I understand your point, but respectfully disagree. It's like saying that imprisoning criminals starts with the really bad guys, moves to the middle guys, and eventually we're all in prison to a certain extent.
Well, we do appear to be living in a surveillance society... So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. To take it a bit further, this is not "like saying"... your example is almost exactly what has occurred. We began by killing violent criminals (murderers), and doing violence to less violent offenders (ie, cutting off a thief's hand). We moved from there to enslaving people who owed money (debtor's prison), and are now imprisoning people who do drugs, or just fail to pay their traffic tickets. We are a very confused society... To paraphrase George Carlin (a comedian), "selling is legal, fscking is legal, why isn't selling fscking legal?"
We are beginning to place cameras in public areas, and it's just a matter of time before everyone on the face of the planet is at risk of being picked up and jailed for any of the numerous ways in which we all break the letter of the law every day (and don't tell me you never go over the speed limit by even one mile an hour, or run a stop sign, or walk across the street without finding a crosswalk). Yes, at this point it comes down to "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to fear" - but we're none of us perfect.
While some may feel this way, I think the slippery slope argument gets a little too much play sometimes. I am happy to employ it when I think it's pertinent, but here we're talking about giving kids a choice between juvie and school.
Actually, we're talking about giving these kids the choice between a juvenile detention center (and these are very bad places, I agree), and being constantly monitored - which has its own risks. While I agree that the "slippery slope" argument is sometimes overused, this is a case where I don't think it's getting enough attention.
Here's an admittedly extreme example of how this could be a Bad Thing(tm):
Anyone with internet access, a nearby radio shack, and fifty dollars to spare can build an RFID receiver with which to determine which signal belongs to who (what, you don't think they'll have unique identifiers?), track them, and wait for an opportune time to jam the signal (also a trivial thing to do, with access to a radio shack), at which point they can jump out of the van, grab the kid, and poof! The child has "run away from home" and become a statistic - since these kids are already rebellious and/or unhappy with their home life, it is entirely possible that they will not be missed. Now we have a kid who would probably have preferred juvie hall to what is occurring at the hands of Chester in the white van, but his choice has been taken away... again.
Yes, this is an extreme example of the Bad Things(tm) that can happen. On the other hand, it is a possibility, and is an example of someone who *shouldn't* have access to information on your child's whereabouts. As I have stated before, this tracking device will become ubiquitous if it is allowed at all, and we will *all* be subject to someone else's will, if for no other reason than that we are trackable and they are not (it will be argued that politicians are potential targets, and should not be tracked - nor law enforcement agents, nor soldiers...) - Given a few minutes' paranoid thought, this becomes less and less of a Good Thing(tm), and more like something we should avoid at all costs.
Once we have decided that everyone should have these RFID tags, we'll just begin being assigned them at birth (yeah, I'm reaching. Hear me out, and let's see how wacko I sound by the end of this monologue). Social Security numbers are assigned at birth, so let's just toss a chip into junior's arm while we're here. Now we have a society filled with people who are all recognizable at a distance... through walls, etc. This has some good ben
TFA clearly states that this is being used for kids with very serious truancy problems. It's not for some kid who's late a couple times. Never heard of "feature creep"?
This year, it's truant kids. Next year, it's kids who talk in class. Five years from now, it's no different from pencils, uniforms, and clear backpacks - a requirement for attending school. "It keeps them in line."
I don't (at first) object to the idea of tracking chronic truants, it actually sounds (at first) like a good idea. Fortunately, I am not so short-sighted as to think this is a Good Thing(tm), and can see that if this becomes accepted for (some) kids, then it will become accepted (all) kids, and then the norm for all adults. Why shouldn't it be? They've been wearing them for 18 years, why take them off now? It'll be like wearing a watch. It feels funny for a couple days, maybe a week. Two years from now, you'll feel naked without it.
I can't think of any legit real world use... Yeah, cuz no one has more than one pc in their home, or seeds BT streams for linux isos, or pulls down huge wads of F/OSS software... none of that's "legit", anyways...
You might wanna get offa yer high horse, there, and take a peak at the world around you. We'd hate to leave someone as short-sighted as yourself behind, eh?
Oh, yeah... you might wanna check the amount of data you transmit just playing an online MMORPG, or some of the better FPS games out there... or are they not "legit" reasons for sending/receiving gobs and gobs of packets to/from multiple hosts?
jp10558: You completely missed the point of my post and latched onto the Sony stuff to whine about. One sentence, out of approximately 5 paragraphs intended to illustrate my point about DRM's effect on the (paying) customer base. Makes me wonder how much Sony is paying you, that you found their name in *one sentence* and blasted me with roughly 5 paragraphs over it.
If I take you at face value and assume you're not a shill, however, you do bring up a valid point. It is hard to point at any specific instance of $company and say "this is bad, but the rest of $company is ok", and it's a lot easier to just say "$company is bad." This may not acheive your goals, if your intent is to get them to change their behavior in a specific aspect.
