The designs don't have to be lousy to have faults visible only in the design. The truly lousy designs have flaws visible whenever you try to use the things.
That said, there are two ways security could be affected by open design:
First, they said open design, not copylefted design. Someone could take an open design, change it just a little, and not list their changes. It could then be really tricky to determine whether the demonstrated flaw is in the open design or the hidden changes.
Second, many of the people who are most vocal about security believe (for good or ill) in "security by obscurity." You can't get that from an open design unless you secretly change it, which loops back into point one.
Oh, no. I'm sorry to hear that...
It's not right to have that steep a difference, to have that sharp a limit. You shouldn't have to have unlimited data to use your phone on the internet for map programs...
You want to know why they stopped stamping labels directly onto citrus fruit?
It's nothing to do with the safety of the inks. Sometimes, I think people ink entire oranges to make them orange enough.
No. It was determined that, if more than a certain number of people squeeze a given grapefruit, the ink smudges, leaving the label unreadable. This is worse than nothing no matter how you slice it -- especially now that large oranges are the same size as small grapefruit.
Using water-soluable ink on citrus fruit that is then left directly under sprinklers also creates problems...
They can't make non-commercial art illegal per se, at least not in America. They can only make it difficult. They can't stop you from singing; but do it amplified without making sure what you're doing, and they could sic ASCAP on you.
If they can arrange it that most of the archives of noncommercial art are on sites dependent on commercials from them or their own distributors, they'll be happier.
There is the problem that the large media companies are doing all they can to make it unclear what films and music is in the public domain. The music industry has made its position clear: the section of the Rock Band store reserved for user-created songs doesn't allow folk song covers. (That is, if anybody has recorded it, then the industry thinks it "belongs" to that person/record company.)
Any film release that involves restoration is gonna get a fresh, recent copyright for the overall package; since most sound films properly in the public domain could conceivably not be in the public domain, this is a problem, especially given the scarcity of film negatives.
Fun anecdote:
One of my current favorite computers right now is a Compaq. (Compaqs are just like HPs, but for some reason HP is maintaining both brands.)
Anyhow, a few months back, a (legit) anti-malware program got installed onto the machine. It flagged three programs that came with the system as malware.
The programs did get removed. I don't get Compaq pop-up ads anymore...
Now, if only corporations would stop bundling in programs that are designed to self-destruct in 90 days!
Even if it had, that would just make the PSP the second longest-lived portable of its era.
Sony is stubborn with its tech, hoping to get market share through persistence. You could get blank Betamax tapes well after that format lost its format war -- it took DVDs to make them disappear. You could get MiniDiscs (introduced 1989 and never popular) well into this decade. You can still get Memory Sticks. And you can still get PS2s!
They shrank the screen size from the DS Lite with the original DSi. They're just shifting it back. And this is good, because not only is the screen ridiculously small on that, the entire unit is ridiculously small.
Yes, I know, portables are supposed to be small... but the original DSi has a footprint barely bigger than an Atari joystick! It looks more fragile than it probably is...
Increasing the screen size will increase the size of a DSi without increasing the depth. This will be good.
Okay then. So, if it was ever exclusive in the first place -- well, "exclusive for one year" is common. Microsoft got it Nov. 2008; Sony is getting it Nov. 2009. How was Microsoft to know that the PS3 would get a second wind between then and now?
BluRay players will become more common, regardless of how PS3s do. BluRay won the HD war. Stores are stocking BluRay discs, right down to the Walmart and Costco level. Disney is selling kits containing both BluRays and normal DVDs. And they are being advertised heavily.
A PS3 is just a convenient way to get a BluRay player, especially if you already have a game you want to play as well. (The game controller makes an awkward BluRay remote, though.)
If all else fails, Sony has its own Playstation movie & TV download service. It probably doesn't have as good a selection, but odds are Sony isn't getting rid of it just because of Netflix. And I think many of those films and TV shows are to keep...
Yes, but you'd think they'd negotiate a term longer than four months!
Then again, it's not entirely Microsoft's fault. Microsoft right now has exclusive rights to launching Netflix directly from its online system ("right off the dashboard"). So Netflix requires a BluRay disc or some lateral thinking for PS3 users to do it. (People keep forgetting that PS3s are real computers... I bet they can even work Google Docs if you attach the mini keyboard to the controller. No printer yet, though...)
Hey, even some members of the entertainment industry are against this... I know Paul McCartney is, anyhow.
And don't boycott any software companies that aren't also in traditional media -- this likely isn't their idea. Films will still have theaters, music will still have radio and PA systems, TV will still have over-the-air broadcasts and DVD box sets -- but an awful lot of software is dependent on the internet to run as intended...
Problem for T-Mobile Sidekick users -- the computer they synched with was the one that crashed and took everything with it. Sidekicks weren't designed to sync with the user's computer.
The current millennium has only been around for nine years and ten months. (Eight + ten months if you are a traditionalist and think the Nineties ended in 2001.)
Then again, good back-up policy predates computers. If Microsoft/Danger had the same dedication to backups of valuable documents as monasteries did back in the 1000s, this sort of mess wouldn't have happened.
