They're more interested in proving the principle of the thing than protecting this particular film. If it gets ripped, Hollywood isn't going to be as upset as they would be if, say, Quantum of Solace were ripped.
Yes, I mentioned that as a possibility above, but I also said that Hollywood already knows the answer.
Agreed. There is no chance this DRM will work. My question is what are they afraid of? Ghostbusters has been on the pirate bay since at least 2005. I'm sure it was on Limewire and Kazaa before that. If they are testing to see if this DRM will work, they already know the answer. It works OK for the non-technical folk, and has no chance in hell for the people who would actually want to buy a movie on USB stick (if it didn't have DRM, at least). This just seems like one of the most useless ideas Hollywood has had.
Re:Non-Tech Percent of Web Traffic from Chrome
on
Google Chrome, Day 2
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Eventually, User Agent strings will be so convoluted that it will be impractically difficult to identify a browser by the User Agent string. Then webmasters won't bother with the discriminating code. And then browsers can have less convoluted User Agent strings. And then the cycle starts over.
Or maybe people will just stop writing the discrimination code on their own. It is certainly much less than it used to be. Custom solutions are less common than open source professional solutions.
There are cash registers that run Windows? I would have thought that people would be smarter than that. I guess not.
I was thinking the same thing. Except for the people smart part.
Most POS hardware I've seen run Windows. Before that it was OS/2 IIRC.
POS software and POS hardware go well together.
Where I used to work before I completed college, the registers ran windows but the backend server ran Unix. No idea why they didn't just do *nix all the way around
Some people think that Windows is better for desktops. Maybe the registers were on a desk?
You just pointed out one of the serious flaws with the DMCA, that any company, or any person, can file a barrage of illegitimate takedown notices with little or no consequence. Which still does not represent a flaw with Google, but rather with with the law.
Yes, but did he actually point the police to Nina's body? I know that summary says he did. And it points to another Slashdot summary that says he did (although that article was labeled with badtitle and badsummary.) I have been unable to find any credible stories that say that Hans Reiser knows where Nina is.
A while ago, Slashdot said that Hans was going to show the police where Nina was. However, this turned out to be libel. At that time, Hans had never said that he knew where Nina was, or that he would lead police to the body. Slashdot picked up an article that said that IF Hans showed the police where the body was, he might be able to get a reduced verdict.
So, has Nina actually been found? Citation badly needed.
It is unconstitutional to charge sales tax for goods that are sold in another state. What you are referring to is called a "use tax" which is a way that some states have gotten around that pesky constitution. Not all states with sales taxes have a use tax.
I think tandiond was implying that he would not have made the mistake of telling anyone what he had found, but would instead use the opportunity for personal gain.
And I am sure that he was joking. How could he have known that the article was referring to the same computer that he recently lost a bid on?
That's great and all if you are an internet mechanic. But what if you just want to drive the damn car? For those people, who are the majority, those messages don't mean squat.
We need to keep things simple for the washed masses who just want to surf the net. They need to be taught to not submit personal info, bank details, etc, to http or https sans signed cert. Teaching them that it is OK to submit forum and blog logins via https sans signed cert is a toss-up. They can submit personal details to sites with https plus signed cert. Of course, they would need to trust the site too, such as their bank, but that's a different subject of trust.
Unfortunately, that is not how it is currently. Currently, the washed masses are taught that it is OK to submit some personal info via http, it is never OK to even look at a site with https sans signed cert, and it is OK to submit personal info via https plus signed cert. The first two are backwards and twisted, and it needs to be fixed.
Windows PCs are sold with OEM copies of Windows, which are cheaper than retail upgrade disks. If Pystar won this suit, MS might just stop selling upgrade versions. Or not. They would still have their technical measures, and most people wouldn't know about this suit anyway. Apple might implement technical measures to prevent their upgrades from installing without a prior version.
I only played a few levels of Warcraft III, and don't really know the details of how heroes work. I've played a lot of Battle for Wesnoth, however, and don't really like how characters and gold follow you through the levels. I'm pretty good at Battle for Wesnoth, and can do the campaigns just fine, but I don't like to, for the reasons I mentioned above. It's more of a "piece of mind" thing.
Additionally, the only way that you can beat a game like that without having to redo levels is if the game is too easy in the first place. A challenging game, by definition, wouldn't have a lot of breathing room, so the "mistakes follow you around" gaming method would cause too many problems unless you kept your mistakes to the absolute minimum, which would entail playing levels multiple times.