Since you brought it up, I actually have issues with Sony's business practices, not just their music division. Here are my arguments for boycotting them in general, not just the BMG portion:
Their latest gaming console gives me grief in two ways:
Firstly, I can't imagine the nerve it takes to tell consumers that your console is backwards-compatible, then drop the backwards-compatible version from the market (Check out the PS3 scene, where the "chipped" (read:older, actually backwards-compatible, not software-emulated) version of the PS3 is on eBay for nearly (or in some cases, *over*) a thousand US dollars, and is actually selling at those prices).
Second, it takes real gall to claim that a video game machine is worth $500, when all it does is play games. For approximately the same amount of coin I would spend on the *retail* PS3, I could buy a decent gaming rig... which would also surf the net, send/receive email, play movies, etc. I'm not limited in functionality on a pc. Yeah, dollar for dollar, it's not going to play games quite as well as a shiny new PS3, but then again, I can throw a hundred bucks at a video card next year, and it'll play *next* year's games. Show me how the PS3 even comes close to being upgradeable in that fashion. Let's not forget backwards compatibility: that pc can play games that are 20 years old, in addition to the latest titles. Oh yeah, and it does my taxes, documents, business communications, my son's homework, and much much more.
Their movie and music divisions have other issues:
We all know about the rootkit fiasco, so I won't bore us with all those gory details. I will, on the other hand, question the ethics of a company that would allow (even a "wholly separate subsidiary") the distribution of malicious software on a music disk... This is equivalent (in my mind) to giving me a kitten that will let the neighborhood thieves into my house when it thinks I'm not home. Who's to say my new wide-screen plasma TV isn't waiting patiently for an unsecured wireless access point, hoping to phone home and tell them my viewing habits? Will my stereo tell them what radio station I listen to, what CD I just played? How do you know your PlayStation isn't telling its masters all about your online gaming activities? (What does he play? How long? When? Who are his online buddies?) Call it paranoia, but I don't trust Sony's products not to spy on me or break my equipment (Yes, I consider my CDROM drive not playing anything but Sony/BMG audio disks (and not even all of those) to be malicious destruction of my property. The "inadvertant" security hole they gave me, wherein any other (properly crafted) piece of malware found a comfy, undetectable home in my pc due to their software's sneaking onto my machine? I'll chalk that up to (potentially criminal) negligence, and accept their position that it was "an unintentional side-effect").
My refusal to buy Sony products is, at this point, merely self protection. As for "sending a message", if there is a message, it reads something like: "Because of your policies and practices, I don't trust any of your products anymore, and won't have them in my house". That message seems fairly clear; Sony has lost me (and as many of my friends as will listen)
This part's for Moryath: Huh. Right up until the ad hominem attacks, I was nodding along with you. Makes me kinda sad that, despite having the moral high ground *and* the right arguments, you had to resort to attacking the guy who disagreed with you, rather than stay on topic and defend yourself.
Congratulations, you just brought yourself down to the GP's "mountain dew and masturbation" level. Right up until that, I was agreeing with you.
Ahem. Now, to get back on topic:
It's simple math. One game company's game, plus DRM, minus my wallet equals not much difference to their bottom line. Try division, though... One game company minus two-thirds of their customer base... it's the square route to "wow, we screwed the pooch."
Unfortunately, the real world works like this: They'll see lots of pirate activity on gamecopyworld and bittorrent, without the corresponding sales revenue to back up that that many copies of the game even physically exist. They'll chalk up their lost revenue to piracy (at a mere $2,650.00/copy, if I look at other 'lost-revenue' statistics for my educated guesswork), and never even consider that their DRM is killing their sales. They'll pump a few more games out this franchise's pipeline, and see increasingly dismal returns on their investment. They'll continue blaming the pirates, while continuing to make crappy product with unnecessary and broken DRM.
Wait a minute. This is EA we're talking about. These are the guys who we made the butt of jokes about re-releasing the same game over and over, with players' names changed to "update" them to the latest sports season.
Who cares?
Yeah, they may have actually made a decent game once or twice, but they told us *years* ago that we didn't matter, we were just mobile wallets, ripe for the taking.
This entire argument (or even article), in my mind, is akin to someone saying "Yeah, don't buy Sony stuff, they have that rootkit thing. Now shut up, I'm playing GTA on my PS3". We already knew they suck; the real question becomes "why haven't they folded yet?" The answer is the same reason gold farmers dominate the MMO market... people are still giving them money.
Ye flipping gods, you have struck that nail soundly upon the head.
Copyright is a limited monopoly to promote the arts.
I stopped caring about copyright holders rights when the government decided that limited was longer than the average American lifespan. I couldn't have said it better myself. Then again, neither could our founding fathers: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (emphasis mine).
Silly grammar Nazi, you forgot how to utilize proper English...
You misspelled "too". Five times. "Five times." is a sentence fragment. It never ceases to amaze me how many people whine about spelling, pronunciation, and/or grammar, but cannot use it properly themselves. -- Shakespeare couldn't spell his own name. Einstein flunked out of school.
Only actually using Vista can make it suck less than the somewhat undeserved reputation it has. Why bother? No one else is.;)
As for this Vista "hack"... uhm... isn't this the way it's supposed to work? Seems to me, this is how *nix was set up from the get-go.
I feel I should point out that a privileged service should have some sort of authentication to access it with a non-privileged app... login prompt; secure keys; something. On the other hand, this isn't the operating system's fault, it's the coder who writes the service(s)/app(s).