If no one had linked Microsoft to the Sidekick server, then that might have worked. It still might, to some extent.
But, since T-Mobile named Microsoft as the people maintaining the server, they likely aren't going to give away WinMo phones to make up -- not when they have Blackberries.
Well, if Microsoft was trying to kill Sidekick, then this is a lucky break for them -- or would have been if T-Mobile weren't so open about who was (not) managing the server now that it's down.
No one, but no one, is going to want to use that particular model after this. T-Mobile no longer sells nor leases them -- that's official as of today.
Just one problem with that -- region coding. I suspect that the controls that prevent Region 1 games from being played on Australian XBoxes work unless specifically hacked.
It's a copyright lawsuit. Thanks to other industries who make their living off copyright (especially the RIAA and MPAA), the legally accepted penalties for violating copyright are allowed to go far beyond the actual damages. Yes, 100x has precedent.
At least, if eBay loses, it has a chance to pay the fine in its lifetime. You don't want to be holding a PayPal card if it comes to that, though.
Because eBay, in a fit of insanity equal to failing to obtain the copyright to that code in the first place, shared the altered code. eBay distributed it. Did they really think the founders of Skype wouldn't see?
Copyright law -- is there any chaos it can't cause?
If individual rights holders do not wish to pay for this advertising, they can take the chance that potential buyers will find out about their offerings via other methods, like word of mouth, or the payola-sponsored airplay they get on Clear Channel stations.
Yes, let's throw the RIAA into the briar patch!
Okay, maybe forcing everyone to get their samples from ClearChannel and American Idol isn't what would be best for the music execs. But it is what the music biz seems to want.
Mines for crowd control? That's overkill even if they're (mostly) non-lethal. What kind of crowd are you thinking of?
Seriously, if you're gonna use stationary crowd control, put up a fence! Chicken wire or barbed wire, preferably. You wouldn't use an electric fence for crowd control; why use an electric mine?
Genius is a marketing tool. It takes the songs you already have in iTunes and uses them to suggest you buy other songs that your songs in iTunes suggest you may like. I'm guessing it's like Pandora or Last.fm, except you can't confirm without paying to own the tracks...
That's why it won't work on your iPod. Your iPod isn't gonna have access to anything that isn't already on your computer's iTunes -- at least not if Apple has any say about it.
I don't trust that feature as far as I can (metaphorically) throw it.
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The designs don't have to be lousy to have faults visible only in the design. The truly lousy designs have flaws visible whenever you try to use the things.
That said, there are two ways security could be affected by open design:
First, they said open design, not copylefted design. Someone could take an open design, change it just a little, and not list their changes. It could then be really tricky to determine whether the demonstrated flaw is in the open design or the hidden changes.
Second, many of the people who are most vocal about security believe (for good or ill) in "security by obscurity." You can't get that from an open design unless you secretly change it, which loops back into point one.
Further, unless a big company forks the project
Remember the Microsoft mantra: "Embrace, extend, extinguish."
Oh, no. I'm sorry to hear that...
It's not right to have that steep a difference, to have that sharp a limit. You shouldn't have to have unlimited data to use your phone on the internet for map programs...
You want to know why they stopped stamping labels directly onto citrus fruit?
It's nothing to do with the safety of the inks. Sometimes, I think people ink entire oranges to make them orange enough. No. It was determined that, if more than a certain number of people squeeze a given grapefruit, the ink smudges, leaving the label unreadable. This is worse than nothing no matter how you slice it -- especially now that large oranges are the same size as small grapefruit.
Using water-soluable ink on citrus fruit that is then left directly under sprinklers also creates problems...
Is there a link to an article on this that isn't a video?
They can't make non-commercial art illegal per se, at least not in America. They can only make it difficult. They can't stop you from singing; but do it amplified without making sure what you're doing, and they could sic ASCAP on you.
If they can arrange it that most of the archives of noncommercial art are on sites dependent on commercials from them or their own distributors, they'll be happier.
There is the problem that the large media companies are doing all they can to make it unclear what films and music is in the public domain. The music industry has made its position clear: the section of the Rock Band store reserved for user-created songs doesn't allow folk song covers. (That is, if anybody has recorded it, then the industry thinks it "belongs" to that person/record company.)
Any film release that involves restoration is gonna get a fresh, recent copyright for the overall package; since most sound films properly in the public domain could conceivably not be in the public domain, this is a problem, especially given the scarcity of film negatives.
Fun anecdote:
One of my current favorite computers right now is a Compaq. (Compaqs are just like HPs, but for some reason HP is maintaining both brands.)
Anyhow, a few months back, a (legit) anti-malware program got installed onto the machine. It flagged three programs that came with the system as malware.
The programs did get removed. I don't get Compaq pop-up ads anymore...
Now, if only corporations would stop bundling in programs that are designed to self-destruct in 90 days!
Even if it had, that would just make the PSP the second longest-lived portable of its era.