The video looks great (the High Def one that AC linked for us). But I worry about what the content from TFS. The reason that Starcraft didn't give you tanks until a few levels in, was so you could learn just a few new things each level. The first 3 levels of every game as complicated as Starcraft should be learning. Even if you've played dozens of RTS before, including Starcraft, you're still going to have to learn the new units, upgrades, and controls.
It looks like Blizzard is going for the "RPG" element too, like Warcraft III and Battle for Wesnoth. I hope it isn't too bad. I really liked how I could beat a level of Starcraft, or Age of Empires, etc, and not worry about not being strong enough for the next level because I didn't beat the previous levels efficiently enough.
Honestly, your date of birth, age, address, full name is worth absolutely nothing to the average person.
Your full name, DOB, age, address, CC #, SS #, Mother's maiden name, stool, blood, and hair samples are all useless to the average person. Security is mostly about protecting yourself from abnormal people (thieves, murderers, rapists, and the like).
Steven Hawking was simply born as a fully formed genius,
--and I'm just annoyed by these people who think that his thinking everyday has helped him achieve anything... but bursting your bubble.:-)
I am sure that Steven Hawking, like the rest of us, gets smarter by thinking. But they do not get smarter by playing sudoku. Do you understand the difference?
Don't mod me down if you disagree. If you disagree, consider writing a retort instead.
You must be new here.
No, you must be new here. Referring to people modding you down by saying things such as "I have karma to burn" or "Mods, do your worst!" are sure-fire ways to get modded up. I don't know why it works, but it does.
On a barely related note, I never realized before that "you must be new here" meant "noob!".
Most sudoku puzzles can be solved via implication, however. There is no need to "try" anything. Certain configurations of values in some cells can imply values in other cells. As a very simple example, consider a row that has all cells filled but one. The value of that unfilled cell is implied and can be filled in without having to try any other values. This is a basic example, but clearly more complex ones exist. This is essentially how people solve the puzzles, and I believe it is what the grandparent was describing.
Actually, that is exactly the method I was referring to. You look at the first cell and say, "Can the value of this cell be implied by the values of the cells in the same row, column, and square?" If the answer is yes, then you write the value. If no, go onto the next square and ask the same question. Continue throughout all squares, and then start over. Eventually the puzzle is complete.
Most people do this, except out of order. They look at a random cell, and ask if the value can be implied, and fill it in if so. Going in random order doesn't help, it just makes them feel better, and less like they are brute forcing. And of course, every time you fill in a value, you then check every cell in the same row as that one, and column, and square. Then you go back to your primary brute force method.
I prefer puzzles that actually make you think. Ones that always have a solution, but you actually have to come up with a unique method for solving it. Like that thing with the horseshoes, the chains, and the ring. I suppose my first few sudoku puzzles were like that too. Before I knew how to figure them all out, I had to actually figure out how to figure them out. But continuing to do sudoku puzzles would be like doing a bigger version of that thing with the horseshoe and ring. I've already done that, I'm moving on.
Of course, sudoku puzzles have their place. They are very popular, and help people to relax. Of course, popular always means, "doesn't make you think." But bonus points for making people think they are thinking. I guess I'm just annoyed by these people who think that they are thinking, and am trying to burst their bubble.
are fairly boring when compared to clever logic with elegant methods, that can solve sudokus in a fraction of time.
Sudoku doesn't have clever logic and elegant methods. There is only one method for solving sudoku puzzles, and it strongly resembles a computer doing brute force.
Don't mod me down if you disagree. If you disagree, consider writing a retort instead.
Shut up Microsoft fanboy. Go back to your blue screens and buggy, proprietary software. I'll take something that is light, fast and free over a bloated sloth any day.
Honest people are the easiest to scam. People tend to project their attributes onto others, and honest people tend to be more trusting than the rest of us. Although an honest person would certainly not fall for this scam.
Scamming honest people makes for poor movies. Their is only one double-cross, and no twists. It's too easy.
If you assume these observations are correct, then you must be a Slashdot lawyer.
I didn't assume any observations were correct. I merely pointed out that there was some ambiguity in TFA (which means the fucking article) and that you have to make some assumptions in order to come up with a whole story. There are at least two possibilities that I could think of, the more likely being that the customs agent didn't see anything that involved children.
Instead of assuming something, why don't you see what the legal definition of "depicting" is.
Because the context was a CNET article, not a legal text.
Why don't you look at the transcript of the actual testimony, instead of paraphrasing a Slashdot blurb, and declaring this guy innocent?