Wake me up when there's some actual news, wouldja?
The reason for these price increases are because the farmers have all switched to growing corn, one of the least efficient crops used to produce ethanol. For every gallon making it to the customer, you need to create and burn an additional five gallons to run all the manufacturing equipment. There are much more efficient crops that could be used, corn being one of the absolute worst, but the wackos have decided to put everything into that one. ...and this year, a lot of them seem to be growing soybeans, instead... "to let the fields rest". I'm absolutely certain that they're not doing it to "cause the price of corn to skyrocket by creating an artificial corn shortage"...
If people don't have something to display it on, they're not going to buy the Blu Ray disks, it's that simple. Everyone who owned a TV got to switch to DVD, and it was an improvement. The utterly huge installed base of a standard definition TV means that high definition DVDs are going to be relegated to a very small percentage of people with that kit. Except that in the United States, analog television signals are being phased out. If you don't have a "Digital Ready" TV, you're likely looking into an upgrade in the next year or so... so why not upgrade that clunky old DVD player while you're at it?
I'm not advocating this idea (I actually refuse to buy Sony products), merely suggesting the line of thought that Sony might be following, as opposed to your statement of "Plain and simple, Sony is dreaming!"
And if by year's end you can't watch a movie put out by Sony without owning a blu-ray player, then that will drive up blu-ray sales. Not for me. I go out of my way to avoid giving Sony any money. I never liked the money-grubbing tactics of th big-time marketers, and when they came out with the rootikit on their audio disks, that just put the final nail in the coffin. I haven't knowingly purchased a Sony product in over two years.
Thank you, that was quite informative. I now see why someone would want such a service. That's a fairly big pipe, attached to a "decent server box", and admittedly more than you're likely to find at that price, anywhere. Color me unashamedly wrong;)
Sounds like I might just as well be spending that $100 a month on my own physical dedicated fiber line, and running my own physical box with only me accessing it. Sorry, I don't see the benefit to having it "hosted" elsewhere, at that price, unless it's a machine that I delivered to the host to have them connect it... and even that is difficult to defend at the rates you're describing.
Similarly, I don't see why a virtual machine would be an issue, or how you would even detect that it *was* a virtual machine, should the host decide to run a few whopping big servers with a few dozen virtual machines on each, instead of "your own, physical, box". If the local admin doesn't have access to your machine, I fail to see the point. There goes any backups, maintenance, etc. unless you do it yourself, in which case you might as well have your own physical machine sitting on your own physical dedicated internet access.
I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't understand the logic. Consider this an open request for reasons as to why someone would want this.
They don't even get to have account on it. Why would they need an account on the virtual machine running your little bitty host, along with 150 others?
I have to hand it to the asshat who posted it, he managed to make the status bar report that the link was to yahoo, and somehow overcame the slashcode that reports a link's domain at the end of the link. I'm going to help you out, here, and point out the "rds" at the beginning of the URL. This is an indication that the link is actually to yahoo's redirection service, and the true url is referenced at the end of the link. if your status bar is too short to display the whole link, well, I can't help you there. On the other hand, it was quite clear to me that the link actually points to "RIAA(dot)ON(dot)NIMP(dot)ORG" (obfuscated to keep slashdot from cheerfully turning *mine* into a link).
In other words, keep your hat on, and don't hand the above-mentioned asshat anything. That dinkus doesn't even deserve the term "script kiddie", much less "hacker"... although you may want to check your browsing habits, if you only look at the first 3 "dots" in a URL to determine if it's safe.
Originally, I had titled this post "Flamebait, my ass." Then, I decided that "Censorship ftw!" was a good subject line. Finally, I chose to put forth my own ideas, and rant about the modding as an aside.
Feel free to skip over my rant by jumping down past "Rant Off" (marked in bold) to "My own take on the subject" (also in bold), but please do consider actually reading it, as I feel it adds to the discussion (Of course I feel that way because they're my own opinions. Your level of agreement may vary). Of course, I fully expect to be joining the above-mentioned posts in "modded to negative" land. (Who needs karma?)
Rant On:
Apparently, we here at Slashdot think censorship is ok. Apparently, "-1, Flamebait" is a good substitute for "I disagree, and am too lazy to reply."
I wish I hadn't spent my mod points yesterday. If nothing else, I would have counteracted the "-1, Flamebait" with a "+1, Insightful", or a "+1, Funny" at the least. I'm not saying these posts need a +5, but a +2 would have been about right. I'm also not saying these score any technical points for grammar or punctuation, and they're a bit crude for my taste, but the sentiment and opinions being expressed are just and proper, and any citizen of the United States should feel a similar level of outrage at this blatant abuse (the stuff mentioned in the article, not the treatment these posts have received).
I am repeating the posts I feel were modded unfairly, because without their context, my own post makes much less sense... and anyone browsing at a level higher than "-1" won't see the posts I am replying to with this one. My own "translation" of the intent of the posts (which may be wrong, of course, but I feel they're fairly accurate) follows each quoted post, in italics.
Flagrant Corruption (Score:-1) by the0ther (720331) on Wednesday March 26, @03:52PM (#22873934) Homepage two billion dollars? are you effing kidding me? let's go back to the good old days when they would hang a man for stealing a horse.