Sony is stubborn with its tech, hoping to get market share through persistence. You could get blank Betamax tapes well after that format lost its format war -- it took DVDs to make them disappear. You could get MiniDiscs (introduced 1989 and never popular) well into this decade. You can still get Memory Sticks. And you can still get PS2s!
They shrank the screen size from the DS Lite with the original DSi. They're just shifting it back. And this is good, because not only is the screen ridiculously small on that, the entire unit is ridiculously small.
Yes, I know, portables are supposed to be small... but the original DSi has a footprint barely bigger than an Atari joystick! It looks more fragile than it probably is...
Increasing the screen size will increase the size of a DSi without increasing the depth. This will be good.
Okay then. So, if it was ever exclusive in the first place -- well, "exclusive for one year" is common. Microsoft got it Nov. 2008; Sony is getting it Nov. 2009. How was Microsoft to know that the PS3 would get a second wind between then and now?
BluRay players will become more common, regardless of how PS3s do. BluRay won the HD war. Stores are stocking BluRay discs, right down to the Walmart and Costco level. Disney is selling kits containing both BluRays and normal DVDs. And they are being advertised heavily.
A PS3 is just a convenient way to get a BluRay player, especially if you already have a game you want to play as well. (The game controller makes an awkward BluRay remote, though.)
If all else fails, Sony has its own Playstation movie & TV download service. It probably doesn't have as good a selection, but odds are Sony isn't getting rid of it just because of Netflix. And I think many of those films and TV shows are to keep...
Yes, but you'd think they'd negotiate a term longer than four months!
Then again, it's not entirely Microsoft's fault. Microsoft right now has exclusive rights to launching Netflix directly from its online system ("right off the dashboard"). So Netflix requires a BluRay disc or some lateral thinking for PS3 users to do it. (People keep forgetting that PS3s are real computers... I bet they can even work Google Docs if you attach the mini keyboard to the controller. No printer yet, though...)
Hey, even some members of the entertainment industry are against this... I know Paul McCartney is, anyhow.
And don't boycott any software companies that aren't also in traditional media -- this likely isn't their idea. Films will still have theaters, music will still have radio and PA systems, TV will still have over-the-air broadcasts and DVD box sets -- but an awful lot of software is dependent on the internet to run as intended...
Problem for T-Mobile Sidekick users -- the computer they synched with was the one that crashed and took everything with it. Sidekicks weren't designed to sync with the user's computer.
The current millennium has only been around for nine years and ten months. (Eight + ten months if you are a traditionalist and think the Nineties ended in 2001.)
Then again, good back-up policy predates computers. If Microsoft/Danger had the same dedication to backups of valuable documents as monasteries did back in the 1000s, this sort of mess wouldn't have happened.
If no one had linked Microsoft to the Sidekick server, then that might have worked. It still might, to some extent.
But, since T-Mobile named Microsoft as the people maintaining the server, they likely aren't going to give away WinMo phones to make up -- not when they have Blackberries.
Well, if Microsoft was trying to kill Sidekick, then this is a lucky break for them -- or would have been if T-Mobile weren't so open about who was (not) managing the server now that it's down.
No one, but no one, is going to want to use that particular model after this. T-Mobile no longer sells nor leases them -- that's official as of today.
But HIPPA doesn't cover T-Mobile cell phones, does it?
Just one problem with that -- region coding. I suspect that the controls that prevent Region 1 games from being played on Australian XBoxes work unless specifically hacked.
It's a copyright lawsuit. Thanks to other industries who make their living off copyright (especially the RIAA and MPAA), the legally accepted penalties for violating copyright are allowed to go far beyond the actual damages. Yes, 100x has precedent.
At least, if eBay loses, it has a chance to pay the fine in its lifetime. You don't want to be holding a PayPal card if it comes to that, though.
Because eBay, in a fit of insanity equal to failing to obtain the copyright to that code in the first place, shared the altered code. eBay distributed it. Did they really think the founders of Skype wouldn't see?
Copyright law -- is there any chaos it can't cause?
If individual rights holders do not wish to pay for this advertising, they can take the chance that potential buyers will find out about their offerings via other methods, like word of mouth, or the payola-sponsored airplay they get on Clear Channel stations.
Yes, let's throw the RIAA into the briar patch!
Okay, maybe forcing everyone to get their samples from ClearChannel and American Idol isn't what would be best for the music execs. But it is what the music biz seems to want.
Mines for crowd control? That's overkill even if they're (mostly) non-lethal. What kind of crowd are you thinking of?
Seriously, if you're gonna use stationary crowd control, put up a fence! Chicken wire or barbed wire, preferably. You wouldn't use an electric fence for crowd control; why use an electric mine?
Genius is a marketing tool. It takes the songs you already have in iTunes and uses them to suggest you buy other songs that your songs in iTunes suggest you may like. I'm guessing it's like Pandora or Last.fm, except you can't confirm without paying to own the tracks...
That's why it won't work on your iPod. Your iPod isn't gonna have access to anything that isn't already on your computer's iTunes -- at least not if Apple has any say about it.
I don't trust that feature as far as I can (metaphorically) throw it.