Sure, for a little while the DVDs will still be on the shelf at WalMart and available for rental at Blockbuster. But why? If everyone has a high-bandwidth Internet connection and knows the materials are available for downloading without paying, why would anyone in their right mind still go to the store and pay?
Oh, it is because they want the nifty DVD case and the FBI warnings that come on that version of the disc? I doubt it. They want the comments from the director stepping all over the dialog of the movie? How about they want the satisfaction of knowing they paid rather than just taking? No, I don't see any of these as a compelling argument in the future. I see everyone downloading after one or two people acquire the song, movie, book or software. And downloading without any guilt because they have been doing it since childhood. Their parents (perhaps dead parents) might have felt some guilt but that has been erased from the mindset of the next generation.
It has to do with ownership which is still an American mindset. I want to own that DVD not just watch a file. I can get those extra features through downloads too, but if it's a good movie I buy it. Same thing with games, CDs whatever. I will download it in a minute, if it's good I buy it simply because I believe the creators deserve support for releasing a quality product. That said, I still will not refer to piracy or illegal downloads of digital media as theft.
I'm betting the last sale is somewhere around 2015. And after that, it will be quite different. Everything from around 1970 on forward will be freely available for downloading. Of course all the new stuff will look quite different - there won't be any big money behind new releases. There will be new releases, just the same. They will be from people that are doing it for love or for ego. And my guess is the folks doing it for ego will outnumber the ones doing it for love by 10 to 1.
I highly doubt that. DVDs have been around for 10 years+ and the ability to copy and/or download them has been present for a good portion of that time, yet DVD sales/rentals continue to grow year after year. The studios are rushing the movies to DVD faster and faster because it is becoming a larger portion of their profit. I highly doubt that just because you can download it means you won't even bother to buy or rent it if you really like it. The entertainment industry needs to look at this as just another avenue to promote their products. If they are good products sales will come, if not....well they are not entitled to sales solely because they produced it.
Semantics? Here's a clue. Words mean things, they have definitions. Theft has an exact meaning and copyright infringement does not meet that definition.
Yes, under the law it is technically copyright infringement but do you seriously think that what is being "stolen" is the digital copy? The whole reason copyright exists is to protect the work of people whose products at the end of their work is easily reproduced.
It is not "technically" copyright infringement that is what the definition of the offense is. You are the one playing semantics with the definition. Nothing is being stolen since the owner still has the original product and is free to sell it over and over and over again. My downloading it or not downloading it does not make a damn bit of difference in the owner's ability to continue to sell his product if it truly is of value. He still has the original. No one has taken it which is what "theft" truly is.
If you really do believe that line of crap slashdot propaganda you regurgitated, I hope that you spend tons of time/money on a project that you hope will financially benefit you and then someone takes your work and gives it to everyone for free. Semantics won't do you so well at that point.
Since I would have lost nothing and would still be able to sell it over and over again nothing would have been stolen from me.
You obviously did not even bother to read that I DISAGREE with illegal downloading but I will NOT classify it as theft since that is NOT what it is.
PS: No, all these movies don't make millions in profit. It is a risky business with very high up front costs.
So everyone that works on the movie only gets paid if it returns a profit? The ONLY one possibly injured by illegal downloads (and that's if there is actually ANY injury at all) is the studio. The writers, directors, actors etc have already been paid (although some elect for a % of the profits, but that is declining) and believe me no one is downloading movies that don't make a profit since no one cares about those. The blockbusters that are raking in millions are the most popular and you can't make the argument that they are losing ANYTHING to illegal downloads. They are packing the theaters and will rent them non-stop for months before releasing to cable on pay-per-view and eventually to regular cable and TV all the while selling them in every store that will carry them. They will milk it for all it's worth.
It's not theft then, now or ever. It is still wrong, but copyright infringement is not theft.
And whenever someone uses this stupid statement I always like to point out that if this was truly the case, why do the geeks get mad when someone takes the code to Linux and uses it in an appliance without posting modified source? Can't have it both ways.. sorry.
And we don't call it theft now do we? Copyright Infringement != theft. You want to label illegal downloading Copyright Infringement, do so. Don't call it theft.