This is a reference to the blatant and obvious theft, mismanagement, and/or fraud involved in this situation.
I agree (Score:-1, Flamebait) by Lilith's Heart-shape (1224784) on Wednesday March 26, @03:59PM (#22874042) You're right, and the people modding you down are full of shit. Two billion dollars for a census is unforgivable, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of Bush's cronies had stock in Harris. You're right; we should go back to the days when horse thieves were hanged, the days when the tax regime we have now would provoke widespread insurrection. -- Arioch! Arioch! Hookers and blow for my lord Arioch!
This is an agreement with the first post, and a disagreement with those who modded the first post down. There is also an insinuation of corruption in our government (surprise), and a statement that patriotism should be spurring on those of us who feel likewise to *do something* (Boston Tea Party, anyone?)
I would like to point out that, while crude, both of these posts have valid points. I, too, agree that this ("this" being the topic of the article... remember? that blurb at the top of the page?) is an obvious sign of corruption, and just one more thing to add to the list of items to redress when we begin standing those people responsible for the mess our country is in against the wall.
To those of you who didn't catch the gist of this thread:
The GP was shocked and offended that someone is getting away with this obvious fraud and mismanagement, and no one is being held accountable for this gross oversight (or lack thereof). The comment about horse thieves may have been an attempt at tossing a little humor into the mix, to take the sting out a bit.
This post's parent made the (apparently unforgiveable) mistake of agreeing with that sentiment, and got modded (Can you see the incredulous look on my face? Unbelievable!) Flamebait for it.
It's interesting that you will choose to buy "whatever you have been told that you need" at a place known for exploiting its workers and customers. I find myself to be a much better judge of "what I need" than anyone else.
My money hasn't gone to fill Wal*mart's coffers in nearly a decade. On the flip side, I don't have a Chia pet, closet organizer, or food dehydrator. I don't need those objects. Now, if you want to talk about things I (and my household) *actually* need, then I will cheerfully explain to you how my household has come to the consensus that spending a few more dollars per shopping trip is perfectly justifiable, in order to keep our money from being in Wal*mart's bank accounts.
As you can see, voting with my wallet doesn't appear to be doing anything to change Wal*mart's policies, but I will continue to do so, just because I'm stubborn.
What's good for Wal-Mart is good for America^H^H^H^H^H^H^H China's Manufacturing Industry There, fixed that for ya.
Even "cheap" music isn't enough to get me into those trash-filled, disease-infested money-grubbing places. Wal-mart has gone drastically downhill ever since Sam Walton died. I refuse to give them any of my money, and ask my friends not to, either.
From TFA:
"At Wal-Mart, we're a commodity and have to fight for shelf space like Colgate fights for shelf space." Good. It's about time the music labels realize there's a real world out here, that people live and work in, and that they are not necessary. Those little plastic platters should cost less than $5, realistically, so it's high time they grew up and joined the rest of the economy. Hell, a decent burner can be had for less than $30, and a spindle of blanks is less than $0.50 per disk. Throw in a stack of sticky paper ($5) to run through an inkjet printer ($30), and a $0.20 jewel case (5 or more cases for $1, pretty much anywhere), and you have everything they want to sell us in the store. We can manufacture more than 20 disks for less than $75. Add in a $50 scanner to duplicate the labels as well, and you can crank out copies of your entire collection for no more than $200. And that's assuming only 300 disks in your collection. My math may be off by a few dollars one way or the other, but it's reasonably close... and certainly not an expenditure of $4.500 (the price of 300 disks at $15 each).
In other words, for $150, I can crank out 20+ disks, in jewel cases, with inserts... using nothing that I can't find at WalMart. That's half the price they're asking for the music. The technology is ubiquitous, let's stop pretending the labels are giving us anything of value when they sell us a piece of plastic, in a piece of plastic, with a slip of printed paper.
Now that we know just how much those little plastic platters are worth, even with jewel cases and inserts, it's time for the music industry to catch up to reality, or get lost in the shuffle.
Citations, please. Show me where it says that AT&T only owns 11 of the original Bell holdings.
As I have repeatedly stated, this magical number eleven you're pulling out of thin air is the number they acquired when they purchased Bellsouth. AT&T has 24 "Bell" holdings. You are illiterate, and I cannot stomach the idea of further conversation.
... I'd imagine that one way to forestall the inevitable victory of SSD would be more intelligent caching and a larger onboard cache for hard drives... Oh, so the way to fight these IC devices is by adding more IC devices to the spinning disks? Oh, I know! We can slowly phase out the platters, and go to a fully IC device! That'll keep us from going to a fully IC device!
Sorry, that fails the logic test. Seems to me that spinning platters are on their way out. Welcome to the solid state world.
