I believe that this is another of the occasions where the majority of slashdotters are close, but not quite on the mark.
This new operating system/IS/ something to worry about, not because It will limit functionality in any way but (and this may be the difficult thing to grasp) it gives you/MORE/ functionality, i.e. The functionality to have access (however severly limited) to a new kind of secure media, whatever it is.
This extra functionallity becomes something to worry about is when the winXP has once again reached market saturation point. Then all new "content" will be released in this wonderful new secure format, because most people will be able to access it and it fits in with the Content providers capitalistic control freak ideals. Then where will the choice be?
And to these people who say "It's OK it'll get hacked sooner or later", I say NO, don't accept that argument, not discussing all the anti-tampering safeguards built into the XP kernel, the Sound drivers, and (it will happern) the speakers (scared yet?), it will be extremely difficult, and when Microsoft releases a "service pack" for XP, all new media will be made for this service pack and the hackers will have to start all over again.
To summarise, don't encourage them, the PC is/NOT/ a new kind of interactive TV, it is a versatile programmable device used to solve mankinds problems (and make new ones at the same time). Microsoft's direction is incompatable with this.
Yeah, I gave my little brother my old 486 w/ 16 Mb RAM, put suse linux on it, carved the package install list down so it fit on my 0.5 Gb harddisk with a few megs to spare.
Got X to start and loaded icewm. (good choice)
Loaded Gimp...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...
Well it loaded after some wait, but gimp was definitely not designed to be run on machines like this.
Graphics were a little slow, but I am looking forward to installing either the new SuSE or indeed debian on this machine to see if the latest X 4.0.2 makes a world of difference.
PS. The only real reason my brother wants this PC is because he wants to do Icon animations. I put win98 on there instead so he could use "MicroAngelo", is there a small program like this for Linux? I know gimp does animations but doesn't have buttons for add frame/delete frame/next/previous etc. help appreciated.
Yes, I got awful problems using mandrake 7.1 (notably with crashes and other bad stuff at the installation phase, which I have bawled about on/. already) that vanished when moving up to 7.2.
My opinion is that 7.2 is very polished and works very well, i especcially like the way the menus are syncronised across window managers (although I'd love to know if this feature is present in other distros) , apart from issues with NVIDIA supplied drivers that went away after joining the kernel-2.4 upgrade cycle.
As for the naming scheme, an 8.0 version probably isn't justified, but remember the distros are aimed at newbies, who will probably go for the highest version number as already said on this page, regardless of product.
despite being aimed at newbies, I find the whole system nice and polished, and look forward to the new enhancements that "8.0" has to bring, and I don't consider myself a "newbie" at all!
to find YOUR MP and then type out what you would like and it will be faxed by their text to fax gateway. IT WORKS! I contacted my MP this way regarding that awful awful RIP bill, and got a reply within a few weeks with the guy's handwriting on.
Honestly, if enought people do this a difference will be made, I can feel another letter coming on about Mr. straw's evil DNA plans.
Believe it, it now really is as easy as bitching on slashdot (except maybe you have to be coherent).
I had (and still have, it's in there somewhere:-)) a PCtel modem and found a nice binary kernel module for it.
I too suffered from the problems of shitty connection, and frequent hangups when the CPU is loaded, there is probably a way to give realtime priority to the module / pppd but I didn't find it.
On top of that, an interface must have changed because I couldn't get that mother to work in any kernel > 2.2.14 which is a bit of a drag in the fast moving releases of today.
In the end I went out and bought a cheap RealModem(tm) and things are much better than they were, but i agree that linux drivers/SHOULD/ be available, the choice should be there, and as you said, a lot of people get them without realising it, like this poor sucker.
Q: First off, the police state types have this inconvienient problem of our written Constitution and bill of rights (which they do not have in the UK).
A: Not as such, but recent legislation, The Human Rights Act 1998, is supposed to be a template that all legislation must conform to, although RIP, ecent proposals from Jack Straw regarding DNA, and many more, aurguably do not.
Q: But imagine the outrage... While the masses may be ignorant enough of the technical details of the DMCA not to get up in arms over it (at least until it becomes impossible to tape stuff), THIS would hit every Joe 6-pack. EVERYONE speeds. Why? Because most highway speed limits are unreasonably low for the conditions and design of the road.