In both the case of the car being stolen and the 100 million dollar movie being pirated what is REALLY being stolen is the time and money of the people who made them/owned them. You don't get a free pass just because you can easily make a copy.
Really? I notice all those DVDs of the movie I just downloaded still being sold at WalMart, so exactly whose time did I steal if the product is being sold everywhere? I also notice the back wall of Blockbuster filled with that same movie and being rented repeatedly. Again, whose time is being stolen? A downloaded movie != a lost sale and may, in fact, result in more sales of not only the movie in question but associated merchandise. Point is, no one knows and no one can claim to know what, if any, impact downloads have.
How about this scenario. Instead of going to the theater or downloading or renting I just wait for it to come on cable for free. I pay nothing extra for it since I pay for cable every month, yet the end result is the same. I did not buy the CD, rent it or download it yet the effect is the same so I have stolen those people's time? Yes, I am well aware that the cable company pays the studios, but I paid the same amount as if I downloaded it. You cannot claim that one behavior steals time and the other does not.
Does it make downloading right? No, but please spare me the theft argument. No one is being deprived of anything or has had anything, including time, stolen. These movies make millions in profit so all the associated people that worked on it were more than adequately compensated for their time. It still makes it wrong, IMO, but don't try to compare it with theft.
I read their response and think it is a very large piece of spin and not even good spin at that. They are addressing only the copying in to RAM, in that particular response, of the software even though said copying is required for the software to work as documented by their own manuals. It is not relevant that their servers are ONE way to utilize their game after purchase. There is no requirement that an account be created, nor monthly fee paid, in order to buy and keep the software. IF there was a provision that I delete my copy of the software at the termination of a trial period or termination of my subscription I would tend to agree that is more along the lines of a true license. That is not the case here.
In fact, if I wanted to I could purchase the game and do absolutely nothing with it. Why should they care at that point if I were to purchase this glider program as well? They are trying to claim that just because this software *can* interact with theirs they have a right to kill it or control it. Sorry, that sets precedent too scary to think about.
This software is hardly ruining an online community. Blizzard has every right to ban users caught utilizing this software but they have NO right to state that users and/or this company cannot possess or create this software at all. This software does not allow hacking or exploiting nor does it interfere or alter their code, but does facilitate botting. As long a that remains true, Blizzard can go fsck themselves and come up with better detection methods to ban users using it.
The chilling effect is that this sets precedent that any software company can attack another if their product interacts with theirs in any way whatsoever that they do not approve of. Yes, that is a slightly different scenario than what this is about today but that is why they call it "that slippery slope". Unintended results from a litigation that affects far more segments of an industry than what the initial litigation was about. A possible result would be that no software would be allowed to interact with any other software, even in memory, for fear of lawsuits. I would hate to think what Microsoft could do with a precedent like this.
We were getting them 3 times a day to the phone in our conference room at the Corporate Headquarters.
I thought that was rather funny and then I took a Cisco training class at the Cisco office and their phone in the training room got the same call 3 times in 4 days.
The entire class was pretty much laughing their collective asses off when the instructor put it on speaker to answer it the first time.
Sorry, but that isn't how it works. Part of my job was plotting the dispersion of radiation. Unless you have some strong winds the radiation is going to pretty much stay in the area of the blast which varies based on yield, and we are talking about very small nuke devices. The whole argument was that these small devices could take out a small city. Sorry, but that just is not possible. Even irradiating the city with a small device will be confined to a small area and the radiation levels will be such that you will be able to traverse the area fairly safely within hours or days. That is not to say that the area will not retain some latent radiation, but these devices just don't put out that amount of gamma to cause a lasting effect outside of the initial blast area.
The only way you get the type of radiation dispersion you are talking about is with a higher yield weapon and an air burst so that the radiation has the best possible dispersion and can take advantage of prevailing winds. A 2kt weapon would do considerable damage to a city center (as an example), but would come nowhere near either destroying it or making it uninhabitable. A conventional bomb would be better and the problems with actually getting it to detonate are not even an issue as they are with nukes.