Problem usually is that the admin in question is often clueless, so either does the minimum required ("Windows is insecure, I'll just reimage the machine if breaks"), or goes overboard, ("None of my machines have the user as local admin, I need to know everything that goes on every machine!"). Sadly, the middle-ground is rarely achieved with any competence. The usual problem, actually, is people who think there's enough time to "strike a balance" in the "middle ground" when someone is responsible for users in multiple physical locations, running multiple (Windows) operating systems, without going over 40 hours a week (because HR has fits) and still managing to keep everything running (and even running smoothly). Neither users nor higher-ups will be that patient, and the best solution to keep everyone sane (keeping in mind that the IT worker is going to catch hell from all of them, anyway) is typically to either lock down the local clients or to keep images handy. The middle ground is "rarely achieved with any competence" because it's rarely attempted by those who are competent. It's just not worth the time and effort, in the typical enterprise environment.
Think of it this way. If you are marketing your product to a grand total of 15 people, you can afford to spend time customizing each individual install, even adding features for a specific individual. If you are marketing to 15,000 people, you have much less time to make little tweaks for individual customers. If you are marketing to 15,000,000 people, then you have a product that performs X task in Y ways, and it costs Z to own a copy. "Customize? Sorry, sir, we don't do that, but 14,999,999 other people think it's great the way it is."
As for the snipe about re-imaging the machine if the OS breaks, that works perfectly well if you have instructed the users to store their documents on an external medium (external hdd, thumbdrive, allocated server space, etc.) - if not the first time they "blow up their computer", then the second, for sure. Remember your mantra from the early Sierra games, "Save early, save often."
I believe that users can learn, and should be held accountable for their own actions. Some of them eventually even learn to be decent users who don't destroy their own machines at the drop of a hat.
Users can make a real mess of their systems if you let them, then they expect you (desktop team) to clean up. Sure, no problem. Reboot, type type type, restore from image on second partition, clean system. Poof, all done. Well, if your documents were in your allocated userspace on the server, they wouldn't be gone. No backups? Not my problem. Don't put the "cute puppies screensaver and wallpaper switcher" on your system, this time. Sorry for the inconvenience, have a nice day.
Then when you allow programmers to install whatever else, all of a sudden they will tell someone in accounting, who will then come to you and say so and so can install whatever he wants, why can't i? Uhm.. because he's not a dumbfuck who's going to destroy his system with free screensavers and wallpaper changers and cute little trojans disguised as games? Next question, please.
... it's often easier to just disallow non IT-approved applications across the board. Aha! Now we have the true issue. It's easier to tell the users to be ignorant sheep. Good job.
They want to do what they want to do, regardless of consequences, and nothing is going to stop them besides strict environments and swift punishment. ... Except for the stuff I outlined above, which is punishment enough (IMHO) and much less restrictive.
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ooh... can we use it to check scratch-off lottery tickets prior to purchase?
I understand your point, but respectfully disagree. It's like saying that imprisoning criminals starts with the really bad guys, moves to the middle guys, and eventually we're all in prison to a certain extent.
Well, we do appear to be living in a surveillance society... So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point. To take it a bit further, this is not "like saying"... your example is almost exactly what has occurred. We began by killing violent criminals (murderers), and doing violence to less violent offenders (ie, cutting off a thief's hand). We moved from there to enslaving people who owed money (debtor's prison), and are now imprisoning people who do drugs, or just fail to pay their traffic tickets. We are a very confused society... To paraphrase George Carlin (a comedian), "selling is legal, fscking is legal, why isn't selling fscking legal?"
We are beginning to place cameras in public areas, and it's just a matter of time before everyone on the face of the planet is at risk of being picked up and jailed for any of the numerous ways in which we all break the letter of the law every day (and don't tell me you never go over the speed limit by even one mile an hour, or run a stop sign, or walk across the street without finding a crosswalk). Yes, at this point it comes down to "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to fear" - but we're none of us perfect.
While some may feel this way, I think the slippery slope argument gets a little too much play sometimes. I am happy to employ it when I think it's pertinent, but here we're talking about giving kids a choice between juvie and school.
Actually, we're talking about giving these kids the choice between a juvenile detention center (and these are very bad places, I agree), and being constantly monitored - which has its own risks. While I agree that the "slippery slope" argument is sometimes overused, this is a case where I don't think it's getting enough attention.
Here's an admittedly extreme example of how this could be a Bad Thing(tm):
Anyone with internet access, a nearby radio shack, and fifty dollars to spare can build an RFID receiver with which to determine which signal belongs to who (what, you don't think they'll have unique identifiers?), track them, and wait for an opportune time to jam the signal (also a trivial thing to do, with access to a radio shack), at which point they can jump out of the van, grab the kid, and poof! The child has "run away from home" and become a statistic - since these kids are already rebellious and/or unhappy with their home life, it is entirely possible that they will not be missed. Now we have a kid who would probably have preferred juvie hall to what is occurring at the hands of Chester in the white van, but his choice has been taken away... again.
Yes, this is an extreme example of the Bad Things(tm) that can happen. On the other hand, it is a possibility, and is an example of someone who *shouldn't* have access to information on your child's whereabouts. As I have stated before, this tracking device will become ubiquitous if it is allowed at all, and we will *all* be subject to someone else's will, if for no other reason than that we are trackable and they are not (it will be argued that politicians are potential targets, and should not be tracked - nor law enforcement agents, nor soldiers...) - Given a few minutes' paranoid thought, this becomes less and less of a Good Thing(tm), and more like something we should avoid at all costs.