A: I agree with you here, just as "joe sixpack" realises he cant tape stuff, we will realise that we no longer live in a free country. The freedoms that once existed will have been slowly, almost unnoticably eroded over a long period of time to such a point that we can't do anything about it, as it will be the status quo.
Q: Also, I don't think the law enforcement types would like this either. One reason why speed limits are lower than they should be is that speeding tickets are an excellent form of tax revenue. This would eliminate the need for speed traps, and thus, the cops might actually have to go after REAL criminals.
A: There are a good form of revenue, except all money made from speeding fines in the UK goes straight back into the local council / police force as opposed to the treasury(tax people).
The police have also been critisised that their positioning of new cameras is done is places that they/KNOW/ people are speeding (the open road/motorways/freeways), and they will catch people, rather that placing them according to safety, e.g. at schools and elderly residence.
Q: But then again, this sort of thing does fit right in with a "1984" society, which we seem to be advancing towards at an alarming rate.
A: absolutely, and it scares me to death it really does.
Q: Only a completely mis-educated, ignorant citizenry would allow police THIS kind of control over them. Why aren't they burning things in the streets of London over this proposal, AND the odius "RIP" law (that allows...
A: Maybe they should be burning things, but they'd probably get beaten up by the riot police. And RIP, I personally wrote to my MP regarding this proposal, (and got a reply with his handwriting!), expressing urgency that something be done about it. This is more than I usually do, and if everyone else did the same perhaps we could make a difference. The problem is people don't care ; they just get on with their lives and as long as nobody shouts too loudly about what Big brother is doing, they leave him to it.
Q: any cop to demand your encryption keys at will, and mandates jail time if you refuse or reveal to anyone that they DID get your keys)?
A: I would direct anybody worried about this enactment (like me) to investigate StegFS at http://ban.joh.cam.ac.uk/~adm36/StegFS/ which offers plausable deniability for the existence of data on ones hard drive.
Q: Oh yes. I forgot. They disarmed UK citizens. So now they have no recourse against the government at all. Notice that they seem to be taking advantage of this?
A: This is a complex issue, it is yet to be shown that taking guns off the streets does anything to deter crime, which ever way you look at it, people are not "free" to own a gun in the UK, perhaps they assume some will go on killing sprees, which they can do anyway by other means.
Perhaps my letter to my MP helped the cause. The RIP bill was altered before enactment, let's see all concerned people let their representives know they are concerned, and if that does nothing, we should be armed yes.
skiy - a UK guy who feels pretty strongly about all this.
>There used to be a difference in the rates >depending on whether you had color or B&W. I
>don't know if that's still true; last time I >lived in England was 14 years ago. They might >figure that almost nobody has only a B&W TV >anymore, so they get the full £102 (or whatever) >from everybody.
yes there still is a difference, you can use a b&w TV for a reduced fee, but if you use a colour TV or even a video recorder (well, it is capable of recording the colour signal isn't it:-)) you have to pay the full amount. I know this because my dad is such a tight arse that he didn't get a colour TV or video until about 6 months ago because of the fees!
With the recent advancments in hardware reverse engineering protection, maybe it will be much more difficult than anything before to crack, then again people are persistent, and this may breed a new form of "hardware hacker" or whatever.
Just because they make attempts to break it open and look inside doesn't mean it can't be broken, indeed the key length is "only" 56 bits (ahh, those export restrictions) and the algorithm is your basic XOR affair, maybe it wont be too long before this is cracked by simple observing the outputs. maybe not.
suppose the television companies are kind enough to broadcast zeroes along the stream for a bit, the "encrypted" stream that comes out the other side will actually be keys used to encrypt the stream, perhaps the TV companies will never broadcast this, and give supposed blackness and silence an artificial noise. maybe not.
The section about connecting an illegal device, and how the thing stops streaming within 2 seconds if it detects an illegal device. excuse me but how does it do this, whats to stop you from connecting a data logger to the system from the start, that doesn't shout "hello I'm intecepting your stream!". That sort of thing, (ability to tell if recieved/data has been intercepted or not) is in the realms of quantum cryptography surely.