...and if you notice almost all of the developments resulted in extremely small yields either by design or limitations of the delivery system. Most were a tenth of the yield of the bombs dropped on Japan. A small number were larger but most were 2kt or smaller. Many were in the >1kt range, meaning lots of terror, not too much for damage. Doubtful you could take out even a small city with it but could cause severe damage in a few city blocks and the terror factor would be a definite factor.
I was in Artillery in the Marines and was trained as a Nuke Tech. Our largest yield (circa 80-86, 155mm) was 2kt. It was designed for area denial. Not a lot of damage, but a lot of irradiation. The main reason they don't go higher is because you can't get the round far enough downrange to not get hit yourself with the blast or the radiation. They keep them small so that when you fire that thing 10-15 miles downrange there is little chance of the blast or the fallout/radiation coming back to hit you and your allies.
Yes, that one picture shows a small warhead, with a yield of 72tons and weight of 58kg. Hardly a city destroying capable device. The larger devices capable of destroying a small city were on the order of 4ft+ and 800+ lbs. Even the 2kt one I worked with was too large to realistically be man-portable.
Can you get a nuke into a backpack? Probably, but don't fool yourself that you will be able to destroy any cities with it and it is still going to be extremely heavy. You will be able to do something similar to 9/11 with such a device and cause a lot of terror, which might be the whole point. Of course, a dirty bomb might have the same effect and you need far less tech to actually get it to detonate.
Sorry, but in the US, just having the PARTS without a license to convert any firearm to a full-auto is a felony. It is most certainly NOT legal to do that one.
There, fixed it for you. Possession is not illegal, possession without the proper license is. Possession of a FFL along with the proper license can legally possess both semi and fully automatic weapons and their parts. They can even possess and purchase suppressors if they so choose. These items are heavily regulated and monitored, but are not banned or illegal.
As for your anecdotal case. Unless you know the specifics I would hazard a guess that either the jury didn't believe his story or the judge didn't or both. Just because he claims that it went full auto due to normal wear doesn't make it true.
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!
My large intestine attempted to throttle my brain at this point...
"You can not hang up on the customer. They must hang up."
Ok, this just struck me as funny since my favorite thing to do with telemarketers is to get them talking and then quietly set the phone down and walk away. It doesn't cost me a dime, I have a cell phone for people that need to contact me and I know it hurts them way worse than simply hanging up. It wastes their time and forces them to either wait or hang up eventually. Of course if I was as quick witted as Tom Mabe http://www.tommabe.com/, I would have better and funnier ways of dealing with them.
Exactly how am I trespassing, standing on a public street looking into the exhibit that they failed to block?
Sorry, public urls are..well...public. If they do not want people accessing them they restrict them by placing login requirements. Similarly the zoo makes sure the exhibit is not viewable from the street and forces patrons to go through the entrance and pay the admission to view the exhibit.
Exactly how is it taking advantage when a corporation places in the public domain a resource without any security whatsoever. This is no different then charging admission to an art show then leaving the windows open to the street and then complaining that a newspaper publishes the fact that all the art can be seen from the street through the window. Is it then immoral to stand outside and look at the art?
A url is no different than placing something in the middle of the public square for all to see. This was akin to placing their wares in a back alley, because not many people go there but that is still out in public. If you want to restrict access to something on the internet SECURE IT! Anything that is not restricted is in the public domain by definition. You could probably access this site completely by accident as a result of a search and you would know it is supposed to be pay only how? They have only themselves to blame that this url is not secured.
Here is about the best metaphor I can come up with.
You go to visit your local zoo because they have a rare tasmanian devil on display. Entrance fee is $5. You notice on arriving that the back of the cage for this animal is clearly open to the street at the rear of the zoo. Instead of paying your admission you walk around back and look at the rare animal without paying, from the street. The zoo then has you arrested for theft.
No, It is not the same thing and there is nothing wrong with entering said gym and exercising without paying for it if the employees ALLOW you to do so. That is the equivalent here. They are allowing this access not the site owner exposing their non-existent security. They are allowing anyone that attempts to access this url open and free access with no restrictions. There is no DRM, there is no logon requirement, nothing. This is the same as putting the wares for your store in the middle of the street and then complaining when people take them without paying.
