It's interesting that you bring up running the old muppet shows again. There is a channel called Odyssey co-owned by Hallmark and the Hensen family. It specializes in 'family' entertainment and has such shows as The Muppet Show and Alf. It also has some of the 1980's and 1970's family type films. Not my favorite channel by far, but it does have alf. That is one thing that I haven't seen in a while. thoughts?
The CAVE systems, as shown in the article have been around for a while. Iowa State university has one like it, as do other universities around the country. The ability to link them seems like it should also be a given. I'm really not seeing this as anything even CLOSE to being a holodeck. Until someone can make projections with the ability to be solid, or interact with their environment, I don't think its worthy of/.
I am going to completely agree here with this whole t-shirt thing. I wore mine to classes today... and once last week. I swear, I should just make up a flier with all the information on it. It would make thing so much easier. Heck, when I got the shirt, I had to double-check what CCA was:)
I'm assuming what happened was the following: Judge hands out copies of report to each side. Defense takes their copy and faxes it back to everyone else (from Kinkos). Then that Kinkos copy is scanned and posted. Judges have to hand out signed copies of the findings to each party.
The bond posted by the plaintiff is to cover any damages caused by the injunction to the defendants. Most likely, nothing will come of the money, but it is one of those little legal things they throw in there. Real had to do the same when StreamBox had their X-file get software which would allow people to save.rm streams. Essentially, if the defendants would stand to lose monitarily, the plaintiff is required to post a bond to cover that. The bond is paid out if the case is found in favor of the defendants.
I just finished reading the scanned images of the findings. It is really quite interesting. Though I do have a strong bias, as I have copies of DeCSS, CSS-auth, and all the related material, I think that either the case presented by the EFF was not clear enough, or the judge did not take into account the claims of the defense. It can easily be said that the CSS code can not easily be changed in any means by DVD manufacturers or player manufacturers, but on the other hand, I would say that the information can no longer be considered a trade secret... common people, its on a T-shirt (which I'm wearing right now). On the findings that sites solely linked to sites containing what is temporarily found to be 'illegal' information can not be held liable, I am in strong agreement. As per previous slashdot topics, making linking illegal would bring about a complete downfall of many of the web's topics. Nearly every site links to or has a link from somewhere. Those are my non-legalistic views after reading the six pages. I hope the the EFF and defense prevail in the case, especially because it will be important in helping to set a precident in the other state cases and in the federal case. I believe the federal case involvoing the Digital Millenium laws are much stronger for the defense as it can be claimed that CSS-auth was designed to promote interopperability. Either way... good luck to all defense parties involved. A final word to the plaintiffs in this case. You are really fighting an uphill battle, be your case right or wrong. There are so many copies of the software you so strongly are trying to prevent distribution of that it will be impossible to squash them all. If you had simply not made a big deal out of it at the beginning, you would not be dealing with these same problems. ok, one more thing.. on piracy. CSS-auth is NOT designed to copy DVD's, it is only designed to access the files. Though it can be used to copy them, it is primarily being used to play them, ergo LiViD. If I sell someone a gun, I should not be responsible because they used it improperly. Also, piracy of DVD's is impractical. Their sheer size, as well as the cost of DVD-ROM and DVD blanks is so expensive, that it is still much less expensive to buy a DVD itself.
The CSS shirt is great. Mine came via UPS today, and I'm going to wear it around all next week. Frankly, I don't like DeCSS.... but I do like LiViD. I think it will be fairly difficult to prove interoperability on DeCSS, but quite simple on LiVid. In either case, I have copies of both, and of course, of the source files.
While the main article does do a good job of saying that we as D.net'ers have to re-do about 25% of the keyspace, it does not cover the ending editors comment as to why we reached 100%. The real reason that D.net reached 100% is that we re-test somewhere around 10% of the blocks. This can be found in one of the portions of This Document, dBaker's plan. I hope this clears up any confusion as the two topics are related, but not the same.