Another thing that i noticed about this was the key revokation feature discussed, does this not sound like another ideal argument/NOT/ to buy into this technology, as your marvelous HDTV compatible VCR that will allow you perhaps to record a lower quality version of the stream will stop working as soon as some guy on the other side of the planet cracks the technology and it is considered "compromised".
I'm sure this will generate many happy customers when a popular device is compromised, imagine the backlash that would have resulted to this revocation feature being present in DVD players, as soon as some c*nt from the DVD/CCA notices this illegal circumvention device called DeCSS floating about, he could disable all DVD players in the world at the press of a button.
This sort of thing/REALLY/ pisses me off.
but i find solace in that it will be broken.
Conclusion: It wont work.
You saw that bit on slashdot on securing your hardware designs so that they cannot be reverse engineered without breaking it to pieces etc.?
what if the RIAA requires that all this SDMI stuff is implemented in hardware, under an NDA and protected from reverse engineering in the manner above, well have quite a problem on our hands, wont we?
This is of course assuming that no-one will ever release PC software to run this stuff, which they probably will if there is a consumer demand, and as we all know from the DeCSS case, this is the weakest link in any access / copy control scheme.
* Mandrake 7.1 is probably one of the best
* distributions around in terms of usability,
* configurability and compatibility
Good for you! I for one had no end of problems trying to install 7.1 from a PC-plus cover disk, first off, the install bar and mouse stopped for a really long time, making me think it had crashed, although i later found out it was thinking about something.
I tried the text-based install before anyone asks and it fscking SEGFAULTED ON ME! talk about a lame piece of shit, anyway...
Having to start all over again is a ROYAL PAIN IN THE BACKSIDE. Having installed all the packages (which seems to take for even in graphics mode), it would come to cryptographic, put my ISP details in, nice and easy, so it sits there attempting to dial my ISP and download the software indefinitely and unsuccessfully.
so I had to switch to a virtual terminal and kill anything ppp related, a less knowledgable person (your average mdk user) wouldn't have known what to do.
Install bootloader: FOR FSCKS SAKE NO! LEAVE MY MASTER BOOT RECORD EXCACTLY HOW YOU CAME TO IT YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!
does it listen? no, it just tramples all over my precious MBR no matter how much you tell it not to.
I wouldn't mind but once it had "installed", it got as far as entering runlevel 5..., and completely froze up and died, that's not the linux i know.
I would have stuck to 7.0 except for the lack of XFree4.0.1 and the autoupdate feature (advertised on the box damnit) didn't work at all.
And helix-update... well. style over effectiveness at best.
I gave up in the end and decided I'd wait for 7.2, hmmm, 7.3 anyone?
>> Debugging tools have the primary purpose of
>> helping to debug code
Yeah, well DeCSS has the primary purpose of allowing all those who legitimately purchased their DVDs to view them on the platform of their choice, it even says so in the source code.
This law is fundamentally flawed as I hope everyone can see, anything could be seen to be illegal in the sense that it bypasses an access control mechanism, debuggers et al.
I also agree with what was said earlier about guns, luckily I live in the UK when gun proliferation is no where near as bad as in the US and am happy for that.
Because Guns are used to KILL PEOPLE, and are used illegally, surely they should be banned? No of course not, but if a multi-billion dollar corperation loses the ability to have absolute control over what people bought and thought they owned, they can get any piece of code made "illegal".
right, everything so far discussed, e.g. Radius password sniffing, just picking up the sending and recieving of one particular email address, I accept these features are in the carnivore system.
Other features we can expect:
(1) instead of looking for email addresses in all the traffic, search for the PGP signature of the suspect.
(2) Dealing with that shit weak 56bit DES encryption that some people are still using, with an integrated hardware encryption cracking card, and when the NSA have that quantum computer they have been after, the strength of the encryption wont matter.
On topic for a moment:
this is hardly surprising, did anyone think, even for a moment that the review team would actually consist of "ordinary" people / acedemics.
That is too much of a risk for the NSA, if the true workings of carnivore get out, they see that as compromising it's effectiveness against criminals.