They can ask him to take down the url all they like, but If I was the site owner I would tell them to go fsck themselves and go secure their site. IF this was a hack of their security that was being exploited, that would be another matter but it is not. Advertising that their IT staff are idiots is not wrong and as long as they do nothing to prevent access to this URL by unpaid customers they are tacitly allowing such access.
I have never had an issue with preloaded machines from Dell. I have been buying their systems for over 10 years both professionally and personally. This is the first time a pre-loaded OS ran like crap out of the box. There was no other 'crapware' on the system, I checked and uninstalled anything that might have been an issue. I even reinstalled the entire thing without the pre-loaded apps so the only thing running was Vista and it still ran like crap until I disabled UAC, turned off Aero and set the system to performance with Windows Classic GUI.
Vista is a bloated, overpriced piece of garbage. It offers absolutely nothing over XP and does not perform as advertised even on a high end dual core system with 4gb of ram installed. BTW, Dell replaced the entire system thinking it was a hardware issue and the 2d system ran the exact same way. It wasn't until I disabled the bulk of the bloat that the system became usable.
I was making this same argument yesterday with one of the MS employees that post here. They were trying to make the argument that Apple (I switched my entire house to Macs) charges you for frequent upgrades while MS supports their versions for 7 years.
Here is the problem with that TCO argument. Vista doesn't work. Regardless of whether or not Vista is better than OSX at the core level the point remains that Vista does not run as advertised on high-end systems let alone legacy ones. I bought an XPS that came pre-loaded with Vista and it ran horribly. I ended up reconfiguring it to strip off all the crap and it now runs fine but I shouldn't have to do that with a brand new purchase!
The second thing is that MS is still releasing new OS versions every couple years, the OEMs stop selling the previous versions and new software that is released now requires the new OS only. The new OS doesn't run on old hardware so I have to buy a new PC just to upgrade and when I upgrade it still doesn't work? wtf?!
Is it any surprise to anyone that Apple's, Ubuntu and others' market share is increasing? MS is trying to recover from an OS that was released well before it was ready. I won't even go into the Vista versioning as that is a whole other can of worms.
To maintain security support of the OS, I had to buy a new version of OS X every other release (My system came with OS X 10.1).
And exactly how is this different to the path MS is taking? Pot meet kettle.
As for hardware issues, that is really not relevant to the OS now is it? I have had similar problems with HP and Dell systems and I don't blame MS for that. It is just that in this instance the hardware manufacturer is also the OS vendor and this was specifically about the OS not the hardware platform.
I have had MS products since DOS 5 and Win 3.1. I support in excess of 200 servers at work with about 50% of those Windows servers. For corporate users your statement of cost of ownership is correct (for now), but for home users and this version of OS I will beg to differ. When the OS becomes unusable in its shipped state it is no longer worth the investment. When I have to spend hours reconfiguring an OS that should have been operating adequately from the initial boot, the cost is in my personal time lost and the perception is that this is only the beginning of the problems. I spend enough time at work dealing with misconfigured and broken OS's I do NOT want to have to deal with that at home.
I have long been an advocate of MS products up until this software cycle but Vista is an overpriced, worthless OS upgrade that does not perform as advertised. MS has permanently lost a home user while I will still support MS Server products at work. However, this experience will make me look closer at corporate software upgrades from MS in the future very closely.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, so you saw this too?
It has to do with ownership which is still an American mindset. I want to own that DVD not just watch a file. I can get those extra features through downloads too, but if it's a good movie I buy it. Same thing with games, CDs whatever. I will download it in a minute, if it's good I buy it simply because I believe the creators deserve support for releasing a quality product. That said, I still will not refer to piracy or illegal downloads of digital media as theft.
I highly doubt that. DVDs have been around for 10 years+ and the ability to copy and/or download them has been present for a good portion of that time, yet DVD sales/rentals continue to grow year after year. The studios are rushing the movies to DVD faster and faster because it is becoming a larger portion of their profit. I highly doubt that just because you can download it means you won't even bother to buy or rent it if you really like it. The entertainment industry needs to look at this as just another avenue to promote their products. If they are good products sales will come, if not....well they are not entitled to sales solely because they produced it.