Once we have decided that everyone should have these RFID tags, we'll just begin being assigned them at birth (yeah, I'm reaching. Hear me out, and let's see how wacko I sound by the end of this monologue). Social Security numbers are assigned at birth, so let's just toss a chip into junior's arm while we're here. Now we have a society filled with people who are all recognizable at a distance... through walls, etc. This has some good ben
This year, it's truant kids.
Next year, it's kids who talk in class.
Five years from now, it's no different from pencils, uniforms, and clear backpacks - a requirement for attending school. "It keeps them in line."
I don't (at first) object to the idea of tracking chronic truants, it actually sounds (at first) like a good idea. Fortunately, I am not so short-sighted as to think this is a Good Thing(tm), and can see that if this becomes accepted for (some) kids, then it will become accepted (all) kids, and then the norm for all adults. Why shouldn't it be? They've been wearing them for 18 years, why take them off now? It'll be like wearing a watch. It feels funny for a couple days, maybe a week. Two years from now, you'll feel naked without it.
You might wanna get offa yer high horse, there, and take a peak at the world around you. We'd hate to leave someone as short-sighted as yourself behind, eh?
Oh, yeah... you might wanna check the amount of data you transmit just playing an online MMORPG, or some of the better FPS games out there... or are they not "legit" reasons for sending/receiving gobs and gobs of packets to/from multiple hosts?
jp10558: You completely missed the point of my post and latched onto the Sony stuff to whine about. One sentence, out of approximately 5 paragraphs intended to illustrate my point about DRM's effect on the (paying) customer base. Makes me wonder how much Sony is paying you, that you found their name in *one sentence* and blasted me with roughly 5 paragraphs over it.
If I take you at face value and assume you're not a shill, however, you do bring up a valid point. It is hard to point at any specific instance of $company and say "this is bad, but the rest of $company is ok", and it's a lot easier to just say "$company is bad." This may not acheive your goals, if your intent is to get them to change their behavior in a specific aspect.
Since you brought it up, I actually have issues with Sony's business practices, not just their music division. Here are my arguments for boycotting them in general, not just the BMG portion:
Their latest gaming console gives me grief in two ways:
Firstly, I can't imagine the nerve it takes to tell consumers that your console is backwards-compatible, then drop the backwards-compatible version from the market (Check out the PS3 scene, where the "chipped" (read:older, actually backwards-compatible, not software-emulated) version of the PS3 is on eBay for nearly (or in some cases, *over*) a thousand US dollars, and is actually selling at those prices).
Second, it takes real gall to claim that a video game machine is worth $500, when all it does is play games. For approximately the same amount of coin I would spend on the *retail* PS3, I could buy a decent gaming rig... which would also surf the net, send/receive email, play movies, etc. I'm not limited in functionality on a pc. Yeah, dollar for dollar, it's not going to play games quite as well as a shiny new PS3, but then again, I can throw a hundred bucks at a video card next year, and it'll play *next* year's games. Show me how the PS3 even comes close to being upgradeable in that fashion. Let's not forget backwards compatibility: that pc can play games that are 20 years old, in addition to the latest titles. Oh yeah, and it does my taxes, documents, business communications, my son's homework, and much much more.
Their movie and music divisions have other issues:
We all know about the rootkit fiasco, so I won't bore us with all those gory details. I will, on the other hand, question the ethics of a company that would allow (even a "wholly separate subsidiary") the distribution of malicious software on a music disk... This is equivalent (in my mind) to giving me a kitten that will let the neighborhood thieves into my house when it thinks I'm not home. Who's to say my new wide-screen plasma TV isn't waiting patiently for an unsecured wireless access point, hoping to phone home and tell them my viewing habits? Will my stereo tell them what radio station I listen to, what CD I just played? How do you know your PlayStation isn't telling its masters all about your online gaming activities? (What does he play? How long? When? Who are his online buddies?) Call it paranoia, but I don't trust Sony's products not to spy on me or break my equipment (Yes, I consider my CDROM drive not playing anything but Sony/BMG audio disks (and not even all of those) to be malicious destruction of my property. The "inadvertant" security hole they gave me, wherein any other (properly crafted) piece of malware found a comfy, undetectable home in my pc due to their software's sneaking onto my machine? I'll chalk that up to (potentially criminal) negligence, and accept their position that it was "an unintentional side-effect").
My refusal to buy Sony products is, at this point, merely self protection. As for "sending a message", if there is a message, it reads something like: "Because of your policies and practices, I don't trust any of your products anymore, and won't have them in my house". That message seems fairly clear; Sony has lost me (and as many of my friends as will listen)
This part's for Moryath:
Huh. Right up until the ad hominem attacks, I was nodding along with you. Makes me kinda sad that, despite having the moral high ground *and* the right arguments, you had to resort to attacking the guy who disagreed with you, rather than stay on topic and defend yourself.
Congratulations, you just brought yourself down to the GP's "mountain dew and masturbation" level. Right up until that, I was agreeing with you.
Ahem. Now, to get back on topic:
It's simple math. One game company's game, plus DRM, minus my wallet equals not much difference to their bottom line. Try division, though... One game company minus two-thirds of their customer base... it's the square route to "wow, we screwed the pooch."