First of all, everything I ordered came on time. Here's what I have to say on the topic. Online stores are just like retail stores in that they have to get from suppliers and warehouses. If there's no more of an item in stock, there's no more of an item. Some stores are nice in that they tell you how much of each item they have in stock, but some don't do that. In some cases, WYSINWYG (note the "not" in there). I think for the increased online shopping, online stores are doing a very good job at keeping up. Here's my advice. If it's sold out at many local retailers, you can bet it may be sold out online. Especially popular video games. To the parent on the ABC news story who didn't get his game in time... live with it. The kid will play the game if he gets it on Christmas or the week after. Give it to the kid as a new years gift if you must.
Overall, I applaud the online retailers for saving me time and money. (I especially liked all those free shipping deals... a 40lb bag of dog food.. and you were willing to ship it to me for free. Wow!)
Hrm.. well, here's my take on it 1. The ground near the plant is already screwed for the next few hundred years.. why not just open the place back up 2. Russia needs money 3. Russia needs power 4. Nuclear power is cheap.. and it works (most of the time) 5. As long as the nuclear fallout from the next meltdown doesn't hit me, I don't care. 6. If the radiation from having monitors all around my head, evern while I sleep, doesn't kill me.. I don't think that I'm gonna notice the meltdown too much 7. Safety has increased over there.. especially since we'll most likely send at least one team over to help them with the whole project. 8. By taking the risk of killing the environment, they're saving many tons of harmful waste. 9. Ok, so I don't have a 9, but I really like making long lists.
I'd like to hear what some of the rest of you think.
The only reason this term was thrown around is cause in a test, the G4 exceeded the 'allowed exportable power' for IC's. Personally, that's not enough to make me switch to the Apple market. I'm happy with my slow, but configurable system.
Isn't it amazing what large amounts of people can do with left over computing cycles? Makes me proud to be part of a system that is running faster than the fastest supercomputer. And especially that its running faster than the US Government:)
I've looked at this list every month for a long while now... and I always wonder what the US Government is doing with those 'classified' computers. Anyone think that the NSA might have one at Bragg? or one of their many other spots? Anyone know the amount of processing power it takes to scan radio waves and other modes of transmission? Though there is the idea of "National Security", the cost of these things must be pretty darn big. I sure want to know where exactly my tax dollars are going.
That's my question too.... it's nice that the thing can translate, but can it keep up with the speed of people talking, and can it also translate more than just rote. I know from my experience with foreign languages that word order and sentance structure is best done sentance by sentance (if not paragraph by paragraph) rather than word by word. Places like Babelfish do a few phrases, but the user still has to fix a lot of things. Anyone have info on this?
As I said when I responded to my own article on Monday, I'm not in it for the money. If there was a huge user base that switched to another contest because it was much more interesting or provided better all-around fun, maybe I'd switch, but as it stands... d.net is organized, has been around for a while, their clients don't crash my computer (even with windows), and I like talkin to them. I'm not going to say "Join Distributed, we're the best group cracking" or anything like that. I won't push my view on others, but I will say that I have tried other groups (PIhex and SETI@home) and I was not happy with them.
From what I can remember, there was either something in one of the D.net head's.plan's or in a discussion in #distributed (efnet) about open source. The problem with sending fake keys back is one that was quickly resolved as good logs are kept of all keys going out and coming in. There was consideration of making the next generation of clients open source, I don't know where that went to. I'd agree that it'd be nice to see what the client is actually doing, but I was content just to watch my outgoing network traffic for a day or two. Also, why would a non-profit organization want to or need to collect info from people? Just a few thoughts to ponder
Kudos to you for starting your own project. Personally, I'm still quite happy with D.net even if some of the people get annoying at times. The D.net ops are easy to work with and very helpful. I'll stick with the project I know is working for the cause I support. D.net's been around for a while, and will continue to be around. Best of luck on your venture
I'd tend to agree with Moose here, I used to run the GUI's, then switched to the CLI's over the last couple of builds. Frankly, the old GUI and the new CLI are very similar. I think the only major graphical difference of any consequence is the log viewing, thats why the new CLI has a log viewer app. But again, if you don't want to use it cause it says CLI, then good luck with your SETI projects. Re's to Moose.