It is not "technically" copyright infringement that is what the definition of the offense is. You are the one playing semantics with the definition. Nothing is being stolen since the owner still has the original product and is free to sell it over and over and over again. My downloading it or not downloading it does not make a damn bit of difference in the owner's ability to continue to sell his product if it truly is of value. He still has the original. No one has taken it which is what "theft" truly is.
Since I would have lost nothing and would still be able to sell it over and over again nothing would have been stolen from me. You obviously did not even bother to read that I DISAGREE with illegal downloading but I will NOT classify it as theft since that is NOT what it is.
So everyone that works on the movie only gets paid if it returns a profit? The ONLY one possibly injured by illegal downloads (and that's if there is actually ANY injury at all) is the studio. The writers, directors, actors etc have already been paid (although some elect for a % of the profits, but that is declining) and believe me no one is downloading movies that don't make a profit since no one cares about those. The blockbusters that are raking in millions are the most popular and you can't make the argument that they are losing ANYTHING to illegal downloads. They are packing the theaters and will rent them non-stop for months before releasing to cable on pay-per-view and eventually to regular cable and TV all the while selling them in every store that will carry them. They will milk it for all it's worth.
It's not theft then, now or ever. It is still wrong, but copyright infringement is not theft.
And we don't call it theft now do we? Copyright Infringement != theft. You want to label illegal downloading Copyright Infringement, do so. Don't call it theft.
Really? I notice all those DVDs of the movie I just downloaded still being sold at WalMart, so exactly whose time did I steal if the product is being sold everywhere? I also notice the back wall of Blockbuster filled with that same movie and being rented repeatedly. Again, whose time is being stolen? A downloaded movie != a lost sale and may, in fact, result in more sales of not only the movie in question but associated merchandise. Point is, no one knows and no one can claim to know what, if any, impact downloads have.
How about this scenario. Instead of going to the theater or downloading or renting I just wait for it to come on cable for free. I pay nothing extra for it since I pay for cable every month, yet the end result is the same. I did not buy the CD, rent it or download it yet the effect is the same so I have stolen those people's time? Yes, I am well aware that the cable company pays the studios, but I paid the same amount as if I downloaded it. You cannot claim that one behavior steals time and the other does not.
Does it make downloading right? No, but please spare me the theft argument. No one is being deprived of anything or has had anything, including time, stolen. These movies make millions in profit so all the associated people that worked on it were more than adequately compensated for their time. It still makes it wrong, IMO, but don't try to compare it with theft.
I thought all computers came with a cup holder. I know mine keeps retracting at the most inconvenient times spilling coffee all over the place.
Archie is sending Veronica to come get that Gopher. Jughead has been looking for it for years....
I read their response and think it is a very large piece of spin and not even good spin at that. They are addressing only the copying in to RAM, in that particular response, of the software even though said copying is required for the software to work as documented by their own manuals. It is not relevant that their servers are ONE way to utilize their game after purchase. There is no requirement that an account be created, nor monthly fee paid, in order to buy and keep the software. IF there was a provision that I delete my copy of the software at the termination of a trial period or termination of my subscription I would tend to agree that is more along the lines of a true license. That is not the case here.
In fact, if I wanted to I could purchase the game and do absolutely nothing with it. Why should they care at that point if I were to purchase this glider program as well? They are trying to claim that just because this software *can* interact with theirs they have a right to kill it or control it. Sorry, that sets precedent too scary to think about.
This software is hardly ruining an online community. Blizzard has every right to ban users caught utilizing this software but they have NO right to state that users and/or this company cannot possess or create this software at all. This software does not allow hacking or exploiting nor does it interfere or alter their code, but does facilitate botting. As long a that remains true, Blizzard can go fsck themselves and come up with better detection methods to ban users using it.
The chilling effect is that this sets precedent that any software company can attack another if their product interacts with theirs in any way whatsoever that they do not approve of. Yes, that is a slightly different scenario than what this is about today but that is why they call it "that slippery slope". Unintended results from a litigation that affects far more segments of an industry than what the initial litigation was about. A possible result would be that no software would be allowed to interact with any other software, even in memory, for fear of lawsuits. I would hate to think what Microsoft could do with a precedent like this.
Rule #1, no jokes like this first thing in the morning.