What I really don't understand is this:
Surely all the terrorists, hard-core child pornographers (well, Gary Glitter may tell you otherwise) and Kidnappers are using strong (and I mean strong) encryption to avert detection of their evil deeds, all who aren't are stupid criminals and deserve to be caught all that more.
But then again if we assume for a moment that it is really only the Evil People (TM) above who are using archival strength (>= 2048 bit) encryption, surely the encryption alone will be drawing the attention of the relevant law enforcement agencies.
But people, I am truly torn, I know it isn't possible to have a completely free world if we want to be free of e.g. Terrorism, but yet we all seem to want our privacy regardless.
You seem to use Windows 2000 and Win2k (Millenium?) interchangebly (sp?) and may be confused.
Windows 2000 is the Next NT, the "business" version of windows, it is basicly a complete rewrite, and consequently, compatability will not be total with win98 et al.
You seem to be talking about Windows Millenium, but correct me if I'm wrong, as you say it runs "a majority of software and games".
Sorry, but linux users usually only have to reboot for HARDWARE upgrades, not software.
Yeah, the source code would be nice, but also, what 'Carnivore' does is most likely VERY dependant on the input it is given by the people who install it.
If it is for example a simple grep searching for suspect words (I know it likely isn't), but how do you tell what input it is going to be given by just seeing the source code?
Answer, you don't.
The chances are, even if they release the source, it won't tell you as much as you'd like, and chances are it won't even be the real source anyway.
>And (this is important) a system that relies on a >secret algorithm is not secure. Once the > algorithm is public, the game is over. Insert >billions for new game
What about RC5, IDEA etc. The algorithms are public, does that mean that anybody can decrypt an RC5ed file just like that?
You are suggesting 'Security through obscurity' is a good thing? encryption algorithms demonstrate the opposite.
yeah, suppose they had got a load of plaintext with incriminating phrases in, encrypted it and run it through a really big, back propogation neural net telling it that this is bad, doing the reverse for OK stuff.
IANECTANNE (Here we go: I am not even close to a Neural Network engineer) so I'd love to here some critisism of this theory.
Besides, When Quantum computers come out, the NSA will be the first to have one, and then where will we be?
I browse sd in lite mode, so I went to the site expecting real shots, what I saw did make me laugh though. hhehehehehehehehehehehehehehe. right, back to work then...
Just a supposition, but suppose that CD stereo system manufacturers integrated a SDMI like system into their newest systems, Where they would still play the old Quote-unquote-insecure stuff but had the capability to handle this awful DRM stuff.
They could accounce their players had this capability, in which case joe public says 'Wow, look it does 2 things', or they could keep the technology a secret (not sure about the legal aspects as IANAL), in which case everyone buys one and at some indeterminite time in the future, all Quote-unquote-insecure stuff comes off the shelves.
Don't say it wont happern, we're seeing the same sort of thing happerning with television, in 5 or so years, all analogue transmission will cease in the UK, [which I think is disgusting, have they even thought about the pensioners who would never be able to afford such a commodity] - in favour of digital television, god knows, the same thing is probably happerning with radio.
WE MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPERN UNDER -A- -N- -Y- CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
can you believe the inconvenience? being unable to fairly use the materials that you are supposed to have bought the rights to listen/view.
I had to say something, these fscking 'trusted client' systems scare me too, system - speaker encryption is just A BLATANT MISUSE OF COMPUTING POWER AND ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY, simply to restrict our rights.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that this is another of the occasions where the majority of slashdotters are close, but not quite on the mark.
/IS/ something to worry about, not because It will limit functionality in any way but (and this may be the difficult thing to grasp) it gives you /MORE/ functionality, i.e. The functionality to have access (however severly limited) to a new kind of secure media, whatever it is.
/NOT/ a new kind of interactive TV, it is a versatile programmable device used to solve mankinds problems (and make new ones at the same time). Microsoft's direction is incompatable with this.
This new operating system
This extra functionallity becomes something to worry about is when the winXP has once again reached market saturation point. Then all new "content" will be released in this wonderful new secure format, because most people will be able to access it and it fits in with the Content providers capitalistic control freak ideals. Then where will the choice be?