Unfortunately, the real world works like this:
They'll see lots of pirate activity on gamecopyworld and bittorrent, without the corresponding sales revenue to back up that that many copies of the game even physically exist. They'll chalk up their lost revenue to piracy (at a mere $2,650.00/copy, if I look at other 'lost-revenue' statistics for my educated guesswork), and never even consider that their DRM is killing their sales. They'll pump a few more games out this franchise's pipeline, and see increasingly dismal returns on their investment. They'll continue blaming the pirates, while continuing to make crappy product with unnecessary and broken DRM.
Wait a minute. This is EA we're talking about. These are the guys who we made the butt of jokes about re-releasing the same game over and over, with players' names changed to "update" them to the latest sports season.
Who cares?
Yeah, they may have actually made a decent game once or twice, but they told us *years* ago that we didn't matter, we were just mobile wallets, ripe for the taking.
This entire argument (or even article), in my mind, is akin to someone saying "Yeah, don't buy Sony stuff, they have that rootkit thing. Now shut up, I'm playing GTA on my PS3". We already knew they suck; the real question becomes "why haven't they folded yet?" The answer is the same reason gold farmers dominate the MMO market... people are still giving them money.
I stopped caring about copyright holders rights when the government decided that limited was longer than the average American lifespan. I couldn't have said it better myself. Then again, neither could our founding fathers:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (emphasis mine).
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Shakespeare couldn't spell his own name. Einstein flunked out of school.
As for this Vista "hack"... uhm... isn't this the way it's supposed to work? Seems to me, this is how *nix was set up from the get-go.
I feel I should point out that a privileged service should have some sort of authentication to access it with a non-privileged app... login prompt; secure keys; something. On the other hand, this isn't the operating system's fault, it's the coder who writes the service(s)/app(s).
Wake me up when there's some actual news, wouldja?
I'm not advocating this idea (I actually refuse to buy Sony products), merely suggesting the line of thought that Sony might be following, as opposed to your statement of "Plain and simple, Sony is dreaming!"
Thank you, that was quite informative. I now see why someone would want such a service. That's a fairly big pipe, attached to a "decent server box", and admittedly more than you're likely to find at that price, anywhere. Color me unashamedly wrong ;)
You wouldn't happen to have a URL, would you?
Sounds like I might just as well be spending that $100 a month on my own physical dedicated fiber line, and running my own physical box with only me accessing it. Sorry, I don't see the benefit to having it "hosted" elsewhere, at that price, unless it's a machine that I delivered to the host to have them connect it... and even that is difficult to defend at the rates you're describing.
Similarly, I don't see why a virtual machine would be an issue, or how you would even detect that it *was* a virtual machine, should the host decide to run a few whopping big servers with a few dozen virtual machines on each, instead of "your own, physical, box". If the local admin doesn't have access to your machine, I fail to see the point. There goes any backups, maintenance, etc. unless you do it yourself, in which case you might as well have your own physical machine sitting on your own physical dedicated internet access.
I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't understand the logic. Consider this an open request for reasons as to why someone would want this.
In other words, keep your hat on, and don't hand the above-mentioned asshat anything. That dinkus doesn't even deserve the term "script kiddie", much less "hacker"... although you may want to check your browsing habits, if you only look at the first 3 "dots" in a URL to determine if it's safe.
Then, I decided that "Censorship ftw!" was a good subject line.
Finally, I chose to put forth my own ideas, and rant about the modding as an aside.
Feel free to skip over my rant by jumping down past "Rant Off" (marked in bold) to "My own take on the subject" (also in bold), but please do consider actually reading it, as I feel it adds to the discussion (Of course I feel that way because they're my own opinions. Your level of agreement may vary). Of course, I fully expect to be joining the above-mentioned posts in "modded to negative" land. (Who needs karma?)
Rant On:
Apparently, we here at Slashdot think censorship is ok.
Apparently, "-1, Flamebait" is a good substitute for "I disagree, and am too lazy to reply."
I wish I hadn't spent my mod points yesterday. If nothing else, I would have counteracted the "-1, Flamebait" with a "+1, Insightful", or a "+1, Funny" at the least. I'm not saying these posts need a +5, but a +2 would have been about right. I'm also not saying these score any technical points for grammar or punctuation, and they're a bit crude for my taste, but the sentiment and opinions being expressed are just and proper, and any citizen of the United States should feel a similar level of outrage at this blatant abuse (the stuff mentioned in the article, not the treatment these posts have received).
I am repeating the posts I feel were modded unfairly, because without their context, my own post makes much less sense... and anyone browsing at a level higher than "-1" won't see the posts I am replying to with this one. My own "translation" of the intent of the posts (which may be wrong, of course, but I feel they're fairly accurate) follows each quoted post, in italics.
Flagrant Corruption (Score:-1)
by the0ther (720331) on Wednesday March 26, @03:52PM (#22873934) Homepage
two billion dollars? are you effing kidding me? let's go back to the good old days when they would hang a man for stealing a horse.
This is a reference to the blatant and obvious theft, mismanagement, and/or fraud involved in this situation.