Good grief, it's gonna take me all morning to get all this coffee off my screen. =)
We were getting them 3 times a day to the phone in our conference room at the Corporate Headquarters. I thought that was rather funny and then I took a Cisco training class at the Cisco office and their phone in the training room got the same call 3 times in 4 days. The entire class was pretty much laughing their collective asses off when the instructor put it on speaker to answer it the first time.
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be IT types.
Don't let em play Guitar Hero or config that old MUX.
Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.
Sorry, couldn't resist after that doctor and lawyer line...
Sorry, but that isn't how it works. Part of my job was plotting the dispersion of radiation. Unless you have some strong winds the radiation is going to pretty much stay in the area of the blast which varies based on yield, and we are talking about very small nuke devices. The whole argument was that these small devices could take out a small city. Sorry, but that just is not possible. Even irradiating the city with a small device will be confined to a small area and the radiation levels will be such that you will be able to traverse the area fairly safely within hours or days. That is not to say that the area will not retain some latent radiation, but these devices just don't put out that amount of gamma to cause a lasting effect outside of the initial blast area.
The only way you get the type of radiation dispersion you are talking about is with a higher yield weapon and an air burst so that the radiation has the best possible dispersion and can take advantage of prevailing winds. A 2kt weapon would do considerable damage to a city center (as an example), but would come nowhere near either destroying it or making it uninhabitable. A conventional bomb would be better and the problems with actually getting it to detonate are not even an issue as they are with nukes.
...and if you notice almost all of the developments resulted in extremely small yields either by design or limitations of the delivery system. Most were a tenth of the yield of the bombs dropped on Japan. A small number were larger but most were 2kt or smaller. Many were in the >1kt range, meaning lots of terror, not too much for damage. Doubtful you could take out even a small city with it but could cause severe damage in a few city blocks and the terror factor would be a definite factor.
I was in Artillery in the Marines and was trained as a Nuke Tech. Our largest yield (circa 80-86, 155mm) was 2kt. It was designed for area denial. Not a lot of damage, but a lot of irradiation. The main reason they don't go higher is because you can't get the round far enough downrange to not get hit yourself with the blast or the radiation. They keep them small so that when you fire that thing 10-15 miles downrange there is little chance of the blast or the fallout/radiation coming back to hit you and your allies.
Yes, that one picture shows a small warhead, with a yield of 72tons and weight of 58kg. Hardly a city destroying capable device. The larger devices capable of destroying a small city were on the order of 4ft+ and 800+ lbs. Even the 2kt one I worked with was too large to realistically be man-portable.
Can you get a nuke into a backpack? Probably, but don't fool yourself that you will be able to destroy any cities with it and it is still going to be extremely heavy. You will be able to do something similar to 9/11 with such a device and cause a lot of terror, which might be the whole point. Of course, a dirty bomb might have the same effect and you need far less tech to actually get it to detonate.
Lucky for you, I got this....
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!
My large intestine attempted to throttle my brain at this point...
Need more coffee, I read that as universe suppository and that gave black holes a whole new meaning....
I never have to wait for doubleclick.net in Firefox....
setting doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1 in HOSTS works wonders...speeds things up too.
Exactly how am I trespassing, standing on a public street looking into the exhibit that they failed to block?
Sorry, public urls are..well...public. If they do not want people accessing them they restrict them by placing login requirements. Similarly the zoo makes sure the exhibit is not viewable from the street and forces patrons to go through the entrance and pay the admission to view the exhibit.
Exactly how is it taking advantage when a corporation places in the public domain a resource without any security whatsoever. This is no different then charging admission to an art show then leaving the windows open to the street and then complaining that a newspaper publishes the fact that all the art can be seen from the street through the window. Is it then immoral to stand outside and look at the art?
A url is no different than placing something in the middle of the public square for all to see. This was akin to placing their wares in a back alley, because not many people go there but that is still out in public. If you want to restrict access to something on the internet SECURE IT! Anything that is not restricted is in the public domain by definition. You could probably access this site completely by accident as a result of a search and you would know it is supposed to be pay only how? They have only themselves to blame that this url is not secured.
Here is about the best metaphor I can come up with.