And to these people who say "It's OK it'll get hacked sooner or later", I say NO, don't accept that argument, not discussing all the anti-tampering safeguards built into the XP kernel, the Sound drivers, and (it will happern) the speakers (scared yet?), it will be extremely difficult, and when Microsoft releases a "service pack" for XP, all new media will be made for this service pack and the hackers will have to start all over again.
To summarise, don't encourage them, the PC is
Yeah, I gave my little brother my old 486 w/ 16 Mb RAM, put suse linux on it, carved the package install list down so it fit on my 0.5 Gb harddisk with a few megs to spare.
Got X to start and loaded icewm. (good choice)
Loaded Gimp...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...Loading...
...
Well it loaded after some wait, but gimp was definitely not designed to be run on machines like this.
Graphics were a little slow, but I am looking forward to installing either the new SuSE or indeed debian on this machine to see if the latest X 4.0.2 makes a world of difference.
PS. The only real reason my brother wants this PC is because he wants to do Icon animations. I put win98 on there instead so he could use "MicroAngelo", is there a small program like this for Linux? I know gimp does animations but doesn't have buttons for add frame/delete frame/next/previous etc. help appreciated.
Yes, I got awful problems using mandrake 7.1 (notably with crashes and other bad stuff at the installation phase, which I have bawled about on /. already) that vanished when moving up to 7.2.
My opinion is that 7.2 is very polished and works very well, i especcially like the way the menus are syncronised across window managers (although I'd love to know if this feature is present in other distros) , apart from issues with NVIDIA supplied drivers that went away after joining the kernel-2.4 upgrade cycle.
As for the naming scheme, an 8.0 version probably isn't justified, but remember the distros are aimed at newbies, who will probably go for the highest version number as already said on this page, regardless of product.
despite being aimed at newbies, I find the whole system nice and polished, and look forward to the new enhancements that "8.0" has to bring, and I don't consider myself a "newbie" at all!
http://www.davidflanagan.com/FaxSenate/fax.html
to fax your senator (which i assume is the thing to do).
If you live in the UK try the "Fax your MP" page at
http://www.faxyourmp.com/
to find YOUR MP and then type out what you would like and it will be faxed by their text to fax gateway. IT WORKS! I contacted my MP this way regarding that awful awful RIP bill, and got a reply within a few weeks with the guy's handwriting on.
Honestly, if enought people do this a difference will be made, I can feel another letter coming on about Mr. straw's evil DNA plans.
Believe it, it now really is as easy as bitching on slashdot (except maybe you have to be coherent).
Yes, i agree with your parent to an extent.
:-)) a PCtel modem and found a nice binary kernel module for it.
/SHOULD/ be available, the choice should be there, and as you said, a lot of people get them without realising it, like this poor sucker.
I had (and still have, it's in there somewhere
I too suffered from the problems of shitty connection, and frequent hangups when the CPU is loaded, there is probably a way to give realtime priority to the module / pppd but I didn't find it.
On top of that, an interface must have changed because I couldn't get that mother to work in any kernel > 2.2.14 which is a bit of a drag in the fast moving releases of today.
In the end I went out and bought a cheap RealModem(tm) and things are much better than they were, but i agree that linux drivers
Q: First off, the police state types have this inconvienient problem of our written Constitution and bill of rights (which they do not have in the UK).
/KNOW/ people are speeding (the open road/motorways/freeways), and they will catch people, rather that placing them according to safety, e.g. at schools and elderly residence.
...
A: Not as such, but recent legislation, The Human Rights Act 1998, is supposed to be a template that all legislation must conform to, although RIP, ecent proposals from Jack Straw regarding DNA, and many more, aurguably do not.
Q: But imagine the outrage... While the masses may be ignorant enough of the technical details of the DMCA not to get up in arms over it (at least until it becomes impossible to tape stuff), THIS would hit every Joe 6-pack. EVERYONE speeds. Why? Because most highway speed limits are unreasonably low for the conditions and design of the road.
A: I agree with you here, just as "joe sixpack" realises he cant tape stuff, we will realise that we no longer live in a free country. The freedoms that once existed will have been slowly, almost unnoticably eroded over a long period of time to such a point that we can't do anything about it, as it will be the status quo.