If you're in it cause theres a prize, you're prolly in it for the wrong reason. Do you think people who use D.net clients care that they may win some money? For the most part, I'd have to say no. They're in it because it allows them to give to a good cause without much hassle on their part. I could care less how much prize money was offered, I support D.net because unlike some causes, they do it because it needs to be done, and because its all around fun. Why don't you come into #distributed on EFnet sometime, see what the project is all about. No, I don't help run D.net, I'm just one of the many thousands of users, and I like to voice my opinion.
Yes, I sent the post in. I don't personally know anyone who works with Slashdot's page. I submitted it because I thought it was an interesting project and I wanted to make sure the readers of Slashdot knew what was goign on. You're free to send in posts, as far as I know, about generally anything. From what I've seen with Slashdot so far, they're fairly impartial as to which stuff they'll post. Don't make me out to be some sort of friend of the Slashdotters, I'm just a Distributed.net supporter and I want to express that
Read carefully about what happens to the money. It doesn't go into the D.net staff pockets, it goes into the D.net network, computers, etc etc. Dbaker and Nugget and all the people are not in it for the cash.
That doesn't mean D.net won't be working on other projects too, does it? In the clients, you can select which project you want to give priority to. For you stats freaks, you can stick with RC5. Me, I'll try CSC and OGR if it'll help the great guys at D.net make things go more smoothly.
If you have the new client, you must tell it to grab keys from the proxies listed at the beta page, otherwise it will only get RC5 blocks. I use beta.dcti.org:2064... but there are some other non port 2064 ones listed. Have fun and happy cracking.
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting that you bring up running the old muppet shows again. There is a channel called Odyssey co-owned by Hallmark and the Hensen family. It specializes in 'family' entertainment and has such shows as The Muppet Show and Alf. It also has some of the 1980's and 1970's family type films. Not my favorite channel by far, but it does have alf. That is one thing that I haven't seen in a while. thoughts?
From the horses mouth
-J. Marvin
The CAVE systems, as shown in the article have been around for a while. Iowa State university has one like it, as do other universities around the country. The ability to link them seems like it should also be a given. I'm really not seeing this as anything even CLOSE to being a holodeck. Until someone can make projections with the ability to be solid, or interact with their environment, I don't think its worthy of /.
From the horses mouth
NIVRAM
I am going to completely agree here with this whole t-shirt thing. I wore mine to classes today... and once last week. I swear, I should just make up a flier with all the information on it. It would make thing so much easier. Heck, when I got the shirt, I had to double-check what CCA was :)
From the horses mouth
NIVRAM
I'm assuming what happened was the following:
Judge hands out copies of report to each side. Defense takes their copy and faxes it back to everyone else (from Kinkos). Then that Kinkos copy is scanned and posted. Judges have to hand out signed copies of the findings to each party.
From the horses mouth
NIVRAM
The bond posted by the plaintiff is to cover any damages caused by the injunction to the defendants. Most likely, nothing will come of the money, but it is one of those little legal things they throw in there. Real had to do the same when StreamBox had their X-file get software which would allow people to save .rm streams. Essentially, if the defendants would stand to lose monitarily, the plaintiff is required to post a bond to cover that. The bond is paid out if the case is found in favor of the defendants.
from the horses mouth
NIVRAM
I just finished reading the scanned images of the findings. It is really quite interesting. Though I do have a strong bias, as I have copies of DeCSS, CSS-auth, and all the related material, I think that either the case presented by the EFF was not clear enough, or the judge did not take into account the claims of the defense.
It can easily be said that the CSS code can not easily be changed in any means by DVD manufacturers or player manufacturers, but on the other hand, I would say that the information can no longer be considered a trade secret... common people, its on a T-shirt (which I'm wearing right now).
On the findings that sites solely linked to sites containing what is temporarily found to be 'illegal' information can not be held liable, I am in strong agreement. As per previous slashdot topics, making linking illegal would bring about a complete downfall of many of the web's topics. Nearly every site links to or has a link from somewhere.