I agree (Score:-1, Flamebait)
by Lilith's Heart-shape (1224784) on Wednesday March 26, @03:59PM (#22874042)
You're right, and the people modding you down are full of shit. Two billion dollars for a census is unforgivable, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some of Bush's cronies had stock in Harris. You're right; we should go back to the days when horse thieves were hanged, the days when the tax regime we have now would provoke widespread insurrection.
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Arioch! Arioch! Hookers and blow for my lord Arioch!
This is an agreement with the first post, and a disagreement with those who modded the first post down. There is also an insinuation of corruption in our government (surprise), and a statement that patriotism should be spurring on those of us who feel likewise to *do something* (Boston Tea Party, anyone?)
I would like to point out that, while crude, both of these posts have valid points. I, too, agree that this ("this" being the topic of the article... remember? that blurb at the top of the page?) is an obvious sign of corruption, and just one more thing to add to the list of items to redress when we begin standing those people responsible for the mess our country is in against the wall.
To those of you who didn't catch the gist of this thread:
The GP was shocked and offended that someone is getting away with this obvious fraud and mismanagement, and no one is being held accountable for this gross oversight (or lack thereof). The comment about horse thieves may have been an attempt at tossing a little humor into the mix, to take the sting out a bit.
This post's parent made the (apparently unforgiveable) mistake of agreeing with that sentiment, and got modded (Can you see the incredulous look on my face? Unbelievable!) Flamebait for it.
It's interesting that you will choose to buy "whatever you have been told that you need" at a place known for exploiting its workers and customers. I find myself to be a much better judge of "what I need" than anyone else.
My money hasn't gone to fill Wal*mart's coffers in nearly a decade. On the flip side, I don't have a Chia pet, closet organizer, or food dehydrator. I don't need those objects. Now, if you want to talk about things I (and my household) *actually* need, then I will cheerfully explain to you how my household has come to the consensus that spending a few more dollars per shopping trip is perfectly justifiable, in order to keep our money from being in Wal*mart's bank accounts.
As you can see, voting with my wallet doesn't appear to be doing anything to change Wal*mart's policies, but I will continue to do so, just because I'm stubborn.
Even "cheap" music isn't enough to get me into those trash-filled, disease-infested money-grubbing places. Wal-mart has gone drastically downhill ever since Sam Walton died. I refuse to give them any of my money, and ask my friends not to, either.
In other words, for $150, I can crank out 20+ disks, in jewel cases, with inserts... using nothing that I can't find at WalMart. That's half the price they're asking for the music. The technology is ubiquitous, let's stop pretending the labels are giving us anything of value when they sell us a piece of plastic, in a piece of plastic, with a slip of printed paper.
Now that we know just how much those little plastic platters are worth, even with jewel cases and inserts, it's time for the music industry to catch up to reality, or get lost in the shuffle.
Citations, please. Show me where it says that AT&T only owns 11 of the original Bell holdings.
As I have repeatedly stated, this magical number eleven you're pulling out of thin air is the number they acquired when they purchased Bellsouth. AT&T has 24 "Bell" holdings. You are illiterate, and I cannot stomach the idea of further conversation.
... I'd imagine that one way to forestall the inevitable victory of SSD would be more intelligent caching and a larger onboard cache for hard drives... Oh, so the way to fight these IC devices is by adding more IC devices to the spinning disks? Oh, I know! We can slowly phase out the platters, and go to a fully IC device! That'll keep us from going to a fully IC device!Sorry, that fails the logic test. Seems to me that spinning platters are on their way out. Welcome to the solid state world.
Think of it this way. If you are marketing your product to a grand total of 15 people, you can afford to spend time customizing each individual install, even adding features for a specific individual. If you are marketing to 15,000 people, you have much less time to make little tweaks for individual customers. If you are marketing to 15,000,000 people, then you have a product that performs X task in Y ways, and it costs Z to own a copy. "Customize? Sorry, sir, we don't do that, but 14,999,999 other people think it's great the way it is."
As for the snipe about re-imaging the machine if the OS breaks, that works perfectly well if you have instructed the users to store their documents on an external medium (external hdd, thumbdrive, allocated server space, etc.) - if not the first time they "blow up their computer", then the second, for sure. Remember your mantra from the early Sierra games, "Save early, save often."
I believe that users can learn, and should be held accountable for their own actions. Some of them eventually even learn to be decent users who don't destroy their own machines at the drop of a hat.
Poof, all done. Well, if your documents were in your allocated userspace on the server, they wouldn't be gone. No backups? Not my problem. Don't put the "cute puppies screensaver and wallpaper switcher" on your system, this time. Sorry for the inconvenience, have a nice day. Then when you allow programmers to install whatever else, all of a sudden they will tell someone in accounting, who will then come to you and say so and so can install whatever he wants, why can't i? Uhm.. because he's not a dumbfuck who's going to destroy his system with free screensavers and wallpaper changers and cute little trojans disguised as games? Next question, please.
... it's often easier to just disallow non IT-approved applications across the board. Aha! Now we have the true issue. It's easier to tell the users to be ignorant sheep. Good job. They want to do what they want to do, regardless of consequences, and nothing is going to stop them besides strict environments and swift punishment. ... Except for the stuff I outlined above, which is punishment enough (IMHO) and much less restrictive.Stop reading BOFH for "Administrative Tips".