Q: Also, I don't think the law enforcement types would like this either. One reason why speed limits are lower than they should be is that speeding tickets are an excellent form of tax revenue. This would eliminate the need for speed traps, and thus, the cops might actually have to go after REAL criminals.
A: There are a good form of revenue, except all money made from speeding fines in the UK goes straight back into the local council / police force as opposed to the treasury(tax people).
The police have also been critisised that their positioning of new cameras is done is places that they
Q: But then again, this sort of thing does fit right in with a "1984" society, which we seem to be advancing towards at an alarming rate.
A: absolutely, and it scares me to death it really does.
Q: Only a completely mis-educated, ignorant citizenry would allow police THIS kind of control over them. Why aren't they burning things in the streets of London over this proposal, AND the odius "RIP" law (that allows
A: Maybe they should be burning things, but they'd probably get beaten up by the riot police. And RIP, I personally wrote to my MP regarding this proposal, (and got a reply with his handwriting!), expressing urgency that something be done about it. This is more than I usually do, and if everyone else did the same perhaps we could make a difference. The problem is people don't care ; they just get on with their lives and as long as nobody shouts too loudly about what Big brother is doing, they leave him to it.
Q: any cop to demand your encryption keys at will, and mandates jail time if you refuse or reveal to anyone that they DID get your keys)?
A: I would direct anybody worried about this enactment (like me) to investigate StegFS at http://ban.joh.cam.ac.uk/~adm36/StegFS/ which offers plausable deniability for the existence of data on ones hard drive.
Q: Oh yes. I forgot. They disarmed UK citizens. So now they have no recourse against the government at all. Notice that they seem to be taking advantage of this?
A: This is a complex issue, it is yet to be shown that taking guns off the streets does anything to deter crime, which ever way you look at it, people are not "free" to own a gun in the UK, perhaps they assume some will go on killing sprees, which they can do anyway by other means.
Perhaps my letter to my MP helped the cause. The RIP bill was altered before enactment, let's see all concerned people let their representives know they are concerned, and if that does nothing, we should be armed yes.
skiy - a UK guy who feels pretty strongly about all this.
>There used to be a difference in the rates >depending on whether you had color or B&W. I
:-)) you have to pay the full amount. I know this because my dad is such a tight arse that he didn't get a colour TV or video until about 6 months ago because of the fees!
>don't know if that's still true; last time I >lived in England was 14 years ago. They might >figure that almost nobody has only a B&W TV >anymore, so they get the full £102 (or whatever) >from everybody.
yes there still is a difference, you can use a b&w TV for a reduced fee, but if you use a colour TV or even a video recorder (well, it is capable of recording the colour signal isn't it
With the recent advancments in hardware reverse engineering protection, maybe it will be much more difficult than anything before to crack, then again people are persistent, and this may breed a new form of "hardware hacker" or whatever.
/NOT/ to buy into this technology, as your marvelous HDTV compatible VCR that will allow you perhaps to record a lower quality version of the stream will stop working as soon as some guy on the other side of the planet cracks the technology and it is considered "compromised".
/REALLY/ pisses me off.
Just because they make attempts to break it open and look inside doesn't mean it can't be broken, indeed the key length is "only" 56 bits (ahh, those export restrictions) and the algorithm is your basic XOR affair, maybe it wont be too long before this is cracked by simple observing the outputs. maybe not.
suppose the television companies are kind enough to broadcast zeroes along the stream for a bit, the "encrypted" stream that comes out the other side will actually be keys used to encrypt the stream, perhaps the TV companies will never broadcast this, and give supposed blackness and silence an artificial noise. maybe not.
The section about connecting an illegal device, and how the thing stops streaming within 2 seconds if it detects an illegal device. excuse me but how does it do this, whats to stop you from connecting a data logger to the system from the start, that doesn't shout "hello I'm intecepting your stream!". That sort of thing, (ability to tell if recieved/data has been intercepted or not) is in the realms of quantum cryptography surely.