Those are my non-legalistic views after reading the six pages. I hope the the EFF and defense prevail in the case, especially because it will be important in helping to set a precident in the other state cases and in the federal case. I believe the federal case involvoing the Digital Millenium laws are much stronger for the defense as it can be claimed that CSS-auth was designed to promote interopperability. Either way... good luck to all defense parties involved.
A final word to the plaintiffs in this case. You are really fighting an uphill battle, be your case right or wrong. There are so many copies of the software you so strongly are trying to prevent distribution of that it will be impossible to squash them all. If you had simply not made a big deal out of it at the beginning, you would not be dealing with these same problems.
ok, one more thing.. on piracy. CSS-auth is NOT designed to copy DVD's, it is only designed to access the files. Though it can be used to copy them, it is primarily being used to play them, ergo LiViD. If I sell someone a gun, I should not be responsible because they used it improperly. Also, piracy of DVD's is impractical. Their sheer size, as well as the cost of DVD-ROM and DVD blanks is so expensive, that it is still much less expensive to buy a DVD itself.
From the horses mouth
NIVRAM
The CSS shirt is great. Mine came via UPS today, and I'm going to wear it around all next week. Frankly, I don't like DeCSS.... but I do like LiViD. I think it will be fairly difficult to prove interoperability on DeCSS, but quite simple on LiVid. In either case, I have copies of both, and of course, of the source files.
NIVRAM
While the main article does do a good job of saying that we as D.net'ers have to re-do about 25% of the keyspace, it does not cover the ending editors comment as to why we reached 100%. The real reason that D.net reached 100% is that we re-test somewhere around 10% of the blocks. This can be found in one of the portions of This Document, dBaker's plan. I hope this clears up any confusion as the two topics are related, but not the same.
J. Marvin
First of all, everything I ordered came on time.
Here's what I have to say on the topic. Online stores are just like retail stores in that they have to get from suppliers and warehouses. If there's no more of an item in stock, there's no more of an item. Some stores are nice in that they tell you how much of each item they have in stock, but some don't do that. In some cases, WYSINWYG (note the "not" in there). I think for the increased online shopping, online stores are doing a very good job at keeping up.
Here's my advice. If it's sold out at many local retailers, you can bet it may be sold out online. Especially popular video games. To the parent on the ABC news story who didn't get his game in time... live with it. The kid will play the game if he gets it on Christmas or the week after. Give it to the kid as a new years gift if you must.
Overall, I applaud the online retailers for saving me time and money. (I especially liked all those free shipping deals... a 40lb bag of dog food.. and you were willing to ship it to me for free. Wow!)
- J. Marvin
Hrm.. well, here's my take on it
1. The ground near the plant is already screwed for the next few hundred years.. why not just open the place back up
2. Russia needs money
3. Russia needs power
4. Nuclear power is cheap.. and it works (most of the time)
5. As long as the nuclear fallout from the next meltdown doesn't hit me, I don't care.
6. If the radiation from having monitors all around my head, evern while I sleep, doesn't kill me.. I don't think that I'm gonna notice the meltdown too much
7. Safety has increased over there.. especially since we'll most likely send at least one team over to help them with the whole project.
8. By taking the risk of killing the environment, they're saving many tons of harmful waste.
9. Ok, so I don't have a 9, but I really like making long lists.
I'd like to hear what some of the rest of you think.
-NIVRAM
The only reason this term was thrown around is cause in a test, the G4 exceeded the 'allowed exportable power' for IC's. Personally, that's not enough to make me switch to the Apple market. I'm happy with my slow, but configurable system.
NIVRAM
Isn't it amazing what large amounts of people can do with left over computing cycles? Makes me proud to be part of a system that is running faster than the fastest supercomputer. And especially that its running faster than the US Government :)
NIVRAM
I've looked at this list every month for a long while now... and I always wonder what the US Government is doing with those 'classified' computers. Anyone think that the NSA might have one at Bragg? or one of their many other spots? Anyone know the amount of processing power it takes to scan radio waves and other modes of transmission? Though there is the idea of "National Security", the cost of these things must be pretty darn big. I sure want to know where exactly my tax dollars are going.