I didn't look at the transcript of the actual testimony because I'm not that interested. I didn't paraphrase a Slashdot blurb, I quoted a section of a CNET article. I never declared the guy innocent, I just said that judging by the article there didn't seem to be any witnesses of any wrongdoing.
I understand that you are convinced this guy is guilty; it looks like he is. But it is important to keep an open mind when participating in discussions. It is a common problem for a person to read what they fear to believe, rather than what the words in front of them say.
The way I see it, having multiple clipboards, and multiple ways to write to and from the clipboard, are separate issues. I can see the reason behind multiple access points to the clipboard, but having multiple, unrelated clipboards is somewhat of an annoyance.
And there is another issue. Try opening an editor, or browser. Write some text, and copy that text to the clipboard. Now exit the editor. Your data in the clipboard is lost. This has tripped me up many times, and I would really like to fix it. It doesn't have to be that way, too. I can copy stuff with xclip, which exits immediately, but that info remains in the clipboard.
So, basically, writing to your hard drive is twice as hard as it is on a normal computer? And you call that a feature that should be installed by default?
Your original problem is that have programs installed that do stuff to your computer that you don't want. And your solution is an extra layer that those programs are not designed to penetrate. There are two problems with having such software installed by default: a) it would be twice as hard to do stuff. I'm sure you realize this, and have already gotten used to it, and accept it. b) if this software became popular, then any malicious, or just poorly behaved software that does stuff you don't want, such as write to the hard disk, will write to the hard disk as normal, and then penetrate your extra layer of obscurity to actually write to the hard disk. Programmers would be somewhat inconvenienced, and would have to use special libraries for writing to the hard disk, and users would be annoyed.
This EWF software you speak of is for a niche market, and would fail for everybody if it became popular. It's sort of how Linux doesn't have many viruses. Except Linux not having viruses is a side effect, and there are plenty of other reasons to use Linux if it became popular and malware authors decided to target it, whereas your software would fail if it became popular, and malware authors targetted it.
It's kind of like how the Windows outgoing firewall is useless. Every piece of malware knows to put themselves on that whitelist. Whereas if you use a software firewall that is not installed by default, then chances are good that the malware author didn't spend time on bypassing that one.
Slashdot Mirror
They're more interested in proving the principle of the thing than protecting this particular film. If it gets ripped, Hollywood isn't going to be as upset as they would be if, say, Quantum of Solace were ripped.
Yes, I mentioned that as a possibility above, but I also said that Hollywood already knows the answer.
If it doesn't get ripped...
And that isn't the answer.
Agreed. There is no chance this DRM will work. My question is what are they afraid of? Ghostbusters has been on the pirate bay since at least 2005. I'm sure it was on Limewire and Kazaa before that. If they are testing to see if this DRM will work, they already know the answer. It works OK for the non-technical folk, and has no chance in hell for the people who would actually want to buy a movie on USB stick (if it didn't have DRM, at least). This just seems like one of the most useless ideas Hollywood has had.
Eventually, User Agent strings will be so convoluted that it will be impractically difficult to identify a browser by the User Agent string. Then webmasters won't bother with the discriminating code. And then browsers can have less convoluted User Agent strings. And then the cycle starts over.
Or maybe people will just stop writing the discrimination code on their own. It is certainly much less than it used to be. Custom solutions are less common than open source professional solutions.
There are cash registers that run Windows? I would have thought that people would be smarter than that. I guess not.
I was thinking the same thing. Except for the people smart part.
Most POS hardware I've seen run Windows. Before that it was OS/2 IIRC.
POS software and POS hardware go well together.
Where I used to work before I completed college, the registers ran windows but the backend server ran Unix. No idea why they didn't just do *nix all the way around
Some people think that Windows is better for desktops. Maybe the registers were on a desk?
You just pointed out one of the serious flaws with the DMCA, that any company, or any person, can file a barrage of illegitimate takedown notices with little or no consequence. Which still does not represent a flaw with Google, but rather with with the law.
Yes, but did he actually point the police to Nina's body? I know that summary says he did. And it points to another Slashdot summary that says he did (although that article was labeled with badtitle and badsummary.) I have been unable to find any credible stories that say that Hans Reiser knows where Nina is.
A while ago, Slashdot said that Hans was going to show the police where Nina was. However, this turned out to be libel. At that time, Hans had never said that he knew where Nina was, or that he would lead police to the body. Slashdot picked up an article that said that IF Hans showed the police where the body was, he might be able to get a reduced verdict.
So, has Nina actually been found? Citation badly needed.
The number might have been too long. But they could have put the prime factorization in the summary.
