposedly ther as an assult on JP: thats the same kind of crap almost a half dozen web sites have been posting for months. Why? Because JP's an ass.
The Packet Storm incident just solidifies that. Pure and simple. Some of that stuff was lightweight compared to what www.innerpulse.com prints about him on a weekly basis.
I have serious doubts that anyone (including ken) would think they could get away with hosting a site like packet storm at havard without telling anyone. That agrument just doesnt fly.
Its these kinds of things that make ppl *HATE* JP.
I think only one things for certain now: the net will make him bleed.
The problem is just not that simple. Personally I agree with you to a point (no ppl shouldnt be reading Hustler at the public library). The probelms arise when we actaully get to the point of implementing a system like this and we answer the really big question....WHO decides what is *bad* and what is *good*? The librarian (heh if youve ever talked to one about this issue youll realize that you might as well not do it at all)? The president? Or (heaven help us) software? Filtering net content with software just does not work very well. Weve been down this road befor. And think about it : do you really want your civil liberties in the hands of a *software company*?
What is being propossed here is nothing more than bookburning revisited. Its sad that we as a people still allow things like this to happen under the guise of public safety.
What they are displaying is a typical sample of flames that you end up seeing when any highly debated topic is discussed online. Even the Linux community has its share of assholes.
KDE under red hat 5.x was one of the cleanest installs ive ever seen (RPM's). As for gnome well its not really that hard if you just follow the instructions they give.
.....seeing The Matrix, we asked the ticket boy when tickets went on sale. His face went pale for a moment and he replied "Ummmm..I dont know that information". Then he turned around and traded looks with his manager. I mean he seemed really shaken up about it. Kinda funny if you ask me.
Personally I really don't see much anything about that artical that was "anti mp3". The author simply stated the facts: MP3 will not be with us forever. Sooner or later ( probably sooner givin the pace of technology like this ) something better will come along, and whether its Mp4, MS Audio (ewwww!!!!!) or something else we will all jump on that bandwagon just like we did MP3. We would have to be stupid not to.
The students argument that the course was not represented for what it really was in the catalog/coursebook is not really valid. Ever hear of drop/add? That is exactly what its for. I have serious doubts that instuctor misrepresented the course in the sillabis. If so perhaps they should be taking this up with the instructor.