Another thing that i noticed about this was the key revokation feature discussed, does this not sound like another ideal argument
I'm sure this will generate many happy customers when a popular device is compromised, imagine the backlash that would have resulted to this revocation feature being present in DVD players, as soon as some c*nt from the DVD/CCA notices this illegal circumvention device called DeCSS floating about, he could disable all DVD players in the world at the press of a button.
This sort of thing
but i find solace in that it will be broken.
Conclusion: It wont work.
I am happy to be corrected on any of my points.
It is a temporary wiretap system, used only with a court order, it IS NOT PERMANENTLY CONNECTED!!!FULL STOP.
thank you.
You saw that bit on slashdot on securing your hardware designs so that they cannot be reverse engineered without breaking it to pieces etc.?
what if the RIAA requires that all this SDMI stuff is implemented in hardware, under an NDA and protected from reverse engineering in the manner above, well have quite a problem on our hands, wont we?
This is of course assuming that no-one will ever release PC software to run this stuff, which they probably will if there is a consumer demand, and as we all know from the DeCSS case, this is the weakest link in any access / copy control scheme.
* Mandrake 7.1 is probably one of the best
* distributions around in terms of usability,
* configurability and compatibility
Good for you! I for one had no end of problems trying to install 7.1 from a PC-plus cover disk, first off, the install bar and mouse stopped for a really long time, making me think it had crashed, although i later found out it was thinking about something.
I tried the text-based install before anyone asks and it fscking SEGFAULTED ON ME! talk about a lame piece of shit, anyway...
Having to start all over again is a ROYAL PAIN IN THE BACKSIDE. Having installed all the packages (which seems to take for even in graphics mode), it would come to cryptographic, put my ISP details in, nice and easy, so it sits there attempting to dial my ISP and download the software indefinitely and unsuccessfully.
so I had to switch to a virtual terminal and kill anything ppp related, a less knowledgable person (your average mdk user) wouldn't have known what to do.
Install bootloader: FOR FSCKS SAKE NO! LEAVE MY MASTER BOOT RECORD EXCACTLY HOW YOU CAME TO IT YOU PIECE OF SHIT!!!
does it listen? no, it just tramples all over my precious MBR no matter how much you tell it not to.
I wouldn't mind but once it had "installed", it got as far as entering runlevel 5..., and completely froze up and died, that's not the linux i know.
I would have stuck to 7.0 except for the lack of XFree4.0.1 and the autoupdate feature (advertised on the box damnit) didn't work at all.
And helix-update... well. style over effectiveness at best.
I gave up in the end and decided I'd wait for 7.2, hmmm, 7.3 anyone?
Disgrunted Mandrake user.
>> Debugging tools have the primary purpose of
>> helping to debug code
Yeah, well DeCSS has the primary purpose of allowing all those who legitimately purchased their DVDs to view them on the platform of their choice, it even says so in the source code.
This law is fundamentally flawed as I hope everyone can see, anything could be seen to be illegal in the sense that it bypasses an access control mechanism, debuggers et al.
I also agree with what was said earlier about guns, luckily I live in the UK when gun proliferation is no where near as bad as in the US and am happy for that.
Because Guns are used to KILL PEOPLE, and are used illegally, surely they should be banned? No of course not, but if a multi-billion dollar corperation loses the ability to have absolute control over what people bought and thought they owned, they can get any piece of code made "illegal".
It makes me vomit blood just thinking about it.
skiy.
...for $4000
/ANY/ serious bets for this PS2?
sir runs off laughing
OK, were there
everyone shakes their heads.
[Taken from the simpsons]
>> Now you'll have to go from 1 wipe to 10.... And then realise that wasn't the file you wanted to delete... skiy.
right, everything so far discussed, e.g. Radius password sniffing, just picking up the sending and recieving of one particular email address, I accept these features are in the carnivore system.
Other features we can expect:
(1) instead of looking for email addresses in all the traffic, search for the PGP signature of the suspect.
(2) Dealing with that shit weak 56bit DES encryption that some people are still using, with an integrated hardware encryption cracking card, and when the NSA have that quantum computer they have been after, the strength of the encryption wont matter.
On topic for a moment:
this is hardly surprising, did anyone think, even for a moment that the review team would actually consist of "ordinary" people / acedemics.