You go to visit your local zoo because they have a rare tasmanian devil on display. Entrance fee is $5. You notice on arriving that the back of the cage for this animal is clearly open to the street at the rear of the zoo. Instead of paying your admission you walk around back and look at the rare animal without paying, from the street. The zoo then has you arrested for theft.
That's about as good as I can do.
No, It is not the same thing and there is nothing wrong with entering said gym and exercising without paying for it if the employees ALLOW you to do so. That is the equivalent here. They are allowing this access not the site owner exposing their non-existent security. They are allowing anyone that attempts to access this url open and free access with no restrictions. There is no DRM, there is no logon requirement, nothing. This is the same as putting the wares for your store in the middle of the street and then complaining when people take them without paying.
They can ask him to take down the url all they like, but If I was the site owner I would tell them to go fsck themselves and go secure their site. IF this was a hack of their security that was being exploited, that would be another matter but it is not. Advertising that their IT staff are idiots is not wrong and as long as they do nothing to prevent access to this URL by unpaid customers they are tacitly allowing such access.
What rules would be put in place to differentiate between a simple hacker and an attack by a foreign or domestic agency?
What targets would be off-limits and what targets would you feel would be classified as targets of opportunity in retaliation to a cyber attack?
What targets in the U.S. do you feel are the most vulnerable to cyber warfare presently and what can be done to alleviate that threat?
I have never had an issue with preloaded machines from Dell. I have been buying their systems for over 10 years both professionally and personally. This is the first time a pre-loaded OS ran like crap out of the box. There was no other 'crapware' on the system, I checked and uninstalled anything that might have been an issue. I even reinstalled the entire thing without the pre-loaded apps so the only thing running was Vista and it still ran like crap until I disabled UAC, turned off Aero and set the system to performance with Windows Classic GUI.
Vista is a bloated, overpriced piece of garbage. It offers absolutely nothing over XP and does not perform as advertised even on a high end dual core system with 4gb of ram installed. BTW, Dell replaced the entire system thinking it was a hardware issue and the 2d system ran the exact same way. It wasn't until I disabled the bulk of the bloat that the system became usable.
I was making this same argument yesterday with one of the MS employees that post here. They were trying to make the argument that Apple (I switched my entire house to Macs) charges you for frequent upgrades while MS supports their versions for 7 years. Here is the problem with that TCO argument. Vista doesn't work. Regardless of whether or not Vista is better than OSX at the core level the point remains that Vista does not run as advertised on high-end systems let alone legacy ones. I bought an XPS that came pre-loaded with Vista and it ran horribly. I ended up reconfiguring it to strip off all the crap and it now runs fine but I shouldn't have to do that with a brand new purchase!
The second thing is that MS is still releasing new OS versions every couple years, the OEMs stop selling the previous versions and new software that is released now requires the new OS only. The new OS doesn't run on old hardware so I have to buy a new PC just to upgrade and when I upgrade it still doesn't work? wtf?!
Is it any surprise to anyone that Apple's, Ubuntu and others' market share is increasing? MS is trying to recover from an OS that was released well before it was ready. I won't even go into the Vista versioning as that is a whole other can of worms.
As for hardware issues, that is really not relevant to the OS now is it? I have had similar problems with HP and Dell systems and I don't blame MS for that. It is just that in this instance the hardware manufacturer is also the OS vendor and this was specifically about the OS not the hardware platform.
I have had MS products since DOS 5 and Win 3.1. I support in excess of 200 servers at work with about 50% of those Windows servers. For corporate users your statement of cost of ownership is correct (for now), but for home users and this version of OS I will beg to differ. When the OS becomes unusable in its shipped state it is no longer worth the investment. When I have to spend hours reconfiguring an OS that should have been operating adequately from the initial boot, the cost is in my personal time lost and the perception is that this is only the beginning of the problems. I spend enough time at work dealing with misconfigured and broken OS's I do NOT want to have to deal with that at home.
I have long been an advocate of MS products up until this software cycle but Vista is an overpriced, worthless OS upgrade that does not perform as advertised. MS has permanently lost a home user while I will still support MS Server products at work. However, this experience will make me look closer at corporate software upgrades from MS in the future very closely.