NIVRAM
That's my question too.... it's nice that the thing can translate, but can it keep up with the speed of people talking, and can it also translate more than just rote. I know from my experience with foreign languages that word order and sentance structure is best done sentance by sentance (if not paragraph by paragraph) rather than word by word. Places like Babelfish do a few phrases, but the user still has to fix a lot of things. Anyone have info on this?
NIVRAM
As I said when I responded to my own article on Monday, I'm not in it for the money. If there was a huge user base that switched to another contest because it was much more interesting or provided better all-around fun, maybe I'd switch, but as it stands... d.net is organized, has been around for a while, their clients don't crash my computer (even with windows), and I like talkin to them.
I'm not going to say "Join Distributed, we're the best group cracking" or anything like that. I won't push my view on others, but I will say that I have tried other groups (PIhex and SETI@home) and I was not happy with them.
NIVRAM
From what I can remember, there was either something in one of the D.net head's .plan's or in a discussion in #distributed (efnet) about open source. The problem with sending fake keys back is one that was quickly resolved as good logs are kept of all keys going out and coming in. There was consideration of making the next generation of clients open source, I don't know where that went to.
I'd agree that it'd be nice to see what the client is actually doing, but I was content just to watch my outgoing network traffic for a day or two.
Also, why would a non-profit organization want to or need to collect info from people?
Just a few thoughts to ponder
NIVRAM
Kudos to you for starting your own project. Personally, I'm still quite happy with D.net even if some of the people get annoying at times. The D.net ops are easy to work with and very helpful. I'll stick with the project I know is working for the cause I support. D.net's been around for a while, and will continue to be around. Best of luck on your venture
NIVRAM
I'd tend to agree with Moose here, I used to run the GUI's, then switched to the CLI's over the last couple of builds. Frankly, the old GUI and the new CLI are very similar. I think the only major graphical difference of any consequence is the log viewing, thats why the new CLI has a log viewer app. But again, if you don't want to use it cause it says CLI, then good luck with your SETI projects. Re's to Moose.
NIVRAM
If you're in it cause theres a prize, you're prolly in it for the wrong reason. Do you think people who use D.net clients care that they may win some money? For the most part, I'd have to say no. They're in it because it allows them to give to a good cause without much hassle on their part. I could care less how much prize money was offered, I support D.net because unlike some causes, they do it because it needs to be done, and because its all around fun. Why don't you come into #distributed on EFnet sometime, see what the project is all about.
No, I don't help run D.net, I'm just one of the many thousands of users, and I like to voice my opinion.
NIVRAM
Yes, I sent the post in. I don't personally know anyone who works with Slashdot's page. I submitted it because I thought it was an interesting project and I wanted to make sure the readers of Slashdot knew what was goign on. You're free to send in posts, as far as I know, about generally anything. From what I've seen with Slashdot so far, they're fairly impartial as to which stuff they'll post. Don't make me out to be some sort of friend of the Slashdotters, I'm just a Distributed.net supporter and I want to express that
NIVRAM
Read carefully about what happens to the money. It doesn't go into the D.net staff pockets, it goes into the D.net network, computers, etc etc. Dbaker and Nugget and all the people are not in it for the cash.
That doesn't mean D.net won't be working on other projects too, does it? In the clients, you can select which project you want to give priority to. For you stats freaks, you can stick with RC5. Me, I'll try CSC and OGR if it'll help the great guys at D.net make things go more smoothly.
NIVRAM
If you have the new client, you must tell it to grab keys from the proxies listed at the beta page, otherwise it will only get RC5 blocks.
I use beta.dcti.org:2064... but there are some other non port 2064 ones listed.
Have fun and happy cracking.
NIVRAM
Clients are out for Win32, Mac, and a few other platforms.. the link to the page has the list.