That is too much of a risk for the NSA, if the true workings of carnivore get out, they see that as compromising it's effectiveness against criminals.
What I really don't understand is this:
Surely all the terrorists, hard-core child pornographers (well, Gary Glitter may tell you otherwise) and Kidnappers are using strong (and I mean strong) encryption to avert detection of their evil deeds, all who aren't are stupid criminals and deserve to be caught all that more.
But then again if we assume for a moment that it is really only the Evil People (TM) above who are using archival strength (>= 2048 bit) encryption, surely the encryption alone will be drawing the attention of the relevant law enforcement agencies.
But people, I am truly torn, I know it isn't possible to have a completely free world if we want to be free of e.g. Terrorism, but yet we all seem to want our privacy regardless.
just my £0.02.
skiy.
You seem to use Windows 2000 and Win2k (Millenium?) interchangebly (sp?) and may be confused.
Windows 2000 is the Next NT, the "business" version of windows, it is basicly a complete rewrite, and consequently, compatability will not be total with win98 et al.
You seem to be talking about Windows Millenium, but correct me if I'm wrong, as you say it runs "a majority of software and games".
Sorry, but linux users usually only have to reboot for HARDWARE upgrades, not software.
Yeah, the source code would be nice, but also, what 'Carnivore' does is most likely VERY dependant on the input it is given by the people who install it.
If it is for example a simple grep searching for suspect words (I know it likely isn't), but how do you tell what input it is going to be given by just seeing the source code?
Answer, you don't.
The chances are, even if they release the source, it won't tell you as much as you'd like, and chances are it won't even be the real source anyway.
Just a thought.
skiy.
>And (this is important) a system that relies on a >secret algorithm is not secure. Once the
> algorithm is public, the game is over. Insert >billions for new game
What about RC5, IDEA etc. The algorithms are public, does that mean that anybody can decrypt an RC5ed file just like that?
You are suggesting 'Security through obscurity' is a good thing? encryption algorithms demonstrate the opposite.
(waiting for someone to tell me I'm wrong)
skiy.
yeah, suppose they had got a load of plaintext with incriminating phrases in, encrypted it and run it through a really big, back propogation neural net telling it that this is bad, doing the reverse for OK stuff.
IANECTANNE (Here we go: I am not even close to a Neural Network engineer) so I'd love to here some critisism of this theory.
Besides, When Quantum computers come out, the NSA will be the first to have one, and then where will we be?
Just my £0.02.
skiy.
Did you get that joke?
was it funny?
mod it up then.
with 99% the same genes,
we can start mating with monkeys.
I browse sd in lite mode, so I went to the site expecting real shots, what I saw did make me laugh though.
hhehehehehehehehehehehehehehe.
right, back to work then...
And consider that every new time M$ released a new DirectX, That bit of wine would need a rewrite.
is this true or am I talking out of my rear end?
I cannot listen to a song
and not have access to the information - at least not until the install a chip in my brain
---------
DON'T GIVE THE FSCKING EVIL MUSIC INDUSTRY IDEAS
Just a supposition, but suppose that CD stereo system manufacturers integrated a SDMI like system into their newest systems, Where they would still play the old Quote-unquote-insecure stuff but had the capability to handle this awful DRM stuff.
They could accounce their players had this capability, in which case joe public says 'Wow, look it does 2 things', or they could keep the technology a secret (not sure about the legal aspects as IANAL), in which case everyone buys one and at some indeterminite time in the future, all Quote-unquote-insecure stuff comes off the shelves.
Don't say it wont happern, we're seeing the same sort of thing happerning with television, in 5 or so years, all analogue transmission will cease in the UK, [which I think is disgusting, have they even thought about the pensioners who would never be able to afford such a commodity] - in favour of digital television, god knows, the same thing is probably happerning with radio.
WE MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPERN UNDER -A- -N- -Y- CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
can you believe the inconvenience? being unable to fairly use the materials that you are supposed to have bought the rights to listen/view.
I had to say something, these fscking 'trusted client' systems scare me too, system - speaker encryption is just A BLATANT MISUSE OF COMPUTING POWER AND ENCRYPTION TECHNOLOGY, simply to restrict our rights.
skiy.