It is unconstitutional to charge sales tax for goods that are sold in another state. What you are referring to is called a "use tax" which is a way that some states have gotten around that pesky constitution. Not all states with sales taxes have a use tax.
I think tandiond was implying that he would not have made the mistake of telling anyone what he had found, but would instead use the opportunity for personal gain.
And I am sure that he was joking. How could he have known that the article was referring to the same computer that he recently lost a bid on?
That's great and all if you are an internet mechanic. But what if you just want to drive the damn car? For those people, who are the majority, those messages don't mean squat.
We need to keep things simple for the washed masses who just want to surf the net. They need to be taught to not submit personal info, bank details, etc, to http or https sans signed cert. Teaching them that it is OK to submit forum and blog logins via https sans signed cert is a toss-up. They can submit personal details to sites with https plus signed cert. Of course, they would need to trust the site too, such as their bank, but that's a different subject of trust.
Unfortunately, that is not how it is currently. Currently, the washed masses are taught that it is OK to submit some personal info via http, it is never OK to even look at a site with https sans signed cert, and it is OK to submit personal info via https plus signed cert. The first two are backwards and twisted, and it needs to be fixed.
Windows PCs are sold with OEM copies of Windows, which are cheaper than retail upgrade disks. If Pystar won this suit, MS might just stop selling upgrade versions. Or not. They would still have their technical measures, and most people wouldn't know about this suit anyway. Apple might implement technical measures to prevent their upgrades from installing without a prior version.
I only played a few levels of Warcraft III, and don't really know the details of how heroes work. I've played a lot of Battle for Wesnoth, however, and don't really like how characters and gold follow you through the levels. I'm pretty good at Battle for Wesnoth, and can do the campaigns just fine, but I don't like to, for the reasons I mentioned above. It's more of a "piece of mind" thing.
Additionally, the only way that you can beat a game like that without having to redo levels is if the game is too easy in the first place. A challenging game, by definition, wouldn't have a lot of breathing room, so the "mistakes follow you around" gaming method would cause too many problems unless you kept your mistakes to the absolute minimum, which would entail playing levels multiple times.
Because the kids that aren't raised properly are the kids that grow up to teenagers who would knife you in the chest for $5.
I never realized that hitmen were so cheap! I'm going to look into an alternative solution to solving my problems.
The video looks great (the High Def one that AC linked for us). But I worry about what the content from TFS. The reason that Starcraft didn't give you tanks until a few levels in, was so you could learn just a few new things each level. The first 3 levels of every game as complicated as Starcraft should be learning. Even if you've played dozens of RTS before, including Starcraft, you're still going to have to learn the new units, upgrades, and controls.
It looks like Blizzard is going for the "RPG" element too, like Warcraft III and Battle for Wesnoth. I hope it isn't too bad. I really liked how I could beat a level of Starcraft, or Age of Empires, etc, and not worry about not being strong enough for the next level because I didn't beat the previous levels efficiently enough.
Honestly, your date of birth, age, address, full name is worth absolutely nothing to the average person.
Your full name, DOB, age, address, CC #, SS #, Mother's maiden name, stool, blood, and hair samples are all useless to the average person. Security is mostly about protecting yourself from abnormal people (thieves, murderers, rapists, and the like).
Statements and expressions are requirements in most programmings languages.
Steven Hawking was simply born as a fully formed genius, --and I'm just annoyed by these people who think that his thinking everyday has helped him achieve anything... but bursting your bubble. :-)
I am sure that Steven Hawking, like the rest of us, gets smarter by thinking. But they do not get smarter by playing sudoku. Do you understand the difference?
Don't mod me down if you disagree. If you disagree, consider writing a retort instead.
You must be new here.
No, you must be new here. Referring to people modding you down by saying things such as "I have karma to burn" or "Mods, do your worst!" are sure-fire ways to get modded up. I don't know why it works, but it does.
On a barely related note, I never realized before that "you must be new here" meant "noob!".
Most sudoku puzzles can be solved via implication, however. There is no need to "try" anything. Certain configurations of values in some cells can imply values in other cells. As a very simple example, consider a row that has all cells filled but one. The value of that unfilled cell is implied and can be filled in without having to try any other values. This is a basic example, but clearly more complex ones exist. This is essentially how people solve the puzzles, and I believe it is what the grandparent was describing.
Actually, that is exactly the method I was referring to. You look at the first cell and say, "Can the value of this cell be implied by the values of the cells in the same row, column, and square?" If the answer is yes, then you write the value. If no, go onto the next square and ask the same question. Continue throughout all squares, and then start over. Eventually the puzzle is complete.
Most people do this, except out of order. They look at a random cell, and ask if the value can be implied, and fill it in if so. Going in random order doesn't help, it just makes them feel better, and less like they are brute forcing. And of course, every time you fill in a value, you then check every cell in the same row as that one, and column, and square. Then you go back to your primary brute force method.
I prefer puzzles that actually make you think. Ones that always have a solution, but you actually have to come up with a unique method for solving it. Like that thing with the horseshoes, the chains, and the ring. I suppose my first few sudoku puzzles were like that too. Before I knew how to figure them all out, I had to actually figure out how to figure them out. But continuing to do sudoku puzzles would be like doing a bigger version of that thing with the horseshoe and ring. I've already done that, I'm moving on.
Of course, sudoku puzzles have their place. They are very popular, and help people to relax. Of course, popular always means, "doesn't make you think." But bonus points for making people think they are thinking. I guess I'm just annoyed by these people who think that they are thinking, and am trying to burst their bubble.
are fairly boring when compared to clever logic with elegant methods, that can solve sudokus in a fraction of time.
Sudoku doesn't have clever logic and elegant methods. There is only one method for solving sudoku puzzles, and it strongly resembles a computer doing brute force.
Don't mod me down if you disagree. If you disagree, consider writing a retort instead.
Shut up Microsoft fanboy. Go back to your blue screens and buggy, proprietary software. I'll take something that is light, fast and free over a bloated sloth any day.
Does that answer your question?
Honest people are the easiest to scam. People tend to project their attributes onto others, and honest people tend to be more trusting than the rest of us. Although an honest person would certainly not fall for this scam.
Scamming honest people makes for poor movies. Their is only one double-cross, and no twists. It's too easy.
Oh boy. Here we go.
If you assume these observations are correct, then you must be a Slashdot lawyer.
I didn't assume any observations were correct. I merely pointed out that there was some ambiguity in TFA (which means the fucking article) and that you have to make some assumptions in order to come up with a whole story. There are at least two possibilities that I could think of, the more likely being that the customs agent didn't see anything that involved children.
Instead of assuming something, why don't you see what the legal definition of "depicting" is.
Because the context was a CNET article, not a legal text.
Why don't you look at the transcript of the actual testimony, instead of paraphrasing a Slashdot blurb, and declaring this guy innocent?
I didn't look at the transcript of the actual testimony because I'm not that interested. I didn't paraphrase a Slashdot blurb, I quoted a section of a CNET article. I never declared the guy innocent, I just said that judging by the article there didn't seem to be any witnesses of any wrongdoing.
I understand that you are convinced this guy is guilty; it looks like he is. But it is important to keep an open mind when participating in discussions. It is a common problem for a person to read what they fear to believe, rather than what the words in front of them say.
The way I see it, having multiple clipboards, and multiple ways to write to and from the clipboard, are separate issues. I can see the reason behind multiple access points to the clipboard, but having multiple, unrelated clipboards is somewhat of an annoyance.
And there is another issue. Try opening an editor, or browser. Write some text, and copy that text to the clipboard. Now exit the editor. Your data in the clipboard is lost. This has tripped me up many times, and I would really like to fix it. It doesn't have to be that way, too. I can copy stuff with xclip, which exits immediately, but that info remains in the clipboard.
So, basically, writing to your hard drive is twice as hard as it is on a normal computer? And you call that a feature that should be installed by default?
Your original problem is that have programs installed that do stuff to your computer that you don't want. And your solution is an extra layer that those programs are not designed to penetrate. There are two problems with having such software installed by default:
a) it would be twice as hard to do stuff. I'm sure you realize this, and have already gotten used to it, and accept it.
b) if this software became popular, then any malicious, or just poorly behaved software that does stuff you don't want, such as write to the hard disk, will write to the hard disk as normal, and then penetrate your extra layer of obscurity to actually write to the hard disk. Programmers would be somewhat inconvenienced, and would have to use special libraries for writing to the hard disk, and users would be annoyed.
This EWF software you speak of is for a niche market, and would fail for everybody if it became popular. It's sort of how Linux doesn't have many viruses. Except Linux not having viruses is a side effect, and there are plenty of other reasons to use Linux if it became popular and malware authors decided to target it, whereas your software would fail if it became popular, and malware authors targetted it.
It's kind of like how the Windows outgoing firewall is useless. Every piece of malware knows to put themselves on that whitelist. Whereas if you use a software firewall that is not installed by default, then chances are good that the malware author didn't spend time on bypassing that one.